Calamander

charlesn said:

nubus said:

The real change is to happen in 2026 when iPads, laptops, and iPhones will get user replaceable batteries due to EU regulations. I do hope it will be a bit more compact than the replaceable batteries on my PowerBook G3 Pismo.

The bulk of the new battery regs aren't scheduled to go into effect until 2027/28. But they're pretty strict in their definition of "user replaceable." No specialized or proprietary tools can be necessary, unless provided free with the product. No thermal heating can be required, no use of solvents, etc. This just might be a throwback to your G3 Pismo. Honestly, I wish tech companies would ban together and just drop the European market rather than continuing to saddle the rest of the world with products that adhere to EU edicts. 

I am from the EU -  long before these regulations come into effect, they will be abolished along with the people who made all these useless and power-grabbing rules. Hopefully we just roll back to before all this craziness happened - maybe the day before the EU forced every person in the entire world to click on "accept cookies" banners. That would be great. No one cares, EU, it's just annoying for everyone, nobody benefits from this. 

That being said the new repairable Android phone I just saw on YT makes another point still - you can actually make something really small, while still keeping it repairable. 

I think Apple is already doing this, they replaced the glue on the batteries and then maybe put some more normal screws on the back, and bingo, you have "user replaceable". We will never go back to the separate battery unit (for those who remember) - that was a poor design, sacrificing space and weight for a feature nobody ever used - swapping out your battery on the go with a replacement unit is not something people ever adopted. 

mmWave is not supported in any iPhone 15 or 16 series, except the US market models. 

That's how "popular" it is around the world! 

It never worked, never delivered as promised, and one has to wonder, why did carriers spend 100s of Bns on a technology that was never properly tested, never properly worked, during a time when the world was locked down. I mean if I was a conspiracy theorist... the marketing brochure for the technology states that beamforming antennas follow a user around the city which sounds just like control towers from a SciFi movie ... anyway luckily this never worked, it was apparently just a giant money sink for telecoms. 

Galfan said:

My god…..I was thinking when I purchased my M1 Max 16 inch I would be fine for 4-5 years but this might consider me upgrading this year….also because I noticed the GPU is hitting the limit sometimes but also that with my new function I need more headroom for bigger projects with the CPU. I do wonder how the thermals will be. M3 max is a powerhouse but pushed even the 16 inch starts to become loud. But since a18 pro and M4 have proven they run cooler and energy efficient, I will wait for the reviews coming out

There is a significant battery life difference between M4 Pro and M4 Max which tells me M4 Max is going to get a lot hotter than the Pro, too. 

Enough for me to decide on getting the Pro - while I like the RAM options on the Max, I really love all day battery life. 

In addition to that, a cooler laptop also lasts longer, heat kills electronics over time & I live in a hot country too. 

My 16" M1 Pro is running fine but I will upgrade to the M4 in the next few months when it becomes available here in SE Asia. 

I think they're over-optimizing - so they make a 24" iMac for schools and businesses but they don't think there's a consumer market for 30"

They're probably right in that it wouldn't be much more than breaking even but I would like to see a badass all holds barred maxed out iMac Pro - just because it's cool. Not because of how much money it will make / lose over its lifetime. 

I can see Tim Cook doing that analysis - ok so people replace desktops every 7 - 9 years.... small market for desktops to begin with.... most of them are gaming machines which Apple doesn't compete with.... so we are left with some crazy people who don't want a Mac Studio but want a big iMac .... not that many people. Bean counters are winning.

Alex_V said:

Conclusion: Smartphone A is made by a company that respects your privacy, and does much to protect it. After all, your smartphone has a lot of personal information that you want to keep private. Smartphone B is made by a company whose business model is to spy on you for profit. Nothing that you do on that phone is private. Decision, decisions, decisions.

Apple vs Google in privacy has unfortunately become a battle of the "lesser evil" and you're saying Apple is (still) the lesser evil. 

Once upon a time, this was Apple's DNA and belief - when Jobs was around, basically.

 Since then, the "why" has changed. Apple has more privacy because (1) it can use it for advertising, and (2) it's been pretty bad at making its ad system work and (3) that's because of motivation, Apple makes all its money on hardware. 

The moment Apple figures out how to add a billion in revenue to the bottom line by compromising your privacy, you can bet they will choose the money. So that advantage is on unstable ground. 

Apple has already compromised its values too many times to count, removing apps from app stores in Hong Kong on request of the Chinese government, removing apps on behest of the US government, basically any government anywhere asks Apple to censor the app store, Apple does it. This is about protecting profits - I am not saying it's unreasonable, but ... given that Apple loves to get on the high horse on political topics, it's hypocritical to the extreme. They do the dirty like all other large conglomerates. 

They basically do not have values. They only care about profits, and anything that they do that they pretend to be values, like diversity, are actually things that imrpove their bottom line and they wouldn't do any of them if they negatively affected the bottom line. That's not values. That's hypocrisy. Would be better to be honest. 

Google has long abandoned its "don't be evil" corporate motto. And they've gotten ever more evil.