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Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

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Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#281

Post by graeme »

southerndrift wrote: post #254
Skunkleton wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It _always_ depends on your threat model. Most people need protection from snooping family members, or people who find your phone if you lose it. For these use cases Face/Touch ID both work great. If you are trying to secure your data from the NSA, well you have probably already lost, but by all means, turn off Face ID.

How do you protect against family members who have enough pictures of you to create a 3D printed model of your head [1]? [1]: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hackers-trick-apple-iphone-x...

Was that ever confirmed? The article you link raises doubts about it, and I could find no followup when searching, just contemporary press.

Here's a contemporary article doubting it: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/hacke...

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#282

Post by FabHK »

jotjotzzz wrote: post #91
reacharavindh wrote: post #33

May be people are disappointed with innovation in iPhones compared to previous years' or for the last few years, but every time I use my AirPods, I can't but feel good about the innovation it took to make it as easy to use and comfortable. * If I open the case near my phone, it automatically pairs and shoes battery levels. * They sound decent for earbuds (not in-ear plugs which I hate) * Lasts reasonable amount of ti…

I'll wait until the AirPods has noise-cancelling. I can't wait until Apple enters into the NC game!

Yeah, I carry AirPods and good old Bose noise-cancelling in-ear earphones. The AirPods are convenient eg inside, but just too permeable to sound; when there is any noise around, I have to revert to the Boses.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#283

Post by eisa01 »

sangnoir wrote: post #213
elsonrodriguez wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steve once said netbooks were dead, then released a laptop in exactly that form factor (11 in MBA). Clearly there was market demand for it, and I assume their must be demand for both sizes here as well. Just a point of clarification on netbooks. Netbooks were a flop because they were bulky, slow, hard to type on, had terrible screens, and came with minuscule trackpads. The air was none of those things, and was the…

Another example was when Steve said 7-inch tablets were "too small" and you'd need to file-down your fingers to use them (not sure what you'd need to operate 3.5-inch iPhones then). He said this while Apple had the 8-inch iPad mini in development. SJ was a salesman - he'd say untrue things to make his product look good, like trash-talking 5.5-inch phones(!) and saying "no-one wants 'Hummer' phones" while - you guesse…

The iPad Mini has 4:3 screen ratio, so quite a bit larger and more useful screen than the 7" 16:9 Android tablets

Same with the netbooks, weren't those often 9" 16:9 with terrible Atom CPU and slow HD?

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#284

Post by ogn3rd »

chadash wrote: post #68
reacharavindh wrote: post #33

May be people are disappointed with innovation in iPhones compared to previous years' or for the last few years, but every time I use my AirPods, I can't but feel good about the innovation it took to make it as easy to use and comfortable. * If I open the case near my phone, it automatically pairs and shoes battery levels. * They sound decent for earbuds (not in-ear plugs which I hate) * Lasts reasonable amount of ti…

I think their biggest innovation is making devices where everything just works. Look no further than any two year old who has been exposed to an iPad to see that their interfaces are super-intuitive. Plus, unlike most manufactures, they control all the hardware plus the software, so they can make sure that the entire experience is seamless.

Man, I wish I had what you have, because it doesn't "just work". Hook us up with some of that.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#285

Post by natch »

paulcole wrote: post #259
natch wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multi-touch input was an Apple invention, and it enabled the iPhone and the iPad.

I think you'll find this isn't true. Invented in the 70s and in-use as early as 1985. But just like everything else, Apple was the game-changing commercial implementation of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch

Yes multi-touch used in the context of a smartphone, I should have said.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#286

Post by askafriend »

lh7777 wrote: post #274
askafriend wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but to anyone who's actually tried and lived with AirPods, there's no going back and there's no comparison to anything on the market at any price (even at a higher price). It's so drastically better than anything on the market, that I'll immediately buy a new pair if I lose my current ones. I wouldn't even think twice about the price. There is no other headphones on the market where I can play 1:1 basketbal…

I'd never understood the appeal of wireless headphones, and I guess I kind of do now that I have AirPods. Mine fit fine and stay in while running, but that's the only use I've found for them. Anywhere else and I'd much rather use my 15 year old Sennheiser earbuds because I have so many problems with the AirPods: * like pretty much all Apple earbuds, they don't seal to my ear so they're totally useless in loud places…

You should take them into the Apple store.

A couple of those points are not my experience at all. My audio never drops out unless I'm far out of range or in a weird weather environment and my mic quality is excellent (in fact, I take calls regularly).

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#287

Post by sbuk »

Green_man wrote: post #236
d35007 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's increasingly obvious that for everyone except osx stans, it's not the best choice available, and it hasn't been for a long time The problem with arguments like this is that they're self-reinforcing. If I try to refute it, you'll just peg me as an "osxistan" (is that a country?) and say I've proven you right.

thats a fair criticism, i'll consider rewording (stan is a reference to a superfan of eminems, from his song stan). alternatively, you could of course explain why you think apple laptops are the best choice still in 2018(if that's how you feel), its not as if i didn't have some reasoning in my comment that you are free to clash with.

It’s a pointless discussion. We’d be better off playing tic-tac-toe to decide who is “right”. What is “the best” isn’t a factual thing, it’s a preference.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#288

Post by FabHK »

pat2man wrote: post #137
Twirrim wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a reminder, that under US law, the 5th amendment only applies to passwords (what you know), and not biometrics (what you are). If you choose to use FaceID, thumbprints etc, the government can force you to unlock your device.

Another reminder, you can temporarily disable Face/Touch ID by holding the volume up and power buttons for two seconds, something you could probably do while your phone is in your pocket without anyone noticing.

I thought the short cut was hitting the power button 5 times?

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#289

Post by threeseed »

sleepybrett wrote: post #271
toasterlovin wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And TouchId. And FaceID. And Apple Watch. And Airpods. And Apple Pencil. And TrueTone. And Swift. And the new file system. Anybody who thinks Apple isn’t innovating is an ignorant jackass.

All of these things are true but none of those have even come close to the way they moved the needle with the phone/pad. Of course let's count the number of years it took them to get there from the newton. You can't just shit out a new groundbreaking ecosystem/product every year like clockwork. If you try 99% of those will be huge misses.

Apple Watch is dominating the wearables space.

And the level of sophistication and complexity in the Series 4 version is really impressive e.g. ECG, Heart Rate Monitor, Siri, Apple Pay.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#290

Post by ken »

philwelch wrote: post #161

Steve Jobs was, among many other things, both good and bad, an irreplaceable human being. The Apple that created the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone isn't coming back. That having been said, of the two post-Steve Jobs Apples that we've seen, this one is still pretty damn decent. They aren't killing the entire company by throwing all their software engineering resources at a Second System Effect technical quagmi…

> killing the entire company by throwing all their software engineering resources at a Second System Effect technical quagmire like Copland

They bought themselves out of this, of course, by buying NeXT (managed by SJ). But NeXTstep itself could have easily fallen prey to the second system effect. Was it luck or skill that saved it?

Back in 2000, SJ said that Mac OS X would set up Apple "for the next 20 years". It's 18 years later. What's next? I'm an avid Mac user but these days it pretty much just looks like a good implementation of a 1980's Unix workstation. The ways I wish it were improved are not easy to add to the current architecture. When Apple decides that it has run its course, who's going to lead the team to make its successor? There isn't another SJ startup to buy.

Then again, I don't see Microsoft or the various Linux-based groups or even DARPA taking the lead on next-generation operating system design, either. I don't think it's fair to single out Apple. The whole industry has put all its eggs in the basket of "basically a Unix workstation". That was a great design for its day but I wouldn't use it if I were starting from scratch today. Are we going to just keep adding new syscalls and userspace layers for every new idea we have? Is this the endgame for computer science?

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