atomic101
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Microsoft is closing all of its retail stores, permanently
Wow, get a grip people. I know this isn’t the place for opposing viewpoints, but the OP made some valid points.lkrupp said:
So the Microsoft stores were perfect and the Apple stores suck. Yet Microsoft is the one who is closing ALL of their stores. Do you understand how stupid that makes you look?jbilgihan said:The MS Store in Century City (LA) was always busy. I think they had a bunch of Surfaces, Xbox, Oculus Rigs, etc. and appealed to the industry around them. People could order and pick up a new computer quickly. You could go in and try out the Xbox. Want a full on Oculus setup to pick up and walk out with - they had it.
As far as the Apple Store - always people milling about who don't have any business being there. No crowd control, no place to wait for service. Since doing away with the genious area Apple made it harder to figure out where to go to get support. In order to fix that they have an employee hanging out at the front. Apple has made some mistakes in retail over the last 5 years. Someone else mentioned that it is their ecosystem that keeps people involved and engaged. I can't stand the retail store and try to go as little as possible.I too tend to stay out of Apple Stores as the overcrowding in them reaches levels of absurdity. As a customer of the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, Watch, and stockholder), I honestly don’t understand what most of the people in those stores are doing (and no, they’re not all going in to buy a new device). It’s not as if Apple refreshes its products more than once a year that would warrant repeat visits by the same customer. When a new product is released, I tend to visit one on my way to take a look, but otherwise am content to just walk by the throngs of people lured by the bright lights.
I agree that the empty Microsoft stores were a bit uncomfortable to walk into, but inversely, the over saturated and overcrowded Apple Stores are of equal discomfort.
Kudos to Apple’s successful business strategy. But no one is without faults.
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Compared: iPhone SE (2020) versus iPhone SE (2016)
I was a long holdout for the original SE form factor, but I buckled down and picked up the 2020 model as it came down to a great deal and needing a battery replacement on the old SE.DAalseth said:
I loved my SE because of the size, but yes the screen was small and only seemed more cramped over time. Old eyes didn't help either. I ended up replacing it with an 11. Is it big? Yes. Can I use it one handed? Not really much of the time, and I have big hands. But is it pocketable? Much to my surprise, yes for me at least. But the screen is wonderful. I can do things on it that I wouldn't have dreamed of with the SE.am8449 said:
While I agree the SE is no longer the one-handed wonder it used to be, I think the 2016 size is no longer that useful in terms of today's web content and UI design.cecil4444 said:
Exactly right. Best feature of the 2016 SE was its size — perfect for one-handed use, at a time when the newest phones lost that benefit. Sadly they only got bigger and bigger since then. Not everyone wants a jumbo phone.mattinoz said:Comparison misses the fact the primary feature of the SE was lost in the redesign.
it didn’t grow up it ballooned.
Even back in 2018 when I was still wedded to my beloved SE, surfing the web was like reading a bulletin board through a telescope—an unending loop of zooming in and out of the same web page to read very small type and look at images. Not only that, but apps were so short on space that interface elements became smooshed together. An app might have a row of buttons on the top and bottom of the screen (with the "Back" button already encroaching on the center title), and then only have enough space in the center of the screen for a scant two or three lines of text. Additionally, trying to read ebooks on the SE was a marathon for your thumbs because you'd have to scroll every two sentences.
Do I miss the diminutive size of the 2016 SE? Definitely. It felt great in the hand, and easy to pocket. But for my own uses, the resulting small screen was nearing the limit of its usability.
From my in-person experience of holding the new SE, it still feels great in the hand (which are probably smaller than average). But is it pocketable? Well, that depends on how big your pants are.
Losing the one handed operation was my biggest fear, but I was able to mitigate this by getting a “stand” case that shifts the weight lower and moves the center of gravity away from the middle of the phone. This is the biggest issue I had with larger phones in that they became fiddly and precarious if you tried to strain for the tops of screen. With the COG moved lower, the phone “anchors” into the palm better and doesn’t feel like it’s going to topple over. “Reachability” isn’t ideal, but it works well enough in combination.To the previous poster’s point: the smaller screen of the original SE was beginning to be left behind and developers were catering to larger phones, leaving the small screen with some unintentional anomalies and obscured views. This is something that progressively got worse and moving to a slightly larger screen made this painfully obvious.I’m satisfied with the 2020 SE. It feels like a legit upgrade, although compromising a bit of the size, one handedness, and svelte form factor of the original.
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Apple Retail stores will look very different in the US when they reopen
GeorgeBMac said:dewme said:
Absolutely awesome response. Living entails risk, including risks you accept through your own actions, risks that you are subjected to through the actions of others, environmental risks, societal risks, and of course random being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time risks that seemingly come out of nowhere. It’s virtually impossible to eliminate risks, but you can reduce some of them through directed action. Scientifically you’d think that we’d always apply a risk-vs-reward calculus to decision making, but that’s not how humans operate. Humans are heavily influenced by emotions and self-centered motivation and rarely consider the risk-vs-reward equation when living life in the moment.foregoneconclusion said:
It's about reducing risk, not eliminating risk. Masks aren't impenetrable, but provide a percentage of risk reduction. So does social distancing. So does limiting the number of times you go out into public spaces with other people. So does washing your hands for 20 seconds. So does not touching your face. When you add all those things together, it becomes significant.seanismorris said: I suspect it’s more about making people “feel” safer than actually be safer. All the homemade masks make me laugh. All the times that people touch them...to straighten them, is more likely for them to get contaminated (and the wearer infected) than going without.
All you can really do is try to reduce the risks that you have some degree of control over. You, and society in general, can attempt to motivate through compassion, reward, or fear of punishment the risks that others can inflict on you. But due to human nature it’s never going to be universally adopted, so some level of human-induced risk will always be there no matter the motivations and good intentions. The world is not perfect and humans are A big part of the imperfection. It’s up to you to navigate life and its inherent risks, some of which you recognize and others that can hit you out of the blue. However, you can’t simply shut down and eliminate all risks if you want to go on living.Yes, it is always up to you to reduce your personal risks as much as possible.But what the American right has forgotten in the age of Trump is that protecting its people is the primary rule of government -- whether it is protecting them from themselves, foreign invaders or foreign pathogens.GeorgeBMac said:dewme said:
Absolutely awesome response. Living entails risk, including risks you accept through your own actions, risks that you are subjected to through the actions of others, environmental risks, societal risks, and of course random being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time risks that seemingly come out of nowhere. It’s virtually impossible to eliminate risks, but you can reduce some of them through directed action. Scientifically you’d think that we’d always apply a risk-vs-reward calculus to decision making, but that’s not how humans operate. Humans are heavily influenced by emotions and self-centered motivation and rarely consider the risk-vs-reward equation when living life in the moment.foregoneconclusion said:
It's about reducing risk, not eliminating risk. Masks aren't impenetrable, but provide a percentage of risk reduction. So does social distancing. So does limiting the number of times you go out into public spaces with other people. So does washing your hands for 20 seconds. So does not touching your face. When you add all those things together, it becomes significant.seanismorris said: I suspect it’s more about making people “feel” safer than actually be safer. All the homemade masks make me laugh. All the times that people touch them...to straighten them, is more likely for them to get contaminated (and the wearer infected) than going without.
All you can really do is try to reduce the risks that you have some degree of control over. You, and society in general, can attempt to motivate through compassion, reward, or fear of punishment the risks that others can inflict on you. But due to human nature it’s never going to be universally adopted, so some level of human-induced risk will always be there no matter the motivations and good intentions. The world is not perfect and humans are A big part of the imperfection. It’s up to you to navigate life and its inherent risks, some of which you recognize and others that can hit you out of the blue. However, you can’t simply shut down and eliminate all risks if you want to go on living.Yes, it is always up to you to reduce your personal risks as much as possible.But what the American right has forgotten in the age of Trump is that protecting its people is the primary rule of government -- whether it is protecting them from themselves, foreign invaders or foreign pathogens.
What about economic destruction? The destruction of livelihoods? Of personal freedoms? Is that not part of the equation? Should we allow people to drive cars if there is any risk to themselves or others? Where do we stop? You can quickly approach a level of societal paralysis if you seek to minimize any and every risk.GeorgeBMac said:dewme said:
Absolutely awesome response. Living entails risk, including risks you accept through your own actions, risks that you are subjected to through the actions of others, environmental risks, societal risks, and of course random being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time risks that seemingly come out of nowhere. It’s virtually impossible to eliminate risks, but you can reduce some of them through directed action. Scientifically you’d think that we’d always apply a risk-vs-reward calculus to decision making, but that’s not how humans operate. Humans are heavily influenced by emotions and self-centered motivation and rarely consider the risk-vs-reward equation when living life in the moment.foregoneconclusion said:
It's about reducing risk, not eliminating risk. Masks aren't impenetrable, but provide a percentage of risk reduction. So does social distancing. So does limiting the number of times you go out into public spaces with other people. So does washing your hands for 20 seconds. So does not touching your face. When you add all those things together, it becomes significant.seanismorris said: I suspect it’s more about making people “feel” safer than actually be safer. All the homemade masks make me laugh. All the times that people touch them...to straighten them, is more likely for them to get contaminated (and the wearer infected) than going without.
All you can really do is try to reduce the risks that you have some degree of control over. You, and society in general, can attempt to motivate through compassion, reward, or fear of punishment the risks that others can inflict on you. But due to human nature it’s never going to be universally adopted, so some level of human-induced risk will always be there no matter the motivations and good intentions. The world is not perfect and humans are A big part of the imperfection. It’s up to you to navigate life and its inherent risks, some of which you recognize and others that can hit you out of the blue. However, you can’t simply shut down and eliminate all risks if you want to go on living.Yes, it is always up to you to reduce your personal risks as much as possible.But what the American right has forgotten in the age of Trump is that protecting its people is the primary rule of government -- whether it is protecting them from themselves, foreign invaders or foreign pathogens.
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Apple Retail stores will look very different in the US when they reopen
What is largely glossed over is the age and risk level of the population that is dying from this. Those belonging to the high risk need to take prudent steps to protect themselves. But throwing a suffocating blanket of “safety” across every living person removes all concept of responsibility and intelligence to our response. The majority of the population is exposed to very minor risk to the virus. They’ll catch it, some will have symptoms, most will not. Per CDC data, only 3 out of 100,000 cases for people under 50 years of age will even need to be hospitalized for this. In other words, 1 in 33,000 under 50 will actually get serious complications requiring medical intervention. Those are extremely low odds to be flying off the deep end about. The risk increases as age does, like everything else in life.smcarter said:Far more. Almost 80,000 are dead from the disease as of today.DylanAlphonse said:You will think very differently about these rules when someone(s) around had died due to Covid. I am in Asia and I heard more in US had died because of Covid19 than Sep 11The point is, the focus should be on protecting the highest risk while still allowing society to continue to function. This is how human civilization has approached most risk in our history. Until now, apparently. -
Apple Retail stores will look very different in the US when they reopen
Yes! Honestly, at the rate we’re going, pretty soon the media will be telling us to be afraid of our shadow, and we’ll believe it! The level of data ignorance and fear mongering that the general public has bought into is astounding. There’s risk in everything we do in life. It’s up to us as rational humans to make intelligent decisions based on what level of risk is acceptable given the sacrifices required. Otherwise, no one would dare step foot in an automobile or play any athletic sport for fear of injury or death.apple ][ said:
That's just media fear mongering and a pretty useless comparison in my opinion.DylanAlphonse said:You will think very differently about these rules when someone(s) around had died due to Covid. I am in Asia and I heard more in US had died because of Covid19 than Sep 11
More than sept 11? Another comparison that I've seen the garbage media make is D-Day, lol.
In 2017 in the USA:
Heart Disease 647,457 - - - OMG that's 215 Sept 11s every single year, and just from heart disease!
Cancer 599,108 - - - OMG that's 199 Sept 11s every single year!
Accidents 169,936 - - - OMG, that's 56 Sept 11s every single year! People should be more careful so that they don't get into accidents. Maybe we should shut down society completely and save at least 170,000 lives this year
The plain old regular Flu and pneumonia 55,672 - - - OMG, that's like 18 Sept 11s every single year! If everybody were confined to their homes 24-7-365 and never went outside, nobody would catch the Flu anymore and we wouldn't have tens of thousands dying from the Flu each year.
I don't see anybody getting all hysterical about those deaths.
It's important to keep things in perspective. So far, all of the death totals for the virus are far, far lower than many of the insane, delusional and clueless predictions that have come from a variety of sources.
I'd say we're doing pretty good.
