chasm

It’s worth noting for important context to this story that Larry Kudlow has a VERY LONG track record of being wrong about everything he ever comments on.

A rather worrying trait for the guy in charge of the economy, but his history of making unsubstantiated and false claims means that neither the Chinese nor you, dear reader, should pay any attention to anything he says.

entropys said:

What I don’t understand is why Apple can’t keep the latest processor each year. It isn’t as though it drops the price on out of date imacs.  
Why not update whenever Intel releases a new CPU? The extra R&D would be minimal, and people wouldn’t feel like they are being ripped off if the only choice of iMac has previous gen hardware. It just annoys people.

This is a total fallacy based on a sample size of one: yourself.

Take it from someone who used to work in both Apple and non-Apple retail: the number of people who have any understanding whatsoever of what is inside their machine or what “gen” it is (or its name ... or what it does) is nearly exactly the same as the number of people who can identify, name, and replace all the parts in their car.

Power nerds who actually know specs are a *very* slim portion (well under five percent, closer to two percent IME) of even the PC world, and even less so among Apple buyers. What they actually want is a machine that they perceive (rightly or wrongly) will perform adequately well for their needs, full stop. Apple stuff does that, is well-supported for years, and doesn’t require you to buy a new machine every time Intel finally squeezes out an actual new chip. Consumers like that — the vast majority of PC users would happily go back to Windows 95 or XP if they could, limitations and security nightmares be damned.

Pop out of your bubble for a while and go hang out at a mainstream computer retailer or Apple Store for a long weekend. Eavesdrop on the questions people actually as while shopping for new machines. I’ve done that, I’ve worked those stores, and I still eavesdrop when I’m shopping in such places to help keep my mind open to what is important to the mainstream of Apple, Windows, and Android buyers.

Literally yesterday, I watched a woman (who told the clerk she almost exclusively works in Office and Google apps, and puts everything either on an external hard drive or Google Drive) buy an outdated and underpowered dual i5-based refurb Asus machine with very little RAM or storage (4GB, 64G SSD) primarily because a) it will perform just fine for the next few years given her needs and b) she liked the colour of the case (a nice cobalt blue).

You and I and everyone else reading this is likely cringing, but even though she literally could have saved $150 by buying a basic IPad and a BT keyboard, I can’t argue that — based on what she said she does — she picked all that poorly. I see people buy Android tablets all the time even though they ship with Lollipop (that’s four major versions back), will never receive any major updates, and will — guaranteed — be obsolete and in a drawer in two years. But it’s $200 versus a $330 basic iPad that will still be running the latest iOS and apps for the next four to five years.

People, by and large, do not understand value versus cost until they either become quite wise or quite old, and they are terrified of change, IME. Those of us who happen to have a talent or the time for acquiring expertise in computers generally reap the reward of getting the best deal and best machine (for their budget and chosen platform) nearly all the time, but what posters here seem to not understand is that we are a very tiny cult, like expert birdwatchers or skilled craftsmen — we’re nothing like the vast majority of people who buy technology.

If Apple is genuinely interested in this technology (and there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be, but we are only getting one side of the story at present), it’s unlikely to be in the 2019 iPhones because the design on those was probably decided and locked down a while back (Apple works way ahead, but they do have some flexibility for big breakthroughs).

It would be a candidate for the 2020 iPhones, again if the story is true, because the existing VCSEL technology is more than good enough for the purposes 95 percent of users put it to, i.e. close-range portraits and selfies.

It’s nearly the end of the quarter, and Apple has failed to issue an investor warning that it will miss its guidance.

This suggests they won’t.

Plus, while Apple has never broken out iPhone sales by model, Joz already said the iPhone XR was the top-selling phone. Conclusion: everything’s fine, and this will be another record quarter. This negative press is just further (typical) analyst wrongness with bonus anger that Apple isn’t going to give them more data than any other tech company does — like it used to.

As far as I can tell, there's almost no limit to how long the thing you're making a keyboard shortcut for can be. I have one that's an entire form letter that's triggered by "xform." After it has spit out the full letter, I can go back and make a small change if I wish, but I still saved myself writing an entire four-paragraph letter.