badmonk

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badmonk
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  • End of an era: Apple's SuperDrive has finally sold out after 16 years

    We have one of the first ones made.   It refuses to die and continues to work with my wife’s first gen Mac Studio like a charm.
    jdwbaconstangwatto_cobralotonesbandits1
  • Tim Cook rumored to be meeting with Donald Trump for dinner on Friday

    So the UK isn't in Europe any more? News to me!
    Not since Brexit.
    nubusdavfred1watto_cobra
  • TSMC's Arizona chip plant nears Apple approval, but will never rival Taiwan

    In TSMC’s principal chip manufacturing complex in Taiwan, new PhD(!) chip engineers work the night shift.  People do not understand the scale and complexity of these operations.
    ForumPostronnwatto_cobra
  • iPhone buyers worldwide may see higher prices because of Trump's tariffs

    Actually the absurdity of this is that the final assembly of an iPhone has little value.  I have read analyses that put this at much less than 10% (maybe as low as 5%) of the final value of the phone.  Most of the value of the phone are in the components that can only be sourced by a very few manufacturers, usually located in Asia (it’s called high tech manufacturing for a reason).  iPhone assembly is not going to be a middle class single wage earner job (unless you want to engage in a soviet-style jobs program). And note these phones will not be able to be sold outside the USA because they will be too expensive, so again it will be an expensive jobs program.

    The question is whether Americans want to do this work in enough numbers and whether this investment makes sense.  Apple makes 600 thousand phones a day and they are made largely by hand.  Not to mention around a 1/3 of equipment needed to make a factory will need to be imported and hence subjected to tariffs.  Not to mention the personnel needed to get a factory up and running will need to be imported.  The Trump administration is too ideologically blinded to make this happen in a cost effective intelligent fashion.

    Tariffing Apple is a tax on an American company that will lead to higher prices, lay-offs and make our country poorer.  And repeat the same for every American company taxed as a result.  Shooting the legs off the American economy is not going to lower our debt.  Honestly, congress should take the power of tariffs out of Trump’s hands.  Or impeach him.

    And the fact that the source of the tariff was not some intellectual stance but because Tim Cook didn’t go to the middle east for a circle jerk is galling.
    londorsportyguy209dewmesconosciutoBart Ywatto_cobra
  • Apple's macOS 15 to get rare cognitive boost via Project GreyParrot

    The lack of RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) is still a glaring lack in a technical calculator or are Zoomers unaware that this form of calculator even exists?

    Just asking ?s here.

    Personally I use Retro15C…greatest calculator app ever.
    williamlondon
  • Senator Warren asks if Apple CEO Tim Cook's Trump playbook is blatant corruption

    This was not corruption.  Tim Cook was executing his fiduciary responsibilities to Apple as a publicly traded company (and I should add to the benefit of America and its economy) to stop the madness of this economic policy.

    Even if one agrees with the need to rebalance trade with China, Liberation Day was poorly executed and only brought more harm to the US than benefit.

    Agree with others here, Warren needs a new playbook.  

    Corporate America is not always evil.  Everyone that has a retirement plan had a stake in making this policy get moderated.  Unfortunately long-lasting harm occurred with stocks, the bond market and the dollar dropping simultaneously.  Other countries learned not to depend on us or trust us for the longterm.
    rob539secondkox2iOS_Guy80tiredskillsjibbaconstangdewmeForumPostspliff monkeywatto_cobra
  • Apple is working on a 'lifelike' robot lamp, and it's just as cute as you'd expect

    OK, watched the video.  I now get it.  I want one.  Do I need one?  No, but rather this than a Tesla creepazoid humanoid spy wandering around my house.
    goodbyeranchdarbus69Alex1Nmattinozbyronl
  • Trump trade admin calls Apple's China ties a 'Silicon Valley soap opera'

    I have seen analysis in the FT that the manufacturing value of final iPhone assembly is about 5% of the total cost of an iPhone.  The idea of jacking this up to 25-40% of the cost of the iPhone for a PR stunt is magical thinking.  Apple makes 500-600K phones per day and people like Navarro and Nutlick don’t understand scale.

    These people are clowns.  And if assembly is automated, it won’t give jobs to JD’s relatives or really much to anyone who doesn’t have a college degree.  It will be robotic engineers and technicians.   And there are just not enough of them.
    9secondkox2dewmetiredskillstht
  • 'Alien: Earth' immersive environment coming to Disney+ for Apple Vision Pro

    For the life of me, I don’t understand why the AppleTV franchise isn’t doing this.  It makes no sense that Apple refuses to make content for its own device—gaming, sporting events, TV should all be supporting the device while it gets its wings.
    ForumPostrobin huberwilliamlondon
  • Siri in iOS 18.4 is getting worse before it gets better

    I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t have a seperate in house competing voice assistant to Siri in development.  Much like Jobs had competing PC teams back in the day.  Apple has resources to fund a Siri competitor in house.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra