chaicka

bluefire1 said:

I really hope they resolve this quickly, because based on my owning every model of iPhone from 2007 to the Max, there’s no question that the QUALCOMM modem is far superior to the Intel version. I  was so fortunate to have QUALCOMM modems in my iPhones right up through iPhone X.  As much as I love my Max,  I’m very disappointed with the quality of the Intel modem. Apple, are you listening? 

In the real-world use cases and in-country as well as abroad countries usages, there is no difference from a consumer/user perspective. There are far more factors influencing the real-world usage and throughput then just technical specifications and whatever story some of the medias cook up.

Here is one real-world example:
One of my line with telco ST is on legacy plan (early/first 4G plan back then) and have not re-contract over several years. The telco simply locks this line to the plan (along with the profile in the backend) so even now with iPhone X and XS, this line does not gain any higher speed/throughput despite the LTE modem in them are capable of. In short, the telco has locked this line to legacy LTE profile and unless this line renews to newer plans under contract again, it will not gain any higher speed/throughput. Hence, even if Qualcomm's modem is marginally better in performance than Intel's modem, it makes no difference to me (or whoever in my household using this line). I am not alone on this scenario. At least I know a few of my personal friends are the same since legacy plans have higher data volume (12GB or 25GB per month) than newer plans which significantly reduced to 2-3GB per month for the same price (forcing us to sign up add-ons which indirectly is telco squeezing us to pay more and more for data volume consumption). To have the same 12GB or 25GB, the cost of new plans+add-ons is easily 3-4 times more expensive.

To summarize, I don't really care if Qualcomm's modem is indeed better in performance. In iPhone X and XS, the Intel's modem serves its purpose good enough (easily hitting 50-60Mbps which is more than enough for most smartphone uses, even watching video streams from Netflix or local provider's Toggle).

Singapore launched 'TraceTogether' app on 20th March, which tend open-sourced it to become the BlueTrace protocol released to the world to use and contribute to improve it. Australia has just recently released a COVID-19 tracing app which is developed based on BlueTrace protocol with its own modifications.

It is interesting to see many countries/nations adopting the similar model of contact tracing, even Apple-Google's API seems to be similar on the model where contact data stays on the users' devices until permitted by users' to upload/share with health authorities.

It’s rubbish of Facebook argument.

As a consumer, I performs my own research on products I intend to buy, be it physical visits to retailers, word of mouth from extended family or friends, search engines, etc. If it happens that Facebook dished me ads relating to these products that I end up buying from an online store, and they get credited as success influence for their ads???

I am totally behind Apple on this one. As consumer, we should have choice and control over how our digital footprint is being managed, not being invaded silently without choice to opt out. Same thing telcos are doing - ads to your mobile number and we becoming their product to sell to businesses who choose to put ads via telco. Unacceptable!!!

As a small business owner, the last thing our business needs is false-positive claims of success for ads we choose to buy/put out. IMO, if it isn’t direct ad link purchase, it isn’t counted towards to ad platform. Period!

Gosh...I have been on Z-Wave and ZigBee products for years and honestly, the lack of deep investment on R&D to improve the shortfalls and expand functionalities to be more holistic matching lifestyles and use-cases of its audience have driven me away from them progressively. 7 years on Fibaro Z-Wave and 5 years on Philips Hue - all the fragmentation, piecemeal and tons of man hours spent to pick up coding and various skills just to make a decent home automation is enough. HomeKit came along in the last few years and slowly but progressively improve and expand with ease of getting started and using shortcuts to easily create automations - is just so much easier for new consumers jumping into home automation.

And these IoT players blame the big tech firms for their failures to invest in R&D, expand its talent pools, etc to compete when they have head-start for years (if not for a decade)? Yet, when they have investors fundings during the beginning years, they spent huge on (somewhat false or never materialise) marketing, nice trips and benefits, paying the top execs handsomely, etc.

And that's anti-competitive behaviour? Wow...this era's leaders and regulators sure amaze me every now and then.

If Apple products become like Android, I will be among the first to migrate away to first viable alternative. Just as much as being among the first to rid all Facebook-related apps off every single device I own and/or use, and going back to the web-based since there’s less data for them to track with (for now).

Regulators are nothing but trying ways to milk cows for their own fundings. Are they really standing on the side of the massive consumers’ side who voted with their wallets on Apple products?

is she just trying to reduce Apple into the yesterdecade’s Nokia?

Apple has also enabled this feature for Singapore since iOS 15 betas.

waveparticle said:

Taiwan has become the largest beneficiary of US launched trade war with China. 2020 Taiwan has a trade surplus of $140.5 billion wrt to mainland China. The first 11 months of this year the trade surplus has ballooned to $156.7B. The tariffs have forced many US companies to out source components to Taiwan suppliers. Since Taiwan population is only 1/60 of mainland China. Taiwan may not be able to meet the demands or slow to fulfill the orders. 

@Higher Cost too

gatorguy said:

.......... I believe if third party appstores are ever allowed it will be because a court has found Apple guilty in some antitrust action. 

If any court is so dumb to ever find Apple guilty of antitrust just because of its App Store, then many platform's proprietary digital store will fall under the same. Example: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc...

rob53 said:

I want, no DEMAND, that this Developer Mode setting include a way for the iPhone operator/owner to lock out the ability for it to be changed by anyone except the iPhone user as defined in iCloud settings. Further, I want to make sure the iCloud settings require either a password, passkey or something no person other than the logged in user has access to. I CHOOSE to only use the Apple App Store and since it's my device with my personal information on it, I have a right to protect that information, especially from non-governmental people, like developers. I CHOOSE what goes on my OS devices, not developers or governments. A "bad actor" has several ways to get past any iOS setting but it's more difficult when there aren't settings that would easily allow the beginning of opening an iOS device. This mode is a semi-locked door when it currently is a wall with no way to get through. 

On top of that, I hope Apple includes further empowerment of main ‘Family Sharing’ holder to have even stronger control to prevent any devices within the household to switch into ‘less secured’ mode (whatever the end state mode may be called). Main holder likely is also the pay-master of all Apple devices for household + main support/go-to person whenever there is problem with the devices. Please empower us stronger control so that we should not revert back to old days where so much time and effort spent to fix family members’ devices due to their ‘unsafe’ behaviours (eg jailbreaking). It was a nightmarish period that’s long gone. No wish to go back to those days!!!

Does any MDM solution (including Apple’s own MDM) has ability to block apps from specific developer?

I have been looking at way to block on devices managed under MDM that I am managing.