Standing in line for a new toy.... WHY?

[J N Winkler]

I guess I'm at odds with most of you guys here. I like to have the "latest and greatest" because there are improvements under the hood that make all the difference.

For hardware that is generally true--you can expect gross increases not just in memory and speed, but also upgraded design of certain components, such as LED instead of LCD backlights.  But for software this is not necessarily the case.

Take Adobe's PDF standard, which has been a convenient form of E-paper since the late 1990's.  PDF files used to be uncomplicated, with essentially just one document stream (a composite of formatted text and images) per PDF file, with provision for internal navigation through bookmarks.  Now PDFs can be "nested" in PDF portfolios, which are very slow to load even in the latest version of the Acrobat software, and are hard to navigate in comparison to using bookmarks.  Adobe has also introduced the concept of a layered PDF, which is supposed to be a transparent implementation of CAD file layers.  Layered PDFs are used quite routinely for state DOT construction plans sets these days and are often so slow to load that you can easily sit at your computer for five minutes, thinking Acrobat has crashed, before a page displays.

[Alps]

No cell phone is worth waiting in the rain.  I don't care if it has apps to cook you dinner and 'make you happy' later, it's still not worth it.

False.

[Molandfreak]

No cell phone is worth waiting in the rain.  I don't care if it has apps to cook you dinner and 'make you happy' later, it's still not worth it.

False.

Care to explain further reasoning?

[Alps]

No cell phone is worth waiting in the rain.  I don't care if it has apps to cook you dinner and 'make you happy' later, it's still not worth it.

False.

Care to explain further reasoning?

If something can cook dinner for me and "make me happy" just by pressing a button, that's worth running a Spartan race in the Arctic winter wearing a Speedo.

[formulanone]

No cell phone is worth waiting in the rain.  I don't care if it has apps to cook you dinner and 'make you happy' later, it's still not worth it.

False.

Care to explain further reasoning?

Dating.

[Bruce]

I still don't really get people who wait in line at the Apple Store when you can get same-day delivery on launch day from their website with a simple pre-order.

Also, these devices are hyped up enough (especially by the tech community, my favorites are The Verge and Android Police) that you will see the device and have to wait months for an announcement/release. Case in point, from early July

The software can also go through some pretty major upgrades, looking at this timeline of Android's progression with each major version coming every six months.

[kj3400]

No cell phone is worth waiting in the rain.  I don't care if it has apps to cook you dinner and 'make you happy' later, it's still not worth it.

False.

Care to explain further reasoning?

Dating.

People aren't cell phones.

[dfwtbear]

I still don't really get people who wait in line at the Apple Store when you can get same-day delivery on launch day from their website with a simple pre-order.

Apple did not do pre-orders for the new iPhone 5S

[agentsteel53]

"make me happy" just by pressing a button

didn't they try that once with rats and cocaine?

[Brandon]

"make me happy" just by pressing a button

didn't they try that once with rats and cocaine?

Yeah.  It didn't turn out too well for the rats, IIRC.

[agentsteel53]

"make me happy" just by pressing a button

didn't they try that once with rats and cocaine?

Yeah.  It didn't turn out too well for the rats, IIRC.

or the cocaine.

from one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books:

"it's very unpleasant, like being drunk."
"what's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"ask a glass of water."