jdw

Funny what drives people to upgrade.  I am still on an iPhone 7.  My wife has the prior model SE, and upgraded to that from an iPhone 6.  And as much as I would like an iPhone 15 for a superior camera and more RAM (the lack of which I hate the most about the iPhone 7), most of the best feature will be reserved for the tablet sized models, which is a real travesty.  

Some people don't want a larger sized phone, and certainly not most female iPhone lovers, and even many men here in Japan prefer a smaller phone too.  And yet, if you ask most people if they could do more with a vastly better camera or some of the fancy features that will be exclusive to the largest sized phones, they would say yes.  

So Apple's moves are in the best interest of Apple only, and not really in the best interest of consumers.  A consumer oriented line would offer the same great feature set across a wide range of display sizes.

As I said in a recent post on the same topic, the AI capabilities won't matter much. It's more than just Siri being stupid (technologically inept, mishearing me, etc.).  The bigger problem is that Apple deliberately dummies it down out of fears it may cause trouble for the user.  For example, I can't tell Siri to change settings on my iPhone, which makes me far, FAR more angry than Siri mishearing me a making a mistake.  The entire purpose of Siri is to have it do things for me because my hands are busy doing something else.  So when it tells me it can't do that, I know it's due to a stupid limitation imposed by Apple. That sort of thing cannot be fixed by a smarter AI.  That can only be fixed by a smarter Apple who finally EMPOWERS me with commands to actually do something useful.  If Apple did that right now, without adding any new AI capabilities, Siri would be vastly better and something I would start using.

sunman42 said:

Rogue01 said:

The recession is looming.  Inflation at an all time high.  And even Apple's operating costs have increased because water, power, natural gas, have all gone up in price.  Apple is laying people off through attrition.  They are not replacing people that leave.  Same as laying people off because they redistribute the work to others and have them take on more work.  They just did that when a VP of Design left and those duties are now passed on to someone else and the position not being replaced or filled.  So that makes them 'look good' by not publicly announcing layoffs, but the people have to take on more work for the same pay because Apple won't fill the now vacant position.  They just eliminate it instead.

——

A recession may be coming, but that’s still TBD.

Inflation is not at an all time high, and hasn’t been (ask any of the boomers around in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s). Rates of inflation have been dropping in the US for the last eight months. 

Please don’t spread misinformation.

Please don't quote your own reply! That is perhaps worse than any "misinformation" one observed in the post by Rogue01.  

Also, your mention of the '70s and '80s excluded the true "ALL TIME" high, which is therefore "misinformation," if you really want me to split hairs.   Inflation was in fact at all time high of 23.70% in June of 1920.  But that was prior to even my birth, so I don't often dwell on that.  We tend to dwell on facts as they pertain to events that happened in our lifetimes.  And there's nothing wrong with that.

Should Rogue01 have used words other than "all time"?  Perhaps, but everything is crystal in retrospect, right?  Fact is that too many younger people are overly sensitive and don't use their brains well.  They pop off at the slightest little insignificant thing.

When Rogue01, posted what he did, I knew what he meant.  In 2022, inflation reached 8.5%, its highest rate since 1982.  So it was obvious to people like me, with our thinking cap firmly in place, that he was saying, "inflation is the highest it's been in a very long time."  It probably is the highest it's been in his lifetime (although not in mine, as I was born in 1971). Is that peak in 2022 an ALL TIME high?  Well, no, but that really does miss his point.  Again, this is why thinking caps are important.  

People are too sensitive about writing the English language so perfectly that a blood sucking lawyer would get his kicks off it.  I personally, don't think humanity needs to go that far.  Besides, this is only a forum.  Any perceived "misinformation" isn't going to alter the course of the planet.  So when you see a T hasn't been crossed to your liking, or an "i" that hasn't been dotted, consider the friendlier approach of just saying nothing at all.  That's what prefer to do.

Even more hilarious about the people complain about paying for something is the fact that AppleInsider has been offering us amazing MS Office deals for a very long time now, and I have taken advantage of both to ensure my kids have the full office suite for educational use...

https://appleinsider.com/deals/best-microsoft-365-and-office-for-mac-deals

The deal always sounded a bit fishy because the price is so long, but it is legit.  One time, they sold me a bad unlock code, but I worked with customer support to get a new code issued.  It's the full suite, not a stripped down version, which is nice.  It's not bloatware either.

There was a time MS put out bloatware.  Most of you long-term Mac users know what happened when MS moved from the insanely great Word 5.1 to Word 6.  Yikes!  Word 5.1 is still the best version to run on vintage Macs.

Not sure where these crazy forum comments are coming from.  I've been using the paid version since Entourage.  It's been BETTER, oh yes, MUCH BETTER, than Apple Mail for longer than Apple Mail even existed!  Back in the day, I also used Claris Emailer and loved that too.  That's not to say MS Outlook is perfect, and I detest the fact it tells me to update to the NEW OUTLOOK on the monthly basis despite the fact there is a bug that prevents me from accessing mail in the New Outlook, keeping me in the old UI, but the old UI is what I know and love, so it matters little.

Curious what drove them to do this.  I guess from reading the nutty previous comments that most people are simply ignorant of the fact Outlook is better than Mail and just boast about Mail being better anyway, maybe because they don't need to pay for Mail.

And as to the crazy notion that the entire office suite should be "FREE"...  Oh yeah... LOL.  As if we need Ads to mar the UI!  Not on your life, buddy!

Why people these days think there needs to be a FREE LUNCH everywhere is disturbing.  It also makes me worry what's going to happen now that MS is making Outlook free.  I can understand the need to drive adoption among ignorance young people, but how are they offsetting the cost of that?  What motivates them to make it better now that it is free?   These are the important questions I wish the article would have answered.