spheric

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spheric
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  • Apple debuts third-generation Apple Pencil with USB-C charging


    If it’s basically just a generic stylus… I don’t see the point. It sounds like a horrible product. I also have to say thank god I have a gen 2! I use the Magnetic Charging all the time-so useful and efficient. And to reduce the artistic flexibility is also just bizarre. This seems like a totally misguided cheapening of a product. if I want a cheap stylus they’re available everywhere already. 
    Truth. Funny how a couple folks got mad at you stating the facts. 

    This product literally does not need to exist. 

    Apple made a case for the pencil with very specific use-cases because they had to overcome Jobs saying “if you’re using a stylus, you’re doing it wrong.” And apple succeeded. The pencil earned its right to exist with its creative precision and ability. 

    This… is “doing it wrong” as Jobs said. It’s just a stylus that doesn’t need to exist. Feel bad for the people who buy this without paying attention to the details that it basically can’t do any creative work other than drawing the same lines over and over. I see a lot of returns in the near future. 

    This is confusing the market. Come on, Apple…
    I absolutely DEPEND on the Pencil for my work — it is literally what makes the iPad useful to me (writing music sheets). 

    I also use the Pencil to take notes in class. 

    The vast majority of people who own and use iPads with Pencils do NOT use them to draw stuff. 

    They use them to WRITE stuff. 

    (FWIW, I never use the Pencil as a UI stylus — always fingers.)
    9secondkox2Alex1Nwatto_cobratht
  • Apple debuts third-generation Apple Pencil with USB-C charging

    So hang on.  It’s WORSE than Apple Pencil 2 in every way?  Am I missing something?
    Yep. 

    Without pressure sensitivity, it’s a total fail for anyone doing creative design work. 

    Unbelievable. Perhaps it will be updated via software? If it can’t be, this thing is DOA. Who the heck approved this thing to launch with such a foundational feature missing? 
    Absolutely nobody who is using an iPad and Pencil for anything other than "creative design work" has the slightest need for pressure sensitivity. 

    The roundabout 50% of students at my university who are using iPads to take notes in class mostly use Pencils, and they now have an option that does not cost 150€. 

    And for those that prefer wireless charging and/or do "creative design work", the Pencil 2 is the high-end option. 

    How is this confusing? 
    9secondkox2Alex1Nwatto_cobrathtbeowulfschmidt
  • Microsoft hammered with $29 billion back-tax bill

    AppleZulu said:
    sdw2001 said:
    gatorguy said:
    AppleZulu said:
    welshdog said:
    darkvader said:
    This is theft. 

    The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it. 

    Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government. 

    Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do. 
    The only theft is what Micro$oft did.  And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
    Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.

    You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
    If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk. 

    They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior. 
    The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity. 

    This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong. 
    Nailed it. 
    Uh, no. The problem is not that the IRS isn’t funded well enough. The problem is the law and the way the IRS operates to begin with. The tax system is intentionally a disaster. You can’t fault corporations, or individuals for minimizing their tax liability. Everybody does it. The real question is not why they have lawyers for this, but why they need them? After all, corporations don’t really pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. The solution is a simple and unavoidable tax system, to which nearly everyone contributes.  Everyone knows this, but it will never happen because the government doesn’t want it to happen (nor does the entire tax industry).  Do you have any idea how much we spend on the IRS by the way? We’re going to spend even more while the IRS goes after Microsoft on this for years.  
    Think harder. Who benefits from Byzantine tax laws that require armies of lawyers to sort out? Think think think. It’s the people and corporations who can afford to pay armies of tax lawyers and still save scads in taxes by taking advantage of the Byzantine tax laws. That’s not poor people. That’s not even regular middle class people. Those laws aren’t written for the purpose of insufferable government bureaucracy. They’re written because wealthy people and corporations paid lobbyists and donated to politicians to get them inserted into the tax laws. Then they paid tax lawyers to find and file for their bespoke exceptions and loopholes. 
    Yep. Every single tax loophole exists because somebody put it there
    jony0
  • Who at Apple thought getting rid of fast Watch Face switching in watchOS 10 was a good idea?

    spheric said:
    Weird. My watch occasionally switched watch faces on its own before watchOS 10. 

    I have no trouble holding my finger on the dial for three seconds before doing exactly the same thing to switch faces as the last seven years I’ve owned an Apple Watch. 

    I’d be fine if you just blamed me, but I actually never suggested this improvement (it is an improvement for me) to Apple. 
    So, removing a feature that you only ever used by accident isn't a problem for you. Why even comment? 
    Wow, choosing hostility over reading comprehension is an interesting option. 

    It was a feature that would activate accidentally, and that — in my experience — is no less accessible, but no longer accidentally switches on me. 

    I bothered replying because I am literally one of those people who thinks this is a good idea (even though I don’t work at apple), and I thought, given that you are obviously invested enough in the feature to go on an online forum to rant about it, you might be interested in an explanation as to WHY I think it’s a good change. 

    I apologise for having misread your one-way broadcast as an interest in communication. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Apple could be out $20 billion a year if Google loses DOJ antitrust case

    13485 said:
    spheric said:
    As Microsoft found out both in the United States vs. Microsoft antitrust case and the European case, "enabled by default" can absolutely constitute an antitrust issue, because the vast majority of users never ever touch their defaults. 

    It's weird how twenty years later, people are still perpetuating weird myths that have long been dispelled by actual (very expensive) court cases. 
    Are you both aware that the DOJ case, initially ruled against MS, was overturned on appeal? The actual settlement between DOJ and MS was much less onerous than the judge's overreaching decision.
    Yes, I am aware of this. A settlement is not a win, and it was still rather expensive. 
    The EU case involved both Windows media Player and Internet Explorer, and Microsoft paid the 500 million € fine in full. 
    9secondkox2ronn