charlesn

chasm said:

but it must be said it's (thus far) the best way to keep in touch with people you want to keep in touch with. 

Yeah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. How about... Email? Texting? FaceTime? Phone call? Zoom cocktails? Meet ups in person? I ditched all Meta apps years ago and I have zero problem keeping up with the people who are important to me. Don't let "convenience" be your reason for contributing to Zuckerberg's businesses built on abuse of consumer privacy. 

anthogag said:

I don't use any services Meta offers and I get by just fine. People should dump all Meta services to protest Meta's relentless advance towards destroying data privacy. Meta is most likely feeding all the data they can get to further their AI research. Eventually they will try to use your data against you.   

AMEN. I cannot believe the idiots buying Meta's Dumb Glasses. Oh yes, sign me up to give the biggest corporate abuser of consumer privacy--a business for which abuse of consumer privacy is a foundation of its business model--complete access to what I see, say and hear in my life. Yeah, definitely, I wanna pay for that privilege. Meta Dumb Glasses no longer allow you to opt out of having your voice recordings stored on Meta servers--nothing nefarious about that!--and the same is true for video and still photographs unless you disable the "Hey, Meta..." voice activation, which of course puts a major hit on the useful functionality of the glasses. This is Meta's idea of "consumer choice" -- turn the product you just bought from us into near useless crap OR give us access to the cameras and allow us to store what you see, record and photograph. 

igorsky said:

Some of these comments are absolutely clueless. Car infotainment systems by and large SUCK. I own two Porsches and their infotainment systems are trash; I’d be using Ultra from day one. The digital dash on a Mercedes and Audi are an abortion…CarPlay Ultra would be a dramatic improvement. They know this and that’s why they’re blocking it. 

GM changed the game when--recognizing that car companies suck at infotainment--it partnered with Google to develop its own system and abandon support for both CarPlay and Android Auto. I was not only hoping this would fail in terms of car buyers rejecting the lack of support for these interfaces, but felt pretty sure it would--this seemed like a bridge too far, but I was wrong. GM sales haven't suffered at all. And this, not surprisingly, has opened the floodgates for other car companies to follow: partner with a tech company and develop your own system. Not only does this open the door to a consistent, new and ongoing revenue stream via subscriptions for the most desirable features, but it also provides what may be an even greater source of income: there is a ton of consumer data to be mined from inside a vehicle, which can be sliced, diced and sold off ad nauseam to interested third parties. And guess what? The million page EULA you hastily sign when picking up the car gives car companies the right to do that. 

I expect support for the limited, current version of CarPlay will continue here and there in new vehicles, but this is the beginning of the end for CarPlay Ultra. And Apple, with its core focus and marketing about maintaining consumer privacy, won't be part of designing a system that allows car makers to sell the data its system gathers. Google, which has never had an issue with profiting from the use and abuse of consumer data and privacy, feels no such contraints. 

robin huber said:

They’re already to the point where I have to careful about holding it or picking it up to avoid invoking some touch screen command. I know, I’m “holding it wrong.” 😑 

Exactly why the thinnest bezels possible make no sense on an iPad. With an iPhone, I can hold the phone securely in one hand by the side edges of the frame, no accidental touches of the screen. Try doing that with an iPad Pro--sure, you could one-hand it, with a thumb on the side and the rest of your fingers under it, but that's just begging to drop it at some point. Mostly though, thin bezels will mean accidental screen touches when you're trying to hold it securely. Even when I'm reading on my iPad Mini, I tend to have my thumb resting directly on the bezel area. 

Stop by any Sunday at the giant flea market in the parking lot of MetLife Stadium (home to the football Giants and Jets) in NJ and you'll find stacks of Apple products on vendor tables, selling "new in box" for under $50. The boxes are near indistinguishable from legit Apple merchandise, but you can bet the $50 AirPods Max will not be the same. What's remarkable is that this counterfeit merchandise is ALWAYS there and no authorities attempt to stop it, even though one bust where everything is seized would halt it (at least at this site) immediately.