lightknight

Soli said:

JanNL said:

So you see, in relation to creating backdoors, it only needs 1 disgruntled employee and the privacy of many is gone...

Unbelievable a senior programmer at this kind of company leaves his search history like this... have to wonder why he faced a possible termination 

I'm not one for conspiracy theories (and I'm not putting any real stick in it with this comment), but  part of me wonders if this was an intentional bread crumb because it's such a stupid way to get caught.

Historical evidence shows stupidity to be a very common factor with getting caught, along with sex. Sometimes both compounded.

Being totally naive, I'd have thought that sharing such information, acquired by partaking in a NDA (which means, you're not allowed to Disclose what information was under that non disclosure agreement...), would mean said developer be banned from the App Store and Apple Developer Connection... Not that I'm an investor and his actions may cause harm to me, but whenever you sign stuff, you should respect that, even if violating it gains you retweets or such remarkable e-notoriety...

mbenz1962 said:

sjgreen said:

Only in America would this happen - pure profiteering 

Here in the UK none of her phone networks have silly charges like this. Our plans are also a lot cheaper plus give a lot more data, minutes & texts each month. 

I just made a comment similar to this yesterday about plans in (continental) Europe:

I wish these carrieres had better pricing at the lower end of the data usage spectrum. Plans here in Europe are not much cheaper for unlimited, but they are for limited.  I pay 25 Euro ($30) for 2.5GB a month for two lines with the market leading coverage (comperable to Verizon) all taxes and fees included.  On AT&T the closest comperable is $20 per device (so $40 for two lines) and $50 for 5 GB to share.  That is $90 plus taxes and fees for two lines.  If I up my data another 2.5 GB to compare, it would cost another 20 Euro ($25).  So the same 5 GB service that AT&T charges $90+, I can get for ~$55 all fees included. This can be even cheaper if I choose other carriers with less robust coverage.

9€ a month for unlimited calls to all of Europe and the US, 30GB of data (non throttled). 3GB when travelling inside of the European Union, still unlimited calls. And unlimited SMS.
My gf has 50GB for the same price because she got a switch-now offer from the competition.

US prices are a rip-off that is, maybe, the best demonstration that US-style liberal capitalism does NOT work for the simple reason that big money can easily influence lawmaking. Monsanto-Nestle and AT&T are remarkable showcases for this, but John Oliver's shows have ridiculous amounts of other examples...

notcb said:

SquareTrade seems to consistently rate iPhones worse than Samsung flagships. I’m skeptical.

SquareTrade is basically an insurance company, so we have to consider financial motives in pushing customers away from iPhones. Could it be that an iPhone costs SquareTrade more to repair than a Samsung phone?

Sounds like a complex explanation. I'd posit a simpler option: SquareTrade needs to attract more customers and any "Apple <<< Samsung" statement will attract press releases, Apple fans hate and posts, and Samsung fans happiness and posts. Free publicity, more customers.

TheUnusual6 said:

Tim cook’s gonna fire all those lazy assholes responsible for this..

Unlikely. Tim knows that in a resource-constrained organization (and whatever Apple's market cap and revenue might be, talent is the constraining resource here), focus needs to be selectively applied. As the top dog, he sets the focus. Where the focus isn't applied, issues will crop up from time to time. That's Reality, whatever the WSJ might say. Challenger went boom, even though NASA is arguably the finest collection of engineering minds in the world. Nothing can force a perfect run, but what you can achieve is repeated success over the years, and that's what Apple and NASA excel at. To sum up: Apple has had at least a fantastic decade, with some issues cropping up from time to time (2011 MBP GC issues, iPhone 4 antenna issues, Siri mostly being stupid outside of the USA... at least in *my* experience, YMMV), but clearly leagues better than any other tech company. Even a few high-profile issues aren't enough to wipe this out.