photoeditor

Seems to me the default angle of view on the iPhone is much more useful than on the Samsung. It's like in 35mm film terms or full-frame DSLR terms the iPhone is shooting with a 35mm lens, which is a very general-purpose focal length, about a 60 degree angle of view from corner to opposite corner, while the Samsung is shooting with the equivalent of a 24mm lens, about 85 degree angle of view, a relatively specialized wide-angle.

I'd seen this before in previous matchups of Samsung and Apple "flagship" phones, where the Samsung had a slightly wider angle than the Apple, but never to this degree of difference. Or did they just inadvertently leave the Samsung on its ultra-wide for the whole test? If that's the case they really should have another go at testing.

On another angle, why is Apple "flattening" the contrast in their JPEGs? The Samsung ones seem more natural to me, a little cooler in color and with less of an attempt to smother natural contrast.

We should be deranged about Trump....he and what he represents is a disaster

At the same time, looking at what the Chinese actually do, we've got to understand that there's a very strong moral case (even if the economic case seems suspect) in favor of tariffs against Chinese goods. In no way is it acceptable in the US to have workers working as indentured servants, in corporate dormitories, ready to be woken at 2am, not for a fire call or some other actual emergency, but simply to produce more widgets at the beck and call of an executive. This has given China an enormous advantage; it has led to the collapse of entire supply chains in the US. And we need a national discussion about whether countries where this kind of thing is acceptable should have to pay a higher price to enter the US market. The implication of not dealing with this is that in order to fulfill basic economic needs we'd have to become as a country much more like China, no democracy, lots of exploitation, much less freedom, much more indebtedness to those with money and power.

The sad part is Trump has not been at all smart about tariffs. Where they should have been applied to finished goods, they have instead been applied to raw materials, and that's had the practical effect of knocking down even more supply chains in the US and shifting even more production overseas, because US manufacturers need access to those raw materials if they are to assemble and build complicated components and especially finished goods here. Basically, when Trump hears a complaint from some friend of his that's in areas in which he's invested, so basically real estate, or raw materials industries like wood-pulp or mining, that's all he hears, and those account for a very small part of the economy. People that actually account for most of this country's economy, through manufacturing and services, simply do not have the ear of this president because he always believes he knows best and he does not bother to find out about anything he hasn't personally experienced.

It isn't just USB-A, it's Thunderbolt 2 as well.

Apple could start by going with USB-C to Lightning cables with iDevices. A USB-A to C adapter is a perfectly stable little thing. Going the other way is, well, kind of awkward, involving dongles because a pair of fixed adapters won't fit side-by-side in the ports.

But the Thunderbolt 2 thing is even more flagrant. Consider, with an Ethernet hookup, right now, you've got a choice between a nice, cool-running Apple TB2 Ethernet dongle that uses very little power but has to be piggy backed off an equally power efficient but expensive TB3-TB2 adapter, or else you use a third party USB-based dongle that overheats and drains an incredible amount of power. Can't Apple at least do a straight-up TB3 Ethernet adapter?

I wonder if the problem is in the dual SIM arrangement with the card and the eSIM. Verizon and Sprint with their CDMA roots barely have learned what a SIM is, and now they have to deal with two of them, one real and one virtual.

If I'm reading between the lines right on specs, it seems that the XS series have 4x4 MIMO but the XR does not, and Cat.16 LTE as opposed to Cat.12. Correct? That would imply both better reception and higher bandwidth.