Tomis's comments

The cult of Jobs lives on. Ffs let the poor man rot in his grave already.

Why can't you have both file extensions and file types? File extensions aren't ridiculous, they're a helpful hint for developers. Also, "my copy of Windows" hides file extensions by default (which I loathe, but understand).

tl;dr: "A new way to challenge Notch at Quake games (while making some money in the process)".

Instadrama.

> Perhaps we should remind ourselves that people with disabilities are worthy of the same kind of consideration and respect as everyone else.

Of course, but that was not the point of my post. It's Google who seems to be trying to distance itself from Android but can't, because they're in too deep.

Sorry, no offence meant.

On an unrelated note:

> Sorry, due to a security vulnerability this browser is not supported. You might like Google Chrome.

I actually hate Google Chrome, it's Internet Explorer 6 with a service pack. You don't support Opera? Seriously? For a long time Opera has been the most secure browser on the market, I don't know it's status in the last year. What security hole?

This very "hard" problem was solved long time ago by releasing your product along with a free demo (or shareware, or whatever). As a developer you simply have to make sure your product works on the most popular platforms, or whatever kind of platforms you want. Before the user buys he tries it, so there will be less complaints that the app does not work for them. Hardware and software will always be fragmented in a free market, and that's ok.

You'll be happy to know (or sad, depending on how you look at it) that your N9 is defective. It takes me 5 seconds at most from the home screen until I can hit shuffle, with all the loading, animations and whatnot, I never have the feeling that I am waiting. I also used the included USB cable to transfer my music to the phone, can't say I have experience with the ssh app.

The fact that you hit numbers in the dialing screen and have to wait a few seconds before the phone makes any sound is another strong indicator that your phone is broken and you need to have it replaced under warranty. It is not supposed to be behaving like that.

I have not seen any swipe conflict between the applications and the phone's UI, which is basically because for the built-in gestures you swipe from the edges, whereas for the apps you swipe from inside the window. I don't see how you can get a conflict out of that. Can you give me an example of app that does that? Seem like an app fault, not phone fault.

What's wrong with your N9?

If you're sick of Android usage you should try Android development, that would really make your day. In any case, if you're looking for an open platform try a Symbian or MeeGo. The Nokia N9 is one of the best smartphones ever made and, if you can get it, you will have a real user experience. Also, if you're a mobile developer who is not into BDSM you will be happy to hear that you don't have to write your programs in Java, although if you really want to you probably can.

Symbian and MeeGo are also getting constant OS updates although Nokia's official direction has shifted away to Windows Phone, and will continue like that for several years. As for Android, Google is treating it like an ugly retarded kid that they don't really want but are forced to take care of.

Last words before the company went down the drain.

There are various levels of "regular" people, you could almost classify them by ADD rules such as "regular curious", "regular neutral", "regular adverse to learning" and so on.

> By comparison, those individuals I see who are willing to learn new features or who can notice what they did to set off a feature are usually pretty tech-savvy (or soon will be) and would be able to figure out how to use and install extensions anyway.

Those would be the "regular curious". Sure they could figure out by themselves how to install extensions but why would they? Before speed dial nobody felt the need to have such a feature (so why search for an extension?), but now a lot of people can't live without it (same for multiple tabs, sessions, mouse gestures, integrated search, closed tabs bin, and so on). Until you have a feature at your finger tips you will almost always not feel the need to have it, thinking "meh, I can live without it". Once you start using it your perspective changes.

Basically, a regular user who always had a minimalistic browser will hardly feel the need to go looking for extra functionality except for dire cases (ad-block or something). So the fact that he is technically capable of installing extensions is a moot point. He first needs to become aware of that functionality and the process of testing it out should be easy enough for the curiosity to surpass the "don't need it" feeling. Sure, you could live with just a unique tab and an address bar. it's nice and minimalistic. How many regular users would bother installing extensions?

> Then again, a good number of the people I do know don't even understand the concept of a web address or even how to use bookmarks -- nevermind speed dial.

These would be "regular adverse to learning". But seriously, have you ever used speed dial? It's much easier to use than bookmarks. I explained it to a lot of regulars in 50 words or less "click the 'plus' button, enter the address of a website you want to visit later". It's difficult to explain this to people who can't quite hold a mouse in their hands but for regulars like my mother, girlfriend, whoever, it's very easy to explain.

Let's take the case of my mom. First I showed her how to open Opera instead of IE. Then, after she got used to it, I showed multiple tabs. Then, after a while, speed dial. Then I moved the tabs on the left side so that she had more space. In the case of my girlfriend I also showed her RSS so that she wouldn't check every day for new blog posts.

The trick is to introduce these features/changes gradually, depending on one's level of comfort with technology. At one point I actually managed to get a person with a rather ossified brain to use speed dials and multiple tabs.

Obviously, if a person were using a browser without a certain feature then I wouldn't go about installing extensions for them. For one, I would have to search for a decent extension since their quality is most of the times inferior to the out-of-the-box feature, the user would most likely receive strange notifications about them and wouldn't know what to do, they could pose a security risk, and so on. I'd just say "oh, you're using browser X? I could try installing an extension... ah, screw it. Carry on with business as usual, searching on google the website that you visit 10 times a day".

> So personally, I think it's a good idea to aim for a default, minimalist interface and avoid gestures and interactive UI elements that users can accidentally click or activate.

Well it's not a mutually exclusive affair. Opera has a truckload of features and a minimalist interface. The speed and resource consumption are as good as Chrome's (and much better when large amounts of tabs are involved, because of the one-process-per-tab slowness). So what is the reason for choosing Chrome over Opera then? Just curious.

That was my point. If they don't have that functionality in the browser they certainly won't go looking for it. If it's built-in there are ways to make the user aware of it (startup tips, random info pop-ups or even suggestions from more advanced users - "did you know you could do X very easily?").

So what you're saying is that a new Chrome user, in order to get functionality that other browsers have out of the box (I'm thinking of Opera, I'm biased like that), have to start digging after extensions.

That's fine and dandy for experienced PC users like you and me but what about regular people? Housewives, pensioners, working people who want to use a browser but don't have much time to invest in learning its intricacies.

History has shown that people can live with screwed up technology for a long time without looking for improvements because they think it's normal or they're used to it (floppy disks for file transfer in the 21st century, for instance) and sometimes new technology or features have to be forced upon the user for them to take it up. In the case of Chrome, regular people get a truncated version of what a browser can do (no significant difference in features from Internet Explorer except speed). This creates a large entry barrier for regular people.

Do you think your average grandpa using Chrome (or Firefox, for that matter) will have a revelation at some point, thinking "gee, I'd really like to have mouse gestures, they would make my life so much easier for my poor hands"? Or "wow, I'd sure like a speed dial whenever I open my browser so that I can go with one click to the pages I most often use" (no, I don't want "most visited" as chosen by Chrome, I want speed dial). No, of course it's not going to happen; grandpa has never heard of RSS, mouse gestures, speed dial, and so on; someone (or something) has to explicitly tell/show him these features so that he becomes aware that they are possible.

I also have a personal beef with the people who thought that on startup Chrome should have "open the home page" as default option instead of "reopen the pages that were open last". This is the most retarded default option I could think of in our day and age - if someone wants to get rid of their tabs then they will CLOSE THEM. It's that simple. Just because I have to close the browser does not mean that I finished what I was doing and that I want my tabs closed. Opera got this right more than 10 years ago but some people still have the Internet Explorer 6 mindset. It's as if all your Gmail messages were marked unread when you logged in to your inbox because hey, it's a new session.

TL/DR - extensions are a poor substitute for built-in functionality in a world where the majority of users still are regular users (non-tech savvy). Grandpa Joe will not go digging for extensions.

You shouldn't have posted something positive about trolling. Now mind the downvotes.

This reminds me of an old phrase - "fish swimming against the current gets electrocuted".

Someone should clone this for PC. Why restrict yourself to the iPad market when you can write cross-platform code?

I'm not a web developer but if you're willing to throw a few minutes at the problem I have a few suggestions.

1. Open your app in Opera (if there's a hard link to a page containing the offending issue then it's even better) and go to the main menu button - help - report a site problem, and you should fill all the relevant details. Hopefully you will get someone from Opera to assist you since they have an entire team dedicated to this sort of thing.

2. You can check the answers to this post (Opera IamA on reddit, 1 year ago)

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_...

and you can try sending the Opera employees PM-s with your problem. I'm sure it will be sorted out in the end.

Cheers.

As an Opera user I find it a bit annoying as well but I think it's just a silly warning that doesn't impact functionality.

I get carried away from time to time, sorry about that. No offense meant.

It seems the cult of Apple is touchy today and can't detect a joke. I'm sorry if I have inadvertently hurt your feelings - I will be sure to clearly state my humorous intentions next time. </humour>

For the record, I do not own devices based on iOS or Android and I don't care for your little Apple-Google feud with which you seem to be so concerned with. So please, carry on with those market statistics about Android, I am dying to know more.