Another take on this is that Apple has successfully executed a sort of mini industrial revolution, it's enough to compare today's phones as industrial products with what was available 10 years ago. It's an order of magnitude improvement in machining tolerances, material design, component layout, general product design and unified hardware / software experience.
These improvements are not to be confused with memory, CPU etc. improvements, which however have also been instrumental, and, irrespectice of the above listed revolution, had a tremendous impact on phones and computing, while the car industry hasn't exploited computing nearly as much.
So the question can be asked: why would Apple chase a new product category, rather than focusing on its core competencies? This question could have been asked when the iPod and the iPhone appeared.
The alternative question is this: how immense, industry-changing revolution would be the result of applying to cars Apple's attention to detail and quality would be?
The car would be more aerodynamic, with smaller fitting tolerances. You wouldn't have access to the engine or other things, but you wouldn't need it either. The car would just run forever, except for the occasional replacement (not hammering etc.) of chassis panels after a fender bender, or the replacement of clearly marked, service accessible wearables and consumables, covered by Apple Car-e. There would be proper, ergonomic design, and high safety rating. Instead of the hodge-podgey, arbitrary redesign that regular carmakers do every few years, while producing a very large number models, an incredibly high, never before seen amount of money would go into the design of just one single model (or two, almost identical except size), which however would bisect the World's driver population to Apple Car users and other (khm... Android... khm) users. In a few years, about 40% of the Western World's passenger cars would be made by Apple. The reason is, it will have an awesome list of cool features besides self-driving, self-parking and Beats Audio speakers:
[ cool features under my NDA elided ]
Also, the electric plug will be magnetic, so if you forget that the car is being charged, it will not rip out the cable.
One more thing: it would come in aluminium (sic), anodized aluminium or gold colored. Eventually, less expensive models would come with bright, colorful, unapologetic plastics, and at some point, white may become the new black.
I welcome cognitive reasoning. Once a car salesman wanted to sell me a white car when I didn't want one, saying, I can't see the color of the car when I'm sitting in it. I checked and it was true but I didn't buy it.
But let's face it, a smartphone isn't an essential thing like slightly dirty yet potable water in the middle of a desert. They're a choice, especially if one ventures into flagship price territory. I don't want to pay 10% (or less) less and put up with a design that's 10% (or less) of the alternative.
I just couldn't untouch the fake stitches and fake bumpiness.
It's not that I want awesome design, but, surprisingly to me, I find that if the phone design is crap (fake stitches, plasticky parts), then I feel repulsion when I look at it or hold it in the store, and if its design is OK, or perhaps good, then it's a positive feeling. It doesn't have to be flashy, it just shouldn't feel cheap. Most of Samsung plastic feels cheap, and the lack of design is cheap (no good designer was hired). Plastic itself isn't even the problem, the little plastic in the HTC One M7, or the plastic coating of the Apple Newton, or former Thinkpads were good. Maybe taste comes in - just like eyewear, a watch, or a piece of clothes, a phone is considered a personal, everyday item with which we interact a lot, and some of us are more picky about that than about a cable modem . No offense, I bet some people feel strong about their cable modem design too.
Wow, going from 3GB to 4GB, nice. A better improvement would have been a properly designed phone. Apple, HTC know how to build something that doesn't have a plastic rim or hard plastic masquerading as faux stiched leather on the back. The last design from Samsung was this: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsun...
Think before answering this question. Which terrorist action causes bigger fear in the population?
A) Terrorista takes out the Pentagon / a famous anti-islam politician / a gay Mohammed drawer B) Terrorists take out an everyday man with no unique characteristics, just randomly chosen, one of us
I bet the second choice can instill more fear, because everybody would think, anybody could be next. On 9/11, one initial understanding of the plane that went down in PA was that the target might have been Pittsburgh. Would have made sense terror-wise, as a generic target. The symbols of American power, not so much - for most people, it's not 'it could be any of us' enough.
Why is it that the video at the link you sent compares the revolution to the jump from a single-story office to a 32-story highrise, yet, as a result, memory is only 3x as much? I'd expect a multiple of 32, or even if the old stuff was TLC and the new is SLC, a multiple of almost 10.
20% is roughly the CPU speedup realized in just one year. It feels really insignificant. Also, I haven't read the FA, but making something harder to break to the tune of only one year's CPU speed advance isn't quite the same thing as making it quantum computer proof, even if someone expects commercial quantum computers in a year:-)
The USSR / Russia didn't need a lot of help. Russia is arguably the most resource-rich country (land, minerals, metals, energy and petchem sources), surrounded by two of the greatest markets in the World, Europe and China, with other several, being adjacent, due to its sheer size (Japan, USA, India).
Russia has a people which is recognized as smart, intelligent, and putting an emphasis on education. Russians proved themselves in arts, literature, mathematics, science, everywhere. Heck, some of the most successful US companies had been partly founded by people of Russian origin.
Maybe Russia should have dropped out of the pissing contest with the rest of the First World and try to belong. Instead of this, it remained in a foolish race. After Gorbatchev and Yeltsin, there was chance to integrate and prosper. Instead of this, Russia essentially became like a very large Iran, having a unique people that is worthy of more prosperity, equality and safety, however instead of this, choosing to live off of just energy exports, and bullying its very own neighborhood thermonuclearly and otherwise. At least no one can claim that the US is bullying Canada or Mexico, though its Southern neighbor poses it with quite a few problems. The US hasn't even invaded Cuba even after the USSR's downfall while Russia attacked and annected parts of Ukraine, who had been a long-term participant in its CIS alliance, despite the Budapest Agreement, where Russia, in exchange for asking Ukraine to transfer its nuclear weapons to Russia, not only promised not to attack Ukraine, but reinforced Ukraine's borders, and _guaranteed_ to defend Ukraine's borders and sovereignty.
With friends like Russia, they didn't need enemies...
It's often not like that. The entire Eastern Europe dreamed of the day when Russian armies would leave and one of the most effective alliances ever in history that provide its members with peace, would integrate them. People craved NATO and EU membership much more than how the people who were already part of these formations could have ever felt. People wanted to be left alone and try to prosper on their own effort, will and work, while enjoying peace. Nobody at the time thougth that remaining neutral (i.e. not becoming a NATO member) would be effective for remaining independent, because people suspected, as it turned out, correctly, that Russia may change its mind about releasing its former layer of subordinated countries. You don't want to be unarmed if your neighbor is a violent, unstable lunatic. Without NATO = without defense. Russia has over 3000 fighter jets. Poland has a couple of hundred. Romania, around 40. Hungary, around 12. None of these countries have nukes and even if they had them, a country which is the size of a single thermonuclear detonation couln't participate in a MAD scheme. Add to this that Eastern Europe, with the exception of Romania, and soon Poland for gas, heavily depends on Russian oil and gas (a BIG mistake, in retrospect, from the EU and NATO was to leave this dependence in place, although this can also be considered evidence that the West really wanted and expected Russia to remain a peaceful, cooperative brother).
> 1: Russia is still sore from the US invading it about a century ago. They worry that should they show any signs of weakness, the US will start taking their land... because it happened in the past.
How is it relevant, in the age of mutually assured destruction and Russia being armed with nukes to the gill? A lot of countries were being invaded in the last one or two centuries (don't have to go far, the entire Eastern Europe and the non-Russian members of the USSR were invaded by the Russians), yet they can act collaboratively and reasonably.
> 2: Russia is a Christian nation. Religion aside, this means that if it comes down to blowing themselves up, or maybe holding off so there is actually something useful left for their sons and daughters, they will hold off. However, they are close to nations who just don't give a fuck, and would be happy for complete extinguishment if it helped their extremist ideals. This contributes to the Russian siege mentality.
If it's a Christian country, maybe it can try and preserve Christian values over its territory by _cooperating_ in mutually prosperous relationships with its closest kin, which would be Western civilization, rather than isolate itself and alienate its very neighbors and relatives, thus making it fair prey for the eventual Islamist and Chinese economic, cultural or territorial expansion?
> 3: Russia is always battling terrorists. There are always groups going in and trying to shoot up stuff. It doesn't make the news here in the US, but it is a constant issue.
Always battling terrorists isn't justification for doing it to others. What with shooting opposition politicians in daylight, poisoning folks with Polonium in other countries, invading independent countries, arming insurgents who then shoot down civilian neighborhoods and planes?
> 4: Russian leadership has to be assholes. Again, if they show any type of weakness, there are many countries who would invade. Russia doesn't have the population of the Chinese, nor the religious fervor of the revolutionaries. So, they have to have brutality on their side if their country has to exist. Not many people realize this. A large country usually has many ethnic groups, generally most don't like each other, so crime tends to be higher than a country with a homogeneous population like Japan.
So how is it, that all the Western slavs, who are around the same number of people as the Russians, yet also fragmented, and occupying much smaller, resource-poor land, prosper, grow and cooperate? Why doesn't Russia direct its threat sensors to the real directions, rather than Europe and the US? How come Russia sponsors the Iranian nuclear programme? Why did Russia happily armed China with nuclear weapons and its near-best military equipment? And India, too? If, as you say, prutality has to be on their side, why isn't it balanced by seeking out alliances? Pretty much the entire Western world is on the hunt for terrorists, so there would be room for natural alliances. What did you achieve instead? The US and Poland are fracking, and the European demand for Russian energy is going to decrease. Russia should finance itself if it wants to go it alone.
> If Russia truly collapsed, like Iraq did, World War 3 would happen just because there would be so many states wanting part of the carrion, or want to prevent other nations from taking their part of the corpse.
With a militant, threatening Russia like that of today, there wouldn't be much international help or mourning. World powers would probably carve out a real Russia on the West (Moscow and neighborhood), which could go and prosper like Poland, forming good relationship with its neighbors like Belorussia, Ukraine and the other EE nations, and Western Europe. Some areas would probably go back to Japan, and probably China would take a large multiple of what Russia took from China after the second Opium War. There are lots of ethnic groups East of the Ural, probably they would get to form their nation-s
This. Russian _people_ can be awesome, friendly, intelligent and civilized. But _the Russians_, they're hated where they got to know them, through their bullying and arm twisting. When push comes to the shove, the entirety of US and Europe can motion against Russian aggression in unison without hesitation, _even_ their own close relatives, the Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks etc. Special kudos for Poland for standing up, showing a good example and leading Europe.
Yeah, not too much wiggle room for Russia, but whatever room left for Russia to prove its good intentions worked out well, keeping Russia's friendly, neutral neighbors, like Ukraine, safe, right?
> Russia's demands: Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.
And what next, Russia comes back to occupy all former Eastern Bloc countries in the ensuing power vacuum, maybe throwing in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, while at it? Thanks, but no, thanks. Russia / USSR has done enough damage already, impoverishing half of Europe and of course its own population except a few oligarchs who then get killed according to whims of daily politics. Ukraine is a nice illustration of what happens if the US doesn't have a military presence - Russia just takes whatever it wants. The shortsighted Russian leaders don't recongize the fact that Western civilization isn't its enemy; Russia will isolate itself for good, and thus will deserve to be slowly eaten away by China and Islamic expansion, while the rest of the World does nothing. With the Western style art and science originating from Russia, its proper place would have been among members of the Western civilization, eventually joining NATO. Russia's leader would rather have a small, shrinking cake that is its own, than to participate in alliances. Russian _people_ would deserve the same European values as their Polish, Czech and other European relatives, but no, their leaders go for isolation, also trying to drag down half of Europe with themselves again.
In fact, the Chinese not only try to build the Nicaragua Canal; they're also building a transcontinental rail line in Honduras. It's interesting how Chinese capital is doing to the World what English, then American capital used to do. Especially here, we talk about the economic backyard of the USA.
The GP AC hasn't written the summary though, only a modest, 0 scored post. I think the its vs it's is beaten to death to the extent that mixing it up shows such deliberate ignorance on the part of the editors that it almost borders with trolling. Guess what happens if you grammar troll the readership. Some of them will bite and some others like you will call _them_ trolls.
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What about the extortion fee that other Android phone makers pay?
Class isn't only, or even primarily, about money. Read Fussell: Class.
Another take on this is that Apple has successfully executed a sort of mini industrial revolution, it's enough to compare today's phones as industrial products with what was available 10 years ago. It's an order of magnitude improvement in machining tolerances, material design, component layout, general product design and unified hardware / software experience.
These improvements are not to be confused with memory, CPU etc. improvements, which however have also been instrumental, and, irrespectice of the above listed revolution, had a tremendous impact on phones and computing, while the car industry hasn't exploited computing nearly as much.
So the question can be asked: why would Apple chase a new product category, rather than focusing on its core competencies? This question could have been asked when the iPod and the iPhone appeared.
The alternative question is this: how immense, industry-changing revolution would be the result of applying to cars Apple's attention to detail and quality would be?
The car would be more aerodynamic, with smaller fitting tolerances. You wouldn't have access to the engine or other things, but you wouldn't need it either. The car would just run forever, except for the occasional replacement (not hammering etc.) of chassis panels after a fender bender, or the replacement of clearly marked, service accessible wearables and consumables, covered by Apple Car-e. There would be proper, ergonomic design, and high safety rating. Instead of the hodge-podgey, arbitrary redesign that regular carmakers do every few years, while producing a very large number models, an incredibly high, never before seen amount of money would go into the design of just one single model (or two, almost identical except size), which however would bisect the World's driver population to Apple Car users and other (khm... Android... khm) users. In a few years, about 40% of the Western World's passenger cars would be made by Apple. The reason is, it will have an awesome list of cool features besides self-driving, self-parking and Beats Audio speakers:
[ cool features under my NDA elided ]
Also, the electric plug will be magnetic, so if you forget that the car is being charged, it will not rip out the cable.
One more thing: it would come in aluminium (sic), anodized aluminium or gold colored. Eventually, less expensive models would come with bright, colorful, unapologetic plastics, and at some point, white may become the new black.
I welcome cognitive reasoning. Once a car salesman wanted to sell me a white car when I didn't want one, saying, I can't see the color of the car when I'm sitting in it. I checked and it was true but I didn't buy it.
But let's face it, a smartphone isn't an essential thing like slightly dirty yet potable water in the middle of a desert. They're a choice, especially if one ventures into flagship price territory. I don't want to pay 10% (or less) less and put up with a design that's 10% (or less) of the alternative.
I just couldn't untouch the fake stitches and fake bumpiness.
It's not that I want awesome design, but, surprisingly to me, I find that if the phone design is crap (fake stitches, plasticky parts), then I feel repulsion when I look at it or hold it in the store, and if its design is OK, or perhaps good, then it's a positive feeling. It doesn't have to be flashy, it just shouldn't feel cheap. Most of Samsung plastic feels cheap, and the lack of design is cheap (no good designer was hired). Plastic itself isn't even the problem, the little plastic in the HTC One M7, or the plastic coating of the Apple Newton, or former Thinkpads were good. Maybe taste comes in - just like eyewear, a watch, or a piece of clothes, a phone is considered a personal, everyday item with which we interact a lot, and some of us are more picky about that than about a cable modem . No offense, I bet some people feel strong about their cable modem design too.
Wow, going from 3GB to 4GB, nice. A better improvement would have been a properly designed phone. Apple, HTC know how to build something that doesn't have a plastic rim or hard plastic masquerading as faux stiched leather on the back. The last design from Samsung was this: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsun...
Why?
Think before answering this question. Which terrorist action causes bigger fear in the population?
A) Terrorista takes out the Pentagon / a famous anti-islam politician / a gay Mohammed drawer
B) Terrorists take out an everyday man with no unique characteristics, just randomly chosen, one of us
I bet the second choice can instill more fear, because everybody would think, anybody could be next. On 9/11, one initial understanding of the plane that went down in PA was that the target might have been Pittsburgh. Would have made sense terror-wise, as a generic target. The symbols of American power, not so much - for most people, it's not 'it could be any of us' enough.
Why is it that the video at the link you sent compares the revolution to the jump from a single-story office to a 32-story highrise, yet, as a result, memory is only 3x as much? I'd expect a multiple of 32, or even if the old stuff was TLC and the new is SLC, a multiple of almost 10.
20% is roughly the CPU speedup realized in just one year. It feels really insignificant. Also, I haven't read the FA, but making something harder to break to the tune of only one year's CPU speed advance isn't quite the same thing as making it quantum computer proof, even if someone expects commercial quantum computers in a year :-)
> 20% performance can be important
why?
Karmashock was ontopic and you are just a nuisance.
> the US has crippled the Russian economy
The USSR / Russia didn't need a lot of help. Russia is arguably the most resource-rich country (land, minerals, metals, energy and petchem sources), surrounded by two of the greatest markets in the World, Europe and China, with other several, being adjacent, due to its sheer size (Japan, USA, India).
Russia has a people which is recognized as smart, intelligent, and putting an emphasis on education. Russians proved themselves in arts, literature, mathematics, science, everywhere. Heck, some of the most successful US companies had been partly founded by people of Russian origin.
Maybe Russia should have dropped out of the pissing contest with the rest of the First World and try to belong. Instead of this, it remained in a foolish race. After Gorbatchev and Yeltsin, there was chance to integrate and prosper. Instead of this, Russia essentially became like a very large Iran, having a unique people that is worthy of more prosperity, equality and safety, however instead of this, choosing to live off of just energy exports, and bullying its very own neighborhood thermonuclearly and otherwise. At least no one can claim that the US is bullying Canada or Mexico, though its Southern neighbor poses it with quite a few problems. The US hasn't even invaded Cuba even after the USSR's downfall while Russia attacked and annected parts of Ukraine, who had been a long-term participant in its CIS alliance, despite the Budapest Agreement, where Russia, in exchange for asking Ukraine to transfer its nuclear weapons to Russia, not only promised not to attack Ukraine, but reinforced Ukraine's borders, and _guaranteed_ to defend Ukraine's borders and sovereignty.
With friends like Russia, they didn't need enemies...
It's often not like that. The entire Eastern Europe dreamed of the day when Russian armies would leave and one of the most effective alliances ever in history that provide its members with peace, would integrate them. People craved NATO and EU membership much more than how the people who were already part of these formations could have ever felt. People wanted to be left alone and try to prosper on their own effort, will and work, while enjoying peace. Nobody at the time thougth that remaining neutral (i.e. not becoming a NATO member) would be effective for remaining independent, because people suspected, as it turned out, correctly, that Russia may change its mind about releasing its former layer of subordinated countries. You don't want to be unarmed if your neighbor is a violent, unstable lunatic. Without NATO = without defense. Russia has over 3000 fighter jets. Poland has a couple of hundred. Romania, around 40. Hungary, around 12. None of these countries have nukes and even if they had them, a country which is the size of a single thermonuclear detonation couln't participate in a MAD scheme. Add to this that Eastern Europe, with the exception of Romania, and soon Poland for gas, heavily depends on Russian oil and gas (a BIG mistake, in retrospect, from the EU and NATO was to leave this dependence in place, although this can also be considered evidence that the West really wanted and expected Russia to remain a peaceful, cooperative brother).
OK point by point:
> 1: Russia is still sore from the US invading it about a century ago. They worry that should they show any signs of weakness, the US will start taking their land... because it happened in the past.
How is it relevant, in the age of mutually assured destruction and Russia being armed with nukes to the gill? A lot of countries were being invaded in the last one or two centuries (don't have to go far, the entire Eastern Europe and the non-Russian members of the USSR were invaded by the Russians), yet they can act collaboratively and reasonably.
> 2: Russia is a Christian nation. Religion aside, this means that if it comes down to blowing themselves up, or maybe holding off so there is actually something useful left for their sons and daughters, they will hold off. However, they are close to nations who just don't give a fuck, and would be happy for complete extinguishment if it helped their extremist ideals. This contributes to the Russian siege mentality.
If it's a Christian country, maybe it can try and preserve Christian values over its territory by _cooperating_ in mutually prosperous relationships with its closest kin, which would be Western civilization, rather than isolate itself and alienate its very neighbors and relatives, thus making it fair prey for the eventual Islamist and Chinese economic, cultural or territorial expansion?
> 3: Russia is always battling terrorists. There are always groups going in and trying to shoot up stuff. It doesn't make the news here in the US, but it is a constant issue.
Always battling terrorists isn't justification for doing it to others. What with shooting opposition politicians in daylight, poisoning folks with Polonium in other countries, invading independent countries, arming insurgents who then shoot down civilian neighborhoods and planes?
> 4: Russian leadership has to be assholes. Again, if they show any type of weakness, there are many countries who would invade. Russia doesn't have the population of the Chinese, nor the religious fervor of the revolutionaries. So, they have to have brutality on their side if their country has to exist. Not many people realize this. A large country usually has many ethnic groups, generally most don't like each other, so crime tends to be higher than a country with a homogeneous population like Japan.
So how is it, that all the Western slavs, who are around the same number of people as the Russians, yet also fragmented, and occupying much smaller, resource-poor land, prosper, grow and cooperate? Why doesn't Russia direct its threat sensors to the real directions, rather than Europe and the US? How come Russia sponsors the Iranian nuclear programme? Why did Russia happily armed China with nuclear weapons and its near-best military equipment? And India, too? If, as you say, prutality has to be on their side, why isn't it balanced by seeking out alliances? Pretty much the entire Western world is on the hunt for terrorists, so there would be room for natural alliances. What did you achieve instead? The US and Poland are fracking, and the European demand for Russian energy is going to decrease. Russia should finance itself if it wants to go it alone.
> If Russia truly collapsed, like Iraq did, World War 3 would happen just because there would be so many states wanting part of the carrion, or want to prevent other nations from taking their part of the corpse.
With a militant, threatening Russia like that of today, there wouldn't be much international help or mourning. World powers would probably carve out a real Russia on the West (Moscow and neighborhood), which could go and prosper like Poland, forming good relationship with its neighbors like Belorussia, Ukraine and the other EE nations, and Western Europe. Some areas would probably go back to Japan, and probably China would take a large multiple of what Russia took from China after the second Opium War. There are lots of ethnic groups East of the Ural, probably they would get to form their nation-s
> No one likes them.
This. Russian _people_ can be awesome, friendly, intelligent and civilized. But _the Russians_, they're hated where they got to know them, through their bullying and arm twisting. When push comes to the shove, the entirety of US and Europe can motion against Russian aggression in unison without hesitation, _even_ their own close relatives, the Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks etc. Special kudos for Poland for standing up, showing a good example and leading Europe.
Yeah, not too much wiggle room for Russia, but whatever room left for Russia to prove its good intentions worked out well, keeping Russia's friendly, neutral neighbors, like Ukraine, safe, right?
Which country has been in the habit of shooting down civilian airliners, again? Sounds so humane.
> Russia's demands: Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.
And what next, Russia comes back to occupy all former Eastern Bloc countries in the ensuing power vacuum, maybe throwing in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, while at it? Thanks, but no, thanks. Russia / USSR has done enough damage already, impoverishing half of Europe and of course its own population except a few oligarchs who then get killed according to whims of daily politics. Ukraine is a nice illustration of what happens if the US doesn't have a military presence - Russia just takes whatever it wants. The shortsighted Russian leaders don't recongize the fact that Western civilization isn't its enemy; Russia will isolate itself for good, and thus will deserve to be slowly eaten away by China and Islamic expansion, while the rest of the World does nothing. With the Western style art and science originating from Russia, its proper place would have been among members of the Western civilization, eventually joining NATO. Russia's leader would rather have a small, shrinking cake that is its own, than to participate in alliances. Russian _people_ would deserve the same European values as their Polish, Czech and other European relatives, but no, their leaders go for isolation, also trying to drag down half of Europe with themselves again.
In fact, the Chinese not only try to build the Nicaragua Canal; they're also building a transcontinental rail line in Honduras. It's interesting how Chinese capital is doing to the World what English, then American capital used to do. Especially here, we talk about the economic backyard of the USA.
The GP AC hasn't written the summary though, only a modest, 0 scored post. I think the its vs it's is beaten to death to the extent that mixing it up shows such deliberate ignorance on the part of the editors that it almost borders with trolling. Guess what happens if you grammar troll the readership. Some of them will bite and some others like you will call _them_ trolls.
Indeed, Tizen is in a critical condition.
However, they kept their past roadmap a guarded secret
> It seemed a status symbol [Tesla, in Ohio]
Why, in Los Angeles, at 70k a pop, is it more of a meh car?
non est disputandum
The weight station will be obsolete as they gauge the weight by the amount of current drawn :-)