perpetual3

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perpetual3
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  • Bloomberg obsessed with Google's Pixel, Apple's iPhone Supply Chain -- but not Google's Pi...

    gatorguy said:
    gatorguy said:
    I think Google influences the media quite a bit.  This was covered in the news awhile back.  

    I also agree that Apple stock is manipulated.  I can’t prove it, but the pattern has been happening for awhile now.  
    "A bit". Biasing searches is known techique.
    Yes biased searches would be a known technique, but I don't think there any evidence for Google promoting negative Apple stories and downplaying stories about their own perceived product fails...
    But if ya got 'em post 'em. 

    IMHO Apple is more than capable with their own marketing, much of it free. Tooting their own horn is not something Apple fails at. 

    https://gizmodo.com/yes-google-uses-its-power-to-quash-ideas-it-doesn-t-li-1798646437
    Ah, there is that one! Thanks for the reminder.

    I assume you read the link (widely reported and easy to find with a Google search BTW) and the reason the author states Google wanted the story removed by Forbes. It was not because it was a negative story about them, heck plenty of those out there regularly surfaced with a Google Search. Her article relied on a meeting covered by a confidentiality agreement with the publication, something not even the writer disputes. If Google wanted to quash her follow-up claims of wrongdoing and coverup and unfair pressure applied, which would be the far bigger story than a +1 button, they're doing an awful job of it with plenty of search results for anyone looking for it... via a Google search. 
    :)
    Google is a monopoly wielding enormous power.  Here is the link to the NYT article described in the first few paragraphs of the story I originally linked to: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-google-new-america.html?_r=0

    Here are the excerpts from the Gizmodo article I focus on:
     

    After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.”

    ...

    After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.”

    ...

     I was told by my higher-ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News.

    ...


    the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all.”

    ...

    Deliberately manipulating search results to eliminate references to a story that Google doesn’t like would be an extraordinary, almost dystopian abuse of the company’s power over information on the internet. I don’t have any hard evidence to prove that that’s what Google did in this instance, but it’s part of why this episode has haunted me for years: The story Google didn’t want people to read swiftly became impossible to find through Google.”

    If the meeting was confidential, why didn’t they are the journalist sign and NDA or CA before or after the meeting especially after she identified herself as a journalist?  Why didn’t the public relations team and press office tell her not to publish the article?  Why didn’t Forbes tell her the reason it was taken down was because of the NDA in the first place?

    My stance is to always scrutinize those who wield power. Google wields tremendous power and influence over the media, more than Apple. If you want to take their word for it, that’s your prerogative.  

    But Google also wields enormous power and influence within the US government. It’s called regulatory capture:

    But it is in the area of “regulatory capture” that Google has really excelled. Regulatory capture, according to Nobel laureate George Stigler, is the process by which regulatory agencies eventually come to be dominated by the very industries they were charged with regulating. Putting aside the fact that Google chairman Eric Schmidt has visited the Obama White House more than any other corporate executive in America and that Google chief lobbyist Katherine Oyama was associate counsel to Vice President Joe Biden, the list of highly placed Googlers in the federal government is truly mind-boggling. • The US chief technology officer and one of her deputies are former Google employees. • The acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division is a former antitrust attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Silicon Valley firm that represented Google. • The White House’s chief digital officer is a former Google employee. • One of the top assistants to the chairman of the FCC is a former Google employee and another ran a public lobbying firm funded in part by Google. • The director of United States Digital Service, responsible for fixing and maintaining Healthcare.gov, is a former Google employee. • The director of the US Patent and Trademark Office is the former head of patents at Google. And of course the revolving door goes both in and out of the government, as the Google Transparency Project (an independent watchdog report) clearly stated. • There have been fifty-three revolving-door moves between Google and the White House. • Those moves involved twenty-two former White House officials who left the administration to work for Google and thirty-one Google executives (or executives from Google’s main outside firms) who joined the White House or were appointed to federal advisory boards. • There have been twenty-eight revolving-door moves between Google and government that involve national security, intelligence, or the Department of Defense. Seven former national security and intelligence officials and eighteen Pentagon officials moved to Google, while three Google executives moved to the Defense Department. • There have been twenty-three revolving-door moves between Google and the State Department during the Obama administration. Eighteen former State Department officials joined Google, while five Google officials took up senior posts at the State Department. • There have been nine moves between either Google or its outside lobbying firms and the Federal Communications Commission, which handles a growing number of regulatory matters that have a major impact on the company’s bottom line. Here one can sense that Google has a type of insurance policy: at key agencies such as the FCC, the Office of Management and Budget, the patent office, and the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Google will always have a seat at the table and be able to access critical intelligence if its interests are threatened.” - Move Fast, Break Things, Johnathan Taplin
    loquiturtmayMuntzwatto_cobra
  • Tim Cook says Apple won't merge Mac and iPad

    Step 1: Build a strawman and light it on fire: "We will never merge the two if doing so would mean compromises."

    In other words, "We are in the process of merging the two." Putting an ARM chip in the macs and running the OS on the ARM isn't the same as merging, I suppose...
    That’s not what he said at all, and placing quotes around your claims to attribute them to Tim Cook is misleading at best and deceptive at worst. 
    randominternetpersonSolirobin huberasdasdmwhiteStrangeDaysGG1chasmmattinozRayz2016
  • Tim Cook says Apple won't merge Mac and iPad

    Apple is really starting to bother me.  First, Mac updates simply do not happen with enough frequency - regardless of the product. Second, Tim Cook's "Upgrade Fun House", to get a 1TB SSD or more ram is DEFINITELY NOT how I want to buy a computer.  And now, making a "MacPad" (an iPad that can run macOS) seems like low hanging fruit, but Apple doesn't want to do it.  Apple used to enter existing product categories, innovate them, and be more successful than those that created them.  Now .. they have a CEO touting the benefits of "staying in lanes."   Apple ... You've become a boring company. 
    I strongly disagree. Tailoring the OS to the device and corresponding Use case is a better approach.  And I believe Apple is far from boring.  The integration between the Mac, iPhone, iPad, watch, and AirPods, while not perfect, is exceptionally executed, to the point where the market cannot generate a competitive alternative.  For me, so well executed that I don’t even think of looking for alternatives.  

    The engineering and quality of the hardware is still second to none.  Take the iPhone X. Not only did Apple raise the bar for OLED displays, in order to achieve the near bezeless design, they had to employ a difficult and expensive technique of folding the edges of the display that other manufactures won’t do because it is too expensive.   This is the kind of innovation that is invisible to naked eye, and one that can’t be evaluated using crude, third party device breakdowns.  

    Moreso, consider their innovations in machine learning.   While other companies rely on cloud computing to provide services, monetizing your data and thereby yourself in the process, Apple figures out how to do it using on device processors. I suspect this is also due to the extremely tight integration of hardware and OS that everybody seems to be taking for granted nowadays.  Privacy is hot topic, yet no one wants to acknowledge Apple’s achievement.  

    I could go on and on.  Is Apple perfect? Absolutely not.  But they are way ahead of the field in many respects.  
    urashidSolimwhiteasdasdStrangeDaysprairiewalkertmaybkkcanuckRayz2016spheric
  • Probable 'iPhone SE 2' exposed by European regulatory agency

    It is about time!  I am hoping for a flagship SE-2 instead of a budget model that has two year old or later components inside of it and it called "new"!  It a joke to many buyers of the SE because many buyers can easily afford to buy a Mac Pro on impulse if they wanted one with thinking about how much it costs!
    The SE is the smallest iPhone and a cheap entry into the iOS ecosystem.  I know many who have absolutely no desire for more features than the SE’s. It is/was a perfect product for many people.  
    airnerdrhinotuffracerhomie3seanismorrismike1kirkgraybaconstanglkallianceaylk
  • Apple iPhone surges 16 percent in US in spite of market's overall decline

    People don’t make as much money in Europe in the US, and they pay more money in taxes, in exchange for education, health care, and retirement.  In the South if France (Nice), the average dual family income is €2000 per month.  So, I’m not surprised if iPhones are not as popular as cheaper androids. 


    However, I lived in Monaco, and travelled frequently to Paris and Amsterdam.  In those cities I can’t say I saw any less iPhones than in the Cincinnati, OH (where I am currently living). Certainly in some situations, I only saw iPhone.

     In My opinion, iPhone is definitely a status symbol in Europe.  A luxury good. In the States, most freshman college students have iPhones.   
    h2pwatto_cobra
  • Bloomberg obsessed with Google's Pixel, Apple's iPhone Supply Chain -- but not Google's Pi...

    I think Google influences the media quite a bit.  This was covered in the news awhile back.  

    I also agree that Apple stock is manipulated.  I can’t prove it, but the pattern has been happening for awhile now.  
    olsMuntzlolliverwatto_cobra
  • New Samsung ad takes shot at Apple over iPhone X notch, battery throttling controversy

    I guess Samsung’s ad showcasing their ARemoji or whatever joke of a response to Animoji hasn’t worked out for them.  

    Samsung has nothing to work with.  

    Android phones have cloned the notch in droves.  

    People who would switch due to the battery issue would have done so already, no need for an ad to remind them.  


    radarthekatbshankwatto_cobra
  • New Samsung ad takes shot at Apple over iPhone X notch, battery throttling controversy

    Avieshek said:
    lkrupp said:
    And the really funny thing is this shit hasn’t had one iota of effect on Apple sales or customer satisfaction.
    It will. Even water bend rocks.
    Going with your metaphor, you’ll be long gone before that happens then.  

    Seriously, what evidence do you have?
    bshankwatto_cobra
  • Bogus hot takes about low iPhone X demand being repeated about iPhone XS

    bluefire1 said:
    I just checked the Apple Store app. It says I can pick up a gold 512 GB XS Max at my local Apple store on Sept 21 if I order it now. That’s really odd seeing how whenever I pre ordered iPhones in the past, if I didn’t order right at midnight on pre sale day, I’d be waiting about a month.
    None of the Apple Stores in my area have any of the 512 GB Xs Max available for pick up on Sept 21. There are a lot of Apple Stores in my area. 
    I guess availability is spotty. No matter what, I’m sure these phones will be a huge hit, as always. I gotta say though, that new gold color is gorgeous. 
    Only with a crystal clear case will the beauty of the gold iPhone shine through.
    The problem with clear cases is they always end up turning yellow. I have yet to find one that doesn't do that. 
    I’ve had the caudabe clear case on the X since release last year and it is not yellow at all.  Check it out.  It’s thin, and pretty durable and protective. - dropped on concrete a few times.  No, I don’t work for them.  
    watto_cobra