The result is intense political scrutiny of Apple and its relationship with China, the country most in Washington consider to be America’s principal rival. Cook and his company are now under intense pressure from investors and US politicians to “decouple” from China and accelerate a diversification strategy that already has some products assembled in Vietnam and India.
[...]
Cook should not be blamed by politicians for enmeshing Apple’s supply chain operations in China two decades ago, says Aaron Friedberg, author of Getting China Wrong. Washington was then encouraging companies to engage with China in the hopes that it would inculcate democratic values.
Where Cook erred, he adds, is by doubling down over the past decade despite mounting evidence that Xi was ramping up repression at home and taking a more combative stance in international affairs.
Even more importantly, I don’t want to see the kind of compromises that would be needed to make a Mac fully controllable by a touchscreen.
Why not just make all the controls bigger?! Sure, why not waste screen real estate? Why not put “Powered by M2” stickers on your Mac, too, while you’re at it? Do you even hear yourself talking, Steve?
Fast forward to today, and phones are supposed to just work. If it’s not intuitive enough to use right out of the box, some product manager is on the hot seat somewhere.
That doesn’t mean that everything is obvious, though. Take these iPhone features, for instance. They’re fun, useful, and not readily apparent unless you dig through the online user manual a bit.
My manager at the time must have noticed my anxiety around this, and he did a wonderful thing. He made the timing aspect of it super explicit for me. He would do things like give me my next task and then say “try and get this done, if at any point you have spent an hour without making any progress, come and ask for help”. Then I knew how long was too long to spin my wheels on something on my own.
There are some tasks — seemingly more prevalent than ever as of tvOS 16 — that the Apple TV expects you to do on an iOS device signed in with the same account.
My brother got his iPhone stolen at gunpoint. This is the story of how he lost control of his iCloud account first (along with years of priceless memories, including my nephew's first steps) and how this couldn't have happened without Apple's incompetent support.
Matter is a work in progress, even after years of development and a few months of open certification. The bright spot is that many companies are committing to the standard, both on the controller and device sides of the system. There may never be totally open access between every company and every device, but a lot of the walls and locks are being undone with each month that passes.
Rumors indicate there will be new Mac computers unveiled today. I can't wait.
On second thought, I can wait. It's close to my bedtime now as I type this, and I am getting sleepy. I'll see how Apple will persuade me to buy a new Mac mini tomorrow morning.
Good night, thanks for reading, and see you tomorrow.