Peza

sflocal said:

dysamoria said:

I’m absolutely with the developer here, on this issue.

And I’m firmly in the Apple camp.  Apple is the one doing all the work obtaining and keeping its large base of customers willing to pay for apps.  If 30% is too high given what Apple does they’re more than happy to go to the Android camp, where they probably make zero money.

70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

whiners.

I bet you own Apple shares. Never on the side of the customer, and this developer never stated they don’t want to give Apple its cut, their complaint is clearly over Apple forcing them to take money from the apps customers, basically here’s a free trial, enter all your payment details and we will charge you if you don’t cancel, it’s a dirty trick purely designed to milk money from the customer, putting the giant corporation Frits and foremost and the customer a very far behind lonely second. 

seanj said:

GeorgeBMac said:

For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

Only a tiny percentage of people tinker with the computers, it’s a niche market that’s similar to those that add nitrous oxide to their cars...
Most people just want a computer they can do things with, rather than do things to, in other words a consumer product. With Apple they get that, which is why customer satisfaction is so high.

If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.

Well considering it's global PC market share, many would say the Apple Mac computer is also a niche product and market.

Apple fully deserves its criticism in this! This was a select committee which is made up of cross party members, not all from the current executive, it is used regularly for companies to be scrutinised and has seen many a big name CEO, the fact Apple failed to send anybody will not go down well with them. More fool Apple.

This sounds like Apple wanted to turn everyone into hypochondriacs using its tech.

It was going so well, till they mentioned it’s a subscription service fee! No way is this worth paying 80 dollars or pounds EVERY year for! They’ve seriously miscalculated their market with that.

darkvader said:

What a silly article.

The Surface is a computer.  Not a great computer, but an actual computer that you can install any software you want on it.

The iPad is a toy, stuck in a walled garden app store.

Exactly, the iPad Pro has awesome  power and performance, that's totally disabled by its extremely cut back OS. End of the day the Microsoft Surface will always be more powerful with ease because it uses a full blown OS able to make full use of the power it has.
Apple for what ever reason seem reluctant to follow suite. Think it's obvious they will never make iPad OS to be the same as Mac OS, which is a shame as the iPad Pro hardware wise is better IMO.

clexman said:

jimh2 said:

It’s a business. Apple can do as it pleases. This typical of all large companies. 

It also says one thing publicly and does another privately. I guess, also typical.

Beta test is nonsense. This is available on the official app. You could use that excuse if labeled it as experimental or limited access to the feature.

Exactly, another example of 'special' treatment Apple has given to certain devs. The feature is not a beta or a pilot as it's been available in the app for a while now, and used by millions. I'm sure the competitors of Zoom would like the same access to the api.

Well with the criticism Mini LED has attracted in the iPad Pro, and some TV's I'm not overly keen for it I must say. OLED or LCD is still king, micro LED is where they need to be but that's a way off yet. 

GeorgeBMac said:

Peza said:

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

The US has basically claimed China itself is a 'bad' state. Let's forget for a moment about Huawei, Tik Tok and WeChat.

We also had the famous 'I hearby order...' tweet. 

The US, if it truly believes China is untrustworthy, should break off ALL trade with China and stop cherry picking specific areas in trade deals. 

China does have a terrible human rights record in some areas but if you actually dig into these things, few nations come up clean and the US really isn't in the best position to justify these 'sanctions' seeing it has been accused of human rights violation on home soil and abroad for longer than I can remember. 

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/united-states

The Couso affair (document in Spanish) is a damning condemnation of human rights abuse, manipulation, cover up and potential war crimes by the US government. 

http://www.revista-redi.es/en/articulos/the-couso-affair-in-the-national-courts-and-international-relations/

This isn't to single out the US. Most nations have similar cases (in the hundreds). It is to say the US shouldn't waving the 'democracy' flag around and preaching when it has one of the worst records for spying and abuse of sovereign states. 

You conveniently forgot to post the link to China;

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/china-and-tibet

I don't necessarily agree with CATO, but as a start to "freedom" score,

The U.S. ranks 15,

Spain 29

China 126

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy

Spain 92

U.S.. 86

China 10

What they state about China;

"Beijing’s totalitarian atrocities and global ambitions

One of the year’s most appalling examples of domestic repression—made more frightening by the absence of a coordinated international response—was the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing campaign of cultural annihilation in Xinjiang. Mass violations of the basic freedoms of millions of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region, which were first brought to light in 2017, continued in 2019, with hundreds of thousands of people sentenced to prison or detained for forced indoctrination. The crackdown also included forced labor, the confinement of detained Muslims’ children in state-run boarding schools, and draconian bans on ordinary religious expression.

Beijing claimed in December that the mass detentions had ended, but evidence from leaked government documents and victims’ relatives contradicted the assertion. Even if it were true, conditions for residents would not be greatly improved. The deployment of tens of thousands of security officers and state-of-the-art surveillance systems enable constant monitoring of the general population, converting Xinjiang into a dystopian open-air prison. 

These policies have contributed to China’s ranking as one of the 15 worst-performing countries in Freedom in the World 2020, and one of only 11 countries that Freedom House flagged for evidence of ethnic cleansing or some other form of forced demographic change.

The Communist Party’s totalitarian offensive in Xinjiang is the product of decades of experience in persecuting ethnic and religious minorities, combining coercive measures and technological developments that were previously applied to Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and others. There are already signs that similar techniques will be expanded to China’s entire population. Examples in 2019 included a requirement for telecommunications companies to perform facial scans on all new internet or mobile phone subscribers, and reports that local authorities nationwide were purchasing equipment for mass collection and analysis of citizens’ DNA. Chinese officials are routinely promoted and transferred based on the perceived effectiveness of their repressive efforts, meaning both the technology and the personnel tested in Xinjiang are likely to spread across the country.

The United States and other democracies have made some important diplomatic statements against the repression in Xinjiang, and the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on specific Chinese entities associated with the campaign. But in general the world’s democracies have taken few steps to rally international opposition or apply meaningful collective pressure to halt China’s rights abuses, and elected leaders in Europe and elsewhere have often been tepid in their public criticism. Many undemocratic governments have been similarly mute or even supported Beijing, including those in countries that have received Chinese loans and other investments. The pattern of de facto impunity bolsters China’s broader efforts to demand recognition as a global leader and aids its relentless campaign to replace existing international norms with its own authoritarian vision.

US president Donald Trump poses for a photo with Chinese president Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Editorial Credit: Susan Walsh/AP/Shutterstock.

 

One aspect of this more assertive foreign policy that gained prominence in 2019 was Beijing’s apparent interventions in democratic elections. As with past Russian intrusions in the United States and elsewhere, China was suspected of sponsoring the spread of disinformation to create confusion around candidates and policies ahead of Taiwan’s January 2020 elections. The strategy may have backfired in this instance; domestic fears about Chinese encroachment helped the incumbent president defeat a more Beijing-friendly rival. Earlier, Chinese authorities were accused in November of seeking to fund a businessman’s election to Australia’s Parliament, and New Zealand’s intelligence chief spoke publicly about potential foreign influence on domestic politicians in April, a few months after the country’s opposition leader was accused of improperly hiding Chinese donations. 

Beyond the context of elections, Freedom House research has shown that Chinese transnationalcensorship and propaganda activities are accelerating worldwide. For example, dozens of Swedish news outlets and journalists have been denounced by the Chinese embassy in that country for their reporting on China. Even a Russian newspaper was threatened with visa denials if it did not take down an article that mentioned China’s weakening economy. Beijing has also used paid online trolls to distort content on global social media platforms that are blocked in China itself, with tactics including the demonization of political enemies like Hong Kong’s prodemocracy protesters on Facebook and Twitter, and the manipulation of content-ranking systems on Google, Reddit, and YouTube. And the Chinese government is gaining influence over crucial parts of other countries’ information infrastructure through companies that manage digital television broadcasting and communications on mobile devices.

The past year featured a new wave of pushback against certain aspects of China’s global ambitions, with public resistance to the harmful effects of Chinese investment projects intensifying in host countries, and some politicians growing more vocal about protecting national interests against Beijing’s encroachment. Nevertheless, piecemeal responses are unlikely to deter the Chinese leadership in the long term."

Your attempt to compare the human rights records of the U.S. against China fails because the U.S. absolutely does not have one of the "worst records for spying and abuse of sovereign states."

Your fealty to China is noted.

For the record, the U.S. will have a new Presidential Election this fall, and has the opportunity to either keep the existing administration, or opt for a new one. 

China has never had that choice of governance.

And every single Western government and company will ignore all this disgrace for profit, money, power.. it is being gained of the backs of people being treated like caged animals with little human rights or freedoms.

The people in cages are here in the U.S., not China.   They're mostly kids and black folks.

If you had some intelligence or even actually visited China, you’d realise just how lucky Black people and kids in America truly are... you can buy a train ticket with having to worry if your social score is high enough to allow you to do that.. you can speak up against your government without being thrown in jail for the rest of your life, just for speaking.
Stop feeling so sorry for yourself thinking your special, your not your privileged compared to China and many other countries weather you see that or not.

Wow, got to say that's one monumental cock up by Apple and its security services, and shows a complete lack of professionalism, total disregard for the evidence, indeed deleting the evidence Apple held it seems leading them to continue to accuse an innocent man multiple times. This would have me worried about going into an Apple store!
Facial recognition software is bogus when you have no actual photo of the ID you accuse of the crime, did they Google him or something and claim that was him, despite the fact he didn't look the actual criminal on their videos and was physically shorter. It's not rocket science to assume criminals lie about their identities, happens every day.

I hope he takes Apple to the cleaners. To identify the wrong man as a criminal once is one thing, to then repeatedly make the exact same mistake multiple times is downright unprofessional and makes you the criminal for professional misconduct that led to a false arrest. I would also class it as harassment and definitely repeated false accusations.
People will know he was arrested and he needs to get that public apology to clear his name. I wouldn't settle out of court without that happening plus a big payout.