linuxplatform

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  • Compared: Apple's AirPods Pro vs Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

    If this review has to resort to "Apple prestige" and denigrating a form factor that both innovates AND is a proven one based on hearing aids - when this same site just trashed OnePlus for ripping off the AirPod design just a couple of weeks ago - it is an admission that there are no real differences between the Samsung and Apple products. In that, this review reaches the same conclusion as everyone else: that this is a fantastic product in its own right. The only legit criticism then is the ANC, which most other reviews cited. So, there has been only one bad review for this much maligned in advance product and that one seems to be an outlier.

    As to which one is better: simple. If you own Apple hardware then buying this product makes no sense. Buy AirPods or AirPod Pros. But if you do not own an iPhone, iPad or Mac, then based on the reviewer this is what you need to get. The prestige of the Apple name means nothing to you already apparently, Siri and other ecosystem benefits will be useless for you, and the lack of true ANC isn't worth the $70 price differential.

    The key takeaways from this review isn't whether Apple device owners should buy this for their Apple devices over AirPods. They shouldn't and won't. The question is whether Samsung is capable of making an excellent product of comparable quality with Apple's best and do so without copying Apple (indeed quite the opposite, as it is difficult to arrive at a product that is less like the AirPod than this except by sitting down and centering the design of the device around that purpose from the outset). While the reviewer will never concede so the answer to this is clearly yes, which makes this an obvious buy to pair with whatever non-Apple products an Apple fan may find himself owning.
    avon b7ednlBeatsmuthuk_vanalingamOferglo46
  • Apple's block of Xcloud & Stadia game streaming apps is at best consumer-hostile

    danvm said:
    Why would Apple leave that game streaming thing to Google or Microsoft while they can do it better than both? 
    Because, as today, Google and MS are doing better than Apple in gaming.
    Thanks to Apple Silicon Apple is already years ahead on that. Besides, they can offer that streaming to all game developers who sell in the AppStore without alienating them and maintaining the rich content already on sale.
    I don't think that Apple Silicon is the magic cure to the issue Apple has with the gaming business.  
    Microsoft couldn't maintain 3 Halo games on iOS ... but they have the massively successful XBox (which is the #2 or #3 console depending on how Nintendo is doing and by far the most successful online gaming subscription service in XBox Live), the even more successful DirectX gaming APIs and competely thoroughly dominate PC gaming. Allow me to ask of you ... what color is the sky in your world? Further, there are tons of successful Microsoft games on iOS. By contrast has Apple themselves ever made a single mobile game?

    They failed in mobile computing ... but dominate in PC, enterprise and cloud computing. 3 out of 4 ain't bad. Apple by contrast only succeeds in mobile computing (even there they have 15% market share) are niche at best in PC computing (7%) and have no presence in enterprise or cloud computing at all. Meaning at best 2 out of 4.

    And no, Apple Silicon does not solve latency at all. Latency is solved at the network layer. Apple does not make 4G or 5G modems. They buy them from Qualcomm. Metal for rendering? The rendering is not done on the device! The rendering is done by the cloud server, which is then streamed to the device over H.265 or VP9! Which is why you are able to play Stadia on Chromebooks that have Intel Celeron CPUs with the absolute cheapest graphics stacks available and will be able to play Stadia or xCloud on very cheap Android devices.

    RIF dude, RIF.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Apple's block of Xcloud & Stadia game streaming apps is at best consumer-hostile

    Rayz2016 said:
    tmay said:
    tmay said:
    This article is extremely one sided. Who is to say that big game publishers wouldn't absorb significant numbers of mobile game developers to their own streaming platforms and practically deprive Apple iOS and Mac game stores over night. This is a standalone business model so you bet your ass that big game publishers or even new venture capital wouldn't try this. Not all gaming should work this way, mobile games should run locally so Apple is right and they cant open the flood gates by letting MS or Google do it.
    I'm glad you agree that Apple is trying to preserve its revenue stream. That's the whole point of the article. If developers choose to throw in with streaming services and get paid by them, instead of Apple paying them, so be it. Maybe Apple will be forced to change things as a result of that competition, which is the whole point of capitalism, is it not?

    In regards to other comments discussing "monopoly." A monopoly isn't by itself illegal, nor is it required for anti-trust arguments. All anti-trust needs is illegal and unnecessary blocking or interference with other businesses. That's it.
    How, exactly, is Apple interfering in other businesses? MS, et al, aren't entitled to run Apple's business.

    You imply that Apple has no corporate sovereignty, and in fact, if Apple is aware of how little gaming will affect their business, streaming or otherwise, shouldn't they have the ability to test their business model in the market against competing business models?

    Unless of course, you have some sort of Minority Report operation that can predetermine success of a particular business model.

    I like Apple's curated approach, and I like that Apple doesn't rush into whatever the fad of the market is. Do you really think that streaming games, affected by latency issues, will be a wonderful experience from the get go?

    Perhaps you can provide a detailed, first person experience with specific hardware and services, to all of us.


    I really have no idea what you're asking for, here.

    In regards to the "run Apple's business" - I have no idea where you got that from what I said.
    Are you currently using a game streaming service on other hardware, ie, an Android device, and what is your experience with latency?
    Game streaming performance is piss poor, unless you have Fiber 1Gb Up/1Gb Down, and on top of that an extra layer of latency due to decompression on the fly frame by frame, with them pushing up  to 30 seconds of pre-streamed, decompressed framing at you to attempt a smooth experience. All of this taxes the system resources. Sorry, but it's a shit show and Google knows it.

    Microsoft failed at its own Mobile OS. It now wants to circumvent iOS and would Android but for the fact Android is a shit show and it already allows circumvention as a substitute for exploiting to hundreds of billions in information adverts and third party targeted ad selling which compromises all personal privacy--ala Facebook and Google. Microsoft is happy to capitalize on that and ignore the privacy concerns. Its sole focus is to exploit anywhere it can because it is seeing its peak in potential new revenues streams severely limited by its own decisions over the past decade.

    Apple with it's well thought out ecosystem adds new markets when it feels the cross pollination is well tested, extends the vertical services and keeps expanding and offering quality products/services without selling out their user base personal information to the Government or third parties. The vast majority of profits in the entire computing industry for mobile goes through Apple.

    Microsoft and Google want that to end. They cry foul and play bedfellows while they continue to syphon information from their customers in exchange for a perceived short-term `freedom' that for the life of me is nothing more than a slow dependency on all information going through them both.

    Apple has no interest in monetizing on your personal shopping needs, your addictions, your habits, your rituals, etc. They provide you with an ecosystem of platforms that let you decide how you want to work, be entertained and invest your life's energy. If their approach is not your cup of tea there is always Microsoft through Google, Samsung through Google, Google, or other Android vendors through Google. Their platform is familiar to Microsoft as it is as filled with the similar types of Malware that Microsoft made billions off of providing `security services' while keeping the fundamental designs of its OS broken and available for exploit. Android does the same under Google. 

    Apple pays bounties for improved security testing [exploits] and people fall silent. Before, they were inundated with whining that not all security is flawless and all their services are bug free. By comparison it's just assumed Android is a maze of hacks and broken services, but open for you to tinker on--thus perceived freedom.

    You want your games streamed then use the Web interface, Microsoft/Google and stop whining that you aren't the creator of Apple's Ecosystem you so enviously wish you owned.

    Steve Jobs won. Check mate.
    Mic drop.  Exit stage left. 
    The only reason to drop the mic and exit the stage is that this fellow made 100 assertions with only 1 of them being true, and that 1 had absolutely no relevance to the discussion at hand. 
    ctt_zhcflcardsfan80InspiredCodemuthuk_vanalingamgatorguy
  • Apple's block of Xcloud & Stadia game streaming apps is at best consumer-hostile

    As much as Apple has their reasons, this is not a good look. 

    A consumer buys a device, has an internet connection, so they should be able to do what they want. 

    This is kind of shocking. 

    If those services were full of horrible code, that’s one thing. 

    But blocking them based on business model? 

    It’s really kind of difficult to take Apples side here. 

    I owe MS an apology for a post I made a few days ago. Really surprised here. 
    Let me know when Microsoft xCloud publishes their APIs for review and their architecture and its necessary communication and security privileges open to share across its Azure Cloud back end with iOS security protocols and privileges. Same goes for Google. If folks insist this is a sandboxed dumb terminal ala VT3270 emulation just leveraging iOS drawing services aka a video stream then you’ll believe in anything.


    Sure. I can tell you already ... they use the same APIs and architectures that their other streaming apps that are already on iOS use. That is because the apps that Stadia and xCloud use are no different from other apps. The only difference is the content being streamed. We know this because Apple said precisely this in their statement explaining why they rejected the app.

    Hey, you are perfectly free to accept, defend and promote Apple's position. (I myself have no problem with it because my position is that if you want Stadia and xCloud, just buy a device that supports them. It is easy and cheap to do so ... much less than buying a gaming rig, a gaming console ... or an iPad or iPhone for that matter. If Apple doesn't want to support a particular product or service, fine. It is their choice in the democratic free market capitalist system that we have and forcing Apple to support a product or service that they don't want me smacks of socialism - democratic socialism or some other form - and as a right winger I adamantly oppose such measures. ) But please, just stick to the factual stuff when you do.
    muthuk_vanalingamgatorguy
  • Apple's block of Xcloud & Stadia game streaming apps is at best consumer-hostile

    Why would Apple leave that game streaming thing to Google or Microsoft while they can do it better than both? Thanks to Apple Silicon Apple is already years ahead on that. Besides, they can offer that streaming to all game developers who sell in the AppStore without alienating them and maintaining the rich content already on sale.
    Facepalm. Apple Silicon has absolutely positively nothing to do with streaming. Apple Silicon is hardware. Streaming is software as a service which is designed by nature to be inherently hardware agnostic.

    Being able to offer video game streaming requires the very best cloud infrastructure, architecture and development. Apple has none of those. Instead, for years after Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Google Play Movies and TV etc. existed, Apple only offered limited video streaming ability through iTunes. Apple Music was their first legit streaming app and they didn't even develop it ... they bought Beats and repurposed it

    To give you an idea of how far behind Apple is on this, Google is offering Stadia and Microsoft is offering xCloud using their own cloud platforms - Azure and Google Cloud Platform - that have existed for ages (GCP since 2008, Azure since 2010). Nvidia is partnering with AWS to offer GeForce Now, sure, but it features their own cloud data center and virtualization hardware platform - Nvidia Grid - that they sell to Google and others. You should really check it out ... Nvidia GRID offers virtualized PCs, GPUs and applications. Where xCloud and Stadia are examples of software-as-a-service, Nvidia GRID is infrastructure as a service.

    By contrast ... Apple doesn't even host or manage their own iCloud. Instead, iCloud is a product that relies on cloud services provided by Amazon (AWS) and Google (Google Cloud Platform). So does Apple Music and Apple TV+ by the way. If Apple had to rely on their own expertise or resources to pull off either, they would have no chance. And no, they aren't in the cloud hardware game with infrastructure as a service products - or even generic data center computing, storage or networking resources - either. There are some Apple advocates in the tech media - including a couple of articles I read a few months ago - that if Apple Silicon outperforms Intel hardware by a large enough margin, that would allow them to enter the cloud/data center hardware market. But what the writer doesn't realize is that the cloud's needs and Apple's offerings are the opposite. The cloud needs cheap, general purpose hardware and Apple only supplies expensive, specialized hardware. So given the choice between a faster option that costs $500,000 and you can only deploy on it what Apple allows, a data center will buy two alternatives that are slower but cost $350,000 and allows them to put whatever they want on it whenever they need it, and do so without giving it half a second's thought. 

    And that is presuming that Apple is capable of building server-class ARM chips that are capable of outperforming Ampere and other ARM server vendors. That is, er, presuming a lot. Beating the Qualcomm Snapdragon/Samsung Exynos mobile chips and beating the ARM chips that already power the fastest supercomputer in the world are two very different things.
    cflcardsfan80muthuk_vanalingamgatorguy