freerange

I’m currently traveling in China and Apple News is not available even using VPN connected to a US server. I’ve been traveling to China for 20 years and lived here for 6 and internet access just keeps getting worse and worse! In this case however it is actually Apple that is restricting access as I can still access the NYT and WP, which are blocked by the Chinese. Speaking with my Chinese friends here, many are not even aware of the Hong Kong demonstrations, or the issues they are demonstrating against. Nothing like keeping 1.3 Billion people in the dark. Trump has so many good friends like himself! You know the ones, the ones in leadership positions that suppress those “enemies of the people”!

elijahg said:

Yeah, no one is going to buy that. If you harm yourself through a phone repair, it's entirely your fault. People have a right to fix and modify their own car, and if they're dumb enough to make a modification that causes them harm that's their own stupid fault. Also unlike with a phone, the risk of their mistake harming or even killing another person is much higher, and yet it's still allowed. 

So if you repair / replace iPhone battery yourself and screw it up so it shorts out mid flight, catches fire, and the plane is forced to make an emergency landing, it’s just “your own stupid fault”, right? Please do tell the airline, the FAA and all the other passengers how stupid you are.

lorin schultz said:

This is what "common sense" shooters will tell you. It's nice to have this video to illustrate the point.

The iPhone camera is really good. It's particularly impressive when you consider that the camera includes a pocket computer and communications device at no extra cost.

However, when I hear people say they're going to shoot their next session, doc, or short on an iPhone and leave their prosumer gear at home, I shake my head wondering why they would do that? It seems obvious that a dedicated device designed for a specific task is going to provide options and benefits that an all-in-one consumer product won't. I don't understand why anyone would deliberately choose "good enough with some acceptable deficiencies" when it's so easy to achieve "even better without the flaws."

There''s nothing wrong with saying the iPhone camera is really good, an excellent choice for many applications, but not capable of (or intended for) some of the things a pro or even prosumer camera can do. Why does it have to be a "replacement" for pro gear to be considered viable in some people's minds?

I just sold off all of my Canon 70D and Lumix GH kit and will be shooting primarily with my new iPhone X. My only backup now will be my Canon PowerShot G9 all-in-one. And I am a professionally trained commercial photographer. The reasons are very simple: Ease of use, high quality imaging, and significantly less eguipment to carry around and setup. Although I used to do a lot of studio work, I now shoot stills and video mostly for social media and the web and I see no reason to have more kit than this. Your comment - “why anyone would deliberately choose "good enough with some acceptable deficiencies" when it's so easy to achieve "even better without the flaws“  - this is the same thing that was said about shooting video with the Lumix and Canon DSLR cameras when they started shooting better video. Yet they still ended up being used to shoot professional theatrical movies, all or in part, based on the same benifits I stated above. As to quality, this is no different than choosing to shoot video with a Canon DSLR versus a Red camera which is used in shooting many theatrical films today. There is a quality difference, yes, but you need to put the footage side by side to realy discern any significant difference. As a general rule in photography, the subject, composition and lighting are far more important than the equipment.

One last thought. With the amazing and easy to use editing tools provided by Apple, many of the variances identified with the iPhone vs the Lumix GH can actually be easily improved in post.

Roxy Balboa said:

Tim Cook and Apple apologists are out in full force. Tim loves to preach to US citizens yet does business with some of the worst countries in the world.

Seriously? Piss off. You have no clue what you are talking about. I have been traveling to China for 18 years and they are most certainly NOT one of the worst countries in the world. Before you start making such ignorant statements, go get yourself a good education. 

As to Apple removing VPN apps, at least until the app developers get the proper license, this is actually a total non-issue as even high school students I’ve met there no how to get around the censorship and blocked apps to access things like Facebook and Twitter. That’s why Ted Cruz even asking the question shows what a f’n moron he is.

bigmushroom said:

I am not sure Motorola was such a bad deal for Google:

- They sold Motorola to Lenovo for 2.9 billion (as the article correctly reports).
- They also sold the cable modem and set-top box business to Arris for 2.35 billion in 2012.
- Motorola had 3 billion in cash.

So once you factor everything out (plus some tax assets apparently), it appears they lost not more than 3.5 billion on the deal. A nice article is here:

http://bgr.com/2014/02/13/google-motorola-sale-interview-lenovo/

So one view is that they paid about 3.5 billion for Motorola patents - which is less than Apple and Microsoft paid when they teamed up to buy Nortel patents for 4.5 billion.

But more importantly, Motorola was about to sue other Android manufacturers (Samsung, HTC). Google appeared to buy Motorola to end that threat because Android was not yet the dominant alternative to iOS. If Motorola would have sued everyone else, it could have disrupted the whole eco-system.

So I don't think Google regrets buying Motorola - it might have been a defensive move (getting more patents, prevent a patent war with other Android OEMs) but it wasn't hugely expensive in the end.

I think you’re missing the point. The Motorola business was a failure under Google. Period.