avon b7

AppleZulu said:

dewme said:

I have no problem with Apple doing a taco phone. It would be just another buying option to consider. As long as they keep offering the pop tart phones, what’s the problem? Plus, with technology changes and innovation it is entirely possible that a future taco phone may be perfect for my needs. If they don’t build it we’ll never know. If rolled up display technology catches on we could be looking at a taquito phone as a successor to the taco phone. It’s all good. 

The problem is that the same code required to run the weird screen dimension, extra exterior screen, etc. on a "taco iPhone", will have to reside as unused bloat in the OS on your regular iPhone. The same will be true for every app that wants to access the extra outside screen or display properly on the unfolded square screen. At the very core of Apple's "it just works" reputation is the limiting of variables within the operating system. As compared to Windows or Android, Apple's operating systems have a very short, very finite list of devices, components and features that must be supported. This vastly reduces the opportunities for mistakes and conflicts that could cause bugs, errors and system crashes. This is why they split iPadOS off from iOS. This is why the MacOS that supports a Mac Pro workstation isn't going to be expanded to run a touchscreen iPad Pro. If a folding iPhone had a reason to exist beyond novelty, maybe there would be a reasonable cost-benefit argument to adding all that to iOS, but I haven't seen any arguments for why it should exist other than that it could exist. 

This is probably untrue and technically there is no reason why any unused 'bloat' would be an issue. 

If it is an issue it is because of iOS design considerations. 

Just take a look at something like HarmonyOS where one of the key goals is to development once and deploy across multiple devices (including screenless IoT devices). 

It's 2025 and I don't know the current state of iOS, but back when HarmonyOS was revealed (2019) it was compared to other systems (Apple's included) and noted that those systems were 'siloed' and unable to seamlessly integrate with each other because they weren't designed for that purpose. 

If Apple can't produce a system deployment for folding phones without unused bloat it will be because of design limitations. It should not be that way and to be perfectly honest I doubt it will be the case.

People who want folding phones do so for very clear reasons and the 'fold' is the main one. The ability to double screen size on the fly. You can now even get tri-folding phones which effectively enable you make a tablet pocketable. 

If it happens, it won't be for everybody due to other considerations (like price) but it was never going to be that way anyway.

Folding phones are simply another option. Just like rugged or gaming phones. 

Currently they are high margin devices and if Apple feels that it is losing sales as a result of not having a competing product (especially in China) there might be a tipping point somewhere along the line that will green-light an Apple offering. 

At some point, prices will come down and as folding phones enter lower price bands (and supposing demand remains in line with current levels or higher) Apple would find itself in a real pickle without its own take on the format. 

anonymouse said:

avon b7 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

If they had said, "ATT is fine, but Apple has to follow the same rules, so since you didn't, we're fining you," that would have been pretty legit.

Instead they said, "ATT is fine, nothing wrong with it.  But we're going to fine you anyway.  Because we can, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

The Reuters article is a little clearer on that point. 

"Coeuré told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling.

The compliance process could take some time, he added, because Apple was waiting for rulings on regulators in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania who are also investigating the ATT tool."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/french-antitrust-regulator-fines-apple-150-million-euros-over-privacy-tool-2025-03-31/

On the size of the fine, that was also tackled head on (it was proportional):

"We apply competition law in an apolitical manner," Benoit Coeure told a press conference."

While maximum fines can be up to 10% of global revenue (and it's global as a dissuasory measure), the fines still have to be proportional and take into account other factors such as reincidence. 

Like everything else the EU and Eropean countries do, this is like a bad joke. "We didn't say what you needed to do, but, because you didn't do what we wanted, we're fining you."

That's like deciding you want a low speed limit, not setting or posting it, then fining "speeders" for being over the limit by whatever amount you want them to be. Europe and the EU no longer operate under the rule of law, they operate under the whims of the "regulators".

Each EU member state has to transpose EU law into its own national laws. As a result, there can be different requirements across different member states but all of them comply with EU legislation. 

This case is France specific but Apple knows it could fall foul to other member state requirements. It could come up with a compliance effort that satisfies everyone. 

That means waiting for other rulings to be made and that is exactly what my quoted text says.

It's not a joke. 

The French ruling makes it clear that Apple exempted itself from the application of ATT for its own apps. 

ATT itself was not a problem. Apple's implementation was (in the view of the regulator). 

I was surprised that this wasn't already part of the health app.

My wife and I have had this on our Huawei Health apps for sometime but we don't use the AI planning as it's a subscription service add-on. 

It may be a good as a 'prod' to take action and track it as you get back to better health but there is only so much AI can do with limited data.

In our case the system can be tweaked to focus on certain areas of the body and there are a ton of possible suggestions together with the ability to punch in what food and quantities we are ingesting.

If course, it helps to have add-on devices working in tandem with the Health software too. 

We have watches for some health metrics and a smart scales as well.

Perhaps, if we were in need of serious prodding, we would take out an AI subscription but our reality is that we are already as healthy as we can be given our ages and medical health (non-alcoholic fatty liver, cardiac events and type 1 diabetes). 

Chemically, we are the best we've ever been but age itself means that 'mechanically' we are going to run into problems that no AI programme will ever solve. As it is, we already have specialists arguing about what is best for certain conditions as they will often focus on their specialty and ignore the rest. Then it's up to the family doctor to 'tie' everything together and make sense of it all. 

AI is great for pattern analysis but it needs clean, very personalised data to offer more and that brings other issues such as data integrity, privacy and ultimately, security. 

I would love to be able to pump my decades worth of accumulated health data into AI and have it crunch away and make a forecast on the coming years (something that to a large degree would have to be taken with a grain of salt). 

That though could have the ability to warn people of potential chronic lifestyle issues such as type 2 diabetes. 

My brother would probably have benefitted from that as he would have been more receptive of an AI-data-driven results than hearing my mother tell him he was overdoing the BBQs. 

It was only when he was carted of by ambulance that he changed his lifestyle for the good but lifestyle illnesses are years in the making and years in the correcting. 

It is a nice feature to have even with the limitations of what current AI can do but for sure things will improve over time. 

danox said:

godofbiscuitssf said:

melgross said:

Rogue01 said:

Will it be a live keynote, or another awful cringe-worthy video?  Maybe they will be apologizing for Apple Intelligence instead of trying to push out more half-baked features.  They already blundered with Siri, unless they try and do damage control and more promises of features that won't be ready with iOS 19.

I miss the days when Apple released new software and the features they previewed at WWDC were actually in the release version.  Instead all we get are 'coming soon' and then 'maybe next year'.  I stopped watching the videos because they were nothing more than reading press releases and spec sheets.

The videos are much better than the live presentations. Those tended to ramble and took much longer. Well, I remember that Apple was criticized for trying to get everything in the first release. Be more like Google and Microsoft people would say, and release features when they’re ready and don’t rush them out for an announcement.  Give me a break!

You are definitely in the minority on that one. Live with audience is the sweet spot.  You know those are as scripted and likely even more practiced (you don’t have multiple takes available) than the prerecorded ones.  And the feedback from the audience gives presenters an idea of what the relative interest levels are.  And that can carry forward through the year.   

And yet all the me-too, copycat companies are terrible at it. The most important thing in any presentation is to actually have something (a product) that is a step ahead of the competition, having that product is probably as important as the presentation introducing the iMac, OSX, iPod, iPhone, and the iPad all which were huge leaps forward at the time in comparison to the competition.

You definitely don't need anything that is a step ahead of the competition. 

All you need is something to present.

And let's be honest, a lot of what Apple has presented at WWDC over the last few years (especially the noteworthy features) have been Apple's take on Android/HarmonyOS ideas/features from years ago.

And sometimes those changes have been like 180º turns in direction. Years of stubborn refusal to give users customisation options have been abandoned and now customisation is a major consumer facing feature. 

TBH, they are moves in the right direction IMO. 

I wonder if the departure of Ives had something to do with these changes or if there are simply more people with sway now who are able to push these things through. 

602warren said:

What if this thing doesn’t ‘fold’ in the traditional way we think it would? We’re all assuming it’s one large screen that folds in the middle, possibly creating a crease. Could it be two separate displays that come together to create one large display? (And forgive my lack of industrial design knowledge here) In order to close or fold the phone, you’d pull apart at the middle about 1mm to separate the two displays connected by a Smart Connector, thus exposing a small hinge mechanism tucked behind the display that would allow you to fold the device. Opening it back up is like a book, then you push the two displays together to connect them via the Smart Connector and voila! I worry about a bezel in the middle of the open display, which may kill the whole idea, but its certainly possible to get that to be razor thin…

I dunno. Just thinking outside the box on how this could possibly work.

That kind of solution would only require a simple hinge mechanism so, according to rumours at least, that isn't the case here. 

The complexity of the hinge is to make it robust but also allow for the 'teardrop' screen fold. 

The hard work on that front has been done and Apple has definitely torn down numerous solutions from competitors to see how they tackle the problem.

While still complex, hinges of folding screens have seen a move to less moving parts, improved material science and manufacturing processess. 

At some point it's likely that commercial 'scrolling' screens will also come to market.