Tag: apple

Apple e-books forced to make it rain for Amazon customers.

Well, at least make it drizzle a little: “On Wednesday, Amazon sent out another installment of payments relating to its “Apple eBooks Antitrust Settlement”—except this time, it was to settle related lawsuits brought by a group of state-level attorneys general.” I got a little bit less than eight and a half bucks, which I’m gathering is likely to be on the high side of things.  Still, it’s money in my pocket and almost enough to cover that new collection of science fiction short stories that just came out.  Who am I to argue with found money?

Continue reading Apple e-books forced to make it rain for Amazon customers.

Quote of the Day, I’m No Longer Impressed By Apple’s Battery Life, Either edition.

Ars Technica reviewed the 8 Series iPhones, and this sums up their reaction to the battery: “We tested the battery life in both the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and were not encouraged by the results.” …I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy J7 for the last week or so, having bought a sufficiently large microSD card to transfer all of my music over, and I have to say: I’m not surprised.  The extra battery life is remarkable.  Now, admittedly, I had old devices… but Glenn Reynolds has a point, here. It’s lovely that Apple products are so slim, but at this point it feels like they’re not so much ‘slim’ as they are ‘starving.’  I am holding up surprisingly well carrying around a phone that is somewhat larger than I’m used to, but able to do little things like hold a charge for more than 24 hours at a time.

Now if I can just find a reasonable alternative to the iPad…

Check me, here: this is a major ergonomic FAIL, right?

Because it looks like you literally cannot charge this wireless mouse while you’re using it.

https://twitter.com/gregvaneekhout/status/841676949684535296

So what exactly is the victory condition, here?  What is the problem with leaving the mouse plugged into the charger? – Or is it just that nobody at Apple remembers how to do this stuff, now that the Toymaker is gone?

Check your Amazon.com accounts for a settlement!

Seriously. Check here to see if you got a piece of a settlement that Apple got smacked with over e-books. Essentially, Apple colluded with most of the major print publishers to keep e-book prices up, and they got hammered in civil court over it, to the tune of four hundred million.  So if you bought e-books between 2010 and 2012, there may be some money going your way.  I certainly got a nice surprise this morning.

Via

https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/745291490268712960

Moe Lane

PS: If you do click here, and you did get some Amazon credit coming… well.

Apple submits to Chinese state censorship.

I guess that it doesn’t matter if information wants to be free, or not. If your major source for manufacturing iPads has an issue, then that’s the end of the matter: “Apple has disabled its news app in China, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation, the most recent sign of how difficult it can be for foreign companies to manage the strict rules governing media and online expression there.” For the benefit of somebody who might only be familiar with English as used by The New York Times, the phrase ‘the strict rules governing media and online expression’ is semantically equivalent to the word ‘censorship.’  The Times is using the former instead of the latter because the Times doesn’t like admitting that it’s picked the wrong side when it comes to American foreign policy.

Now, this is the part where I’m supposed to be at least mildly sympathetic that Apple had to turn off its news app in the People’s Republic of China because the alternative would be having to deal with ChiCom complaints and corporate warfare over every time Apple told its Chinese users something that the ChiComs didn’t want their subjects to hear. Alas, I’m not sympathetic to Apple at all.  This is part of the devil’s deal that the company made with the PRC in order to get a pipeline  of cheap electronics; and while I’m happy to criticize the PRC, Apple doesn’t really have that luxury. They knew what the deal was. Continue reading Apple submits to Chinese state censorship.

Tweet of the Day, Apple Kind Of LIKES Having Historically Ignorant Customers edition.

This, of course, would be huge news if it were Steam or GOG. Fortunately, it’s just the Apple Store.

The people who did Ultimate General: Gettysburg (which I have just purchased on Steam; it’s also available on GOG), one of the games that was pulled, had this to say: Continue reading Tweet of the Day, Apple Kind Of LIKES Having Historically Ignorant Customers edition.

Hi, @tim_cook. I’m abandoning iTunes EVEN AS WE SPEAK.

I’ve had it with Apple’s endless updates. I’ve had it with its increasing amount of kludges and annoyances. I’ve certainly had it with its stubborn refusal to concede that things that I buy are mine.  And, as soon as the update finishes, it will no longer be any kind of an issue.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, don’t get me wrong: it turns out that the iPad is a great device. For kids in grammar school.  But the toys started losing their luster after Steve Jobs passed.

So why isn’t Apple TV going with 4K video capacity?

Two major reasons, that I can see:

  1. Apple means it when they say that there’s currently an insufficient need for higher-capacity video streaming.  And that that capacity is unlikely to be needed before the next time that they update the Apple TV’s hardware anyway.
  2. Apple can’t actually do it.

Continue reading So why isn’t Apple TV going with 4K video capacity?

Hillary Clinton STARTED OFF as the villain. How does she plan to become the hero?

Let us address the central paradox of the Hillary Clinton campaign.  To do that, though, we must first refresh our memories.  Specifically, this ad:

Remember it? It is, of course, an edited version of the iconic Apple 1984 ad which was altered to convert it from revolutionary agitprop praising a multinational corporation to revolutionary agitprop praising an undistinguished machine politician from Chicago. And, to be fair, it was successful agitprop. We will be arguing for decades about just how Hillary Clinton managed to lose that primary fight, but she did – and videos like this probably didn’t hurt. Continue reading Hillary Clinton STARTED OFF as the villain. How does she plan to become the hero?