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With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

nytimes.com

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Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#641

Post by chimeracoder »

dragonwriter wrote: post #622
dogruck wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how the US healthcare setup is largely unchanged over many years, yet the general perception is that it's suddenly total chaos. I'm not saying the status quo is best, but we didn't suddenly plunge into a crisis.

> Strange how the US healthcare setup is largely unchanged over many years, yet the general perception is that it's suddenly total chaos. It's been horrible for a long time (and there's been outrage for a long-time: while it got derailed and we got nothing out of it but HIPAA, the bad state of healthcare and plans to reform it were central to the Clinton campaign in 1992—and while Clinton tried for a complicated sche…

> what is less commonly pointed out is that both are copies of something proposed by the insurance industry and embraced by the Republican Party as a desirable national reform direction shortly after Clinton's reform effort failed

It's less-commonly pointed out because it's not really true.

It's true that there was one bill, in 1993, that was proposed by a Republican and which happened to somewhat resemble the Affordable Care Act at a very high level. However:

a) It was proposed by a Republican senator from a very blue state (Rhode Island)

b) That Republican senator lost his next re-election bid

c) The bill never received a vote

e) The bill was only one of many GOP-sponsored healthcare bills that year

f) Conservative and moderate Republicans strongly criticized the bill

g) While it bore some resemblance to the ACA at a very high level, it was a very different bill in details and implementation, so it's misleading to suggest that supporting one and not the other would be hypocritical. There were a lot of things Democrats like about the ACA that weren't in Chafee's bill, and there are a lot of things that Republicans might like in Chafee's bill (or the ANHRA in the House) that were not present in the ACA.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#642

Post by bluthru »

mtgx wrote: post #75
bluthru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If anything there is a regression with the absence of TouchID. FaceID fulfills that role.

All face authentication schemes are a joke and can be broken soon after release. Fingerprint auth can be broken, too, but it's orders of magnitude more difficult to "clone" someone's fingerprint than it is to copy one of their pictures from the internet, or from a CCTV camera, etc. Even if the system uses infrared or 3D images or whatever, it's just a matter of developing an advanced enough algorithm to deal with tha…

>All face authentication schemes are a joke

So were fingerprint scanners before Apple's take on it.

>but it's orders of magnitude more difficult to "clone" someone's fingerprint

You can do this by taking a photo of a finger or lifting a print.

>copy one of their pictures from the internet, or from a CCTV camera, etc.

A 2d photo won't unlock FaceID. There are 3D sensors on the front for a reason.

>Even if the system uses infrared or 3D images or whatever, it's just a matter of developing an advanced enough algorithm to deal with that, which shouldn't take that long if the target market is there (hundreds of millions of iphones with such an auth system).

And you think 3D printing a skull, eyes, and possibly blood vessels is easier than copying a finger? Why do you act like you know so much about something that hasn't been tested in the wild?

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#643

Post by bluthru »

noncoml wrote: post #249
bluthru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If anything there is a regression with the absence of TouchID. FaceID fulfills that role.

Will it be as reliable and fast as TouchID?

Apple isn't going to take a step back on a $1000 phone.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#644

Post by dragonwriter »

chimeracoder wrote: post #641
dragonwriter wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strange how the US healthcare setup is largely unchanged over many years, yet the general perception is that it's suddenly total chaos. It's been horrible for a long time (and there's been outrage for a long-time: while it got derailed and we got nothing out of it but HIPAA, the bad state of healthcare and plans to reform it were central to the Clinton campaign in 1992—and while Clinton tried for a complicated sche…

> what is less commonly pointed out is that both are copies of something proposed by the insurance industry and embraced by the Republican Party as a desirable national reform direction shortly after Clinton's reform effort failed It's less-commonly pointed out because it's not really true. It's true that there was one bill, in 1993, that was proposed by a Republican and which happened to somewhat resemble the Afford…

Sure, there were a number of different subsidized-private-insurance schemes over the years (including the one briefly rhetorically embraced by George W. Bush but, again, that never went far legislatively) that differed from the ACA model in that only HDHP/HSA plans would be subsdized.

> so it's misleading to suggest that supporting one and not the other would be hypocritical

I wasn't suggesting that, I was illustrating that the perceived problem and many elements of the potential solution space have been part of the national dialogue for a long time.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#645

Post by chimeracoder »

monocasa wrote: post #619
kobeya wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You walk into an emergency room and get treated without paying a cent.

Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference.

> Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference.

No, and you don't want an emergency room treating you, because emergency physicians aren't trained to provide anything other than acute care.

That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist.

Afterwards, they'll receive a bill for a rather large amount, which the hospital doesn't expect them to actually pay (but for legal reasons is required to present them with). If they know about this, the uninsured patient can almost always get away with paying less than 5-10% of the total (initial) bill, and the hospital writes off the remainder so the bill is paid in full (ie, it does not get sent to collections). Of course, most patients don't know any of that.

The billing situation is 100% fucked, and the reasons for that are way too long to explain here, but it's not true to say that an unemployed person without insurance can't receive anything but acute care from a hospital, or that they would necessarily have to end up in debt for doing so.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#646

Post by grzm »

StreamBright wrote: post #107

1000 USD phone, still no audiophile option to listen to music. I am extremely disapointed with the direction Apple is going with all of this "we remove X because you do not need it anymore" approach.

I would argue that the 3.5mm jack is a convenience rather than an audiophile feature. Some definitely would prefer to use a wired connection without an adapter, which I can understand. In terms of audiophile quality, if one is happy listening to a digital music source (and there's plenty of debate on that), the ability to use the DAC of your choice rather than whatever is supplied by Apple in phone is a feature. That's a motivating factor in purchasing component systems rather than all-in-one devices.

The story around current DAC's isn't good and certainly can (and hopefully will!) be improved.

So, yes, the audiophile experience with an iPhone isn't great, but I'd argue that's a function of the current DAC situation (as my sibling comment points out), not the removal of the 3.5mm jack.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#647

Post by nto8e90nt3 »

dancing_shark wrote: post #635
ksec wrote: post #248

If we take a look from a Global Perspective, US has the cheapest iPhone ( All prices excluding sales Tax ), and everywhere else had it more expensive. i.e The $1K Prices may be making a big waves in US, but elsewhere in the world they have been paying that much for an iPhone already. And in terms of iPhones / Population / Apple Store, the US has it most. While in Japan 60% of the Smartphone are iPhone ( i.e Higher th…

> Around iPhone 5 Apple started to put up additional $100 USD to ALL iPhone price in HK, as a way to combat the black market trading, This post is informative, but can I suggest that we not adopt the "black market" nomenclature for cases where people buy hardware in one location, and then re-sell it? Companies like Apple may brand this a "black market", but that implies that companies have a right to perform perfect…

I would say "black market" is fair if any part of obtaining and reselling the device is illegal. For example, in the early 80s there were US tariffs on RAM chips from Japan, if I recall correctly (I might have the country wrong). But some companies found they could buy in Japan, move them to another country, and then import them into the US via this other country without the tariff. It was illegal because they were still manufactured in Japan. When the government found out, those importers got in trouble. I would count those as black market since they were being brought into the country illegally.

Is that the case we're talking about here? Buy in HK with no taxes, then sell in another country without paying the taxes? If so, that still sounds "black market" to me. I'd think you'd have to pay the taxes in the country of sale regardless of where you obtained the device. If that's not what we're talking about, then I agree it's probably not fair to label them "black market."

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#648

Post by dragonwriter »

chimeracoder wrote: post #645
monocasa wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference.

> Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference. No, and you don't want an emergency room treating you, because emergency physicians aren't trained to provide anything other than acute care. That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist. Afterwards, they'll receive…

> That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist.

No, they often won't, because while ER stabilization without regard to ability to pay is mandatory, subsequent admission and treatment is not.

If the condition is not stabilized in the ER, they may be admitted for stabilization to fulfill the mandate, but there is no mandate for admission for treatment after stabilization.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#649

Post by majewsky »

mschulze wrote: post #501
naraniano wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multi-monitor works fine. Single monitor, high DPI is very tricky, and barely works, never consistently (like, GNOME looks fine, but Firefox looks tiny). Multi-monitor, where every monitor has a different DPI value, has absolutely no support.

I am using my Dell XPS 13 with a resolution of 1920x1080 (scaled from 3200x1800) for the internal display and an external display with native 1920x1080 and cannot confirm this. It works pretty well (GNOME3, Ubuntu 17.04). Firefox is not tiny. I did not change anything in my X config files.

You mean you changed the resolution of your internal screen with xrandr? Or does xrandr still report 3200x1800? If not, then this is not a HiDPI setup. HiDPI is (basically) when applications draw using internal coordinates that are not "1 screen pixel per logical pixel", but more than that.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#650

Post by nucleardog »

khalilravanna wrote: post #567
grecy wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US has the cheapest iPhone It is interesting to note among Developed countries, the US has the cheapest everything . Cars, computers, building materials, clothes, TVs. You name it, it is cheapest in the USA. It is interesting to note this is because people in the US have much less disposable income than people in other developed countries. Companies can charge higher prices in other developed countries because peop…

"It is interesting to note this is because people in the US have much less disposable income than people in other developed countries." Is this a commonly known thing? First I've heard it. I would have figured it would be the opposite given our overall tax rate compared to somewhere like Sweden is infinitesimally smaller. Can you point to some analysis/citations for this? It does seem to make sense in my mind as, ane…

The tax rate is lower, but the places charging those taxes do generally use them for providing public services that individuals would be paying for directly or indirectly, so that likely offsets part of it.

Past there, I'd suspect that it comes down to society as a whole having a more positive outcome, while individuals potentially having slightly worse outcomes. If we lower everyone's income in taxes but reinvest that money in healthcare and mental health services, quality education, etc, then we lift a lot of unproductive members of society up and have them all producing for us as well. The middle class may earn slightly less, but we can basically chop the lower classes/poverty stricken individuals right out of the equation - Sweden has 1% of the population below the poverty line, while the US has 15% - that's going to skew the average upward quite a bit.

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