Calamander

"Nothing suggests that X Corp. will actually lead to the X app"

ranson said:

Situations like this, along with what went on in China during their mass Covid protests, are precisely why Apple needs to give up on its quest to prohibit sideloading. If an app is not being used to harm others, let the people install it.

Finally a sensible comment. 

The game dynamics of Apple's app store right now is the worst of all worlds - any government in the world can force Apple into removing apps from the app store, and regimes from China, to Russia, to the USA have all been using that to get apps banned that their people wanted to use. 

In the USA that is unconstitutional, but it happens anyway - TikTok for example. One can debate the merits of that ban but the same can be said for China banning Google and Facebook - there is no difference. Normal people are worse off for it.. 

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs on a basic humanitarian principle - to empower humans to be more creative, to have more information, to be free. Steve jobs initially said that the App store controls were in place to protect people's "freedom from porn" - while that was an OK idea at the time, he did not foresee that Apple would then in the future have to kowtow to any government anywhere in the world. 

Brazil put a price on wokeness, good.

Apple is so concerned about the environment they don't include a charger or earphones in their $1,000+ devices. 

Price for Brazil iPhone by default includes charger. If someone don't want it than give deduction/rebate for charger in final price on invoice.

Well, this is interesting. 

Unless they are too early, this is an obvious winner - productivity wise likely better than iPhone which is amazing. 

In terms of entertainment, it's clearly worse, you r Tik Tok videos won't look so good rendered by green lasers. But... it's not for that. 

tenthousandthings said:

I see they now offer a 16GB version among the standard configurations they keep in stock, instead of having to order it. That wasn’t possible when we walked into the store and bought an M2 Air back when it first came out. We got the 8GB (which has been fine for what it is used for), but I remember thinking Apple had left money on the table, as we would have gotten the 16GB if we could have walked out of the store with it right then and there.

Same here. Bought a rose gold M1 with basic config for the GF for the simple reason that online ordering didn't work with her visa card (which works for pretty much anything else... weird). So we were unable to get our hands on a 16GB / 512 option - we just couldn't buy it. All good in the end since she's barely used the laptop at all anyway. But Apple left some cash on the table there for sure. 

Another mistake Apple made was to discontinue Rose Gold - I know a lot of girls with rose gold laptops and they all absolutely love the color. Starlight is not quite the same, appeal-wise. Also the new MacBook Air is a lot fatter, visually - it pretty much looks like a MBP. I can't understand for the life of me what got into them to make it look like that. We all know the volume is same or less than the M1 wedge shape MBA, so this is all just visuals - but the large feet under the laptop make it appear fat when it's on the table. A strange decision - ultrabooks from Huawei and Samsung look smaller (and may actually be smaller). 

I think the Air is a much better deal as it is so much smaller - I am still weirded out by the massive size of the Pro models since the M1. That being said, the M1 has been the most reliable Mac Laptop I've had since the 17" MBP - not a glitch, not a hiccup, not a problem since I got it in 2021. That is a new record. 

So perhaps Apple is using that larger size to make the computer more unbreakable. 

Air flow is a huge issue for digital nomads - we work outdoors in hot places, and a fan is definitely recommended when doing work - even if the computer doesn't straight up overheat, if it gets hot on a regular basis  then all electronic components have a higher chance for failure. If it's always cool - like the M1 Pro is at basically all times - then it's a lot better. 

I don't think the XDR display is a big advantage - it seems to use way more power, it gets hot, and yes it's gorgeous but the Air display is also really good - my eyes aren't good enough to really appreciate the difference. 

comcastsucks said:

"Any time the microphone or camera is in use, a "trust light" is turned on for people to see"

How long until someone figures out how to turn that off?

I doubt anyone will bother. It's baked into the hardware so to turn that off is going to be hard - probably easiest to put a colored sticker over it. 

FWIW Huawei is a phone maker, not a "local reseller" - they make some of the best Android phones, unfortunately got banned in the US for political reasons. 

Honor is a Huawei sub-brand to sort of get around the restrictions, although it seems Huawei doesn't really care all that much about the US / EU market at the moment.

Alex_V said:

Conclusion: Smartphone A is made by a company that respects your privacy, and does much to protect it. After all, your smartphone has a lot of personal information that you want to keep private. Smartphone B is made by a company whose business model is to spy on you for profit. Nothing that you do on that phone is private. Decision, decisions, decisions.

Apple vs Google in privacy has unfortunately become a battle of the "lesser evil" and you're saying Apple is (still) the lesser evil. 

Once upon a time, this was Apple's DNA and belief - when Jobs was around, basically.

 Since then, the "why" has changed. Apple has more privacy because (1) it can use it for advertising, and (2) it's been pretty bad at making its ad system work and (3) that's because of motivation, Apple makes all its money on hardware. 

The moment Apple figures out how to add a billion in revenue to the bottom line by compromising your privacy, you can bet they will choose the money. So that advantage is on unstable ground. 

Apple has already compromised its values too many times to count, removing apps from app stores in Hong Kong on request of the Chinese government, removing apps on behest of the US government, basically any government anywhere asks Apple to censor the app store, Apple does it. This is about protecting profits - I am not saying it's unreasonable, but ... given that Apple loves to get on the high horse on political topics, it's hypocritical to the extreme. They do the dirty like all other large conglomerates. 

They basically do not have values. They only care about profits, and anything that they do that they pretend to be values, like diversity, are actually things that imrpove their bottom line and they wouldn't do any of them if they negatively affected the bottom line. That's not values. That's hypocrisy. Would be better to be honest. 

Google has long abandoned its "don't be evil" corporate motto. And they've gotten ever more evil. 

anonymouse said:

Where have all the decent iPhone (Pro) colors gone? And my wife is always complaining that they don't have colors for "girls". Does Apple have some ridiculous idea that "Pro" iPhones have to be boring?

Basically, yes. Apple has decreed that in 2023 and now extending into 2024 there shall only be very boring, bland colors on the phones. 

The 15 (non pro) was the most boring bad looking color lineup since the iPhone 3G (it came in black). 

15 pro had titanium which was also extremely boring but it was new and it looked good in poster size marketing pictures where they show the brush strokes (which you can't see on real devices since they're too tiny.... but thanks to the marketing images, you could kind of imagine your bland, grey brick, which kinda looks like concrete, was actually a sexy brush stroke metal. I guess you could also see it with a loupe. 

I bought it anyway because I needed a new phone but ... yeah. I'd rather have a cool looking phone. Making up for it with the case. 

Samsung followed suit and so now everyone's phones have bland toned down boring colors.