OFF-TOPIC Thread

iPhone 7 appears to be, to me at least, a real slap in the face just to grab more cash.

Get this. No earphone jack. They don't even give you the wireless one as part of the package, just an adapter to use your plugin device. But since that uses the only port, I wonder if you can charge and listen at the same time.

The wireless buds are $159 extra. They look like the normal buds but with the wires chopped off. They look hideous and not really secure. God forbid, should you lose one....since they are not connected to each other....you have to buy another pair for $159 (didn't mention if you can only buy one).

Then the buds have a special proprietary chip, so no third party devices for awhile except for, of course, Beats which they own.

Finally the dual lens camera is only offer on the 7 Plus not the 7. Why the hell not?

Oh, they are ditching the 16GB model across all lines. Which means you pay about $100 more for 16 extra GB when 16 GB of flash in the market costs about $5 to $10. What the hell was iCloud for?

It's pretty disgusting in my mind.

 

i just buy the $25 bluetooth headphones that go around your neck
if i am talking on the phone i leave one out
if i want to hear my music they are plenty good and really stay in my ear
those i phone buds look like crap
then again i like my android

 

unless you use them side by side
then it's no contest
at least every time I compare

hate to be an Apply fanboy because they do so much that's messed up like @Gebbeth said
proprietary BS is a fools game, Sony keeps losing each time they try
but Apple? they just keep winning
because they work so well.

I'll look at Samsung and other androids again
but last time it was not close

Right about now I'd willingly trade my ancient iPhone 4
for a 6s and be happy for another decade

 

Stick with the 6s....the 7 is gonna cost money investing in a whole new ecosystem.

 

yeah 6s is the target

but a few days ago they were still some $600 or some such BS

 

You're an octogenarian before your time.

Only thing I miss about not having an iPhone is not being able to Face Time with my grandson in Ohio.

 

Try Skype....it is literally just as good. Nothing really special about Facetime unless everyone you ever know has an iPhone.

 

You're talking to an owner of a flip phone (aka a caveman). Not familar with those.

We've used Skype for years on our PCs. Great way to stay connected with loved ones across the country.

 

The fact that there's no more upgrade pricing for the iPhone is absurd to me. I'm not paying $600-$1000 for a cell phone.

 

Are any of you guys NFL Ticket subscribers?

Just played the annual game of threatening to cancel the service if they wouldn't make some sort of concession on the price, which is over $300 now. They throw out free NFL Ticket for new subscribers every year, while hiking the price to the old customers.

I've heard of customers being offered the Ticket for free, $50 off your monthly bill for a year and the Ticket at half price, among other things.

I was offered the Ticket at half price by Direct and ran with it. All these deals going around shows how much damn fat there is in the NFL Ticket deal with Direct. If my local Fox affiliate showed the Ram games (they show 49er games), I'd cancel the fucking thing.

 

Agreed.. mostly

all in all most of it's nothing but fancy ass gadgetry

Facetime is only usable with others who have iPhones. Skype works for all. Of course Skype has other bigger issues


Think Skype is safe? Think again
http://akademie.dw.de/digitalsafety/think-skype-is-safe-think-again/

"...But in this case, the news that Microsoft was even able scan the messages set off alarm bells in the internet community. This is because it proves the company can convert Skype messages into human readable form even though it has always said it can’t.

It seems Skype does have a key to your messages after all.

The conclusion: Skype “can no longer be trusted to protect user privacy,” said Eric King, head of research at human rights group, Privacy International, in the Guardian."



There's more in the link if you want to read about it.

The basic internet axiom remains
"If ANYTHING on the internet is free, then YOU and your data are the product being sold"

 

Yeah that

but also "Follow the Money"

In this case Apple spent $$$ buying Beats which just so happen to be a wireless headphone solution
A very profitable solution in a very high margin product category
unlike wired ear buds which are commodity level cheap

So Apple forces consumers into wireless headphones
of which it owns 2 of the 3 main sources
driving high margin profits to it's coffers
in addition to incremental phone sales

It's not about the customer
It's (always) about the profits

Why should Apple be different?

 

If you think Facetime doesn't enable Apple to do the same, you're mistaken. Just like Apple said they couldn't track your location jusy because you had an iPhone, and some amateur engineers proved they could. In fact tney geo-tracked themselves just by the periodic pings the phone would send through the cellular network back to Apple. Apple claimed it was just for bug fixing and problem solving use.

 

On a related unrelated note, I'm submitting my first iOS app to the Apple App Store tomorrow.

I prefer the iOS operating system over Android, but that might just be because I'm familiar with it. For anyone with a 4 thinking of upgrading to a 6, you're in for a treat. The screen size alone will be a pleasant shock. I never buy phones when they first come out, it seems like there are always problems. But as much as I want to hate Apple, their stuff just works.