Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

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How many quarters after Q1 2016 till Marissa Mayer is unemployed?
	1 or fewer
	2
	4
	Her job is guaranteed; what are you even talking about?

Inferior Third Season: Jan 15, 2005

Lote posted:

Ah yes. They are finally going to address the biggest issue of our times: Can the US Military come up with an idea so expensive that the Federal Government won't fund it?

That sounds like a perfect opportunity for the new Pentagon innovation board to fund a small two year, $350 million commission to investigate.

# ? Mar 3, 2016 23:45

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# ? May 17, 2024 11:17

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

Another startup whose cunning plan I can see flaws in (for those of you inside the Chronicle paywall, the full article link.)

San Francisco Chronicle posted:

Startup Roofstock trades homes like stocks

During the mortgage crisis, institutional investors purchased large swaths of distressed and foreclosed single-family homes, renovated them and rented them out. Some of these investors went public as real estate investment trusts, others remained private and sold bonds backed by the homes.

Now that industry is consolidating, and many are pruning or repositioning their portfolios. To provide a marketplace for their unwanted homes, startups have launched Internet platforms where the houses can be sold � with tenants and property management in place � to buyers ranging from individuals to other institutions.Buyers can go online, get information about a home, its tenants and profit potential, and buy it without ever having seen the property or met the tenants.

Oakland�s Roofstock, which begins operating Thursday, is the newest of these companies. �Roofstock is an online marketplace to allow homes to be traded as efficiently as stocks,� said Gary Beasley, its CEO. Institutional sellers can list homes that have been �certified� by Roofstock, meaning they have met certain criteria. Not all make the cut. �It�s a curated marketplace,� Beasley said.

Roofstock hires third-party inspectors to document the home�s physical condition. It makes sure tenants are current on their rent, paid a security deposit, passed a criminal background check and earned at least three times the rent when they signed the lease. Potential buyers do not get the tenant�s payment history, but they do get a copy of the lease after they put down a nonrefundable deposit.

Roofstock certifies that the seller�s property manager is doing a good job and recommends other local managers who can take over if the current one can�t continue. The seller sets the price � the average is around $140,000 � and there is no negotiation. Roofstock generally charges sellers about 2.5 percent of the sales price, and buyers 0.5 percent. Roofstock provides estimated rents, yields and appreciation potential for each home. But of course these are not guaranteed.

Beasley anticipates that most buyers will pay all cash initially, but conventional financing is available. �We will refer them to lenders,� he said. The site will start with about 70 homes in Florida. But the company plans to be in two to four other markets, including Atlanta and Las Vegas, in the next 30 to 60 days.

Roofstock received two rounds of venture financing last year totaling $13.25 million. The first was led by Khosla Ventures, the second by Bain Capital Ventures. Before starting Roofstock, Beasley was an institutional buyer. He was co-CEO of Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, a large single-family REIT, until April. That company merged with Colony American Homes to become Colony Starwood in January.

Irvine�s HomeUnion is similar to Roofstock. It has sold more than 500 homes to investors since mid-2014. It still gets about 20 percent of its listings from institutional sellers. The rest come from other sources, including multiple listing services and individual homeowners who have heard about the company.

Don Ganguly, HomeUnion�s CEO, admits that institutions �will never sell their best performing asset.� Relying only on them for listings �is not a scalable model. For us to be a very large company, $1 billion plus, we need multiple sources.�

Potential buyers can go to Homeunion.com and put in their investment goal (income, appreciation or both), financing preference (mortgage or all cash) and how much they want to invest (the minimum is $25,000). They get back a list of suggested properties, with detailed information about each home and local rental market.

Compared with Roofstock, HomeUnion is more of a �one-stop shop,� Ganguly said. Instead of referring buyers to property managers, it manages the property. If a home is not already a rental, HomeUnion will list it, if the home meets its criteria. After the sale, it will renovate the home, find a tenant and manage it.

Yes, I am confident that "certifies the property manager is doing a good job" is something you can trust somebody else to do, as is "manage the property for you even if it isn't local to the manager."

# ? Mar 4, 2016 00:13

on the left: Nov 2, 2013; I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Another startup whose cunning plan I can see flaws in (for those of you inside the Chronicle paywall, the full article link.)

Yes, I am confident that "certifies the property manager is doing a good job" is something you can trust somebody else to do, as is "manage the property for you even if it isn't local to the manager."

To be honest, the property manager isn't the thing you need to worry about. Lots of good property managers exist. The problem is bad tenants and information concealed by the seller about the property condition. The website seems like the ideal place to offload a property in a neighborhood just about to turn bad.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 00:26

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Another startup whose cunning plan I can see flaws in (for those of you inside the Chronicle paywall, the full article link.)

Yes, I am confident that "certifies the property manager is doing a good job" is something you can trust somebody else to do, as is "manage the property for you even if it isn't local to the manager."

Hmmmm yes I'm sure buying a property completely site unseen will never result in any number of hilarious abuses and large losses of money.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 01:08

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

cheese posted:

Hmmmm yes I'm sure buying a property completely site unseen will never result in any number of hilarious abuses and large losses of money.

Yeah, but the people losing are idiots that have $200k in cash so pardon me if I don't shed any tears at their misfortune.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 01:21

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Harik posted:

Yeah, but the people losing are idiots that have $200k in cash so pardon me if I don't shed any tears at their misfortune.

Ya clearly, I'm just confused as to who they are targeting as customers. People with a ton of free cash who I guess can't be bothered to either go through the steps of buying property themselves or don't want to just hire someone to do it for them? Its not like there is a dearth of places and things to put to your Scrooge McDuck stacks of money into, although maybe with China slowing down and domestic energy crashing, there is a need. The only really RICH as gently caress guy I sort of know is the kind of guy they might want, but he buys property as a hobby and this would defeat the entire "how do I have fun playing with my millions" point of buying and selling for him.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 01:36

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

cheese posted:

Ya clearly, I'm just confused as to who they are targeting as customers.

Their customers are the big banks who are offloading distressed properties on suckers. Have you read stock forums? There's always idiots out there with money, and a "disruptive" tech that makes real-estate as easy as daytrading will pull them right in.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 01:40

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

cheese posted:

Its not like there is a dearth of places and things to put to your Scrooge McDuck stacks of money into,

There actually is. The wealthy are sitting on a lot of money and there is only a limited number of "good" investments. So every rich fucker dogpiles onto things which show a slight possibility of return, driving up the prices until the price is incredibly out of balance with the risk. Repeat.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 01:59

on the left: Nov 2, 2013; I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

It's going to end in tears if they are targeting individual hobby investors, who are ill prepared to lose 200k on a real estate deal gone bad. Professional investors won't waste money going after table scraps of profit unless they can buy large portfolios of property at a good discount (and do the due dilligence).

The problem real estate investment for individuals is that the moment you need money, you won't be able to get any money and you'll have to take a bath on the property to satisfy your obligations.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 02:00

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

Shifty Pony posted:

There actually is. The wealthy are sitting on a lot of money and there is only a limited number of "good" investments. So every rich fucker dogpiles onto things which show a slight possibility of return, driving up the prices until the price is incredibly out of balance with the risk. Repeat.

The irony is that it's the riches fault they can't suck anything more out of the blood funnel in the first place. They already own everything but they keep screaming "MORE MORE MORE"

# ? Mar 4, 2016 02:01

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Harik posted:

Their customers are the big banks who are offloading distressed properties on suckers. Have you read stock forums? There's always idiots out there with money, and a "disruptive" tech that makes real-estate as easy as daytrading will pull them right in.

That is a fair point. I hadn't considered that their true customers might not be the people using Roofstock to buy properties, but those using it to sell their properties. drat.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 02:25

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

cheese posted:

That is a fair point. I hadn't considered that their true customers might not be the people using Roofstock to buy properties, but those using it to sell their properties. drat.

Me, either. That was a great call. Roofstock, delivering the bigger suckers every day.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 02:28

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Oculus Rift support for Macs? If Apple 'ever releases a good computer,' founder says

# ? Mar 4, 2016 05:28

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Oculus Rift support for Macs? If Apple 'ever releases a good computer,' founder says

I agree.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 05:33

Nonsense: Jan 26, 2007

Apple continues to use AMD GPU lol

# ? Mar 4, 2016 05:34

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Nonsense posted:

Apple continues to use AMD GPU lol

Somehow Nvidia had worse defect rates.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 05:56

Nonsense: Jan 26, 2007

computer parts posted:

Somehow Nvidia had worse defect rates.

Maybe their downloader hosed up poo poo as well, I had an issue where it wouldn't finish downloading a driver, would hang, and then crash

# ? Mar 4, 2016 06:06

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Oculus Rift support for Macs? If Apple 'ever releases a good computer,' founder says

It is literally impossible to do high quality (read: "don't puke") VR on any available Apple computer.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 06:07

ANIME AKBAR: Jan 25, 2007; afu~

Subjunctive posted:

It is literally impossible to do high quality (read: "don't puke") VR on any available Apple computer.

I can believe that for games with cutting edge graphics. But how much GPU should it take to render poo poo like minecraft in VR?

# ? Mar 4, 2016 06:28

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

ANIME AKBAR posted:

I can believe that for games with cutting edge graphics. But how much GPU should it take to render poo poo like minecraft in VR?

Minecraft is pretty intensive because it's...not well optimized. It's not just frame time, but also latency that matters, plus things like enough USB3. There is also driver support that's needed to do a decent job of device management.

It is in nobody's interests to set the minspec for the Rift higher than necessary, but even the most expensive Apple machines don't hit it. Their GPUs are not a priority, and haven't been for a while.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 06:38

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

My experience with this is even if you spend a comparatively huge amount of money on a mac with good specs, even if you want to update the graphics card there's a very high chance it's not "supported" and things like the boot screen don't work anymore lol.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 11:42

Chakan: Mar 30, 2011

Saw this walking in to work a bit ago .

# ? Mar 4, 2016 13:55

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

I once had an exam topic about a unicorn farm.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 14:13

Feinne: Oct 9, 2007; When you fall, get right back up again.

Those Roofstock people missed a huge opportunity because how are they not called Slumlrd.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 14:50

LGD: Sep 25, 2004

Subjunctive posted:

They're mostly sales staff, and if you're redeveloping a product you might well not need the same kind of sales capabilities for it -- you certainly don't need them sitting around not earning commissions while you figure it out. AIUI, SurveyMonkey's financials are fine, so I don't think it's really a sign of structural issues.

I think this is correct, based on industry scuttlebutt- I just had a co-worker leave a month or two ago to work for them and the rumor was that they were likely to be hiring a decent number of people on the analytics side in the near future

(the retooling may be aimed in part at making the experience of purchasing and using their business products more consultative and guided, much closer to what you'd get via a more traditional custom primary market research firm- if this is the case then cutting the sales staff makes a ton of sense since you're suddenly much more interested in building ongoing relationships with clients based on a high quality research product rather than just selling a toolkit to everyone who wants to poo poo out a poorly written survey that lets them calculate a NPS for their retail establishment)

# ? Mar 5, 2016 00:38

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

Subjunctive posted:

It is literally impossible to do high quality (read: "don't puke") VR on any available Apple computer.

I would be very interested in more technical details, if you're able to go that far into the subject.

E: and maybe in not-D&D, but eh whatever

# ? Mar 9, 2016 21:36

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Munkeymon posted:

I would be very interested in more technical details, if you're able to go that far into the subject.

E: and maybe in not-D&D, but eh whatever

I can give you a quick summary from having a Rift DK1; basically you need a very, very low latency rendering and very high refresh rate to prevent your brain noticing the lag when using the headset. Any lag introduced makes you immediately feel motion sick (it's actually kind of fun to play with). MacBook Pros have a higher end version with an nVidia mobile graphics card, but even with that card at the DK1 resolutions of 1280x720 (or close) it's very hard to achieve a non-tearing 60 frames per second experience on anything but the simplest tech demos. I demoed a lot of the Rift apps using my MBP at work and anything that was an actual game such as Half Life 2 was very sickening to play since it's just not a machine built for gaming (and turning the textures down a lot made it passable but a lot less immersive).

So that was the DK1. The newer consumer version and the Vive have way higher resolution targets to hit, so it's just not really feasible with the hardware that Apple is shipping. Theoretically Mac Pros might be better, but they are workstation tier video cards more aligned with non-realtime rendering needs than for gaming.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 21:49

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

Less Fat Luke posted:

I can give you a quick summary from having a Rift DK1; basically you need a very, very low latency rendering and very high refresh rate to prevent your brain noticing the lag when using the headset. Any lag introduced makes you immediately feel motion sick (it's actually kind of fun to play with). MacBook Pros have a higher end version with an nVidia mobile graphics card, but even with that card at the DK1 resolutions of 1280x720 (or close) it's very hard to achieve a non-tearing 60 frames per second experience on anything but the simplest tech demos. I demoed a lot of the Rift apps using my MBP at work and anything that was an actual game such as Half Life 2 was very sickening to play since it's just not a machine built for gaming (and turning the textures down a lot made it passable but a lot less immersive).

So that was the DK1. The newer consumer version and the Vive have way higher resolution targets to hit, so it's just not really feasible with the hardware that Apple is shipping. Theoretically Mac Pros might be better, but they are workstation tier video cards more aligned with non-realtime rendering needs than for gaming.

Huh, so does that mean VR is going to be limited to the kinds of PC builds that are game-enthusiast levels or are drivers on Windows so much better that you can hit performance targets with worse hardware?

# ? Mar 9, 2016 22:27

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Munkeymon posted:

Huh, so does that mean VR is going to be limited to the kinds of PC builds that are game-enthusiast levels or are drivers on Windows so much better that you can hit performance targets with worse hardware?

Seems like it! I was an early potential enthusiast but at this point to get the consumer VR stuff I'd need about 800$ in upgrades to my PC (and I'm in Canada where our dollar currently means I'd add 30%). I hope the high barrier to entry doesn't screw it up.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 22:53

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Less Fat Luke posted:

Seems like it! I was an early potential enthusiast but at this point to get the consumer VR stuff I'd need about 800$ in upgrades to my PC (and I'm in Canada where our dollar currently means I'd add 30%). I hope the high barrier to entry doesn't screw it up.

It'll probably be like just about every other successful technology: expensive and niche to start, eventually becoming cheaper and mainstream. I don't think anyone's expecting console-level sales for the first gen, but eventually they'll get there, or even higher.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 22:56

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Munkeymon posted:

Huh, so does that mean VR is going to be limited to the kinds of PC builds that are game-enthusiast levels or are drivers on Windows so much better that you can hit performance targets with worse hardware?

Yep, VR is going to be incredibly niche for the foreseeable future. I doubt any laptop out now will be able to comfortably run it.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 22:57

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

computer parts posted:

Yep, VR is going to be incredibly niche for the foreseeable future. I doubt any laptop out now will be able to comfortably run it.

For games with good modern graphics, yes. If you're willing to have simplistic graphics, sure, go hog wild. I'm guessing there'll be a lot of games/apps that have a 'toaster mode' for running on weaker computers.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 23:59

g0del: Jan 9, 2001; Fun Shoe

Munkeymon posted:

Huh, so does that mean VR is going to be limited to the kinds of PC builds that are game-enthusiast levels or are drivers on Windows so much better that you can hit performance targets with worse hardware?

The minimum spec is an nvidia 970/amd 290 paired with an i5-4590. That's a $200 CPU and $300 video card. The steam hardware survey doesn't break down video cards very well, but based on VRAM stats less than 10% of steam users can hit that spec. I think the idea is to get it started now, and hope that in time the minimum spec eventually gets cheap enough for main-stream adoption.

Oh, and those stats already assume simplistic graphics. A 970 isn't hitting 90 fps with good modern graphics.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 04:26

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

g0del posted:

The minimum spec is an nvidia 970/amd 290 paired with an i5-4590. That's a $200 CPU and $300 video card. The steam hardware survey doesn't break down video cards very well, but based on VRAM stats less than 10% of steam users can hit that spec. I think the idea is to get it started now, and hope that in time the minimum spec eventually gets cheap enough for main-stream adoption.

Oh, and those stats already assume simplistic graphics. A 970 isn't hitting 90 fps with good modern graphics.

A friend got to fiddle around with a dev kit and says if it drops below 60fps you are going to start to feel queezy. In addition to the raw computing power problem there's trouble in that a modern PC is actually really bad at consistent real time operations. Game engines and graphics cards experience frame-to-frame variation in framerate and micro-stuttering as a result. The readout might say 100fps but what is actually happening is 80 frames took 5ms each to render (200fps) but a random 20 frames or so took 30ms each to render (~30fps) for one of myriad reasons.

Then there's the problem that most non-enthusiast computers aren't getting any more powerful, they are just getting more power efficient. If it takes off anywhere consoles are probably where the technology is gong to shine.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 04:56

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Cicero posted:

For games with good modern graphics, yes. If you're willing to have simplistic graphics, sure, go hog wild. I'm guessing there'll be a lot of games/apps that have a 'toaster mode' for running on weaker computers.

It sounds like the resolution is the main factor, so even Minecraft is going to require a lot higher quality hardware than a normal setup.

Shifty Pony posted:

A friend got to fiddle around with a dev kit and says if it drops below 60fps you are going to start to feel queezy. In addition to the raw computing power problem there's trouble in that a modern PC is actually really bad at consistent real time operations. Game engines and graphics cards experience frame-to-frame variation in framerate and micro-stuttering as a result. The readout might say 100fps but what is actually happening is 80 frames took 5ms each to render (200fps) but a random 20 frames or so took 30ms each to render (~30fps) for one of myriad reasons.

Then there's the problem that most non-enthusiast computers aren't getting any more powerful, they are just getting more power efficient. If it takes off anywhere consoles are probably where the technology is gong to shine.

Yeah also this. Quality control is always expensive, and making sure that your system actually never dips below 60fps is going to be really really hard.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 06:09

ANIME AKBAR: Jan 25, 2007; afu~

Yeah if consistent framerates and low latency are necessary, then VR is always going to trip up on a PC. I wonder how many dweebs there are ready to drop >$1K on new hardware just to get on the ground floor?

# ? Mar 10, 2016 06:18

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

g0del posted:

The minimum spec is an nvidia 970/amd 290 paired with an i5-4590. That's a $200 CPU and $300 video card. The steam hardware survey doesn't break down video cards very well, but based on VRAM stats less than 10% of steam users can hit that spec. I think the idea is to get it started now, and hope that in time the minimum spec eventually gets cheap enough for main-stream adoption.

Oh, and those stats already assume simplistic graphics. A 970 isn't hitting 90 fps with good modern graphics.

I had no idea the requirements were that high, actually. It would surprise me if more than ~5% of Steam users could clear a nv970|amd290+i5-4590 setup, but I'm a bit of a slowpoke for upgrading, so maybe I'm biased. I sure couldn't clear those requirements but I'm also not keen on paying for first-gen VR equipment because they just want too much for gear that might be abandoned in five years.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 07:06

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

The GPU situation is going to get instantly better once Pascal and Polaris are available in the next couple of months, and cards one or two levels below 970 can match it in performance.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 09:06

Simulated: Sep 28, 2001; Lowtax giveth, and Lowtax taketh away.; College Slice

Raldikuk posted:

Exactly this I had a samsung windows phone back in the day that was great. Ran age of empires and with Opera mobile you had a legitimate desktop browsing experience that was good on the mobile device. Of course the downside there was thst you had to pay for Opera after a certain point and buying a browser always felt wrong for some reason.

I've been trying really hard to ignore this nonsense but you people just won't quit.

I was using Windows CE since the first PocketPC pre-cell radio days (yes, I was a very nerdy kid shut up). I wrote software for the stupid things. They were dogshit. Even running Opera. You people are wearing some super rose-colored glasses. It took custom ROMs, registry hacks, and regular fiddling in task manager to keep the average Windows Mobile phone from eating its own battery or making GBS threads itself.

The iPhone was better in every possible way, even discounting it's ability to provide a fluid UI that animates without stuttering. It came with hugely powerful software frameworks that desktop Windows didn't even have at the time... the original iPhone had lower audio latency than every single Android phone available up until a year ago (and better than the majority manufactured even today). WM phones couldn't come close. I could go on but I won't.

As for VR, you can check out some of John Carmack's posts about it. It turns out that extremely low latency is absolutely required or your brain recognizes it as a fake. The computing power is barely there. Driver stacks and OS support is not... one stray interrupt and the 2ms you had to render a frame is gone (let alone the 1ms here, 1ms there eaten by hardware and driver buffering).

To get back on topic, funding has tightened significantly. It's not just news stories. I'm also hearing that rent prices are falling and have been for the past few months. I really want to believe it's true, but I don't have any evidence as of yet.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 10:13

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# ? May 17, 2024 11:17

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

Ender.uNF posted:

I've been trying really hard to ignore this nonsense but you people just won't quit.

I was using Windows CE since the first PocketPC pre-cell radio days (yes, I was a very nerdy kid shut up). I wrote software for the stupid things. They were dogshit. Even running Opera. You people are wearing some super rose-colored glasses. It took custom ROMs, registry hacks, and regular fiddling in task manager to keep the average Windows Mobile phone from eating its own battery or making GBS threads itself.

The iPhone was better in every possible way, even discounting it's ability to provide a fluid UI that animates without stuttering. It came with hugely powerful software frameworks that desktop Windows didn't even have at the time... the original iPhone had lower audio latency than every single Android phone available up until a year ago (and better than the majority manufactured even today). WM phones couldn't come close. I could go on but I won't.

Yeah, I remember having a bad WinCE device or two, but the HTC phones I had were all pretty good after a couple hours of janitoring, which was crappy, sure, but the phone I already had when the first iPhone came out was better at everything I already used it for than the iPhone. Last phone I've had with multi-day battery life, too - kinda miss that. To be fair, I didn't listen to nearly as much music on it (and didn't even know about podcasts), so that might have changed my mind, but I wouldn't have been happy with the carrying capacity of the old iPhones, either. What I'm getting at is that I basically compared them side-by-side and wasn't very impressed by the original iPhones beyond the slick UI and big screen, which I could live without.

# ? Mar 10, 2016 16:24

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