the.bear

Sigh. Why assume that every move that everyone makes is in response to something that Apple does or may do?

Ask yourself. Is Microsoft competing with some future Siri speaker product that Apple may or may not release? Are they competing with the few million Apple TVs that Apple pushes a year that Apple may or may not add Siri to? Or are they trying to compete with Nintendo and Sony in the video game console market like they have been for nearly 20 years?

Look, the next Nintendo console is being delayed to add VR capability. You can be certain that the next Playstation will integrate with Android Daydream VR also. How does Microsoft fight back? Making sure that the next XBox - or XBox refresh - supports both their HoloLens VR platform, which Sony and Nintendo can compete with ... and the digital assistant/AI app that Sony and Nintendo cannot.

But sure, go ahead and think that Microsoft is trying to grab a slice of that booming 3 million units a year smart speaker market from Amazon, Google and Apple instead of being primarily concerned with the long existing competition in one of their long existing product lines. Wow ... step into a place where a product that one company may or may not ever introduce and may or may not commercially succeed if they do is more important than a business that a company has been in for nearly 20 years. And that place, that wondrous realm, is called ... the Twilight Zone!

But then again, I guess that you can perhaps say that Microsoft was following Apple when they created the XBox in the first place because Apple had the Pippin gaming system first. Right?

ireland said:

the.bear said:

Hmmm. Do you remember the hateful things that were said about Jerry Falwell, Nancy Reagan and Margaret Thatcher when they died? When famous conservatives die, liberals attack them. When famous liberals and famous nonwhites die, conservatives attack them.

The people who are attacking Muhammad Ali right now aren't factually wrong, of course. But all of them would get very angry if people were just as "honest" about John Wayne.

I don't get why you bring politics into it? I'm up for talking about anyone who's being idolised and examining them when they are put on a pedestal. John Wayne was a coward, Obama is a coward, I don't care what party they are in.

Go look at reply 3, which is where this thread went sideways. Then there was post 11, where someone actually called recognizing a prominent figure "PC." So I stated what was going on, and why it was going on. And incidentally, your bringing up Obama - who has nothing to do with this thread - and then decrying politics is classic.

bestkeptsecret said:

Yet again, execution is lacking. Come up with a cool concept, but fumble at execution to get the privilege of saying "first!".

It says 1.5 hours if you stream music from your phone, or 3.5 hours if you copy music onto its RAM. So that begs the question, what happens when the health/ fitness functionality is turned on? Will it last 30 minutes?

Suddenly, for a heart-rate monitor, step and calorie counter that plays music, with the added bonus of notifications, the Apple Watch's 16 hours is not too shabby, right?

You do realize that Samsung sells A LOT of products that have nothing to do with Apple, right? Samsung has a whole line of fitness, wearables, smart home and IoT products, all on Tizen. The only products that Samsung directly competes with Apple on are phones, tablets and smart watches. The latter of which Samsung had a product out 3 years before Apple did and has a bunch of features that the Apple Watch does not have like 3G and GPS, and still has better battery life. They also have a fitness tracker (though with a small watch type display that runs apps) to compete more directly with the likes of Fitbit and Garmin, a device that Apple does not have and likely will never release. Samsung's goal is to eventually gain an IoT ecosystem based on Tizen that is big and profitable enough to allow them to switch their smartphones from Android to Tizen also. Android devices from other manufacturers will not be compatible with Samsung's Tizen devices, so if you want compatibility with all of your Samsung smart home and health gear, you will have no choice but to switch from Android to Tizen. They already have an SDK that allows developers to convert Android apps to Tizen apps. So they would have released this gadget whether Apple would have or not, and plan to release a bunch of products that Apple never will (i.e. Android-based smart printers).

Apple and Samsung are two totally different companies with different business strategies, goals and customer bases. They only happen to overlap in a few product lines because Samsung tries to enter almost every area in consumer electronics and appliances, even if it isn't "high tech". Samsung was no more thinking about Apple when they made this device than they do when they make their next streaming DVD player or smart TV.

ncil49 said:

9secondkox2 said:

No he's not. 

Ali was racist. There is no dispute. But he wasn't in your face about it. 

There the was nothing good about Nation of Islam either. 

And cheating on your wife is bad. Ali did that too. 

As as a person, everything be has good and bad. Ali had a lot of his good and bad known because he was a public figure. 

To to me he was a man fortunate to make a name for himself and a lot of money in sports. I can't think of anything he did to actually help people at large. 

But it he was larger than life, was not free funny and provided people with tremendous entertainment. 

Hes left behind a family, some of whom ARE trying to help people at large and 

hes he's now gone. And it's polite to pay respect. But he was simply a man, faults and all. No reason to pretend otherwise. 

That said, I see no reason for anyone to point out his faults at this time as its very sensitive to his family and loved ones. No more than we'd like folks to do it to our family members when they pass on. 

I point it out only because I believe most people see only one side and never look for another 

Unless you are evenhanded and do this both to people that you admire and support and to people that you dislike then you are pretty much what your accusers say you are. I agree that a lot of the people who are sweeping Ali's failures under the rug are quick to point out the flaws of public figures that they disagree with. I am merely stating that you are no better than those that you accuse.

ericthehalfbee said:

Samsung Pay gets $500 million in 6 months and it's a success.

Apple Pay gets $11 billion in 12 months (11 times Samsung Pay) and it's a disaster. 

And who calls Samsung Pay a success? Provide a single link that claims it to be so. Especially since people with Samsung devices are far more likely to use Android Pay - who has been adding 1.5 million new users a month in the U.S. - than Samsung Pay. Samsung Pay is actually pretty good from the hardware perspective because of their acquisition of Loop Pay and integrating it into their devices. But it still represents yet another failed attempt on their part to compete with Google on software and services.

VisualSeed said:

Apple Pay is a feature of the Apple ecosystem and not product or service onto itself at the moment. Apple wouldn't need to make any revenue at it as long as it drove users to its products all would be good. 

Apple Pay was originally intended to be a key part of Apple's big push to lure Android (more specifically Samsung Galaxy) users away. It didn't work because so few retailers supported NFC payments that Apple Pay was never able to become a real differentiator in ways that most iPhone owners regularly use their devices. Apple made a huge error. Instead of working with retailers to implement a solution that would be in their interests, Apple thought that they could side with the banks and pressure the retailers, which totally backfired. Apple treated the retailers as if they were, well, companies like Apple, who enjoys both high margins and heavy brand loyalty. Instead, large retail chains operate at very low margins, with lots of individual stores actually being operated at a loss to retain market share. Also, their consumers have absolutely no brand loyalty, but will instead just patronize who offers the most convenience or best deal. So, it is very much in the interests of those chains to avoid credit card fees wherever possible, to collect consumer data that can be used by analytics to create micro-campaigns to target shoppers, and to maintain rewards/loyalty programs to drive as much repeat business as possible.

Another problem: Apple underestimated how quickly Google and Samsung would be willing and able to respond. First, Google had absolutely no pride in the product that they had introduced with much fanfare and worked hard to promote since 2011 and instead dropped Google Wallet like a soiled nakpkin, and Samsung did the same with their even less successful Google Wallet competitor. Instead both made major acquisitions (Softbank by Google, LoopPay by Samsung) and were able to launch competing products with real hardware and software support in less than a year. This was due to Samsung and Google being able to repurpose the infrastructure from their previous mobile payment apps for their new ones and also - along with their suppliers like Qualcomm - had been working on issues like biometrics, encryption and security since Apple launched the iPhone 5s. Had Apple launched Apple Pay with the iPhone 5s instead of the iPhone 6, it would have been nearly 2 years before the Android ecosystem would have been able to respond - just as it took that long to adopt 64 bit hardware, encryption and decent biometrics in flagship and mainstream devices - and Apple would likely have been able to gain a lot more headway with retailers in the interim. Instead, in addition to Android Pay and Samsung Pay, retailers and banks are launching their own mobile payment products that are modeled - and even named - after Apple Pay, fragmenting a space that Apple could have owned had they played their cards differently.