linuxplatform

Beats said:

KITA said:

AppleInsider said:

That includes changes made to Microsoft's digital assistant that repurpose it to become part of the company's broader suite of Microsoft 365 products. In other words, it will no longer be a Siri or Alexa competitor.

This makes sense given the way their software/services are typically used.

No mention of Google Assistant as a competitor?

Not sure if Google Assistant is even relevant anymore?

It is very relevant ... but as this blog hates Google far more than it hates Amazon - a leading seller/promoter of Apple products that don't directly compete with Apple (no one who would consider buying an $750 iPad, $300 HomePod or $150 Apple TV would buy a $60 Kindle tablet, $50 Echo Dot or $35 Fire Stick instead) - it will never acknowledge it.

Remember: this is the same bunch that refused to so much as concede that Google was making a profit off Android until the Oracle trial made it impossible to deny any longer ... and this was with Android having 85% global market share by then.

civa said:

NVIDIA is Intel, and Intel is pretty much China

What on earth are you talking about? Nvidia and Intel have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It is PC manufacturers that choose to pair Intel CPUs with Nvidia GPUs. Intel could care less. Quite the contrary, Intel once made their own discrete GPUs to compete with Nvidia and are now working on integrated GPUs to replace the 1080p Nvidia cards (the 4K cards not so much). So long as you buy Intel CPUs and motherboards they could care less what else - operating system or other components - you put in the box.

The only caveat is that people who use AMD GPUs tend to use AMD CPUs for business and tech reasons ... it is cheaper plus it is a turnkey CPU/GPU set without having to write custom code to optimize it. But even that isn't an ironclad requirement: see Apple with their Intel CPUs and AMD Radeon Pro GPUs in several of their Mac SKUs. 

This is what I am talking about: how certain Apple fans view everyone who isn't an Apple supplier as "the enemy."

Beats said:

"It's time for [Amazon] to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out."

I miss the old Apple. I feel Cook lacks the backbone Steve had. Android would have been a wasteland had Steve still been alive. Android has become large due to stealing, stealing, stealing.

Funny that your username is Beats. Who originally had a marketing deal with Samsung. When Apple saw how successful the cross-marketing deal between Beats and Samsung (the ones that heavily featured LeBron James at the peak of his popularity) was at moving Galaxy devices in urban areas they responded ... by buying Beats. This - unlike your false version of history - actually happened. 

Reality check 1: the year Steve Jobs passed away Android already had 47% market share and was growing by leaps and bounds year by year. 
Reality check 2: Android became large due to differentiating, differentiating, differentiating.

They offered A) devices that allowed you to do more than iOS devices did thanks to a combination of a less restrictive operating system AND hardware and software features that existed on Android years - and in some cases many years - before they appeared on iPhones and iPads.

They offered devices that offered comparable - or at least capable - functionality for 1/2 and even 1/3 the cost of iPhones.

They offered C) devices that were in different form factors than Apple's one-size-fits-all 3.5' (later 4') iPhone and 9.7' iPad.

They - and especially Samsung offered D) a different image from Apple and its users (see my initial Beats/LeBron James paragraph).

Meanwhile, the Apple imitators? They all failed. The phones that Samsung were sued for infringement over? Didn't sell. Their Galaxy S/Note phones that offered bigger screens and the drastically different - and much mocked by Apple fans - TouchWiz UI? Made Samsung the #1 smartphone company in the world. Xiaomi? Did great with their iPhone knockoffs ... until Huawei and BBK (who owns Oppo, OnePlus and Redmi) came along with more traditional Android devices that absolutely crushed them. No one even talks about "the Apple of China" anymore. Oh and Google's attempts to replicate the iPhone's hardware and software philosophy with their Pixel phones? Selling so horribly that the carriers - especially Verizon - are threatening to ditch them. 

Reality check 3: Android became large due to companies with a proven track record at hardware and software making great products that people wanted to buy. Claiming otherwise is an exercise in self-delusion. It would require believing that all of these very successful global companies are competent at everything else - so much so that Apple patronizes the likes of Google (cloud services), Qualcomm (components), Sony (ditto), LG (ditto plus monitors) and Samsung (ditto) - but smartphones. And then there are CONSUMERS. You would need to believe that the 50% of U.S. smartphone buyers, 65% of global tablet buyers and 85% of global smartphone buyers are for some reason purchasing year after year devices that are incapable of allowing them to watch videos, play games, send/receive text messages/emails/video calls and do productivity tasks. But Android devices - from the $35 Fire TV sticks to the $2000 Samsung Galaxy foldable phones and everything in between - do work and work well.

Reality check 4: since the iPhone 5, Apple has been incorporating features widely used in Samsung Galaxy phones into their own devices so much so that current iPhones and iPads more closely resemble Galaxy S, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Tab devices than iPhones and iPads from 2013 and prior. So who has been stealing, stealing, stealing from who? 

DAalseth said:

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole this was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

They aren't being accused of being a traditional monopoly, no. But what they are accused of is being too big, too wealthy, too powerful and as a result exerting too much influence on the global economy, politics and culture. Case in point: Dell is #34 on the Fortunate 500 with a market capitalization of $45 billion. Apple? Market capitalization $1.1 trillion.

Then there is the outsized reach of the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, YouTube etc. As I said in another thread yesterday most of these politicians - as well as the people who write "how big is too big" articles - are really after Amazon (labor issues), Facebook (because it allows people to post ideas that they disagree with and Hillary Clinton lost) and Google (Snowden and again Hillary Clinton lost) but because Apple is so big it is impossible to go after their real targets without at least pretending to go after the company that is going to be the unchallenged #1 on the planet for the foreseeable future too.

DAalseth said:

Part of the problem is they keep lumping together companies that have nothing to do with each other. 

This isn’t like Big Oil, or Big Steel, or even the oft repeated Big Pharma. These companies use computers, but that’s about the only thing they have in common. 

If someone wants to go after Amazon or Google, then go after them. But saying they are going to crack down on Big Tech, is a code word for not doing anything.

Yeah ... that is basically NIMBYism in a nutshell. "Leave my favorite company alone. Go after the companies whose products and services I do not use and that I personally have some axe to grind against (which is usually that they compete against my favorite company)" and because of this nothing gets done.

I have made this point several times on here: a lot of the ways this issue gets viewed and covered is due to the undeniable fact that 95+% of the media is A) left-liberal or progressive and longtime fans of both Apple as a company and the products they make. The media has decades of seeing Apple as the scrappy underdog taking on the establishment, first IBM and then Wintel. They haven't adapted to the new market reality. Or they have, don't care, think that it is good that Apple is this massive and powerful and wants everybody else to be like them. Without caring that not everyone likes Apple as much as they do or benefit from the Apple philosophy as much as they do, and the people that don't are just dismissed/derided as "Apple haters."

But here is the reality:

A) data gathering and analytics and ad-targeting are all perfectly legal and have been for ages
this was being done long before Google and Facebook existed
C) there are tons of companies and entities whose gathering and use of data are far "less ethical" and come much closer to skirting legality than does Google and Facebook

All 3 of those points are unimpeachable. But because Apple has said "we are good because we sell hardware and Google/Facebook are bad because they give you free products that you pay for with your data and privacy" everyone buys it hook line and sinker. Why? Because Apple says so! It has nothing to do with Apple preferring that you buy their products and not a competitor's! No! Apple has been fighting the establishment ever since the 70s - remember that Super Bowl commercial against IBM? - so they're not big business! They're progressive like us!

And ... without any critical thinking either. Google and Facebook "make you the product" while on Apple hardware! They collect pretty much the data on you from an iPhone or MacBook that they do from an Android phone or Chromebook. Yet Apple doesn't stop them or block them. Instead they take Google's billions and direct search traffic to there instead of to GoDuckGo!

You love Apple. That is great. But lots of people love Facebook/Instagram. Lots of people love the fact that Amazon doesn't force them to rely on whatever inventory their local store in their medium-sized town happens to have on hand. And yes, lots of people like Google. Well even people who don't like "Google" certainly do like Gmail, YouTube, Chrome and even Android (if only because they love the fact that their iPhone and iPad adopts so many Android features!) making their disdain for Google every bit the cognitive dissonance of continuing to view Apple as the counterculture underdog little guy taking on the repressive right wing Wall Street private equity and fossil fuel suits.

Leave everybody alone? Fine. Go after everybody? Fine too. Go after everybody else and leave my company alone? Not gonna happen, nor should it.