ElCapitan

StrangeDays said:

And are you implying you used to have something to do with Apple management?

I was one of the 33 world-wide product managers at the time with HW prototypes, beta HW including product that never got launched, all development project software versions, and 2 year product plans in my office. 

hammeroftruth said:

ElCapitan said:

The lawsuit is 100% appropriate.

Apple has given the public the impression they store data in their own datacenters, and as Apple provides these services around the planet and customers in different countries should be informed where their data actually is stored so they can make informed decisions if they want to use the service or not.  It probably also has lead customers to believe they got an increased level of privacy (as spouted by Apple marketing), when in reality they got closer to Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft base level. If I knew my iCloud data was stored on Google servers, I would have ended the iCloud subscription immediately. 

But of course for ex-Compaq Tim Cook, he don't see the difference.

I think you are confusing your interpretation of what Apple said. They never said they owned the servers that house iCloud data, plus they don’t go into detail with the public on what data  is stored on those specific servers. Plus the fact that they use encryption which so far no one has been able to defeat makes it hard to present a case in which the plaintiffs or you were harmed.

I am not confusing anything. Apple has made multiple announcements of how they are building large data centers for iCloud and other services, and have even given tours of them for journalists. 

It has been generally assumed that Apple mainly have been hosting iCloud on Microsoft Azure architecture, but the servers running it were fully deployed to Apple owned facilities and locations. 

Data hosted in other cloud services will necessarily also end up in their backup systems where they never should have been. They can possibly also be decrypted there because Apple can decrypt iCloud hosted data and have done so in multiple cases for law enforcement. When the data end up in a third party backup system it can also be restored to a different location and potentially be compromised. 

This is also about Apple's integrity and trustworthiness. They pretend to have a holier-than-thou stance on privacy, yet completely fail to inform the customers that their data might migrate outside Apple facilities. NOT good!

The lawsuit is 100% appropriate.

Apple has given the public the impression they store data in their own datacenters, and as Apple provides these services around the planet and customers in different countries should be informed where their data actually is stored so they can make informed decisions if they want to use the service or not.  It probably also has lead customers to believe they got an increased level of privacy (as spouted by Apple marketing), when in reality they got closer to Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft base level. If I knew my iCloud data was stored on Google servers, I would have ended the iCloud subscription immediately. 

But of course for ex-Compaq Tim Cook, he don't see the difference.

Europe is not one single market as there are 50 countries with over 225 indigenous languages. Most of these countries and languages don't see a single shred of Apple marketing. In addition there is significant differences in price sensitivity between countries.

Equally there are probably minimum 3 times as many major operators as there are countries, and these will to a much larger extent use Android based handsets to differentiate their offerings in their region than what is possible with the few Apple handset models to chose from.

With the significant price hike Apple did last year, the effect of VAT kicks customers right in their pocket, and add to that currency fluctuations amplifying Apple's base (US) price increase. 

As was mentioned above, many of the services offerings Apple tout at their product presentations simply don't exist in any European market, perhaps with the exception of the UK. This is never reflected in lower prices, and may for many feel as a complete rip-off or broken promises.

Finally much of Apple's BS virtual signaling does not fly with European customers. In the LGBT area large sections of Europe made these reforms and freedoms 25 years ago, and listening to it from Apple management gets very old or now irrelevant. At the other side of the coin, the message does not fly at all in Eastern Europe and in the many predominantly Muslim markets in the East.

Also Apple's marketing focus on US holidays and events does likewise not fly, simply because most of these are completely irrelevant to the European customer base. They celebrate a plethora of national and religious holidays and events that are not at all based in the US "shopping" seasons. So the timing for sales (as if Apple ever had one) and campaigns may therefore miss spectacularly. 

SpamSandwich said:

ElCapitan said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

ElCapitan said:

There is another alternative: Redesign the damned thing with parts that both can be sourced in the US, and at the same time make the machine more flexible in terms of entry configs (that many have requested), and to use standard memory, disk and graphics cards more readily available. That would also broaden the market for it.

It does use standard memory and can use standard graphics cards. Additionally, the machine and macOS support PCI-E NVME cards (if not the drives directly in a slot), and has two SATA 3.0 ports internal.

I'm not sure how much more standard part support you want.

You and I both know that there is no US manufacturing on this scale to speak of, and there will be no redesign.

There won't, so from now on it is Linux on completely different boxes for everything we used to use Apple kit for. 

Are you an American? If not, what are you worried about?

It was a general comment to the state of many things at Apple that over time has made it unfit for business.
It is most definitely not the company I used to be proud to work for!