charlesn

AppleInsider said:

The lacking battery has also raised the prospect of the revival of the iPhone battery case. Adding a second external battery in a thicker case would run counter to the aim of creating a thin smartphone, but it could be a fix for consumers who want the better device without sacrificing battery life. 

BUT... it's not "the better device." It will carry a premium price like "the better device" but will have worse battery life, the same camera as the cheapest iPhone and will lack UWB 5G. The ONLY advantages to Air will be that it's 2mm thinner and an ounce lighter. And strapping a battery case to it would negate those advantages, so you just end up with a premium priced phone without premium features.

Despite the rumors to date saying otherwise, I continue to think/hope that Apple at least solved the battery life issue because it just seems too insane to debut a premium-priced phone that's less full-featured AND has shitty battery life. 

This is the most interesting thing I've heard about the Air/Slim so far. Up til this point the sales pitch as been, "Get a phone that's 2mm thinner for a bunch more money and, oh, by the way, you'll lose mmWave 5G and get the same camera used on the economy-class iPhone.

radarthekat said:

Also, I do wish Apple would buy Mazda, or partner with Mazda to create a joint venture to build cars that show off the full CarPlay Ultra capabilities.  Plus it would get Apple back into the automotive game where they could use some of those patents while having the excellent Mazda design and engineering and factories to build cars at affordable prices. 

From your lips, as they say! My CX-5 is my favorite car in a long lifetime of driving all kinds of cars, most recently a decade of leases for Lexux RX-450h followed by brief ownership of an Acura RDX. (Which, crazy sidenote, got TOTALED when I drove over a manhole cover that flipped up under the Acura.) The handling, performance and long list of luxury features that are standard in top trim levels of the CX-5 make it an incredible value for the money, too. Alas, I think the ship has sailed for Apple buying a car company, but some sort of joint venture with Mazda to really showcase CarPlay Ultra could be a great idea for both companies. 

9secondkox2 said:

But the tarriffs appear to be having the desired effect and have brought stubborn and sbusive parties to the negotiating table. Not bad for not yet four months in office.

You're absolutely right! The stubborn and abusive Trump was forced to the bargaining table when the chaos of his senseless, on again/off again tariffs produced fierce backlash from American business leaders, protests from voters, a dive in the stock market, a dive in his poll numbers and constant warnings about a fast-approaching recession or worse, stagflation. So he blinked and blinked and blinked again, touting a meaningless "deal" with China that simply had both countries rolling back the recent tariff increases that Trump started. And what concessions did Trump get from the Chinese to compensate for the economic insanity he has imposed on America? Nothing! Not a damned thing! This was another classic chapter from his book, The Art of the Dope. 

A smart president--which excludes Trump--would have brought together the biggest economies of the free world to take on China together to drive a hard bargain. Trump's, cough, "strategy" was to turn America into the new global supervillain and to take on China, very unsuccessfully, alone. Trump, as usual, lied to his gullible followers, claiming the tariffs were all about bringing manufacturing back to America! EXCEPT... the levels to which he has dropped tariffs after pooping his shorts from the backlash they've produced in America aren't nearly high enough to persuade any company to shift their manufacturing here. That's just a fact. They will only serve as an additional tax on consumers, and Trump will use the revenue that extra tax generates to give more tax cuts to his billionaire buddies. 

Here's a thought for MAGA: instead of waiting for the economy of the 1950s to return, how about getting yourselves trained for 21st century jobs? Oh but wait... when would you have time to whine about how you've been victimized by immigrants and globalization if you had to spend it acquiring skills that would qualify you for the better paying jobs of today?

GM plunged a fatal dagger into the future of CarPlay--and Android Auto, for that matter--and I'm sorry to say that I don't think there's any going back. It was undoubtedly a ballsy move on GM's part to abruptly abandon support of CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of its own infotainment system that could serve as a new, post-sale profit center by selling subscriptions to desirable infotainment features while also monetizing the tons of consumer data that a modern car is capable of collecting. I was one of many who thought they'd see a significant sales drop because of this decision, but that didn't happen. And even after buyers of GM cars with this new system found themselves facing steep and surprising car insurance increases because GM sold the data it had been collecting on their driving habits--speeds, braking distances, g forces when turning, etc--to their insurance companies (!), THAT didn't seem to hurt sales either. Personally, I don't get why people are okay with this--but then again, idiots are okay with giving Meta a constant video and audio feed of their lives while wearing those RayBan "dumb" glasses--so what do I know?

All of this to say that I'm sure other carmakers were waiting to see how things worked out for GM, and it seems pretty clear that they paid no price to move to their own system and cut Apple out of the picture while earning a steady stream of new profits on every new car sold. I can't imagine that other major carmakers aren't going to follow GM's lead.