applemagic

gatorguy said:

applemagic said:

gatorguy said:

This will be very appreciated news for some number of Gmail users. Of course this might have been prompted by Judge Koh who clearly disliked the practice and had full intention of issuing rules under which Google would be permitted to do so. Far easier and more PR worthy to get out ahead of it and simply stop doing it altogether. 

 From my years of being an AI reader, it wasn't really a surprise to see your's being the first reply on this post.

From my years of being a contributing AI forum member it wasn't really a surprise to see a new guy start out his history here trying to make things personal instead of insightful, falling into the same routine of so many other posters on so many other sites. We can learn from each other or insult each other. Your choice. 

Don't pretend that I didn't make an insightful comment when you chose to deflect it with an inanity about having to produce evidence that Google can track across dynamic IP addresses. 

gatorguy said:

Worth mentioning.

Just to experiment I turned off my ad-blocker for a couple of hours today, researched a couple of products for the yard, made one purchase, then returned here to see what kind of ads I might see. There were several that appeared in the sidebar on the main page and a couple in-line ones too. ( I never see ads here so old news to those not blocking ads). Some were from Google and some from other placement companies. Noticeably the only ads put in front of me connected to product browsing from this morning came from Criteo (three) and oddly one from Intel directly. The ones Google presented here had nothing at all to do with any search or inquiry I had ever made, and TBH were for products I'd not likely ever have any interest in. 

Your experience doesn't reflect mine at all. If I wanted to be harsh, I would say your claim is bogus. For some reason, AdBlock Plus is broken on my Chrome desktop browser and I had to turn it off for a few days. And, I was inundated with ads left, right and centre related to ecommerce product domains I typed in, search terms in Google etc.

gatorguy said:

cpsro said:

sflocal said:

My gmail account is viewed via my MacOS email client, or the mail app on my iPhone.  I get zero ads.  I rarely (if ever) log into gmail via a web browser.  Don't many people do that?  It's almost zero effort to set that up.

Google still has ways of tracking you and targeting you, starting with the IP address. If/when you run a Google search, the ads you see can be tailored to your IP address.

How does that work with dynamic addresses? Seems like that would be a very poor way to track users for a few different reasons. Now if instead you mean Google and other ad placement providers can use an IP address to determine where in the world a request is coming from to show ads pertinent to that area, yeah that makes sense. But not for targeting an ad at you specifically from my limited knowledge of how it all works. 

Dynamic IP addresses are what the vast majority of the global population use when connecting to the Internet. You really mean to say Google hasn't long since figured out a way to link/track a Google profile across changing IP addresses? It's nice to see how you can conveniently make Google look technically inept to suit your particular narrative.

gatorguy said:

This will be very appreciated news for some number of Gmail users. Of course this might have been prompted by Judge Koh who clearly disliked the practice and had full intention of issuing rules under which Google would be permitted to do so. Far easier and more PR worthy to get out ahead of it and simply stop doing it altogether. 

You're quite the Google apologist, aren't you? I often wonder how/where you find the time to make all this effort to defend this company and how it pays for you. From my years of being an AI reader, it wasn't really a surprise to see your's being the first reply on this post.

nhughes said:

Rayz2016 said:

nhughes said:

radarthekat said:

nhughes said:

tycho_macuser said:

Lol.
Interesting the bizarre disparity of opinion...

I read this blurb on 9to5:
“The new iPad Pro, however, concedes nothing to price. It’s an all-in product that cuts no corners”

Buuuuut, on this site:

“with a $649 starting price, Apple cuts just a few too many corners for our liking”

I own one & love it (though, I’m straining to try to see the display differences that these reviewers call “obvious”).... so I was REALLY curious what corners they felt were cut- after reading like 30 paragraphs of praise, I finally came across the note that they thought Apple should’ve included the faster charger. 
Thats the “few too many corners” AI is talking about I guess.

sheesh..... talk about nit-picking!

You left out the parts where I note that the $650 entry price is $150 more than the new flagship iPad cost for years. Or where I say the $329 iPad offers more value to consumers (a product we rated higher at 4.5/5 stars). Or where I said that to get the most out of this iPad you would have to spend closer to $981. Or where I say that Smart Connector support is lacking and Apple should push third parties to create more options, since only Logitech is making devices for it. 

4 out of 5 is an excellent score for an excellent product. But there are clear, simple ways Apple could improve the product without the need for a theoretical A11X chip or 16MP camera or iOS 12. Hence the score, and the comment about cut corners. 

None of your points, except the charger, seem to fit the definition of a cut corner.

A higher price is not a corner cut. 

The fact another product offers better value is not a corner cut.

Separetly priced accessories, which are needed only by a portion of the market, is not a corner cut.

Lack of third-party support for the Smart connector is not a corner cut.  The smart connector still does what it does, offers the capability it was designed to offer, regardless of whether many third parties have taken advantage of it.  If in six months a pile of third parties have created accessories that connect to it, will you say that Apple has now tacked that corner back on, when the functionality of the connector has not changed at all?  Makes no sense to call this a cut corner. 

Call them whatever you want -- cut corners, shortcomings, flaws, etc. We're focusing on one phrase used in one paragraph of a lengthy (and by the way, extremely positive) review. 

I wanted to get across in the opening paragraph that there were simple things Apple could have done to improve the product out of the box. The lede serves to summarize the piece in a simple and concise way. Obviously when you boil thousands of words down into two sentences, some meaning is lost. 

If issue is taken with my use of the words "cut corners," so be it. I was just attempting to explain that the $650 price is steep, and many customers will be equally served by the $330 iPad. 

It's not really a question of 'taking an issue' though, is it? Your use of the phrase 'cut corner' is clearly wrong. I don't think anyone is saying that these issues shouldn't be highlighted; what folk are saying is that they should be described correctly. 

I read the article twice and came away thinking, 'So where the hell were all these cut corners then?'

The lack of third party support for the smart connect is not a cut corner.
A hike in price is not a cut corner. 
The only thing mentioned here that could be described as a cut corner is the low power charger, which as shortcomings go gets a 'meh, whatever' from me.

Accuracy is important, whether you're a blogger or a journalist. A few folk here feel the same way, which is why they pointed this out. 

I will concede that, in hindsight, I could have used a better figure of speech to summarize my feelings about the product in the opening paragraph. That said, I stand by the content of the review, and take issue with your suggestion that it is lacking in "accuracy." 

I think you are simply getting more defensive. Your expression that Apple cut corners with this product was clearly inaccurate, for the reasons pointed out by many readers. To be honest, the constant references in the article to imagined corners cut came across as unnecessary sour grapes - except for the 29W charger, which does seem like Apple cutting corners, the other points were not valid, imho.

That the 2017 iPad provides better value is your personal opinion and you are certainly entitled to that. But, for someone like me (and, dare I say, a few others on this forum) looking for a Pro model with higher capabilities, it's really an apples and oranges comparison and kind of irrelevant when you are reviewing the higher end model. Case in point, I am getting the $329 iPad for my aged parents and the 10.5" iPad Pro for myself as my primary work computer as I am always on the go. So, it's not as if your readers are unaware of the relative merits and capabilities of each product.