Christina Warren

I'm in total, utter agreement. Air kills it for me on the desktop (and now that I'm at Mashable I have to follow Twitter shit like you have no idea) and interface kills it for me on the iPhone.

I love mine. I got it yesterday so I need some more testing time, but so far, so good! I'll get another one once my i7 27" iMac finally ships, but so far, it's working beautifully with the 2007 Black MacBook I have.

I like the feel, love the swipe and think it's a total step up from the Mighty Mouse.

Love it.

I think what Grant's trying to point out (and what is important to remember) is that just having a very large and very powerful carrier as a partner doesn't negate all the very real problems that exist on Android and especially in the Android Market.

Consumers aren't buying phones based on the OS, they are buying them based on the features and the applications you can get. Fixing the Android Market and making it a more compelling platform for developers is what is needed for Android to take off, and just being on a bigger carrier doesn't necessarily change that.

I agree that it isn't the carrier's job to "fix" stuff -- but the problem is, that's exactly what Google has said for them (and the handset manufacturers) to do. They apparently want everyone to feel free to use it as a base and add shit on top of it, but the problem is, they didn't make that clear to the public (or to the developers) when it was being sold as a platform, and it's pretty hard to expect carriers to invest a whole lot into making a platform not suck when the userbase and app market is so small. And of course that becomes all chicken-egg because the market can't grow without improvements.

But yes, when I found out that the screenshot process still hadn't been fixed from a post I wrote A YEAR ago when I was trying to grep stuff for a post on the Facebook app, I had to roll my eyes.

There are so many problems that are real deterrents to people adopting a platform that has potential. The problem is, potential doesn't mean anything without real signs of innovation and improvement. So far, only HTC's Sense UI has any semblance of "ooh" factor and that still doesn't change the Android Market woes.

Exactly. I hated iTunes on Windows and only had it installed for certain tasks (or for buying music) and used Foobar for everything else.

But on the Mac, it's so much faster and nicer to interface with, we don't even have many music player alternatives -- not because there aren't plenty of developers, but because it would sort of be pointless. Like, why recreate the wheel.

Having said that, the fact that they do and support Windows at all is something that probably makes many people deep inside Apple cringe over. I mean, it's supported because it's the biggest operating system. I'm sure they don't like having to work with the Windows APIs while maintaining UI consistencies with their own OS.

I would rather use iTunes in Windows over Entourage in Mac. But as you said, that isn't saying much.

Actually, no. We have it recording on my fiance's HTPC in his office throughout the day and I never notice any impact on my traffic. I'm not saying it couldn't impact anything, but I have to use the Internet pretty heavily for work and I never notice any slowdowns.

Congratulations gang!

I know, I know! I wasn't aware of Snatch before but it should definitely be added to the list.

CRSH,
Absolutely, I can only speak first-hand about Flash on the Atom with a GMA 950. However, benchmarks (and the Anandtech review balls linked to) and reports I've heard from users who have used the Ion chipsets have shown that Flash and streaming media continue to be a problem. Playing back h.264 content -- not a problem -- but Flash hasn't been GPU optimized so it is still fundamentally limited by the processor. Overclocking an Atom 330 might turn out some more usable results, but it is far from ideal.

Aelever,
Yeah, you have to do it in Windows. There are a lot of programs but I usually use AnyDVD HD http://www.videohelp.com/tools/AnyDVD. There's a free trial but if you rip a lot it is worth the money.