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"According to statistics published by Apple, 79% of U.S. car buyers wouldn't even consider purchasing a vehicle without CarPlay". Wow! If this is true then the US car market is certainly different to that in the UK. I presume the people surveyed were those owning or actually able to buy cars; do 79% of car buyers even use iPhone over Android?

In the UK, factors like running-costs, safety, cabin and boot (trunk) size figure alongside comfort and driving-pleasure. ICE is certainly a factor but as likely to appear as a desire for Bluetooth, SatNav and access to music.

I have a (much-maligned) BMW with CarPlay. BMW has never (to my knowledge) charged a recurring fee for CarPlay in the UK: my car came with it as part of a spec-upgrade package. I'm not impressed personally - perhaps it's BMW's implementation but it only uses about 75% of my display's width and it barely exploits the iDrive controller's versatility. Navigation is little better than the BMW-native system (that includes real-time traffic status) though messaging and other less essential apps are clearly superior.

It's worth mentioning that I do not like touch-screens in cars. They implicitly need the driver to look at them to place their fingers on buttons etc whilst a joystick-style controller (eg iDrive) can just click from one control to the next and then press them using a physical button that's always in the same place. The driver's eyes stay on the road for much more of the time: that's a good thing whatever you think of the stereotypical BMW Tesla driver.

crowley said:

Not sure what’s so disgusting about flat head screws, but meh, whatever floats your boat.

A major selection criterion will be something that simplifies/speeds assembly in mass production. Flat heads are less good at self/quick location for robots/workers in a hurry and less resistant to slippages, hence damage and increased rejection rates.

You could also argue that they're also less attractive for device aesthetics but that's a whole new can of worms.

I never liked the Touch Bar but this seems to throw away its better bit (you could see what it was supposed to do as it changed). Now, we swap the extra tap to wake it up before it will do anything for extracting an Apple Pencil from that awkward corner between keyboard and display. Then we tap/draw in an unlabelled space?

I'm not convinced. Part of the Touch Bar's downfall was that it didn't do anything that standard macOS features ('cos not everyone has a Touch Bar) didn't do at least as well: I can't see this being any different.

This is one of those absurdly wide ranging patents that claims the originator has invented a whole category of 'stuff'. The first claim is for:
"A fabric-based item comprising: a housing; a fabric layer covering a majority of the housing; a force sensor that is overlapped by the fabric layer; wireless communications circuitry; and control circuitry configured to transmit wireless signals with the wireless communications circuitry."

A lot of us are likely to feel that this is a rather obvious idea and/or that it is unreasonable for Apple to wait until someone else comes up with a cloth-covered Bluetooth product and then claim "I thought of that".

Apple is hugely innovative company and I enjoy using a variety of its products but I really hope it is not allowed this patent.

longpath said:

Never grant the state any power you would not entrust to your worst enemy. This isn’t a hard concept.

But your worst enemy already has it...