baka-dubbs

I think people are missing the point of a "Hot Take".  A hot take sets out to be "deliberatively provocative or sensational".  IE, the whole thing is to get fanboys arguing one way or the other, which apparently mission accomplished...

AppleInsider said:

To go with its passable facial recognition, the S10e also has a built-in ultrasonic fingerprint sensor in-screen. The fingerprint sensor is more secure than Samsung's facial recognition, but it too was fooled with a quick 3D printed fingerprint. That's not something everyone is going to have as a resource, so it should be good enough for most users.

I am pretty sure the S10e doesn't have an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor in-screen, the scanner is built into the power button.  I believe only the S10 and the plus/max/big version have the fingerprint sensor built into the screen.

lkrupp said:

How often does it have to be repeated that ‘cherrypicking' and ‘crowing’ is for spec monkeys and benchmark junkies that populate tech blogs. But interesting that AMD chose Apple Silicon instead of Intel to attempt to smear, a la Samsung. At least we know Apple Silicon has everyone’s attention now, don’t we.

They compared themselves to both Intel and Apple, specifically the 1280P from Intel and both the M1 Pro in Cinebench and the M2 for the AI engine performance.  And yeah, I think its a sign of respect for Apple Silicon that they are being compared, Apple has big head start in leveraging AI in desktop hardware.

Every company cherry picks at their presentations to highlight their performance advantages.   Apple, Intel, Qualcomm and AMD all do this.  The article mentions(strangely) that they don't compare themselves to the M1 Pro Max or the M1 Ultra.  This is because the 7040 is not in the same pricing category(and the Ultra is a desktop chip...).  The 7040 is not their high end chip, its a thin and light chip.  They have a separate Dragon Range chip for high performance laptops that is a 16 core Zen 4 chip that runs at a much higher TDP.  And obviously the M1 Ultra should more rightfully be compared the desktop 7950x or a Threadripper chip, especially when factoring in costs.

MicroLED isn't some magic technology.  Its main advantages have always been higher brightness and no(far less) risk of degradation over time.  On the flip side, OLED is a pretty mature technology.  MicroLED offered more accurate colors originally, due to WOLED require a white pixel to boost the brightness, however Samsung's QD OLED no longer requires that, and is offered currently in a TV that has 2k nits of brightness.  So the brightness advantage is minimized, and the fact that QD OLED uses only a blue backlight with quantum dots to transform them into RGB, it supposedly reduces burn in risk(take that with a grain of salt, we will see over time).  

I think Apple will use whatever the best technology they can get at a high volume at a specified price level.  MicroLED continues to improve, but at least with Samsung's version is still power hungry and produces a lot of heat, both of which are not good for a portable device.  And OLED continues to improve each year.

addison huy said:

I believe that only free AirPods Pro would be a good option, the under screen finger print sensor does not seem nearly as good as Face ID. I have a work phone that has a under screen finger print reader and I dislike it strongly. Face ID on my iPhone works way better. 

I loved face id, right until the pandemic hit.  Then having to type my passcode in when i was in the office/public became highly annoying.  I would love to see touch id reimplemented in future iphones, either through the power button like the ipads or through an under screen scanner.  I still love face id, but the last couple of years have shown me its good to have multiple options. 

So apparently the author doesn't see the value in third party validation and that we should just always trust what a company says...  While not scientific, Zach from JerryRigEverything normally does a good of validating screen hardness, testing materials coatings, and doing basic tear downs so you can see water proofing, ease of disassembly, etc.  Not sure why the author seems to have taken this so personally.

Draco said:

If carbon-neutral sources were more economical than "renewables" like wind and solar, we'd be using them already, and China wouldn't be building 7 new coal plants every week. The only way renewables can compete is if carbon taxes or other government "thumb on the scale" schemes are put in place to shift the economics of fossil fuels. "Climate change" is a false externality created by those who've been trying to get rid of fossil fuels for as long as I can remember--which is almost 60 years. 

So Draco, if you think "Climate Change" is false, sight your resources, or are you a "feelings over facts" person?  I would love to see some peer reviewed scientific studies showing this falsehood.  When oil companies own scientists showed the impact the fossil fuel economy had on the environment, they buried the research.  We know from core sampling that prior to 1911 the atmospheric carbon dioxide regularly fluctuated between 180-280 ppm, but was never greater than 300 parts per million.  We have been above that since the early 1900's and are now over 420 ppm.  We can measure the melting of the global ice sheets, the average temperature world wide, the ocean temperature, the migration of species farther north, etc.  So if you happen to have evidence refuting any of these, please do present it.  I would love to read it.  Otherwise, I am assuming your just burying your head in the sand and ignoring the obvious changes.  

I don't think gaming is anyone's primary(or even secondary) reason for buying a Mac.  However, with the M1/M2 chips, I feel like this is where not supporting Vulkan/OpenGL is a lost opportunity.  Proton utilizing direct 3d to Vulkan conversion is enabling games on a fairly underpowered hand held in the steam deck.  It sounds like this is what Apple is attempting to with their Metal conversion tool, however Proton has the support of both Valve and the open source community.  There is no reason the M series chips couldn't run most triple a games at lower settings(or mid range settings on the higher end versions).

I still see the potential of a future AppleTV device where it would work as a game console if they make the game conversion easy, but Apple would need to be very aggressive in courting developers as well as building out communication and communities like Steam, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live have.  I just haven't seen a long term commitment from Apple when it comes to gaming, outside of the Appstore and mobile games.    

racerhomie3 said:

The EU is out of its mind! They are trying to regulate American innovation with their policies 

We have reached this crazy point in America where people think all regulation is bad and companies must have your best interest at heart, cause that's how capitalisms works.  They would never us deceptive practices, unsafe products, or any number of immoral decisions in order to make just a little more money...

I have passed down multiple iPads to my parents/brother, both are still in use.  I'm currently on the newest mini, but hoping we get an updated mini with M2(or mini pro with M4), just to be able to dock it and use it for productivity.  I already do this on rare occasions, but I think stage manager is going to keep getting improvements as more and more apps are offering a full experience on iPad OS, and the mini sadly doesn't support it.