noelos

mattgodfrey said:

I hope they actually unbundle video completely from the music app. You would have assumed they would avoid making the same mistake twice, the way they bundled all media on the Mac into an app called iTUNES

If they limited it to only playing the music-video corresponding to each song in Music I think it would make some sense.

This might make it viable for publishers to start removing video content from YouTube - or at least create a competitive tension where they could threaten to do so and demand a reasonable click-rate for YouTube music videos. 

rob53 said:

Looks like the banking industry is exerting its pull to get at Apple any way it can. I have to wonder if this is something new that the Australian government is just now waking up to. I also wonder how much the banks are taxed, that's before their obvious deductions for political contributions (commonly called brides in the US).

This has been a controversial topic for a decade in Australia. The wheels of government turn slowly but there was always going to be some comeuppance.

mattinoz said:

Given L shaped battery rumours the next iPhone won't have a Physical SIM.
Why would the watch ever have one?

I have no idea if that is true - but this year could be an opportunity to finally get some traction on a virtual-SIM iPhone. This was supposed to be in iPhone 1 (Steve Jobs really wanted not to have a physical SIM).

This year Apple will probably be introducing an iPhone 7s and 7s Plus as well as a brand new premium model. This model looks like it will be a new design; finally getting rid of the SIM tray would free up room for battery, slimming down or something else Apple would like. Manufacturing complexities and higher price probably means it will sell in smaller quantities than the 7s and 7s Plus.

So, imagine that they exclusively partner with carriers who are willing to play ball and to sell this premium iPhone. The carriers will realise the people buying this model will be the most lucrative segment of the market and supporting this device would drive people to their network. Which carrier would "only" want to carry the brand new 7s and 7s Plus? Or how long would they hold out when they see customers switching to the carrier that supports iPhone Premium. Even if this meant Apple didn't have a launch carrier partner in every country, it would still be okay for them (remember, they probably can't make enough of the iPhone Premium to meet world demand anyhow) as they still have a brand new model 7s/Plus to offer that takes traditional SIM cards.

Leave that to run for a year and signal that in a couple of years NO iPhone will have a physical SIM and I think you'd see carriers around the world capitulate. I think that would be pretty great and a step along the road to Apple becoming a worldwide MVNO.

What, I can dream, can't I?

They want to convince you to use the bank-branded app to retain control of the user experience and keep them fenced in. They refuse to accept that there's a lot more to ApplePay than just NFC. There's the tolenization strategy, the touchid secured secure enclave which is tamper proof. But if they were to implement a payment system of their own and it had a security breach - you know the headlines would include Apple prominently because that's pure ClickBait. The banks don't want to share fees and they don't want their cards mixed up in a wallet where they don't control the whole branding. And as for the possibility they might pass some of the savings into their customers! If the ACCC believe that, I have a very attractive bridge in Sydney to sell them.

This being Apple, they were probably holding back on 4K+HDR until they had some content to sell you. If it comes with an upgrade to a decent chunk of their catalogue with reasonable upgrade pricing it could be worth something.