(Gordon Ramsay voice): It's not about the price of the bloody dongles you fucking donkey!
It's about not having to deal with all the extra connectors, keeping track of them, taking them with you when you travel and then worrying about losing them. It's about Jony Ive and Tim Cook having the arrogance to design both the iPhone 7/7+ and the new MacBook Pro with release dates less than a month apart, yet not include in EITHER BOX a cable that lets you connect these two devices directly to each other. What the fuck is that, Jony? Just tryy to justify that decision. I dare you. It's about marketing USB-C as the future but not actually providing any cables out of the box that connect to those ports! How many devices exist in the market that support this connectivity?
Anyone who has the money to spend on this laptop is not going to balk at another $50 of cables. But the fact that Apple expects them to play pin the tail on the dongle with their new laptop is a slap in the face. Every time you have to fiddle with a dongle, it is like Jony Ive personally reaching out and bitchslapping you.
If you're willing to sign a legally binding waiver indemnifying Samsung and TCF and your wireless provider from any harm that may occur as a result of keeping your device, and accept all risks and liabilities of such a hazard in the event the device causes death or injury or property damage to other parties, then of course you should be able to continue using it.
Not willing to sign such a waiver? Then Samsung should do what it can to encourage you to return the defective product, because as long as you haven't absolved them of this liability, it is theirs to retain. They have no other recourse to protect themselves. Most rational people will recognize that continuing to own a hazardous and defective product is not in their own best interest, because in some cases, you could lose any claim for damages if the manufacturer can demonstrate that you were injured or suffered a loss after you willfully ignored reasonable attempts to recall the product.
Reach out and kill your phone? As if having a ticking time bomb of an exploding battery in your pocket is any less concerning?
First of all, the device is recalled: the manufacturer and consumer product regulators have determined it is not acceptably safe to use, even if most users have not experienced any malfunctions. Second, Samsung is refunding the purchase cost of the phone and giving owners a discount on a future phone. Third, Samsung worked with the relevant telecommunications company to "kill" the Note 7. It's not as if Samsung itself has a switch somewhere to disable mobile network access. The telecoms have that power, but it's not any more exceptional or prone to abuse than any wireless provider being able to cut off network access to your device for any reason, such as failing to pay your phone bill.
I've got money burning a hole in my pocket, but between this and the piece of shit MacBook Pro that was announced recently, I don't know what to do. Buy a Razer laptop and install Linux? The Surface Studio looked amazing but I refuse to use Windows on my personal computer.
Like this election cycle, it seems that personal computing seems to be on the same race to the bottom, in terms of which company can screw over their most loyal users the most.
When USB was first introduced and Apple put it into the iMac, did they ship a mini-DIN keyboard with it and expect you to buy a dongle? No. It shipped with peripherals that worked out of the box.
What Apple is doing now is shipping a device with no native port compatibility with the rest of their product line, and then demanding that people buy dongles that Apple expects to become obsolete after the transition phase from USB-A to USB-C.
As for supporting legacy requirements forever, consider that USB-A is still very much a dominant and ubiquitous connector. If Apple believes USB-C is the future because it is a better connector, then the market will decide on its own, just as it did when USB-A first came out and a rapid-growing ecosystem of peripherals supported it based on its merits over the old serial port technology. Forcing the issue in a pro-level product is arrogant and stupid.
If Apple were sincere, they would ship all of these MacBook Pros with, at the very minimum, Lightning to USB-C, or give them out to any iPhone/iPad owners who buy a MacBook Pro. Only then can you have a case about Apple being a "change agent."
No wifi-enabled DSLR can transfer RAW files as fast or faster than it can on a wired connection. Presently I use a 5D Mark III, and I own at least $15,000 worth of lenses the last time I counted, so I think I know a little bit more about professional photography hardware and workflow needs than you do.
For the record, I don't use the SD slot to transfer my photos either. But that was not my point: my point is that you have to look at the bigger picture, which is the insistence of removing functionality and compatibility from an ostensibly "professional" product when existing and current state-of-the-art hardware DOES NOT YET SUPPORT DOING SO, expecting that people go out and buy themselves an entire host of adapters, dongles, cables, and what have you just to recover that lost functionality. Apple's own most recent iPhone models are incompatible out of the box with this product: you have to buy an adapter or a special cable. And this fact exposes the lie in the claim that the industry is moving to USB-C and these laptops are leading they way. If Apple were sincere about this, they would ship their iPhones and iPads with Lightning to USB-C cables ONLY, but they don't because they know that the vast majority of users don't have machines that support USB-C yet and they're not willing to piss off that many people in the name of "courage" and "innovation."
I need a machine where I don't have to waste time or worry about whether I remembered to bring a dongle, or if I've got the right dongle, or I have to search my bag for the right dongle. I need a machine where I can use the same cable to connect my camera to my laptop or to someone else's laptop. In the future, that may well be USB-C. But it is not the reality now, and Apple's approach is stupid, arrogant, and objectively wrong. Make a laptop that has both USB-C and USB 3.0, wait for other device manufacturers to ship their products with USB-C cables, ship your own goddamned iDevices with USB-C cables, and then we can have a legitimate discussion about moving over to USB-C entirely. But when you don't do any of those things and you expect everyone to attach dongles everywhere, that is seriously fucked up.
Schiller's subtext is this: "We believe the vast, vast majority of people taking photos are doing so with their iPhones. We want to encourage that behavior and make any other camera obsolete."
Apple doesn't want to make it easier for people like you or me who use professional-grade imaging equipment. They arrogantly believe that the only thing that people need to take good photos is the iPhone 7+ with their fake bokeh.
And before the Apple fans accuse me of being a troll, let me state for the record that I have exclusively owned Apple hardware since at least 2004. The only phones I've bought since 2007 were iPhones; I owned the original iPhone. I've watched as Android went from a joke to a serious competitor, to beating iOS hands-down in features, yet I've remained loyal. But these statements coming out from Cupertino are unacceptable to me. I count myself among their most loyal consumers, but I will not be purchasing this Macbook Pro, despite having more than enough money to spend on the highest-end model and all their ridiculous dongles they expect me to buy with it. For me, this was never about money. This is about not taking a huge step backward in function. Yes, I am voting with my wallet.
I sincerely hope that Apple's management listens, because the direction of their "innovation" is antithetical to everything that Steve stood for. Steve believed in the importance of design, but design as a means to an end, which was to facilitate rather than hinder the user experience. Jony Ive's design philosophy is to make devices as pretty and thin as possible, screw function. Without Steve to put a reality check on that, this Macbook "Pro" is the all-too-predictable result.
The MagSafe connector suffers from the same basic design flaw as every other Apple branded cable, which is the lack of strain relief, which again is Jony Ive's fault: he wants the cables to be as slender and clean as possible, but this comes at the expense of proper engineering. The cables fray, the plastic sheathing breaks open. Never mind the accumulation of magnetized particles on the connector, which I've not had an issue with personally. It goes to show that Jony's design is more important to Apple than anything else, because the environmental impact of all those frayed, wasted cables is enormous. It's a deliberately defective design that needlessly contributes to electronic waste, all to feed Ive's design ego.
This is also why I hate the idea of using adapters: Apple's track record of creating any kind of durable cable is abysmal. Why should I spend $20-$45 on each adapter only to have it break after 6 months of use?
As for USB-C being superior, I don't dispute that. What I dispute is the fact that Apple should include as part of the device any kind of connectivity that is needed to use the device with other Apple-branded products: so if you sell a laptop that only has USB-C ports, you should include at the very minimum a Lightning to USB-C connector somewhere. If a user has an iPhone or iPad, give them a fucking cable that works. Don't screw your most loyal users over. Give them a voucher or something. Let them go to an Apple store where they can take 5 seconds to verify your Apple ID and your device and give me a few cables that work natively. Otherwise, Apple is not sincere about moving the industry toward USB-C adoption.
As for the RAM, I don't need 32 GB personally. But anyone who runs FCP will probably want it, especially now that they've been waiting several years for an updated pro desktop. A lot of Macbook Pro owners are professionals and at the end of the day, I think their main criticism is not going to be about connectors or even the RAM limitation, but the slow and uncertain Mac update cycle. For the most part Mac users have learned to live with it, but I almost guarantee you that these newest laptops have sold out simply because a lot of users just need the update despite the serious flaws. This latest gap in Apple's product line, though, has a lot of professionals wondering if they can migrate their workflow to another system, because in the PC world, there's just so much more choice and products get updated far more frequently.
I've been using Apple laptop hardware since the 12" PowerBook G4. My most recent purchase was in 2014. This is the first laptop release I am refusing to buy, after having said earlier this year (pre-announcement) that I would be upgrading.
For me, the reasons have little to do with the performance-related specifications, and everything to do with what I perceive to be tremendous arrogance on the part of Apple and the particular design choices that were made that, in my view, clearly reveal their willingness to sacrifice--indeed, completely disregard--function in favor of design.
The first problem is the removal of MagSafe. Ever since it was introduced, they've done multiple iterations of the MagSafe connector, to the point that it was even parodied by CollegeHumor, only to remove it entirely.
The second is the removal of all ports except USB-C / Thunderbolt 3, and then charging $19 - $45 for each optional adapter, rather than including even the most basic USB to USB-C in the box. For a machine that is targeted toward professionals and can cost $3000, this is unacceptable. You need to buy the extra adapter just to have functionality that you currently have with hardware that Apple itself provided (e.g., iPhone/iPad). Then, to say that you made this design choice to improve the portability and weight of the device, is just sophistry: by making people buy and keep track of a whole slew of adapters just to recover the functionality they had before is a step backwards in portability and ease of use. To me, this indicates that Jony Ive only cares about what the machine looks like and doesn't give a fuck about how people in the real world might actually use it.
The third problem is the lack of an included 3-prong extension cable. Yes, for a lot of people, this was optional. But making it optional out of the box means that it's one more hidden cost, especially for an adapter that already costs so much on its own. Why take it out of the box now? Is $3000 too little profit margin for Apple?
The fourth problem, and the most telling of all, is the overall choice to limit the hardware specifications--for example, the maximum allowed RAM--on a device that does not have user-serviceable RAM, no less, simply because it would have impacted battery life. This is an outright lie, because all you should do is make the battery bigger and the device thicker. This tells us that Apple again chooses to put design first and usability and performance last.
Why buy this product? It reeks of hubris, and this is coming from someone who, again, has been a long-time user of Apple products.
I was ready to buy the 15" model sight unseen, but now I'm reconsidering. The fact that they put only USB-C ports in the machine, and then have the balls to charge $19 - $25 for each adapter cable, is what pisses me off the most, because they know full well that none of their previous products shipped with a USB-C cable. So Apple is basically giving their most loyal users a big "fuck you": $3000 for a 15" MacBook Pro, and they want to nickel-and-dime us for $40 worth of adapters that should have shipped WITH the machine because they decided to not make it backward compatible with their own products. Yeah. Fuck you Apple.
This makes no logical sense. If Clinton or Obama or the Democrats couldn't get Ecuador to give up Assange in the first place, what influence or leverage would they have to push Ecuador to cut Assange's internet? Like I pointed out already, it isn't as if doing such a thing would even be effective, and the US government knows this. Cut Assange's internet? It would only look bad and accomplish nothing to curb any leaks because any such data would be held in multiple locations.
As for deliberately waiting to release the most damning material, that also doesn't make sense. We have already seen real evidence that demonstrates significant and long-term impact of actual scandals surrounding a candidate--e.g., Hillary's email server, and Donald Trump's profane sexism. What doesn't make sense is to do what you describe, which is to wait, because these things take time to percolate through the mainstream media, get discussed and disseminated among the voting public, and sink in and shape opinion. In the case of various allegations Trump supporters have made against Clinton, the rationale for waiting is even more patently absurd, because she isn't being accused of things that are of a salacious nature: their accusations are more deeply political in nature, and if true, would benefit more from an extended period of time to investigate their credibility. Unlike a video where it takes 30 seconds for an average person to understand what was said in a sound bite, Trump supporters' accusations would have their best impact with more time, not less, and this again is supported by the email server controversy, which they have used to maximal advantage.
So, no, I don't buy your argument. Assange is not credible; his vendetta is personal, and he lacks the standing to make good on his claims. That is not to say that Hillary is free of corruption. But there is proof that Trump is a vile and lecherous individual, by whose own admission has not paid his fair share of taxes. Put another way, I don't believe any major players in this election at this point are clean, but there is one individual who everyone can see is not only dirty to his core, he openly brags about it as if it's a selling point.
The announcement of internet access being cut by a "state actor"--insinuating that this is somehow Clinton's doing--fails to pass basic scrutiny:
1. If it was cut, why not cut it before the transcript leaks, rather than after? 2. What would be accomplished by having parties sympathetic to Clinton cut Assange's internet access when everyone knows that such actions would be ineffective?
The whole thing strikes me as an attempt by Assange to exaggerate his claims. If he had real dirt on Clinton, he would not need to be so coy: it would be plastered all over the headlines. The Russians have been working nonstop to discredit Hillary and the Democrats, and this is the best they could come up with? If anything the result of their attempts would seem to suggest that there's nothing meaningful to be uncovered.
In some sense, yes: the government really shouldn't have secrets, at least in the context of withholding information that is needed to maintain their accountability to the American public, who are in principle the source of the government's power. This is the essential meaning of the famous conclusion of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The NSA is a good example of what happens when the government is entrusted to monitor the scope of its own secret-keeping. Their testimony to Congress after the Snowden revelations proves that they regard themselves as not accountable to the people, choosing to directly lie under oath to public officials, even if they believe that doing so ultimately serves the public interest.
To address your more specific case of "how do we catch terrorists or other enemies via their communications if we are obligated to announce how we are monitoring communications," one could just as easily turn the argument around and ask how police can catch criminals if they are obligated to have probable cause and obtain warrants. That is to say, the constraints imposed upon the enforcement of the law are not defined by what is technologically or physically possible or expedient, but from the rights and responsibilities guaranteed by the law itself, and that it is the duty of law enforcement to work within the legal framework they are sworn to uphold, rather than to define that framework and not only choose what tactics are permissible, but prevent anyone but themselves from knowing what is permissible or not. Otherwise, we have no rights, and the government can act with impunity (e.g., extrajudicial killings, summary executions, warrantless search and seizure, all in the name of rooting out crime and terrorism). And we can easily point to contemporaneous examples of the consequences of such policies and see how this is essentially tyranny of the state and the collapse of democratic governance.
How do we catch terrorists? To put it simply, good old fashioned detective work. Build and earn trust between the public and law enforcement. Rather than relying on the government to institute secret panopticon tactics, recognize that the public itself is a far better observer of illegal activities. There will be, of course, vehement criticism of such ideas as "naive" and "wildly idealistic." But it is actually eminently realistic because it begins with the recognition that not every threat can be stopped. What is unrealistic is the notion that a government can detect and respond to all threats through a sophisticated, secret, and pervasive surveillance network. That is the stuff of spy-thriller and dystopian sci-fi fantasy movies.
As I have always maintained, what is most troubling is not the government's surveillance itself, but the complete lack of accountability and oversight with respect to such policy, and that this deliberate opacity is used to hide government malfeasance under the pretense of protecting national security.
In a recent NPR interview I listened to on the radio, this is how the conversation played out: the interviewer kept focusing on drawing comparisons to situations where companies that collect and relay personal data might filter or flag such data for legitimate purposes (e.g., child pornography), and the interviewee did a remarkably poor job of addressing the real issue as I have mentioned above. So long as we focus on the legality of the surveillance itself, such discussions are a losing battle for advocates of privacy and personal liberty, because there are always persuasive moral, legal, and ethical arguments to be made in favor of some kind of broad but algorithmic surveillance without explicit human intervention or judgment. The real point of attack, then, is to bring attention to the fact that the government does their spying on the general public in a way that so totally removes any liability on their part that in the vast majority of cases, we either (1) do not know or cannot confirm the existence of such surveillance in the first place; (2) private corporations are coerced to cooperate and are prevented from divulging the methods used by the government to spy on users; (3) individuals who are subjects of surveillance are unable to defend themselves in a court of law because they aren't granted access to evidence; (4) there is no oversight of such surveillance programs to ensure no abuses take place or that it even operates as is claimed; (5) no results are ever shown that demonstrate the utility or effectiveness of such programs.
In short, if the government wants to throw our constitutional protections out the window in the name of keeping us safe, they could at least do it in a way that makes it clear that it's happening. But since they don't, the only logical conclusion is that they are entirely aware that their programs are illegal, hence the need to lie and hide. And this, I argue, is the root of the problem.
I think it's worth noting that although this article about the App Store, and you can disable automatic downloads in MacOS System Preferences, the GP post was actually talking about iOS, in which this behavior CANNOT be disabled through any settings available to the user. A device running iOS will automatically download an OS upgrade--and bug you about it every two weeks until it upgrades--whenever it has network access. If you do not disable downloading through your cellular network, it will download 200 MB of data without your permission. If you DO disable downloading through your cellular network, it will download as soon as it connects to wifi, and without your consent.
If you delete the download (which is buried in the Settings menu in iOS), Apple will push the update to your device again, unless you disable all app updates--and even then, it will still download whenever you sync your device. Once the update is on your device, the nagging alerts keep popping up every two weeks.
When Apple brags about iOS adoption rates with each new major release, the reason why the numbers are so high is because they essentially force these updates on all iPhone users that can run the newest version. They do it in a sneaky way by giving users either a choice of "reminding me tonight" or "update it now." No choice to say "I don't want to update at all." It makes Windows 10 look almost user-friendly by comparison, and speaking as a long-time Mac user and iPhone user (I've only used iPhone since their first version back in 2007), I think it's a dick move by Apple, especially after the shitshow that is iOS 10.
It's about consumers not having to monitor their usage so that they don't get screwed with insane overage fees that are calculated per additional MB.
The wireless industry makes a lot of money by penalizing people who go over their usage caps, and that's what this is about. Once you take away that fee structure--whether it's through throttling or unlimited plans--the wireless providers no longer get that huge profit. They say it's about ensuring nobody overwhelms their bandwidth, but this is a complete lie, and Verizon's claims are evidence that they know they are lying. This is about the industry's desire to profit by making it inconvenient for customers to continually monitor their usage, then slamming them with overage fees when they use "too much," despite the cost of such service being no greater than it was when the customer was below their usage cap.
If the regulatory agencies grew a pair and decided to force the wireless companies to bill proportionally to the actual data used regardless of amount used, then we can have a fair discussion about what constitutes "unlimited" data and what the market actually wants. If I pay $35 for 5 GB of data/month, I should pay about $70 for twice that amount; similarly, I should pay about $7 if I only use 1 GB in a month. The whole idea that I pay $X for Y GB/month, and if I don't use all of it, I still pay $X, yet if I go over, I am penalized $Z for each additional GB or fraction thereof, is plain robbery.
You seem to have magnified the import of my original statement in your mind.
In relative terms, Americans are indeed far more diverse in their viewpoints and backgrounds than virtually all other nationalities on the planet. And yes, in with respect to access to information, Americans do have the ability to investigate on their own and are, again, relatively much more free to express their own ideas and positions.
However, many (which is the exact word I used in my previous post) Americans are horribly susceptible to propaganda. It is also true that there are many Americans who are smart enough to detect such sophistry. Of course, the United States is not unique in this; any nation's citizens are vulnerable to the machinations of those in power. This has been demonstrated throughout American history and more broadly, world history; but it is all the more evident in the current geopolitical climate. Free access to information and freedom of expression are only parts of the story; these are not in themselves sufficient to inoculate society against the persistent threat of tyranny, as the Founding Fathers had recognized. What they perhaps did not anticipate was the slow encroachment of ignorance upon the public; the systemic failure to educate people, to teach them how to think and reason for themselves. (The familiar saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" applies here.)
Consequently, political partisanship in the US has recently led to explicit jingoistic, xenophobic, and racist violence. This is only possible for the reasons I already explained. And the notion of American exceptionalism is merely one manifestation--albeit a rather stark one--of the more fundamental inability to accept facts that contradict an existing worldview when the emotional and cultural investment into that worldview has been considerable and lifelong.
To circle back to North Korea, then, we can see through the lens of history that despotic regimes do not simply appear de novo in a society. They come to power through the exploitation and manipulation of fear, and the slow but steadily increasing intellectual disenfranchisement of each passing generation. We saw this in China during the Cultural Revolution; Russia in the rise of the Soviet Union and more recently, the collusion of the oligarchs to permanently place Putin in power; and Germany post World-War I. The United States, if it is not careful, is just as susceptible, despite the protections afforded by the Constitution, so long as some Americans wallow in their own self-delusions of greatness and superiority. In the course of human civilization, 240 years is but a blink of an eye.
You can't blame Redditors for being responsible for a despotic regime's policies of executing anyone who upsets or embarrasses the leadership. The blame lies squarely at the top. It always has, and this is precisely why it is a basic human right to live in a free and just society.
But while we're at it, I dare say that the blame for North Korea's situation also lies with its people. I know that the people are brainwashed, poor, coerced. The Western media likes to characterize the DPRK as a tyrannical government enslaving its hapless citizens, because doing so conveniently focuses the blame on the regime. But that same regime does not operate in a vacuum, as isolated as it is from the rest of the world. The reality is that a large segment of North Korean society actually believes the propaganda that is fed to them, much like how many Americans believe the propaganda they are exposed to. Being shown stark evidence that their worldview is wrong, such people actually redouble their fervor in supporting the narrative they have been led to believe. This phenomenon, carefully exploited, is the seed of fascism.
Originally published in 1988, it was one of the books that sparked my interest in engineering and science as a child. The illustrations were both fascinating and informative without being too technical, and at times funny.
After endless frustration and annoyance at having to deal with tangled cords and accidental yanking on the cord (leading to dropped devices, damaged headphones, or earbuds ripped out of my ears), I bought a pair of Jaybirds a long, long time ago and have never looked back. I've not had any issues with Bluetooth connectivity, and what minor inconveniences there might be, or perceived loss of sound quality, is more than made up for by the freedom from having my ears tethered to my phone.
If you're complaining about Bluetooth headphones in 2016, it's because you've bought crappy ones. Those $40 Plantronics or no-name brand you bought off Amazon are shit. While we're at it, Beats are shit too. I will never buy any Beats product. Ever. Apple can plate every last Beats product in Rose Gold and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.
But I also don't get the hate and cynicism they've gotten for removing the headphone jack. It's a remnant of the ancient past. Like a lot of technologies, people cling to it because it's familiar, unchanged, simple. And while those are good values to have, there are better reasons to leave it behind, like not having to deal with tangled cords, and not having your screen shatter into a billion pieces because a sudden movement of your arm caught the cord, yanked on the phone, and sent it flying through the air. If you're one of those audiophiles who needs wired headphones, why are you listening to lossy compressed music on your phone, anyway?
People fear change. People hate Apple not because they desire change, but because they have a long history of forcing that change despite the resistance of users, and that resentment is more about the way it feels forced upon them, the lack of being given a choice. But in the end, Apple is proven correct more often than not. That doesn't excuse their heavy-handed tactics, of course, but this whole conspiracy-mongering is just stupid. People concocted equally paranoid theories surrounding their decisions about USB, Blu-Ray, non-removable batteries, and floppy disks.
Corporate personhood absolutely lies at the heart of the problem, because it is this legal doctrine that grants corporations those rights, privileges, and protections normally granted to actual persons; and in turn, corporations are, as a single legal "person," able to wield their disproportionate economic power to influence policies, and more importantly the enforcement thereof, in their favor, regardless of politics. This is the very definition of plutocracy, and it is why, while partisans on both sides of the political spectrum bicker ceaselessly about who is to blame for systemic corruption, nothing has been fixed: because corporations have bought the favor of everyone in government whose favor can be bought, which of course is the overwhelming majority.
The real struggle in the United States is not about Democrat versus Republican. That ideological division is perpetuated by those who are in real power--the corporate plutocrats and the companies they control, from Silicon Valley to the mainstream media to traditional manufacturing and energy production. It is in their interests to continue to pit the voting public against each other in an ultimately futile battle, because it hides who really calls the shots.
If only a single employee had done this, they'd be sent to prison for fraud, right after being fired. But because this behavior was so widespread and apparently came from top levels, what is corporate person that is Wells Fargo to face? A fine that amounts to a slap on the wrist. After all, we can't jail anyone who might be rich and powerful enough to have allowed such fraud to be perpetuated, can we? Too big to fail = too big to jail. And this exposes the blatant hypocrisy inherent to the notion of "corporate personhood."
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(Gordon Ramsay voice): It's not about the price of the bloody dongles you fucking donkey!
It's about not having to deal with all the extra connectors, keeping track of them, taking them with you when you travel and then worrying about losing them. It's about Jony Ive and Tim Cook having the arrogance to design both the iPhone 7/7+ and the new MacBook Pro with release dates less than a month apart, yet not include in EITHER BOX a cable that lets you connect these two devices directly to each other. What the fuck is that, Jony? Just tryy to justify that decision. I dare you. It's about marketing USB-C as the future but not actually providing any cables out of the box that connect to those ports! How many devices exist in the market that support this connectivity?
Anyone who has the money to spend on this laptop is not going to balk at another $50 of cables. But the fact that Apple expects them to play pin the tail on the dongle with their new laptop is a slap in the face. Every time you have to fiddle with a dongle, it is like Jony Ive personally reaching out and bitchslapping you.
Not to mention a threat to third parties who, unbeknownst to them, may be in the presence of a safety hazard and have no say in the matter.
If you're willing to sign a legally binding waiver indemnifying Samsung and TCF and your wireless provider from any harm that may occur as a result of keeping your device, and accept all risks and liabilities of such a hazard in the event the device causes death or injury or property damage to other parties, then of course you should be able to continue using it.
Not willing to sign such a waiver? Then Samsung should do what it can to encourage you to return the defective product, because as long as you haven't absolved them of this liability, it is theirs to retain. They have no other recourse to protect themselves. Most rational people will recognize that continuing to own a hazardous and defective product is not in their own best interest, because in some cases, you could lose any claim for damages if the manufacturer can demonstrate that you were injured or suffered a loss after you willfully ignored reasonable attempts to recall the product.
Reach out and kill your phone? As if having a ticking time bomb of an exploding battery in your pocket is any less concerning?
First of all, the device is recalled: the manufacturer and consumer product regulators have determined it is not acceptably safe to use, even if most users have not experienced any malfunctions. Second, Samsung is refunding the purchase cost of the phone and giving owners a discount on a future phone. Third, Samsung worked with the relevant telecommunications company to "kill" the Note 7. It's not as if Samsung itself has a switch somewhere to disable mobile network access. The telecoms have that power, but it's not any more exceptional or prone to abuse than any wireless provider being able to cut off network access to your device for any reason, such as failing to pay your phone bill.
I've got money burning a hole in my pocket, but between this and the piece of shit MacBook Pro that was announced recently, I don't know what to do. Buy a Razer laptop and install Linux? The Surface Studio looked amazing but I refuse to use Windows on my personal computer.
Like this election cycle, it seems that personal computing seems to be on the same race to the bottom, in terms of which company can screw over their most loyal users the most.
I think Apple's response to that would be, "You're folding it wrong."
No.
When USB was first introduced and Apple put it into the iMac, did they ship a mini-DIN keyboard with it and expect you to buy a dongle? No. It shipped with peripherals that worked out of the box.
What Apple is doing now is shipping a device with no native port compatibility with the rest of their product line, and then demanding that people buy dongles that Apple expects to become obsolete after the transition phase from USB-A to USB-C.
As for supporting legacy requirements forever, consider that USB-A is still very much a dominant and ubiquitous connector. If Apple believes USB-C is the future because it is a better connector, then the market will decide on its own, just as it did when USB-A first came out and a rapid-growing ecosystem of peripherals supported it based on its merits over the old serial port technology. Forcing the issue in a pro-level product is arrogant and stupid.
If Apple were sincere, they would ship all of these MacBook Pros with, at the very minimum, Lightning to USB-C, or give them out to any iPhone/iPad owners who buy a MacBook Pro. Only then can you have a case about Apple being a "change agent."
No wifi-enabled DSLR can transfer RAW files as fast or faster than it can on a wired connection. Presently I use a 5D Mark III, and I own at least $15,000 worth of lenses the last time I counted, so I think I know a little bit more about professional photography hardware and workflow needs than you do.
For the record, I don't use the SD slot to transfer my photos either. But that was not my point: my point is that you have to look at the bigger picture, which is the insistence of removing functionality and compatibility from an ostensibly "professional" product when existing and current state-of-the-art hardware DOES NOT YET SUPPORT DOING SO, expecting that people go out and buy themselves an entire host of adapters, dongles, cables, and what have you just to recover that lost functionality. Apple's own most recent iPhone models are incompatible out of the box with this product: you have to buy an adapter or a special cable. And this fact exposes the lie in the claim that the industry is moving to USB-C and these laptops are leading they way. If Apple were sincere about this, they would ship their iPhones and iPads with Lightning to USB-C cables ONLY, but they don't because they know that the vast majority of users don't have machines that support USB-C yet and they're not willing to piss off that many people in the name of "courage" and "innovation."
I need a machine where I don't have to waste time or worry about whether I remembered to bring a dongle, or if I've got the right dongle, or I have to search my bag for the right dongle. I need a machine where I can use the same cable to connect my camera to my laptop or to someone else's laptop. In the future, that may well be USB-C. But it is not the reality now, and Apple's approach is stupid, arrogant, and objectively wrong. Make a laptop that has both USB-C and USB 3.0, wait for other device manufacturers to ship their products with USB-C cables, ship your own goddamned iDevices with USB-C cables, and then we can have a legitimate discussion about moving over to USB-C entirely. But when you don't do any of those things and you expect everyone to attach dongles everywhere, that is seriously fucked up.
Schiller's subtext is this: "We believe the vast, vast majority of people taking photos are doing so with their iPhones. We want to encourage that behavior and make any other camera obsolete."
Apple doesn't want to make it easier for people like you or me who use professional-grade imaging equipment. They arrogantly believe that the only thing that people need to take good photos is the iPhone 7+ with their fake bokeh.
And before the Apple fans accuse me of being a troll, let me state for the record that I have exclusively owned Apple hardware since at least 2004. The only phones I've bought since 2007 were iPhones; I owned the original iPhone. I've watched as Android went from a joke to a serious competitor, to beating iOS hands-down in features, yet I've remained loyal. But these statements coming out from Cupertino are unacceptable to me. I count myself among their most loyal consumers, but I will not be purchasing this Macbook Pro, despite having more than enough money to spend on the highest-end model and all their ridiculous dongles they expect me to buy with it. For me, this was never about money. This is about not taking a huge step backward in function. Yes, I am voting with my wallet.
I sincerely hope that Apple's management listens, because the direction of their "innovation" is antithetical to everything that Steve stood for. Steve believed in the importance of design, but design as a means to an end, which was to facilitate rather than hinder the user experience. Jony Ive's design philosophy is to make devices as pretty and thin as possible, screw function. Without Steve to put a reality check on that, this Macbook "Pro" is the all-too-predictable result.
The MagSafe connector suffers from the same basic design flaw as every other Apple branded cable, which is the lack of strain relief, which again is Jony Ive's fault: he wants the cables to be as slender and clean as possible, but this comes at the expense of proper engineering. The cables fray, the plastic sheathing breaks open. Never mind the accumulation of magnetized particles on the connector, which I've not had an issue with personally. It goes to show that Jony's design is more important to Apple than anything else, because the environmental impact of all those frayed, wasted cables is enormous. It's a deliberately defective design that needlessly contributes to electronic waste, all to feed Ive's design ego.
This is also why I hate the idea of using adapters: Apple's track record of creating any kind of durable cable is abysmal. Why should I spend $20-$45 on each adapter only to have it break after 6 months of use?
As for USB-C being superior, I don't dispute that. What I dispute is the fact that Apple should include as part of the device any kind of connectivity that is needed to use the device with other Apple-branded products: so if you sell a laptop that only has USB-C ports, you should include at the very minimum a Lightning to USB-C connector somewhere. If a user has an iPhone or iPad, give them a fucking cable that works. Don't screw your most loyal users over. Give them a voucher or something. Let them go to an Apple store where they can take 5 seconds to verify your Apple ID and your device and give me a few cables that work natively. Otherwise, Apple is not sincere about moving the industry toward USB-C adoption.
As for the RAM, I don't need 32 GB personally. But anyone who runs FCP will probably want it, especially now that they've been waiting several years for an updated pro desktop. A lot of Macbook Pro owners are professionals and at the end of the day, I think their main criticism is not going to be about connectors or even the RAM limitation, but the slow and uncertain Mac update cycle. For the most part Mac users have learned to live with it, but I almost guarantee you that these newest laptops have sold out simply because a lot of users just need the update despite the serious flaws. This latest gap in Apple's product line, though, has a lot of professionals wondering if they can migrate their workflow to another system, because in the PC world, there's just so much more choice and products get updated far more frequently.
I've been using Apple laptop hardware since the 12" PowerBook G4. My most recent purchase was in 2014. This is the first laptop release I am refusing to buy, after having said earlier this year (pre-announcement) that I would be upgrading.
For me, the reasons have little to do with the performance-related specifications, and everything to do with what I perceive to be tremendous arrogance on the part of Apple and the particular design choices that were made that, in my view, clearly reveal their willingness to sacrifice--indeed, completely disregard--function in favor of design.
The first problem is the removal of MagSafe. Ever since it was introduced, they've done multiple iterations of the MagSafe connector, to the point that it was even parodied by CollegeHumor, only to remove it entirely.
The second is the removal of all ports except USB-C / Thunderbolt 3, and then charging $19 - $45 for each optional adapter, rather than including even the most basic USB to USB-C in the box. For a machine that is targeted toward professionals and can cost $3000, this is unacceptable. You need to buy the extra adapter just to have functionality that you currently have with hardware that Apple itself provided (e.g., iPhone/iPad). Then, to say that you made this design choice to improve the portability and weight of the device, is just sophistry: by making people buy and keep track of a whole slew of adapters just to recover the functionality they had before is a step backwards in portability and ease of use. To me, this indicates that Jony Ive only cares about what the machine looks like and doesn't give a fuck about how people in the real world might actually use it.
The third problem is the lack of an included 3-prong extension cable. Yes, for a lot of people, this was optional. But making it optional out of the box means that it's one more hidden cost, especially for an adapter that already costs so much on its own. Why take it out of the box now? Is $3000 too little profit margin for Apple?
The fourth problem, and the most telling of all, is the overall choice to limit the hardware specifications--for example, the maximum allowed RAM--on a device that does not have user-serviceable RAM, no less, simply because it would have impacted battery life. This is an outright lie, because all you should do is make the battery bigger and the device thicker. This tells us that Apple again chooses to put design first and usability and performance last.
Why buy this product? It reeks of hubris, and this is coming from someone who, again, has been a long-time user of Apple products.
I was ready to buy the 15" model sight unseen, but now I'm reconsidering. The fact that they put only USB-C ports in the machine, and then have the balls to charge $19 - $25 for each adapter cable, is what pisses me off the most, because they know full well that none of their previous products shipped with a USB-C cable. So Apple is basically giving their most loyal users a big "fuck you": $3000 for a 15" MacBook Pro, and they want to nickel-and-dime us for $40 worth of adapters that should have shipped WITH the machine because they decided to not make it backward compatible with their own products. Yeah. Fuck you Apple.
This makes no logical sense. If Clinton or Obama or the Democrats couldn't get Ecuador to give up Assange in the first place, what influence or leverage would they have to push Ecuador to cut Assange's internet? Like I pointed out already, it isn't as if doing such a thing would even be effective, and the US government knows this. Cut Assange's internet? It would only look bad and accomplish nothing to curb any leaks because any such data would be held in multiple locations.
As for deliberately waiting to release the most damning material, that also doesn't make sense. We have already seen real evidence that demonstrates significant and long-term impact of actual scandals surrounding a candidate--e.g., Hillary's email server, and Donald Trump's profane sexism. What doesn't make sense is to do what you describe, which is to wait, because these things take time to percolate through the mainstream media, get discussed and disseminated among the voting public, and sink in and shape opinion. In the case of various allegations Trump supporters have made against Clinton, the rationale for waiting is even more patently absurd, because she isn't being accused of things that are of a salacious nature: their accusations are more deeply political in nature, and if true, would benefit more from an extended period of time to investigate their credibility. Unlike a video where it takes 30 seconds for an average person to understand what was said in a sound bite, Trump supporters' accusations would have their best impact with more time, not less, and this again is supported by the email server controversy, which they have used to maximal advantage.
So, no, I don't buy your argument. Assange is not credible; his vendetta is personal, and he lacks the standing to make good on his claims. That is not to say that Hillary is free of corruption. But there is proof that Trump is a vile and lecherous individual, by whose own admission has not paid his fair share of taxes. Put another way, I don't believe any major players in this election at this point are clean, but there is one individual who everyone can see is not only dirty to his core, he openly brags about it as if it's a selling point.
The announcement of internet access being cut by a "state actor"--insinuating that this is somehow Clinton's doing--fails to pass basic scrutiny:
1. If it was cut, why not cut it before the transcript leaks, rather than after?
2. What would be accomplished by having parties sympathetic to Clinton cut Assange's internet access when everyone knows that such actions would be ineffective?
The whole thing strikes me as an attempt by Assange to exaggerate his claims. If he had real dirt on Clinton, he would not need to be so coy: it would be plastered all over the headlines. The Russians have been working nonstop to discredit Hillary and the Democrats, and this is the best they could come up with? If anything the result of their attempts would seem to suggest that there's nothing meaningful to be uncovered.
In some sense, yes: the government really shouldn't have secrets, at least in the context of withholding information that is needed to maintain their accountability to the American public, who are in principle the source of the government's power. This is the essential meaning of the famous conclusion of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The NSA is a good example of what happens when the government is entrusted to monitor the scope of its own secret-keeping. Their testimony to Congress after the Snowden revelations proves that they regard themselves as not accountable to the people, choosing to directly lie under oath to public officials, even if they believe that doing so ultimately serves the public interest.
To address your more specific case of "how do we catch terrorists or other enemies via their communications if we are obligated to announce how we are monitoring communications," one could just as easily turn the argument around and ask how police can catch criminals if they are obligated to have probable cause and obtain warrants. That is to say, the constraints imposed upon the enforcement of the law are not defined by what is technologically or physically possible or expedient, but from the rights and responsibilities guaranteed by the law itself, and that it is the duty of law enforcement to work within the legal framework they are sworn to uphold, rather than to define that framework and not only choose what tactics are permissible, but prevent anyone but themselves from knowing what is permissible or not. Otherwise, we have no rights, and the government can act with impunity (e.g., extrajudicial killings, summary executions, warrantless search and seizure, all in the name of rooting out crime and terrorism). And we can easily point to contemporaneous examples of the consequences of such policies and see how this is essentially tyranny of the state and the collapse of democratic governance.
How do we catch terrorists? To put it simply, good old fashioned detective work. Build and earn trust between the public and law enforcement. Rather than relying on the government to institute secret panopticon tactics, recognize that the public itself is a far better observer of illegal activities. There will be, of course, vehement criticism of such ideas as "naive" and "wildly idealistic." But it is actually eminently realistic because it begins with the recognition that not every threat can be stopped. What is unrealistic is the notion that a government can detect and respond to all threats through a sophisticated, secret, and pervasive surveillance network. That is the stuff of spy-thriller and dystopian sci-fi fantasy movies.
As I have always maintained, what is most troubling is not the government's surveillance itself, but the complete lack of accountability and oversight with respect to such policy, and that this deliberate opacity is used to hide government malfeasance under the pretense of protecting national security.
In a recent NPR interview I listened to on the radio, this is how the conversation played out: the interviewer kept focusing on drawing comparisons to situations where companies that collect and relay personal data might filter or flag such data for legitimate purposes (e.g., child pornography), and the interviewee did a remarkably poor job of addressing the real issue as I have mentioned above. So long as we focus on the legality of the surveillance itself, such discussions are a losing battle for advocates of privacy and personal liberty, because there are always persuasive moral, legal, and ethical arguments to be made in favor of some kind of broad but algorithmic surveillance without explicit human intervention or judgment. The real point of attack, then, is to bring attention to the fact that the government does their spying on the general public in a way that so totally removes any liability on their part that in the vast majority of cases, we either (1) do not know or cannot confirm the existence of such surveillance in the first place; (2) private corporations are coerced to cooperate and are prevented from divulging the methods used by the government to spy on users; (3) individuals who are subjects of surveillance are unable to defend themselves in a court of law because they aren't granted access to evidence; (4) there is no oversight of such surveillance programs to ensure no abuses take place or that it even operates as is claimed; (5) no results are ever shown that demonstrate the utility or effectiveness of such programs.
In short, if the government wants to throw our constitutional protections out the window in the name of keeping us safe, they could at least do it in a way that makes it clear that it's happening. But since they don't, the only logical conclusion is that they are entirely aware that their programs are illegal, hence the need to lie and hide. And this, I argue, is the root of the problem.
I think it's worth noting that although this article about the App Store, and you can disable automatic downloads in MacOS System Preferences, the GP post was actually talking about iOS, in which this behavior CANNOT be disabled through any settings available to the user. A device running iOS will automatically download an OS upgrade--and bug you about it every two weeks until it upgrades--whenever it has network access. If you do not disable downloading through your cellular network, it will download 200 MB of data without your permission. If you DO disable downloading through your cellular network, it will download as soon as it connects to wifi, and without your consent.
If you delete the download (which is buried in the Settings menu in iOS), Apple will push the update to your device again, unless you disable all app updates--and even then, it will still download whenever you sync your device. Once the update is on your device, the nagging alerts keep popping up every two weeks.
When Apple brags about iOS adoption rates with each new major release, the reason why the numbers are so high is because they essentially force these updates on all iPhone users that can run the newest version. They do it in a sneaky way by giving users either a choice of "reminding me tonight" or "update it now." No choice to say "I don't want to update at all." It makes Windows 10 look almost user-friendly by comparison, and speaking as a long-time Mac user and iPhone user (I've only used iPhone since their first version back in 2007), I think it's a dick move by Apple, especially after the shitshow that is iOS 10.
It's about consumers not having to monitor their usage so that they don't get screwed with insane overage fees that are calculated per additional MB.
The wireless industry makes a lot of money by penalizing people who go over their usage caps, and that's what this is about. Once you take away that fee structure--whether it's through throttling or unlimited plans--the wireless providers no longer get that huge profit. They say it's about ensuring nobody overwhelms their bandwidth, but this is a complete lie, and Verizon's claims are evidence that they know they are lying. This is about the industry's desire to profit by making it inconvenient for customers to continually monitor their usage, then slamming them with overage fees when they use "too much," despite the cost of such service being no greater than it was when the customer was below their usage cap.
If the regulatory agencies grew a pair and decided to force the wireless companies to bill proportionally to the actual data used regardless of amount used, then we can have a fair discussion about what constitutes "unlimited" data and what the market actually wants. If I pay $35 for 5 GB of data/month, I should pay about $70 for twice that amount; similarly, I should pay about $7 if I only use 1 GB in a month. The whole idea that I pay $X for Y GB/month, and if I don't use all of it, I still pay $X, yet if I go over, I am penalized $Z for each additional GB or fraction thereof, is plain robbery.
You seem to have magnified the import of my original statement in your mind.
In relative terms, Americans are indeed far more diverse in their viewpoints and backgrounds than virtually all other nationalities on the planet. And yes, in with respect to access to information, Americans do have the ability to investigate on their own and are, again, relatively much more free to express their own ideas and positions.
However, many (which is the exact word I used in my previous post) Americans are horribly susceptible to propaganda. It is also true that there are many Americans who are smart enough to detect such sophistry. Of course, the United States is not unique in this; any nation's citizens are vulnerable to the machinations of those in power. This has been demonstrated throughout American history and more broadly, world history; but it is all the more evident in the current geopolitical climate. Free access to information and freedom of expression are only parts of the story; these are not in themselves sufficient to inoculate society against the persistent threat of tyranny, as the Founding Fathers had recognized. What they perhaps did not anticipate was the slow encroachment of ignorance upon the public; the systemic failure to educate people, to teach them how to think and reason for themselves. (The familiar saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" applies here.)
Consequently, political partisanship in the US has recently led to explicit jingoistic, xenophobic, and racist violence. This is only possible for the reasons I already explained. And the notion of American exceptionalism is merely one manifestation--albeit a rather stark one--of the more fundamental inability to accept facts that contradict an existing worldview when the emotional and cultural investment into that worldview has been considerable and lifelong.
To circle back to North Korea, then, we can see through the lens of history that despotic regimes do not simply appear de novo in a society. They come to power through the exploitation and manipulation of fear, and the slow but steadily increasing intellectual disenfranchisement of each passing generation. We saw this in China during the Cultural Revolution; Russia in the rise of the Soviet Union and more recently, the collusion of the oligarchs to permanently place Putin in power; and Germany post World-War I. The United States, if it is not careful, is just as susceptible, despite the protections afforded by the Constitution, so long as some Americans wallow in their own self-delusions of greatness and superiority. In the course of human civilization, 240 years is but a blink of an eye.
You can't blame Redditors for being responsible for a despotic regime's policies of executing anyone who upsets or embarrasses the leadership. The blame lies squarely at the top. It always has, and this is precisely why it is a basic human right to live in a free and just society.
But while we're at it, I dare say that the blame for North Korea's situation also lies with its people. I know that the people are brainwashed, poor, coerced. The Western media likes to characterize the DPRK as a tyrannical government enslaving its hapless citizens, because doing so conveniently focuses the blame on the regime. But that same regime does not operate in a vacuum, as isolated as it is from the rest of the world. The reality is that a large segment of North Korean society actually believes the propaganda that is fed to them, much like how many Americans believe the propaganda they are exposed to. Being shown stark evidence that their worldview is wrong, such people actually redouble their fervor in supporting the narrative they have been led to believe. This phenomenon, carefully exploited, is the seed of fascism.
At least, now you know where you should NOT put your money.
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Thi...
Originally published in 1988, it was one of the books that sparked my interest in engineering and science as a child. The illustrations were both fascinating and informative without being too technical, and at times funny.
After endless frustration and annoyance at having to deal with tangled cords and accidental yanking on the cord (leading to dropped devices, damaged headphones, or earbuds ripped out of my ears), I bought a pair of Jaybirds a long, long time ago and have never looked back. I've not had any issues with Bluetooth connectivity, and what minor inconveniences there might be, or perceived loss of sound quality, is more than made up for by the freedom from having my ears tethered to my phone.
If you're complaining about Bluetooth headphones in 2016, it's because you've bought crappy ones. Those $40 Plantronics or no-name brand you bought off Amazon are shit. While we're at it, Beats are shit too. I will never buy any Beats product. Ever. Apple can plate every last Beats product in Rose Gold and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.
But I also don't get the hate and cynicism they've gotten for removing the headphone jack. It's a remnant of the ancient past. Like a lot of technologies, people cling to it because it's familiar, unchanged, simple. And while those are good values to have, there are better reasons to leave it behind, like not having to deal with tangled cords, and not having your screen shatter into a billion pieces because a sudden movement of your arm caught the cord, yanked on the phone, and sent it flying through the air. If you're one of those audiophiles who needs wired headphones, why are you listening to lossy compressed music on your phone, anyway?
People fear change. People hate Apple not because they desire change, but because they have a long history of forcing that change despite the resistance of users, and that resentment is more about the way it feels forced upon them, the lack of being given a choice. But in the end, Apple is proven correct more often than not. That doesn't excuse their heavy-handed tactics, of course, but this whole conspiracy-mongering is just stupid. People concocted equally paranoid theories surrounding their decisions about USB, Blu-Ray, non-removable batteries, and floppy disks.
Corporate personhood absolutely lies at the heart of the problem, because it is this legal doctrine that grants corporations those rights, privileges, and protections normally granted to actual persons; and in turn, corporations are, as a single legal "person," able to wield their disproportionate economic power to influence policies, and more importantly the enforcement thereof, in their favor, regardless of politics. This is the very definition of plutocracy, and it is why, while partisans on both sides of the political spectrum bicker ceaselessly about who is to blame for systemic corruption, nothing has been fixed: because corporations have bought the favor of everyone in government whose favor can be bought, which of course is the overwhelming majority.
The real struggle in the United States is not about Democrat versus Republican. That ideological division is perpetuated by those who are in real power--the corporate plutocrats and the companies they control, from Silicon Valley to the mainstream media to traditional manufacturing and energy production. It is in their interests to continue to pit the voting public against each other in an ultimately futile battle, because it hides who really calls the shots.
If only a single employee had done this, they'd be sent to prison for fraud, right after being fired. But because this behavior was so widespread and apparently came from top levels, what is corporate person that is Wells Fargo to face? A fine that amounts to a slap on the wrist. After all, we can't jail anyone who might be rich and powerful enough to have allowed such fraud to be perpetuated, can we? Too big to fail = too big to jail. And this exposes the blatant hypocrisy inherent to the notion of "corporate personhood."