macxpress

bsimpsen said:

According to Statisa, the App Store paid out $34 billion from Jan-18 to Jan-19. At 1.9million developers, that's an average of ~$18K per developer per year.

I'm sure that $34 Billion was worldwide, not just in the US alone. So if true, 1.9 Million developers in the US did not earn an average of $18,000/yr. 

coolfactor said:

I'm confused by this part:

Customers first select a device to copy — support includes iPads and current iPhone XR, XS and XS Max models — then are asked to download a particular iOS build directly from Apple's servers. Corellium's platform subsequently displays a "fully functioning" replica device. 

How are these iOS builds available directly from Apple's servers without authorization? Are they using developer credentials of some form?

You can directly download iOS from Apple servers if you know the direct URL. Here are the ones for iOS 12.4 for example: http://osxdaily.com/2019/07/22/ios-12-4-update-for-iphone-ipad-available-to-download-ipsw-links/

Samson1977 said:

I've had mine since launch as my daily driver.  It's a great machine.  Handles everything I've thrown at it and more.  I can game on it, create on it, run vm's on it, and so on.   only issue I had was with an early firmware and dock charging.  

The biggest issue for me is lack of aftermarket cases and screen protectors.  The 13" has a plethora of cases and such you can use.  I'd use mine detached way more if the same cases were available in 15"

The charging and docking station issues are some of the bigger issues as well with ours. In the end, its really not worth what's being charged for it. It's really expensive, and even more so after you add on the accessories. 

mobird said:

For the regulars here on AI and the drive by visitors, do you back up and what is your method?

I don't back up regularly, but then again I have most of my stuff in iCloud so if I needed to reformat my Mac today it wouldn't necessarily be a huge deal. I don't have a lot of stuff anyways so its not worth it to me to setup TimeMachine when I can just store the few documents I have on iCloud Drive. My Music is Apple Music and my Photos are all sync'd with iCloud and I don't have any Movies to store. 

If I were to try Catalina I'd just make a separate partition then if I need to wipe it out nothing is lost on my primary. That doesn't mean I'd skip backing up my stuff. 

Jackson Cheng said:

I'm really glad you did these tests, thank you! However Apple has made me gun shy about buying one; releasing the Vega series GPUs in November of last year, 3 months after release the supposed 2018 models, makes me wonder if I should wait to see if they do the same this year.

This will happen no matter what...your Mac will never always be new. Apple is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't update their products people are bitching because Apple never updates their products. When they do, people bitch because they just bought a Mac and now it's out of date. It's the way technology works.