I am in the same boat. I would like a OLED screen, but.... I do not want a physically bigger phone. I do not want to give up the 3.5mm headphone jack (which I use everyday, while charging). I actually prefer Touch ID over the new Face ID garbage. I like having a home button I can physically feel and press without needing to look at the phone.
But my battery had fizzeled out. Wouldn't keep a charge, kept shutting down when cold. But Apple offered a new battery for $25, so now my iPhone 6 is good as new, and in my opinion, better in almost every way over the current gen models except for the OLED screen.
Make a phone a I WANT to buy, and at a reasonable price, and I might bite. Until then, I will probably replace the battery in my iPhone6 again 2-3 years from now. I don't care if I stop getting iOS updates.
But I still use pine! When I'm on my Linux machine. When I'm on my phone I use (grudgingly) iOS Mail. When I have to use Windows, I prefer SeaMonkey over Thunderbird.
Does iOS12 Mail app finally bring back the Edit... Move All Messages to Trash for IMAP folders?
Introduced in iOS9. Removed in iOS10. Still missing in iOS11. Sadly needed to be a fully competent email application. (Have Edit... Mark All as Read, and we have Edit... Delete All Messages, except Delete All Messages only works for the Trash folder!)
If it has been brought back, I will upgrade to iOS12 immediately. If not, I will wait to make sure there are no ill side effects from the new iOS first.
This. My wife's 2010 MacBook Pro was starting to act flakey and she wanted a new one, but all the new ones are a step backwards. No MagSafe port, no multiple USB boards, no built-in CDROM reader, no headphone jack, the new keyboards are not fun to type on/keep clean, and really not much improvement in RAM, CPU or graphics either. (I already upgraded the ram to 8GB). Since the flaky booting/sleeping behavior I suspected was the HDD, I instead cloned a new SSD drive and swapped the drives. Now it boots several times faster than before, and it "feels" like a new computer, and it's still the nice rugged, well equipped (IO ports), good keyboard, etc. Mac Book Pro I would expect out of a $2500 laptop.
Anything new that costs $2000+ I expect to be a major step up from that MBP but.... sorry Apple, for that much $$$ I'm much more likely to go get a top of the line Carbon X1 or something. (and no $2000 laptop should require an external keyboard to be able to properly type on it).
Also, in case consumers haven't made it clear yet -- thinner is not necessarily better!!! Too many compromises (laptops and cellphones) lately all because of thinness.
You mean the customers will *complain*. Revolting would probably mean something like cancel their service. But with most places in the US with just 1 or 2 options for high-bandwidth ISPs, actually hitting these ISPs where it hurts (cancel service and monthly bills) means Denial of Service to the customer.
Hence why Title II regulations really ought to still apply, and vertical integration should NOT be allowed. (You can either sell an internet pipe, content/services, but NOT BOTH). It's such a blatent conflict of interest.
(Also note historically, like 20 years ago, Net Neutrality rules didn't have to have as much meat in them because most ISPs didn't own the last mile, the phone company did, so ISPs could compete, and the phone company played it's TitleII card (we just pass bits, so we don't look at the traffic at all, and also not liable!).
Now the ISPs, telcos, content providers and distribution systems are all owned by the same entity.... how is this good for the consumer and where does "market forces" actually play when dealing with companies with federally granted monopoly power (and using that power to extend their influence in other markets... vertically).
I agree it's a bad misnomer. An airplane autopilot basically maintains altitude, heading and speed. When combined with a navigational system, it is also capable of making turns. When combined with ILS and radio navigation signals, it is capable of performing automated landings. Planes at altitude have big open space and no imminent threat of collision with other planes or objects. Even so, if another airplane is on a collision course, that's not the autopilots job, that's for the TCAS system (which may tie into the autopilot to automatically take evasive action).
In other words, the Tesla system is more like the basic autopilot - maintaining speed and current lane... it's a driver assist. It does not do all of the other functions which on an aircraft are handled by other systems, from GPS, to navigation computer, TCAS, ILS. The autopilot by itself just steers the plane where other systems (or pilots) tell it to go.
Car are surrounded by objects (stationary and moving) at close range that can cause major accident issues.... an autopilot is not advanced enough to respond to and handle all scenarios that could be thrown at it. Airplane autopilots are relatively easy because of the lack of immediate threats on its flight path - and its the pilots job or other systems' to detect and handle those situations.... NOT the autopilot!
Meltdown is more serious, but the mitigation is straight forward with some degree of performance degradation.
Spectre is entirely different. The mitigation to the bounds check bypass requires examing and modifying source code, and recompiling binaries and libraries with special compiler settings. There is no magic quick fix on the software side for Spectre, since examing, recompiling and re-releasing all known software in the world is intractable.
A hardware fix in future CPUs for this is harder but not impossible. It is harder in that the only sure way to eliminate the vector is to remove performance enhancements like speculative execution and branch prediction, but that's a major feature of all modern processors. How to make these features secure and keep most of the performance gains will be a hot area of future research. The 80486 is slow, but does not suffer from these issues. (Who wants to go back to 1990 performance levels?)
Wrong. ARM has confirmed their Cortex A75 CPU is vulnerable to Meltdown (Variant 3). Please see their official statement here: https://developer.arm.com/supp...
The point of the X1X is 4K and HDR. While to some people that is not a big deal (especially if you do not have a 4K/HDR TV), it is nevertheless a technological jump from 1080p, just like the jump from 480i 4:3 to 720p 16:9 when the 360 came out.
But why does the X1X seem like less of a deal then the 360 was? Because lots of stuff are NOT changing. It's the same cpu (but faster). It's the same UI interface. It runs the same games, has mostly the same features (the One S can play 4k BluRay too). Know what? That's GOOD. Because last time we had a technological jump (720p 16:9), the 360 was all new, and that meant everything from the original Xbox was completely obsolete. No game compatibility, accessories, controllers, keypads, headsets, etc. Nada. Same issue with 360 to Xbox One (until some amount of backwards compatibility came along, but no hardware compatibility).
So for me, this is a big deal for consoles: adopting newer technology (4K/HDR) without making every previous console purchase (controllers, steering wheels, HDDs, cables, and most notably, GAMES) completely obsolete. I think the "dump everything you had and start over" paradigm for consoles is finally dead, and I for one welcome that shift to a "better experience" with the newer hardware, but able to keep older stuff. (And dropping older platforms only when they get 2-3 updates behind, so people have to upgrade maybe once every ten years, not every 3). And for those who do not want to upgrade, they can still play newer games but with "less fluff/detail", and not be forced into upgrading to be able to play at all.
does that not mean ISPs would no longer be under liability protection and be able to turn a blind eye to the data that crosses their networks? If they inspect the data traffic, and throttle the rate of some packets vs others, are they not signing up for being liable for illegal or copyrighted content that traverses through their switches?
Or is this they get to keep the Title II protections but do not have to abide by any of the specified regulations? In which case we have just fundamentally altered what "common carrier" means.
But also what I find worrisome is the ISPs ability to restrict access to certain sites of open information, possibility for censorship (even if just unwittingly by favoring OTHER sites which pay to get better service), the snuffing of open discourse and equal access to all participants... as someone previously mentioned - I do not want to see the current Internet turn into a modern AOL or CompuServe, where you can subscribe to the content machine, but cannot use the Internet as you see fit.
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
I currently use StartCom certificates for my personal web server and email server (no, not related to Hillary). But I also use their client certificates (S/MIME).
I also use a backup MX service for my mail server, but recently that has changed hands and the price has started to go up.
So it would be nice to find a one stop shop to fill these needs:
1. Backup MX service (possibly with spam filtering service)
2. SSL certificate for a single domain (no wildcards, single server name is fine)
3. S/MIME client certificates
Free is nice, but I am willing to pay a small annual fee for the services (currently pay for Backup MX). I currently create my own key and CSR, I do not like sites that generate the keys for you or require any software. I should be able to upload the CSR, and get a certificate back (after validating I own the domain, of course).
Any recommendations? If I cannot find anything reasonable, I will have to go back to self-signed certificates. I could live without the S/MIME, but having that is nice being its the only easy way to encrypt email on iPhone's Mail app.
Typical Apple - add a much needed and awaited feature in iOS 9 in the Mail App, where you can go into a mail folder and hit Edit, and in the lower corner, have the option to Trash All messages.
In iOS 10, Apple removed this feature, but the Trash folder still retains a "Delete All" button in the same spot, but every other mail folder has now reverted to ios 8 behavior. That is, to delete all messages in a folder, it now requires Edit, then tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap swipe tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap swipe tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap Delete. But I can Mark All as Read, or Flag All, but nope, why would you want to Trash/Delete All?
And to this day, one still cannot collapse/expand hierarchical IMAP folders. I gave up on this feature and renamed some of my more frequently used mail folders to start with A or B so that they show up near the top of the alphabetically sorted list (such as rename "Spam" to "Blocked").
Any recommendations for a Mail App replacement? I want to leave my messages stored on my IMAP server, some of the ones I have tried were nice, but involved synchronizing all messages in all folders to the iphone, which I do not want, or did not support S/MIME through the Contacts properly for encryption/signing.
There are some very nice (and small) USB SD card readers. Loss of the SD card slot is understandable in my opinion. I usually use my USB card reader when I transfer files off my camera since most desktops do not have a dedicated SD card reader anyway. (My camera does have Wi-Fi, but turning on the radio, connecting to my network, and transferring files at WiFi speed doesn't compare to just copying the files directly off the SD card - the simplest method in Linux IMO).
Loss of USB Type A ports is far far bigger deal, and quite a headache. Now you will need a USB-C hub with type A ports just to use about every peripheral that is out there today.
Courage is it? Forced obsolescence is more like it. Thanks Apple.
Yes, we will have to go back to the USB SD Card reader to transfer files. Except, no, wait, we will also need a USB-C adapter to hold the USB SD card adapter. I am guessing there are not too many USB-C SD card readers out there (certainly not in the possession of most people who still have USB 2.0 adapters they purchased years ago).
It is almost getting to the point of having a single "port" on the laptop and then having to have a hub device that breaks out all the useful things, like Ethernet, USB, HDMI, etc. In fact, I believe years past we used to call those.. docking stations. Except now you have to carry around your own docking station to make the laptop semi-useful again.
Not sure these ultrabook style devices are a win-win. I like the lighter weight, and most of the time you have to go the Ultrabook route to get the newer high-res screens (2560 or 4K), but the lack of IO - my bag didn't get any smaller. Instead of one big laptop that could do everything (including a DVD-RW burner), now you have to carry around endless drives, adapters, cables, hubs and power bricks with you. Yea.
I should refine my last statement that I do not use the 3.5mm jack during the day while I am at work. However, I DO use the 3.5mm jack quite extensively when I am mowing the grass, going for a walk, or listening to music when falling asleep (and leaving my lightning port connected to a charger overnight). I would like a slightly thicker phone if more battery life could be had - as it is now I can only get by always charging my phone overnight, AND by topping it off while I am at work by leaving it connected to a dock, AND I always have it plugged into my car stereo via USB. Even with all that, sometimes late in the evening I will dip below 20% battery.
The problem with an external adapter, and with lightning connector headphones, is that the DAC has now been moved from inside the phone to the external dongle or headphone.
For audiophiles, this was standard practice (to use an external DAC) even with the 3.5mm jack, because the iPhone's internal DAC was limited to 24-bit/48kHz. But now with cheap dongles and cheap headphones, the built-in DACs could be quite inferior for audio quality, or if decent, raise the cost (rather than one decent DAC in the phone, now every connected headphone/dongle has to provide it's own DAC and draw power from the phone).
I don't like Apple removing the 3.5mm jack, but now that I use Sennheiser's as my primary headphones at work, I no longer use the 3.5mm audio jack and use an external dock to charge my phone and drive my headphones (still have to turn the volume to near max to drive them). I think the market for external DACs with added bonus of phone battery charging capability will be on the rise (see Oppo HA-2 and the like). Incorporating such features into a phone case even better.
There are a lot of features you could not possibly change faster than the time it takes to pull out a cell phone that given that they are buried in a menu somewhere. I'm not suggesting everything be offloaded but I think it's pretty safe to take something like the filename formatting out of the camera menu. You're not going to change that in a hurry. And frankly the argument that every feature of a camera needs to be in a menu just doesn't match reality. NOBODY needs every possible feature of the camera on the little screen. NOBODY is going to change a lot of those settings "quickly while holding the camera with both hands". Some they will. Most they will not.
You are joking right? From hitting the menu button, I can usually find what I want to change and change it in about 2-3 seconds. WiFi to cellphone? First I have to go into the menu to enable WiFi (I don't leave it on due to battery drain). Then you have to download the app onto your smartphone. Then you have to find the camera's WiFi on your phone and connect to it. Once you do that, you can start the app, which will search for the camera. Once it finds it, then you have access to your camera. I have found that this takes about 10-15 seconds, if it was previously setup. For a first time setup, try several minutes, since you'll have to create and enter a password, pair the devices, etc.
If I am going to use my smartphone to take pictures of family (use it as a remote trigger since they are expensive), I make sure to get my camera and phone setup ahead of time so people don't get upset that it's taking too long to take the pictures. But the menu? Mere second or two. The smartphone access is a nice feature, but it is NOT a replacement for on-camera features. I mostly use the WiFi feature for sending photos from camera to phone to online (facebook or photo share), rather than having to use the old school approach of connecting to computer, or even removing SD card and using SD card readers.
I have a EOS 6D and think the menus are just fine. The menus are grouped by function and color coded, and customization options are all at the end on three pages (microfocus adjustment, button assignments, etc.). And if that's too much, there is one user customizable menu page where you can assign any function you want to that page and re-order them as you please. Most settings are done from the buttons on the body (ISO, drive mode, AF points, etc). When I do use the menu, I use my custom menu the most, which includes things such as turning on/off the WiFi and GPS, mirror lock, and create new SD folder.
And talk radio channels are so heavily compressed it is sometimes hard to understand over the road noise.
However, that's in my wife's car. In my car, I do not have SiriusXM capable radio, but I have a USB input into a 3rd party headend. So I use the SiriusXM app on my iPhone and stream over LTE. In the app you can select "Maximum" for streaming audio quality. This setup actually sounds really good, better than any FM radio station (even ones supporting HD Radio). And it doesn't even dent my monthly usage at high quality, since it's still just an audio stream, not video.
The only advantage the satellite signal has is that you can receive it anywhere, whereas my solution only works where I have 4G/LTE service (which drops off quickly once you travel off the Interstate and outside of city limits where I live).
Except that with modern TVs you would almost always want different display settings and profiles for watching movie content vs game content. Having it combined into a single input to the TV makes it impossible to tweak the TV for best picture modes for both. Most TVs have the best picture quality with more complicated calibration settings and PQ algorithms, all of which add enough video lag to be detrimental to playing a video game.
I would have found the second HDMI port to be much more useful as a second output, actually.
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I am in the same boat. I would like a OLED screen, but.... I do not want a physically bigger phone. I do not want to give up the 3.5mm headphone jack (which I use everyday, while charging). I actually prefer Touch ID over the new Face ID garbage. I like having a home button I can physically feel and press without needing to look at the phone.
But my battery had fizzeled out. Wouldn't keep a charge, kept shutting down when cold. But Apple offered a new battery for $25, so now my iPhone 6 is good as new, and in my opinion, better in almost every way over the current gen models except for the OLED screen.
Make a phone a I WANT to buy, and at a reasonable price, and I might bite. Until then, I will probably replace the battery in my iPhone6 again 2-3 years from now. I don't care if I stop getting iOS updates.
But I still use pine! When I'm on my Linux machine. When I'm on my phone I use (grudgingly) iOS Mail. When I have to use Windows, I prefer SeaMonkey over Thunderbird.
Does iOS12 Mail app finally bring back the Edit... Move All Messages to Trash for IMAP folders?
Introduced in iOS9. Removed in iOS10. Still missing in iOS11. Sadly needed to be a fully competent email application. (Have Edit... Mark All as Read, and we have Edit... Delete All Messages, except Delete All Messages only works for the Trash folder!)
If it has been brought back, I will upgrade to iOS12 immediately. If not, I will wait to make sure there are no ill side effects from the new iOS first.
True, but it would take an act of Congress to do so. Not just an Executive Order.
This. My wife's 2010 MacBook Pro was starting to act flakey and she wanted a new one, but all the new ones are a step backwards. No MagSafe port, no multiple USB boards, no built-in CDROM reader, no headphone jack, the new keyboards are not fun to type on/keep clean, and really not much improvement in RAM, CPU or graphics either. (I already upgraded the ram to 8GB). Since the flaky booting/sleeping behavior I suspected was the HDD, I instead cloned a new SSD drive and swapped the drives. Now it boots several times faster than before, and it "feels" like a new computer, and it's still the nice rugged, well equipped (IO ports), good keyboard, etc. Mac Book Pro I would expect out of a $2500 laptop.
Anything new that costs $2000+ I expect to be a major step up from that MBP but.... sorry Apple, for that much $$$ I'm much more likely to go get a top of the line Carbon X1 or something. (and no $2000 laptop should require an external keyboard to be able to properly type on it).
Also, in case consumers haven't made it clear yet -- thinner is not necessarily better!!! Too many compromises (laptops and cellphones) lately all because of thinness.
You mean the customers will *complain*. Revolting would probably mean something like cancel their service. But with most places in the US with just 1 or 2 options for high-bandwidth ISPs, actually hitting these ISPs where it hurts (cancel service and monthly bills) means Denial of Service to the customer.
Hence why Title II regulations really ought to still apply, and vertical integration should NOT be allowed. (You can either sell an internet pipe, content/services, but NOT BOTH). It's such a blatent conflict of interest.
(Also note historically, like 20 years ago, Net Neutrality rules didn't have to have as much meat in them because most ISPs didn't own the last mile, the phone company did, so ISPs could compete, and the phone company played it's TitleII card (we just pass bits, so we don't look at the traffic at all, and also not liable!).
Now the ISPs, telcos, content providers and distribution systems are all owned by the same entity.... how is this good for the consumer and where does "market forces" actually play when dealing with companies with federally granted monopoly power (and using that power to extend their influence in other markets... vertically).
I agree it's a bad misnomer. An airplane autopilot basically maintains altitude, heading and speed. When combined with a navigational system, it is also capable of making turns. When combined with ILS and radio navigation signals, it is capable of performing automated landings. Planes at altitude have big open space and no imminent threat of collision with other planes or objects. Even so, if another airplane is on a collision course, that's not the autopilots job, that's for the TCAS system (which may tie into the autopilot to automatically take evasive action).
In other words, the Tesla system is more like the basic autopilot - maintaining speed and current lane... it's a driver assist. It does not do all of the other functions which on an aircraft are handled by other systems, from GPS, to navigation computer, TCAS, ILS. The autopilot by itself just steers the plane where other systems (or pilots) tell it to go.
Car are surrounded by objects (stationary and moving) at close range that can cause major accident issues.... an autopilot is not advanced enough to respond to and handle all scenarios that could be thrown at it. Airplane autopilots are relatively easy because of the lack of immediate threats on its flight path - and its the pilots job or other systems' to detect and handle those situations.... NOT the autopilot!
Meltdown is more serious, but the mitigation is straight forward with some degree of performance degradation.
Spectre is entirely different. The mitigation to the bounds check bypass requires examing and modifying source code, and recompiling binaries and libraries with special compiler settings. There is no magic quick fix on the software side for Spectre, since examing, recompiling and re-releasing all known software in the world is intractable.
A hardware fix in future CPUs for this is harder but not impossible. It is harder in that the only sure way to eliminate the vector is to remove performance enhancements like speculative execution and branch prediction, but that's a major feature of all modern processors. How to make these features secure and keep most of the performance gains will be a hot area of future research. The 80486 is slow, but does not suffer from these issues. (Who wants to go back to 1990 performance levels?)
Wrong. ARM has confirmed their Cortex A75 CPU is vulnerable to Meltdown (Variant 3). Please see their official statement here: https://developer.arm.com/supp...
The point of the X1X is 4K and HDR. While to some people that is not a big deal (especially if you do not have a 4K/HDR TV), it is nevertheless a technological jump from 1080p, just like the jump from 480i 4:3 to 720p 16:9 when the 360 came out.
But why does the X1X seem like less of a deal then the 360 was? Because lots of stuff are NOT changing. It's the same cpu (but faster). It's the same UI interface. It runs the same games, has mostly the same features (the One S can play 4k BluRay too). Know what? That's GOOD. Because last time we had a technological jump (720p 16:9), the 360 was all new, and that meant everything from the original Xbox was completely obsolete. No game compatibility, accessories, controllers, keypads, headsets, etc. Nada. Same issue with 360 to Xbox One (until some amount of backwards compatibility came along, but no hardware compatibility).
So for me, this is a big deal for consoles: adopting newer technology (4K/HDR) without making every previous console purchase (controllers, steering wheels, HDDs, cables, and most notably, GAMES) completely obsolete. I think the "dump everything you had and start over" paradigm for consoles is finally dead, and I for one welcome that shift to a "better experience" with the newer hardware, but able to keep older stuff. (And dropping older platforms only when they get 2-3 updates behind, so people have to upgrade maybe once every ten years, not every 3). And for those who do not want to upgrade, they can still play newer games but with "less fluff/detail", and not be forced into upgrading to be able to play at all.
does that not mean ISPs would no longer be under liability protection and be able to turn a blind eye to the data that crosses their networks? If they inspect the data traffic, and throttle the rate of some packets vs others, are they not signing up for being liable for illegal or copyrighted content that traverses through their switches?
Or is this they get to keep the Title II protections but do not have to abide by any of the specified regulations? In which case we have just fundamentally altered what "common carrier" means.
But also what I find worrisome is the ISPs ability to restrict access to certain sites of open information, possibility for censorship (even if just unwittingly by favoring OTHER sites which pay to get better service), the snuffing of open discourse and equal access to all participants... as someone previously mentioned - I do not want to see the current Internet turn into a modern AOL or CompuServe, where you can subscribe to the content machine, but cannot use the Internet as you see fit.
WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
And then follow up with a feel-good "Two Minutes of Hate".
Whoops, I have to turn in my sci-fi geek card. That should be 0.3 decaliters/day.
It will still take quite a while to collect millions of them. But when we have enough...
It should be 30 deciliters. C'mon, get the units right. It's a windtrap.
--Shai-Hulud
I currently use StartCom certificates for my personal web server and email server (no, not related to Hillary). But I also use their client certificates (S/MIME).
I also use a backup MX service for my mail server, but recently that has changed hands and the price has started to go up.
So it would be nice to find a one stop shop to fill these needs:
1. Backup MX service (possibly with spam filtering service)
2. SSL certificate for a single domain (no wildcards, single server name is fine)
3. S/MIME client certificates
Free is nice, but I am willing to pay a small annual fee for the services (currently pay for Backup MX). I currently create my own key and CSR, I do not like sites that generate the keys for you or require any software. I should be able to upload the CSR, and get a certificate back (after validating I own the domain, of course).
Any recommendations? If I cannot find anything reasonable, I will have to go back to self-signed certificates. I could live without the S/MIME, but having that is nice being its the only easy way to encrypt email on iPhone's Mail app.
Typical Apple - add a much needed and awaited feature in iOS 9 in the Mail App, where you can go into a mail folder and hit Edit, and in the lower corner, have the option to Trash All messages.
In iOS 10, Apple removed this feature, but the Trash folder still retains a "Delete All" button in the same spot, but every other mail folder has now reverted to ios 8 behavior. That is, to delete all messages in a folder, it now requires Edit, then tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap swipe tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap swipe tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap Delete. But I can Mark All as Read, or Flag All, but nope, why would you want to Trash/Delete All?
And to this day, one still cannot collapse/expand hierarchical IMAP folders. I gave up on this feature and renamed some of my more frequently used mail folders to start with A or B so that they show up near the top of the alphabetically sorted list (such as rename "Spam" to "Blocked").
Any recommendations for a Mail App replacement? I want to leave my messages stored on my IMAP server, some of the ones I have tried were nice, but involved synchronizing all messages in all folders to the iphone, which I do not want, or did not support S/MIME through the Contacts properly for encryption/signing.
There are some very nice (and small) USB SD card readers. Loss of the SD card slot is understandable in my opinion. I usually use my USB card reader when I transfer files off my camera since most desktops do not have a dedicated SD card reader anyway. (My camera does have Wi-Fi, but turning on the radio, connecting to my network, and transferring files at WiFi speed doesn't compare to just copying the files directly off the SD card - the simplest method in Linux IMO).
Loss of USB Type A ports is far far bigger deal, and quite a headache. Now you will need a USB-C hub with type A ports just to use about every peripheral that is out there today.
Courage is it? Forced obsolescence is more like it. Thanks Apple.
Yes, we will have to go back to the USB SD Card reader to transfer files. Except, no, wait, we will also need a USB-C adapter to hold the USB SD card adapter. I am guessing there are not too many USB-C SD card readers out there (certainly not in the possession of most people who still have USB 2.0 adapters they purchased years ago).
It is almost getting to the point of having a single "port" on the laptop and then having to have a hub device that breaks out all the useful things, like Ethernet, USB, HDMI, etc. In fact, I believe years past we used to call those.. docking stations. Except now you have to carry around your own docking station to make the laptop semi-useful again.
Not sure these ultrabook style devices are a win-win. I like the lighter weight, and most of the time you have to go the Ultrabook route to get the newer high-res screens (2560 or 4K), but the lack of IO - my bag didn't get any smaller. Instead of one big laptop that could do everything (including a DVD-RW burner), now you have to carry around endless drives, adapters, cables, hubs and power bricks with you. Yea.
I should refine my last statement that I do not use the 3.5mm jack during the day while I am at work. However, I DO use the 3.5mm jack quite extensively when I am mowing the grass, going for a walk, or listening to music when falling asleep (and leaving my lightning port connected to a charger overnight). I would like a slightly thicker phone if more battery life could be had - as it is now I can only get by always charging my phone overnight, AND by topping it off while I am at work by leaving it connected to a dock, AND I always have it plugged into my car stereo via USB. Even with all that, sometimes late in the evening I will dip below 20% battery.
The problem with an external adapter, and with lightning connector headphones, is that the DAC has now been moved from inside the phone to the external dongle or headphone.
For audiophiles, this was standard practice (to use an external DAC) even with the 3.5mm jack, because the iPhone's internal DAC was limited to 24-bit/48kHz. But now with cheap dongles and cheap headphones, the built-in DACs could be quite inferior for audio quality, or if decent, raise the cost (rather than one decent DAC in the phone, now every connected headphone/dongle has to provide it's own DAC and draw power from the phone).
I don't like Apple removing the 3.5mm jack, but now that I use Sennheiser's as my primary headphones at work, I no longer use the 3.5mm audio jack and use an external dock to charge my phone and drive my headphones (still have to turn the volume to near max to drive them). I think the market for external DACs with added bonus of phone battery charging capability will be on the rise (see Oppo HA-2 and the like). Incorporating such features into a phone case even better.
Isn't the GPS receiver already doing a better job of that?
You are joking right? From hitting the menu button, I can usually find what I want to change and change it in about 2-3 seconds. WiFi to cellphone? First I have to go into the menu to enable WiFi (I don't leave it on due to battery drain). Then you have to download the app onto your smartphone. Then you have to find the camera's WiFi on your phone and connect to it. Once you do that, you can start the app, which will search for the camera. Once it finds it, then you have access to your camera. I have found that this takes about 10-15 seconds, if it was previously setup. For a first time setup, try several minutes, since you'll have to create and enter a password, pair the devices, etc.
If I am going to use my smartphone to take pictures of family (use it as a remote trigger since they are expensive), I make sure to get my camera and phone setup ahead of time so people don't get upset that it's taking too long to take the pictures. But the menu? Mere second or two. The smartphone access is a nice feature, but it is NOT a replacement for on-camera features. I mostly use the WiFi feature for sending photos from camera to phone to online (facebook or photo share), rather than having to use the old school approach of connecting to computer, or even removing SD card and using SD card readers.
I have a EOS 6D and think the menus are just fine. The menus are grouped by function and color coded, and customization options are all at the end on three pages (microfocus adjustment, button assignments, etc.). And if that's too much, there is one user customizable menu page where you can assign any function you want to that page and re-order them as you please. Most settings are done from the buttons on the body (ISO, drive mode, AF points, etc). When I do use the menu, I use my custom menu the most, which includes things such as turning on/off the WiFi and GPS, mirror lock, and create new SD folder.
And talk radio channels are so heavily compressed it is sometimes hard to understand over the road noise.
However, that's in my wife's car. In my car, I do not have SiriusXM capable radio, but I have a USB input into a 3rd party headend. So I use the SiriusXM app on my iPhone and stream over LTE. In the app you can select "Maximum" for streaming audio quality. This setup actually sounds really good, better than any FM radio station (even ones supporting HD Radio). And it doesn't even dent my monthly usage at high quality, since it's still just an audio stream, not video.
The only advantage the satellite signal has is that you can receive it anywhere, whereas my solution only works where I have 4G/LTE service (which drops off quickly once you travel off the Interstate and outside of city limits where I live).
Except that with modern TVs you would almost always want different display settings and profiles for watching movie content vs game content. Having it combined into a single input to the TV makes it impossible to tweak the TV for best picture modes for both. Most TVs have the best picture quality with more complicated calibration settings and PQ algorithms, all of which add enough video lag to be detrimental to playing a video game.
I would have found the second HDMI port to be much more useful as a second output, actually.