retrogusto

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. 

By flipping the structure of the optics by 90 degrees, you can increase the focal length by expanding the structure from, say, the top towards the bottom of the phone, or from side to side, instead of from the front to the back, so you don’t need to increase the phone’s thickness to increase its focal length. 

Wait, so does this mean we're not getting our headphone jacks back?

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. 

harry wild said:

"Giuliani said that the federal agents took "seven or eight electronic items of mine," according to Mediaite. After they declined to take two or three hard drives, Giuliani says that he urged them to reconsider, claiming that they belonged to Hunter Biden."

FBI was told ahead of time to dig into Rudy Giuliani but to leave Hunter Biden's stuff alone!  FBI and Justice Department appearingly not interested in investigating Hunter Biden at all, only Giuliani and Trump!

I don’t see how this makes sense. If Giuliani had Hunter Biden’s property, why would he admit it, and why wouldn’t the agents follow up on his confession to possession of stolen property? That would be a serious crime by itself, especially if it was part of an attempt to influence the election. And if they are seizing phones, computers, etc., do you think they would take Giuliani’s word for who owned the drives and what was on them, and just ignore any potential evidence that Giuliani told them was irrelevant to their interests? Do you suppose certain drives in his possession said “Property of Hunter Biden” on them, so the agents knew what to safely ignore? Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to guess what’s in a hard drive just by looking at it from the outside. The whole idea is preposterous, and I don’t see how anybody could believe it.

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.

Apple should take a page from Genius Musk’s book and threaten to “thermonuclear name and shame” customers who switch from iPhone to Android. It’s a great way to keep your customers happy and loyal.

/s

macxpress said:

Unless you're doing something where you think the M2 series SoC's would really benefit you I don't see why you wouldn't just buy one of the current models. You're never going to have the latest and greatest forever anyways. 

If someone doesn’t want or “need” the latest thing and doesn’t mind that it will become obsolete/unsupported sooner, you can wait a few months and buy the current models at a big discount once the upgraded models come out.  And if you buy it refurbished and/or used, it’ll be even cheaper. And you could always use the savings towards the next upgrade. But sometimes it’s nice to get the latest thing in perfect condition and enjoy it for as long as you can. 

I’m currently lying on the couch reading AI, and no phone or laptop would be nearly as practical for this. For any kind of media/content consumption, nothing beats it for convenience and flexibility, although there are obviously specific cases where other devices have an edge, and if you spend all of your time out on the town or typing, you may not use one as much. When I got my first iPad, I expected to only use it occasionally, but I ended up using it for hours every day, much more than my phone or my computer.

If "Energy efficiency and sustainability are on everyone's minds these days," why didn’t they make the laptop MagSafe the standard? It uses fewer materials (which probably includes smaller rare-earth magnets), takes up less space during shipping and ever after, and transfers 100% of the power to the device being charged. It’s just way better, apart from possibly seeming less futuristic to the simple-minded. I know the subject here is a “wireless” consortium, which technically answers my question, but it’s like a coal consortium claiming to be focused on carbon footprints.