OS updates are free. The basic version of iCloud is free. "Find My iPhone" is free. Apple Maps is free. The App Store is free. Hell, CarPlay is free on the Apple end of things; it's some car manufacturers who've been charging for it.
"Public will buy into it because the cost of the car is significantly less than their competition."
Are we talking about a different Apple entirely?
Apple conveniently disallows people from making local backups encrypted with your own key, which means in reality you need to pay a monthly fee to store them on iCloud.
If I wanted to back up into iCloud I would have to pay, which is fair. Instead, I'm using my own hard drive.
There’s Time Machine:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keep-your-time-mach...
Or you can run any number of third party backup software.
I would not trust Apple with all my data, which is essentially what you're doing if they have the key.
Can you do a full-disk encrypted backup of your drive using only your own keys and not sending any data back to Apple?
If you can, then I'm wrong. But "outright lie" is an uncharitable interpretation of my error.
Lol, downvoted with no answers. Apple victims are a thin-skinned bunch.
I think it's best not to say something is a "lie" unless you have a strong basis for it, let alone asserting it is a "outright lie".
A lie is an intentionally false statement. It involves an intention to deceive. It's highly unlikely that someone on Hacker News would set out to intentionally mislead people who are familiar with the subject-matter and who know how to fact check.
At best they are "wrong", "misinformed" or "mistaken". Although, as said in the first paragraph, I suspect you're actually at cross-purposes with each other.
I don’t see much difference between “confidently stated but provably wrong in seconds via Google” and a lie.
And there is a significant difference between offering an ill-informed opinion and lying. One can be reckless or negligent, but not a liar. To be a liar, they need to positively know they are wrong but post it anyway.
I was hoping you'd say it was simply used for rhetorical effect. I must say, I'm a little disappointed you're maintaining your position. Sometimes, it's best just to assume good faith.
Like I said, others had already covered the iOS side of things.
There are no Apple devices for which the statement is true, and the certainty of "Apple conveniently disallows people from making local backups encrypted with your own key" makes me quite comfortable considering it to be a dishonest statement rather than merely ignorant.
Similar to "vaccines don't work"; whether it's out of ignorance or maliciousness, it's a lie.
(Further complicating matters: telling lies even results in believing them to be truthful over time; it's still a lie! https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2018/november/lying-old-gutches...)
https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/20/apple-statement-iphone-perfor...
> Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.
They fucked up not notifying people when it's happening, but technologically the feature itself is entirely the right call. (You can also turn it off, and accept that it'll just die randomly if you do something CPU intensive in the cold.)
Regardless of which setting you choose, there's hardly a monthly fee for it.
Your comment is completely ignorant.
The behavior they implemented was definitely the right call. And it's still there in other situations - if I have disregarded the "10% battery warning" I'll often notice my device being sluggish at 1%, at which point I'll plug in if I can. The alternative would be for the device to have less runtime, and I'm ok with the implementation.
Had they warned they were doing this, then customers would replace the battery in most cases.
By and large, Apple does NOT do what you are suggesting. As far back as my old iPod touch they released an iOS version that supported wallpapers. It didn't support my device. I thought they were trying to force me to upgrade, so I jailbroke it and enabled the feature anyway. Guess what, the GPU was not enough to display wallpapers, and the home screen had a bad framerate. Rather than giving the subpar experience, they disabled the feature. They could have also simply marked the device as unsupported. iOS (and OSX) updates work on a surprising number of old devices. For many releases, every new OSX release would bring performance enhancements.
There's plenty to complain about Apple - their profit margins are huge, the devices are difficult (in some cases, borderline impossible) to repair, the App Store situation, etc. But making devices obsolete with updates is not what they do.
Serious question, I don’t know, I only use Apple Maps for satellite since it doesn’t do transit where I live. But the quality level definitely feels like an “eat what you kill” product without much food, as opposed to a loss leader for the Apple brand.
And I'm not talking about the accessories that have enough active electronics to possibly justify it (pencil, or airpods), but things like cases, wheels, stands, dongles, etc.
Apple accessories very much are trying to nickel and dime people (on top of hardware that is already quite expensive), so it is unsurprising that people would (mistakenly) assume that Apple would try to do the same with digital subscriptions.
Now the lightning adapters I agree on. Those were absurd. But now they have USB-C on most of their products and they have dropped the cost of adapters quite a lot. The USB-C to AUX adapter contains a full DAC which is tested to be one of the best you can get, and it costs $9.
Add on people across the spectrum may buy expensive-ish or expensive hardware, but cheap out on [any] digital purchases or subscriptions.
All of this makes the reason to assume appear to be because of bias and disliking of the brand.
That's not it at all. At least not for me.
I'm a "free as in freedom" rather than "free as in beer" kinda guy.
And that's why I won't touch Apple gear. Heck, I don't even like beer.
But I really didn't experience that at all. Outside of Apple Music and Apple Arcade (both of which are optional and neither of which I use/pay for) what exactly are the ongoing costs for most Apple hardware? Yes you have to buy some of the software, but that's true of basically every operating system; my 2014 Macbook still gets free updates as of about 8 months ago (I haven't checked since then since I gave it to my sister in law).
In fact I actually have found that Apple-centric apps seem to give me more options in which to pay for them outright instead of ongoing costs. Most of the the Omnigroup's software has a "just buy it once and you're done" feature, unlike something like, for example Microsoft Office.
There are many reasons it's done this way, but I can see the reasons people might compare it to being turned upside down and shaken for loose change like a piggy bank.
How?
Licensing music requires ongoing payments from Apple to music owners.
iCloud requires Apple to maintain data centers and bandwidth.
TV+ requires ongoing investment into creation of new video productions.
News+ is similar to music, Apple has ongoing costs to pay the owner of the journalism.
Games also gets new games all the time, so presumably there are ongoing expenses there also.
And fitness+ might be one where there is less need for ongoing expenses, but they do seem to be adding content regularly.
However if this is an extension of the original argument for why it makes sense to assume Apple is Nickle and diming over priced digital services. It doesn’t fit.
I don’t see how people can compare this to being turned upside down like you say unless they are claiming that for every major tech company. At which point Apple has little to do with it. Otherwise I don’t see how that thinking can be for any reason other than strong to extreme bias against Apple specifically.
I don’t recall being upsold applecare+ before. Maybe it’s a pretty small part of the online checkout process and I haven’t noticed it? I’m sure it happens. A family member and a friend have asked about it because they were being unsold. Still, this isn’t like some of the infamous upselling industries and niches.
I think the upgrade prices are reasonable, $1/month for 50GB and $3/month for 200GB, but I can see characterizing that as nickel and diming. They should have bumped up the 5 GB base plan years ago.
$3/month for 200Gb is reasonable in your opinion, but people who don't buy Apple can buy a 2T drive for $50.
[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/back-up-iphone-iph3ec...
I'm not all over the details because there were so many reasons for me not to go Apple that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
As far as comparing prices, yes, a bare hard drive is cheaper but I'm paying for that storage with services and backups attached to it. A hard drive won't automatically sync photos between my phone and my computer, and I'm more likely to have that hard drive fail than I am to lose iCloud.
Replacing iCloud storage with a big hard drive is a bit like replacing a car with a motorcycle. Yeah you can buy way more acceleration for less money, but good luck moving your furniture.
What you lose in convenience, you gain in privacy, since iCloud backups are not e2e encrypted.
https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/blog/post/iphone-backup-icloud...
Wow I have NO IDEA how anyone managed the jump from this story about Toyota to a totally imaginary anti-Apple rant.
Writing this on a 2013 Apple iPad Air that has not cost me a single cent to use every day for the last 8 years.
Because Apple are the nickel-and-dime masters.
From removing headphone sockets in order to sell stupidly expensive wireless headphones, to stupidly overpriced soldered memory and storage upgrades, to the 30% appstore fee scam, to disallowing local backups to promote their iCloud storage racket, to unrepairable devices where you can't even replace a battery, to keyboards that need motherboard replacement to replace a key, to disallowing WebGPU so victims can't play online games instead of the games they take their 30% cut from, to proprietary connectors that they abandon a year later, to iPhone displays that can't even be replaced with another legitimate iPhone display, they do everything in their power to lock-in and bleed their victims dry.
Literally everything they do is a scam to nickel-and-dime their victims.
Every item they sell has all these arbitrary limitations just so they can take a cut.
They are usually the first to do every terrible consumer-hostile action because their victims are locked-in suckers with Stockholm syndrome whose devices don't work with any other companies devices or accessories.
And then other companies see their success and copy them.
So naturally any conversation about companies being assholes will skew towards discussing Apple, because they are the biggest and most successful assholes.
The removal of the headphone socket, from their perspective, was to move people to wireless headphones. Yes, it was a move everyone hated, but it didn't drive people across to Google/Samsung.
The 30% app store fee is a problem for the developers, not the consumers.
I can make local backups of my iPhone still. I don't have to use iCloud.
Unrepairable devices where you can't even replace a battery (I assume you mean iPhones) is to reduce their manufacturing cost and to make the device more reliable. Same nonsense about the displays. The displays include the facetime cameras and infrastructure, which is intimately tied to the security enclave. Having those two bound together makes the device more secure.
Should they offer the software to every 3rd party repairer? No. Should they make it available along with spares and an online service to bind the two elements? Yes. That way, the service can be done by a 3rd party, but the security remains with Apple. I don't want people to be able to hack the facetime/SE.
Calling disallowing WebGPU as somehow creating "victims" is nonsense.
Apple produces products that people like and pay for. I have a 2014 laptop that still gets (free) upgrades, I have a 2019 iMac that has the best display ever released in consumer desktops. It also allowed me to upgrade the memory. I have an iPhone 12 mini that is great, my iPhone SE is a great remote control and Siri interface and also still gets upgrades.
Will I be able to upgrade RAM in an Mx series Apple product? No, because the memory is built into the SOC. Will Apple overcharge on that RAM? Probably. But on the other hand, having the RAM available to both CPUs and GPUs directly is obviously more efficient in both power and performance that it's worth it.
Will I pay that "tax" to get everything else that comes with the product? Yes. It's worth it in the longer term of a 5 year life of an Apple product.
Like Epic? No Fortnite on iOS. Tell me how all of that is not bad for consumers.
>The removal of the headphone socket, from their perspective, was to move people to wireless headphones.
Which only serves Apple's interests. There is zero reason they couldn't have a headphone socket in addition to wireless. If their wireless was so compelling people would happily switch without these artificial self-serving incentives.
Samsung S10 5G has headphone socket, is waterproof and is 7.9mm thick vs iPhone 13 which is 7.7mm. That was just the first phone I could find, there's probably thinner ones with headphone sockets. So the thickness argument is ridiculous.
>Unrepairable devices where you can't even replace a battery (I assume you mean iPhones) is to reduce their manufacturing cost and to make the device more reliable.
5c for a connector on such an expensive phone? And no, it's their laptops as well, because Apple. Only serves Apple's interests, of course.
> Same nonsense about the displays. The displays include the facetime cameras and infrastructure, which is intimately tied to the security enclave. Having those two bound together makes the device more secure.
Untrue and only serves Apple's interests. Security theater and, you guessed it, only serves Apple's interests.
>Calling disallowing WebGPU as somehow creating "victims" is nonsense.
Untrue and only serves Apple's interests. Apple products are crippled and have so many arbitrary limitations that always conveniently serve Apple's interests.
You have drunk gallons of the kool aid.
$210 after shipping for navigation updates in a GM vehicle. Welcome to the future!
https://gmnavdisc.navigation.com/product/Catalog/Catalog_Che...
We just don't build new roads in North America.
The Apple car is electric, with two charging point, the batteries last a long time but the special Apple charge connection hub costs $1199, there is a part of it that is really smartly designed but somehow also more fragile than you would expect and as a consequence you replace these one per year because it breaks beyond repair.
The first year you replace it fine, and the cost is actually down to $1099.
The second year the old model is no longer available but the new model that will work with your car and the newer Apple cars both also will work to charge any apple device if you lay it on the Apple car dashboard while charging with the new model charger. It's some sort of clever design innovation that you're not sure why it couldn't work without the new charger but ok, anyway the new charger costs $1330.
You have 3 forms of heated seat pads, these are the simple at 199, the integrated at 499 that has a dedicated app to monitor optimal healthy sitting posture and maintain vitals connection to your Apple Watch, and the Pro at 1100 that allows you handle racing speed Gs.
You need to have the Pro to unlock the Racing Speed Gs because of safety features that would kick in without the Pro helping to handle that speed.
In the end of year 3 the next level Pro brings in massage capabilities at 1400, but you find that it uses up too much battery requiring more and longer charging unless you update to the new Charger Pro which costs also 1400.
Want Apple debug data for your car, you get extra data on your Apple iCloud, but not enough to actually make it usable in fact basically the car uses up the data you had so quickly that you have to pay for iCloud+ Andretti, which gives you a basic 3 TB storage, and a revolving time series data for car usage that can be used for diagnostics etc. $15 a month.
The Car camera array is really sweet but you find that road trip you made to the keys maxed out your iCloud, so you opt in for the iCloud+ Trixie account $20 dollars a month but with 7 TB, you figure that will probably last.
Most of the apps for the car are free, if you call advertising supported apps free, but there are a few ones you find essential that you pay for of course.
One of them is the top notch autonomous driving app AutoDRave which costs a basic $120 but if you want the continually updated road conditions and newest ML edge case determination routines you should really pay for the $25 a month subscription.
I think we all get the picture here....
There are two types of product in the computing world: shameless ripoffs of Apple products and rough prototypes for some future Apple product.
Guess this would make the Model T the "rough prototype" for the Apple Car...
Ford even used to make Apple-like demands of his supply chain. He insisted that parts be shipped in crates conforming to specific, peculiar dimensions. The suppliers were baffled by the request -- why those dimensions? Until a supplier representative looked down at the floor of a Model T one day... the crates had been broken down to form floorboards for the car.
That said, if Apple did bring some of these features to market at that price, they'd be doing considerably better than some of their competition. Tesla's Full Self Driving is locked behind a $10,000 cost or a $199 monthly subscription. You'd have to subscribe to your speculated service for 42 years before it cost more than that getting the upgrade on Tesla you had 4 decades ago.
The engine wouldn't be bolted in, everything would be welded into place. Parts to repair it would not be accessible, except at Apple dealerships. If it doesn't start, you could expect to replace the Main Driving Unit at a price roughly 90% of buying a new one.* The entire car would have tamper sensors. Also, they would make the car one inch shorter every year.
I can't imagine Apple as a car company.
* Seriously, the main logic board seems to always be the culprit and the replacement cost is up there with a new item.
Some other problems from their obsession with thin. Broken keyboards for multiple years. And that's moving from already bad chiclet keyboards into broken keyboards.
There was also a couple year period when ethernet ports were on the corners and it seemed everyone had their macbook dented right at the ethernet port. It could have been reinforced at that point along the edge, but they have to aggressively bevel those edges for the marketing glamour shots that make them look impossibly thin.
Oh, speaking of the beveled edges, the early airs and ipads were rounded so far toward the center that if you placed them on a table, and pressed near the edge with any force at all it would flip the far side of the device off the table. A real problem for an ipad which is a touchscreen and for anyone who touches their palms to their keyboard while typing.
Those are problems from making things minimally thin, or worse, making them appear thinner than they are. I don't expect them to actually make cars one inch shorter every year. I do expect them to have some weird obsession that they will tout as the best thing ever and min/max it to death.
Not at the cost of repairability and reliability they don't.
In my dell XPS, friends lebovo, etc. I can replace battery, ssd, or any other part with just a screwdriver.
Surely you meant 4.2 years? 10000/199/12 = 4.18760469012 (years).
That's not the Apple Way. Cost will be significantly higher than the competition, but it comes with a shiny, large apple on the engine hatch, and celebrities will make it a lifestyle choice product. Having an AppleCar will be the economically and technologically inferior, but socially "more acceptable" option.
And by then, people will have conveniently forgot normal gas stations/electric chargers won't work - gotta get to the premium-priced Apple fuel stations with the proprietary gas pumps/electric connectors. Users will eventually believe those are better quality, too, and when Apple finally is forced to adapt back to standards by legislative bodies, they will sell this as a "huge innovation".
The people that currently have "Apple fuel stations" is Tesla. So I'm not sure why you're blaming Apple for something that already exists.
The ethics problem here isn't the subscription at all, it's with the clear and good faith communication of what the product is to which the user is subscribing.
In this particular case, it seems like the Toyota Remote Connect service was sold and marketed as a phone app, but when terminated it also removes the capability of remote starting the car over local radio (probably bluetooth I guess) from the key fob, which no one seems to have known was part of the product in the first place. That's bad, if so.
(But to be fair, a better article would track down some Toyota owners for quotes about what they were told, and maybe a copy of the original license agreement. This coverage from Ars is IMHO a little weak.)
It's already available monthly ($199/mo), thankfully there's the one time purchase option still though ($10,000).
> Public will buy into it because the cost of the car is significantly less than their competition
- Want heated seats? $1/month
- Want remote lock/unlock? $2/month
- Want to remove rate limiting? $5/month
- Want GPS in your car? $10/month
- Want to use your "frunk"? $10/month
- Want Apple CarPlay? $15/month
- Want to activate heads up display (windshield)? $5/month
- Want autonomous driving? $20/month
- Want to update your car's computer? $199 per update
- ...
- Want all the features in your car? "low cost" of $49.99 per month (bundled)
Apple will be seen as a visionary for optimizing the car manufacturing process (no more designing for multiple types of configuration types, can buy all parts in bulk, ...). Public will buy into it because the cost of the car is significantly less than their competition. But the true cost of ownership (will all features activated) is actually equivalent to the cost of their competition.
Don't forget to buy an Apple Car Care+ warranty ("only $4999.99, will be included if you finance with Apple Card")!