They do but only when comparison to similar OS . As we've seen with the recent Quad core, 2 GB ram, etc specs from Android mfg's that still stutter while another OS brand only has a dual core and the paltry 1GB ram but yet is optimized so it runs very smooth and has a great user experience out of the box.

Are you comparing the list price to the contract price? Because there are very few $200 smartphones that are capable of doing much but the basics and performance will be sloppy. If you want a 1 year phone and don't mind less than optimal performance then yeah. But as we've seen, many will pay for a good user experience over the long term. Of course plans like AT&T's Next are blurring this as more people will be upgrading sooner than they would have.

I'm not sure I follow how making software more powerful and "do more stuff" is equated with planned obsolescence? The bells and whistles take more to run and they are using the newer hardware to bring a better experience with more features. But for those that believe in "planned obsolescence" you can always not update.

So you're saying their fingerprint reader just corresponds to a 4 digit pin?

Only if you believe that a point and shoot is a "proper digital camera", and they were right. P&S's are a declining market. They said nothing about today's DSLR's, which frankly I get tired of carrying mine around when my smartphones camera is so good and usually "good enough". The only thing DSLR's have the market on now for non-professionals are the lenses. If someone could make an add-on lens to a popular smartphone that wasn't crap (as most of them currently are) and emulated a 50mm or a zoom, it would take market share. (or if an app could emulate the look of it at least).

I'm not as familiar with NFC yet as I will be in the next week, but there are a lot of payment pads in the US that accept contactless charging of your cc which I'm assuming is NFC related. Barring that you swipe the magnetic stripe. While I like the direction, I'm not seeing that huge of a benefit of "put phone/card near reader vs. swipe card through reader". Still many stores just take your card and swipe it themselves (to be changed by 10/2015 chip and pin?). The only benefit I currently see is the 2 seconds time saved by Apples version by using your fingerprint vs entering a 4 digit pin.

"well you don't need to carry your cc's". So yeah, it will be quite a while before I stop carrying my wallet and I've seen many stores that accept paypal too.

If this isn't the most First World Problem I've heard of, I just don't know. Of course it's there if you chose automatic downloads. Of course it will show up on some menu as being available to download. This story is manufactured outrage for clicks and I, sadly, fell for it.

She's worried that common, private citizens can get camera drones and fly them above your property as if that ability wasn't available before now in multiple forms? What about governments doing it since we've had satellites? So does having 4 blades matter vs 2? As a land owner and private citizen, is she ready to a) accept that I own this column of earth above and below? b) to what heights do I own c) what rights is she now going to work towards removing to rid us of this scary, old thing?

Well maybe I'm lucky, but I for sure am not going to post my real # on a site like this.

You seem to think everyone of Apple's 500 million customers buy a new phone each time a new one comes out and that their children aren't getting any older to where they also might want an iPhone. I don't know anyone that buys a new iPhone each release even with carriers now pushing that (ATT Next and others). So what you are seeing is the result of only (~80/500) about 1/6 of Apples customers buying a new phone. Let alone the financing provided by the carriers make small monthly payments fairly reasonable for anyone that has a steady job.

The imprint machine will continue to be used (occasionally) even with chip and pin as it doesn't require a constant, live connection. Useful for when there's a system glitch, power outage, or unreliable infrastructure. That's why the cards still have raised numbers and even after it's widely used post 2015, the magnetic stripe will also still be there on chipped cards.

Who receives these calls or any spam calls for that matter? Like an ever increasing number of people, I only have a mobile number. It's registered on the Do Not Call list. I've never, to my recollection, received a spam call. I know this is for scammers and they don't play by the rules but it's been like this for a decade (DNC started in 2004 and I've been mobile only since then). Am I an anomaly? Am I not worthy of a spam/scam call for some reason? My phone number is out there and with every online site I need to enter it in. Perhaps I've just been lucky or this isn't a problem for most Americans due to the Do Not Call list? I'm not sure. https://www.donotcall.gov/ (620)867-5309

How can you not argue against not having that be untrue?

Thought I was the only one with problems. Noticed it via wifi and 3G. My Apple Tv froze up and blanked out numerous times. I think I unplugged it twice before it would be responsive. Then the 2nd asian audio overlay and the looping video was horrible, and that was when i could connect. For much of the first 1/2 hr, it was very spotty and then would error out.

He addressed this by saying each transaction is not the card number but a special one time use number. So even if it was "sniffed" during the transaction, you wouldn't have any valuable info.