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Are you implying that Apple was trying to protect user privacy?

http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+is+Tracking+its+iPhone+iPad+Users+Every+Move/article21429.htm

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-20/tech/iphone.tracking_1_iphone-users-apple-devices-location-data?_s=PM:TECH

http://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking-in-ios-6-2012-10

See, Google has an interest in your location because they want to provide you relevant local ads, or provide better maps so that you are "branded" to google services. Latitude is opt-in.

Google tracks you with cookies,login data and IP addresses. You can change these by a simple delete or relogin, deleting your account, or wiping/rooting the device. Bam, you're a "unique user" again.

On the Apple side, they use the UUID, tied to your specific device. You can wipe the phone all you want but tracking data for that device is always connected to that device in a database.

What is Apple's reason for tracking location? Or what was it back then? Why was the feature opt-out rather than opt-in?

Really? I have seen any evidence of that. Do you have a link? (I'm not doubting you, just genuinely surprised.)

So you've been ignoring this: www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-no-longer-has-google-based-maps-on-the-iphone-2012-9

Apple tried to negotiate with Google to get turn-by-turn navigation, but Google wouldn't give up that data without some concessions from Apple. Google wanted more Google branding in the maps as well as the inclusion of Lattitude, Google's Foursquare-esque social network that tracks people if they opt-in. Apple didn't want to include either of those things in its maps.

In the end, Apple walked away from the table, the Google offer remained but Apple didn't want to agree to it.

As much as Apple fan sites tried to spin it, Apple chose not to have Google's turn by turn navigation.

Google's withholding turn-by-turn voice navigation from the iOS version in order to give their Android platform a competitive advantage.

Since you are obviously intimately familiar with the negotiations, perhaps you could correct my misapprehension. I had heard that Apple didn't want iOS users to have Latitude access or Google branding . Sort of like they do on all other versions of Google map I have ever seen. That would kind of suggest it was more about locking in Apple customers to Apple's own map app and friend finder service than about Google refusing to provide features.

Save your breath. Why would Apple give Google any face on this? The #1 reason they dumped Google Maps was because Apple didn't want to pay Google's for turn-by-turn voice navigation from the iOS version.

Fixed that for you.

Apple wanted access to Google's data for free. Google didn't want that, so Google asked for money and barring that asked wanted other concessions such as branding or the inclusion of more google services (such as Latitude) but Apple steadfastly refused.

As much as they tried to paint Google as the bad guy, it was Apple who refused to negotiate.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-no-longer-has-google-based-maps-on-the-iphone-2012-9

Apple tried to negotiate with Google to get turn-by-turn navigation, but Google wouldn't give up that data without some concessions from Apple. Google wanted more Google branding in the maps as well as the inclusion of Lattitude, Google's Foursquare-esque social network that tracks people if they opt-in.

Apple didn't want to include either of those things in its maps.

As much as All Things D tried to spin it, they couldn't get around the fact that Apple refused to give the concessions Google wanted and Google had every right to ask for those concessions as they spent the money developing the service.

I don't think Obama knew how polarizing of a figure he would be. Republicans never like a Democrat, but they positively hate Obama. He didn't anticipate the lengths they would go to make his presidency look weak. Like blocking the Veterans Jobs Bill.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that military spending is ok and shouldn't be defunded, start two wars under the last Republican president, and then block a bill to take the survivors of those very same wars and deny them aid. And then claim Obama isn't keeping his promises!

It honestly boggles me how anyone can vote for these people.

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices dose not equal "Xbox". Xbox is making money, it was Windows Phone that caused the loss.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nokia-payments-cause-entertainment-and-devices-division-loss-2012-7

Exactly, PE ratio and debt-equity have nothing to do with growth ratios, and stagnation in growth ratio is what burst bubbles.

*sigh* You have no idea what you're talking about. For a bubble to exist, the stock must be *OVERVALUED*. Of the two stocks, Google is the one which is MORE overvalued by any measure you care to look at.

Apple has an extremely restrict product portfolio, especially compared to Google

Really? Let's compare the two companies, based on the major components of their revenue streams:

Apple: Laptops, desktop computers, peripherals, tablets, phones, music players, set top boxes, music sales, app sales, software sales.
Google: Advertising.

Or did you think Gmail, G+, Youtube, and Chrome were Google's "products"? Those are known as loss leaders, which get people into Google's infrastructure, so Google can rape their privacy and sell the resulting data to their CUSTOMERS, the advertisers.

Android is not far from being an economical failure for Google - it *is* a financial failure. It makes them almost no money directly - Google dumped it into the market in order to prevent from being frozen out of the mobile advertising space. Except it turns out that that mobile advertising space isn't very lucrative, and now Google is struggling to find a way to make money off mobile advertising to replace its declining desktop advertising revenues. This is in their very public SEC filings - I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that I'm making this up - this is GOOGLE saying it.

This doesn't mean Android itself will fail - it won't fail any more than Linux could fail - the problem is, SAMSUNG is making all the profit off of Android, not Google. Which means that when Google eventually crashes and can't afford an Android development team, they'll either try and restrict it to their Motorola division only, leaving Samsung to try maintaining their own forked version, or they'll simply stop development, and all the handset manufacturers can go do their own thing with the latest code drop. It's not making Google money, it was intended to be a loss leader: "you get this awesome phone os to build phones with, and in return... we get all the money from advertising on them!"

In a few years, Apple will still be making strong money off its many devices (do you REALLY think they don't have additional products and features in their pipeline? please), Google will still be struggling to make money off advertising, and Microsoft will have chiseled a sizable (but still minority) share of the smartphone market largely on the backs of Android manufacturers leaving the market since they can't profitably compete with Samsung. At that point, I'll gladly welcome your concession that I was right, though i won't hold you to it - I know how hard it is for you without the constant pacifying effect of Google's dick in your mouth.

Because Mitt Romney has invested a lot of money into voting machines. And he would feel awful if miscalibration were to accidentally elect him president. Thats why the options haven't been put far enough apart to prevent mistakes.

I don't get it either. 100k Apps seems adequate to me -- especially for a new platform.

I don't know where the 100k figure comes from though. According to Business Insider they had close to 10k apps at launch, though the store was growing by about 500 apps per day. (They've got about 180 days to go at that rate to make the 100k mark)

Of course, most of the apps are still garbage -- on every platform. It would be nice to see multiple, competing, app stores on various platforms to help weed out the crap.

Just as Kim Jong-Un had to purge a bunch of his father's old advisers in order to solidify his grip on North Korea, so too must new CEOs purge a board member or two in order to prove they're the boss.

A Kim-style board member purge would certainly make for a quite a show:
Kim Jong-un Orders North Korean Army Minister To Be 'Executed With Mortar Round'
On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

Their debts are enumerated in euros so they have to pay them back in euros.

They simply state "All debts will be paid back with Drachma. If you don't like that, let us know, and we'll cancel our debt with you." People would sign up to take the drachma, if the alternative was nothing. One or two would hold out, and Greece would default on those, and nobody would care, because the people who refused to take the offered drachma would be blamed.

OR some of those hedge funds would follow recent example http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-elliott-capital-management-seizes-ara-libertad-ship-owned-by-argentina-2012-10 and use courts in exceptionally corruptible countries to win judgements and seize mobile property of the Greek government to force full payment.

Google’s Andy Rubin: ’I’d Be Happy’ If Someone Left Prototype Android Phone In A Bar ‘And Someone Wrote About It’

http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-andy-rubin-id-be-happy-if-someone-left-prototype-android-phone-in-a-bar-and-someone-wrote-about-it-2010-4#ixzz2ASEIo0n1

Android activations are no longer increasing

Um ... really???

You're a brave individual to suggest that Apple's in the ascendancy (no, sorry, "hammering" Android!) right now. Android's market share of new units shipped in Q2 this year was a massive 68% vs 17% for iOS. I really wonder what you're basing this on ...

Coming back to topic, I'm really surprised Apple released an ipad mini with those specs. It justifies the existence of the 7" Android tablet market, and almost pushes people into buying a Nexus 7 or Fire HD instead -- why would anyone other than an Apple zealot choose to pay more for a tablet with a lower-resolution screen? Surely they had to at the very least have a retina display, or extra battery life, or something in there to justify the price premium. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure that people will still pay extra bucks simply for that magical "i" in the name ... it will be interesting to see.

On a more practical note, this is the first time I've seen Apple offer a product of noticably worse quality than their competitors since 2007. Apple used to do this all the time in the 1990s, and that didn't work out so well for them ...

For the first time - and I'm saying this from the perspective of having used Windows from before it could network - I think you're right. The GUI change of Windows 8 is dramatic enough that a user retraining effort/cost will be incurred, plus there will be a hardware cost, plus licensing costs. If you're running a shop with more than a dozen systems...no, scratch that: Everybody should seriously look at whether they're willing to continue on the path of buying new Windows stuff because Microsoft says they have to.

The big question: Is the U.S. economy going to provide us with the income to meet Microsoft's demands for expenditures? I don't see anybody doing anything about the inequitable nature of free trade; that is, I still see other countries rigging their currency exchange rates to ensure that the United States is not competitive, and I still see U.S. corporations - to include Microsoft - prioritizing "shareholder value" and the CEO's pay over the longevity of the corporation itself and America herself. Further, I still see the banks and America's HNWIs using the oil and gasoline commodities markets as the vehicle from which they can levy their own private taxes - which means the cost of living in America will continue to rise. And as America's jobs continue to go offshore, that means the ability of offshore nations to outbid America for food raised and grown in America will continue to increase.

Finally, there are plenty of efforts underway to export U.S. shale gas as well as refined fuels such as gasoline and diesel...and there are moves underway to export U.S. crude oil. What does that mean? That means we will not be able to bring manufacturing back to America by using our own cheaper energy to offset the offshore labor made cheaper by rigged currency exchange rates.

My point is stupid policies - forced oil addiction, voodoo economics, inequitable free trade, and deregulation - have decimated our manufacturing and service sectors...savaging the bottom of our tax base while cutting taxes at the top. That means we're becoming third-world; we need to - as individuals, and as businesses - look at cutting costs.

One way is getting off of the Microsoft permanent upgrade cycle. Our leaders won't save us...they're owned by the 0.01% who are getting fatter and wealthier by destroying America. You and I - Main Street - must look to saving ourselves.

Here in the U.S., you get Amtrack.

Did you know that Amtrak's only profitable line is also the nation's only high speed line, the Acela Express? It "made a profit of about $41 per passenger" in 2008.

That's why all intercity passenger rail ought to be high speed rail!

The U.S. is more spread out than Europe. We have cities which are essentially islands of millions of people with hundreds of miles of cornfields between them.

We also have city pairs that have the population density to support high speed rail. Boston to NYC to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles to San Francisco, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Portland to Seattle, and so on.

*sigh* Can people not believe outright the attention-whore headlines?

Check this: As confirmed in an SEC filing last year, the shares in Cook’s renumeration package are set to vest at different times. Half of the 1m stock units – valued at $376m back in August 2011 – will vest (i.e. be passed on to Cook) in August 2016, with the remainder coming in August 2021, ten years after he assumed the role of CEO.

What that means is that, because the Apple stock exploded in value, and his compensation is linked to it, if the stock stays the same for the next 10 years, he makes 378 millions, so 37.8 millions per year (well, + 900k in base salary). Factor in inflation, and it'll be less in current dollars. If he does a bad job and the company tanks, his compensation decreases. If Apple (the stock, hopefully linked to the company, as it should be over 10 years) does well, so does he. What's so wrong with that? Don't confuse the accounting with reality; you're _required_ to account for stock options in your SEC filings, it doesn't mean Apple actually paid that much or that Cook made that much in a year.

Now of course you can still argue 38M$ is too much for a CEO, but in that regard, I don't think you should complain about Cook. He manages the largest company ever by market cap that _makes real products_, and earns 25 times less than a hedge fund manager that profited from the recession by moving money around (and yes, I only counted his 1 billion in pure compensation, not the 4 he made because he invested in himself).

Of course. That's what real economists, of the Nobel prize winning class, have said already: bitcoin has deflation written all over it, and that's its doom. It won't work as it doesn't encourage use, but hoarding.

Would this be the same as your lame arsed comment with a huge block of blank space to suck up as much as possible of the first page. I'm sure you would have produced more blank space in the Slashdot auto comment rejected would have allowed it.

Foxcon is largely viewed as Chinese because that's where it's factories are that pay wages in cents on the dollar compared to the western world. Sure it's multi-billionaire owner who sent the supervisors of Foxcon to a major Chinese zoo to learn how best to handle 'ANIMALS' and use those methods on the 'ANIMALS' at the factory http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-animals-2012-1.

"Chinaâ(TM)s largest electronics manufacturer, the already-loathed Foxconn" is a direct quote from the site, that site of course being http://www.vice.com/en_au. Most definitely a very edgy web site with some great videos but no matter, a direct quote is a direct quote. No if you want to complain naughty, naught, poo, poo because the submitter did not properly reference the quote, well fine.

Ah, but you see, in first world you automate a lot of such production because it's cheaper. The setup is costlier, but repeatability goes up vs. unpredictableness of tired labor force, and longer term you can actually make it cheaper than in asia. Once your setup is done, adding robot cells to the line only costs you amortization -- capital equipment can be leased and scaled with demand. Sure Foxconn can set up stuff in a couple of weeks because they have next to no programmable machinery outside of various test cells, it's mostly all manual labor with some custom but simple tools. In the U.S., if you get a bunch of dedicated manufacturing people, they could set up automation about just as quick, given proper resources.

Sure, if they have months of leadtime, they can automate nearly anything. But they need that leadtime - no last minute changes, like swapping out a glass screen for a plastic screen. When Apple was looking for a factory to cut the glass, the Chinese built the (government subsidized) glass cutting factory before they even had a signed deal from Apple, and they were able to give 24x7 access to engineers because the engineers lived on-site in the company dormitory. Can any American factory offer that kind of flexibility?

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-22/tech/30652107_1_foxconn-iphones-apple-executives

Where are you pulling your numbers from? I would like to know how you came to your price figures if they actually did that.

I don't care if you were sarcastic, I'm serious. I would like to know what the cost difference would be if the iPhone 5 was made in the USA versus China.

There have been studies that estimates are about $30 to $160 more per iphone in costs ( http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-manufacturing-cost-foxconn-2012-4) . That means apple's margin for the devices would go from $452 in gross profits to around $293 per iphone. It'd cost more but wouldn't be outrageously more.

Where do you think Assad is getting his weapons from? Russia and Iran. Case closed.

The US is not jumping into WW3. Iran is going to attack the US even if Israel does the bombing. Iran has already been creating acts of war by killing our troops in Iraq and an assassination attempt on our ambassador and will pretty much do all of these things mentioned above.

The next move would be for the whole middle east to have a new cold war and stock pile on nuclear weapons so in case the next war happens in the middle east it will be a holocaust.

Google is either lying when they 1.3 million phones are activated per day, or Android is such a piece of shit operating system that you have to activate it continuos over and over again to get it to work.

In 2011 there were a total of 491.4 million smart phones sold. 491.4/365 is ~1.3 million. As we all know not every one of those phones is an android phone.

Fun chart plotting Androids activation a day.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-android-activations-per-day-2012-9

Google has around 80% market share for internet searches in the EU. They are in the neighborhood of 66% in the US based on ComScore's assessment earlier this month. The same assessment lists Bing at 15.9, Yahoo at just under 12.8, and two remaining at less than 3% each. Google is a clear leader, but their manipulation of search results allows them to maintain and extend their lead which is exactly where you start running into trouble with the FTC. Any time you have a clear lead, monopoly, borderline monopoly, whatever, and you leverage your service to misrepresent your competitors you are being anti-competitive. Dicking around with the page ranks of your competition is misrepresentation no matter how you slice it. Even Eric Schmidt alluded to Google being a monopoly a year ago: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-21/tech/30183638_1_monopoly-web-browser-market-microsoft

Just plain wrong, because a significant number of people and countries have chosen to store their wealth in gold. See http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-large-gold-reserves-2012-10?op=1#ixzz28hmvjCBa A drastic change in the scarcity of gold would have major economic repercussions.

The point, that you are ignoring, is that there are PLENTY of people who want to buy trucks, contrary to your original "most people don't drive vehicles in the "pickup truck" or "van" form factor" statement.

None of this is off the record. It's all been reported. The news media has a combination of self censorship and ignoring the "boring" stuff. This is why it's never reported, and why this is a big surprise on Slashdot.

Here is what Scalia just said to the American Enterprise Institute on Oct. 5th, just last week. http://www.businessinsider.com/scalia-says-homosexual-sodomy-was-criminal-2012-10 Oct 5, 2012

Justice Antonin Scalia has already called questions about the death penalty "laughable," saying if it was a law when the country was founded, then it's a law now.

And now the "originalist" is attacking homosexual behavior in the same breath as abortion and opposition to the death penalty.

During a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Scalia said he disagrees with colleagues who now believe the death penalty is unconstitutional, the AP reported.

He then seemed to suggest that he didn't think homosexual activity was protected by the Constitution, either.

"The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy ... Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state," Scalia said.

To quote the friend who sent this to me:

When the country was founded slavery was legal, adult women were legally and socially considered minors and one step above chattel, child labor was legal, "buggery" was punished by death, indentured servitude was legal, conscription into the armed forces was legal, genocide against Native Americans was legal (and enthusiastically pursued), and I could go on and on.

So how do you think Scalia will vote? The accepted current rights of the consumer, or some radical approach that will put more money and power in the hands of corrupt business interests? If you take him at his word, he would be happy to re-instate indentured servitude. What were the state of consumer rights 200 years ago? Still want to make a bet?

He claims to be an "originalist", but in fact his is a extreme radical. He's proud of this position, and makes speeches link this all the time. And it rarely makes the main stream headlines.

I expect that all the righty trolls will be making excuses for Scalia and the American Enterprise Institute. His idea of freedom, and the AEI idea of freedom, is that you STFU and do what your masters tell to to do. How bad does it have to get so that even the Slashdot nerds wake up and realize that the right wing want to turn them into peasants?

By the way, you are missing part of the formula for GDP, it's the deflator that they are supposed to apply to discount inflation. Of-course their deflators are ridiculously low, I have an 'informative' post with many numbers and links in it here, which shows a few things about inflation and GDP. AFAIC GDP has been shrinking for a long time now in 2 ways.

1. The 'production' part of GDP is shrinking all the time. Look at the trade deficit numbers, here is a page with history on it in PDF or text. For the year 2011 the trade deficit was 559Billion dollars and it's growing all he time. Of-course the total personal consumption in USA is mostly on services, not on goods, in fact 2/3 of all consumption is services and only 1/3 is goods. 11Trillion was spent by US consumers in 2011, so about 3 Trillion was spent on goods and the rest was energy, food and services (like healthcare and education for example), so in that sense US consumer consumes mostly 'US' service. However if you look at the goods (go to Walmart and compare how many things are made in USA vs foreign made, like China), you'll find that most of the goods bought and sold (and even food, 90% of sea food comes from Asia) is made elsewhere.

2. The deflator that is used is reverse engineered to fit the propaganda. With the nominal and pre-deflator GDP being 2.9%, the deflator is set to be 1.6. (read the linked comment, I give quotes and links there), that's GDP revised down from 1.7% to 1.3% (post deflator) for the second quarter.

70% of GDP could very well be consumption, at least in countries with unusually low government spending

- I am sorry, this sentence makes no sense. 70% of GDP is consumption, that's not because of low gov't consumption, the exact opposite is the case, that's because of very high consumption stimulated by gov't (especially non-existing interest rates and free money allocated by the Fed to the member banks, who then buy T-bills and bonds and allow gov't to keeps spending). It's low production that is the problem, that's why GDP is 70% personal consumption, it's the actual number, what can I say? You see, when the production portion of GDP shrinks, the consumption portion becomes bigger and bigger part of the number, and if the consumption is stimulated artificially with fake money and 0% interest rates, and as long as the foreigners are willing to take dollars for their exports, then consumption even grows, doesn't just stay the same.

The reason that the consumption is mostly of foreign goods is exactly because the production part of GDP is disappearing.

Mod down

The whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley is people had no clue Enron was doing weird shit. You can hate it all you want. but its goal is to encourage transparency to protect its investors. I see nothing wrong with that

Transparency is fine in the abstract, but the implementation has a big role in determining if it is good or bad policy. Sarbanes-Oxley isn't looking so good in retrospect.

Reforming Sarbanes-Oxley: How to Restore American Leadership in World Capital Markets

THE HONORABLE TOM FEENEY: As Milton Friedman said, often a congressional solution is worse than the problem. That's another one of those truisms that has been proved by Sarbanes-Oxley. Another one is that Congress tends to have two speeds-zero and overreact. In the case of Sarbanes-Oxley, we clearly overreacted. And most importantly, I think, Sarbanes-Oxley proves the rule that the unanticipated, unintended consequences of complex legislation are often much, much worse than the positive effects that you intended. . . .

. . . some accountants, for example, have looked at the newspaper subscriptions for the officers in a $2 billion or $5 billion company. We're talking about $70 or $100 or $150 a year for newspapers in a $2 billion company, and that has generated reviews that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Procurement decisions on a very minor level have triggered these things. Why is this?

Time to Reform Sarbanes-Oxley

Obama Endorses Sarbanes-Oxley Reform To Make Small IPOs Easier

President Barack Obama backed the recommendations of his jobs council to amend the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations to make it easier for small companies to go public.

The jobs council, headed by GE CEO Jeff Immelt and including Sheryl Sandberg and Steve Case, found that the Sarbanes-Oxley was a key factor in reducing the number of IPOs smaller than $50 million from 80 percent of all IPOs in the 1990s to 20 percent in the 2000s.

Obama also said the "Spitzer Decree," which bans investment banks from using banking revenues to pay for research and expert analysis of publicly-traded companies, deserves reconsideration as well. The council said the rule shares the blame for the decline in IPOs among small companies.

The Crimes of Sarbanes-Oxley

No one denies that there was a corporate governance problem that came to a head with the Enron scandal. But in their zeal to pass new legislation, no one in Congress ever stepped back to consider the magnitude of the problem. Some 12,000 companies are required to file public financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to George Benston, professor of accounting at Emory University, no more than a few dozen per year have ever been implicated in dishonest bookkeeping. But rather than simply step up enforcement by the SEC, all companies were treated as guilty until proven innocent and forced to comply with onerous new regulatory requirements.

The most burdensome provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is section 404, which requires establishment of extensive new internal controls for financial reporting. A recent study by Financial Executives International, an industry group, found that the average compliance cost for large companies was $4.6 million, involving 35,000 hours of internal manpower, $1.3 million for external consulting and software, and additional audit fees of $1.5 million.

These numbers are probably very low. FEI admits that the complia

I missed the launch, and I haven't been able to find a recorded feed: if anyone has a link I'd love to hear the flight loop.

BUT, the mission control chatter you hear on a SpaceX launch is almost entirely people assuring themselves that the rocket is OK. They're not *controlling* much of anything: it's all in the hands of the flight computer, which decides things like "shut down this engine and recompute a launch profile for the remaining 8 engines" on its own, in real time. There's no time for humans to make a decision on this sort of thing: the decisions were made when programming the software, years ago.

I don't think they're hiding anything from the public, but what surprises me is that they seem not to have even *noticed* right away.

As for "well dressed and professional", even *NASA* doesn't play by your old fart rules any more. (Your words not mine...) http://www.businessinsider.com/bobak-ferdowsi-nasa-curiosity-landing-mars-mohawk2012-8

Too much choice is actually bad. But hey. You're on a roll. Not going to stop you.

Here's more relevant information about the reasons for the strike: http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-workers-go-on-strike-2012-10 The important bit is that workers are striking not because they are against stricter quality, but because tighter quality checks meant they must work harder to produce iPhone components presumably at the same rate as earlier models. And they were told to do this without additional training.Victory for workers would mean Foxconn hiring more workers and less exhausting working pace for all workers there.

So what does the iPhone have to do with this? Well, somebody had to take a risk with these pricey multi-touch devices.

Actually, when it came to "taking the risk," Both Microsoft and Mitsubishi beat Apple to the punch by about half a decade, although Apple was the first companies to put the technology to use in a phone, which is a milestone worth recognition.

Of course, Apple's patently false claims to have invented multitouch only serve to further legitimize my statement that Jobs was a bad inventor, but a good marketer.

Prior to iPhone, I mostly recall crappy stylus-style touchscreens.

"Crappy" is a matter of opinion. I used to have a Thinkpad "Tablet Edition" that used a stylus, and for certain tasks, like writing notes or drawing, the stylus was and still is a far better interface than the tip of one's finger. I was pretty sad to see that fall to the wayside, especially in the tablet market, but it appears the stylus is poised to make a comeback in that particular venue, much to the joy of folks like myself.

Using human labor gives Apple much more flexibility to make changes to their products, because it is much easier to teach a human a new skill than it is to reprogram a robot for a task it was not designed to do. This was perfectly illustrated with the first iPhone; Jobs demanded a switch to gorilla glass from plastic (not a trivial demand) just six weks before the iPhone was scheduled to be released. you can read about it here http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-22/tech/30652107_1_foxconn-iphones-apple-executives.

May I suggest this guy?

You may recall that Barnes and Noble and Microsoft are in a joint venture to do e-bookie things.

"But in any case, he's right: there are a huge group of Americans who simply pay no income taxes and instead live off government support. They will support Obama regardless of what Romney says because they want to continue leeching off the rest of society."

So that's why the preponderance of people who don't pay income tax live in states that vote for Democrats! Obviously, right?

Well,

http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-47-percent-no-income-tax-map-red-republican-states-2012-9

not exactly.

Note that micro USB isn't doesn't support the functionality the iPhone needs. See http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-lightning-vs-micro-usb-2012-9

Neither does the Lightning connector. No ipod controls. No analog audio out. No 12-volt charging.

So why is it that we need this new connector again? One that does less than the previous one but will require all new cables and accessories?

Well, this article supposedly covers some of it: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-lightning-vs-micro-usb-2012-9

However, not owning a phone with micro-USB, I'm not sure how accurate it is. Anyone care to chime in?

So are you saying that nothing should ever change about the iPhone connector? Once god-awful 30-pin, always god-awful 30-pin? So that nobody ever has to buy new peripherals?

Or are you saying that it's okay if they change it (and force everybody to buy new peripherals) but only if they change it to something "compatible"? Note that micro USB isn't doesn't support the functionality the iPhone needs. See http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-lightning-vs-micro-usb-2012-9

Profit? Bing doesn't know what profit is. They're like $16B in the red and have never ever seen what black ink looks like. You would have to explain black ink to them as if they were blind from birth.

From the GP post you quoted:

iPhone's never had turn-by-turn direction built-in

(emphasis added)

And the reason for this was licensing terms with Google which stipulated Apple could not include turn-by-turn using Google's map service:

Google couldn't include turn-by-turn directions on Android phones until it had control of its own mapping database. The companies that provide databases wouldn't let Google do it, because it was a threat to their business.

Likewise, when Apple wanted to get access to the data to do its own thing with maps, Google was equally difficult.

3rd party GPS and turn-by-turn on iOS has been available for years, even before the iPhone gained built-in GPS capabilities (an external GPS antenna was supplied by the bigger GPS app providers).

They don't want them, even in India. The last mechanical typewriter factory in the world (in india) shut down last year...

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-26/news/30072856_1_typewriters-manufacturers-machines

You could probably look around for enough of them, eventually, but the effort probably isn't worth it.

Um, what? iPad marketshare actually went up during the past year.

Have you even looked at your source...Its Apple spin from an Apple slide no less. Bless it. http://betanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/iPad-vs.-Android-Tablet-Market-Share.png. Apples market share has been dropping over time. Right now post Q2. I'm going to say with Google, and Amazon both making great launches. I'd say Apple is taking a beating in the the Post Nexus 7 world. The picture is from http://betanews.com/2012/07/24/nexus-7-will-lead-android-tablets-to-overtake-ipad/ which shows that Android is eroding Apples market share faster than it did with phones.

Um, what? iPad marketshare actually went up during the past year.

Maybe this graph will be helpful. It ends in 2011. We know that in 2012 the "apple" portion increased by 50%, and the "android" portion doubled while the "PC" portion stayed the same.

MS stole Apple's source code? Or Doublespaces? Or DrDos or DOS? Or IE's? That never stopped the tens of thousands of +5 INSIGHTFUL slashdot posts saying MS was a backstabber.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/googles-eric-schmidt-resigns-from-apple-board-over-conflict-of/

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-20/tech/30301307_1_google-ceo-larry-page-android

huh? That argument is old now isn't it?

http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-shipped-twice-as-many-smartphones-as-apple-in-q3-2012-7

Or are you comparing multiple iphone models with just one other phone model?

You can always skew the data to say what you want.

After all, Apple still makes more profit right? so they must still be winning.

People are at least as adept at ignoring ads on social media platforms as they are on web searches. Google's advertising beats Facebook's hands down.

We don't have to guess about this, articles about the nature of employee stock compensation are readily available: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-lockup-release-2012-8

The employees are being granted stock in phases, which is priced at the time of grant. They thus are getting paid in stock, and will be taxed at the market value. They can pay those taxes by selling off some of their shares.

This is not a problem for employees, though their stock when they get is worth less than they had expected.

Tell me who supports flash orders. If you say Direct Edge based on Wikipedia, what do you think about http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-02-28/wall_street/29993291_1_cpi-direct-edge-orders ? CPI is still mentioned in the EDGX fix spec so maybe you can still opt in (but I don't think many people do). If nothing else, EDGA and EDGX combined are under 10% of the consolidated volume (see http://batstrading.com/market_summary/ ). So come on: even if Edge still supports flash orders and 100% of the flow there makes use of CPI, HFTs can't be the majority of the total market volume and make all their money ripping people off with flash orders. So again, who do you think is sending all these flash trades? And from where? You need to back this up.