loquitur

I haven't seen anyone use a numeric keypad since the days of the IBM 029 keypunch.
Where is the demand coming for this?   For that matter, why hasn't the caps lock key also
have gone the way of the dodo bird?

Among the myriad of problems with patents is the seemingly arbitrary nature of the awards gifted
by lay juries.   A smartphone reflects (tens of) thousands of patented ideas even though almost all
shouldn't be patented because they would have been re-discovered by either straightforward
or creative engineering by other teams than the patent holder.   If every patent holder could get a dollar
for their first-to-rubber-stamp-by-the-USPTO idea for each phone, the cost to the user would be horrendous.

Even the "smallest saleable unit" analysis where the royalty is based on the cost of a CPU chip rather
than the whole consumer product has problems.   See:

http://www.iam-media.com/Intelligence/IAM-Yearbook/2018/Country-by-country/Smallest-saleable-patent-practising-unit-doctrine-developments-and-challenges

I think royalties for anyone's one particular idea should just be divided by the number of other
patents comprising the device.   So if a troll (and yes, universities as NPE's fit the definition of a troll)
wants more than a penny for their thoughts, they should just get into the product manufacturing
business themselves.

Thinking through MacBook futures, wherein Face ID comes to the fore, I'm wondering
if it impossible without the neural net hardware of the A11.   Can this equivalency be bolted on
to the Intel (or AMD in future?) CPUs in MacBooks easily via a 'T2' rev?

avon b7 said:

sog35 said:

jasenj1 said:

sog35 said:

The iPhone X is the most amazing single piece of hardware EVER. EVER.

It doesn't have a memory card slot. Maybe not important to you, but important to many.

nope.

memory card slot is important to a very very small percentage of iPhone users.

I think opinions would change if Apple added a memory card option and justified it by saying the technology wasn't right for us until now. ;-)

You mean like http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2236.html? (As an old geezer, I like the "ear trumpet jack" best!

Great backgrounder mentioning PARC, and, the notion of "Apple Park currency" is novel.

It's good to get this out ahead of something that goes back years in the business press,
mention of the "edifice complex".  In days of yore, whenever some new corporate
headquarters was showcased on a magazine cover, it was seen as a certain symbol
of that company's consequent decline, since the supposed pinnacle of said company's chutzpah
was reached, and it became all downhill from there.   But, as you suggest, this is only one
Apple Park "unit" of many.