decoderring

Great! An even more seamless way for people to divulge to Facebook all their deepest thoughts and secrets.

Given now many millions of Google Home and Echo speakers have sold thus far, I really don't think a critical mass of people will be at all bothered by Facebook joining the fray.

sportyguy209 said:

I'm probably old fashioned, but I don't subscribe to rent software from Adobe, love paying the small amount of money to Affinity to purchase their World Class Software, and haven't upgraded to Microsoft's software rental. Still using my last purchased version and when that starts to fail will move to Apple's software. Apparently, I must be the only one to do this because Adobe and Microsoft are so "successful" with their software rental.

You're not the only one doing this. I'm pretty resistant to subscriptions since I don't upgrade my hardware or software (except for security patches, of course) as much as I used to. Honestly, a lot of software already features pretty much everything I need, thus I don't see enough value in going the subscription route for a lot of products. Take Office: The 2011 version still does everything I need it to do, but I've gone over to Apple's Pages and Numbers since my personal use scenario is taken care of by them.

1Password is another example: I tried version 7 on a trial basis, but I guess I don't really push the software to its extreme limit because version 6 does everything I need. I even considered buying the standalone version, but the friction that exists because the company really wants to go the subscription route dissuaded me from finalising the transaction. I am starting to migrate over to Apple's password security system, even if I ultimately prefer a stand-alone product, because I just don't see the value in getting myself into a never-ending payment scenario where I'm doling out almost $6 CDN every month.

I can see the pros of subscriptions (for both developers and users) and do pay some, but overall I'm not really that interested in paying $25 or $30 a month to use a bunch of software that already exists in forms that meet my needs. The trick to interpreting the state of things, I guess, is realising that it's all about individual needs and expectations.

AppleExposed said:

avon b7 said:

StrangeDays said:

entropys said:

Great Tim, where is my next iMac?

Wait, I thought the chief whine was "Yeah but where's the new Mac mini!" lol...folks will just keep rotating it based on what's not out yet

Whine? Whine!

People had to wait years for it. If there is one thing it wasn't, it was whining.

People were asking entirely justifiable questions about an update.

You're whining about a product you're not going to buy. I know it.

Dude, being an apologist for substandard product maintenance is in no way going to help anyone get the best products for the money spent.

A product may still be perfectly usable without a substantial upgrade for a couple of years. But at some point, in technology, progress makes it so that if you don't at the very least upgrade the processor (let alone other parts) all the while charging premium prices you start to look negligent.

And that describes a lot of Apple's conduct the past few years.

That's not to take away from the things the company has done right, but to let certain products languish for years sends a very poor message: We believe in this product today, but who knows how we'll feel about it over the next few years. But don't worry, you'll still pay lots of money for this very same product in three or four years.

That sort of conduct seems beneath Apple's quality standards.