arlor

d_2 said:

gregoriusm said:

“Shazam's 2018 profit was $34.5 million, less than 2017's $44.8 million, but boasted a profit of $158.4 million and reversed $19.4 million in losses the year prior.“

Am I missing something?

Glad it’s not just me confused with this statement.

Me three. I looked at the actual report, and I'm not an accountant but I couldn't find the exact numbers cited under any label. 

On page 10 of the report, it shows $40.8m of revenue ("turnover") in 2017, $31.4m in 2018, with operating losses, not gains, of $17.8m in 2017 and $13.8m in 2018. That's as close as I think we get to the underlying operational revenue and profit (that is to say loss). The profit in 2018 of $144.2m (before tax of $20.3m), not $158.4m, is entirely due to a payment by Apple of $157.7m for intellectual property (see page 23) offsetting the $13.8m in operating loss. 

Thinness is cool and all, but I type thousands of words a day, and I don't move my laptop around all that much. Short key travel and lack of wrist elevation both reduce comfort and the latter is a well-studied cause of repetitive stress problems. Comfort when I'm working is far, far more important to me than comfort when I'm carrying the thing around. Modern laptops from almost any manufacturer are already light and thin enough that further progress seems unnecessary. 

I think the thinness has gone further than is sensible on the phones, too. The camera bump exposes the critical covering of the camera to scratches and damage, and means that the phone doesn't lay flat. Sure, both of these problems can be addressed with a case, but what's the point of the beautiful design if it's just going to go into a case? 

daven said:

The only app I can think of that I would want to share my location with when I'm not using it is find my iPhone. Can anyone tell me of an app they want to share their location data with even when they aren't using it?

Two fairly innocuous cases: maps and fitness tracking apps. 

For the record, I predict that if Apple ever does make a folding phone, the balance of commentary here will shift from "why would anybody ever want that?" to "Apple figured out how to do it right and I need one."

22july2013 said:

Notsofast said:

22july2013 said:

One thing I'm always puzzled about is how Apple knows the correct amount to compensate its game publishers if they aren't tracking what users do. (Same for News, Music, etc.)

It's because you assume that anyone needs to know what INDIVIDUALS are doing, versus the aggregate use. Apple clearly knows from it's servers how many people are clicking on a news article or magazine or game, etc., but they don't collect that Joe Blow read that article.

I am sad to tell you that you are wrong. Here's the actual words from Apple during their introduction to Apple News+ "And that means we don't know what you read."  (scroll to 20:46). But people like you just assume how it works without actually knowing. You said "Apple clearly knows how many people are clicking on a news article or magazine or game" but that's contradicted by what Apple says. I remember when they went into further detail on how this works but I won't go into that here.

I don't think any of us know exactly how Apple manages things, but I'm confident that Notsofast has to be closer to correct about what Apple knows. Apple's servers have to deliver the video/story/magazine/etc. to your phone. The server has to know what to send you in order to send it. The only alternative I can think of would be to send you absolutely everything you might want, so that it's all on your phone when you pick it and no central server has to deliver it, but that's clearly impossible. So Apple has to have aggregate figures on how many times each thing is watched. What they don't do is keep (or market) a log of individual users' choices. In other words, Apple has to have individual-level information to deliver content, but they choose not to keep it.