Xed

MplsP said:

I know little about the technology but if Starlink is significantly better than Globalstar it would seem to make sense for Apple To go with them. Reasons I can think of not to would be price, if the main use was intended to be simply emergency service so performance and speed wouldn’t be as much of a concern, and an interpersonal feud between Cook and Musk. One would hope the latter wouldn’t be the case but I’m not that naive to assume so. 

If T-Mobile signs with starlink it may obviate the issue. Having the service with the carrier rather than the device manufacturer makes more sense, anyway. 

The best aspect of Starlink over GSAT is the high speed data, but when you need to text in an emergency situation being able to get your location out and some basic messaging for emergency services, AAA, or even just a text to loved ones to say you're OK is an amazing feature that was previously very clunky and expensive through other devices.

I've done plenty fo testing with Apple's implementation. I'm glad to have it and I'll be pissed if Musk somehow uses his illegal access to the gov't to force Apple to disallow that feature from working. It's already shown to save lives.

This recent Reddit post has some comments that fill in more detail about the history of GSAT and their licensing, and the pros and cons of Starling and GSAT.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GSAT/comments/1ie6e6a/can_anyone_explain_how_gsat_can_compete_with/

iJeffrey said:

SPOILER ALERT: Did anyone ever see Kingsman: The Secret Service? You know, the one where Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) either kidnaps world leaders and stashes them in a mountain or plans to use global cellular signals to make people go berserk? It wouldn’t surprise me if Mar-A-Lago had a Neuralink lab in the basement. Guests come to dine with Donald, and Elon slips a nice little chip into their brains to ensure compliance. So, either Tim got one of the “Made in America” models, managed to have his removed, or… I don’t even want to consider the third option. Either way, I admire Tim for not jumping every time Trump Needs Props for his all his shows.

That would require actual intelligence and planning. This is just good ol' fear mongering so you can grift people by making the ignorant general populace think you're going to hurt their particular boogeyman.

The biggest surprise to me in all of this is that they'll willing to ignore how much they're being hurt and yet still willing to defend the con even while they see themselves losing out. The second biggest surprise for me is that the 3 branches of gov't mean nothing if you can just ignore any and all laws and court decisions. I wonder if Madison would be shocked to know that it only took around 230 years for the weaknesses in the system to breakdown this completely or would be surprised that it took this long?

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicia in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” (James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788).

My guess is that he would said the latter because of the political parties we have, especially know with the MAGA fascists that are Republican in name only (RINO). I say this because Madison said, "a well-constructed Union [should be] its tendency to break and control the violence of faction," which isn't happening. Even after all the very clear evidence of wrongdoing the promise of hurting someone boogeyman was so powerful that MAGA has grown.

The Founding Fathers were smarter than we are today at the highest levels. For example, Alexander Hamilton stated that political parties are "the most fatal disease” of popular gov't.

George Washington in his Farewell Address stated, "However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Willard Sterne Randall wrote that “[Washington] had stayed on for a second term only to keep these two parties from warring with each other [because Washington] was afraid of what he called ‘disunion.’" Maybe that's telling if the Union was already starting to fall to the weakness of corrupt men out of the gate.

Rogue01 said:

The iMac G4 was the best design with the fully adjustable display.  And no, they did not break.

I'm not sure I can agree with you on design having upgraded mine and finding getting the HDD was a many layer ordeal. I would say it was and is a wonderful design aesthetic for an AIO, but it's not great design from a repairability standpoint.

Wesley_Hilliard said:

Ok Xed and 9secondkox2. You both clearly disagree on a fundamental level and keep turning threads into shouting matches and insults. Report posts you believe need to be addressed by mods, but refrain from responding to eachother for a while. This isn't productive. If someone believes a lie, you're not going to convince them otherwise in an internet forum. This isn't a place to convince anyone of anything anyway. Discuss the topic, share what you think, disagree even, but don't waste your breath trying to change people's minds on such a divisive topic.

People that ignore reality will ignore evidence, no matter how intelligently and calmly it is presented.

Understood. I have put him on ignore going forward.

lukevaxhacker said:

Very simple in concept: return production to the U.S., although hasn't been done for years. Remember the Fremont plant…

Simple to write doesn't mean it's simple to do, and if you actually thought about your comment for a minute you'd realize that if you were to try to produce and assemble every part of an iPhone from only within the United Staes and its territories you'd find that not only would it, likely be impossible without major changes, but also cost prohibitive.

For example, where are getting the rare metals that go into producing the internal components? All from recycle? I can tell you that the US doesn't have vast amounts the way that other countries do. How about the alkali-aluminosilicate glass? I think Wisconsin is the only decent source of low-iron silica in the US, but I don't know how much they have compared to other locations around the world, what the comparative quality is, or how much it costs compared to other sources. How about lithium for the batteries? A google search tells me that the Albemarle Silver Peak mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada, is the only currently operating lithium mine in the United States. Is that enough for all the batteries that Apple uses for all their products? What about every other company that wishes to sell in the US?

Here's the most recent conflict mineral's report from Apple to the SEC...

https://s203.q4cdn.com/367071867/files/doc_downloads/2024/04/Apple-Conflict-Minerals-Report.pdf

What about tantalum? I see that "mining for tantalum in the United States has not occurred since 1959." Is that not a problem? Does the US  have an inexhaustible stockpile of tantalum right now? How about tin? Google says that stopped in 1993? Can that start back up with reasonable results? How about tungsten? No active mining today, but google does suggest that "significant tungsten deposits occur in [12 states]" so why isn't the US currently mining it? The reason is cost, but is that a minor cost or high cost to get that up and running again? BTW, that was had from a single page on that PDF (above).

https://s203.q4cdn.com/367071867/files/doc_downloads/2024/04/Apple-Supplier-List.pdf

When you look at this supplier list (above) how do you recreate all of that in the US?  Even the camera is a component that isn't even Apple's IP. I believe that's still being provided by Sony. So even if you get all the components shipped to the US and pay American workers $25+ an hour to do final assembly you're still looking at massive assembly costs and tariffs that make the notion of your "very simple concept" a more costly and complex endeavor than simply using the current partners.

Finally, we may bel living in an Orwellian 1984, but it's not longer the year 1984 when Apple's Fremont plant started. Jobs tried it but it still wasn't the correct move 40 years ago with the small number of computers Apple was producing with nearly all US component and materials sourcing. Don't believe me? How about a former Apple engineer who worked there?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html