Disappointing New iPhones Reveal A Scared And Greedy Apple
September 14, 2017 by admin
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Did Apple change the world with the launch of the new iPhones this week? Or did Tim Cook and his team make the smallest changes possible to inch forward the capabilities of the iOS powered smartphones so the money would keep rolling in?
Let’s be clear, the triple-play of the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X are not going to be failures. I still expect Apple’s annual sales to be around the 205 to 210 million handset mark. Sales will remain steady, the faithful will upgrade for another product cycle and everyone stays quietly inside the walled garden of the Apple Store. No risks are taken, the money keeps coming in, and everything is as predictable as cherry pie. In terms of numbers, revenue, and a return for shareholders the three new iPhones are exactly what is required.
I just wish there was more vision and bravery, rather than safety-first business decisions of a company that appears to be scared to make any radical change.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre to launch the new iPhone range (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
What is genuinely new in the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus handsets? The addition of wireless charging (and the resulting use of a glass back because “physics”) is the biggest change to the iOS handsets. As regular readers of my columns will know, I’m a big believer in wireless charging and I’m glad that Apple has decided to work with the Qi standard (as well as its own ‘extension’ due in 2018). But it’s only new to iOS, smartphones running Android, Windows 10, Windows Phone and even WebOS have all been using wireless charging for years.
There are tweaks to the screen to allow true tone, new lighting effects for portrait images (they’re not filters, insisted Apple’s team from the stage), and the yearly bump up in chip speeds with the A11 ‘Bionic’ and increased storage options.
In a sense, Apple has performed the minimum viable upgrade to the iPhone 7 family with the iPhone 8. It’s enough to keep existing Apple users comfortable with rolling over their monthly payments to Apple (or their carrier) to get a slightly better handset, but there’s nothing here that will attract new consumers to the platform.
The new iPhone 8, iPhone X and iPhone 8S are displayed during an Apple special event (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Above the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple decided to bring in a new ‘Pro’ handset that is confusingly called iPhone Ten, but pronounced iPhone X. Being outside of the normal iterative handset update means Apple could set the price point where it wanted to, and chose to pass the psychological barrier of $1000 (plus tax).
On the face of it, the iPhone X is everything that the iPhone 8 updates were not. Here was the handset that had presentation time spent on it, here was the handset which was going to change the future, here was the beneficiary of Apple’s truckload of superlatives.
Yet the whole package again feels a little flat. Much has been made of the switch to an OLED screen. Yes the bezels have been shrunk by Apple, but they are not invisible by any stretch of the imagination. In percentage terms the Note 8 still has more screen on display than the iPhone X. Neither is OLED screen new technology – Apple is after all sourcing it from Samsung and the South Korean company has been happily outfitting its handsets with OLED screens at higher resolutions than Apples iPhone X for a number of years.
The user interface around the screen, from the various gestures required to the two different ways of displaying the status bar, all speak to a loss of a draconian controller over the iOS UI. It’s getting messy, haphazard, and someone needs to remind Apple of the Zen of Palm and how it is still vitally important when designing software.
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller introduces the new iPhone X during an Apple special event (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The other feature was facial recognition. Here, finally, I believe Apple has something. The new sensors that cut awkwardly into the OLED screen allow Apple to conduct a 3D topographical scan of a small area. In the first instance this is used to scan and recognize the face of the user for biometric recognition.
Looking around the internet today the utility of facial recognition is not being talked about, instead there are basic questions about the interface. Apple talked about some scenarios on stage, but ‘showing’ rather than ’telling’ would have not only answered points about hats, beards, and showing the iPhone a picture, but made for a much better presentation that instilled confidence.
The scanners can also be accessed by developers, as witnessed by the animated emoji shown on stage. With a world of rich of possibilities, Apple could have talked about greater AR experiences, about being lifted into games and digital spaces, or shown some real ‘gee whiz’ applications with real world use and practicality.
Instead Apple decided to have its audience of cheerleaders applaud an animated poop.
Just read that sentence again. Apple’s staff decided that the best use of stage time was that demo.
Apple CEO Tim Cook looks on during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on the Apple Park campus (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Apple has always talked a good game during launch events about looking towards the future, revolutionary technology and delivering unique experiences to consumers. This week was no different.
Step back from Apple’s script and it becomes a little bit easier to focus on the relative merits of Apple’s hardware compared to the leading Android handsets. Android handsets have more power, higher specifications, and have been earlier to market with new technology. On the other side of the OS argument, Apple continues to draw a benefit from being able to code the operating system to hardware in a way that is impossible with Android’s wide base of hardware support.
But Apple is not using that advantage to push the narrative forward or to change what it means to be a smartphone. It has decided to diminish the impact of AR on the smartphone and to refine the ideas of other manufacturers. It has decided to move its hardware forward by the smallest possible amount to maximise revenue and ensure that the faithful continue to upgrade their handsets and stay on the iPhone path.
Apple has decided that it does not want to define the future. Instead it is happy to make the safest of updates, roll the new iPhones in glitter and keep taking your money.
Now read more about the expensive gamble inside the iPhone 8…
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Medicare for All or State Control: Health Care Plans Go to Extremes
September 14, 2017 by admin
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“Instead of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars trying to administer an enormously complicated system of hundreds of separate insurance plans, there would be one insurance plan for the American people with one single payer,” said Mr. Sanders, the ringmaster of an event that felt like a political rally, with banners and placards, consumers and patients, labor union members, nurses in red T-shirts and an audience full of fans who applauded, whooped and hollered.
Heading in the other direction were several Republican senators, led by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who would take money spent under the Affordable Care Act and give it to states in the form of block grants.
Their proposal was the last gasp of Republican efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act. Those efforts, which seemed sure of success in January, appeared to meet a dead end on the Senate floor in late July, when Republicans could not muster even a simple majority for a repeal bill. Mr. Graham’s gathering had the feel of a health policy discussion at a conservative think tank.
While Mr. Sanders was joined by possible presidential contenders, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cassidy were accompanied by two lower-profile senators, Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Graphic
One-Third of Democratic Senators Support Bernie Sanders’s Single-Payer Plan
The ideological makeup of senators who support the health plan.
“The only thing stopping us from having this idea debated on the floor of the United States Senate is lack of leadership,” Mr. Graham said, pleading for help from President Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
An hour later Mr. Trump issued a statement saying, “I sincerely hope that Senators Graham and Cassidy have found a way to address the Obamacare crisis.’’
Under the Graham-Cassidy proposal, money would be distributed to states based on a complex formula. The regional cost of living would be one factor, but the sponsors acknowledged that higher-spending states like Massachusetts would receive less than under current law.
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The block grant would replace federal money now being spent under the Affordable Care Act for the expansion of Medicaid, for premium tax credits and for subsidies that reimburse insurers for reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income people.
The Graham-Cassidy bill would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for most Americans to have coverage and for larger employers to offer it. And it would make deep cuts in Medicaid.
But time is running out on the bill. After Sept. 30, the Graham-Cassidy legislation would lose procedural protections that allow passage in the Senate with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes often required for major legislation.
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Even with those protections, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said he had seen no evidence that the bill had the votes needed to win approval in the Senate in the next two weeks. And he noted that it had not been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office, which could take a week or two to estimate how much the bill would cost and how many people would lose or gain coverage.
Mr. Sanders said he was prepared for a long battle to establish health care as a right. (That was supposedly a goal of the Affordable Care Act.) His bill could serve as a political manifesto and a possible campaign platform for progressive candidates.
That so many Democrats are embracing it is a milestone. About 60 percent of House Democrats have endorsed a “Medicare for all” bill introduced by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan.
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Tom Brenner/The New York Times
But Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate are steering clear, saying their immediate concern is to protect coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which still faces attacks from Republicans.
Mr. Sanders’s bill would expand Medicare, one of the nation’s largest, most popular entitlement programs. The federal government would establish an annual budget for covered health care services. Medicare’s benefit package would be expanded to include coverage of dental care, vision services and hearing aids. The bill would also cover “comprehensive reproductive, maternity and newborn care, including abortion,” according to a summary prepared by Mr. Sanders’s office.
The federal government would establish a standard list of covered drugs, and the secretary of health and human services would negotiate prices with drug companies.
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Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill. He issued a list of a dozen financing options, which included higher tax rates for high-income people and “an annual 1 percent federal wealth tax on the net worth of the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. households.’’
The Sanders bill would eliminate deductibles and most other out-of-pocket costs for consumers, but the government “may impose limited co-payments for prescription drugs in order to encourage the use of lower-cost generic drugs.”
Under the bill, Medicare — now available to people 65 and older and to some younger people with disabilities — would be expanded over four years. In the first year, Medicare would be opened to children through age 18 and to adults from 55 to 64. The eligibility age would be reduced to 45 in the second year and to 35 in the third year, with “every resident of the United States” entitled to benefits in the fourth year.
That would bring huge changes to the health care system, affecting many people who are content with the coverage they have. More than 150 million people under the age of 65 have employment-based coverage. The Sanders bill would separate health insurance from employment, shrinking the role of employers and insurance companies.
Employer-sponsored plans could not duplicate benefits provided by Medicare, but could offer extra benefits.
Mr. Sanders predicted that “insurance companies, drug companies and Wall Street won’t like this legislation,” and he was right.
David Merritt, an executive vice president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobby for insurers, said: “Whether it’s called single-payer or Medicare for all, government-controlled health care cannot work. It will eliminate choice, undermine quality, put a chill on medical innovation and place an even heavier burden on hard-working taxpayers.”
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