General No more handbooks?

[RobinPJ]

What about those of us who don't have an iphone or an ipad or indeed a smartphone of any sort?

Then to any 21st century commercial organisation (with the excpetion of Saga and Co-op Funeral Service) you do not count and they simply do not care about you.

 

[306maxi]

Then to any 21st century commercial organisation (with the excpetion of Saga and Co-op Funeral Service) you do not count and they simply do not care about you.

Amen to that.

I have this thing where I just tend to boycott companies who advertise as being in the iTunes store and don't offer apps for anyone else.

 

[RobW]

What about those of us who don't have an iphone or an ipad or indeed a smartphone of any sort?

perhaps this will encourage you to buy one?
you really should, you are missing out

 

[306maxi]

perhaps this will encourage you to buy one?
you really should, you are missing out

I was playing around with an iPad 2 for a few hours on Friday. Let me just say that I don't think I am missing out at all. The whole grid of icons thing is just crap.

 

[RUI]

Maxi I said the same but had a long go on a friends one. It is very good. I ended up getting one and it is great.

 

[FloJo]

perhaps this will encourage you to buy one?
you really should, you are missing out

I am quite happy with my more normal phone tbh, I only send a few texts per day and am not a phone chatter so don't want the hiked costs involved. I have an mp3 player, a kindle and a netbook for traveling. I have been pondering an ipad but if I do splurge I'm not even sure if I'll get one of the 3G versions and it's a non essential purchase! I think I'd rather spend the money on a nice shiney stand mixer for my kitchen

 

[306maxi]

I am quite happy with my more normal phone tbh, I only send a few texts per day and am not a phone chatter so don't want the hiked costs involved. I have an mp3 player, a kindle and a netbook for traveling. I have been pondering an ipad but if I do splurge I'm not even sure if I'll get one of the 3G versions and it's a non essential purchase, I think I'd rather spend the money on a nice shiney stand mixer for my kitchen

I like that You're obviously my sort of person when it comes to gadgets (or lack thereof. I bought my wife a Kindle last year because she's very much a bookworm and had always disliked the idea of an e-reader. I kind of liked the idea of her totally disliking the idea of it yet falling in love with the product. A little under a year later and most nights at about 8pm the wife will be found sitting up in bed with a cup of tea on the bedside table and her Kindle (in cover) in both hands.

I've always preferred devices which do one job and do it well. The Kindle really is a fantastic single purpose device which kicks all of the other pretenders into the dust when it comes to being an e-reader.

 

[Melanabb]

I have a MacBook BUT I also have 4 year old sony ericsson 'stupid' phone Go figure...

 

[306maxi]

Maxi I said the same but had a long go on a friends one. It is very good. I ended up getting one and it is great.

It was fun enough, but I really feel that it's device that is slightly without a use (for me at least). I played some youtube videos on there and the quality was fantastic and it was really nice But the problem is that I was in a room with about 10 PC's which could have played the video just as well if not better.

OK well I could use it to post on here or go on Facebook. The only problem with that is that it's far quicker just to post on a PC and far more convenient to post on my phone if I don't want to walk the few metres to the bedroom.

The idea of carrying something so big around which doesn't offer the functionality of a built in hardware keyboard strikes me as rather inconvenient. I've got 3 sets of keys and 2 phones to carry about, I don't need more crap

Of course everyone's needs differ and I'd be silly to think that my set of needs are the only ones around. I happily suggested one for a quadriplegic student we have here who has very limited use of his arms. He's got a snowballs chance in hell of ever using a computer (Mac or PC) in a way that's going to be satisfying for him. The fact that he got rather excited when an iPad 1 shoved in front of him meant that it would have been daft to have bought an Android tablet for him.

 

[RUI]

My one is in the lounge, My wife likes to watch some unbelievably rubbish TV.
I can still be in the same room as her but I dont have to watch the TV.

We only have one TV in our house so it is good to watch TV in the bedroom or even the bathroom.
I can read magazines on it, read books, play games and do so many other things. Yes i can do all of these on my macbook but the ipad is very portable with a great battery life.

 

[RobW]

I am quite happy with my more normal phone tbh, I only send a few texts per day and am not a phone chatter so don't want the hiked costs involved. I have an mp3 player, a kindle and a netbook for traveling. I have been pondering an ipad but if I do splurge I'm not even sure if I'll get one of the 3G versions and it's a non essential purchase! I think I'd rather spend the money on a nice shiney stand mixer for my kitchen

any computer or smartphone can read a .pdf

 

[RobW]

I was playing around with an iPad 2 for a few hours on Friday. Let me just say that I don't think I am missing out at all. The whole grid of icons thing is just crap.

LOL no it's not crap, it is easy
You need to have a proper go on it to 'get' it but when you do it's a revelation :slayer:

Also you can group the similar apps together into a frame (e.g. fav webpages) and end up with everything on one page if thats your bag

 

[306maxi]

LOL no it's not crap, it is easy
You need to have a proper go on it to 'get' it but when you do it's a revelation :slayer:

Also you can group the similar apps together into a frame (e.g. fav webpages) and end up with everything on one page if thats your bag

It's crap and its outdated My Windows Phone displays live updates on its tiles. Someone just tweeted me something? I don't even need to go into the app, it displays on the tile. Want to know the temperature outside? Just unlock the phone and the tile on my frontscreen shows the temperature without having to go into the app.

What's that song playing on the radio? Click on the search button and then the music button on the search screen and it listens to the song, tells me what it is and with two clicks I can buy the song. In the US, in a shop and want to buy a book or a DVD? Two clicks, hold the object in front of the camera and the phone identifies the product, finds out where you can buy it online and if for instance there's an app for the company you can purchase the product through that so you can walk into a bookshop and then buy the book through your Kindle app and it'll be on your phone in minute and will sync to your Kindle at home.

MMMMMMM intergrayshun.

 

[RobW]

It's crap and its outdated My Windows Phone displays live updates on its tiles. Someone just tweeted me something? I don't even need to go into the app, it displays on the tile. Want to know the temperature outside? Just unlock the phone and the tile on my frontscreen shows the temperature without having to go into the app.

What's that song playing on the radio? Click on the search button and then the music button on the search screen and it listens to the song, tells me what it is and with two clicks I can buy the song. In the US, in a shop and want to buy a book or a DVD? Two clicks, hold the object in front of the camera and the phone identifies the product, finds out where you can buy it online and if for instance there's an app for the company you can purchase the product through that so you can walk into a bookshop and then buy the book through your Kindle app and it'll be on your phone in minute and will sync to your Kindle at home.

MMMMMMM intergrayshun.

I have a Dell laptop, A blackberry curve, a Sony Ericsson Android smartphone and an IPad 2

The IPad makes all the others look very dated and feel clumsy in comparison

I also have an AppleTV and that works brilliantly too

You can resist all you like but the reality is that Apple products are very popular and desirable. Of course there are alternatives and that is a good thing. We need naysayers like you to keep the force in balance

 

[306maxi]

I have a MacBook BUT I also have 4 year old sony ericsson 'stupid' phone Go figure...

Nothing wrong with dumb phones My work phone is a Nokia dumb phone and tbh I wouldn't want anything more than that. It makes phonecalls and sends texts.

 

[306maxi]

My one is in the lounge, My wife likes to watch some unbelievably rubbish TV.
I can still be in the same room as her but I dont have to watch the TV.

We only have one TV in our house so it is good to watch TV in the bedroom or even the bathroom.
I can read magazines on it, read books, play games and do so many other things. Yes i can do all of these on my macbook but the ipad is very portable with a great battery life.

Well I'm lucky enough to have a wife who doesn't watch (much) crap TV so maybe that's your problem. Joking of course

We've got a TV in the loungeroom (I wanted it in the bedroom but apparently a 40" TV is too big for there ) and a PC in the bedroom with a media centre remote. With iPlayer and Tunerfree MCE the PC is great for watching live free to air stuff and also stuff on iPlayer or on ITV, C4 and C5's sites. Plus you can listen to BBC radio live or on demand too

Fantastic bit of software which turns any PC in the bedroom running any version of Windows with media centre into an even more useful device than it was previously
http://www.tunerfree.tv/index.php/mce-software-1228996485/tunerfreemce

 

[FloJo]

We only have one TV in our house so it is good to watch TV in the bedroom or even the bathroom.
I can read magazines on it, read books, play games and do so many other things. Yes i can do all of these on my macbook but the ipad is very portable with a great battery life.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with all of these things - it's the portability that draws me in, (and I do love some of the games) - especially for watching telly (we only have 1 TV too and OH is a big sport fan) in bed and not having to cart my laptop into different rooms and be contrained by power cables Had I not inherited my kindle recently I'd have also been wanting to use it for reading too, but having used the kindle itself now I'm sticking with that for the reading side of things.
My current phone contract came up for renewal in August, maybe I'll haggle some 3G deal on an ipad and convert my minimal use phone number to payg or something. But it's certainly not essential and I can wait and see.

 

[306maxi]

I have a Dell laptop, A blackberry curve, a Sony Ericsson Android smartphone and an IPad 2

The IPad makes all the others look very dated and feel clumsy in comparison

I also have an AppleTV and that works brilliantly too

You can resist all you like but the reality is that Apple products are very popular and desirable. Of course there are alternatives and that is a good thing. We need naysayers like you to keep the force in balance

That's because Android is essentially an iPhone clone but without the polish.

You're a hypocrite Rob I seem to remember you making a statement about MINI's summarising by saying that "just because they're more popular doesn't mean they're better"

I'm not resisting at all. I simply don't see the point (for me) in such an outlay on a device which has funtionality which is duplicated in other devices that I already have. The only thing that an iPad would add for me is to have a big screen. 499 squid + a monthly fee for the 3g just to have a big screen mobile browsing device seems a bit bonkers. My TV has Samsung's Smart TV functionality so does everything that Apple TV does, but for only only £30 or so on top of the price of the dumb version of my TV One less device to have in the loungeroom also.

 

[RobinPJ]

A little under a year later and most nights at about 8pm the wife will be found sitting up in bed with a cup of tea on the bedside table and her electrical gadget in both hands.

 

[smart examiner]

I think it is an age thing.The younger you are,the more you are happy with internet DVD handbooks,but us oldies prefer a handbook in paper form. I hope other car makers will still give paper hand books.Also i like to keep mine when i sell the car as a keep sake.
At least Fiat still gives a Spare wheel and a temp dial on the dash,unlike more and more car makers these days who do not give a spare wheel and no temp dial,but a giant size fuel dial instead.
I have recently bought a Sat Nav and this only came with a start up leaflet that just shows pictures. You have to attach the unit to the PC to download the full guide,which i have done.However now when i turn my PC on,it goes straight to the Sat nav (Tom) page.Wish i knew how to stop that happening.