From the $999 stand to the $400 wheels, Apple is straight up trolling us - Mashable

That'll be $400, please. And spread the word.

Image: Apple

By Stan Schroeder2019-12-11 08:18:41 UTC

It's the circle of life: Each time Apple announces a new product, there's an accessory or an upgrade that costs way more than what you'd expect. Sometimes, it's a RAM upgrade that makes your wallet scream in anguish; other times, it's an inexplicably pricey dongle. 

And like clockwork, this wakes up several armies: One comprised of people who loathe Apple and would never buy an Apple product, another consisting of Apple followers who think the company has crossed a line, and, finally, the ever-loyal Apple soldiers who think Apple is right to price its stuff at a premium because it's just that much better than the competition. A giant debate ensues, Apple reaps a fat reward in terms of publicity (proof: this article), and in the end you either buy the damn thing or you don't. 

With the freshly launched Mac Pro, however, Apple turned this whole thing up to eleven. The machine itself is expensive, but it's understandable given the powerful components within. The optional 6K-inch Pro Display XDR is pricy as well, but it, too, has the specs to back it up. The also-optional $999 stand is insane — but all right, at least it has a design that matches the monitor. 

Now that the Mac Pro is available to order, other pricing extravaganzas came to light. If you want wheels on the bottom of your Mac Pro's case, you'll have to dish out an absolutely offensive $400. Even for Apple faithful, it's hard to justify this price, as the wheels are (probably) just... wheels. 

And then came the news that the Pro Display XDR, if equipped with Apple's special nano-texture glass (which costs an additional $1000), can only be cleaned with a special Apple cloth. It comes in the box (thanks heavens), but if you lose it, you'll have to get a new one, and while there's no word yet on how much that will cost, I'd be surprised if it were free. Or cheap. Or reasonable, even. 

And another $199 for the VESA Mount Adapter.

Image: Apple

Sure, it's the Apple way. Some people are enraged and some are disappointed and some may even find a perverse pleasure in paying hundreds of dollars for a set of wheels, and Apple, again, gets the publicity.

It does, however, feel like Apple's messing with us at this point. I can imagine how the meeting in which they set these prices went. 

"You saw how the internet went crazy when we announced the $999 stand. Let's do that again!"

"But everything is already insanely overpriced, sir."

"What about the wheels? How much are the wheels?"

"Four dollars, sir, but—"

"Let's amplify that by a hundred!"

I'm not in the market for the Mac Pro nor the Pro Display XDR — these are total overkill for the vast majority of users — so I'll never experience the salty tears your body involuntary produces when you spend 400 bucks on a set of wheels. I'm just enjoying the show. 

But when you buy an expensive, pro-grade product (the Mac Pro can be priced up to $52,000, depending on the configuration) you expect to get something extra in return. When you buy a luxury car, at least you get the floor mats for free. If Apple made a car, the floor mats would be a thousand dollars. Each. 

The crazy prices are also easier to swallow when they're at least loosely based in reality. A 32GB RAM module truly does cost more, even at supplier prices, than a 16GB RAM module. But a set of wheels or a dongle? That's a bit harder to process. No matter how much you love Apple products.

For now, Apple is both having the cake and eating it. Everyone's talking about it, and people are buying. Even the competitors are happy, because they get an easy marketing ploy: Make fun of Apple for its overpriced crap. 

There has to be a point when too much is too much, though. Let's wait and see how much that replacement cloth costs. 

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2019-12-11 08:18:00Z
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Apple Card users can now buy an iPhone in installments with no interest - CNBC

Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces Apple Card during a launch event at Apple headquarters on Monday, March 25, 2019, in Cupertino, California.

Noah Berger | AFP | Getty Images

Starting on Tuesday, people who have an Apple Card can buy an iPhone in 24 monthly installments without paying interest.

Under the program, monthly payments for a new iPhone from the Apple Store will get bundled into the minimum Apple Card payment in the iPhone's Wallet app, Apple said. Apple also announced that it will offer a 6% discount on purchases at its retail stores until the end of December while using the Apple Card, a holiday promotion that is twice the usual discount.

The announcements suggest the card is not only a way for Apple to experiment with offering financial services (along with its bank partner, Goldman Sachs), but can also help Apple drive sales through discounts and new options to pay for Apple products — particularly ways to buy Apple hardware with recurring billing, instead of one-off purchases.

Apple on the company's earnings call in October announced zero-interest installments.

"One of the things we are doing is trying to make it simpler and simpler for people to get on these sort of monthly financing kind of things. That's a part of what we announced with the Apple Card earlier in the call and so we are cognizant that there are lots of users out there that want sort of a recurring payment like that," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time.

"Installments are not subject to interest like other purchases made with Apple Card. If you pay more toward your installment balance, you may reduce the overall number of payments, but are still scheduled to pay your installment payment the following month," according to a notice posted on Monday inside the Wallet App.

Apple offers other ways to buy iPhones on monthly installments, including an upgrade program that bundles Apple's AppleCare warranty and up-to-date hardware. For example, a current iPhone 11 Pro model starts at $41.62 per month. A previous Apple-branded credit card included special financing at Apple stores.

Apple also announced Tuesday that Apple Card customers can get 6% cash back on purchases of Apple products through December 31. Normally, Apple Card customers get 3% cash back on Apple purchases.

The Apple Card was launched in August. Apple's bank partner, Goldman Sachs, handles the back-end and credit parts of the product. Users apply for the card through the Wallet app on iPhones, which also contains the credit card's fine print and transaction history.

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2019-12-10 14:00:00Z
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North will stop making its Focals glasses to focus on its second generation - The Verge

North, the company behind the augmented reality Focals glasses, is no longer selling its current glasses and is instead focusing on a second-generation set that’ll be available next year.

The company wouldn’t provide details on the new glasses and instead would only say the device will be 40 percent lighter and sleeker. It’ll also incorporate a higher-resolution display. The team also released a teaser image of frames with a more mainstream look.

North operates two showrooms for the Focals, and for now, the one in Brooklyn, New York, will be open only by request. The Canadian location will remain open during its existing hours.

Although North launched its Focals in January 2019, it hasn’t been the most successful launch. Within less than a month, the company cut the price of the glasses nearly in half, down to $599.99 from $999. Around that same time, the company laid off 150 employees, potentially in the manufacturing department. Even with the price drop and layoffs, the company maintained at the time that it had a “great few months” at the company’s start. CEO and co-founder Stephen Lake said the layoffs were necessary to keep developing its smart glasses.

“We decided to lay off a number of employees yesterday in order to focus our resources and ensure we have sufficient runway to execute on our upcoming milestones over the next 18-24 months,” he said at the time. “This was a difficult decision, but a necessary one to ensure long-term success.”

The company wouldn’t comment on how many units it has shipped of the first-generation Focals glasses.

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2019-12-10 13:00:00Z
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The Google Pixel will get bigger, more regular software updates you might actually remember - The Verge

Yesterday, Google unveiled a new part of its strategy with Pixel phones: the so-called “feature drop.” Google has bundled a bunch of software features that are exclusive (at least for now) to the Pixel line and is releasing them in one larger update instead of trickling them out whenever they’re ready. It’s a new way for Google to release software updates, based on something that it isn’t historically very good at:

Planning.

“We’re targeting a quarterly cadence [for the feature drops],” vice president of product management Sabrina Ellis says, adding that “setting that type of structure up front is helping our teams understand how they can set their development timelines.”

The feature drops are a way for Google to make the Pixel software updates more tangible to potential customers. It’s a clever name: “drops” are ways to create hype around new products in the fashion world — and Google very much needs to find a way to build more hype around the Pixel 4.

Command Line is The Verge’s daily newsletter about computers, gadgets, and software. You should subscribe! I’m eager to hear your feedback. Please feel free to email me at dieter@theverge.com if you have thoughts. -Dieter

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After the camera, the best reason to get a Google Pixel phone instead of another Android phone is that the Pixel is guaranteed to be the first out of the gate with Android software updates. But that benefit really only feels tangible once a year — when the new version of Android comes out and Pixel owners get a three to six month jump on the new software.

This year, the Pixel 4 has gotten a muted reception — battery life on the smaller model especially is really disappointing and video quality is not keeping up with the competition. And therein lies the problem: whatever software story Google has to tell about the Pixel is going to get overshadowed by the hardware story, year after year.

This first feature drop includes a lot of updates that may or may not make their way to other Android phones, Ellis calls them “Pixel-first.” One interesting thing about this new way of working is that one of the features launching this month on the Pixel 4 — improved memory management for backgrounded apps — should make its way to other Android phones, but perhaps not until the next version of Android.

That means that not only is the Pixel getting software features a few months ahead of other phones, it’s potentially getting them more than a year earlier.

That system-level feature (which, for the Pixel line, is much-needed) will come via a traditional system-level OS update. But most of the rest of the features Google is shipping to Pixel phones are coming within apps. In some ways, holding some of these app updates could actually mean a delay for some features, with teams holding their releases for the next feature drop. But the tradeoff is that more users will actually know those features exist in the first place — which often didn’t happen before.

I wrote earlier this year that Google can’t fix the Android update problem, but those infrastructural issues don’t really apply to the Pixel. But there is another hassle that Pixel owners aren’t likely to get away from anytime soon: they won’t arrive for everybody all at once.

Google firmly believes in rolling updates, which is a “more responsible” way to send out updates. A small group gets them first, just to ensure there aren’t unforeseen problems, then ever-larger percentages of users receive the update.

That methodology is stupendous for reliably pushing out stable software updates to huge numbers of users (not that the Pixel has huge numbers but still), but it’s absolutely atrocious for building hype. It undercuts the entire concept of the “feature drop.”

If you are one of the precious few Pixel 4 owners, here was your experience yesterday: Oh hey, a neat software update with new features. I should go get it. Oh I don’t have it. Well, okay. I’ll check one more time. Well. That was disappointing. That experience, by the way, is exactly what happened to me with my Pixel 4 XL.

Ellis admits it’s not ideal: “I would like to be where you get that drop, you get that notification, and everything will be [available]. We are working towards that.”

To mitigate it, Google is using whatever tools it can within Android to provide users with that moment of new feature excitement, without the dread of an update screwing up their phone. There will be a notification that has more context than usual about what’s new and Google will lean heavily on the Pixel Tips app to help people find the new features.

The other thing I hope Google does is the thing that’s been my hobby horse for several years now: take the cap off the marketing budget. Samsung didn’t win the Android world by making the best phone — though its phones were and are very good, arguably the best. It won by unleashing a bombastic, hilariously large and expensive multi-year ad campaign that spanned Super Bowls, brand activations, and deals to ensure its phones are prioritized by carrier employees.

I don’t see Google unleashing campaigns like that — either because it lacks confidence in the product or because institutionally it just doesn’t want to. Maybe the company believes the Pixel should win on its merits, maybe it doesn’t want to offend partners like Samsung, or maybe it just thinks the kind of shenanigans you have to play to get the likes of AT&T and Verizon to push your product are just too icky. Probably all of the above.

I digress, sorry. Like I said, it’s a hobby horse.

One thing that’s unsaid in all of this that when it comes to feature updates — especially those within apps — Google actually has a much better track record than Apple. Apple tends to ship all its new features in one big, yearly monolithic update.

Ask yourself the last time Apple updated, say, the Mail app between major iOS releases. Almost never. Ask yourself the last time Google updated Gmail? Likely it was within the past week or two.

But that cadence of near-constant app updates means that most of those features get lost. Google is trying to fix that problem by packaging some of the Pixel-specific stuff into bigger moments with more impact. This month’s feature drop is a first attempt. The more important feature drops will come in three and six months. They’ll prove that Google is actually committed to this plan and give it a chance to tighten up the infrastructure for releasing them in shorter time windows.

Ultimately, here’s the problem feature drops are designed to solve: Google’s app updates are like getting hit with a squirt gun while Apple’s are like getting hit with a water balloon. Both contain an equal amount of water, but one of them has much more impact.

---

Verge Deal of the day 

Save $50 on Bose’s new Noise Cancelling Headphones 700

If you were shopping for noise-canceling headphones during Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you might have noticed that Bose’s newest model was conspicuously missing from the sales. Well, now that it has the spotlight, Bose has knocked $50 off its Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 at Target, Walmart, Amazon, and Best Buy. This is the first time we’ve seen an official discount.

More from The Verge

+ Google is under federal investigation for labor practices

I’m glad this investigation is happening.

The NLRB’s investigation will focus on whether Google violated any labor laws by firing those activist employees and if it discouraged its employees from unionizing. When employees file a charge with the NLRB, the agency must open an investigation to determine if it should take formal action and file its own complaint. The agency’s Oakland staff will be spearheading the investigation that’s expected to take about 90 days to complete.

+ Waymo’s driverless car: ghost-riding in the back seat of a robot taxi

+ The Apple TV remote is so bad that a Swiss TV company developed a normal replacement

Where can I buy one? I am not even kidding.

+ Google says it won’t grant Fortnite an exemption to the Play Store’s 30 percent cut

Apple also charges this cut — though in some cases it drops to 15 percent for subscriptions after a year. Look: this is a stunt from Epic, but it’s a stunt that calls attention to the rent-seeking both Apple and Google engage in on their app stores. I will grant that these platform owners should get more than a credit card company gets, but 30 percent is too much.

+ Epic is accused of stealing a Fortnite dance from ‘Dancing Pumpkin Man’

Epic: fighting the good fight on app store rent-seeking.
Also Epic: fighting the bad fight on appropriating the creative work of others.

Even if the law is technically on Epic’s side here (if only because copyright law is wildly arcane), this is not a great look, especially for a company that expresses (justified!) moral outrage in other quarters.

+ Amazon’s Echo Flex is a smart speaker for very specific needs

As Dan Seifert writes, think of this thing as a little Alexa mic you can plug in anywhere, not as a little smart speaker.

Overall, the Flex is best for those who want a voice control access point (and perhaps a motion detector) in a specific place where you can’t put a more traditional speaker. If you fit that narrow use case, then the Flex will probably work well for your needs. But most people looking for an inexpensive smart speaker should stick with an Echo Dot or Nest Mini.

+ Elon Musk is driving Tesla’s Cybertruck prototype around Los Angeles

The Cybertruck prototype is missing a number of features it will eventually need to become street legal when it ships around the end of 2021, like a driver’s side mirror, windshield wipers, and more dedicated headlights and brake lights. But just like other automakers do with their prototypes, Tesla has outfitted the Cybertruck with a manufacturer license plate, which gives companies some wiggle room to test vehicles on public roads even if they don’t meet the US federal motor vehicle safety standards.

+ Microsoft to kill off Wunderlist in favor of To Do in May 2020

+ Away replaces CEO Steph Korey after Verge investigation

Well that’s a way to deal with the situation.

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2019-12-10 12:00:00Z
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Best Buy discounts select Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7, and Xbox One X models - The Verge

Three Microsoft products are on sale today — and today only, December 10th — only at Best Buy, including select models of the latest Surface Laptop and Surface Pro and an Xbox One X bundle.

The 15-inch model of the new Surface Laptop 3 (8GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 CPU, 128GB SSD) is down to $999.99, which is a discount of $200 off of its retail price. This is the cheapest we’ve seen this laptop, and that’s a pretty good discount for such a new item. Aside from being a well-built Windows 10 laptop, The Verge’s Dan Seifert said in his review that its keyboard is nearly perfect. However, we did find that this processor was weaker than the Intel one in the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 3.

You can get $360 off of the Surface Pro 7 tablet (12.3 inches, Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD), which comes with a Type Cover. This brings the total down to $599, and it’s a hefty discount, especially since this tablet has been out for less than two months. This deal was also offered during Black Friday, but this is another chance to get the Type Cover (usually $129) bundled with it. As is the case with the Surface Laptop above, this model does come with a weaker processor than others.

The Xbox One X (1TB) console is also discounted $150, bringing the price down to $349.99. This is the same price it was over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this time, it comes with a free wireless Xbox One controller (usually $50). If you’re looking for the best deal, don’t buy the console on its own: for the same price, $349.99, you can get bundles that include the console, the controller, plus free games. This bundle includes the new Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order game for free, and there’s another bundle that comes with all five games in the Gears series.

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2019-12-10 10:00:00Z
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Companies can track your phone — unless you change these security settings - Fox News

File photo. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)

For big tech companies, data is money. Their goal is to collect as much info about you as they can, and try as we might, there’s no surefire way to shut them out entirely.

There are steps you can take to limit what advertisers know about you, though. It all starts with your Facebook settings. Tap or click here for 7 ways to delete yourself from the internet.

As consumers demand more privacy, tech companies — including smartphone manufacturers — are slowly responding. Apple’s latest iPhone operating system, iOS 13, has several new privacy settings you need to start using if you aren’t already.

The OS brings hundreds of other changes too, like improved camera settings and a quicker way to type messages. Tap or click for 9 iPhone features you’ll use time and time again.

Once your phone is up to date, it’s time to control how often companies track you and get data from your Apple devices. Keep tech companies and hackers at bay with these new privacy features.

Only you need to know where you are

Many apps ask for permission to know your location. In apps like Google Maps, that makes sense, but social media apps and games want to know your location too. Those have less justification. Tap or click here to see which apps are known for stealing sensitive data.

Sure, you might want to share your location on social media if you’re at a cool new place, and geotags on Snapchat are fun to use too. But it can be genuinely dangerous to post your location publicly — anyone could find you. Savvy hackers use location information to deduce details like your address, where you work and even to determine when you’ll be home.

Thankfully, Apple understands how easily criminals can glean information, so in iOS 13 you now have some serious control over what location data you share with different apps.

RELATED: Another new feature in iOS 13? Apple’s new robocall-blocking solution. I hate robocalls, too, but this doesn’t cut it for me. Tap or click to find out why I think it’s a flop.

Apple has always made it possible to disable location services for certain apps, but the controls are now more specific and customizable.

Once you download iOS 13, control your app location permissions by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. You’ll see a list of your apps there, and you can decide how often they get to use the location services. This level of control will help keep your data safe, so make sure you use this feature ASAP.

Know when apps are accessing your data

Even if you control when and where your location services are accessed, some apps can be sneaky.

They’ll access your location in the background every so often to glean just a little bit of data. The amount of information they learn adds up over time, but with iOS 13 you can know when apps are trying to sneak around.

With iOS 13, your iPhone will send you notifications when background apps access your location info.

This notification can help you track down the less scrupulous apps, which tend to be big battery drainers and privacy violators.

From there, you can decide whether to change their location permissions via Settings, or decide if you’d rather remove them altogether. You don’t need apps that access your data without permission — not if you want to be safe.

Block back doors for data gathering

Apps can get your location information from your iPhone’s location services, but it’s not the only way.

Some apps can learn location information from your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, just by seeing where your IP address is located or what devices (which can also report locations) your Bluetooth connects to.

This means your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth permissions also impact how much data companies and apps can gather about you — maybe even more so than location services, since many apps don’t bother to ask for your location at all. They just piece it together themselves. So what can iOS 13 help you do about this?

First, iOS 13 lets you decide Bluetooth permissions on every app you use. As with location services, you access this by going to Settings > Privacy > Bluetooth. Once again, you’ll be presented with a list of your apps, and you can decide if they can access your Bluetooth.

There aren’t customizable options for allowing Bluetooth, but because Bluetooth isn’t always secure, it gives you some control over what data which apps can gather. Tap or click here to learn about a major Bluetooth flaw that exposed millions of devices to attacks.

Next, iOS 13 lets you control some aspects of how your iPhone works on Wi-Fi. You can disable tracking in Safari, so data gathered about you on one site can’t carry over onto another. This makes it hard for companies to send you the same ads over and over, because they have less data to work with.

Just go to Settings > Safari > and toggle off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.

Another feature of iOS 13 includes a secure password autofill. These are passwords stored in the iCloud Keychain that requires your Touch ID or Face ID to confirm your identity before it auto-fills your passwords onto sites and apps. This feature also allows you to connect to a few third-party password apps like 1Password, Dashlane and LastPass.

Note: You can only use this feature, called Apple sign in, if you have two-factor authentication turned on and you need to be signed in to your Apple ID on your Apple device.

Two-factor authentication is one of the most powerful ways to protect your accounts. Tap or click here to learn how 2FA works.

Keeping your information private on your iPhone is easier than ever with iOS 13’s new features. Make sure you upgrade and use them as soon as you can to keep data gathering down and security up. Your iPhone shouldn’t give out all your information, so iOS 13 helps you share only when necessary. Get it today!

BONUS TIP FOR EXTRA KNOW-HOW: Big mistake people make buying a TV is picking the wrong size. Here’s the formula to use.

Ready to pounce on a bargain-priced 4K television for your living room? Scoring a great deal on a TV this time of year is no big feat as discounted sets litter every department store and online retailer site.

Unfortunately, the low, low price entices you to pay for a supersized TV and when you get home, you discover it won’t fit through your front door, let alone in the space you designated.

Take a moment, wave to the neighbors and let buyer’s remorse set in. The good news is with a bit of homework, you can avoid the regret and the embarrassment when you send your dream screen back to the store.

Tap or click for a simple way to figure out what size to buy.

What digital lifestyle questions do you have? Call Kim’s national radio show andtap or click here to find it on your local radio station. You can listen to or watch theKim Komando Show on your phone, tablet, television or computer.Or tap or click here for Kim’s free podcasts.

Copyright 2020, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved.

Learn about all the latest technology on theKim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show. Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website atKomando.com.

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2019-12-09 12:16:41Z
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Leaked OnePlus 8 Lite renders give us our first look at the company's upcoming mid-ranger - Android Central

In October 2015, OnePlus announced its first mid-range Android smartphone, called the OnePlus X. Now, CAD-based renders showing a new mid-range smartphone from the Chinese Android OEM have surfaced, courtesy of popular leaker @OnLeaks and 91Mobiles.

As can be seen in the renders below, the phone, which is expected to be called the 'OnePlus 8 Lite', will have a flat display with a centered hole-punch cutout. On the back of the mid-range phone will be a rectangular camera module housing two sensors, an LED flash, as well as a ToF sensor.

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The CAD-based renders of the smartphone also show a USB-C port on the bottom, along with an alert slider on the side. Unsurprisingly, the OnePlus 8 Lite will not include a 3.5mm headphone jack.

According to @OnLeaks, the phone will come with a display between 6.4" – 6.5". As for physical dimensions, the upcoming mid-range phone will measure 159.2 x 74 x 8.6mm. Unfortunately, however, there is no word yet on the hardware specifications of the OnePlus 8 Lite.

Nor do we know exactly when the smartphone will be officially unveiled, although it is likely that it will be made official alongside the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro sometime in the first half of 2020. The only thing that we can be fairly sure about at this point is that the phone will be significantly more affordable than the OnePlus 7T.

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2019-12-09 08:09:59Z
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