The phono jack, in it's 3.5mm, 2.5mm and 1/4" incarnations, is the standard for analog audio connectivity for a good reason. It's the oldest electrical connector still in use for a good reason. It works fantastically well! They're cutting themselves out of the audio market, and it's a dumb move. That jack could, with a $5 adapter, connect a phone to virtually any other audio device as input or output. You could plug a guitar into it, you could plug it into a mixing board, a car, a microphone, an instrument amp, a stereo amp, anything. A DJ could entertain a crowd with just a phone and a sound system, any sound system.
Yes, but the lightning port is going to have to be there whether or not there are any other ports. If what I heard (or what I think I heard) is right and they do include an adapter, it isn't going to save them anything in the short run, but I wouldn't expect to see it bundled with future models. If what I heard (miss-heard) was wrong, it is going to save them a little in the near term, but they might end up having to include an adapter in the future if consumers put up a stink.
Still, the waterproofing excuse holds up. Though I'd expect that it would be more of an internal space issue than a cost issue.
Of course, today Apple is claiming it's about "bravery" and standing up to convention and removing an "obsolete" port. Which is a load of bullshit in pretty much every direction.
Sounds like support for the new features requires changes to the kernel, and only MS can make those changes. From the article, it looks like the Intel Turbo features can be worked in with a driver and some management software, but AMD's changes are much deeper.
How the hell is this not a reasonable concern? Why in the world shouldn't it be addressed ahead of time? We've all seen software glitches cause undesirable outcomes, and in an autonomous killing machine that would be disastrous.
Agreed. There's a real risk. Autonomous kill-bots will eventually go wrong in some way - be it a full fledged Terminator scenario, or just occasional glitches resulting in unwanted targeting. This is something the military (and the rest of us) should be worrying about and I'm glad to hear that they are.
Not that they couldn't waterproof a 3.5mm jack, but it might have enough of an impact of the manufacture cost that the whole thing becomes reasonable. On NPR yesterday they were saying that the phones would be coming with a thunderbolt to 3.5mm adapter, making the move even less shitty. I still think it's shitty, just not as shitty as it had seemed.
Yes, I am aware that the example I used to provide context for the issue isn't legal precedent for EU courts. As it happens, other EU nations have figured out how to give specific tax breaks without getting sued.
Offering breaks and credits as an incentive to businesses is hardly an unusual practice, and like every American State and municipality that does it, Ireland has a formal right to do so. What they don't have is a right to alter the competitive landscape by giving subsidies to businesses. Unless the plaintiffs can show that giving Apple a tax break altered the market, there's no basis for the charges. Since Apple doesn't lower prices, and the break it got did not impact its bottom line (the tax is on profits, Apple would make plenty even at 30%), there's no impact on the relevant markets. The only market that was affected was the one in which nations compete to host international corporations.
In the current international landscape, that market is unregulatable. I'm not saying that's good, just that it is. Every nation would have to surrender it's sovereignty over corporate tax policy to a super-national body with the power to set and collect international taxes, and they don't want to (though rather surprisingly, Trump suggested it). I suspect that at some point this will happen, but until it does this will remain an unresolvable issue.
To what contracts (do you mean treaties?) do you refer? And is it a subsidy? We (America) do it all the time, from the Federal to the municipal levels, and don't consider it a subsidy. Special tax breaks are given to specific businesses and industries as an enticement - cities and States will offer huge breaks to get companies to locate facilities in their area, like no property taxes for a number of years. Like Ireland, the breaks aren't intended to give the business a competitive edge, they're intended to give the community an edge in attracting jobs.
The rule the ruling hinges on regards industry competition, but it's being bent to apply to competition between nations. This really isn't about Apple, it's about Ireland. Samsung has the same global tax rate as Apple, gets breaks and credits in Poland (and probably it's other European sites), but isn't being targeted. Probably because they have division HQ's all over Europe instead of just Ireland, so the money gets spread around.
Which respect? They may not retain sovereignty over subsidies, but certainly do regarding tax policy. It was an issue during the Greek bailout, and part of a larger source of instability threatening EU cohesion.
Repatriation comes with a 30% price tag. That's why those profits are sitting in Ireland instead of being used here. Ireland is the only nation willing to compete on corporate tax rates, so they're the ones who win. Any other nation could eat their lunch by setting a lower corporate tax rate, if they chose to do so.
Ah, but those "State aid" rules are in place to prevent member nations from giving domestic businesses price subsidies. Apple did not get subsidies, and did not change their pricing structure. Corrected for exchange rates, iPhones cost the same everywhere. The only competition was between Ireland and other member nations over where multinational corporations located their regional HQs. Member nations retain sovereign authority over tax policy, and just because France (for example) didn't want to lower their rates to compete with Ireland doesn't mean Ireland did something wrong.
In other words, Ireland lowered the price of their product while the competition chose not to. As a result, Ireland dominates the market, and the competition is trying to sue them out of business instead of, well, competing. Like what Apple and Samsung try do do to each other, except between nations.
They did pay what they owed Ireland. Determining what they owed is Ireland's sovereign right, and Ireland decided it wasn't that much. Apple didn't get a competitive advantage from it - that is, they didn't sell more iPhones because Ireland subsidized lower prices, Apple's prices are effectively uniform worldwide. The other EU nations are just bitter because Ireland out-competes them in terms of attractiveness to multinational corporations, because they aren't willing to compete.
What treaties? Under the EU constitution, member nations retain sovereign authority over tax policy. The ruling hinges on the reasoning that this is a violation of the rules regarding government subsidies for businesses, which exist to prevent member nations from giving domestic businesses an unfair competitive advantage. Apple isn't domestic, and isn't being given a competitive advantage. Ireland is out-competing other member nations, not giving Apple an advantage over its competitors.
Everything Ireland did is legal and proper under the EU constitution. They didn't violate market rules, they realized there was a market between sovereign nations for who houses international corporations and dominated it.
10% of jobs in Ireland are from foreign companies who base operations there because of the low corporate tax rate. It's revenue comes instead from income, value-added and capital gains taxes. It's also worth noting that corporate profits are taxed twice - once when reported by the company, and again as capital gains reported by the shareholders.
Giving companies tax breaks in order to get them to base operations (jobs) in your region is a practice as old as taxing them. The EU countries suing Apple all collected the VAT on Apple's products,but they want a cut of the profits too despite not having a clear legal right to them.
So instead of competing with each other on tax rates to attract companies (like Ireland has), they're trying to sue the competition away.
What I've always found to be fascinating about that is that once split, Chimps and Bonobos came to exemplify the twin "dark sides" of human nature. The two animalistic drives churning beneath our reason in which we revel and resist as part of being human.
Technically, it is the market that sets prices. It just happens that the market has been slowly beaten out of shape by regulatory backfire, the AMA, and the drug industry.
It's also possible that part of the reason our drug prices are so out of whack is because everyone else is regulating prices, causing the industry to seek higher profits in the US. Kind of a douchebag maneuver, but is it something that can be fixed without backfiring? It seems like everything we've tried for a century has only made the cost issue worse.
What fun would that be? If we aren't doing new things to solve problems caused by the last set of new things, creating new problems to solve with new things, then we might as well give up on everything.
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Are you sure you didn't mean $90? I didn't think Apple knew things could cost less than $20,
The phono jack, in it's 3.5mm, 2.5mm and 1/4" incarnations, is the standard for analog audio connectivity for a good reason. It's the oldest electrical connector still in use for a good reason. It works fantastically well! They're cutting themselves out of the audio market, and it's a dumb move. That jack could, with a $5 adapter, connect a phone to virtually any other audio device as input or output. You could plug a guitar into it, you could plug it into a mixing board, a car, a microphone, an instrument amp, a stereo amp, anything. A DJ could entertain a crowd with just a phone and a sound system, any sound system.
Still, the waterproofing excuse holds up. Though I'd expect that it would be more of an internal space issue than a cost issue.
Of course, today Apple is claiming it's about "bravery" and standing up to convention and removing an "obsolete" port. Which is a load of bullshit in pretty much every direction.
I rather like it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but there's no need to be a jerk about it.
Sounds like support for the new features requires changes to the kernel, and only MS can make those changes. From the article, it looks like the Intel Turbo features can be worked in with a driver and some management software, but AMD's changes are much deeper.
How the hell is this not a reasonable concern? Why in the world shouldn't it be addressed ahead of time? We've all seen software glitches cause undesirable outcomes, and in an autonomous killing machine that would be disastrous.
Agreed. There's a real risk. Autonomous kill-bots will eventually go wrong in some way - be it a full fledged Terminator scenario, or just occasional glitches resulting in unwanted targeting. This is something the military (and the rest of us) should be worrying about and I'm glad to hear that they are.
OS/2 and CP/M?
Not that they couldn't waterproof a 3.5mm jack, but it might have enough of an impact of the manufacture cost that the whole thing becomes reasonable. On NPR yesterday they were saying that the phones would be coming with a thunderbolt to 3.5mm adapter, making the move even less shitty. I still think it's shitty, just not as shitty as it had seemed.
Yes, I am aware that the example I used to provide context for the issue isn't legal precedent for EU courts. As it happens, other EU nations have figured out how to give specific tax breaks without getting sued.
In the current international landscape, that market is unregulatable. I'm not saying that's good, just that it is. Every nation would have to surrender it's sovereignty over corporate tax policy to a super-national body with the power to set and collect international taxes, and they don't want to (though rather surprisingly, Trump suggested it). I suspect that at some point this will happen, but until it does this will remain an unresolvable issue.
The rule the ruling hinges on regards industry competition, but it's being bent to apply to competition between nations. This really isn't about Apple, it's about Ireland. Samsung has the same global tax rate as Apple, gets breaks and credits in Poland (and probably it's other European sites), but isn't being targeted. Probably because they have division HQ's all over Europe instead of just Ireland, so the money gets spread around.
Which respect? They may not retain sovereignty over subsidies, but certainly do regarding tax policy. It was an issue during the Greek bailout, and part of a larger source of instability threatening EU cohesion.
I got reeeallllly high last week and lost a dime bag. Didn't realize I had lost it in orbit, but like I said, reeeealllly high.
Repatriation comes with a 30% price tag. That's why those profits are sitting in Ireland instead of being used here. Ireland is the only nation willing to compete on corporate tax rates, so they're the ones who win. Any other nation could eat their lunch by setting a lower corporate tax rate, if they chose to do so.
In other words, Ireland lowered the price of their product while the competition chose not to. As a result, Ireland dominates the market, and the competition is trying to sue them out of business instead of, well, competing. Like what Apple and Samsung try do do to each other, except between nations.
They did pay what they owed Ireland. Determining what they owed is Ireland's sovereign right, and Ireland decided it wasn't that much. Apple didn't get a competitive advantage from it - that is, they didn't sell more iPhones because Ireland subsidized lower prices, Apple's prices are effectively uniform worldwide. The other EU nations are just bitter because Ireland out-competes them in terms of attractiveness to multinational corporations, because they aren't willing to compete.
Everything Ireland did is legal and proper under the EU constitution. They didn't violate market rules, they realized there was a market between sovereign nations for who houses international corporations and dominated it.
And Ireland had the nerve to limit them to just those taxes by limiting themselves to just those taxes? How rude!
10% of jobs in Ireland are from foreign companies who base operations there because of the low corporate tax rate. It's revenue comes instead from income, value-added and capital gains taxes. It's also worth noting that corporate profits are taxed twice - once when reported by the company, and again as capital gains reported by the shareholders.
So instead of competing with each other on tax rates to attract companies (like Ireland has), they're trying to sue the competition away.
What I've always found to be fascinating about that is that once split, Chimps and Bonobos came to exemplify the twin "dark sides" of human nature. The two animalistic drives churning beneath our reason in which we revel and resist as part of being human.
I'm told it was a lovely service.
It's also possible that part of the reason our drug prices are so out of whack is because everyone else is regulating prices, causing the industry to seek higher profits in the US. Kind of a douchebag maneuver, but is it something that can be fixed without backfiring? It seems like everything we've tried for a century has only made the cost issue worse.
What fun would that be? If we aren't doing new things to solve problems caused by the last set of new things, creating new problems to solve with new things, then we might as well give up on everything.