Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
Albeit rare, triple compound words are nonetheless commonly used and recognized in English. Many of them sound formal and archaic but they are nevertheless still in common usage nowadays, not merely a relic of the days of highwaymen and crossbowmen. The archaic examples heretofore used notwithstanding, it would be false to claim that there are no triple compound words whatsoever.
(Inasmuch as I've made my point, I will spare you any further woebegone prose.)
Or you end up with companies (like Wal-mart) that decide that they don’t want to accept Apple Pay and become payment processors themselves, requiring you to install their app to do phone/watch payments. Congrats, you now need a whole boquet of payment apps and we’re back to it being easier to use physical credit cards. For some of these things, the consolidation was the whole point.
Since Walmart keeps popping up in other comments, I'll do devil's advocate using the exact same argument other people used:
If you don't want to buy on Walmart and their custom payment system, then just go to a competitor.
With that said: this is an unrealistic scenario. Walmart doesn't pay the famous 30% to ApplePay, only a regular CC-like fee (probably less). Also, physically they can just accept contact payments where they don't interact with Apple but it still works with the iPhone wallet. Online, they can just use credit cards instead of ApplePay, which iPhones have autofill for, and probably not lose much.
That only works if competitors aren’t doing the same exact thing.
There’s also situations where you don’t have a choice. In many parts of the US the only reasonably accessible store (and sometimes grocery store) is a Walmart.
HN's time-honored scapegoat. "Corporations can't be trusted - that's why I trust Apple to fight them" is a ridiculous pretense to support consolidation. If Apple uses their de-facto position of privilege to demand people use their products as a solution, then they have become the problem. The exact same problem as Wal-mart insisting you download their wallet app.
There is a real solution to this, where we codify our social limits through legislation and open standards to prevent these horrible "leopards ate my face" scenarios that everyone seems to hate so much. Or we could keep trusting Apple, and see how many F1 advertisements that nets us in the long-run.
Legislation would be better, no question. Have you seen US politics, though? Not just lately, but for the past couple of decades. Electing knowledgable politicians who are willing to stay properly abreast of technology and work for the interests of their constituents is nigh impossible.
The ones that get into office are most often out of touch and in someone’s pocket because they grandstand on polarizing topics that information-deficient and single-issue voters flock to. I try to vote for candidates who I think will do good that way, and it makes some impact on the micro scale, but on the national scale it’s like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a thimble.
Are you now going to argue that Tim Cook is a really nice guy who practices genuinely principled leadership? I hope not, he's only there to convert your loyalty to something more liquid and fungible.
Nope, it’s clear he does what he thinks is best for the company and its shareholders. Companies aren’t your friend. Even without that, the US political system is broken and the alternatives have their own glaring issues that either lie in the blind spots of or are actively ignored by their proponents.
Conversely, we can _not_ open up our bootloaders in Android because banking apps then refuse to run on an "insecure" OS. Of course we'd have to put aside the fact that our computers can access the same banking features through a web browser.
Exactly. Jailbreaking is WAI for the folks who want the “Android experience” on an iPhone. Much of this drama is merely corporations vying to “get theirs” from the ecosystem, without understanding that the extant nature of the ecosystem is why it is the most valuable platform by user spend (that is to say, they care little for the consumer).
Shouting "monopoly" from the rooftops is not enough to affect real change. If I wish not to pay property taxes, my options include moving to another state, but courts do not recognize a general right to challenge tax liability on the grounds of personal preference or disagreement with taxation. Perhaps it's worth sparing a thought as to why, and who ultimately empowered that stance.
Plus, this is often the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought, sometimes from companies engaging in anticompetitive practices themselves (like Epic Games).
I'm all for corporations "trying to get theirs" if it benefits the rest of society.
iPhones are a premium product and they don't have a natural right to 30% of transactions going through it if the participants don't want Apple to know about it.
> It’s the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought
That describes what you and _benton are advocating. "If I can't have the phone be the way I want, no one can".
That's exactly backwards. I have no desire to limit the types of phones you can purchase, and you have an enormous amount of choices in phones outside Apple that provide essentially the same functionality, and can be as open as you wish. You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone, and third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
How about people who want a Mac (which is still "open" to the extent that it makes a difference), and therefore would also like an iPhone because of the propitiatory APIs Apple makes available solely to the iPhone?
I don't particularly like my iPhone, in fact I see as a worse device in many ways to my old Android phone, but the interoperability with my Mac makes the trade-off worth it. So ironically, the only reason I want it is because of even _more_ anticompetitive practices.
And yes, the day the Mac is as closed off as the iPhone, there will be zero Apple devices in this house.
> You wish to limit my ability to access a device that I want. I want a locked down phone
As others have repeatedly said, you can still opt to not use any other kind of app from outside the AppStore.
But as I asked on another thread, as a thought experiment: What about we meet in the middle and governments force Apple to only "open" 50% of the phones, for the same price. Would that satisfy you?
> third parties wish to intervene on a transaction between me and Apple so they can illegitimately get a piece of the pie.
It's actually Apple that wants to intervene in transactions where I don't want them to be a part of. I don't want to pay 10 euros and give 3 to them.
Never seen WAI before, all I can come up with is Works As Intended or Web Accessibility Initiative?
Anyways- jail breaking requires being or remaining on certain iOS versions on certain specific hardware models. You can’t “just jailbreak” your apple device that you daily drive/use regularly. If you’re not on an old version on the right hardware already, you’re fucked. And waiting for a new jailbreak exploit is a (anecdotally, for me at least) nondeterministic amount of time on the order of O(years), with a significant probability that it will not be relevant for whatever device you’re waiting on.
> I go to local farmer's markets. There are signs everywhere, "No Pets". No one is obeying this law. Literally no one. WTF do they have the signs? All non-enforcement does is bread contempt for laws in general. Either enforce it or remove the signs.
Is that a law, or just a rule from the farmer's market?
> I was rather surprised about 12 years ago when we were looking to move in together, and someone told us, "oh, you can get around this building's no dogs policy with a doctor's note." That really bothered us.
That's a federal rule around emotional support dogs I think?
Honestly I think landlords should just be banned for having those kinds of rules against common pets like some saner countries, so I don't have a problem with people getting around it. Landlords in the US have too much power over tenants.
In the US it's the Fair Housing Act. Basically if the dog is providing necessary emotional support then the landlord can't prevent them from being with you in your home (I think there might be a carve out for nuisance dogs, but the dog doesn't need to be specifically trained for anything in particular to qualify).
It's a really low bar for a dog to qualify as an Emotional Support Animal. Which is great for people who need it, but is SO easy to abuse.
It only gives permission for someone to live with their dog though. It doesn't give someone any rights to bring their dog to restaurants and stuff though, even though people try. That's reserved for Service Animals.
Your dog still needs to be under control though. The ADA is somewhat vague on what that means but it is a behavior standard and if someone's dog is misbehaving you can kick out the dog (the human needs to be allowed to return without the animal).
> The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a federal agency that administers the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Under the FHA, a service animal is defined as an animal that is a necessary reasonable accommodation for a person with a disability. Emotional support animals and comfort animals ARE included in the HUD definition and are therefore allowed into a person's dwelling.
> There should be no "pet fee" for the service animal. The person with the disability must request the animal as a reasonable accommodation for the disability, and must be able to show that the animal is necessary because of the person's disability.
Basically it's using a more expansive definition of "service animal" than is typical, such that just about anyone could probably get their pets to qualify if they want.
The key word is "disability". I am not disabled. My wife is not disabled. The person who told us to get a doctor's note was not disabled.
I'm all for bending an inconvenient rule from time to time, but claiming a dog is an emotional support animal without having a disability is too far across the line, IMO.
In practice it just becomes landlords suppressing what people can do in their homes to make things easier for themselves. Landlords would also happily ban parties or children if they could somehow get away with it. That some people would be happy with a no-child or no-party building wouldn't make that okay either.
That said, if it was a matter of a small number of buildings being allowed to designate themselves as no-pet/no-dog, I'd probably be okay with that. Things like this only tend to become a problem if you let anyone do it.
Is there any regulation that stops landlords from prohibiting parties? The internet suggests that this does ever appear in leases, and to the extent that it's not common it's likely just because it's hard to enforce.
Kind of. Here in California (can't speak to the rest of the country), you have a "right to quiet enjoyment" of your rental property, which has been specified to specifically allow guests within "reasonable" limits. I can't find any case law specifically around day guests (most of the discussion surrounds how long a multi-night guest can stay), but prohibiting guests outright is definitely illegal.
All in all, it's safe to say a moderate sized get-together, that doesn't violate the fire code occupancy limits nor make excess noise for the time of day, would be very difficult for a landlord to evict you over.
Then get used to the fact that other people in your building may have other lifestyles. The double standard is incredible. You can’t live in a single family home because it’s not affordable, yet you want pet owners to not be in apartments, implying they need to live in single family homes to be able to keep a pet.
Walking path at my tennis park is for people only. No dogs, no bikes, and I'm not even allowed to skate it. Personally I'd like dogs only at dog parks but we're not there as a society.
We need to get much safer dog parks. Too many of them are just huge areas of off leash dogs and it's terrible for the dogs involved. It breeds bad play behaviors, dog-dog reactivity, spreads disease between dogs, and encouraged bad owners who just let their dog run free unsupervised.
Dogs that spend a lot of time in dog parks are way more likely to behave badly when they see other dogs when they are out for a walk.
It's so weird for me to see anti dog park talk on the internet because my experience has been very positive with dog parks in general. Almost all the dogs are basically fine, serious behavioral issues are rare. Sometimes dogs get a little too rowdy playing but owners are always quick to step in. I wonder if it's a regional dog owner culture thing (I'm in a suburb of Seattle for reference).
Dogs aren't a native species and can in fact be ecologically damaging. Squirrel population control is a question beyond my ability. Butterflies are both native and useful. Hopefully this is helpful.
No it's not, your local tennis park has no ecology to speak of that could be disrupted by dogs. You just don't like dogs and instead of stating that you want your preference imposed on everybody else just because it's your preference, you have a list of dubious reasons why dogs shouldn't be allowed here or there.
US rules around service animals (typically dogs) are a bit odd. You're allowed to take a service dog nearly anywhere, which itself is fine, but the problem is that there's no official licensing system that a business could somehow check to make sure your animal is legit. Legally, they're only allowed to ask what service the animal provides and they can kick it out if it's disruptive. So the inevitable result is people taking advantage of this legal gray area by bringing in dogs that they pretend are sorta-service dogs (emotional support/therapy dogs) and getting away with it for the reasons explained in the article. And once those dogs are normalized, then it seems like dogs in general are okay and so just about anyone might decide to bring in their dog.
A common point of comparison here is handicapped parking spots, since it's also a situation where the handicapped are granted a special privilege to mitigate the handicap, but obviously for parking spots there's a whole legal system for being allowed to park in those special spots. You can't just "self certify" that you can park in a handicapped spot, you have to get a placard from the government that you put on display on your car.
An interesting note is a service dog is basically medical equipment. They override any other disability. Including people with unfortunate combination of severe asthma and dog allergy.
If you have an employee who has been previously sent to a hospital due to a customer’s service dog, you need to figure out a solution because you’re not allowed to ban the dog. And you’re not allowed to fire the employee because they have a medical condition.
This feels susp. Do you have case law showing this to be the case? Because you don't get a free pass with "medical equipment" in any other situation. You don't even get a free pass with "medication" in situations. Quite the contrary, there are some where you are explicitly told not to do things if you are on the medication.
> Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.
There is far more to it than this. I did extensive research on service dogs and emotional support animals in 2015 when I was on staff of a convention.
I’m also very familiar with ADA due to my own disability. For example, off-hours support is not a considered an essential part of writing software, so you can’t enforce “you broke it, you support it” policies on people with work hour restrictions. Some people get really worked up about that.
Ignoring the "if possible" of your quote, the next section includes "When there is a legitimate reason to ask that a service animal be removed, staff must offer the person with the disability the opportunity to obtain goods or services without the animal’s presence."
So, if you have someone that would legit be sent to the hospital by having a dog in the room, then that reads like you can require that the dog not be in the room. I suppose it is notable that that is not a common severe allergy?
If you have cases law going over any of this, I'd be mildly curious to read some of it. I get the intent of the rules. And I'm comfortable with the general guideline being that you have to try to comply without bailing at the first chance.
I don’t have any further information. I did the research a decade ago. Given I have severe allergies and asthma, it stuck with me.
My more recent research into ADA looked similar. Most of the time issues like this are solvable but the solution is inconvenient.
It’s also important to note that ADA does not apply to companies with less than 15 people. If you’re a small shop, you can hire someone else who isn’t allergic to dogs.
Clearly we need such a licensing system, and such license would need to be displayed on the service animal. The lack thereof seems like yet another indicator that our government cannot legislate itself out of a paper bag.
The problem is that when the ADA was passed no one conceived that a change in culture would make it common for people to want to bring their dogs into restaurants and coffee shops.
And now that it is common, there’s no political will to revisit this issue.
There's probably political will at the local or state level in some areas, but of course local and state laws can't override a federal one like the ADA.
I completely agree, though unlike the author I don't really have an issue with people bringing dogs into some kinds of businesses. Restaurants and grocery stores no, but something like a hardware store I'm fine with.
Non-food establishments generally don't ban dogs, or don't enforce it at all. I've taken a dog into many such places. It's my wife's chihuahua, so I just carry her - no risk that she will use the store as a latrine.
But unlike the dog thing, using a fake handicapped placard is actually illegal, and if you’re caught doing it, in most states there are significant fines. Some states even have jail time for repeat offenders.
I'm not talking about fake placards. You can get real ones online very easily via telehealth, or in person from many chiropractor or other sham providers
I don’t doubt that it happens, but most doctors and other qualified practitioners are hesitant to authorize placards without a valid reason (and in many cases they are hesitant even with a valid reason).
Unlike signing a letter stating that someone needs an emotional support animal, there are real consequences for a doctor authorizing too many. The DMV in many states does actually investigate handicap parking fraud.
In the states where chiropractors can authorize placards, they can and do lose their licenses for exaggerating or inventing conditions.
If you read up on it, it’s not as easy as you might think—especially if you want more than a temporary 6 month placard. There are scores of people complaining about how it took them a decade or longer to get one.
Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
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