charlesn

anthogag said:

iPhone Air will be better. Thinner. One camera is probably better for the thinner iPhone. 

How is is "better" to get the 16e camera on what may be a $1,000 phone? 

macgui said:

How is it that some people believe every iteration of an Apple product, particularly one that gets a new model every year, must be some groundbreaking, earth-shattering upgrade. Fkg idiots, especially when the Watch has reached the level of maturity it has. ever settled. Not the dealbreaker for me that it seems to be for others.

"People" never demanded that Apple release new Watch models every year. That's Apple's doing, and it creates the expectation that there will be significant improvements to justify the new model, otherwise why bother releasing it? Rhetorical question, of course: Apple is a for-profit, publicly owned growth company, so it needs to keep that sales train chugging ever faster. What's weird is that watches, historically speaking, have always been used long term. You didn't "upgrade" your watch annually. I still occasionally use my grandfather's Hamilton "Railway Special" pocket watch that he used as a conductor on trains during the 1940s.

What's also weird is that Apple seems fine with not upgrading some products annually--Airpods Pro 2 will be 3 years old this September, is one example--so I'm not sure why they feel the Watch needs annual new models, especially since--as we've seen--the yearly "improvements" mostly don't justify it. Breakthroughs in new types of health sensors and battery life would be exciting to see, but those aren't things that Apple can just "do," the technology needs to get there first. 

If I were Apple, I would stop numbering each new Watch model and just call them Apple Watch or the Watch Ultra (which is what Apple does for many other product lines) and release new models when there are exciting reasons to do so. These very incremental annual upgrades ultimately create the impression of a boring, unexciting product. 

I would LOVE to stop using Alexa voice control for smart home devices, but it's ubiquitous while support for Siri remains very poor. If Apple does release a HomeOS, I hope it does a MUCH better job of getting smart home device manufacturers on board to support it. Lacking that improved support, I'm not sure what the point of this exercise would be. 

sdw2001 said:

Oh, look, calling his tariffs “nonsensical” and using scare quotes.  Shocker.

Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs are nonsensical as defined by the silly and preposterous "formula" used to determine them. Honestly, the sooner the empty shelves can get here, the better, because maybe that will finally wake Americans up to the real consequences of an idiot running the country into the ground.  

For our Grifter-in-Chief who is pulling in millions from corrupt schemes to monetize his Presidency on a daily basis, Cook's measly million is small potatoes--more like one small potato--that didn't get him the exemption for Apple. The far more likely reason can be seen in the White House's off-the-rails reaction to Amazon's plans to simply make the cost of tariffs known to its customers. The White House is terrified of that. They don't want Americans to know how much Trump is costing them, how much they're paying to support his "dumbest trade war in history," as described by the Wall Street Journal. Which brings me back to Apple: the company is a cultural touchstone in America, its products are wildly successful, and if prices suddenly double or more, it will be highly visible and Americans will know exactly who to blame--and it's not Tim Cook.