How is this not crapware that you are apologizing for? It was the scourge of the PC industry, we should not be welcoming it in mobile to a greater extent than it exists already.

I agree with you that the requirement to ship recent Android versions is absolutely needed, but 20 different applications sounds awfully overbearing.

Apple pays a huge amount of tax in the US.

They ALSO pay a lot of tax in the EU.

The fuss form the US government is that UNLIKE ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD we like to double-tax foreign revenues for which tax was already collected.

The fuss from the EU is that the tax Apple pays they consider to be too low, because Apple has money and the EU does not.

That's the simp truth. Apple found the place that collected the lowest taxes and based international operations there. Doing something legal and having a huge pile of untouchable money angers bureaucrats (and irrational Apple Haters) to no end.

Until either the car doesn't start because it has no 3G signal to "Authorize" it.

Again, that's a technical issue, and if I can figure out how to avoid starting the tracking module why not also how to bypass that...

so you can't even work around it withot ripping out the ECU

As if that's even a slight issue, lots of people reprogram or replace the ECU today.

Relying on your wits to outsmart an organised group of people is hard

History has shown it to be ridiculously easy in most cases.

Far better to nip the problem in the bud

History has shown THAT to be impossible.

Your driving history only consists of the times you got caught.

And in the future my driving history will consist only of the times I've allowed the monitoring device to activate.

The future belongs to the technically inclined because we will be able to do ANYTHING without repercussion.

Apple bills its latest product as a premium phone and brags endlessly about the supposed build quality

So does Samsung, and HTC for that matter,

Care to show me where any of the Android makers explicitly state they build crap?

But don't you think it's kind of crappy that the iPhone 6 is so flimsy, especially for the price?

If it were flimsy, perhaps , but in reality it's not - some Android phones are worse, and if you pick one up you can tell "flimsy" does not describe it at all.

A single human on Mars could do in a week more than every previous rover on mars put together has accomplished to date.

We've done what we can with the robotic approach, at some point you need humans to take research to the next level rather than inching along for centuries.

Some people will die; some people always have died, will always die. That does not matter.

If you think it's gung-ho, well all I can say is it's side you decided to stop advancing the human race, not all of us share your pitiful lethargy. It's not gung-ho at all, it's a built-in drive that we still in the human race call humanity...

Android phones bend too.

As anyone could have found with Google before they tried to make this a thing about Apple.

Just be aware and it'll be fine, with any phone.

They denied many people had them but eventually fixed it anyway with a free bumper.

That didn't *fix* anything though. As was widely reported at the time, ALL phones lose signal dramatically with a death grip, iPhone or no, even with a case.

I never used a case or bumper with the "Antenna phone" and need had an issue dropping calls.

The free bumper was just PR.

I imagine somewhere in Apple's labs they are testing strengthened cases

Possibly, but I think that will only come into play with the iPhone 6s. I'm sure they will consider it more strongly.

The first mission or two is probably no return anyway so who cares if you can't abort?

I'd still sign on in a heartbeat.

We need to be WAY less cautious about manned space travel again, we aren't going to do much of import at this pace.

Exactly! Glad someone understands.

I'm basically someone who knows what he likes and is also not stupid enough to tie myself to a single party mindset or outlook, instead over time I've learned to think for myself.

It will slowly gain traction among iOS developers, and some will use it for new code, but that doesn't mean it will be dominant by any means.

I don't think you understand, for new projects it pretty much already is.

The fact remains that there are billions of lines of Objective-C code out there. If you honestly think that developers are going to rewrite all those billions of lines of code

Of course not but over time refactoring will rid you of much of that.

I'm not saying all of that is going to be re-written, but within a year I don't think many projects will be started that do not use Swift at the outset.

Now if Apple were to release an Objective-C to Swift translator,

In effect they already do by automatically generating Swift versions of any header files you want Swift to see. That means it's zero cost to call into any existing code from Swift.

If anything, they're usually not cynical enough to adequately model developer apathy and resistance to change..../em

You REALLY do not understand the iOS development community. I would agree with you in any other context, I have been a developer in a lot of worlds, from backend to front end dev. In any other community of developers you would be right; for iOS development you are so, so wrong - primarily because iOS developers are used to constant change anyway, the language changing is just one more change. If it makes you even a little more productive people will use it - and Swift does that quite well.

My predictions are also very, very conservative...

I wouldn't ever carry a bare phone or one with just a silicone bumper in a front pocket

I have for years without issue.

And that includes the iPhone plus.

Theres simply not enough force to even come close to flexing the phone, much less bending...

Back pockets are I think more worrisome but even there - the Plus (as the tests show) is pretty damn rigid.

70 lbs is easy to bend just moving around in tight pants

Perhaps if you are the Hulk, unlike you I wear a phone AND PANTS all the time and I can verify no such forces are exerted from normal wear (and that includes Jeans which are the Iron Maiden of phone holders).

Executive summary: MONEY GOOD

Summary for everyone else: I have a Plus in my pocket and looking at what should get bent soon, pretty sure it's you,

So, if the phones are bending in real world situations, they are by definition defective

Except they aren't.

Apple sold 10 *million* phones over the weekend. Of those, Apple says they have six complaints. And we haven't seen that many pictures from real owners.

So the reality is that the iPhone 6 is not defective, a few have undergone more extreme forces than is reasonable. In the end a large flat object can be broken, that's just physics and no amount of design will change that.

If you plan to put ANY phone through more extreme forces than normal, get an Otterbox and call it a day.