spheric

crowley said:

If it's just HTML5 games and video streams then why not just create a mobile website?  Does it gain much from being an app?

Of course it does! 

The second you're on the free web, you get distracted and aren't bound to the platform. That's why Facebook, Insta et al. make it so difficult to leave the app — they add in-app web browsers, viewers for everything and anything: They wouldn't need to, because everything already exists on the device. But the second you've left the app, you're off the platform, and the risk of staying off the platform for a while is way higher than if you were looking at an in-app viewer. 

caladanian said:

The chaos computer club says the German app is “not bad”   ...but why couldn’t the European countries agree to all go for a compatible(!) solution, based on the Apple/Google-API? Every country is making it’s own soup. Some better tasting, some worse (with central data bases), but viruses don’t stop at borders. 

Different countries have different regulations. An app written towards US privacy standards would be completely illegal here. 

elijahg said:

nubus said:

GeorgeBMac said:

2)  As the article points out, Apple has successfully implemented a program to design their own chips and SOCs -- and that that is both very difficult and very expensive.   But, once begun it must be continued -- even though it will continue to be both very difficult and very expensive.   The danger lies in the possibility of Apple following other U.S. companies and focusing on stockholder well being over product well being.  If this program is stripped of funding (even a reduction) in order to provide better returns to stockholders, it could take down the whole company -- turn it into another RCA.

Apple will hit more problems by doing this. Intel stalled due to engineering problems. Microsoft did Vista - and not due to lack of funding. It can happen to anyone - Apple failed on keyboards for 5 years, and on the Mac Pro for 10. Can't blame Microsoft for any of that. This won't make MS, or Apple the next RCA or Xerox, but is it worth taking the risk? If Apple truly cared about the Mac CPU then they would do more updates to their products - the CPU is such a non-issue at this point.

You make several very good points. The iMacs were essentially abandoned between 2015 and 2019, (the iMac had a spec bump in 2017, and the 2019 one still has no T2 chip) and apart from minor attempts to fix the Macbook keyboards, they saw little love between 2016 and 2020. And of course the Mac Pro went 6 years before an update. So with the lack of attention toward Macs, why all of a sudden is there a CPU switch, when the current CPUs are fast enough for 99% of tasks?

I'm sure I'm not alone among users who can easily redline a 3500€ laptop bought in late 2016 (a couple of instances of Alchemy and an Abbey Road saturator in MainStage can suffice) and force it to eventually throttle down on hot days — not ideal for stage use in crowded clubs, or on festival stages in summer. 

It's amusing that they claim that IE5's interface design was "almost indistinguishable". 

No. 

It was nice that it had coloured highlights that almost entirely mismatched the colours and design of the Macs at the time, but the thing looked like a skinned OS 9 app, not like an Aqua app at all. 

tux kapono said:

Why is it that an iPhone XS is $999 and an iPhone XS Max is $1099, yet a 13” MacBook Pro is $1300 and a 16” MacBook Pro is $3200.

I have never understood why Apple needs a bigger screen to have a $1100 to $1900 premium on a laptop (85% to 146% markup), while it only needs to be a 10% markup on a phone. It’s like saying a Toyota Yaris starts at $13,000 and the next size up Corolla starts at $24,000 to $32,000. Since when is a slightly bigger version only for the most privileged? Maybe when you start giving dividends to the most privileged, who knows. 

Because you’re using different criteria to differentiate. The market is segmented differently (size is a premium factor, but it goes the inverse direction, as well), but if you want to compare packages of features that Apple offered, the SE was €400. The Xs Max is €1250. 

You couldn’t get a Max-sized SE, and you can’t get an SE-sized Xs. 

In addition to the point that Apple combines features into tiers, laptops, there is the additional issue of thermal constraints: you actually simply CAN’T throw the most powerful package into the smaller case. It won’t work. 

So bigger displays are considerably more expensive and bundled into the „premium“ tier. 

Also, it has long been known that keeping options to a minimum actually results in happier customers. I might have agonised over not wanting the 15“ form factor vs. maybe finding the graphics card useful for some of the FCP dabbling I do, but since I knew I needed the quad, and that only came in the 15“ model in 2016, that was that. 

Now I’ve been using it and enjoying it, and never had second thoughts about any of the options, because they came „for free“ with the deciding criterion.