jdw
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Apple Card vs Amazon Prime Rewards Visa: which credit card offers the most cash back and b...
One very important topic that this otherwise excellent article does not touch on is "international transaction fees." There are a good number of us Americans who reside outside the USA but who still have bank accounts in the US and we of course want credit cards that tie into those US accounts. It behoves us to consider credit cards which we can use both in the USA and abroad without getting hit with silly foreign transaction fees.
Having research many, many cards, I find that the Apple Card is pretty much the only one that offers NO FOREIGN TRANSACTION FEES while also offering us the card itself with no annual fees. Many cards, like certain AMEX cards, also offer no foreign transaction fees but only if you pay a hefty annual fee. For that reason, I cannot give an immediate nod to Reward Cards over the Apple Card because the key consideration for me is the no foreign transaction fee part. For truly, if a rewards card gives me slightly more rewards than the Apple card, and yet that rewards card charges me foreign transaction fees, there's no merit to the rewards card. -
Test suggests 2018 MacBook Pro can't keep up with Intel Core i9 chip's thermal demands
I could have told you that, even before Mr. Lee's findings. A lot of people who embrace butterfly keyboards and impossibly thin designs don't give much consideration to thermal throttling. But it is a reality. Another sad fact is that it has been shown that Apple uses vastly inferior thermal paste between GPU and CPU chips and their heatsinks. It would only cost them pennies more to use a half-way decent thermal paste. So in addition to the fact that the thermal cooling in super thin designs like the 2016 and later MBP is inadequate to prevent throttling, thermal paste used does not transfer heat as well is it could. Here's a SnazzyLabs Video that might help convince some of you.
I've long called for the thinning of the MBP to end. The thickness of the 2015 MBP is quite thin yet not too thin. It allows for a good sized battery and for better cooling. And while I think Apple should continue to strive for thinness, that doesn't mean it has to be the MBP. Supreme thinness and lightness is what the MacBook is for. Butterfly keyboards too. But the MBP needs to be "Pro" all around in terms of cooling, thermal performance, battery size, ports-a-plenty, an internal SD card slot, and thick enough to accommodate a great keyboard with sufficient key travel that (a) will satisfy pretty much all users and (b) won't be harmed by specs of dust under the keys. Indeed, on my 2015 MBP 15" I can remove the keys.
These important considerations need to be made more serious by Apple engineers in future designs. Take everything you want away on the MacBook, but put the beefy stuff in the MacBook Pro. Make the MacBook Air a hybrid of the two, and then you have 3 product lines that can please every Mac notebook buyer. Seriously. It's not that hard. It's just a matter of Apple rethinking its design decisions. -
John McAfee dies in Spanish prison following extradition order to US
jeffharris said:Boo Hoo.
We ALL die. So what?
Curious if that is what you publicly declare at the funerals of your own loved ones. If it is, may I suggest those two lines as the perfect inscription for your own tombstone. It would certainly make your stone the most popular in the cemetery! :-) -
Apple Vision Pro customers face a 25-minute in-store sales pitch
The article makes it sound like a bad thing, which it isn't. And crazy comments like "what a nightmare" are... well... just downright crazy. It's almost like people want to be given the boot out the door immediately after paying $3500! Patience is clearly a virtue missed by both the article author and many posting here in the comments.
If I were buying one, I would relish in such a 25-minute session, showing me more about the expensive device I am there to buy. What some label a "sales pitch" I call a "helpful product overview session." And for that high price, I should be given one! And because it is totally new and not something people are accustomed to, it shouldn't be optional. Making it optional would only result in more after-sale phone calls to figure out the very basics that 25-minute session will likely explain!
Why in THE WORLD would I NOT want such personalized attention and help?
Imagine yourself going out to buy a house, then you complain about the fact you had to talk to a realtor for 25 minutes!
People who are complaining about a 25-minute session with Apple probably shouldn't be buying one of these in the first place.
Most of you people probably want to find a full service gasoline station so you can complain they cleaned your front windshield and aired up your tires.
Cut Apple some slack. And cut buyers some slack. Sounds more like an envy session by people who can't afford one, and then who are here complaining on behalf of would-be wealthy buyers, which is all the more laughable.
I suspect most of you are too young to know the early days of Apple, when Macs came with a little tutorial on disk that taught people how to use a Mouse. In like manner, this is a new product category, teaching people new tricks about an expensive new toy/tool.
But regardless of all that, one thing rings true...
PEOPLE COMPLAIN WAY TOO MUCH. -
iPhone 15 Pro Max has second-best smartphone camera in the world
Somewhat embarrassing Apple's latest and greatest is even a tiny bit behind the likes of Huawei, but the main camera on the Huawei looks enormous!
https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/Huawei/P60-Pro
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End of an era: Apple's SuperDrive has finally sold out after 16 years
People are pretty funny. Glad I am not going with the flow. I just recently ordered a Panasonic UB820 region-free 4K Blu-ray player from 220 Electronics. 4K streaming can't touch the quality of a 4K Blu-ray, and when you've got lots of DVD and Blu-ray content on disk, a fair amount that isn't streaming anywhere, you still have a need for a good player. I purchased it because I recently purchased a new LG C3 48" TV (WOLED).
Speaking of which, Apple really needs to consider how to get more involved in the home theater market. Two Homepods operated by an Apple TV 4K has a lot of promise to unseat sill soundbars from their lofty thrones, but the cost is two homepods plus Apple TV 4K is too high, and add to that it doesn't support DTS formats, which are big on physical media. Yeah, Apple is into streaming, but like I said, there's a lot of content that isn't streaming yet, and the fact remains a lot of us in our 50's have a good amount of content already purchased on disc as it is.
The only thing I am glad about is that our DATA isn't on disc formats at all anymore. Optical drives are plainfully slow when it comes to that. But playback for audio or video stuff is still perfectly acceptable.
And if your wondering about the UB820, yeah, it's top notch, especially for upscaling DVD and 1080p Blu-ray content to 4K. -
Apple's big WWDC 2024 announcement may be an AI App Store
Merrick Garland's take:
"Our beloved and caring DOJ is appalled Apple continues to make money on Apple stores, now with AI. Whenever Apple comes out with something new, consumers pay higher prices. The DOJ cannot stand by and let this happen. Using every blood-sucking attorney at our disposal, the DOJ will work hard to ensure Apple makes as little profit as possible so that consumers are not harmed.
—The DOJ. When you make it big, we come after you." -
A San Francisco highway near Apple Park wasn't pretty enough, so it got deleted
It's called "subject isolation." Ever shot a photo of yourself or someone else and wanted to remove either another person or an eyesore? Subject isolation! And with AI, that process is getting much faster and easier.
If you examine the side-by-side shot in the article, you see the highway takes your focus away from the train tracks. It would take longer for you to notice the train is there. The doctored photo helps you see the white-topped train on the tracks more clearly and quickly.
So who cares if the "SF Gate wasn't fooled"! It wasn't about fooling you as much as it was making your eyes see the MAIN POINT of that scene, which was the train.
"What about homes changed to mansions?" you ask? ANSWER: scene beautification. And who does that better than Apple? My goodness! Where does the clip say "this scene is 100% accurate?" Our cities do need some beautification. Obviously, you can't replace old homes with new ones instantly. But 100 years from now, things will probably look different. The old will be destroyed and make way for the new. But the biggest change that would make a huge improvement would be the complete elimination of power and photo lines. Ever watch Star Trek earth scenes of the future? No power lines. Funny how eliminating the world's BIGGEST eyesore makes things look more "futuristic."
The things people talk about and complain about these days is getting pretty crazy. Let well enough alone and enjoy life. Don't worry. Be happy. -
Reports are spreading about a very specific Apple Vision Pro front glass crack
Checked the comments and sure enough there were falsehoods. I purchased two G4 Cubes back in the day, was an active member of Cubeowner.com and read most of the Cube related info about that machine. It's been my avatar for over two decades. They WERE NOT CRACKS! They were indeed mold lines. And any lines on my two Cubes are not that prominent. You had a bunch of people grabbing their magnifying glasses back in the day to scrutinize every last thing because it was a pricey computer for what you got. Then you had the silly media trashing it over price and how unpopular it was, in part because the media trashed it. And yet, the G4 Cube to this day continues to be an incredible piece of industrial design. It's truly fantastic. So get over the "they were cracks" line. G4 Cubes were not cracking at all.
Now this news report about VISION PRO could be something very different than the G4 Cube, because like I said, those lines on the Cube are MOLD LINES, not cracks. Furthermore, the G4 Cube's case was thick plastic, whereas the glass on the VISION PRO is extremely thin and even has a thin film on the outside which is highly prone to scratching. The two really cannot be compared.
Honestly, it isn't too surprising that there are reports of cracked glass. Anything wearable needs to be made durable. Apple couldn't make the glass any thicker because even now it is a bit heavy. And just like when you put those thin glass protectors on your iPhone, cracks occurring during normal use happen. The thinner the glass, the more likely it is to happen.
This is upsetting news to be sure. We have too many people unnecessarily trashing Apple's ground-breaking VISION PRO as it is, so news like this will no doubt make some would-be buyers reconsider. Not sure how best Apple should address this, but addressing people's concerns is paramount if sales of the device are to lead to future models and new innovations over time, no unlike the iPhone. But as was the case with the G4 Cube, if few people buy it, Apple could abandon it. And that would be yet another crying shame. -
Threads hasn't been alive for a day, and Twitter is already threatening to sue
The upside to the AppleInsider on FaceBook is that Comments are never banned under Articles posted there, even when comments are banned under a particular article here. And when you read them today, you can see that I am not alone in having a "what the...!" reaction to the "How to delete your Twitter account..." article, even if it was inspired by requests. Consider the fallout...