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Back in the day, when car radios in many cars were standard DIN sized, I used to always buy an aftermarket radio, usually an Alpine.   But today, in most cars, even older cars without bit-mapped screens, since the entertainment system and the HVAC system are integrated, I don't see how an aftermarket system can work, although it obviously worked in the Chevy.   

Are there any common standards for these units like there used to be?    

Cesar Battistini Maziero said:

When the service becomes huge, as it will, I would keep them out until they are desperate. 

They got the opportunity of s life time, and turned it down.

No, it's not the opportunity of a lifetime to share royalties with hundreds of other publications (even aside from the issue of Apple supposedly taking 50% off the top) when you already have a very healthy subscription model, which both the Times and the Post do.   It could have worked if Apple wasn't insisting on needing every article.   The problem with Apple is that they "negotiate" with incredible arrogance.  

Let's say that there's just 60 publications and everyone gets an equal share and Apple is going to charge $10 a month.   That's $120 a year.  Apple takes $60.   The other $60 gets split among the 60 publications.  So the Times and the Post would each get $1 per year per subscriber.   They currently get a few hundred $ per year.   Even if it were $20 a month, that would be only $2 per year per subscriber.   Why would they do the deal?  It would make absolutely no sense.   

anome said:

One thing I haven't been able to determine, and this probably reflects my poor understanding of how credit cards work in the US, but when does interest kick in on the card?

Most cards here have an interest free period, which is just the time between the start of the billing month and the due date for the payment, so that if you pay your balance before the due date, you never pay interest. This is usually advertised as "55 days interest free", for example where the due date is 25 days after the statement date.

So with the Apple Card, where the due date is the last day of the month, is that also the statement date? Do charges only accrue interest if you carry a balance forward past the end of the month? Do they accrue interest from the date of the charge? These are things that would normally be spelled out in the Terms and Conditions for a credit card, but I haven't seen for Apple Card yet.

We don't know the specifics for the Apple Card, but with other U.S. credit cards, if you pay the charges in full by the due date, there is no interest.   However, many U.S. credit cards send you the statement fairly late, so you might have as little as two weeks from the time it's received to the due date.   As I mentioned in another post, I haven't paid any interest in years.   But let's say you didn't pay last month's bill in full.   You're paying interest on that, but you'll also be paying interest on the current charges even if you paid the equivalent of those in full by the end of the month.   So anytime you don't have a zero balance, you're paying interest on the entire month, even on new charges. 

The way the interest is calculated is by taking the annual interest rate, say 18% and dividing it by 365 days and then applying that rate (.04935%) to the balance you have each day.  So if the billing period is March 1 to March 31 and you have a balance of $1000 from March 1-9 and $1200 from March 10-15 and $1800 from March 16-31, you'd owe $22.19 in interest at the end of the month.

Edit: I got that wrong.  I forgot that the daily interest gets added to each day.  So it would be $22.23 in interest.  At 24% it would be $29.84 in interest. 

siretman said:

Since it was unveiled, I have wondered about the utility of wireless charging in the home especially if you have an Apple Watch or an iPad Pro in addition to your iPhone.

For me, the solution is the Anker wired charger with one USB-C output for my iPad Pro and four lightning outputs for my iPhone and the Apple watch puck. 

Outside the home in a coffee place, placing your iPhone on a mat without wires is fine but for home use, wireless charging is unnecessary. That is my opinion but I would be interested in seeing comments on this subject. 

I've had several iPhones where the charging port and/or the cables wore out.   Although I haven't had any problems yet, I'm concerned about the USB-C charging port on my MBP.   The old Mag-Safe connector seemed less prone to wear (aside from the cable itself possibly fraying).  So the advantage to a wireless charging pad would be less stress on the ports.   And of course it's slightly easier to just put a device down then having to put the device down and search for the cable and plug it in.   Obviously, it's a first world problem and not that big a deal, but wireless charging would have been "nice".   It works for my electric toothbrush!

rob55 said:

Just what we need, one company controlling 40% of the movie industry.

Aside from attempts to withhold product from competitive streaming companies (which would probably lead to a restraint of trade lawsuit or the like), I don't see how it really makes much difference aside from how it affects employees of the merged company (probably up to a third of the backroom employees in administration, finance, accounting, facilities, HR, etc. will eventually lose their jobs), assuming that Disney doesn't start strong-arming theaters for a bigger cut of the box-office.  But they won't do that unless they're incredible stupid because it will kill the theaters and probably also trigger lawsuits and future government intervention.   AMC, the largest U.S. theater chain, lost $487 million in fiscal 2017, although they were slightly profitable with $110 million of net earnings in fiscal 2018.   

The movie industry has been consolidating for decades and even in the heyday of Hollywood, there were only eight majors consisting of the "big 5": MGM, Paramount, Fox, WB and RKO; and the "little three": Universal, Columbia and UA.   Disney was tiny until Mary Poppins.   Although in 1939, the largest of the studios, MGM, had only a 22% share.   It had the same share 10 years later in 1949, but that was still before TV had much penetration.  

In the 1960's, MCA bought Universal; Gulf + Western bought Paramount; Transamerica bought UA; WB merged with 7 Arts.  In 1981, MGM merged with UA.  And of course through the 80's and 90's, there were lots of ownership changes and other mergers.  

And today, we still have the "big 5": Paramount (Viacom), Universal/Focus (Comcast), Columbia/Tri-Star (Sony), Warner (AT&T) and Disney/Fox/Lucasfilm/Marvel (Disney).   MGM/UA still theoretically exists, but doesn't release much.   But even before this latest merger, at least half of the films made are co-productions between studios, because no one wants to take the risk on such big budget productions.

Movie attendance hit an all-time low in 1971, which is interesting considering that cable penetration and home video were not yet big factors.  HBO didn't start until November of 1972.  Betamax wasn't released in the U.S. until 1975 and VHS wasn't released in the U.S. until 1977.