Pema

avon b7 said:

Did the EU make Microsoft do this worldwide?

The problem last week had nothing to do with the EU. It was sloppy coding, sloppy testing and with little to no resilience built into the whole process. 

Absolutely spot on. 
This is vintage Microsoft sloppiness going over 50 years now. Releasing substandard code, causing chaos first on the desktops, then when office networks became the norm and then the enterprise and now global. 
Why we are still saddled with the worst o/s ever written I will never understand?

Windows is basically a graphic interface bolted on to DOS. Anyone who has ever followed the path from DOS to Windows 2000, Windows XP and now the latest incarnation Windows 11 knows that it has never been a stable O/S. The only reason that it is still pervasive is because Gates licensed it for a small fee to any PC maker. The hardware was never a concern for Microsoft. You could install DOS/Windows on your toaster if you like. So long as you pay the $25 fee per box. You are good to go. 

Apple, ever the company to maintain quality control, would not split the two. Well, ok, there was a brief period when the Pepsi Cola moron ran Apple that the company licensed the OS to a guy in Texas I believe who agreed to a very stringent hardware contract. But that arrangement fell apart after a year. And since then Apple, after Jobs came back from Next, has grown into a $3 Trillion company, always maintaining the highest standards. 

We have the equivalent of DOS/Windows in the phone space. It's called Android. You build any junky phone and slap Android on it and you are good to go. 

This particular outage had to do with Windows but also with the way Windows is managed from the cloud. A single component of CrowdStrike called Falcon was not thoroughly tested and it cascaded down to every Windows install out there. 

And it will happen again. Get rid of Windows and you solve half the problem. 

I don't know about this Ming Cho Kuo. Around the Apple haunts he is regarded as some venerable soothsayer like Nostradamus.   

One day he says that his estimate is 60K-80K units. Then he reads his tea leaves and comes up with 180K sold. But, and this is where he is covering where the sun don't shine, orders are tapering off. And oh, yes, it is a niche product. 

OK. Tomorrow Apple starts to sell the hell out of Vision Pro because other than amateurs take an interest - pros in every industry where there is a need for an MR headset - and then Ming comes back and revises his tea leaves and says, well Apple just sold one million VPs and it is no longer a niche product, it is now an industry defining product like the Bondi Blue Mac, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the AirPods, the Apple Watch and on and on and on. Unlike Google that has a miserable time with hardware releases Apple creates INDUSTRY DEFINING products. 

And once VP takes off, Netflix, Spotify etc. etc. will create native apps and Ming will say, 'see, I told you so', forgetting all along that his tea leaves are just that, tea leaves and sometimes he gets it right and most times he gets it wrong. 

Perhaps Ming can spend his time more productively looking for MH370. 

Verstager is total moron. There is ZERO chance of Apple ever releasing its propriety OS for either the iPhone or iPad to 3rd party vendors. If this idiot had even a smidgen of a brain between her ears she would understand that Apple's vaunted security is totally reliant on having complete control of its OS. 
This stupid person believes that because Apple gave in on App Store access to Spotify and other vendors that now they are going to surrender OS access to 3rd party vendors. 
How stupid is this person? 
There is a better chance of Apple offering the Vision Pro for Free with the purchase of a pair of Airpods. 
She is comparing a 3rd party of piece of junk like Android that is as secure as a public toilet to Apple's iOS. Of course Android is free for all to use and embed in their phones ranging from a piece of garbage of phone that you can purchase at a 7/11 to a high end phone like Pixel. 
But that is not the same as Apple. Apple has been perfecting its OS, whether it is on the iPhone, iPad or Mac for the last twenty years. 
There is not the single chance of Apple surrendering there proprietary OS to enable 3rd party access. 
I am guessing that if push came to shove Apple will simply stop selling their phone and iPads in the Europe. Then see who misses out. 
This Verstager has no common sense. Does not understand how OS works and is on the verge of retiring. 
Well, from my part, Good Bye Verstager and Good Riddance. 

There is an old proverb, 'we live in interesting times'. I would suggest that now it needs to be updated to say 'we live in insane times'. 

In 1933 sociopathic criminals took over the Reich Chancellery and ended up murdering millions of people and ultimately causing the death of 12 Million Germans and a destruction of a great many German cities. 

Now we have a similar sort of situation whereby the plans of the current US administration is going to unleash God only knows what on the world. Just consider some of the recent moves: Patel (a certifiable lunatic) taking over the FBI; RFK (a dangerous conspiracy theorist) taking over the Department of Health; Musk moving chess pieces around the government like its a board game. 

Now the tariffs are going to ruin Apple's most profitable market outside the US. 

I don't see how we don't end up with mass chaos and WWIII.  

I concur with the two above posters re: NordVPN. The product often comes out in the top five of recommended VPNs. That said it just did not work for me. It was easy to set up and connect but with the exception that every site that I was blocked out of due to geographical boundaries I stayed blocked out of. I would connect to a site, sign in and within seconds I would be advised of a error along the lines of 'We can see that you are using a VPN, please disconnect and try again'. 
And this went on for nearly every site excepting the ones that I could log into and access with/without a VPN. 
There is one program that I eagerly wanted in 4 parts for my PhD research. No way I was able to login. And this was via a major streamer!
Eventually I located the program on a local site and happened to feature the 4-part series. 

When I attempted to explain all this to nordsec b.v. they were completely disinterested. All they could come back with is 'your money back guarantee expired last week. sorry'. 

You would think that a company of this size and spread would be very keen to work with me to fix the issue. Nope. They kept coming back with some lame excuse as in, 'try this server, try that server, try this server, try that server'. I don't have all bleeding day to sit around and f**t arse around trying over 1200 servers as far as the Kingdom of Mongolia to finally land on one that may/may not work 

I would have thought that their tech support would have come back and asked me for the URLs and they would at least attempt to debug the issue. 

In the end, after a great deal of lengthy arguing they relented and gave me a full refund. Not a good company if you should happen to run into problems. 

There mantra: give us your money and don't bother us. 

If I had to give them a review, it would be 2 stars. Easy to install and setup but of no value if you should happen to run into problems. They are plainly not interested. 

All you ever read about the Applecar is it's coming. Then senior staff leaving to work at other companies. 

Now we have a new update: Applecar will pick me, take me home and play music. Well, I have all that right now. My spouse picks me up, takes me home and instead of playing music I get a todo list. 

For all the fanfare about the Applecar I would want to have a whole band sitting on the roof while I am being driven home. 

The other very salient point, in case Apple hasn't noticed is that the Chinese are flooding the market with EVs - which is what I presume the the Applecar will be - the result of which prices have been forced down, down, down. Just ask Elon Musk - he has had to reduce prices 6 times since the car was launched. 

If you bought at the launch your car would be worth next to nothing. 

This all looks great. What isn't great is that the Vision Pro is too expensive. There are no tiers like with any other major Apple product. You can customise the latest MacBook M3 to your budget. Likewise you can select the iPhone you can afford/or need and customise that to your budget. 
Not with the Vision Pro. It's like Henry Ford's mantra: you can have any colour you like as long as it's black. 

I cannot begin to imagine Apple releasing just the one iPhone model: iPhone Pro Max specced to the hilt at $2200 USD. For starters not many people can afford to spend that much on a phone, neither do all users need that level of iPhone. 

The Vision Pro looks to be a truly revolutionary product in the mixed reality headset space, but at $3500 USD per unit it is too rich for me. 

The other problem is the buyer needs to go into the Apple store to be fitted for the product. Another impediment. 

There is no trade-in for the Vision Pro! to bring the cost down. 

I would suggest that somewhere along the line Apple botched this product from wow to go. 

Tim Cook needed a headline grabbing product and pushed for its release before it was ready. Hopefully when Apple re-releases the Vision Basic in 2025/2026 it will have refined the product to the point of where the main features of the Vision Pro trickle down to the Vision Basic, plus the hardware costs will have been streamlined and on mass production cost less. 

I am a buyer at $1500 USD. That's it. 

Can I afford to wait to 2025/2026? Well, I haven't been lying back dreaming I must have a mixed reality headset that will drain my wallet out of $3500 USD. 

The iPhone is a different paradigm. I often do think of the next release and what it can do for me. The iPhone 16 looks like a winner. And I will be upgrading. And after the trade-in it will run me appx. $900 USD. I can stomach that. 

The good news is that Apple is not a one-trick pony like Humane who put all their eggs in one basket and now are shopping their omelette for a buyer. 

Most likely HP. They usually buy obsolete technologies. Palm O/S - remember that?

9secondkox2 said:

By now, AI is a known quantity. Reverse engineering and IP theft are not new either. This is just the tip of the proverbial "iceberg" as relates to an incoming swarm of products / services like this. yawn. China is not new to knockoffs, software included. AI is no different. Easy to develop something rapidly when you're copying the work of pioneers who put much of their lives into the work. Should software controlled by a hostile nation be on American's devices? It's an interesting question. But outside of government officials, members of the military, or those with security credentials, probably not too big a concern. But it's worth investigating. It's not like we didn't just have the chinese surveilance devices surveying our nation from the air last year. The less information an adversarial nation has on another nations citizens, the better. It may not be a WMD or whatever, but it's definitely not something to be dismissed.

I am not so sure about this. 

Recall how back in the late 60s and early 70s we used to mock the Japanese, especially their cars. And then gradually they upended the industry and forced us to up our game, in cars, electronics and cameras.

I would not suggest that the Chinese are ripping anyone off, it is just that they are doing it the smart way and we are doing it the hard and unwieldily way. 

Much as Mr Trump wants to make America great again and resurrect the American Empire, going forward it is going to be the Chinese Empire. 

You only need to read books like 'The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbons)' or Barbarians at the Gate and realise what's happening with the US. We have become fat and lazy; too much booze and too many drugs; let our guard down at our borders which is exactly what happened with the almighty Romans. 

The Chinese have captured the EV market; they have sown up the manufacturing of just about everything and now they are showing us how AI is done. Marc Andreessen of Mosaic fame calls this the 'Sputnik' moment. When the Russians orbited the earth before we even knew how to build rockets. 

It forced us (remember JFK's famous speech) to wake up, commit billions of dollars, create NASA and land on the moon in 1969. 

Perhaps Trump and this event will force us to wake up and take the reins and rise up out of the ashes or we will continue to sink into oblivion: a nation of lazy drug users who can't get their game together. Our problem is not that we have too many undocumented migrants. Even if we round up and evict every single one of them it won't restore our boldness, vision and greatness. 

That's what is happening here. Blaming the Chinese for stealing our IP is just nonsense and short viewed. 

Without getting into Kuo's assessment or numbers, I wholeheartedly agree as I have been saying from day 2 after the purchase/return of the iPhone 16 Pro. It is not a hit. I am holding out for the iPhone 17 Pro SLIM. 

I hope and pray that Apple does NOT make Samsung's catastrophic mistake or even Google's by releasing a fold. They are a total failure. Google has tried to flog theirs since last December and they have failed to pick up any traction. Samsung I can see from my weekly visits to my favourite retailers they are gathering dust alongside transparent toasters for $700. Nobody wants a toaster for $700 and nobody needs a bulky, foldable phone at $2500. 

That aside this line from the article makes no sense:
 
The rest of that overall 10 million drop is from 4Q24 dropping from 84 million to 80, 1Q25 down from 48 million to 45 million. And for 2Q24 dropping from 41 million to 39 million.

1. This for 4th Quarter for 2024 - the quarter that the 16 was released in = The rest of that overall 10 million drop is from 4Q24 dropping from 84 million to 80,
2. This is for 1st Quarter 2025 - 1Q25 down from 48 million to 45 million.
3. And for 2Q24 dropping from 41 million to 39 million. Huh? 2nd Quarter 2024. Are we doing a flashback to 2024 Second Quarter? 

Indirectly they are hobbling the iPhone experience. It is a sneaky way of killing off Apple in the EU zone. 

Trump, can you please impose a 30-day moratorium on the EU. Let's see how they like that?