asdasd

lkrupp said:

substance said:

How is this app that much different any app that has 'everything-and-the-kitchen-sink' built into them (like Facebook had they not broken Messenger out into a separate app)? 

And why is WeChat so popular in China?  What's to prevent the latest and greatest chap app to come around in a year or two to knock it off its pertch?

Why so popular? Probably because the dictatorship wants it to be since it almost certainly has access to all data flowing through it. The Chinese people have no freedom of speech, no right to assemble to petition the government (think Tiananmen  Square), no right to a political opinion (unless it conforms to the dictatorship’s), no real religious freedom. Look what the dictatorship did to Tibet (a cultural genocide) and now the Uighurs (a physical and cultural genocide. Watch the latest PBS Frontline show). The Chinese people are only a half-step above the poor souls who were unfortunate enough to be born in North Korea.  

That’s perfect hyperbole. If I were to list US atrocities I would be here all week. 

China is becoming a consumer hotspot. Hundreds of Millions are now at the level of a western worker. That’s why Apple allows WeChat etc. That’s not going to change. Blame globalist capitalism. 

I too think the Mac is regressing. I have two Mac Book Pros in the house right now;  one is my own, the other is the company's. I am working from home of course.

Mine is pre touch bar and pre single port.  The other has the USB-C port and the Touch Bar.  And the butterfly keyboard.

I much prefer moving to the older machine. The mag-safe powers up the Mac faster and is clearly safer. With the USB C, the Mac can actually lose power when plugged in and doesn't charge from the cable alone. The newer version heats up more, has crashed a few times, although OS X is still pretty stable. The keyboard is getting sticky and just feels worse. Getting back to the spongier keyboard on the 2017 Mac Pro feels so much nicer. I type as fast on both.

The Touch Bar is rarely of use, although I did just use it to increase the brightness as I typed this but I used to do that with built in function keys. 

The one better thing is the touchID on the newer device. - that is useful.

Neither is my favourite ever Mac Book, I had an old 17 inch which was the business a few years back.

Beats said:

bageljoey said:

godofbiscuits said:

What happened in 2018?  Was there a single event?

Also: don't you find it telling that Apple and in particular, Steve Jobs has *always* been about switchers?  The stats that always seemed to make SJ so happy were those who were new to Macintosh, and those who'd switched from "some other OS".   He liked to then underscore those who were purchasing their first Macintosh.

This makes sense to me.  Apple has traditionally had relatively high customer loyalty. So retaining customers was not as important as bringing in new ones.  Especially, in the bad old days, when building up user numbers was critical to supporting software development

Numbers are still important.

The problem with these charts is Android users buy more iKnockoffs. So 1 Android user can buy 10 iWannabes(2/year) meanwhile an iPhone user is still using their iPhone 6.
This equates to 10 Android sales vs. 1 iPhone sales. In this case, "activations".

Well yeah. In fact I estimated a while back that the lifespan of an iOS device at about 4 years (and growing) is twice that of an android device. 

This isn't about hiring  individual contractors, it's outsourcing to consulting companies who then either outsource again to other companies,  or use their internal employees to do the work. Obviously they will sometimes also hire individual contractors, like all companies. 

cornchip said:

asdasd said:

Not seeing that logic though, as if they use internal developers they will obviously need to hire more people. And I don't think people join Apple to write internal tools, although I suppose it could be used as an entry level position.

It seems to me that internal tools are something especially a company like Apple would want to keep, I don’t know, internal? 

Well, clearly not.  It was internal years ago,  but not now. 

It does seem like a bean counter kinda problem, Apple shouldn't skimp there, or on AppleCare. On another forum I post on, a general one with different threads for different topics ( not reddit but similar) there's an ongoing "worst company ever" thread and the problems are always customer care. Always, You get people saying that their broadband was fine for years but when it went wrong they couldn't fix it for weeks, that every call started from the beginning, that people hung up on them. 

For some reasons companies are happy to destroy their brand, by being cheap on customer care. Not Apple, yet, of course.