sirozha

I live close to a large Apple store located inside to a fancy outdoors shopping / living development. It's basically a multimillionaires' playground where houses start at a couple million dollars and go up, and you can't have a nice lunch for 2 for less than $100. The Apple store is next to the Tesla store, and the streets are filled with fancy boutiques where normal people cannot afford anything. However, the area around is very affluent, so there are always crowds of people shopping in there. Since it's the only Apple store in the 25-mile radius, people of all backgrounds come to the Apple store there.  

Back in 2017, I stood in line in front of this Apple store to get an iPhone X for my wife, and there were probably around 80 people or so in line when I got there around 8:00 AM.  The Apple store is huge, and there's plenty of room in front of it to camp out for those who are so inclined. Mind you, 2017 was the first year of Apple selling a $1,000+ iPhone. This morning, I was there at 8:00 AM just to see how many people were lined up. There were 20-30 people in line. I wasn't buying anything this time around but simply dropped by the store to get a sense of how many people are rushing to get new iPhones. 

So, I don't think there's quite as much interest in the iPhone this time around as it was in 2017, and back then, a lot of people were shocked by the price. I skipped the 2018 release date altogether, so I don't know how today's release compared to the 2018 release at the local Apple store. Seems like iPhone 11 is a decent upgrade from iPhone 6, 6s, 7, and maybe even 8, but Apple's margins on iPhone 11 are much slimmer than they were in the recent past. I don't think many people will be buying iPhone 11 Pro, since next year's iPhones will feature 5g, and most people's phones are good to last another year. My phone is iPhone 7, and I'm completely uninterested in upgrading. In the past, I wanted to upgrade every year, and I did upgrade every two years. This time around, my iPhone 7 is 3 years old, and my wife's iPhone X is 2 years old; neither one of us are interested in the new iPhones. 

If batteries were replaceable, this wouldn't be an issue. You can qualify a battery as a consumable item if it can be easily replaced. Because Apple decided to glue batteries in (both in their phones and in their computers), it's no longer a consumable item unless the entire gadget is qualified as a consumable.  

MplsP said:

flydog said:

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Hahahaha. 

Whoever sold you on the lie of USB-C was doing you no favors. 

Hold on while we run out and swap all the USB-A ports in everything. 

Incredible that people perpetuate this nonsense.  

Have you looked around? Pretty much every single car has a USB A plug. The airplane has a USB A plug. The Hotel has a USB A plug. The combination USB outlet I found at Home Depot is USB A. Virtually every wired mouse and keyboard made is USB A. The only place USB C is at all common is the Apple Store.

USB A is the standard. It may change in the future, but it will take a long time. Apple putting USB C ports on its computers doesn't magically change the rest of the world. As someone mentioned above, though, except for high power devices like MacBooks, it really doesn't matter for charging. You had a USB A to lightning (or Mini USB or micro USB or...)  cable. If it doesn't need more than 12W, it really doesn't matter if the other end is USB A or USB C. This is also a reason it will take a long time to change. For the majority of uses, people don't need the power capacity of USB C. It's not unlike coming out with 220V appliances and expecting everyone to start putting 220V plugs in their homes.

USB C is clearly more flexible than USB A - higher power capacity, the ability to handle thunderbolt data in the same port. the problem is, USB C cables are not all the same and can be spec'd differently, so your USB C cable may work for charging but not for thunderbolt or vice versa, essentially adding a whole lot of confusion to the picture.

Don’t be ridiculous. Simply swap out your car and your airplane for the ones with the USB-C ports. Are are stuck in the past with your old airplane. 

Two additional points. 

1. The new remote sensor works with Ecobee 3 and Ecobee 4 thermostats. The old censor is petty finicky IMHO. I often have random disconnects and reconnects of my six remote sensors. The new sensor has a longer range and much longer battery life. Therefore, it’s possible to improve the functionality of the older Ecobee thermostats by simply replacing the old remote sensors with the new ones, which cost significantly less than replacing the thermostats.  

2. The new Ecobee thermostat’s Bluetooth capability allows it to stream to an external Bluetooth speaker. Therefore, if you use the new Ecobee thermostat as the primary Alexa or Google Assistant device, you can improve the sound quality by streaming music to an external Bluetooth speaker.  

Ban sales of Qualcomm chips and Android to Huawei and watch that mobile unit disintegrate.

The bad part is that China would retaliate against Apple and that means catastrophic consequences for Apple, as Cook has not prepared Apple for such a contingency even though he was warned 2.5 years ago. 

Huawei gets a chunk of Samsung’s market share in China and in Europe. It’s actually better for Apple if Huawei mobile unit stayed alive.