lorin schultz

fastasleep said:
[...] Buying phones outright on this type of plan is a far better deal than the trade-in/upgrade programs or the opaque "subsidized" plans of years past.

You're right. With the sudden death of my iPhone 6+ I was again in the position of finding the most cost-effective way of acquiring a new iPhone. The least expensive option was to walk into an Apple Store and buy one. The increase in the cost of my plan to get one "subsidized" by my carrier would have added up to more dollars spent over two years.

kitatit said:

[...] My iPhone 6 is looking like a 5year upgrade cycle. 

So was mine, until it died.

The unexpected update confirmed what I've always known: making current operating systems available to old hardware has mixed consequences.

Obviously adding new features to old phones appears to increase the useful lifespan of an iPhone, but it only kinda does. An OS written three or four years after the hardware was built imposes demands the hardware wasn't designed to handle. Consider Apple's product announcements for each new iPhone -- "50% faster graphics! Double the horsepower!" Add up those increases over three years and you wind up with a really broad range of processing power between new models and the older ones still in the wild.

Developers, including Apple itself, obviously write software designed to take advantage of the increased power offered by newer devices. That software may run on older phones, but it doesn't run well. I didn't realize how badly my aging hardware was affecting my experience with Siri until I got the new phone. I also discovered that where the old phone exhibited considerable lag between pressing a control and the phone actually doing something, making me wonder if the input had registered, the new one responds immediately.

Newer phones may not offer a lot of compelling "feature list" reasons to upgrade, but they do actually improve the experience of using the features that already exist.

CheeseFreeze said:

mcdave said:

Apple GPU please.

Yes. I am really hoping for a radical new GPU architecture invented by Apple to work perfectly with Metal 2 and other Mac specific tech. It could be a great differentiator for Apple.

I'm way out of my depth here, so forgive me if I've got this wrong. Wouldn't a custom Apple graphics system require developers to put a lot more effort into making their software work with it? If so, how many would bother for such a small market?

Belkin makes a 6-foot active Thunderbolt 3 cable that it says will support USB 2.0, Thunderbolt 3 at 40, but NOT USB 3.0. (https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F2CD085/)

The confusion deepens. Apple has exactly the same cable on its site: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMBH2ZM/A/belkin-thunderbolt-3-5a-cable-2-m.

Apple says it DOES support USB 3.1. Belkin says it doesn't. Since the product number is identical, one of them must be wrong.

It's bad enough that variability in capabilities makes it difficult for consumers to choose the right cable. Vendors providing conflicting information about a specific cable makes it even goofier. If Apple is right, I can use that cable to connect a USB-C drive directly to the computer without a dock. If Belkin is right, I can't.

mcast.net said:

How many people spend the time energy and postage to engage in a ‘warranty exchange’ on a $20 cable.  Read my comments mate - they claim to sell high quality durable cables - and they’re not!

Postage sounds trivial but it's not. I just returned a defective item in a small, lightweight package. Postage was CAD$14. Then add the cost of the packaging and time to deal with an RMA, packing it up with the paperwork, and a trip to the post office. Then factor in ten to fifteen days of turnaround time between sending back the bad item and receiving the replacement. Unless the item is expensive, it's cheaper and less hassle to buy new than get the "free" replacement.