colinng

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colinng
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  • Cook talks slumping iPhone sales in interview, to reportedly hold 'all-hands' meeting with...

    colinngcolinng
    From 2011 through 2017, many so-called analysts who didn't understand Apple, said that Apple stopped innovating, and the other players in the market caught up. They said Apple could not innovate without Steve Jobs. 

    It turns out that you can innovate without Steve Jobs (look at WayTools, Telsa, and other companies). You just really have to want it. Referring to what Steve said, R&D isn't about writing a cheque. You have to think on behalf of your customers' best interests, all-round, including fairness and providing value. 

    When the original iPhone dropped in price the year after it was released, Apple issued a $100 refund for every single early buyer. Apple took a small hit on the bottom line to be loyal to their customers. And that's why the Apple brand name was so strong in 2012. 

    2018 rolls around and finally the so-called analysts are right. Apple now increments but charges category-defining prices. iPad Pro 12.9" (512GB LTE) went from CA$1606 (2017) to over CA$1900 (2018). The damn pencil went up by 50%!!! Same goes for iPhone, Mac mini, MacBook Air - just about everything Apple makes. 

    If it was $1000 or more, it went up by $200-$300. Overnight. If it was under $1000, it went up to nearly $1000. Base model Mac mini went from $499 to $799. And all they did was put back the quad core that the 2012 model had that they took out in 2014. And the audacity to shout on stage at the keynote, "more cores is faster." No shit? 

    Is it a mystery that people aren't buying? 

    Steve used to say that Apple's customers were smart. If you want to lead, you got to make things for the leaders. i.e. artists, musicians, directors, and other professionals who do amazing things with their systems and push the boundaries. 

    But instead Apple is fooling itself thinking it can chase easy money. They send demo units to "influencers" i.e. people with YouTube channels. They hope that Apple customers are truly sheeple who just buy what "influencers" show off. 

    Apple is failing because it is pandering to fools, hoping that "a fool and their money soon part." They forgot their customers are artists, creatives, directors, engineers, authors, teachers, scientists. 

    We can easily see Intel is polishing a turd when they are at 14nm+++ (i.e. didn't do 10, 10+, and certainly didn't do 7). Nobody is going to buy their crap. Everyone is pissed off at Intel, to the point they are booting up their own silicon teams. 

    Perhaps the only area that Apple is leading in right now - is the A-series silicon. They used to lead in development tools too, like Swift. But hey, they pissed off the people who made Swift so they went elsewhere. 
    ElCapitanuktechieMisterKitmike54propodkiehtanapple4lizifetailstooshark5150decoderring

  • Benchmarked: Razer Blade Stealth versus 13-inch MacBook Pro with function keys

    colinngcolinng
    That is, comparing price matched hardware, the Apple hardware will ALWAYS lose.   

    The Apple product can't win because:   A very big chunk of the price of an iOS or MacOS device is the cost of the operating system, ancillary software and Apple's ecosystem -- which I would guess is probably about a third of the total cost of the machine.  (Other hardware vendors buy a far cheaper OS and simply don't have an ecosystem to speak of).
    I don’t agree. A few years back, the MacBook Air was $100 cheaper than the closest PC knockoff - an Asus Zen book. The MacBook Air had only 2 USB 3 ports compared to the 4 on the Zen book, but as I told my friend - you didn’t need 4. The trackpad really works. The Bluetooth really works - so no silly corded mouse or silly mouse dongle. 

    But that was when Apple was making money like crazy even when trying to court PC switchers. 

    Now they price things like they don’t care. 

    Also, a good OS doesn’t have to be the most expensive - sometimes it’s actually the cheapest. The reason being if it is good - it will sell in volume, and it’s cost will be amortized over more units. If it is good, it is structured well and easy to maintain, so the cost of finding and fixing bugs is less. 

    Example of a really good OS dominating and being the cheapest? In server environments: Linux. 

    Yes, Linux is darn near unusable for common folk. But macOS is probably the largest Unix distribution on PCs. Surely they have enough users to amortize the cost? 

    AppleInsider picked an aluminum unibody PC with a comparable display, so you can’t accuse the compared item of “cheaping out” on those major components. Yet the Razor gives much better performance in every test, and costs $400 less. And Razor isn’t a charity - they need to make profit to stay alive - probably more than Apple needs to. 
    williamlondonelijahg

  • Apple will no longer report iPhone, Mac and iPad unit sales

    colinngcolinng
    Is there a possibility that Apple is just jacking up the price of everything? An iPhone “Plus” size phone is now $1320-$2000 Canadian. I understand they try to push the XS and XS Max as a “new category” and the XR as the direct successor of the 8/8 Plus, but really, $1300 is a LOT of money. $2000 is unprecedented; I get it, the $1550 one is the one they expect me to buy. That would be double anything I’ve paid for a previous iPhone. 

    Volumes drop, but profits remain because the ASP has gone higher. That’s how I’m seeing it - and I’m a big Apple fan. Bought the iPad Pro 2 12.9” on like opening day. The new stuff is great, thinner, more powerful, but man, so expensive. 

    I know there are articles saying that with inflation it’s the same cost. I don’t buy that. I distinctly recall the year when the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet went from $5500 to a $3799 Bronze Keyboard the next summer. And that I think really helped Mac users everywhere. The only thing better was the FireWire version that shipped the following year, and apparently the Pismo was extremely popular. 

    Isn’t tech supposed to come down in price? That’s how a US$100K 2 seater roadster becomes an $80K luxury sedan then a $35K model 3, and eventually a $20K model 4. 
    ascii

  • iPhone X bug causing Apple Pay problems for Suica users in Japan

    colinngcolinng
    Cue the “you’re holding it wrong” fandroids. 
    beowulfschmidt

  • Stanford students put down their iPhones to protest Apple not doing enough to curb device ...

    colinngcolinng
    I view an addiction as behavior that interferes with my productivity; smartphone distraction qualifies. 

    We have control, even if the manual doesn’t say it. 

    1. Define the relationship: the phone serves me - not the other way around. It is for me to reach others, not for others to reach me.

    Calls from unknown numbers, business, recruiters —> voicemail. 

     WhatsApp group that disturbed me while I was at work —> mute 1 or 8 hours. 

    2. Family members with emergencies will call me. Friends have that privilege but if they abuse it even once —> voicemail. 

    3. Disable notifications for any app that has ever disturbed me —> *BAM* notifications neutered. No 2nd chances! 
    - Facebook
    - Twitter
    - TED Talks (“watch this!” No! Go away!)
    - YouTube
    - heart rate variance monitor (“time to measure yourself” No! Time to chop off your notifications!) 
    - any ad
    - any pity message (“we haven’t heard from you in a while” Yes! That’s the last we’ll hear of each other!)

    These companies profit from our Fear Of Missing Out.

    The worst offender, by far, is the company that starts with F and ends with K. I consider 2 Factor Authentication a good thing, but they insist I use SMS, and then they spammed me, with no way to turn it off. I’m not signing up for that kind of abuse. No more 2FA with you, and no way I’m using you for OAuth. And no, even if you fix it, you already lost me due to the blatant disrespect. Get your dirty hands off my attention! 
    muthuk_vanalingam