DavidAlGregory

There is no news here for anyone who follows AT&T. The wireless company is non-union and the legacy Baby Bells are mostly CWA Union members. What is today called AT&T is the old Southwestern Bell Telephone operating company that bought up Ameritech, PacTel, Bell South and the old long distance unit of the original AT&T. The wireless operations used to be Cingular Wireless and is a non union company. The old Union companies have been a shrinking ice cube for years and the largely non-union parts have been where the growth exist.

AT&T’s CEO worked his way up from the bottom and has implemented a very generous educational program for employees to train up and get the skills necessary to get the jobs that are growing as the legacy ones die off. Many of the CWA members have been fighting this transition for years and oppose the system- not wanting to take non-union positions elsewhere in the company. The copper wire company is dying and the CWA is acting like it is 1979.

AT&T has been selling off small town phone systems and keeping the ones in more densely populated areas. AT&T Fiber is building out in the old copper wire company’s rights of way. If we could see a show of hands you will find out few people have a land line phone from AT&T, so not many people are required to maintain it. On the DIRECTV side, most new installations are done by contractors and many customers will eventually move over to DIRECTVNOW which is online self service and web based. With no end user equipment.

The CWA members fighting this are like buggy whip makers at the dawn of the car age- their trade is falling out of favor and they need to adapt. AT&T is not the bad guy here, these people go through annual reviews where options are discussed, long term job prospects reviewed and choices are made. AT&T has made a great effort to allow employees to adapt to the changing business, and many want to stay in their CWA Union positions rather than change with the company.

Despite the angle being promoted here, this has nothing to do with Trump or the GOP Tax Bill. This about a big legacy company integrating acquisitions and adapting to changes in the business. They have no place for those not willing to change with the company.

AppleInsider said:

Despite some media reports, the Arizona tragedy is not the first-ever death involving self-driving car technology. A Tesla driver, Joshua Brown, was killed while testing Tesla's autopilot mode in July 2016.

That is not exactly the truth of the matter.
Tesla did not market Autopilot as driverless technology, listed it as a work in progress and plainly stated that the drivers should remain engaged with the controls and aware of the traffic at all times.

The man who was killed was disregarding all of the instructions given by Tesla and was clowning with a cell phone when he died. He was the author of his own demise as he operated the car in a manner other than what was described by Tesla.

Autopilot at that time should be described as a driver assistant and in beta. It was not marketed as a driverless technology ready for autonomous operation.

As someone who used to own Tesla shares I have followed this company and I would suggest a retraction of the quoted passage is in order. Mr Brown died not following the clear instructions provided by the company that made and marketed the car.

nitewing98 said:

The fact that they announced so far ahead probably reflects the fact that Mac Pro sales are so bad that they want to assure Pro users that they know there's a problem and they are working on it. They're trying to head off losing those users to Windows PC's. 
I wish they would breathe some life back into the mini while they're at it. 

Elvis has left the Building in Video. The tragic combination of iMovie Pro X ( d.b.a. FCPX) and the trashcan sent the editing world away from Apple and rightly so. Apple, with the attention span of a housefly, abandoned Aperture and those customers. They also ruined Logic Pro in a similar manner.

As someone with a real Mac Pro Tower, who bought and used Final Cut Pro, Aperture and Logic I was and am not amused. It did not have to be this way.

Apple has more money than any other company on the earth and huge human resources to devote to multiple product lines simultaneously as it is not the starving company of 1997 trying to remain afloat. They should be able to keep the Mac current while wasting money and people on crap like Beats. And , if it comes down to Planet of the Apps or a new Mac Pro, tell Eddie Cue to have a nice day and find a new job.

If they really copied Ive and Apple the straw would not be included, ship 3 moths late and cost $100.

So Apple is incapable of walking and chewing gun at the same time? How long does it take to design a tower that serves the market- we do not give a crap about styling. Take the Pre-Trashcan form factor and update it for the current market- that should take a small team little time.

A company as big and well heeled as Apple should be able to serve a select small market and waste gobs of money on crap like Animated Balloons on Text Messages and Facebook integration. Serving specialty markets is common in business all the time- you do not have to make a killing on every product line. The line should have been kept up to date all along and the Black Trashcan was a tragic mistake.

In Medicine, Hospitals and Clinics commonly offer necessary services that are break even at best because it is in the best interest of the customers. Mammography is a prime example- unless you do huge volume you will never make a dime providing the service, but it is done anyhow. Apple makes truckloads on iPhones and should be able to subsidize the high end pro market.

Bought the 29 Watt USB C Adapter to replace the glacial charging of buy iPad Pro on the included 5 watt charger.

Do not waste your money.

I later bought an Anker Powerport 2 Elite (24 watt) with IQ charging. It does a better job than either Apple charger and can charge 2 devices at once and optimize the charging of both. They are a whole $12.99 on Amazon and you can then buy a nice matching cord wrapped cable and neither are white.

The fact that 4 thought no privacy protection is OK is disturbing.

Let's call tracking without your consent what it really is: Stalking. If I stalked you as you went through you day shopping, working, eating, visiting and such you could get a restraint order against me. Why should it be any different online.

slurpy said:

I find it stunning how celebrities whore themselves out to any company that offers $$. Like, doesn't she make enough money? Does she REALLY need to push Huawei, as an American?

She is an Israeli- not an American.

wood1208 said:

Best news out of WWDC2018. Now, we need wireless CarPlay in every vehicle produced and no one should buy new vehicle purchase without such CarPlay functionality.

Unfortunately some makers charge for it and BMW starting this fall will treat it like a subscription. That is nothing but greed.