DanielEran

gmgravytrain said:

There's no way Apple can beat Chromebooks in schools. ...  I suppose Google will always beat Apple when it comes to the low end products or services. Most people just love cheap or free stuff even if it's junk.

That's also what everyone said about Google's plans for phones, big tablets, watches, small tablets, netbooks, notebooks, etc.

That's kind of the point of the article.

moosefuel said:

In regards to the eMate 300: that was probably Apple's most successful Newton product, so saying "Apple stopped selling it because its production wasn't sustainable." is not really correct. Apple stopped selling it because Steve Jobs wanted to focus the company on the core business, which was doing poorly because Apple had, upon ousting John Sculley, started licensing the Mac OS to clone makers in a race to the bottom. It's the Mac business which is more like the Chromebook business, not the eMate. It was nice to see it mentioned, though. There's a documentary coming out about Newton soon. You should Google it. ;-)

What evidence is there eMate was either successful or sustainably profitable? 

jfanning said:

Very American centric article, Daniel why don't you talk about the remaining 96% of the works population?

The article focused on US K-12 because it was a critique of Bloomberg's article, which itself focused on US K-12 because that's the only place Chromebooks appear successful on any metric. This piece actually brings in the context of the rest of the world, noting that iOS beats ChromeOS adoption even across global education where Apple has not historically had as strong of a position.

So it's really the opposite of what you said.

k2kw said:

rrogifan_new said:
This is true.    Usually when Apple is behind in something (their hardware is nearly always first rate) it because of Software (not bad software but just late or missing software)    That's why Apple's Siri trails Google Now and Alexa.   I remember back in 2016 DED there was a lot of hype about Alexa and DED would always say Apple was buying companies to put together a SIRI much better than Alexa culminating with 
https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/01/07/is-apple-getting-siri-ous-in-the-face-of-amazons-alexa-echo .  The HomePod finally came out with better Microphones that help Siri some but at the same time many have noted new problems like the Siri HomePod not answering questions that can be answered by your phone Siri.

That's a false portrayal of what the year ago editorial about Siri said, as well as earlier articles on the subject. Rather than saying that acquisitions would instantly erase any aspect where Alexa might have an advantage, it actually said, of those acquisitions that were just made:
"In 2017, Siri looks to be a key area of advancement at Apple."

Including the "better microphones" that you sort of dismiss but is key to Apple taking on the only thing Alexa can sell. 

sfolax said:

DanielEran said:

270k people unwitting gave access to their data, which allowed the data of 50 million other people to be stolen. 

How do you not get the words you are typing?

See that's where you are wrong.

https://www.ft.com/content/6591e21a-2ce1-11e8-a34a-7e7563b0b0f4
Mr Kogan said on Wednesday that his interest in the data gathered from around 270,000 Facebook users paid to complete a survey, and their friends, was to better understand people’s personalities — a key area of his academic research. But by transferring the data to Cambridge Analytica for commercial use, Facebook said he breached their terms of service.

People were paid to sign up. You don't just give your facebook details away to an app - you have to authorise it and it shows you what you are giving access to. Most people just ignore that and click Ok. There is a difference between not reading/understand and stolen. 

If some fraud comes knocking at my door and sells me a vacuum cleaner that maps out the floor plans of my house and sends details to their server which they can use to plan various malicious exploits against me, I've willingly been duped by my own mistake. Maybe it was in the EULA I didn't read. I gave consent and access to somebody I shouldn't have, and it's my fault. 

But if somebody comes knocking and asks me for a listing of all my neighbors and the blueprints to all of their houses in my neighborhood and I say, duh, sure here! Then guess what? All those neighbors are compromised by a mistake I made, and they didn't. They didn't give consent just because they have a dimwitted neighbor.

The thing is, Facebook created a huge social graph using a network that purports to be a way to share pictures and read viral bits of fluff and take quizzes about what Disney princess you are. Except what it really does is spy out everything you type. And when you answer those quizzes, you frequently reveal (innocuously hidden on a page you click through) huge swaths of metadata including your friend list, enabling any bullshit bit of garbage facebookery to slurp up miles of data that nobody on the site, whether they realize it or not, knows is being collected whether they engage in such Quiz and Likes crap or not.  

The only reason to deny all of this is if you are a complicit supporter of this kind of fraud just because it currently supports your political agenda. But guess what happens once the system and the data is available to others, such as enemy nations planning out their own sophisticated psyops attacks? In fact, the Cambridge Analytica researcher already has taken the data to Russia, where he works. Two years ago. We already know China is working on ways to inject spyware and suck up data. It would be real helpful to have a social graph of tons of data acquired from Americans (and everyone, globally) under the premise of being a fun social game site with funny videos. 

Maybe you're okay with anyone knowing everything about you and how to launch attacks on your collective group of neighbors, but most people aren't. That's why this a scandal, and a really big deal.