wiggin

mike1 said:

There are companies that aggregate all the channels into one easy-to-use service that can be controlled from one device. It's called a cable company. Some may balk at the costs or the company themselves, but for those people who want a lot of choices for programming, it's still the best solution. Has anybody actually replicated the service from their cable company with all these separate services AND saved money???

I like the direction the online services are headed, but none of them can offer the value of cable. Yes, you can save money; but you will be limited to what is available. If you are happy within those limits, go for it.

I pay $103/month* for both 75 MBps Internet and cable TV w/HBO and channels I sometimes watch which aren’t included in many streaming packages (USA, BBC America, Big10 Network). And my TiVo** is an excellent aggregator of all of my cable channels, Comcast’s extensive VOD library, as well as the main online services if you have any of those (Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, etc) including universal search across all of those services, a Plex client for my personal video library, out of home streaming, and download of content to iDevices for offline viewing.

I could maybe cobble together a set of services that covers most, but not all, of what I want; but by the time the cost of internet access is added there is no way it would be less than what I’m paying now nor would it be anywhere near as convenient.

* currently on one of Comcast’s “introductory” packages, so the price will go up in 6 months, but even if I can’t convince them to give me another deal, which I usually can, it would still be far cheaper than trying to put together a set of streaming services to get me what I want

** yes, you have an upfront cost for the TiVo unit and subscription, but mine has already fully paid for itself in saved rental fees from Comcast’s DVR, so $103/month is my all-in cost for internet and cable (not counting the $99/year for Amazon Prime)

I'm wondering if they emailed any receipts with all that info...even more dangerous than a printed receipt.

But if this bothers you, don't use a credit card in S Korea. I've had receipts there that printed the entire credit card number. And while most merchants hid some of the numbers, it wasn't always the same numbers. So get enough receipts together and you'd be able to piece together most of the full number.

qwwera said:

Metriacanthosaurus said:

qwwera said:

I say they change it, but not the phone end.

That makes even less sense. USB-A charging is ubiquitous. There is ZERO incentive for Apple to change USB-A to USB-C on the iPhone until USB-C starts to take over USB-A in the real world.

The Mac is a completely different story, that shouldn't even require explanation.

What do you mean it doesn't make sense? The other end of the iPhone cable is the old USB that is not even supported on the new MacBooks. It's cleaning the Apple ecosystem of the old USB connection.

Not to mention that one could probably argue that there are enough USB A to Lightning cables on the planet already to fulfill the need until the last USB A port is banished. And they are readily available at the corner drug store. So if Apple switched to USB C on the computer/charger end of the cable, then if anyone still needed a USB A version they likely either already have several of those cables in a drawer someplace or can very easily obtain one for only a few bucks. 

icoco3 said:

Apple produced 5 phones with the legacy port, 5 phones with the Lightning port, so the pattern points to a change this time around.  I doubt it will happen as Apple has invested heavily in Lightning and with the headphone change on the 7, a change this year would cause all kinds of uproar.  One day maybe...  Besides, they want to control what is lugged into their phones for "quality" purposes and with USB-C they would loose that.

This is the type of selective misuse of data that leads to conspiracy theories. It completely ignores that the dock connector was around long before the first iPhone was released, so to suggest that the dock connector only had a lifespan of 5 iPhone iterations is absurd. In fact, the dock connector was introduced in 2003 (first iPhone was 2007) and not phased out until the Lightning connector was released in 2012. A healthy 9-year run. It’s bad enough to suggest a pattern based on a single data point…even worse when that data point is not representative of the full truth.

That said, I agree with the rest of the post.  

Is there a technical reason why improvements to Siri are tied to hardware releases, or is this just a way to obsolete older devices and drive upgrade sales? Certainly there are some functions, such as always-on, which would depend on the hardware and OS; but general improvements to Siri's accuracy and relevance of responses I would think are more on the server side of things.

If Apple it stuck only improving Siri with hardware and major OS updates, it seems they are sort of self-limiting Siri's ability to keep up with the competition.