One of the main themes of Brave New World, was indeed that you were discouraged from being alone, or thoughtful, or private (introverted). You were strongly encouraged to always be a shallow and happy, social extrovert... it was good to be 'pneumatic' (to use Huxley's word). And if you weren't pneumatic that was a problem that could get you into trouble with the authorities.
f you want to spend any time alone, or in thought, you should take a soma holiday.
"And do remember that a gramme is better than a damn."
A facebook check to cross a border, to me is very much an example of that theme; because they are literally looking to see if you are 'pneumatic'. They want to you to be little, shallow, happy, social extroverts... or you are suspicious.
And, in this case, it seems they offer exactly the same result
Yes *In this case*.
But in other cases -- such as the building it is in being destroyed in a fire or the hard drive/raid array getting fried by lighting or a power surge etc -- a simple rsync job offers an actual offsite backup copy that they can restore data from.
Its a legitimate backup strategy for a lot of use cases. In terms of risk management guarding against hardware loss or failure was historically the big one. Only recently has the 'malicious modification of files' rocketed to the top of the list both in likelihood of it happening and severity -- thanks to the rise of ransomware.
What's the point of even doing a backup if you overwrite the only copy every time?
This is among the least expensive in terms of storage and in terms of time. You can do an rsync between a local and offsite storage, get a couple redundant copies easily and simply.
It prevents against a non-malicious system failure... e.g. a hard drive going bad.
Yes, its wholly inadequate vs ransomware, or malicious file modification, or gradually failing hardware that is corrupting data.
But even so it remains one of the most common backup strategies because it is simple an inexpensive. And police IT budgets, despite their seeming propensity to buy needless military surplus, is generally very tight.
Funny. I feel the same way about you. You are spouting absolute nonsense. We're both modded +5. Neat.
5k is irrelevant. its irrelevant today and it will still be irrelevant in 5 years. if anything, we'll move to 8k before 5k gets any real traction.
Go to Amazon. No need to carry "a bag of accessories". Just buy something like THIS, or THIS, or even THIS or THIS, and you're all set for "Legacy Ports".
Yeah... buy a laptop missing a bunch of features, and then attach another smaller box to it to make it an actual pro laptop. That's brilliant. Pro users want a workhorse like a truck and you think they should just buy a car and trailer, and that that it is just as good? You know any contractors who drive a civic and pull a trailer around? Ever wonder why not? BECAUSE THEY CAN BUY A FUCKING TRUCK.
That shit on amazon wouldn't be necessary if you could buy a proper laptop in the first place.
Once again, "My Use Case MUST be EVERYONE'S Use Case. WTF is wrong with you???
The difference between my examples and your is the users I am representing is the *actual majority of users*, and the use-cases you are campaigning for are the tiny niches. Which use case is more common?
a) A pro user who needs to attach a flash drive to their computer, or an HDMI projector in a board room? b) A pro user who needs 5k screen and 4 4k screens all attached to his laptop; because he doesn't already have a desktop?
Catering to b) is perfectly fine, but claiming a) is not the far more common and important feature to support is just rectal cranial inversion.
If you look at the TrackPad on the MBP 2016, it is nearly the size of an iPhone screen. Next stop for that TrackPad will be to work with the Apple Pencil. Mark my words. THEN, it will make sense...
And if that happens in 2019 I'll give a shit THEN. But your wrong. Nobody wants to draw on the track pad. If anything Dell's convertibles have it right... flip it over and draw right on the goddamned screen.
This is hardly a Bugatti. This is a Laptop for PROs, that has an "Eye to the Future". But still practical today.
If it were there would not be a million articles taking a shit on it for not having the features people want TODAY.
That's why you can buy miniDP to ??? Adapters at WALMART these days, FFS!
I can buy tire irons at walmart too -- so what?
Doesn't mean my car shouldn't have one included in the tire change kit. Even my 911 has a collapsible tire change kit with everything needed to change a tire as standard equipment. Why? Because when I need to change a fucking tire i am not likely to be parked at a fucking walmwart where i can just buy a tire iron.
Likewise when I need to plug my laptop into a customers projector... that is not going to happen in the cable aisle at a walmart, where i can just reach over and grab the adapter i need. No. Instead it usually means NOT using the projector and having everyone gather around the tiny laptop, because in the real world you don't pause a meeting for 20 minutes to make a fucking trip to walmart.
And guess what? There are PLENTY of Non-Apple Laptops that have nothing but a miniDisplayPort Port. You'll be whipping out that "Bag Of Accessories" for them, too.
I can easily shop around bad design choices them when I'm buying Non-apple laptops. There are several vendors, with dozens of products lines that cater to pro-users. If apple is going to be the only vendor of OSX then it's under more pressure to get its one-size-fits-most to actually fit most.
If you are Pining for the USB-A, go to frickin' Amazon, and pick up a few of these $2.50 USB-C to USB-A adapters. They are cheap enough ($7 for 3) and small enough, that you can simply clip them onto your USB-A cables and LEAVE THEM THERE.
1. 80 Gbps of raw, multifunctional I/O bandwidth. Nearly TWICE that of any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
If it had a port to check my car's tire pressure that would also be a feature that no other laptop has, at any price. In other words: so what?
This falls into the category of shit I don't need and can't use with any equipment i own or am likely to own this year. The multifunctional i/o bandwidth available in other laptops is fine. Apple going to 11 on this feature is all fine and dandy but it lacks the features users actually need and want.
2. 5k Internal Display on 15" model (I think the 13" is 4k?) I believe that is UNIQUE relative to any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
UNIQUE yes. UNIQUELY pointless. Its just more "Innovation" nobody cares about. Do you have 5k content? No? So who cares? At 15" will it look any better than 4k display? No? So who cares?
3. UNIQUE, Custom, Apple-Designed SSD Controller with the highest Read/Write performance in the industry.
I'd far rather a COTS module I can replace in 2 years for $200 for with a 4TB one. I'm willing to give up a few % points of performance for that. My 2011 Macbook pro is still useful to me (my family at least) because I was able to upgrade the RAM and SSD. This new one? Sure its a few points faster... but its stupidly overrpiced for the marginal improvement in speed, and you're stuck with whatever capacity you get today forever. I don't object to the existence of this tech as an option for people who want it... but does apple give you the option? Nope. If you want an MBP you have to have this overpriced tech whether you want it or not, whether you need it or not, whether you'd be happier with COTS SSD or not.
4. Ability to natively drive up to FOUR 4k external displays, plus its internal 5k display, or up to TWO 5k external displays, plus its internal 5k display, more than any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
But no native ability to connect to even one HDMI projector in the customer or hotel meeting rooms without carrying a bag of accessories. Swing and a miss.
5. UNIQUE, multitouch, multifunctional Touch Bar interface, that not only replaces the Function keys, but also allows Applications and the OS to present the user with unique, custom controls that do not take up screen real-estate.
Replacing keys i can touch type with a bar i can't is not progress. It's 2 steps backward 1 step forward. Cool feature, maybe, definitely wasn't worth giving up function keys I can touch type with for, and the escape key. What's the next innovation to replace the number key row too? Then you can have numbers or even more application controls. Better still just get rid of the keyboard and staple two ipads together as the new macbook pro.
6. The largest Trackpad in the known universe;-)
There is too small. And there is big enough. "Largest in the known universe" isn't worth anything once the others are 'big enough'.
7. TouchID, with ApplePay and App Store Support, as well as several other OS and Application-Level functions.
So, as you can see, Apple has HARDLY "abandoned the Mac".
I kind of recall Top Gear covering a lot of cars over the years that are just like the mac book pro... you know the ones... the cars with 1500 horsepower but no trunk or glove box. $50,000 for custom brake system that shaves 6 ft off a stop from 60 to 0... but well... $50,000 and when they fail you have to fly an engineer from Italy to service them. And you need a truck following you around with spare tires because it rips through a pair as often as a regular car needs to fill up with gas. A tour de force of technology... but completley useless as a daily driver.
That's the macbook pro...sure its got support for up to four 4k screens but you need to carry around a bag of dongles to attach a USB flashdrive. 80Gbps of io but we're not allowed to have more than 16GB RAM? Its utterly ridiculous.
Microsoft is only shooting itself in the foot while its opponents over at apple have somehow lodged their guns into their own rectums. Its not so much that microsoft is winning the battle, as apple is just failing worse.
Both of mine did just fine with battery life over the course of a day.
Perhaps you were holding yours wrong?
If by wrong you mean "too much" then perhaps. Mine would last a day too if all I did was make a few calls and receive a few texts and check email once or twice. The S5 easily handled a day of just being 'on' just fine -- but fell over if before the day was over if i need to take a lot of calls, use the navigation, etc etc. While the S7 edge lasts a day of me me using it pretty heavily.
Not that it helps you, but yeah, it is pretty cool that it exists. Since it saves you having to sideload any of the humble mobile titles you may have, you just install and update them etc via the app.
I think you are mostly wrong about batteries though. I don't think its cheap knockoffs that were the main issue; although it IS a real issue, and one the manufacturers like to scapegoat.
But I think they took away replaceable batteries because:
- it lets you go thinner
- built in obscelesence
- cheaper
- batteries last longer than they used to, so the need to replace them has dropped off; so the market for replacements is smaller
- batteries charge faster than they used to, so the need for infrastructure for swapping batteries, and using external chargers etc, as part of regular usage has died out.
There are lots of forces at work against replaceable batteries.
That said, I don't disagree with your vent about software. A lot of the stuff in the so-called "curated" stores should be relegated to the 'bottom shelf' in the back of the store... where you have to walk past a sign that says beware of the leopard before it shows it to you.
On simply having it "in the store" gives it far more visibility and exposure than it would ever get in a real market.
Having a single curated app store is not necessarily a bad thing. Android has demonstrated quite well just how much of a clusterfuck alternative app stores can be.
Yes and no.
It also demonstrates their benefits. I currently use 3 "stores" on my android. Google's, F-Droid, and the HumbleBundle app. The lack of fdroid and the humble app are major minuses to the Apple ecosystem.
I compare it to the real world of brick and mortar. There are lots of stores -- some of them are hole in the wall fly by night, and some of them are good.
Just because you CAN go to to some no-name shithole and get totally ripped off with fake goods doesn't mean that walmart should be the only store you are allowed to shop at. That's not 'better'.
Yeah, some segment of the public is inevitably going to buy something in some shithole and walkaway with malware. But most of us don't really have that problem... most of us have figured out the benefits of dealing with reputable places in the real world.
Would you submit to only shopping at walmart for the rest of your life because some mouth-breathing idiot bought a "leather belt" made of cheap plastic at a night market that broke 20 minutes after he put it on?
I have an S7 Edge now, and I have to say that were it not for the extended battery life, I could care less about the curved screen
Yeah... i've had mine for a year now and have only activated the extra edge functionality via the side of the screen a couple times. I don't think having the screen go up to the top would cause me any issues. I'd miss the the physical home button on the bottom though if that goes away... its nice to have some idea which way is up.:)
The flashing when it rings on silent face down is nice... but could have been done with LEDs... doesn't need a curved screen.
The battery life is the main thing i was looking for too. And it delivered... so im happy with it. But the 'curved screen' is more gimmick than anything else.
Does anyone get a lot of mileage out of the extra 'edge' functionality (the apps and notifications and launcher etc that slides in from the edge)?
Yeah, but now you have to charge and carry around 2 batteries.
I'm not even sure how you charge your battery when its not in the phone? Chargers for just your phone batteries hasn't been mainstream since the StarTAC was a big deal.
To each their own, but the idea of carrying around 2 batteries isn't making me even slightly envious of your $25 2ndary batter that 'only takes 30 seconds to replace'....If i really wanted more portable juice i'd probably carry one of those external usb battery packs to 'charge on the go'. Even that seems more convenient than whatever you must do.
The big difference is that Apple's updates don't have better than even odds of hosing your computer, unlike Microsoft who manages to brick people's computers on a routine basis.
On the other hand when apple updates to hose your computer, there is no rollback. And windows has a gazillion possible hardware configurations to cope with... Apple has tiny number.
And I've been through plenty of Apple's abortions. I had a 17" macbook pro that ran like molasses and couldn't hold a wireless connection after updating to snow leopard. As for windows update? Yeah, i've seen a few fails too. Although with 40x the marketshare who is surprised?
On ios where apple has a nice fat marketshare and only a dozen supported skus... we hear PLENTY of ios update woe.
As far as privacy goes, Apple has said repeatedly on multiple occasions that user privacy is a primary concern.
Yeah. You are right. Apple is currently better on privacy. Apple is however a hardware company that is transitioning to a services company... as that transition continues, I'm skeptical they'll hold fast.
Just to pick out a particular item you mentioned, Gatekeeper (the thing that doesn't allow you to use apps outside the app store) is a fantastic security tool.
I don't dispute that. But if Windows were to do the same hting it would not be heralded as a fantastic security tool... it would be pounced on as a deplorable act to lock people into the app store, kill steam, kill open source, etc etc. Even if it were the same exact thing.
I'm not railing against apple here, but i don't like the double standard. I think driver signing was a good move for windows. I think secure boot... despite the potential for abuse was a good move. I think UAC was a much needed move. Think curated appstores are godsend for naive users. But I worry that both Microsoft and Apple are too greedy for lockin to suffer any store but their own as soon as they can get away with it.
Apple launched ios with one app store, and hasn't budged. That should tell you where they want to be. And the only reason OSX allows anything else is it would be rejected out of hand if they didn't... but they're gradually turning the screws... they want 30% of ever sale on the desktop, they want everyone who programs to have a registered and paid for developer account... that's there clear endgame, and they are slowly but surely taking us there.
I'm not saying Microsoft is any better. I see them both inching their way there, each hungrily watching the other to see how much further they get away with pushing users into the walled garden with each step.
So, yeah, Gatekeeper is a fantastic tool right now... but since its release to today they've already steadily made it less and less 'optional'. I am far to realistic to beleive they'll allow it to be optional for one minute longer than they have to.
Now if only their hardware division would pull their thumb out...:\
Why would that same tech cost different amounts when the same chip is being used?
Why would I charge a school production a different amount to use a photo than i would a hollywood blockbuster movie?
Same reason.
This sort of licensing is REALLY common in patent licensing, especially FRAND patent licensing. It allows for all kinds of niceties -- small players with inexpensive products can afford the patents. Hobbyists who are giving away the product for free can afford the patents. And Apple with a piggy bank heading towards a trillion dollars can afford the patents.
The more you profit from the IP the more the IP costs you. But its always affordable because its a tiny slice of whatever you are charging. $5 on an 800 phone? For crucial wireless network technology that makes the thing function. QQ apple.
Apple is free to create its own wireless networking standards, roll out its own wireless networking infrastructure around the globe. And do it all without standing on the shoulders of those who came before them. Or it can pay $5 to put their $800 phone on the the netword, $2.50 to put their $400 phone on the network, and can cry themselves to sleep that someone in China selling a dumbphone for $20 is only paying 12.5 cents to put it on the network.
On the other hand, if apple wants to release a 20$ cellular device they too will only have to pay 12.5 cents. Of course, the only thing apple sells for 20$ are the USB adapters connect to their stuff. But that's not Qualcom's problem.
How long and complicated is your passphrase. A four digit pin doesn't bother me. A long multiword phrase with punctuation is a lot more painful to enter into a touchscreen keyboard over and over again.
"Man, every time I get a telegram, I have to open the envelope. Intolerable! How do people live under these brutal conditions?"
Ah I see the issue here. You get text messages as often as you get telegrams. If I had to enter my passphrase once every 3 decades it wouldn't bother me either. 200x a day gets pretty tedious -- Hell, if I had to open that many envelopes a day i'd perhaps see the value in owning a letter opener (simplifying the task); I'd also relegate all envelope opening two one or two periods a day and just slog through it... but that's not really how text messaging tends to work.
"This is false. macOS will stop you from running unsigned apps but you don't have to go through the App Store in order to do that. After all there are tons of big applications for OS X that aren't available in the App Store."
You're right of course. However, there are a ton of small and F/OSS applications that are not signed. I run into the warning dialog boxes about it all the time.
The funny thing here is that if Windows implemented a feature that required signed apps by default people would collectively lose their shit over it. Yet Apple's already done it.
And apple's been turning the screws... they've already outright removed the option to run apps from anywhere... the only choices in sierra are 'app store' or 'app store plus signed apps'. You can still run unsigned apps, but the screws are slowly being tightened.
That like jumping out of the frying pan into another frying pan. OSX and windows are just playing leapfrog with eachother.
Microsoft account to sign in... OSX had their version of that first.
All your updates in one lump instead of individual patches... OSX had it first, and doesn't even let you roll back either. full restore from backup or re-image from scratch are you options.
App store? OSX had it first; and even defaults to settings that only allow using it.
Having the local search hooked up to Bing? Another feature of OSX... that was around back in OS9 if not even earlier.
So... Microsoft has telemetry? You really trust Apple won't copy that?
They are not especially efficient or streamlined though. Which is why international crimes have to reach a much much higher bar before anyone even tries prosecuting them.
To be fair, to properly police a multinational corporation you really do need a multinational police force.
I agree that we shouldn't be looking to change the law so that the US DOJ can simply access foreign servers. But we SHOULD be strengthening the ability of inter-national police forces to prosecute cases; to streamline international discovery. While the US can't and shouldn't try to enforce laws extra-nationally -- at the same time a multinational shouldn't be immune to prosecution by virtue of being simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions.
I think the parent post is eluding to the concept of LEO interrogating people's phones for no reason which is BS. His idea of turning the phone off so that the phone requires passphrase and not just fingerprint is a good idea.
Yes, exactly. But that only works if you KNOW you are about to be interacting with LEO. In the event you are pulled over you do, but most other scenarios you don't have that kind of warning.
I mentioned theft etc because that is the other major threat to a phone. The issue for most people is that the risks to them from theft are quite different to the threats from LEO.
A fingerprint is with password on reboot is a reasonable deterrent to most theives getting at your data. but its not enough for LEO (as they to be able to compel it from you). A passphrase all the time is good enough for both LEO and Theives makes it too inconvenient to use the phone.
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I think the OP meant Brave New World.
One of the main themes of Brave New World, was indeed that you were discouraged from being alone, or thoughtful, or private (introverted). You were strongly encouraged to always be a shallow and happy, social extrovert... it was good to be 'pneumatic' (to use Huxley's word). And if you weren't pneumatic that was a problem that could get you into trouble with the authorities.
f you want to spend any time alone, or in thought, you should take a soma holiday.
"And do remember that a gramme is better than a damn."
A facebook check to cross a border, to me is very much an example of that theme; because they are literally looking to see if you are 'pneumatic'. They want to you to be little, shallow, happy, social extroverts... or you are suspicious.
And, in this case, it seems they offer exactly the same result
Yes *In this case*.
But in other cases -- such as the building it is in being destroyed in a fire or the hard drive/raid array getting fried by lighting or a power surge etc -- a simple rsync job offers an actual offsite backup copy that they can restore data from.
Its a legitimate backup strategy for a lot of use cases. In terms of risk management guarding against hardware loss or failure was historically the big one. Only recently has the 'malicious modification of files' rocketed to the top of the list both in likelihood of it happening and severity -- thanks to the rise of ransomware.
What's the point of even doing a backup if you overwrite the only copy every time?
This is among the least expensive in terms of storage and in terms of time. You can do an rsync between a local and offsite storage, get a couple redundant copies easily and simply.
It prevents against a non-malicious system failure... e.g. a hard drive going bad.
Yes, its wholly inadequate vs ransomware, or malicious file modification, or gradually failing hardware that is corrupting data.
But even so it remains one of the most common backup strategies because it is simple an inexpensive. And police IT budgets, despite their seeming propensity to buy needless military surplus, is generally very tight.
"You, sir, are an unmitigated moron."
Funny. I feel the same way about you. You are spouting absolute nonsense. We're both modded +5. Neat.
5k is irrelevant. its irrelevant today and it will still be irrelevant in 5 years. if anything, we'll move to 8k before 5k gets any real traction.
Go to Amazon. No need to carry "a bag of accessories". Just buy something like THIS, or THIS, or even THIS or THIS, and you're all set for "Legacy Ports".
Yeah... buy a laptop missing a bunch of features, and then attach another smaller box to it to make it an actual pro laptop. That's brilliant. Pro users want a workhorse like a truck and you think they should just buy a car and trailer, and that that it is just as good? You know any contractors who drive a civic and pull a trailer around? Ever wonder why not? BECAUSE THEY CAN BUY A FUCKING TRUCK.
That shit on amazon wouldn't be necessary if you could buy a proper laptop in the first place.
Once again, "My Use Case MUST be EVERYONE'S Use Case. WTF is wrong with you???
The difference between my examples and your is the users I am representing is the *actual majority of users*, and the use-cases you are campaigning for are the tiny niches. Which use case is more common?
a) A pro user who needs to attach a flash drive to their computer, or an HDMI projector in a board room?
b) A pro user who needs 5k screen and 4 4k screens all attached to his laptop; because he doesn't already have a desktop?
Catering to b) is perfectly fine, but claiming a) is not the far more common and important feature to support is just rectal cranial inversion.
If you look at the TrackPad on the MBP 2016, it is nearly the size of an iPhone screen. Next stop for that TrackPad will be to work with the Apple Pencil. Mark my words. THEN, it will make sense...
And if that happens in 2019 I'll give a shit THEN. But your wrong. Nobody wants to draw on the track pad. If anything Dell's convertibles have it right... flip it over and draw right on the goddamned screen.
This is hardly a Bugatti. This is a Laptop for PROs, that has an "Eye to the Future". But still practical today.
If it were there would not be a million articles taking a shit on it for not having the features people want TODAY.
That's why you can buy miniDP to ??? Adapters at WALMART these days, FFS!
I can buy tire irons at walmart too -- so what?
Doesn't mean my car shouldn't have one included in the tire change kit. Even my 911 has a collapsible tire change kit with everything needed to change a tire as standard equipment. Why? Because when I need to change a fucking tire i am not likely to be parked at a fucking walmwart where i can just buy a tire iron.
Likewise when I need to plug my laptop into a customers projector... that is not going to happen in the cable aisle at a walmart, where i can just reach over and grab the adapter i need. No. Instead it usually means NOT using the projector and having everyone gather around the tiny laptop, because in the real world you don't pause a meeting for 20 minutes to make a fucking trip to walmart.
And guess what? There are PLENTY of Non-Apple Laptops that have nothing but a miniDisplayPort Port. You'll be whipping out that "Bag Of Accessories" for them, too.
I can easily shop around bad design choices them when I'm buying Non-apple laptops. There are several vendors, with dozens of products lines that cater to pro-users. If apple is going to be the only vendor of OSX then it's under more pressure to get its one-size-fits-most to actually fit most.
If you are Pining for the USB-A, go to frickin' Amazon, and pick up a few of these $2.50 USB-C to USB-A adapters. They are cheap enough ($7 for 3) and small enough, that you can simply clip them onto your USB-A cables and LEAVE THEM THERE.
Yeah. I al
Yes they are.
I replied on the other thread.
1. 80 Gbps of raw, multifunctional I/O bandwidth. Nearly TWICE that of any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
If it had a port to check my car's tire pressure that would also be a feature that no other laptop has, at any price. In other words: so what?
This falls into the category of shit I don't need and can't use with any equipment i own or am likely to own this year. The multifunctional i/o bandwidth available in other laptops is fine. Apple going to 11 on this feature is all fine and dandy but it lacks the features users actually need and want.
2. 5k Internal Display on 15" model (I think the 13" is 4k?) I believe that is UNIQUE relative to any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
UNIQUE yes. UNIQUELY pointless. Its just more "Innovation" nobody cares about. Do you have 5k content? No? So who cares? At 15" will it look any better than 4k display? No? So who cares?
3. UNIQUE, Custom, Apple-Designed SSD Controller with the highest Read/Write performance in the industry.
I'd far rather a COTS module I can replace in 2 years for $200 for with a 4TB one. I'm willing to give up a few % points of performance for that. My 2011 Macbook pro is still useful to me (my family at least) because I was able to upgrade the RAM and SSD. This new one? Sure its a few points faster ... but its stupidly overrpiced for the marginal improvement in speed, and you're stuck with whatever capacity you get today forever. I don't object to the existence of this tech as an option for people who want it... but does apple give you the option? Nope. If you want an MBP you have to have this overpriced tech whether you want it or not, whether you need it or not, whether you'd be happier with COTS SSD or not.
4. Ability to natively drive up to FOUR 4k external displays, plus its internal 5k display, or up to TWO 5k external displays, plus its internal 5k display, more than any other Laptop, regardless of brand, regardless of price.
But no native ability to connect to even one HDMI projector in the customer or hotel meeting rooms without carrying a bag of accessories. Swing and a miss.
5. UNIQUE, multitouch, multifunctional Touch Bar interface, that not only replaces the Function keys, but also allows Applications and the OS to present the user with unique, custom controls that do not take up screen real-estate.
Replacing keys i can touch type with a bar i can't is not progress. It's 2 steps backward 1 step forward. Cool feature, maybe, definitely wasn't worth giving up function keys I can touch type with for, and the escape key. What's the next innovation to replace the number key row too? Then you can have numbers or even more application controls. Better still just get rid of the keyboard and staple two ipads together as the new macbook pro.
6. The largest Trackpad in the known universe ;-)
There is too small. And there is big enough. "Largest in the known universe" isn't worth anything once the others are 'big enough'.
7. TouchID, with ApplePay and App Store Support, as well as several other OS and Application-Level functions.
So, as you can see, Apple has HARDLY "abandoned the Mac".
I kind of recall Top Gear covering a lot of cars over the years that are just like the mac book pro... you know the ones... the cars with 1500 horsepower but no trunk or glove box. $50,000 for custom brake system that shaves 6 ft off a stop from 60 to 0... but well... $50,000 and when they fail you have to fly an engineer from Italy to service them. And you need a truck following you around with spare tires because it rips through a pair as often as a regular car needs to fill up with gas. A tour de force of technology... but completley useless as a daily driver.
That's the macbook pro...sure its got support for up to four 4k screens but you need to carry around a bag of dongles to attach a USB flashdrive. 80Gbps of io but we're not allowed to have more than 16GB RAM? Its utterly ridiculous.
Microsoft is only shooting itself in the foot while its opponents over at apple have somehow lodged their guns into their own rectums. Its not so much that microsoft is winning the battle, as apple is just failing worse.
Current scientific theory makes a testable prediction. So we tested it, and verified the theory held up. How is that ever a waste of time?
80 years seems like a long time searching for something
The prediction was made 80 years ago. It was tested recently.
Its not like a whole bunch of people spent every waking minute the last 80 years working a bicycle pump to get up to 10,000 atomospheres of pressure.
Both of mine did just fine with battery life over the course of a day.
Perhaps you were holding yours wrong?
If by wrong you mean "too much" then perhaps. Mine would last a day too if all I did was make a few calls and receive a few texts and check email once or twice. The S5 easily handled a day of just being 'on' just fine -- but fell over if before the day was over if i need to take a lot of calls, use the navigation, etc etc. While the S7 edge lasts a day of me me using it pretty heavily.
Humble Bundle has their own store?
https://www.humblebundle.com/a...
Not that it helps you, but yeah, it is pretty cool that it exists. Since it saves you having to sideload any of the humble mobile titles you may have, you just install and update them etc via the app.
I think you are mostly wrong about batteries though. I don't think its cheap knockoffs that were the main issue; although it IS a real issue, and one the manufacturers like to scapegoat.
But I think they took away replaceable batteries because:
- it lets you go thinner
- built in obscelesence
- cheaper
- batteries last longer than they used to, so the need to replace them has dropped off; so the market for replacements is smaller
- batteries charge faster than they used to, so the need for infrastructure for swapping batteries, and using external chargers etc, as part of regular usage has died out.
There are lots of forces at work against replaceable batteries.
That said, I don't disagree with your vent about software. A lot of the stuff in the so-called "curated" stores should be relegated to the 'bottom shelf' in the back of the store... where you have to walk past a sign that says beware of the leopard before it shows it to you.
On simply having it "in the store" gives it far more visibility and exposure than it would ever get in a real market.
Having a single curated app store is not necessarily a bad thing. Android has demonstrated quite well just how much of a clusterfuck alternative app stores can be.
Yes and no.
It also demonstrates their benefits. I currently use 3 "stores" on my android. Google's, F-Droid, and the HumbleBundle app. The lack of fdroid and the humble app are major minuses to the Apple ecosystem.
I compare it to the real world of brick and mortar. There are lots of stores -- some of them are hole in the wall fly by night, and some of them are good.
Just because you CAN go to to some no-name shithole and get totally ripped off with fake goods doesn't mean that walmart should be the only store you are allowed to shop at. That's not 'better'.
Yeah, some segment of the public is inevitably going to buy something in some shithole and walkaway with malware. But most of us don't really have that problem... most of us have figured out the benefits of dealing with reputable places in the real world.
Would you submit to only shopping at walmart for the rest of your life because some mouth-breathing idiot bought a "leather belt" made of cheap plastic at a night market that broke 20 minutes after he put it on?
I think the point is to replace the battery when it stops holding a decent charge (instead of the whole phone),
Could be. But in that case, the S5 didn't hold enough charge to get me through a day when it was brand new.
I have an S7 Edge now, and I have to say that were it not for the extended battery life, I could care less about the curved screen
Yeah... i've had mine for a year now and have only activated the extra edge functionality via the side of the screen a couple times. I don't think having the screen go up to the top would cause me any issues. I'd miss the the physical home button on the bottom though if that goes away... its nice to have some idea which way is up. :)
The flashing when it rings on silent face down is nice... but could have been done with LEDs... doesn't need a curved screen.
The battery life is the main thing i was looking for too. And it delivered... so im happy with it. But the 'curved screen' is more gimmick than anything else.
Does anyone get a lot of mileage out of the extra 'edge' functionality (the apps and notifications and launcher etc that slides in from the edge)?
Yeah, but now you have to charge and carry around 2 batteries.
I'm not even sure how you charge your battery when its not in the phone? Chargers for just your phone batteries hasn't been mainstream since the StarTAC was a big deal.
To each their own, but the idea of carrying around 2 batteries isn't making me even slightly envious of your $25 2ndary batter that 'only takes 30 seconds to replace'....If i really wanted more portable juice i'd probably carry one of those external usb battery packs to 'charge on the go'. Even that seems more convenient than whatever you must do.
Battery life on the S5 was terrible. Barely lasted me the day... often came up short.
My current S7 Edge generally goes all day just fine, sometimes I can even squeeze 2 if i forget to charge it.
My S5 got handed down to another family member as it is still working fine.
But I would never go back.
The big difference is that Apple's updates don't have better than even odds of hosing your computer, unlike Microsoft who manages to brick people's computers on a routine basis.
On the other hand when apple updates to hose your computer, there is no rollback. And windows has a gazillion possible hardware configurations to cope with... Apple has tiny number.
And I've been through plenty of Apple's abortions. I had a 17" macbook pro that ran like molasses and couldn't hold a wireless connection after updating to snow leopard. As for windows update? Yeah, i've seen a few fails too. Although with 40x the marketshare who is surprised?
On ios where apple has a nice fat marketshare and only a dozen supported skus... we hear PLENTY of ios update woe.
As far as privacy goes, Apple has said repeatedly on multiple occasions that user privacy is a primary concern.
Yeah. You are right. Apple is currently better on privacy. Apple is however a hardware company that is transitioning to a services company... as that transition continues, I'm skeptical they'll hold fast.
Just to pick out a particular item you mentioned, Gatekeeper (the thing that doesn't allow you to use apps outside the app store) is a fantastic security tool.
I don't dispute that. But if Windows were to do the same hting it would not be heralded as a fantastic security tool... it would be pounced on as a deplorable act to lock people into the app store, kill steam, kill open source, etc etc. Even if it were the same exact thing.
I'm not railing against apple here, but i don't like the double standard. I think driver signing was a good move for windows. I think secure boot ... despite the potential for abuse was a good move. I think UAC was a much needed move. Think curated appstores are godsend for naive users. But I worry that both Microsoft and Apple are too greedy for lockin to suffer any store but their own as soon as they can get away with it.
Apple launched ios with one app store, and hasn't budged. That should tell you where they want to be. And the only reason OSX allows anything else is it would be rejected out of hand if they didn't... but they're gradually turning the screws... they want 30% of ever sale on the desktop, they want everyone who programs to have a registered and paid for developer account... that's there clear endgame, and they are slowly but surely taking us there.
I'm not saying Microsoft is any better. I see them both inching their way there, each hungrily watching the other to see how much further they get away with pushing users into the walled garden with each step.
So, yeah, Gatekeeper is a fantastic tool right now... but since its release to today they've already steadily made it less and less 'optional'. I am far to realistic to beleive they'll allow it to be optional for one minute longer than they have to.
Now if only their hardware division would pull their thumb out... :\
Don't even get me started... :\
Why would that same tech cost different amounts when the same chip is being used?
Why would I charge a school production a different amount to use a photo than i would a hollywood blockbuster movie?
Same reason.
This sort of licensing is REALLY common in patent licensing, especially FRAND patent licensing. It allows for all kinds of niceties -- small players with inexpensive products can afford the patents. Hobbyists who are giving away the product for free can afford the patents. And Apple with a piggy bank heading towards a trillion dollars can afford the patents.
The more you profit from the IP the more the IP costs you. But its always affordable because its a tiny slice of whatever you are charging. $5 on an 800 phone? For crucial wireless network technology that makes the thing function. QQ apple.
Apple is free to create its own wireless networking standards, roll out its own wireless networking infrastructure around the globe. And do it all without standing on the shoulders of those who came before them. Or it can pay $5 to put their $800 phone on the the netword, $2.50 to put their $400 phone on the network, and can cry themselves to sleep that someone in China selling a dumbphone for $20 is only paying 12.5 cents to put it on the network.
On the other hand, if apple wants to release a 20$ cellular device they too will only have to pay 12.5 cents. Of course, the only thing apple sells for 20$ are the USB adapters connect to their stuff. But that's not Qualcom's problem.
It's never bothered me.
How long and complicated is your passphrase. A four digit pin doesn't bother me. A long multiword phrase with punctuation is a lot more painful to enter into a touchscreen keyboard over and over again.
"Man, every time I get a telegram, I have to open the envelope. Intolerable! How do people live under these brutal conditions?"
Ah I see the issue here. You get text messages as often as you get telegrams. If I had to enter my passphrase once every 3 decades it wouldn't bother me either. 200x a day gets pretty tedious -- Hell, if I had to open that many envelopes a day i'd perhaps see the value in owning a letter opener (simplifying the task); I'd also relegate all envelope opening two one or two periods a day and just slog through it... but that's not really how text messaging tends to work.
"You fucking liar."
Touched a nerve?
"This is false. macOS will stop you from running unsigned apps but you don't have to go through the App Store in order to do that. After all there are tons of big applications for OS X that aren't available in the App Store."
You're right of course. However, there are a ton of small and F/OSS applications that are not signed. I run into the warning dialog boxes about it all the time.
The funny thing here is that if Windows implemented a feature that required signed apps by default people would collectively lose their shit over it. Yet Apple's already done it.
And apple's been turning the screws... they've already outright removed the option to run apps from anywhere... the only choices in sierra are 'app store' or 'app store plus signed apps'. You can still run unsigned apps, but the screws are slowly being tightened.
That like jumping out of the frying pan into another frying pan. OSX and windows are just playing leapfrog with eachother.
Microsoft account to sign in... OSX had their version of that first.
All your updates in one lump instead of individual patches... OSX had it first, and doesn't even let you roll back either. full restore from backup or re-image from scratch are you options.
App store? OSX had it first; and even defaults to settings that only allow using it.
Having the local search hooked up to Bing? Another feature of OSX... that was around back in OS9 if not even earlier.
So... Microsoft has telemetry? You really trust Apple won't copy that?
There are processes in place for that already.
They are not especially efficient or streamlined though. Which is why international crimes have to reach a much much higher bar before anyone even tries prosecuting them.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post.
That's really the only right answer here. Hit them RIGHT where it hurts, and let them know WHY. I'm going to be doing this from now on.
The main trouble with chrome's sandbox is that google still sits in it.
To be fair, to properly police a multinational corporation you really do need a multinational police force.
I agree that we shouldn't be looking to change the law so that the US DOJ can simply access foreign servers. But we SHOULD be strengthening the ability of inter-national police forces to prosecute cases; to streamline international discovery. While the US can't and shouldn't try to enforce laws extra-nationally -- at the same time a multinational shouldn't be immune to prosecution by virtue of being simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions.
I think the parent post is eluding to the concept of LEO interrogating people's phones for no reason which is BS. His idea of turning the phone off so that the phone requires passphrase and not just fingerprint is a good idea.
Yes, exactly. But that only works if you KNOW you are about to be interacting with LEO. In the event you are pulled over you do, but most other scenarios you don't have that kind of warning.
I mentioned theft etc because that is the other major threat to a phone. The issue for most people is that the risks to them from theft are quite different to the threats from LEO.
A fingerprint is with password on reboot is a reasonable deterrent to most theives getting at your data. but its not enough for LEO (as they to be able to compel it from you). A passphrase all the time is good enough for both LEO and Theives makes it too inconvenient to use the phone.
That was my point.
PS eluding should be alluding