citpeks

Apple has squandered the lead it had with Siri and HomeKit.

Both have languished, and lag behind Google's and Amazon's efforts.

Instead, the company still treats the Apple TV like a hobby, if not some sort of disease to be avoided, and offered users an expensive smart speaker whose best feature is sound quality; nice but not exactly the top priority for a smart speaker.  The market reacted predictably.  A smaller, more affordable version might be more attractive, but hardly breaking any new ground.

And that's it.

Meanwhile, users who want IoT products that are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem find themselves as second class citizens, lacking the same variety of choice and pricing that competitors like Google and Amazon provide.

Occasionally, a promising product that does feature HomeKit is announced, and ships on time, but many are also delayed, or never have their promise of HomeKit compatibility fulfilled (looking at you, Ring, but you're not alone).

The IoT market is worth hundreds of billions, but for reasons unknown, Apple executives are happy to let others dominate, and not do more to ensure Apple users have a similar level of options, except with the polish, and privacy-oriented design that they expect.  Not a speaker or camera whose mission includes helping a company compile a data profile of your habits, in order to send you more ads, and have you buy more stuff.  Where did the vision go?  Where is the plan?

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets like autonomous driving vehicles (which are still a long way to being commonplace) and AR (the 3D glasses of the 21st Century).

Puzzling.

So, pretty much all of the things a state would need to do to implement a digital ID, or app, of its own -- allocating personnel, resources to development and testing, as well as driving internal and external adoption-- don't magically go away if Apple is involved.  Quite obvious, to anyone but the author.  Taxpayers will be paying the cost for digital IDs regardless of whether Apple is involved, or not.

ID verification is the ultimate responsibility of the issuing authority of the credential, and that does not change either.  I suspect most people don't have any issues with that, versus placing that in the hands of a private company like Apple.

That leaves the queston of control.  It can be argued that Apple is trying to exert too much control.  On the flip side, Apple is trying its best to not allow the governments to affect its user experience, and at least enforce some minimum standards it sets for its platform.  As a practical matter, which is more likely to successfully develop and manage such a project, meeting budgetary, technical and scheduling goals?  Bet on the government, or Apple?  Hmmm…perhaps not a tough question in many minds.  The success, or more pointedly, the lack thereof, of the mishmash of COVID passport apps might provide some clues.

There are definitely tradeoffs involved, and no right or wrong answers, but couching it as the evil Apple taking states and taxpayers for a ride isn't quite justified by the story, or the facts.

Ultimately, states, as well as individuals, are free to participate, or not, in such a program.

Wasn't a fan of how Samsung first put curved edges on their phone screens, and then pushed content out to the boundaries, distorting it.

Not a fan of Apple now doing the same on their product, and more distracting than the notches that so many like to moan about.

At least the notch nets extra usable, uncompromised screen space, not just making the edges harder to read.

I have little doubt that Apple has developed iPhone prototypes with Type-C ports, much like the secret x86 port of Mac OS ("Star Trek") long before Intel Macs ever made it to market.

But if he wants to claim "world's first" and get his 15 minutes of fame, then yay, I guess.