retrogusto

Much has been made about the thinness of the new models, but coming from a 10.5” iPad Pro, it doesn’t seem like a big difference, probably due to the rounded edges of the earlier model. The new 11” actually feels a little clunkier to me with its squared edges, and of course not as nice in the hands, but if you’re using it with a keyboard or case, that won’t matter to you. Here’s a photo for comparison.

As a shareholder, I guess I should be glad they got rid of the headphone jack, but it sure was annoying last week when I got on the subway and realized that I didn’t have my dongle with me, so I was carrying the earbuds around all day and unable to use them except as earplugs. Apart from a way to push people towards a more costly solution, I haven’t heard any reasonable justification—if they can make a waterproof Lightning jack, they can do the same with stereo mini, and even the “saves space” argument seems a little weak given that the slimmest and most compact iPhone had a jack, and they have only been getting bulkier since the jack was removed. And I know there are people who will say they are glad about the omission, but honestly, just the fact that people are still discussing and arguing about it shows that it’s contentious. I doubt we’ll still be discussing the merits of, say, the Touch Bar seven years down the road, even though it has its fans too. 

Apple has been trending towards thicker phones, but adding weight faster. This would constitute a pretty large jump, but maybe not totally impossible given the half-pounders they are selling now, and still thinner than the 3G or 3GS.

harry wild said:

• Elon Musk is under attacked to by Powers To Be.  Elon will find away to get Twitter a net profitable company.  After all, he was forced in to buy Twitter by the court!

Not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but the court only forced him to fulfill the commitment he made, it didn’t force him to commit in the first place. 

It’s complicated when people get accustomed to a certain business model and then regulators decide to upend the business model for simplistic reasons. 94% of the apps on the App Store are free to download, with Apple providing a lot of support to developers and taking no commission. And a large group of developers sells apps for a price, but makes less than $1,000,000 per year, in which case they only pay 15%. Apple knows it’s in their best interest to provide a great experience at a fair price, so they do, and their pricing was thoughtfully calculated to work for everyone. It seems like the only developers who would favor a 3rd-party store would be those who either want to skirt Apple’s rules, which are mostly consumer protections, or to pay a lower commission, in which case they are probably among the small minority that is raking it in due to their success on the iPhone platform and paying 30%. I don’t foresee third-party stores catering to the “free download” market, apart from malware. So is the idea that you would get most apps from the App Store, and then go to 3rd-party stores for the big subscription apps and paid games? Sounds like a convoluted nightmare that wouldn’t do anything for consumers or anyone but the richest software and service companies. 

The last two times I bought iPhones at the Apple Store, I knew exactly what I wanted and was in a hurry but still couldn’t get out of there in less than an hour, due to the wait for a salesperson, then all of the talking they wanted to do, then bringing the phone out from the back and ringing up the purchase. Pretty frustrating, since I wasn’t really expecting it. So 25 minutes in this case sounds downright speedy. 

If I can no longer press the volume buttons through fabric when the phone is in my pocket, that would be an added inconvenience, and if I can no longer glance at the ringer switch to see if the ringer is on, that too would be a step in the wrong direction. It’s hard to imagine any advantages to the user that would more than make up for these drawbacks. It’s not like the current waterproofing is insufficient for my needs.

Just leave it on your desk upside down—now the power button is on top. 

I don’t see any way that the tariffs could remain in place for anything other than a very short period without leading to a financial situation that would destroy the Republican Party for years to come. People were furious about inflation under Biden, despite the fact that it was a worldwide crisis essentially resulting from Covid, and the US did relatively well compared to much of the world, only 1% worse than the inflation during Reagan’s first term. If left in place, the tariffs would cause very sharp increases in all kinds of things, and it would be hard to blame it on anything other than the tariffs. You also can’t really tell people that their bank statements or their supermarket receipts are fake news, and very little would be untouched by the proposed tariffs. Trump may be in office for a while, but midterm elections are next year. Trump won by a tiny margin, and the Senate and House are not controlled by large margins either, so the current administration can’t really risk angering a lot of voters without a bloodbath in next year’s elections. The plan is probably to hope for lots of quick concessions from other countries before things get too bad here, but anyone with a brain knows that he doesn’t really want to blow up the US economy just for leverage, so it wouldn’t be surprising if annoyed leaders around the world decide to call his bluff.