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When I was looking for the video of Ballmer laughing at the iPhone, one of the related videos highlighted him as the "world's luckiest billionaire." It shows the same chart zax posted regarding MSFT stock performance during his tenure:
It's telling that he and Gates are no longer friendly with each other last I read. Gates was apparently unhappy with the way he ran Microsoft, though I suppose it's possible they've mended fences since then.
So THIS is why GM said it will no longer support Apple CarPlay from 2026?! And build their own Android experience. Because they don't want Apple to take over all the car's screens as Apple demands it does so.
'Green bubble shaming' at play in DOJ suit against Apple
Michael Anderson, a tech consultant in San Francisco, considers himself an unapologetic Android user. It's something that would come up quite a bit in his love life.
When he was single and using dating apps, discussing the color of his messages with potential dates who had iPhones became a familiar and irksome ritual.
"We get off the app and take the big step of getting into the text messages, and the first text I would get, not all the time, but certainly numerous times was, 'Oh, your bubble,'" said 33-year-old Anderson, referring to the green bubble texts that iPhone users see when messaging his Android.
For some singles, Anderson points out, green bubbles are a deal breaker.
"I have heard of friends who actually got ghosted because of that," he said. "And you wouldn't want to go on a date with those type of people anyway, but it's really pervasive."
Anderson is now engaged. His fiancée is, despite it all, an iPhone user.
As anyone who has experienced the blue-green divide knows, the bubble culture wars involve more than just a carping over color differences.
When someone with an Android texts an iMessage user, the quality of photos and videos is shoddy; you can't do live location tracking; you can't react to texts the same way; those suspense-building bouncing ellipses indicating someone is writing do not exist; and the conversation is less secure. To top it off, green bubbles lead to mockery.
Some have dubbed this phenomenon "green bubble shaming."
And while it might seem frivolous, the bubble issue became much more serious last week, when it was cited by the Justice Department as an example of how Apple allegedly abuses its power.
DOJ says green bubbles are tied to anti-competitive behavior
U.S. authorities claim Apple deliberately makes texting on iMessage frustrating for Android users in an effort to nudge people to buy iPhones. Apple denies this claim.
The suit cited internal Apple emails showing that top executives at the company knew that allowing for seamless texting to competing devices might make consumers turn away from iPhones
An unnamed senior vice president of software engineering at Apple wrote in a 2013 email that allowing iMessage features to work for iPhone and non-Apple phones alike "would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones," according to the government's lawsuit.
Another Apple executive, according to the Justice Department, wrote that "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us."
This led the Justice Department to allege that "Apple affirmatively undermines the quality of rival smartphones," states to the suit, which adds that the popularity of iPhones was fueled not just by the quality of the product "but because it has made communicating with other smartphones worse."
Apple has lost its spot as the world’s biggest mobile phone seller after a steep sales drop as South Korean rival Samsung retook the lead in the global market share.
Global smartphone shipments increased by 8% to 289.4m units during January-March, according to research firm IDC. Samsung won a 20.8% market share, beating Apple’s 17.3% share, which has been dented by slowing sales in China.
Daily Mail : Apple Crapple reportedly canceled work on (flop) Vomit Pro 2 VR model ..................................
Daily Mail
19 June 2024
Apple 'cancels' high-end device after current model is slammed by critics
By Nikki Main Science Reporter For Dailymail.Com
Apple is famous for churning out life-changing iPhones -- but the tech giant seems to fall flat when it comes to other products.
The California-based company has reportedly canceled work on its next-generation Vision Pro due to critics slamming the current model.
Vision Pro 2 was poised to be a higher-end headset, but is now on the back burner while Apple works on a cheaper Vision Pro.
The original $3,500 headset received ample criticism earlier this year as unhappy customers rushed to return the Vision Pro complaining that the small display hurt their eyes, it was uncomfortable and the features weren't worth the hefty price tag.
Apple has suspended work on its Vision Pro 2 VR model, which was set to be unveiled next year, in favor of a cheaper alternative
Unhappy Vision Pro customers rushed to return the headset, complaining that the small display hurt their eyes, it was uncomfortable and the features weren't worth the hefty price tag
Apple initially had a sales target of three million Vision Pro headsets sold in its first year, but dropped that down to 900,000.
That is compared to the more than 200 million iPhones sold each year.
Apple is striving to create a more affordable headset for both the consumer and for production efforts, while also keeping the same high-end components from the Vision Pro, according to The Information.
Code-named N109, the cheaper headset will be ‘at least one-third lighter’ and remove some features while keeping the high-resolution display.
Apple had intended to launch both the Vision Pro 2 and N109, but ran into financial troubles -- and is now said to be ditching the pricier model.
Apple said last year that it aimed to align the N109’s price with a high-end iPhone, charging consumers between $1,500 and $2,500.
It will potentially be released in 2025 without several features, but Apple has not yet confirmed which ones will be missing from the new VR device.
The company is reportedly working with Seeya Technology, a Chinese-based company, to develop cheaper high-resolution displays.
But a person involved in its manufacturing told The Information that 'Seeya has so far struggled to meet Apple's standards and the effort might fail.'
The initial excitement surrounding the Vision Pro’s launch in February saw pre-orders sell out within 18 minutes and more than
Another user posted on X: 'Apple Vision Pro is great for some things, but there is not a single day that has gone by that I used it that it did not cause me eye strain and a headache.'
Apple has yet to put out an app that makes full use of the Vision Pro's capabilities, instead focusing on how it can insert more screens and displays into your environment.
'You kind of find yourself in this virtual environment and you're asking yourself what you're doing here,' Randy Chia, a product manager for a Los Angeles investment firm told Bloomberg.
He said the Vision Pro’s software had the most bugs of any first-generation product he’d used, adding that the ‘wow factor’ didn’t overcome the fact that ‘I’m wearing this big thing on my head.’
Many of the early reviews of the Vision Pro concluded that it was ambitious, but served little purpose. One critic described it as 'a high-tech solution in search of a problem'
Users reported the screen time lagged and it would occasionally freeze. One user said the Vision Pro’s software had the most bugs of any first-generation product he’d used, adding that the ‘wow factor’ didn’t overcome the fact that ‘I’m wearing this big thing on my head’
Yet another person compared Meta’s lighter Quest headset to the Vision Pro, saying the latter option was the worse alternative.
‘The thing is too [darn] heavy and everyone knows it, and I am used to wearing these things,’ the user told the outlet.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the company reduced its shipments by about half, decreasing from 700 to 800 units to just 400 to 450 units as its Vision Pro dropped in popularity.
‘The challenge for Vision Pro is to address the lack of key applications, price, and headset comfort without sacrificing the see-through user experience,’ Kuo wrote in an April report.
‘Apple is reviewing and adjusting its head-mounted display product roadmap, so there may be no new Vision Pro model in 2025,’ he continued.
‘Apple now expects Vision Pro shipments to decline [year-over-year] in 2025.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to Apple for comment.
6/18/24 Bloomberg : Apple Crapple / green or blue text bubbles ...............................
Bloomberg Businessweek
June 18, 2024
Green Text Bubbles Are Cool, Actually
Android phone users are beginning to embrace their outsider status on Apple’s iMessage.
By Shirin Ghaffary
When Apple Inc. launched its iMessage, it reserved the use of even some basic features for iPhone users. When communicating with iPhone users, people who use devices powered by Alphabet Inc.’s Android software still can’t view photos at their highest quality level, see the three dots meaning the other person is typing or display receipts showing that someone’s read a text. IMessage also indicates non-iPhone users by showing their messages in green, a decision many people interpret as an attempt to shame them in front of their blue-bubble peers.
Because the iPhone has been the prototypical high-end smartphone for almost two decades, the green bubble carries a certain down-market stigma. Many Android users have complained that their dating lives and relationships with family and friends have suffered because people don’t want to talk as much to someone whose texts come in green. The US Department of Justice even cited Apple’s two-tiered texting system in its antitrust lawsuit against the company, arguing that it’s harming competition by undermining the texting experience on rival phones.
But in some tech circles, green bubbles are a badge of honor. “I’m proud to be a green bubbler,” says Brendan Schachle, a 30-year-old product manager at a biotechnology company. He switched from iPhone to Android more than a decade ago because Android gave him more ways to customize his phone. “As everyone was leaning more into Apple, I decided to take a different route,” he says.
Android is open source -- anyone can download, customize and distribute its source code for free -- making it cheaper and easier for many developers to build on it. That also gives it more cachet to many in the coding community, which has the potential to be quite valuable. The founder of one tech startup recounts texting with a venture investor from an Android device and being told that seeing the green bubbles was a good sign. (The person asked not to be named because they didn’t want to reveal private discussions.)
It can also just be a sign of contrarianism, a way to show you haven’t been taken in by Apple’s marketing machine. Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs for generative AI startup Synthesia, has been involved in tech for more than 15 years. Since the dawn of the Android-versus-iPhone debate, Voica says, “there was always this perception that Android was the open platform, and therefore there was a certain level of coolness attached to it.”
This phenomenon is largely absent in countries outside the US, where the dominant texting platform is WhatsApp, which functions (and looks) basically the same for Android and iOS users. Pranay Baid, founder of startup LibGem Analytics, says he got used to Android phones because he’s from India, where “it does not make any financial sense to buy an iPhone” and the only reason to have one is “showing off status.” He enjoys using his Nothing Phone 2, which runs on Android, saying he likes the cool lights on the back. When he moved to the US, Baid refused to switch. That “makes it difficult for a group text,” he writes in a message, “but things are now improving pretty quickly.”
Apple has promised to make life easier for green bubblers sometime this year by supporting rich communication services (RCS), a new messaging standard, which will give Android users access to features such as group chats, location sharing, typing indicators and high-quality photo sharing.
Still, Apple hasn’t promised to change its social signaling: Android texts will still be green. This means iMessage users will still know who’s using an Android phone. It’s easy to see how this could stoke hostility from green bubblers. But many of them seem to harbor no resentment. “A lot of people I know are Apple enthusiasts,” Voica says, “and we’re still friends.” -- With Anne VanderMey
