linuxplatform

1. In the noble and worthy pursuit of making omelettes, eggshells shall be broken.

2. Similar to 1., people who prefer secure curated ecosystems to open ones, this is how secure ecosystems are achieved.

3. Why any professional developer would restrict income streams to a single platform and company confuses me. Even if you don't have the time to do so yourself, there are plenty of reputable contractors - by reputable I mean they have a track record of not stealing people's code or algorithms - out there to port your products to other platforms. That way you aren't reliant on a single gatekeeper's decisions - be they arbitrary, bureaucratic or malicious - for your livelihood and your paying customers - which you need for your livelihood - have alternate means of accessing your services.

4. Continuing from 3., if there was ever a case for platform-independent PWAs where your application is hosted in the cloud - and you retain the sources so you can quickly and easily shift it to another cloud provider should one make a decision - be it arbitrary, bureaucratic or malicious - to shut you off - then here goes.

rotateleftbyte said:

The Microsoft walled garden gets bigger. Libre Office looks much more appealing. I was thinking of upgrading but now I'm not going to do so until I get a new Mac and even then MS might be whistling in the wind for my money.

It is the opposite of the walled garden. It is shifting people from the outdated desktop productivity suite model that has been in place since the 1970s into a cloud-first productivity suite model that allows you to access and work on your documents no matter where you are or what device or operating system you are using. I remember using desktop productivity software on non-networked, extremely expensive (like you could get a decent used car for the same price) non-GUI MS-DOS machines. This was back when "file transfer" meant passing a floppy disk around the room! Real coach-whip and buggy stuff. Now you can receive an Excel document in a group instant message in Microsoft Teams, upload it to your group's shared site and join a collaborative editing session with 4 or 5 other members of your team using an $80 Motorola Android One smartphone. 

Not promoting or defending Microsoft here. Just saying that a cloud-based application where a desktop front end is merely one of many user interfaces to it (Microsoft Office after Microsoft got sick of losing users to Google Docs and dumped Ballmer for Nadella) is miles superior to a desktop application (the original Microsoft Office of Gates) or even a primarily desktop application with only syncing and backup functionality and frequently broken Sharepoint server APIs (Microsoft Office under Ballmer).

Beats said:

Apple haters are saying "only because of quarantine" but how could you spin this into a negative? Apple has higher loyalty and this will boost services.

Find the ones that are saying "only because of quarantine" or are otherwise trying to spin this into a negative. They do not exist.

As for the article itself, 9to5Mac had a more balanced view:

"Interestingly enough, even though Apple certainly had an amazing quarter, Canalys estimates that Samsung, Huawei, and Amazon all saw greater growth when it came to tablets. The firm pegged Apple’s iPad unit growth at 19.8% while Samsung saw 39.2%, Huawei had 44.5%, and Amazon achieved 37.1% unit growth.

That contributed to Apple losing 2% of its global market share. The entire tablet market saw growth of 26.1% YoY."

So all the "it is only because of the quarantine Apple haters" - who exist only in your head - would have to similarly dismiss all of those also.

Basically it was a good to great quarter in general for tech except for flagship smartphones. 

rob53 said:

Did any of this come up at the Congressional hearings Google was involved in? Follow the money trail. Who ends up benefiting from Google spreading its tentacles into yet another area with access not only to user's personal information but physical access to their homes and businesses. Is Google receiving money from the FBI and NSA? If not now will these organizations, along with Police departments, start tossing some money in their direction to get preferred access to ADT data?

Luckily I dumped my Nest hardware when they were bought by Google and will never use a service like ADT. If a burglar wants to get into my house they will find a way to bypass any home security device and nowadays police are less likely to even respond to a call so why throw away money?

How does Google buying a 6.6% stake in ADT have anything to do with monopolies?

"Who ends up benefiting from Google spreading its tentacles into yet another area ..?"

Why are you exposed to Google seeking partnerships and expanding their business just like all other businesses do? Are there any other companies out there that you wish to see stay the same size or get smaller? Or is it just Google?

Also, as I mentioned on another post, collecting user data is perfectly legal. Which means ... that Google is far from the only company that does it. And that tons of other companies who do so are far less scrupulous. Google is a Fortune 25 company. They don't need data for any purpose other than targeting ads. However, the many other companies who would have paid just as much for access to data would not have used it for targeting ads. They would acquire the data and sell it because - unlike Google - they have no other real way of monetizing it.

Beats said:

bulk001 said:

pscooter63 said:

Wonko, the first thing I thought of, and you beat me to the punch.

”It looks like you’re trying to use me like Siri, can I help?”

If you are going to imitate a voice assistant, at least imitate one that actually works! Siri is getting better but still has a long way to go to compete with Google Assistant. 

The myth has been disproven for years. They all excel at different tasks.

Yeah, no. If it was the "myth" that you claimed then Apple wouldn't have made a number of moves like this: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17195076/google-ai-chief-john-giannandrea-joining-apple-machine-learning-siri

Apple also wouldn't have flat out acknowledged that their HomePod wasn't even going to try to have the Siri functionality to match that of Alexa or Assistant on their smart speakers and that it was going to focus on "a premium audio experience instead." Pretty much the only people who claim that this is a "myth" are certain Apple fans. 

But it doesn't matter really. Excellence at something like Alexa and Google Assistant requires a combination of top software (not OS but application software) and top cloud functionality. Apple is a hardware company. So neither is ever going to be Apple's wheelhouse. When they want/need to get better at a specific software product they address it by acqui-hiring (and the programmers generally move on when the job is done) and Apple's iCloud product is actually hosted by AWS with and Google Cloud Platform. 

So Apple not being as good at a cloud software/service products as cloud/software service companies like Amazon and Google is the equivalent of, well, everyone knowing that Google's Pixel phones don't have the hardware to compete with Apple or Samsung. They don't even try ... Google openly advertises that they make up with for their hardware deficiencies with AI and software optimization. (Which ... doesn't work anywhere near as good as Google or the maybe 2 million loyal Pixel fans want to believe it does.) 

And besides, what is at stake here anyway? What iPhone, iPad or MacBook fan is going to buy an Android phone, tablet or Chromebook because Google Assistant is better? Makes no sense when the hardware and OS offers so many other benefits to Apple device buyers. Apple merely wants to keep Siri from falling too far behind and that is good enough.