davgreg

Apple has made a lot of mistakes with HomeKit, starting with no Macintosh support from the very beginning and only partial support to this day. Tens of millions of Macs are sitting online at home and not one of them can be used as a hub for HomeKit. To ignore the huge bump that could have given HomeKit at launch just beggars belief.

What he signed off on was not a finalized deal, but he called off an action he had ordered earlier under special authority Presidents have available.

Any trade deal- usually in the form of a Congressional -Executive Agreement - must pass both Houses of Congress in order to take full effect. The USMCA, for example, has been through the Congress and has been modified and will be acted upon in the House shortly.

If you are a veteran or current military do not forget to order through the Apple Store for Veterans and Military as you get a 10% discount. If you are an Apple Card holder you can also get 6% back. That will help lower the price or allow you to buy a much nicer spec Mac Pro. Just the Veteran/Military discount would be $600 and in many places that would offset the sales tax.

The Military/Veteran Program uses ID Me for verification and takes just a few clicks and is used by other retailers for similar discounts.

https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/veterans_military

Merry Christmas

While reading this I was thinking about all the people I know who at the time were invested in Android (usually Scamsung) who insisted they did not like Apple stuff and would never buy an iPhone, iPad or a Mac.

Most of them have a variety of Apple devices and the switch happened downstream of what is detailed here. The choices they made in thei period allowed Apple to pull away from Samsung/Android in the minds of the ordinary Joe/Jane.

Apple's loudest critics know plenty ... including the price of everything.  But they know the value of almost nothing at all.

Value is not what is on a sticker, but what a market will pay for it. Price is simply a starting point for negotiation.

Have you ever paid full sticker price for an auto or a truck? Most have not. The same is true of many other things. The overpricing in a jewelry store is nothing more than an attempt at a good first position in a price negotiation.

I know the value of many things- woking in medicine and seeing diagnostics detect disease and injury that allows treatment and recovery has shown me many things of true and lasting value. Likewise, the high price of a skilled surgeon or other specialist reflects the valuable knowledge acquired over many years and great effort. I have seen patients with a thrombolytic stroke present with profound symptoms that were reversed quickly by the actions of a well trained medical team where the patient went home with no neuro deficits where previously they would have been permanently disabled or died. That is something of true and lasting value.

What Apple is selling is something that will live on your desk for a couple of years before being cast a side to a trash heap or a recycle bin. It does not hold the monitor any better than any number of less expensive options without the Apple brand attached. The value/price analogy kind of withers in light of what is truly important in life and commerce.