durandal_1707

I suppose I'll just be screamed at again (rolls eyes) but, of course, Apple's not the first to use that design:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/30/15711170/essential-phone-announcement-price-android-andy-rubin

https://www.androidauthority.com/sharp-aquos-s2-now-official-looks-pretty-familiar-792398/

However, I'm sure there's some big reason that it's okay for Apple to jump on the bezel-free bandwagon, but not for anyone else to do it after they do.

AppleInsider said:

Now that I'm used to the size the Note 8 feels huge in the hand but If you watch a lot of video its larger display provides for a great viewing experience.

and they've perfected and balanced the sound on the iPhone X which provides a massively better audio experience than the note.

Because of this, even though i prefer the much larger screen, without the annoying notch in my videos, i'd choose the iPhone X any day if using the built in speakers.

but in the past couple of years, android phones have really caught up.

I was basically forced to switch over to bluetooth headsets on the iphone and thus don't really have a need for the Note 8's headphone jack its still there because Samsung loves to give you options.

the note 8's battery drains much faster in standby.

The last software feature where I think the note excels in up on top is multi-tasking.

I've owned almost every single note phone, except the note 7, which I avoided for the obvious reasons, and with each one of those phones I used the S Pen for a few days, and then never use it again until I bought a newer Note Phone.

While the Apple ecosystem does make it tougher to use an Android phone, My personal choice is still the iPhone X even if I didn't use other Apple devices.

Dude. Proofreading.

ronn said:

As much as I hate the behemoths, T-Mobile needs to merge with Sprint to become a third phone-corp. If this deal falls through, I can't see myself staying with T-mobile beyond 2018 unless they do something super dramatic to improve coverage and other services in the boonies where I sometimes travel.

You mean like buying a massive swath of 600 MHz spectrum covering the entire US including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico?

The main reason T-Mobile and Sprint have had more trouble than the behemoths in rural areas is because the behemoths have historically had all of the low-band spectrum. That's changed now.

rob53 said:

jahaja said:

Does anyone here have experience of updating from Sierra, using FileVault, to High Sierra which apparently does not have any FileVault since encryption is included from the get-go?

High Sierra does not format SSD's with encryption by default, at least not during the beta releases.

misa said:

Everyone knew CurrentC was going to flop. It earned the negative feedback before even launching due to merchants turning off NFC payments.

This is what happens when merchants get greedy. Credit cards have been a staple of American commerce since 1959. Making harder than the original card was doomed to fail. The reason Apple Pay works and bad alternatives like Google and Samsung have repeatedly failed, is because to make Apple Pay work, you can use it everywhere there is a NFC-enabled card terminal, which is pretty much everywhere. These alternatives don't work, are insecure (MST), or require special equipment not already present. So the end result is that you're better off using the plastic card you already have than have to flip through apps, or figure out how to hold the phone for it to work.

Android Pay, its Google Wallet predecessor, and Samsung Pay all use the same NFC technology that Apple Pay uses, and they work everywhere Apple Pay works. Samsung Pay actually works more places, in fact, because their phones are equipped with these weird magnetic emitters that supposedly can fake a physical card swipe for non-NFC-enabled terminals. Of course, I've never used it, since I don't have a Samsung phone, so I have no idea how well it works.

But yeah. CurrentC. It failed because 1) hardly anyone had ever even heard of it, and 2) those who had heard of it were usually pissed off. Interestingly, it's not the first time someone has tried, and failed, to do this sort of thing. Back in 2011 when Android Pay was called Google Wallet, it had a heck of a time catching on because Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile blocked it from accessing the NFC chip on any carrier-branded phone, because the carriers were trying to push their own competing product. That competing product, naturally, took two whole years to come out, and when it finally did, it was slow, buggy as hell, and never had support from more than two or three credit cards. The coup de grâce, though? The competing product was named—I kid you not—ISIS Mobile Wallet. They hastily renamed the thing to Softcard after, well, ISIS, but by that point they were already pretty thoroughly screwed, and they didn't last long.