DavidAlGregory

I have a 2016 VW Golf 1.8 TSI S- the standard model in the US- and it included both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and not on a subscription. This is just greed on a scale beyond tolerance- especially since many BMWs are built by non Union labor in the American South instead of in high wage Germany. They are getting ready to shift production of even more of the US line to a new plant in Mexico- so your "German" car was actually built by people who speak Spanish.

But the price will not drop one red cent.

The greed by car manufacturers is just beyond the pale. If VW can give you CarPlay AND Android Auto on a VW costing less than 20k, why does BMW need to charge $80 a year to people who have already overpaid for the "Ultimate Hype Machine"?

Let's call tracking without your consent what it really is: Stalking. If I stalked you as you went through you day shopping, working, eating, visiting and such you could get a restraint order against me. Why should it be any different online.

There is no news here for anyone who follows AT&T. The wireless company is non-union and the legacy Baby Bells are mostly CWA Union members. What is today called AT&T is the old Southwestern Bell Telephone operating company that bought up Ameritech, PacTel, Bell South and the old long distance unit of the original AT&T. The wireless operations used to be Cingular Wireless and is a non union company. The old Union companies have been a shrinking ice cube for years and the largely non-union parts have been where the growth exist.

AT&T’s CEO worked his way up from the bottom and has implemented a very generous educational program for employees to train up and get the skills necessary to get the jobs that are growing as the legacy ones die off. Many of the CWA members have been fighting this transition for years and oppose the system- not wanting to take non-union positions elsewhere in the company. The copper wire company is dying and the CWA is acting like it is 1979.

AT&T has been selling off small town phone systems and keeping the ones in more densely populated areas. AT&T Fiber is building out in the old copper wire company’s rights of way. If we could see a show of hands you will find out few people have a land line phone from AT&T, so not many people are required to maintain it. On the DIRECTV side, most new installations are done by contractors and many customers will eventually move over to DIRECTVNOW which is online self service and web based. With no end user equipment.

The CWA members fighting this are like buggy whip makers at the dawn of the car age- their trade is falling out of favor and they need to adapt. AT&T is not the bad guy here, these people go through annual reviews where options are discussed, long term job prospects reviewed and choices are made. AT&T has made a great effort to allow employees to adapt to the changing business, and many want to stay in their CWA Union positions rather than change with the company.

Despite the angle being promoted here, this has nothing to do with Trump or the GOP Tax Bill. This about a big legacy company integrating acquisitions and adapting to changes in the business. They have no place for those not willing to change with the company.

slurpy said:

Pretty stunning turnaround time for a company worth almost a trillion dollars with hundreds of millions of users. 

What is stunning is how a company with such resources missed this.

MacPro said:

That was fast!  Well done Apple.

That should have been caught before the first developer beta. Who audits Apple SW for security?