Posts by Doug Petrosky 1 32 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Mar 2011
Yes, really! Is the cash in your wallet protected by encryption that makes the cash unusable to anyone else without your credentials? Apple related phone and watch theft is way down because of AppleID protection on the devices. A snatch and grab of an Apple device gives you a brick at best, or a tracking beacon at worst.
Knowledge is power!
You are an idiot.
Wanting to monitor health data is useful for most people and motivating to some, just because you don't care doesn't make not useful, and I'll match your anecdotal cash is better statement by saying paying with a watch is far faster and ultimately safer.
As for the ease of taking a quick call when your hands are otherwise occupied, it is an obvious benefit to not have to miss a call, with your attitude we should all ditch cell phones and get answering machines. I get that you were trying to be glib and cute but it came off as stupid. The whole point of smart watches is to make using a phone easier.
But it was your final statement that took the cake. Seriously? Heart problems affect millions and seeing as some of the issues can lead to death, I'd say knowing more about your heart is never a bad thing.
I probably shouldn't have started this with the idiot comment but then maybe......
I'm betting you would be impressed with the stock stopwatch on the AppleWatch and there are hundreds more to precisely meet your needs. The AppleWatch is no wall flower, it can take quite a beating and is also water resistant 50M. Sure, you have to set it on it's wireless charger nightly or every other night for some, but the benefits for many are worth it (or it wouldn't be selling this well).
Being able to glance at the watch for incoming email's, alerts, texts, and even phone calls saves dining into my pockets for my phone through out the day. Accurately monitoring my heart rate and over all movement and exercise is a helpful if not motivating tool for me and many others. Having access to make calls and respond to texts with my phone across the house or office even without cellular is very helpful. Making payments is mostly just cool, but as it becomes more common it will allow me to leave my cards behind.
Finally, access to a voice assistant for quick direction, info about opening and closing times for businesses, access to my smart home lights, locks etc and even a convent way to unlock my laptop just to name a few reasons I enjoy my watch.
Sour grapes?
4 million units @ $300+ means over $1.2 billion in a quarter. The massively successful Nintendo switch would love to see these numbers in a non-holiday quarter.
Also, a correction the "Series 1" watch came out in 2016 and is a substantial upgrade from the original watch that shipped in 2015.
1) It is true. Macs can be compromized.
2) This article is out of date and meaningless becasue Xprotect was updated 6/7 to kill these programs.
So are some mac users a bit too smug about mac vunerabilities? Sure! But can you see why? First you have to be fooled into providing your authentication password and then within days (a week before the press started trying to get click's from screaming the sky is falling). Apple quietly forces out a fix that blocks the software entirely.
We are smug because we can be.
The touch bar is expensive so why lie!
The difference in cost between touch bar enabled and non touch bar is $300. Not $300 - $400, why would you even imply that. But even $300 is a bit inaccurate because that is not all you get for your $300.
You go from 2.0Ghz to 2.9Ghz CPU
1866mhz to 2133Mhz memory
Iris 540 to iris 550 graphics
2 USB C to 4 USB C ports
Putting this in dollars and cents terms Apple charges $100 to go from 2.9 to 3.5ghz so who knows the actual cost is.
It is obvious that some non Apple users are also douche bags! But to answer your statement, many Apple users are also very technical but as the article states, home kit helps make setup of what is often a very difficult thing and making it very easy. When this works it is like magic!
I set up a Schlage lock on my phone and without any further setup, and no hubs in my house it was accessible remotely over the internet. The problem comes it when the magic doesn't work and you need to understand that the system is working though a combination of your AppleID and the appleTV or iPad in your house in range of that door lock.
A simple cable can allow access to data on flash drives so that's not a huge issue, not to mention that with services like dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive etc. Flash drives are starting to look more and more like floppy disks.
As for pretending to be a computer? It is absolutely a computer, just not a mac or windows computer. And yes the file system is intended to be simplified and connected to it's apps but again all of the web connected files and in standard file systems so maybe you need to be more specific about how this is a hindrance. Conveniences like AirDrop make it easy to pass files from one device to another and the recent updates to iOS 9 like "Shared iPad" allow for students to access all of their files easily from a simple login.
I'm not going to argue that there are no benefits to Surface tablets having access to all of the legacy software of windows but it should be stated that much of that software is frustrating to work on a small touch screen because that was not how it was designed. By comparison, the iWork suite of Applications are a joy to work with in a touch interface as are most of the applications that were designed for iPad and there are a huge number of them and the number is growing at an amazing rate. To dismiss this with "mindless games" and "youtube" is ignorance! You can check out The Elements or Human Anatomy Atlas - 3D just to name a couple great ones.
Think for a second...... Why would apple care about ad supported streaming going away? Do you think they are not smart enough to make an ad supported service of their own? Do you think they want to make iOS devices less useful or more expensive to use? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!!!
Apple is trying to enter a market with a compelling product to offer for it's iOS users because it wants to sell more iOS devices. A look at ad supported streaming shows that revenue to the music labels is 1/10 of what it is per stream vs paid subscriptions and that companies who offer these services are loosing money on ad supported streams. Then look at subscriptions on the same service and 10X the money is delivered to the industry and that segment is profitable for the streaming provider........ hmmm. Which business model should we follow?
Spotify is scared and should be. The labels have been threatening to change streaming prices for years, but without competition were unwilling. Now Apple is here and Spotify knows they are in trouble, so they are trying to get the government to protect their failed business model.
You idiot! Apple couldn't care!
Apple just wants to be the center of your music experience. They offer an ad supported service today the competes with pandora. They would be happy to offer an ad supported Spotify style service too but the industry don't want it so it will be hard for Apple to differentiate.
I have no doubt that something will come of this, but it is stupider than the ebook thing. Apple couldn't care if ebooks cost $20 or $2. They just want to provide a service that helps them sell iOS devices.
You do realize that ad supported music makes 10% of what paid music makes per stream and the labels are not happy with it. The fact that Apple choose to offer a service that the music industry likes to try to get favorable considerations from said industry is just good business. Apple is trying to enter a market that has serious competition and needs to differentiate it's services as best it can.
There is no collusion here, just a company trying to enter a crowded market by giving the industry what they wanted. I wonder how Spotify (who is who is behind all of this) would feel if Apple said...ok screw it! Here is our ad supported version!
In the end, the industry would still start windowing new releases into paid services first to encourage people to upgrade, but at least nobody would have Apple to throw under the bus.
Is this a joke? Did I not get the sarcasm?
iTunes sells Music, TV, Movies, Applications and even the occasional eBook and makes good money doing it. The AppleTV is one of the most successful streaming boxes on the market even though it is over due for an update. The Mac has outpaced the rest of the industry in like 32 of the last 33 quarters. iPods, iPads, and iPhones continue to dominate their product categories when it comes to profit.
Developers still make more money selling on iOS than Android as do advertisers so there is little concern that market share numbers will cause Apple any problems in the near future.
Speaking of the future, Apple has it's fingers in Health Care, Automotive, and point of sale. Things like CarPlay, iBeacons, HealthKit, TouchID, and others, put Apple into position to take advantage of many of these feature profitable areas.
Really?
A place so obscure that there are 5 instances of issues (and as soon as they were reported it was corrected) makes Apple maps an unmitigated failure? So 99.999999999999999999999999999232% accuracy is an unmitigated failure?
I'll let people know when it finally gives me bad directions!
This is so totally blown out of proportion!
Ok I've read enough, It's not your stupid comment that annoyed me so much as the culmination of everyone before it. I mean seriously! Apple is going to sell over 5 million of these things in the first weekend, they sold 4 million iPhone 4S's last year in the first weekend. If you visit an apple store this weekend every employee will be constantly dealing with people. There is an absolute limit to how many phones Apple can process through in a single day. AT&T and Verizon's servers will probably both come down in the process.
Accepting 2 million pre-orders, before staggering the roll out is reasonable.
As for the BS over priced bla bla bla. Stupid comment that pushed me over the edge... The samsung Galaxy S3 16GB costs $199 on AT&T, just like the iPhone 5. Difference is the iPhone 5 will prove out to be faster in CPU and GPU benchmarks and real world tests.
So, faster, thiner, lighter, with more media and applications available for it, and the number 1 rated company for customer satisfaction, service, and quality. It is little wonder that the iPhone 5 will be the hottest selling handset for the next 9+ months.
It is a big deal because it is a big deal.
DRM is a fact of life. It is on every Movie you purchase today, the only question is who's DRM is most consumer friendly. FairPlay's, 5 Registered computers and an unlimited number of iOS devices that connect to those computers and 10 direct download devices (a max of 5 of which can be computers) is still the most open system (albeit, a bit more confusing today than it once was).
I don't see Apple joining with UV but I could see the threat of UV causing Apple to license FairPlay to some TV manufactures, which would be nice (although at $99 the AppleTV is an inexpensive way to extend your iTunes world.
The sooner physical media goes away the better as far as I'm concerned.
Actually reports appear to be centered around AppleTV only. Computers, iPods, iPhones, and iPads appear to have not been affected.
Really the only major negative to fairplay is that it only runs on Windows, Mac and iOS. This is not a problem because I like the iOS, but it would be nice if Apple would make and Android app to play this content.
My point is that Fairplay in some ways allows for better sharing of licensed material than current copy-write and ULA's on optical media. Thus why it has been so hard to get people riled up against Apple and iTunes.
Short of the as you said dubious ability to RIP a DVD. (and it becomes completely un dubious once you start sharing it with others) what you describe is the ability to transfer this single use from one person to another. What I'm talking about is all 27 of those devices anywhere in the world playing that content legally at the same time. So I send the file to my brother and I never lost access to it.
As for formats 20 years from now? The odds that a future device will not support the INDUSTRY STANDARD. H.264 format of iTunes is highly unlikely. MP3 has survived longer than that and will still be going strong decades into the future. Although it is true that iTunes could fail and we could loose access to that content, past failures of other companies have shown that normally purchasers are compensated.
NOTE!! I did purchase a few shows in the early days of iTunes that were 320x240 and now those shows have been upgraded to 640x480 (for free). There is no guarantee this will happen again but it is possible at a future date that for FREE or for a nominal fee my 480p videos will be upgraded to 720p or 1080p, something that will NEVER happen with physical media copies.
At least that is how I see things.
I understand why people push back against anti-DRM statements as it relates to Apple's FairPlay. The problem with bashing on it, is that it gives a great deal of freedom and yet, the content owners appear to be willing to accept it. Now that may make it the best of the worst, but as I see it, content owners are not about to open the flood gates DRM free any time soon. And digital distribution gives benefits and freedoms that physical media doesn't.
So, till Steve Jobs can write another Open Letter to the industry (tied to a deal he had already made with one of the majors) that convinces them to drop DRM entirely. I'll stick with iTunes and FairPlay.
And I might even down vote some comments that don't take these ideas into account and simply bash on DRM without thought.
Well Apple's DRM system worked perfectly over the weekend at my home, so I'm guessing this is not as wide spread of a problem as you all might think . The web is not perfect, but even the worst reports sound like a loss of access for a day, maybe two for only some people. I wasn't about to go back to snail mail when this happened to Gmail, or Yahoo, and I'm not about to move back to physical disks because of this.
It is not like if you scratch, or loose a disk you can just have it right back the next day. But with iTunes....presto! Unobtrusive DRM is what needs to be in place at this time, to secure content deals.
What is your better alternative.
I have to play devils advocate here. I purchase the rights to a Movie and under Apple's DRM I can legally watch it on my desktop, laptop, iPad, 2 iphones, and 3 ipods, in my house. Legally! Simultaneously! But wait it gets better!
My dad, mother inlaw, and brother (in another state), can all be watching it on their authorized computer or any iOS device sync'd to that computer. So that is 5 more AppleTV's, 3 more iPads, 4 more iPhones and 4 more ipod's.
By my count that is 27 devices that can all watch the same content licensed 1 time for $15-$20, played in 2 states, 4 cities and upto 27 different locations all at once all legally. DRM maybe less than perfect but you are fighting a losing battle against Apple's Fairplay DRM because it normally just gets out of your way. This is why the iTunes store has been so successful.
Just my view
I'm not saying DVD's are useless but with external drives and Flash Drives so cheap (and so much more reliable) I'd never wast my time with one anymore unless I had to leave something behind. I think most people feel the same way.
Oh, and I have a 2TB drive with my videos that I'll upgrade to 6TB for about $240, although I did consider only going to 4TB and keeping it down to about half that.
Digital distribution of media just makes sense.
It is the Windows wonks trying to find something where nothing exists. Apple wants to encourage digital distribution because it is cheaper, so they pass along the costs associated with physical distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if the drive is an 8 GB drive and the OS is $29. Figure $20 for the drive and we are talking about a retail markup of $20 which sounds about right.
I mentioned it before but Windows 7 retail is $299 but OEM distribution is $35. So lets talk about an expensive disk/cardboard Box!
Apple encourages people to make their own flash drive for catastrophic disk failure. Apple is not imposing this on anyone. Just making it available as an option for those who want/need it.
You have all been abused by the brick and mortar so long you don't understand the cost of physical distribution anymore. The big players artificially hike up digital distribution but Apple is trying to changing all of that. Do you realize the markup most software has at BestBuy, and other distributors? Apple is selling Lion digitally for far less because it make sense to! If you assume $29 is wholesale price for the software alone and say $10 for the flash drive you are looking at a retail markup of about 60%, which is high but not so crazy.
Note: I just saw the "OEM" price for Windows 7 Pro at $35. Boxed Retail price is $299 but nobody is getting all crazy about the over priced DVD and cardboard box Microsoft ships!
Apple wasn't the first mover in the music player market ether. They waited and brought out a compelling offering that everyone could understand and enjoy. There is no reason to believe this will be any different or that they are going to have to shift directions to get there (thus causing delays). Every indication is that Apple has been gearing up for this for the past year.
1) Data center - Ready
2) VPN access for mobile me subscribers Ala Back to my mac - Check
3) Location services Ala Find my iPhone - Check
4) Sync services ala mobile me - Check
5) License deals with content providers - We will see.
The problem with believing in conspiracy is that there are no profits to protect!
The idea is that a free web app bites into apple's 30% margins, but the same thing as a free App, Apple gets 30% of nothing, which last time I looked is nothing.
I'm betting that this is a case of needing to extract the code to run standalone, and we will see performance improve with 4.3.1.
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