EsquireCats

Seems like a few issues at play:

• A lot of opinions being thrown around over nothing more than a rendering (a pretty noisy/ugly one too I might add - seems rather unimaginative considering Apple's other architectural pursuits.)
• The community misdirecting their anger to Apple, when they should focus on why their government is offering the space to a corporate to begin with, and that they're also willing to demolish a building to get it there. At the same time I can see why they dodged public consultation - it destroys vision and produces mediocre spaces.
• Finally, it's an opportunity for political football; whereby opposition will always spin an anti-everything sentiment, public spaces are inevitable, low hanging fruit.

As for Fed Square - it's overrated. An insecure manifestation of me-too aesthetics appropriated from European cities, all while sidelining its own heritage.

A few things:

1. Year in and year out this guy still doesn't understand how Moh's scale is to be used nor how scratch testing works. At this stage he's just dug in his heels and committed to doing it wrong and making, yet again, incorrect conclusions. (E.g. My personal favourite is when he falsely claimed the sapphire was ordinary glass based on making scribbles with metal picks.) A high-schooler has a better grasp of the concept.
2. He's literally an unqualified, random amateur with a camera. I'd perhaps like him more if he didn't sound like cardboard, smug cardboard. Give your attention to someone who is going to put together a meaningful review, even "Will it blend" is better than this crap.

In the world of reviewers you get to have your opinion, but you don't get to randomly make up conclusions based on handling a product for 5 minutes and posting it to youtube - no surprise he's not invited to a keynote announcement, invites aren't granted on the basis of self-importance.

A total bs argument. The advertising industry has had, for a very long time, significant tracking assets to make advertising a useful and engaging service to people, but they don't do that, instead they just use it for metrics and profile building. It's completely one-sided and an abuse of the privilege of a person's screen, it's no surprise that users have "switched off".

So instead of designing campaigns that are clever and useful by presenting new information and products to what would be genuinely interested users, they go for eyeball traffic. Eyeball traffic basically means plastering the ad anywhere to get the impression count up - which is nothing more than a shiny number they can tell their customers. To their own benefit they have also overstepped boundaries in ad display, such as holding content hostage, count down timers and tricking users into clicking on ads by accident - none of these things actually help the user find new products that interest them, but they certainly do push up the impressions, viewing time and click through rate. (Don't forget about the megabytes-per-site of javascript that is running all of this.)

The more that technology protects the individual user and curtails these practises the better: the ad agency will have to sleep in this bed, they've made it for themselves. (Of note, these changes aren't going to affect people who seek out genuine sponsorship for their website.)

"leaving only the "iPhone" logo above small text reading "Designed in California Assembled in China" and information regarding model number, FCC identifier and IC code."

The inclusion externally visible regulatory marks varies region by region (even inside the USA). While certain handsets sold in the USA may exhibit no externally visible regulatory markings, this is not consistent world-wide.

Historically the inclusion of regulatory markings on prototypes varies, the devices are prototypes and their inclusion would only be for testing purposes and not to satisfy regulatory requirements.

This case relies too much on Thao having done everything right and Apple having done everything wrong. This is already a problematic position because the iPhone 4s did not have any safety issues and the filing already begins to smell:

• The device was purchased in 2014, yet by September 2013 only the 8gb model was available through very limited channels. Thao's model may have been discontinued as early as September 2012.
• The claim does not mention that the device was purchased from Apple or an authorised reseller, this would be helpful to Thao's case, the absence of this information indicates that the device was not purchased through Apple or an authorised reseller, possibly because Thao's model was discontinued by then (it's very easy to check this information). This could indicate that the device was rebirthed, second hand or purchased in a damaged/tampered state.
• Thao is inferring that the device was being charged properly using an approved charger and had no other damage. It's difficult for Thao's legal to prove that either of these were the case, especially when there is a known history of problems with incorrect chargers. (Or for example charging the device under a pile of clothes.)
• The claim presents a rather specific 'fact' that the battery caused the fire and that the shorting occurred prior to the fire. The timeline and exactness of these claims is doubtful, analysis of the device will reveal whether or not these claims can be made. However a shorting of the device leading to fire is indicative of a dodgy charger, not a design fault.

In short it's an uphill battle for State Farm, and despite the legal and associated costs being above the 75k damage, Apple will likely not settle such a case unless their device was clearly at fault, otherwise they will have every Tom, Dick and Harry trying to cash in through settlements.