danox

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danox
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  • Apple leads global smartphone market as iPhone 16e boosts sales

    danoxdanox
    saarek said:
    mpantone said:
    When Apple revealed the iPhone 16e, a lot of Western journalists (including some here at AppleInsider) and many commentors scratched their heads saying "I don't know who this iPhone 16e is for."

    And like every other lower-priced smartphone, the answer is always the same: emerging markets.

    I don't know how many comments I read like "the lack of MagSafe is a dealbreaker for me." Clearly there's a very large portion of this planet who really doesn't prioritize MagSafe. Note that if you're mostly on-the-go (particularly if you rely on public transit), using a MagSafe charger simply isn't part of your daytime modus operandii. It's good for big fat Americans who sit in front of their big fat monitors (or in their big fat SUVs) where having a stationary MagSafe charger is a reality.

    Remember people, smartphones have reached the point of saturation in the USA and many other technologically advanced markets (Japan, South Korea, much of Western Europe, Canada, etc.). It's places like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Latin America, Africa where there is growth potential. Removing MagSafe from the iPhone 16e was a very reasonable compromise in features to cut costs.

    Same with the lack of mmWave 5G: poorly adopted outside of the USA and even here in the States, it's mostly metropolitan downtown zones, sports stadiums, and a handful of other places that really benefit from mmWave technology.

    I'm sure the next time Apple releases another lower-priced iPhone, we'll get the same ignorance about emerging markets. This is nothing new, we saw this with the iPhone 5c and every single iteration of the iPhone SE and the two iPhone minis.
    I think the confusion with the 16e is that it’s rather expensive for a “budget” phone and that the perception was that for most people the small amount of price difference between it and the base iPhone 16 simply meant that it made no sense to drop down.

    Because the iPhone 16 has already been out for months you can usually find it discounted, which decreases the gap even more.

    Emerging markets tend to be on the poorer end of the spectrum, as such the expensive starting price would seem like a major downside.

    It would seem that that hasn’t been the case.

    With the new circumstances of tariffs the 16E and cheaper iPads probably will be more important to Apple’s bottom line worldwide in places like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Latin America, and Africa, that is certainly true today than what it was a month ago.
    pulseimagesneoncatwatto_cobra

  • Every Intel Mac mini is now obsolete or vintage, and will be missed

    danoxdanox
    Intel drove a monopoly in home computer chips thanks to it and Microsoft, and so they got complacent. Apple obviously realized that and took action. I do not miss Intel not one bit and glad to see Apple grab the bull by the horns and slam it to the floor! 

    First Motorola of Schaumburg, Illinois, then IBM, and finally Intel said no in succession, which in the end was a good thing because Apple had to go forward with certain key software /hardware technologies that couldn’t be done by outside companies, Apple learned the hard way that they needed to roll up their sleeves build those so-called Mac trucks because they weren’t going to get any help from other tech companies like Nvidia, AMD or Intel their paths simply weren’t the same….
    dewmeneoncatmacikewatto_cobra

  • China escalates US tariff war by halting rare earth mineral exports

    danoxdanox
    DAalseth said:
    China is NOT the only place on earth that has rare earth elements. Large deposits are in Canada, the US, Australia, and elsewhere. It’s just that China was the cheapest place to get them so the other sources have not been developed. It will take time to get the operations going, but the process was started during the first Trump term. 

    Once again, something else that takes half a decade or a decade to change/adapt, which goes back to the fact that this administration of clowns doesn’t think anything thru, nothing China has done infrastructure wise was done overnight it took decades, and the same is true for America in reverse, there is no magical instantaneous solution. 

    By the way, Canada and Australia aren’t gonna come to America’s rescue. Mr. bankrupt has seen to that, and if they do sell anything to us, there will be no more discounts. Mr. bankrupt is also seen to that too. So much winning….
    mr.scottdewmeroundaboutnowradarthekatsinophiliawatto_cobra

  • iPhone & Mac tariff reprieve only temporary

    danoxdanox
    tmay said:
    AppleZulu said:
    Now China is halting exports of certain rare earth metals and magnets. They have a monopoly on them, and the US needs them. I'm sure @9secondkox2 ; will tell us how this was all part of Trump's brilliant master plan as well. He has our best interests at heart, and has thought all this stuff through, you know. Don't you fret. Everything's fine.
    Pretty sure the current admin is prepared for chin to pull every last one of their cards. The Chinese government is a lethal combination of petulant, proud, and evil. You don’t stir that up unless you’re prepared to do some serious stuff. China is not a free country and is not run by benevolent people. China has a public plan to reshape the world in its image. They need standing up to now more than ever. Tarriffs are small potatoes. 
    In fairness to you, I am very much against China for its human rights violations, authoritarian government, mercantilist trade policy, and threatening military. 

    Regrettably, I see the very same issues with the current Trump Administration, though worse, since the Trump Administration has knowingly destroyed America's soft power, and worse, has deprecated many of those scientific and educational assets that has given America a tremendous economic advantage since the end of WWII.

    Destroying the U.S. economy is something that I never expected, but, here we are.

    WRT rare earths, there is no great shortage of them even in the U.S., though it would require an investment in processing those same rare earths, something that our previous allies, especially Austraia, were interested in as well.

    But of course, we have no allies anymore.



    Rare earth materials are all over the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. There is no shortage. There is just the lack of will, and another problem, many American companies that would pursue the mining of rare earths, don’t want to clean up after themselves they want the American tax payer to do it. 

    Building usable infrastructure is also an American problem. The rail system needs maintenance all across the country, and the same applies to road bridges and highways. China ain’t responsible for that, they also are not responsible for throwing Oak Ridge, Tennessee under the bus. 

    Nuclear power also isn’t a problem if you clean up after yourself and recognize that you have to put/store the waste material in a responsible manner that goes back to rare earths and mining in general. You just can’t create the mess and then ignore it. 

    America’s unwillingness to build new infrastructure has nothing to do with China, the failure of US Steel, Ford, GM (for example over the last 60 years has nothing to do with China, Tesla however, will be run over by modern China and BYD, self improvement is very hard when you spend most of your time blaming other people for your lack of long range thinking/planning and a commitment to the task at hand and the current administration is but a extreme example of exhibit “A” they don’t know which way is up from day to day they are basically just winging it….

    On another note just had a 5.2 earthquake in northern San Diego County, earthquakes are monitored by the USGS, a very useful federal agency, which seems to annoy Elon and the current administration of short term thinkers, I’m glad they’re still on the job at least for now.
    roundaboutnowglnfshoozzronnneoncatwatto_cobra

  • Pages for iPad explained -- how to get the most out of Apple's word processing power house...

    danoxdanox
    dutchlord said:
    Are people still using Pages? I know nobody using Pages…

    Many people do because Microsoft Word has always been crap surviving on market inertia, and the collapse of most of the word processing-programs in the late 80s early 1990s. I stopped using it along time ago. I started to use page layout programs like Indesign or Quark to create documents, the thing about Pages and even some of the Mac word editor programs they didn’t get in the way, using a page layout program is like a secret weapon in school for creating really good documents, it was always fun when asked how did you create that document and it was always fun to see their hearts sink when you tell them you used something else other than Microsoft Word. Microsoft Excel is the only program worth using in the Microsoft suite to this day.

    Two other recent programs that are highly recommended for anyone if they’re into creating word/graphic documents or just taking notes with graphics, is Goodnotes and Notability both are absolutely awesome programs to use with an iPad, and Pages coincidentally is also very good, particularly if you have a larger screen iPad almost makes you want to go back to school all over again to use those programs oh well….
    neoncatwatto_cobra