michaelmarion

Yeah, this is exactly what I was alluding to when I said "we all know what the answer is." It's the needs of the business, not customers, that are being put first.

All candidates get an equal amount — including incumbents — and no outside or personal funds are eligible for use towards a campaign.

The incumbent advantage would be negated in some part by term limits.

This would never pass muster in the context of freedom of speech.

Instead, we should just remove money from politics entirely: campaigns should be publicly financed at a fixed amount each cycle, and term limits should be set on all elected offices.

Politics should not be a career. I want a Congress that's comprised of representatives from a variety of trades and occupations: farmers, doctors, engineers, construction workers, and so on.

Representing your district or state in government should be a seen as a public service of finite length — almost akin to a tour of duty in the military.

I was thinking on this the other day, and I think what ultimately boils down to is this: there’s no “why” anymore at Apple.

Go back and watch old keynotes with Steve. Almost always, whenever he’s talking about a new feature or piece of hardware, he starts with the “why.” Not everyone will agree with the “why,” of course, but it’s still given.

Why do we want to get rid of the CD drive on MacBook Airs? (We see OTA software updates and media downloads as the way of the future and it wastes space.)

Why do we want to migrate from PowerPC to Intel? (We need better performance-per-watt so we can build MacBooks that have better battery life and don’t overheat.)

Why do we want to not have a physical keyboard on the iPhone? (Because the buttons and controls can’t self-specialize for each application.)

There are obviously exceptions to this rule, but by and large it’s fairly accurate. Now, watch the most recent keynotes. Has there been even a single second dedicated to WHY we need Apple TV+? Apple News+? Apple Arcade? Thinner keyboard mechanisms?

No, and it’s because we all know what the answer is.

This. Cable television at least has bundling economics going for it [1]. In most cases, streaming services don't. (Save, perhaps, for the forthcoming Disney+ bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu.)

[1]: http://cdixon.org/2012/07/08/how-bundling-benefits-sellers-a...

I really wish Apple would make a standalone fitness tracker. (They'd rather upsell me a Watch, but, still...)

Just give me all of the Health-related aspects of the watch without anything else. It doesn't even have to have a display — I can view Health data on my phone. I LOVE my Watch but there are circumstances where a mechanical watch is the way to go.

One could argue that the iPad is intended to do the same thing to the MacBook line. Obviously the iPhone is a bigger driver of Apple's business, which changes the circumstances somewhat.

Hey neighbor!

Agree. Other than that, I really like this as a concept and can't wait to see where it goes from here. Will be keeping an eye on this for sure.

I also bounced after step 7, but namely because I kept getting sign-in errors with the email link.

You do (1). Give me an alphabetically-ordered list of search engines and let me choose for myself. If the user takes .0001% of the responsibility here and makes anything resembling an informed decision, everyone wins — Google avoids antitrust action, the user gets the search engine they want, and all competitors are represented.

Merry Christmas, HN! This community is something I check in on every morning — I’m happy I can always find something new or interesting to learn about each time.

+1. Proximity to Duke/UNC/NCSU/WFU means there are plenty of local new grads, MBAs, and Ph.D's. Already a pipeline of foreign talent immigrating to the Research Triangle. Good weather. Beach is three hours one way and the mountains are three hours the other. Local government will throw themselves at Amazon.

Took the plunge and deactivated my Facebook and Twitter accounts over a month ago.

I haven't missed them.

"That just comes off to me as though even he didn't realize how ubiquitous phones would become, and how integral to our lives they would become, even replacing computers for so many tasks."

No one did, though. Go back and watch that keynote — there's thunderous applause for the iPod and phone portions of that sentence, and (relative) awkward silence for the "internet communicator" bit.

Reading through the Jobs biography, there's a great segment on the development of the iPod wherein Tony Fadell (I believe) details how he was coached to present the best mockups to Steve last.

Given the ordering of the three statements in that sentence you quoted, I have to imagine that someone at Apple — maybe not Steve — understood the eventual ubiquity of the smartphone.

"we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers."

Well, yeah. Money talks.