How can you make a computer or smartphone that's distinct from the competition? These are commodity appliances built to a price point with some graphic design slapped on top to pretty it up.
Apple isn't really an innovator, at least in the sense of delivering "new" things. Their success is in assessing a market and refining products for consumer adoption.
Mac wasn't the first personal computer but it was well-suited for the mass market, not just "computer people". iPod wasn't the first mp3 player but the first that was easy for regular folks to use. iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, but the first one that people actually wanted.
I think you're exhibiting a bunch of bias. The world's largest ad company purchasing a smartphone operating system to continue to collect information on their users to continue powering their ad network?
Apple technology is not "reality tv". Their target market is all consumers of technology. There are countless very informed users that prefer Apple (admitingly more are moving to Linux due to it being a stronger platform for agentic development).
If your single issue when making decisions is open vs closed ecosystems, sure, avoid Apple, but to call anyone that treats their technology use with more nuanced as "uninformed" is incorrect at best, and offensive at worst.
There is quite a leap from entertainment viewing choices to device gadget selection. It seems like a straw man to beat down and argue. My question is why? Why attached identity behind gadget choice? It is all marketing by large corporations in the end.
I think you're right, though you're talking about an old era, where the iPhone was truly revolutionary, but how do you think the Duo is different from the other folds now?
the first iPhone was years ahead of its time, but the first Apple foldable is arguably the exact same (if not inferior) to the competition, with the exception of the good user experience we're used to from Apple
Based on the marketing materials, the Duo is different from other folds because:
- Runs iOS with lots(?) of attention to UI
- Won't break from a piece of dust
- IP68 rated
- Will actually receive software updates unlike many Android devices
et cetera et cetera
> the first iPhone was years ahead of its time
Not really, not if you were paying attention to the market at the time. It was the first smartphone to put everything in a cohesive package instead of being a weird little computer that could make phone calls, but technologically it was comparable to features that already existed when it released. The real innovation was in UI and product design.
Depends on whether the costs they have are inflated ten-fold due to hardware shortages.
Ignoring current state of shortages, the interesting part (for me at least) is how much a SOTA token costs on current hardware if you exclude the costs for paying for current TSMC shortage and without factoring in the cost of new datacenters being rushed and renting hardware from your competitors (who are also supply limited).
The "actual" cost is of course also relevant and interesting but it is another thing entirely.
Have they actually announced that they're charging less than the marginal cost of inference, or that the revenue they're taking in doesn't make up for the cost of training each newer and better model?
The former does not pass the smell test when there are random providers selling tokens for competitive open weight models.
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