EsquireCats

rcfa said:

Bravo, as BS as the battery lawsuit is, as appropriate is this.

Any other products you can get heavily discounted, due to competition, but Apple manages to keep all distributors and retailers in line, best discounts are a few dollars off, or some “bundle deal”

That's one way to look at it, the other is that since people can buy other brands then it shouldn't make a difference if Apple products are a similar cost across the retail landscape, since it doesn't lessen competition for a product, a product that people continually claim is "no better", or even "worse" that the offerings from other brands.

So why do Apple do this? A few reasons: It lets Apple products be in more stores, as smaller stores aren't going to have a price disadvantage to large electronic chains or online retailers. The larger stores can afford to have slimmer margins or loss-leader promotions. The other reason is to not form retail gluts of consumers waiting for a promotion - this leads to sending stock back and forth to balance unnatural demand changes, and in the event that sales are held back by consumers waiting for a deal: more landfill and higher prices.

So who wins with this ruling? Well the French government do, at over a billion, the fine is an absurd cash grab that is out of proportion with the claimed damages (it's the sort of thing that will find French companies in the line of retaliatory action by the US-government, since everyone can play that game.)
Amazon is also a big winner, since they now have a seal of approval to price French competitors out of existence using their extreme buying power. Hooray?

The overarching idea that cheapest is always best has consequences. E.g. Look at the music industry, look at IAP, look at book sales.

I don't see anything suspicious or surprising here - Last April during Disney's investor day presentations, Iger himself stated that he would step down from Disney once his contract expires in 2021 and that a succession plan was in the works. In times when he had extended his contract he had given the same reason as today: the Fox deal. Choosing now to cede after the Disney+ launch is an entirely logical time to hand over the reins.

I'd argue it's more privacy minded to check for false-positives, thus not automatically handing private details to a 3rd party or law enforcement. Imagine having your details in a database when there was actually no questionable content.

However hashing is reasonably robust that I can't be too critical of companies which automatically hand over the email itself. While hash collisions can occur, it's usually the result of deliberately attempting to engineer a collision, and if using a layered approach to hashes, then the chance of an already rare collision becomes incredibly remote. (I.E. When the seed images are hashed two different ways, then any positives are checked against a second, more robust hash - in Apple's case this is a pair of human eyes.)

larrya said:

You guys are pathetic.  Apple cut performance by more than 50% and didn't bother telling anyone, and yet in Apple stores customers were told their batteries were fine, even refusing to provide paid replacements, and were encouraged to purchase new phones.  This is fraud, and the prosecutor's conclusion is uncontested by Apple.  You can love their products, as I do, without wearing blinders.

Actually you're pathetic: Apple didn't cut performance by 50% and CPU throttling has always been a device management strategy in the iPhone.

1. iPhones already throttled peak performance prior to these patches. E.g. For temperature extremes and preserving battery life.
2. The changes in iOS 10.2 and 11.2 extended the CPU throttling features to untenable battery scenarios - i.e. situations which would normally turn off the device. Apple acknowledged that unexpected shutdowns were being addressed at the time.
3. The most common worst case scenario resulted in a geek bench score of 2,500 being reduced to 1,500 during a peak load. The device operated at "normal" speeds during other times when the battery was able to supply sufficient power, or not under a stressful load.

Apple cut performance by more than 50%

Not only was peak load not reduced by 50%, but normal device usage was unaffected. Your comment lends to the idea that the phone was suddenly half as fast as before the update - there is no foundation for that.

...and didn't bother telling anyone

It was literally in Apple's statements about the update: "With iOS 10.2.1, Apple made improvements to reduce occurrences of unexpected shutdowns that a small number of users were experiencing with their iPhone."

Of all the devices tested in Geek bench 4 under iOS 10.2.1, the overwhelming majority had no change in performance and the average decrease in peak performance due to the new changes was ~10 - 15% 

So yeah your post is total sensationalist crap, and I think that's pathetic.

danvm said:

MacPro said:

I am not surprised.  My Rolex has been in a drawer ever since I got my first Watch.

In a few years, it will the opposite, the AW will be in the drawer, stuck with an old version of WatchOS, while the Rolex will be working like new.  

What bullshit - I bought an Apple Watch because I was tired of having to reset the time on my 2 year old, $8k Tag heuer “chronometer”. Also the Crown’s thread wore away inside of a year and needed replacement. (Which they weren’t willing to do for free.)
The idea that these brands are producing a high-value, quality item is purely marketing. It’s typical fashion “thin end of the wedge marketing”.