sushicat's comments

Another link: https://www.siliconvalley.com/2023/04/12/pge-month-bill-jump...

PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric customers monthly bills will include a fixed charge based on income.

This is a really great article from Anandtech with benchmarks and analysis, it explained a lot of things.

> The overall performance gains are quite disappointing when you factor in the raw cost increase that comes with this new M2 and the fact that it has been nearly 2 years since the M1’s introduction.

Also the logic of article in the title is little weird to me. M1 was introduced in the same year as A14, they use the same core; while M2 uses the same core as A15, which introduced 1 year after M1. So technically M2 increased the performance by 18% in one year, not two years.

Though I'm curious why Apple didn't use A16's core in M2.

Personally, I doubt the blocking of app updates is due to failed acquisition. Yes, let’s admit the facts are Apple tried to buy FlickType, the attempt failed, FlickType is blocked from issuing updates, and Apple released keyboard for Watch 7. But let’s think from a different angle, Apple is a large corporation, all these steps were performed by different teams under different organizations.

I can image when acquisition happens, the keyboard team under software org will need to have some sort of requests to M&A(?) org, and then let them negotiate the details like price and make decisions. And app store review team is not involved in this discussion process.

For the M&A (I don’t know the actual name) org, IMO there is no incentive to block an app update due to a failed acquisition, they handle acquisitions every day and turned down offers are normal to them.

For the keyboard team, do they really want to block the app updates for a revenge? It’s possible but I think unlikely, they’re not competing with FlickType. Yes, they sherlocked the FlickType, but they don’t have the pressure to increase adoption because the native keyboard will have better experience (may not fair to developers if no API provided), and only available on watch 7.

Let’s say the keyboard team do want a revenge. Then some manager under keyboard team, which is a few levels down the tree of software org, needs to talk with another manager in app review team, which is also a few levels down of marketing org, for the blocking of updates for a specific app. Why would the manger of app review team accept such request? Imaging you’re that app store review manager, someone down the line of another org ask you to do something not only hurt the reputation of the company, but also yourself either externally or internally. Will you accept that request?

To be clear, this is my guess, and I don’t know what’s really going there, I could be wrong, and this is indeed a revenge. But my point is things may not connected as they look like.

I live in CA and have type 2 diabetes, and I need to inject insulin once per day; on average, I use 1 insulin pen per month. The cost of 5 pens box at local pharmacy is about $33. The price used to be $40+ per box two years ago and recently dropped. So the insulin cost for me is about $7 per month.

I usually only care about the “real” price, which is the price I actually paid, rather than the prices from an article.

Maybe there’s difference between a type 1 patient, but this is my personal experience.

> why the hell should Apple prevent someone from putting a counterfeit battery/screen/whatever inside of it?

You can definitely do whatever you want to the machine. And the audit prevents my parents got scammed by those individual shops. eg. Paid the price for a genius battery but got a counterfeit from China.

I remember when iOS started showing alert for non-genius battery for a while, some people hate it.

I think now you can buy Apple Care if inside one year of purchase. https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/17/apple-expanding-60-day-applec...

I agree you with this one, it's not one way is better than the other. Personally I care about the design or portability much more than the repairability; I'm totally fine with them swap the whole logic board to repair one tiny chip, or even give me a new one instead; this "reflect my budget and concerns".

The "right to repair" act seems will hurt consumers like me, which prefer a slimmer design than if it's repairable or not. How much repair does it want to push? Repair individual CPU cores?

The free market lets companies make stuff for their targeted consumer groups, which is great. Everyone has a choice, based on individual "budget and concerns".

Based on my repair experience back in China, I understand and support Apple doing this. My opinion is based on the personal experience I had before, and I support people with different opinions.

Back the days (and I still believe it's the case right now) in China there are a lot of phone repair shops ran by individuals or small businesses, and those shops are not certified by any programs, they "operate" by someone has skills to repair electronics. I was tricked by them multiple times.

The first time I was repairing my Nokia N95 with a broken screen (N95 has an exposed "soft" screen), I sent it in to one of those shops; a few hours later, I got a call with an estimated price, and I accepted. Until months later I realized the price they charged me almost doubled the price it supposed to be if I went to a Nokia office service center. I agree I had some fault on this one, but I'm not a pro-consumer that knows everything.

The second time I was repairing a SE M608. Based on the lesson from last time, I refused the price they gave to me and want to get another quote from SE certified repair center. Then the latter told me my phone's internal components was swapped and no longer the original one. I suppose that was done overnight in the repair shop after I refuse their price.

Not to mention my friend got working components in her phone "repaired".

Then I never go to independent or 3rd party repair shops anymore, no matter they're certified or not, because I don't trust them.

I know HN have lots of people know how to repair stuff or able to learn from iFixit, but that's not for everyone. I strongly support Apple put more control and audit to the IRP or ASP to make sure they don't trick their customers. On the other hand, I also think Apple should sell repair components directly on their website, so anyone can repair by themselves if they want to.

This is a fair point. Laws are different, so procedures can be different. Not to mention the city’s situation is critical - protests - violence from both side.

Following US procedures in HK does not make sense. Companies always obey local laws but not laws in another country.

If we don’t talk about zero day vulnerability, which may be used by government to spy citizens, iMessage is end to end encrypted and secure.

Chinese local chat app like WeChat, or customized Android from Xiaomi or Huawei, they have back doors, which allow Chinese gov access data directly.

Spyware from unintentional vulnerability vs. intentional back doors are different.

Taiwan and Hong Kong are totally different cases.

Taiwan is an independent country, no matter Chinese gov admits it or not. It has their own government, laws, military etc.

Hong Kong is not, it’s only a special area belonging to China. When British handed it over to China years ago, China promised the situation will not change for 50 years. Although it’s a lie, it shows that China will have full control of HK eventually.

Before you made such judgement you need to think why you have freedom of speech and privacy here, because they all protected by US laws. The companies here can do things against government for protecting users privacy and security is because laws protected them.

Also, the privacy people talked about these days is more focusing on how these data got stored and used by companies and advertisement agencies. They shouldn’t use your data for profit without appropriate consent.

All the companies here in US will follow court orders and hand over personal data when they required. In this case, no company can again the court and refuse to provide data.

Back to this case. You can assume your dats is safe here in the US, because it’s protected by the laws.