My name-brand phone that I've had for ages -- and had Apple users asking me what it was, then telling me they were going to switch to Android -- has the exact same resolution as the iPhone 6 Plus.

And it's performance in every way is significantly less. When they had the smaller res, they lacked the CPU/GPU the modern Apple hardware has now. The modern Android hardware has the better GPU/CPU but the screen res is killing performance. Apple let them dance right over the sweet spot.

My phone looks better, it fits a pocket better, it weighs less, it's waterproof,

So it's smaller? Behind them times already I guess. Otherwise the six is pocketable for anyone.

Waterproof is something I use a case for if I need. I use the phone in the rain briefly without issue as I always have.

Your phone basically sounds like a fish-mash of things not important to anyone anymore (FM radio....)

Literally the only feature from the iPhone 6 Plus that I can find which my phone lacks is the fingerprint sensor,

Which actually works and opens a whole world you'll be left behind with as you listen to... FM radio.

no disabled NFC here

Fully operational and utterly useless.

Oh, and my smart watch is here now, not some vague date in the future

I wouldn't want what you have now either, but at least it probably also supports FM radio!

Apple are late to the party once again,

They are never late, they arrive when they feel they have something worth selling. I as a buyer appreciate not having to tolerate half-baked crap any longer, that was fine when I'm young but like Danny Glover I'm too old for that shit. Including FM radio.

What's wrong with using the iPad as a second screen, as some third party software lets you do?

Then you get touch and a traditional laptop.

All of the compelling uses I read about for something like the Surface have boiled down to pretty niche uses that are really not sustainable. It's nice that you like your Surface now, because it's not going to be around for many more years. Hopefully it will last you a while.

It depends on how you use it. You could wear-out a SSD in six months if you're continuously writing and re-writing to it; but for 99.9% of people the SSD will probably last longer.

The market starting using more and more large but mediocre phones, just as demand is really starting to grow Apple introduces a model that doesn't sacrifice performance or battery life to have a larger device.

By waiting Apple also gave device makers a lot of rope to hang themselves with in going to screens with absurd DPI. Now the poor bastards (Note4, etc) are hamstrung changing and powering so many wasted pixels, and the companies cannot back off the resolution they have chained around their own necks.

Apple as usual simply makes a good idea work better than anyone else.

They can roast the pigeons after throttling them and feed people who are homeless because of the disaster!

Yes, already planned for, that's called the Exponential Bakeoff algorithm.

These Ars OSX reviews have always been really impressive things, full of technical examination and as you can see, very long to write...

It made more sense to me back when you had to pay for an upgrade though, so you could see if it was worth getting. Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...

That said I hope they keep doing them because it is nice to have a deep technical examination of what is new.

A) Is a damn good name for a rock & roll band.

B) Are apparently people who stay OUTDOORS during a thunderstorm and thus prone to being struck my lightning, or brought down by fevers from standing outside in the rain like some of the dumbest animals on the planet?

I guess this would explain how religion has done so well and science has struggled overall.

"if any one of Thomas Eric Duncan's contacts shows symptoms, that person will be immediately isolated and tested."

Well, after a quick plane flight to Dallas anyway...

(the nurse had a fever before she flew).

HBO announced some time ago that some of their shows would be available without a cable subscription, but they would be delayed three years. Even that was enough to get the cable companies nickers in a twist.

Today's announcement is a revolution, if that one was an evolution.

Just answer me one thing: are you religious?

Not at all, and I FULLY support gay marriage (as in I have been a part in a ceremony of a gay friend to his partner). I just don't support witch-hunts in any form.

The fact you want be to qualify that is pathetic.

Even if I WERE, why would you bring that up - it just proves my point on the dangers of intolerance. You have chosen to demonize an entire group of people simply because of how they want to live, which makes you no better than any religious evangelist preaching against gay marriage that ever lived. You just have a different religion, a different reason to hate...

How about trying NO HATE? You ever think about that?

the emergency landing on the Hudson is a likely candidate. No idea if the order was given or not.

I had thought of that one, but had thought I remembered that one sliding off the runway into the Husdon... but you are right, it was a purposeful landing with plenty of time to prepare passengers for a crash.

It's still the case though that n most crashes it doesn't seem like there's any time to take positions.

Is that the same Brendan Eich who posted in his personal blog, that "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader."?

Yes, because the board were entirely against him. Even LGBT workers at Mozilla supported him, but the board would not - he resigned "voluntarily", because he had no support from the people who cared only about the witch hunt, not Mozilla.