[morlock_man]

If you're using that table as your source, they're not the least evil. But by all means, keep at it. It's really entertaining.

Amplicon doesn't make smartphones, just cordless ones. If you'd read the link below the table, you'd know that.

[qbnkelt]

If you like, you can consider advancements in the component industry to be similar to the development of the cotton gin? Just amounts to a need for an increased slave-base? However, there have never been any riots or suicides reported at a BBRY factory.

I don't own or purchase anything by Nike, I have no diamonds, and most produce I eat is locally sourced... but maybe that's only because I'm cheap, not socially conscious.

As for BBRY phones, consider them the least evil of the bunch:

Attachment 197703


How Evil Is Your Smartphone?

Research each one of those components inside BlackBerry. Research Foxconn's conglomerate and ownership. It is a near certainty that you are using electronics that have their genesis at a Foxconn plant.

If we're discussing ethics, we are discussing ethics in their totality. Is one suicide per product manufactured an acceptable level of lesser evil? Not to the family of the person who has committed suicide. So we now go to a discussion of what is enslavement to a discussion of the degree of enslavement? Evil is evil, there is no degree in it. Therefore you cannot make a case for the evil of one product and the lesser evil of another. If there is to be a moral judgement in the practices of corporations we will have to resort to either accept a level of evil, which is hypocritical, or remove that judgement from the discussion, or apply the same level of ethics to the whole of modern society and mass production. At that point, we would be forced to live off the grid wearing our own homespun eating our own produce and creating out own shelters. Since that is not feasible in the world I live in, I do not force that moral code into my discussion of modern technology.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[Tre Lawrence]

Just to add. Accessories add to this too, I didn't think about them since I don't buy many of those either.

So when apple changed their port. Could people get adaptors for their old accessories or did they have to buy new ones?

Agreed. Accessories, access to content, interoperability, etc.

[morlock_man]

Research each one of those components inside BlackBerry. Research Foxconn's conglomerate and ownership. It is a near certainty that you are using electronics that have their genesis at a Foxconn plant.

If we're discussing ethics, we are discussing ethics in their totality. Is one suicide per product manufactured an acceptable level of lesser evil? Not to the family of the person who has committed suicide. So we now go to a discussion of what is enslavement to a discussion of the degree of enslavement? Evil is evil, there is no degree in it. Therefore you cannot make a case for the evil of one product and the lesser evil of another. If there is to be a moral judgement in the practices of corporations we will have to resort to either accept a level of evil, which is hypocritical, or remove that judgement from the discussion, or apply the same level of ethics to the whole of modern society and mass production. At that point, we would be forced to live off the grid wearing our own homespun eating our own produce and creating out own shelters. Since that is not feasible in the world I live in, I do not force that moral code into my discussion of modern technology.

You'd also be forced to give back all the land you stole from your native population.

[qbnkelt]

You'd also be forced to give back all the land you stole from your native population.

I was born in Bearna, county Galway, Ireland. What land did the Irish people steal in Ireland, and from whom?

You are reaching too far.

And you are taking this conversation down a personal path that I will not follow. Have a good evening.

[morlock_man]

I was born in Bearna, county Galway, Ireland. What land did the Irish people steal in Ireland, and from whom?

You are reaching too far.

And you are taking this conversation down a personal path that I will not follow. Have a good evening.

Ah, I assumed you lived in North America.

Ireland just acts as a tax haven so major corporations can avoid paying any taxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

[amazinglygraceless]

As for BBRY phones, consider them the least evil of the bunch:

Great! now you are assigning evil by degree of evilness. From the article you cited:

If we are judging how ethical a smartphone is based on its treatment of workers, BlackBerry is near the top. Incidentally, RIM's report is surprisingly free of negative human rights indicators: no riots, no illnesses, nothing. The worst things about RIM, according to Ethical Consumer, was its failure to file an environmental report and that it had a factory in a repressive regime, namely China.

RIM has (or used to have) factories in Canada, United States, Hungary, Brazil, Asia, and Mexico, where my BlackBerry says it was made in. After a casual disassembly, the small electronic parts in my phone reveal they come from China or Korea, but further information on exactly where and what factory is hard to find, as RIM is notorious for its lack of transparency. According to a 2009 Bloomberg article, �RIM�s five biggest suppliers account for almost 90 percent of its production costs,� suppliers that operate mostly in China.

[morlock_man]

Great! now you are assigning evil by degree of evilness. From the article you cited:

Sigh... same article:

The 38 page report by Ethical Consumer is extensive, and includes goodies like: Samsung has ties to human rights abuses in the Congo - as does Toshiba, Motorola and Sony - and Sony has raised flags among animals rights groups for abuses including killing a goat at a promotional party. Several female Nokia factory workers in Thailand had to be hospitalized for severe lead poisoning in 2006, after they were told lead wasn’t harmful. Workers had to buy their own protective gear, like gloves and face masks, and were told to drink a carton of milk a day to remove the birth-defect causing toxin from their bodies. (Milk does not, in fact, help you pee out lead.)

According to Ethical Consumer, Apple has been providing unsafe conditions to its overseas factory workers since 2008 and using factories in 10 countries classified as “oppressive regimes” since 2006.

And BBRY only has a factory in 1 oppressive regime and zero workers rights violations on record.

[morlock_man]

Apple investigates new claims of China factory staff mistreatment | Technology | The Guardian

And the fact that Apple doesn't seem interested in fixing the problems just makes their stance worse.

They seems to only be paying lip service to human rights groups while they move on to exploiting the next group of people like a bunch of corporate psychopaths.

[BBThemes]

Sigh... same article:





And BBRY only has a factory in 1 oppressive regime and zero workers rights violations on record.

Err your basing your comments on records from within an oppressive regime?

Pretty certain an oppressive regime would be able to cook the books if it wanted to lmao

Posted via CB10

[morlock_man]

Err your basing your comments on records from within an oppressive regime?

Pretty certain an oppressive regime would be able to cook the books if it wanted to lmao

Posted via CB10

I see.

So when it happens to Apple its just a random occurrence, no harm no foul.

When it doesn't happen to BBRY someone must be lying about where all the bodies are buried.

[BBThemes]

I see.

So when it happens to Apple its just a random occurrence, no harm no foul.

When it doesn't happen to BBRY someone must be lying about where all the bodies are buried.

No, if it was another company I would make the same statement. My comment was based upon the oppressive regime not the company.

So no, is nothing to do BlackBerry or Apple or Google or your local corner shop. But well done for attempting to put words in my mouth.

Posted via CB10

[morlock_man]

No, if it was another company I would make the same statement. My comment was based upon the oppressive regime not the company.

So no, is nothing to do BlackBerry or Apple or Google or your local corner shop. But well done for attempting to put words in my mouth.

So if there's no way to get components if not from China, because they make EVERYTHING nowadays, people should just give up on developing any new hardware? Even if the workers in the Chinese components factories aren't undergoing anywhere near the levels of stress that the Chinese device assembly workers undergo?

Component manufacturing is practically a dream job compared to device assembly. Most component manufacture is done completely by robotics and humans are really only there for quality control.

Is your stance that we should automatically assume China is an evil regime that is torturing its people left, right and center with no regard for human rights or decency?

[sosumi11]

1)expandable memory

Expandable memory (cards) cannot store purchased media and apps due to copyright issues. In other words a useless feature that just takes up space for a slot.

2) universal charging port

Apples proprietary port does a lot more than USB.

3) HDMI out

Bluetooth streaming thru Apple TV makes his another useless port.

4) swappable battery

Batteries using strong battery management are lasting longer and longer, while the space required for a user replaceable battery is huge. This is the trend.Buying spare batteries is the old guard.

File Manager

That can be improved, but Apple has been in the file management business for decades. They will release an iOS file management system when they are ready.

All of your complaints are old school thinking.

The same thinking that put BlackBerry in the situation they are in now.

[morlock_man]

1. Expandable memory (cards) cannot store purchased media and apps due to copyright issues. In other words a useless feature that just takes up space for a slot.

2. Apples proprietary port does a lot more than USB.

3. Bluetooth streaming thru Apple TV makes his another useless port.

4. Batteries using strong battery management are lasting longer and longer, while the space required for a user replaceable battery is huge. This is the trend.Buying spare batteries is the old guard.

5. That can be improved, but Apple has been in the file management business for decades. They will release an iOS file management system when they are ready.

1. An expansion slot that store your music collection and allow you take a million pictures and just keep swapping cards is a useless feature? That's a bit of a stretch.

2. Having to buy new all new hardware or new adapters every time Apple decides to change their port configuration isn't a net benefit to the end user. All your old Apple products aren't compatible with your new Apple products. Does it offer USB hosting capabilities? Their connector strategy doesn't seem to be very intuitive.

3. AirPlay is a wireless format, not a bluetooth one. It's also available as Miracast on Android and is expected to be released with BB10.2. It's also not ideal for every situation. What do you do when there's no AirPlay or Miracast receiving device? When you have to give a presentation and an HDMI port is the only connectivity option?

4. Strong battery management only stretches a battery out so far. Being able to perform a quick swap and instantly be back to full power can mean the difference in terms of getting a job done. What do you do if you're out at a work site and have no immediate access to power? You could plug it into your vehicle and let it charge for a while, but if you're using your phone for work this is lost productivity. You could carry around a power brick to recharge it, but then you're tethered to heavy device. Being able to simply swap a battery is a net benefit to an end user who uses their phone as a tool, not a toy. It also speaks volumes to BBRY's engineering capabilities to be able to put a phone together with the same volume that offers a swappable battery.

5. So they've had 6 years now, but they're still not ready?

[sosumi11]

1. An expansion slot that store your music collection and allow you take a million pictures and just keep swapping cards is a useless feature? That's a bit of a stretch.

On a 128GB device, how many pictures do you really want on it? Plus any media (apps, videos) that is copyrighted cannot be put on the card.

2. Having to buy new all new hardware or new adapters every time Apple decides to change their port configuration isn't a net benefit to the end user. All your old Apple products aren't compatible with your new Apple products. Does it offer USB hosting capabilities? Their connector strategy doesn't seem to be very intuitive.

Unless you have a $300 Bose System in every room, it's pretty much moot.

Besides,this is called progress. Apple's new port is reversible and smaller. USB 3.0 still uses the same interface so devices that have it are limited to those sizes. Apple kept the 30-pin port for about a decade. About the same period that Microsoft refused to upgrade XP and BlackBerry remained dormant. Staying the same is not a good move in tech.

3. AirPlay is a wireless format, not a bluetooth one. It's also available as Miracast on Android and is expected to be released with BB10.2. It's also not ideal for every situation. What do you do when there's no AirPlay or Miracast receiving device? When you have to give a presentation and an HDMI port is the only connectivity option?

Apple TV is the size of a hockey puck and costs under $99. Bring one with you when you travel or need to make a presentation instead of spare batteries. Impress your friends.

4. Strong battery management only stretches a battery out so far. Being able to perform a quick swap and instantly be back to full power can mean the difference in terms of getting a job done. What do you do if you're out at a work site and have no immediate access to power? You could plug it into your vehicle and let it charge for a while, but if you're using your phone for work this is lost productivity. You could carry around a power brick to recharge it, but then you're tethered to heavy device. Being able to simply swap a battery is a net benefit to an end user who uses their phone as a tool, not a toy. It also speaks volumes to BBRY's engineering capabilities to be able to put a phone together with the same volume that offers a swappable battery.

You are creating scenarios that most people don't worry about. If a full charge can last over ten hours (and you have a car), then why the need for an extra battery?The space required to build a user swappable battery is huge. So you are willing to carry a bigger, heavier product for a feature you might use once or twice in a year?

Again you are sticking to decades old thinking and not paying attention to the advancements being made in battery engineering and power management. The power bricks on Apple devices are quite small. Check them out.

5. So they've had 6 years now, but they're still not ready?

OS X is moving more and more toward iOS-like file-less world. In other words, file management is going away and documents will be embedded in each of the app that created it. This is how Apple does it with their iWorks for iOS. Probably the delay is Microsoft Office for iOS. Let's see how Microsoft handles file management there.

Again, you are clinging on to the past and to what makes you comfortable while ignoring the progress that is happening around you.

[morlock_man]

On a 128GB device, how many pictures do you really want on it? Plus any media (apps, videos) that is copyrighted cannot be put on the card.

Sure, if you want to shell out a ton for a 128GB phone. That's out of most people's price range. The rest of us will make do with swappable cards for a while, thank you.

And while you can't put apps on a card, you can certainly put videos on one. And music. And an entire collection roms for emulators. You could have a whole collection of PSX games on one flash card.

Oh wait... you not allowed to install emulators unless you jailbreak your device, right?

Unless you have a $300 Bose System in every room, it's pretty much moot.

Or don't want to add another new wire to the mess when everything else is using microusb.

Besides,this is called progress. Apple's new port is reversible and smaller. USB 3.0 still uses the same interface so devices that have it are limited to those sizes. Apple kept the 30-pin port for about a decade. About the same period that Microsoft refused to upgrade XP and BlackBerry remained dormant. Staying the same is not a good move in tech.

I'm not saying their new port isn't progress, I just don't think they need to thumb their noses at industry and keep reinventing proprietary connectors. I wonder if that woman in China who got electrocuted would have suffered the same fate if her charger had faulted out with the old cables or if it's a peculiarity of the new ones.

Apple TV is the size of a hockey puck and costs under $99. Bring one with you when you travel or need to make a presentation instead of spare batteries. Impress your friends.

Why carry an extra device when my phone has an HDMI port?

You are creating scenarios that most people don't worry about. If a full charge can last over ten hours (and you have a car), then why the need for an extra battery?The space required to build a user swappable battery is huge. So you are willing to carry a bigger, heavier product for a feature you might use once or twice in a year?

It's all based on usage. The average consumer might not be able to kill a battery in half a day, but people who rely on their phones for business sure can, even with advanced power management techniques. It's just an net advantage. There's even the possibility of expandable batteries. And you never have to send the full sealed unit back in if just the battery is faulty, just swap it with a new one.

Again you are sticking to decades old thinking and not paying attention to the advancements being made in battery engineering and power management. The power bricks on Apple devices are quite small. Check them out.

It's still a brick instead of a battery. Even the ones that aren't much bigger than a lighter still require you have something plugged into your phone while you're trying to use it.

OS X is moving more and more toward iOS-like file-less world. In other words, file management is going away and documents will be embedded in each of the app that created it. This is how Apple does it with their iWorks for iOS. Probably the delay is Microsoft Office for iOS. Let's see how Microsoft handles file management there.

No one who takes their work seriously will give up file management.

You're preaching for a walled garden world, which is just mindless. How will people ever learn anything about the technology their using if its completely locked down? Why do you think iOS never completely displaced MS in the business world? Why do you think Linux remains the OS of choice for most sys admins?

You can't just dumb things down and call it progress. That's the road to idiocracy.

[greggebhardt]

It's almost like Apple is parodying itself.

Just remember your words after Blackberry's next ER! It will be very nasty.

[Jerale Hoard]

You are referring to Foxconn. Are you aware that components of BlackBerry devices are manufactured at Foxconn?

But not Foxconn in China. BlackBerry doesn't have any manufacturers in China.

Posted via CB10

[kevinnugent]

But not Foxconn in China. BlackBerry doesn't have any manufacturers in China.

Posted via CB10

You need to take a little look inside your Blackberry one day. You will get a surprise.

[morlock_man]

You need to take a little look inside your Blackberry one day. You will get a surprise.

BBRY has component manufacturers in China, but they don't perform device assembly there.

The human rights issues in regards to China are in regards to the conditions experienced by device assembly technicians, not component manufacturing. Component manufacturing is done most my machines and humans really only perform quality control.

As mentioned before, quality control for component manufacturing is a dream job compared to device assembly.

[kbz1960]

Expandable memory (cards) cannot store purchased media and apps due to copyright issues. In other words a useless feature that just takes up space for a slot.


Apples proprietary port does a lot more than USB.




Bluetooth streaming thru Apple TV makes his another useless port.




Batteries using strong battery management are lasting longer and longer, while the space required for a user replaceable battery is huge. This is the trend.Buying spare batteries is the old guard.



That can be improved, but Apple has been in the file management business for decades. They will release an iOS file management system when they are ready.

All of your complaints are old school thinking.

The same thinking that put BlackBerry in the situation they are in now.

Wow so now expandable space is a bad thing? The rest, OK. But expandable space is a bad thing? Apple really has you on that one.

[morlock_man]

Wow so now expandable space is a bad thing? The rest, OK. But expandable space is a bad thing? Apple really has you on that one.

Shhhh... he's stuck in the Job's Reality Distortion Field.

[kevinnugent]

BBRY has component manufacturers in China, but they don't perform device assembly there.

The human rights issues in regards to China are in regards to the conditions experienced by device assembly technicians, not component manufacturing. Component manufacturing is done most my machines and humans really only perform quality control.

As mentioned before, quality control for component manufacturing is a dream job compared to device assembly.

Splitting hairs much?

[morlock_man]

Splitting hairs much?

Not at all. All the stress is on the machine. If a component fails QA its because something in the production process is out of whack, not that the employee couldn't assemble a device with sub-millimeter alignment requirements for 16 hours straight.