normm

gmgravytrain said:

51% of the profits is clearly not enough for the greedy big investors. Apple is going to have to take about 80% of global smartphone profits in order not to be considered doomed.

Apple just took 51% of the revenue, not profits.  They've been taking over 90% of the profits for years!  In Q3 2016, they took over 100%: their profits were greater than the entire industry net profits, if you include those that made net losses.  So no, taking over 80% of profits wouldn't do any good on Wall Street.  In fact, it would mean a giant decline for Apple.

AppleInsider said:

As part of the same interview, Bill Gates also mused on how the progress of technology is empowering smaller groups of people to cause harm to others. Suggesting the potential for such groups to gain access to nuclear weapons and to cause biological terror and cyber attacks, Gates notes it is a good thing for children to access genetic technology in a laboratory, "unless a few people decide to make human-transmissible smallpox and spread that into the world."

This is clearly a real future threat.  The problem with trying to get tech companies to solve the terrorist-communication problem for us is that they can't.  If Apple introduces encryption backdoors, the terrorists will simply use their own software without backdoors, and we'll have exposed everyone else to hacking dangers for nothing.  All communications are in the clear at both ends of the conversation---the police should focus their efforts there.  

lorin schultz said:

The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.

Use an app to play your video content on the Apple TV.  I use Air Video HD and am very happy with it.  Maybe there will be apps for the Home Pod that add to its capabilities.

tallest skil said:

I think fixing iBooks (the app) to include even the same basic functionality that we had in editing ePub metadata when they were in iTunes would be worth a mention. Maybe some expansion to iBooks Author, too. Not all books are textbooks, Apple. Maybe I just want to create a simple ePub where I can turn the pages, one after another, always, rather than separately load every chapter because the format expects media functionality and inserted images…

You can currently edit title, author, category and collection in list mode in iBooks.  You can create an ePub in Pages by exporting a Pages document to ePub.  If you use the ePub template in Pages you'll have chapter names, table of contents, etc.  If you've set non-DRM ePubs to open in iBooks, and have set iBooks to be stored in iCloud, all you need to do to add a book to iCloud is open it.  To export a copy of a non-DRM book from iCloud, just drag it out of iBooks.  I don't know how to change the cover in iBooks, which used to be possible in iTunes.  For fancier editing of non-DRM eBooks, though, just use Calibre.

Not much of a mock up.  The notch shouldn't get any bigger or smaller on other phones: they'll use exactly the same sensors.  So it should be less noticeable on the Plus, not more.