Up until July 2011 it seemed like Netflix could do no wrong. The company had a loyal and growing subscriber base, it was steadily adding new content to its streaming library, and the stock price was nearing $300 per share. But after Netflix made the shocking announcement last summer that it would no longer offer its streaming service for free to DVD-by-mail customers, its good fortune began to unravel. Subscribers jumped ship in droves, the stock price plummeted, and Netflix simultaneously lost a key content partner in Starz. Granted, things could have looked a lot worse for the company right now if it had stuck to its follow-up plan of spinning off the DVD-rental business as Qwikster, but nevertheless the past several months have seen Netflix’ star seriously tarnished.
We so wanted to like Amazon Prime. On the surface it seemed like the perfect antidote to the blow we were dealt by Netflix’ price hike. After all, Prime offers a streaming library along with Amazon’s free two-day shipping program, for just $79 a year. That amounts to $1.34 a month less than Netflix’ streaming subscription. So what’s not to like? Well, if you thought Netflix’ streaming library was wanting, Prime’s is even less robust. You might not know that at first, because Amazon has a multitude of streaming content on offer, but once you start digging in, you realize that most of the good stuff has to be purchased a la cart. Rather than satisfying our urge to punish Netflix, Prime renewed our commitment to the bastard.
The Federal Communications Commission’s guidelines governing the business practices of ISPs became law on November 20, 2011. But it wasn’t the triumph for consumers that was expected under “the people’s” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who initially had the full support of public interest groups. While the Net Neutrality rules dictate that ISPs disclose their network management practices and restricts them from discriminately blocking web content, they are much more lenient on wireless providers. The FCC was ultimately swayed by Google, Verizon, and the like that wireless web access requires different tools and technology, leaving those companies exempt from the requirement that they be “reasonable” in the use of packet discrimination and network management strategies.
What happened, Google+? You were supposed to be the service that freed us from the clutches of Facebook. Instead, we got a service that launched without an API and without the ability to create pages under anything but your real name. We’re still hoping Google+ will make a comeback, but it’s looking more and more like a ghost town.
We’ve got some fond memory of early Palm devices, but it wasn’t a huge surprise when they were bought by HP in 2010. What WAS a huge surprise was HP’s manhandling of Web OS, the last good thing Palm had going for it. The company failed to do anything worthwhile with the OS, then waffled about selling off the division before finally deciding to just give up and make the whole thing open source.
No 4G? No NFC? No LTE/WiMax? Not really the handset we were expecting. With a lack of design innovation and issues with battery life and call quality appearing right off the bat, the iPhone 4S probably should have been allowed to cook a little longer (maybe until it grows into a healthy iPhone 5).
While the 4S did solve some of the issues that plagued the iPhone 4 (apparently you’re no longer holding it wrong), it was underwhelming at best with its main offering being an improved camera and Siri, the personal assistant. And considering what we just said about Siri… yeah. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
You’ve seen the commericals: consumers effortlessly interacting with their phones using only their voices in order to get directions, assistance, reminders or to reply to text messages. Yes! You might be thinking. This is the next step! The new thing! A reason to buy a 4S!
Not so fast. Siri – which, in our humble opinion is short for “siri-ously useless” - doesn’t quite work as well outside of commercial –land where she’s had problems with accents, issues connecting to the network and caused security concerns. And she still won’t give you turn-by-turn navigation. Siri’s still in beta, which at least leaves room for increased performance down the road, but she’s got a long way to go.
Comments are closed on this article
dogdud8
January 04, 2012 at 10:20pm
If hard drives were made in America there wouldn't be a problem.
compmix
January 06, 2012 at 1:08am
That's true, since it would be higher than the current prices year-round.
EV42TMAN
January 04, 2012 at 11:00am
I'm tired of hearing "on oh there isn't drive extender anymore" i'm just going to say this and i don't care who gets angry. Any one who manages there data with drive extender(or ZFS) also is the type of person who takes thier computers to geek squad to get them fixed. i know most people don't use ZFS but the mindset of putting a random assortment of drives together to act as one and thinking its a good idea is the same as using/reling on drive extender. Instead of "oh no" it should be "thank god microsoft took away the overall bad way to manage data". It isn't that hard to copy data from one drive to another.
Also i'm my faith in Maximum PC is unfornatly steddly dropping because in the past they would say their opinion and i may agree or disagree but it would be a valid point. But now it seems like they just half ass somethings and jump on the band wagon so to speek.
Also everyone complains there isn't any drive extender, but no one points out that technically you get the same functionallity out of libraries.
Heres how:
1. add all your miss matched hard drives with the random data each one to the WHS
2. add the assocated folders/hard drives to the proper library
3. share the library
There is how you can use drive extender on WHS 2011 without calling it drive extender
I agree with microsoft on this one because when the first WHS came out the largest hard drive you could get was a 250gig. So they need something since raid cards are expensive. but now you can buy 4TB hard drives and most home users won't fill up 4TB
aarcane
January 03, 2012 at 12:27pm
If you miss drive extender, look into ZFS. Used in conjunction with Solaris, Linux, or BSD, ZFS is an awsome solution for data integrity. It might not be able to maintain raid6 while adding a SINGLE drive at a time, but it certainly lowers the cost of admission into the raid market, and provides a high performing raid solution that anyone can use for free.
ApathyCurve
January 03, 2012 at 7:48am
"a sequel to the dying Firewire interface"
"Dying"? Last I checked, Firewire was deader than Jimmy Hoffa.
DDRDiesel
January 03, 2012 at 7:12am
I would like to speak with you about X79. The lack of SATA ports, to be honest, isn't that big of a deal. It's an enthusiast board, and in all practicality, does not need more than two SATA III ports. If someone wanted to call themselves an enthusiast, that means they would be intelligent enough to know that two SATA III ports is more than enough for a high-end system. They can be used in tandem for two SSD's in either RAID 0 or RAID 1. The other four SATA ports, in conjunction with modern hard drives going up to 3TB (And higher in the near future), is more than enough for anyone's storage capacity needs (especially in a RAID configuration across the four ports). If a storage enthusiast should so desire, they can simply add a PCI-Express card for the added 2-4 ports. After all, high-capacity storage doesn't need SATA III speeds to be successfully implemented
thechipper
January 03, 2012 at 9:15am
The point he is trying to get across isn't that there isn't enough storage options really. It's that they said they were going to give us 10 high end SSD capable SATA 3 ports. Sure I could go buy a PCI-E expansion card but then what would I do with all that lost bandwidth for my 3x GTX 580's since the boards are actually kind of shady about 3.0 support :s
crc32
January 03, 2012 at 7:02am
I anxiously waited and hoped for the noteslate. It was the perfect companion I needed for my setup. Simple and inexpensive like a kindle, but with input. Its was the perfect balance. But that tiny fear of vapor status I had at the beginning, came to be. R.I.P. NoteSlate 2011
andrewc513
January 02, 2012 at 11:57pm
1. My 30+Mbps down bandwidth on my Thunderbolt would like to have a talk with you....
2. WHS server is great in its own respect, but I'd just as soon use the Media Center extender and Homegroups in Windows 7.
3. Agree with everything else on the list.
grorc
January 02, 2012 at 9:25pm
All those who supported Net Neutrality got exactly what they deserved.
aarcane
January 03, 2012 at 12:23pm
Only half of net neutrality supporters got what we deserved. The wireless half is still left hanging.
limitbreaker
January 02, 2012 at 9:04pm
the only great thing about siri is that so far it's the best software (that i know of) at recognizing your words but it is quite useless as it stands right now. one day maybe we'll have a computer like the one in star trek (not original lol) but that day is far from here. Maybe when that cognitive CPU finally gets invented by IBM we'll finally start having pc pals that can have intelligent answers to our questions instead of a big list of answers to key words typed up by a bunch of apple heads.
ABouman
January 03, 2012 at 11:33am
Well, it sorta recognizes words. People with accents have reported problems, and I haven't had much luck getting her to understand me (me: "Siri, pause music." Siri: Play all songs. me: "SIRI, PAUSE MUSIC" Siri: Play all songs. me: aaaaaaaaarggggggggghhhh!).
i agree, it might be one of the better voice recognition softwares availalbe now, but... that's kinda like being the smartest kid in the remedial class, you know?
once it's developed enough to work smoothly, it has tremendous potential - especially for users who aren't able-bodied or able to type with their fingers.
PC Friendly
January 02, 2012 at 5:28pm
Windows 8 - It isn't even released yet and it's already a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. Full of bells and whistles designed to emulate tablet systems with no actual content. I'll stick with Windows 7 until they can actually release a "real" upgrade.
Brechan
January 03, 2012 at 1:41am
Agreed!!
If I wanted my PC to look like a tablet; then I'd buy a tablet, maybe I'm too "old school" when I say that I want my PC to look like a PC.
I like the fact that the desktop has the appearance of either Windows/ Linux or Apple; let the smartphones and tablets have their own versions of whatever O/S, but leave them all completely separate.
philipa25
January 02, 2012 at 4:02pm
I'll add some
1) Galaxy Nexus - Too many cut corners and intentional gimping for a flagship phone
2) Galaxy note - intentionally cutting off T-mobile support even though the chipset supports it. I want to import it now, not wait 7+ months to possibly get a bloated or gimped version that might work on the network.
Cregan89
January 03, 2012 at 12:36pm
I have the Galaxy Nexus and it is without a doubt the best smart phone right now.
Everybody always makes the mistake of calling the Nexus line the "Flagship" android phone. Google has never claimed that any Nexus phone is a "Flagship". It's their development baseline. The Android developers have a list of specific features that they want to build into each new iteration of Android, and then they have a manufacturer (Samsung in the case of the Galaxy Nexus) create a high-end, but not necesarily top-of-the-line, hardware baseline for the new version of Android to be built around. The hardware specs for the Galaxy Nexus would have been decided on a long time ago. This provides the Android developers with the time required to create a whole new OS version specifically for that hardware. And this is why some other smart phones that were released before the Galaxy Nexus actually had more powerful hardware. But this is also the reason the ICS has been on the Galaxy Nexus for a couple months now while it still hasn't been completely ported to any other device yet.
It's also intended to be the "pure Google experience", which is why it only has 16GB of storage and no SD slot (Google is a cloud computer company after all). The 0 shutter lag and greatly improved camera software were obviously a big selling point for ICS so it would make sense that they had to use a 5MP camera instead of an 8MP. Not to mention, everybody know's that not all MP's are equal when it comes to digital camera's.
athlon11
January 02, 2012 at 10:12pm
What the fuck are you talking about? How did the Galaxy Nexus cut corners? It has as good of specs as any phone on the market plus ICS. Also what did they gimp on it? As far as I can tell nothing. I really don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about.
philipa25
January 03, 2012 at 6:31am
Ok, it's like the 3rd or 4th most powerful Samsung phone let alone all android phones. It's got a very average camera compared to again other Samsung phones that were already out. What's gimped on it? How about the storage as there is no sd card slot and some versions are stuck with only 16gb of storage. I won't even go with the mess they made with the exclusive deal with Verizon. I know you're not supposed to say anything Negative because it's Google's phone, but I'd rather have a better phone that will get ICS in a few months or that I can load on myself.
athlon11
January 03, 2012 at 10:25am
At worst its Samsung's second most powerful phone after the Exynos GSII line on benchmarks. In actual use it feels faster. The camera isn't the greatest but it is not bad at all either. I also have to think there was probably some technical reason for using a 5MP sensor, more than likely it is because of the 0 shutter lag, the camera is probably streaming 5MP images constantly and the phone just grabs one when you take a picture, 8MP probably required too high of a data rate or too much processing power to allow it. Also, I will take the bigger, much higher resolution screen over having the "fastest" phone anyday.
I don't see an issue with storage since the iPhone has no SD slot AND REQUIRES you to store your music on teh device whereas on the GN you can use Google Music and stream your music. Seriously, cloud services are making the SD slot unnecessary. And what Verizon mess? I know the phone was "delayed" a couple of times, even though no official release date other than by the end of 2011 was ever given. The only other Verizon mess I can see is them putting 2 apps on the phone, which to me, wasn't a big deal since My Verizon is useful and you can disable the other one.
philipa25
January 04, 2012 at 7:22am
You're the first person I've heard say that the nexus is faster than the Exynos phones. I don't care about it being 5mp, mp's don't mean that much, but it's not that great of a 5mp camera.
I agree with the screen resolution, that why I'm pining for the Note. Great screen and much better phone than the nexus.
Just because you are ok with cloud services doesn't mean everyone is. Not everyone is willing to risk overage charges or throttling just to listen to music, watch videos, or listen to music. I could care less what the iphone has. When did we start talking about iphones?
Verizon mess? Beyond the delays, how about all the people who don't have Verizon? For a company that wants things to be open and available, locking it down to one carrier is counter productive don't you think? Especially when that carrier tries to bury it.
rruscio
January 02, 2012 at 3:27pm
You were doing good until Amazon Prime. I cover the cost in shipping 3x over the year. Then they threw in a poor selection of free videos. Ok, but I like it for what it was. Now, it's just fat.
As for G+, for me, it's like twitter on steroids and meth. More images, interesting people, content per post, and just a whole slag of stuff to look at. If that's a ghost town, please send me there ...
rr
philipa25
January 02, 2012 at 4:05pm
If you buy from Amazon on any kind of regular basis you are right, Prime is awesome. If you look at it as a streaming service, they are right it sucks so far. It should be looked at as a bonus so far, and to be honest all the streaming services kind of suck.
btdog
January 02, 2012 at 3:20pm
Thanks, MPC! This is a very good list. I agree with almost everything. Especially WHS, 4G and Bulldozer; particularly, Bulldozer - I was so looking forward to building a nice AMD CPU system. I didn't even need it to beat (or even meet) the best intel CPU - just be in the same fight. Alas, no such luck.
Maybe it's me, but I disagree with the thrashing of Amazon Prime. It was originally a memebership for shipping discounts; heck, I've been a customer for about 4 years now and it just added streaming in 2011. So to pit it against Netflix in an all-out streaming video fight is a wee-bit unfair. I think of it as a shipping membership that has added some limited streaming, not a video streaming membership that also offers free two day shipping.
brettofamerica
January 02, 2012 at 3:17pm
"The two great hopes for Android tablets, Ice Cream Sandwich (which unifies the Android OS for smartphones and tablets) and Asus' Transformer Prime"
You say that as if the original Transformer wasn't good! Last I checked the original Transformer doesn't have a locked bootloader so :P
Jongalt26
January 02, 2012 at 3:10pm
The Saitek RAT 7 mouse....
It would get stuck in an X or Y position frequently....
Wervenyt
January 02, 2012 at 3:47pm
I wouldn't call that a fail. All high-DPI mice have that issues. The lens is uber sensitive to dust.
Jongalt26
January 03, 2012 at 9:46am
I replaced it with a g500 last month and haven't had the issue since. It also hasn't happened to my G5, 518, copperhead etc. Anyways, i use my rat at work now and still love it, just not for gaming lol.
