Adobe Firefly image by author of a phone falling from the sky
The sky is falling!
Sorry, no, it’s iPhone sales that have dipped into “Sell off your Apple Stock!” territory. Well, for some folks, anyway, and the stock price dropped from around $196 to $181 in a week. I didn’t sell any of mine.
Mark Gurman said this in his free newsletter: “Apple Inc. has finally acknowledged a hard reality: The US smartphone market is mired in a slump.”
Poor Apple, on the verge of bankruptcy again. People need to help them by buying new phones!
I did my part last year by buying an iPhone 14 Pro. However, I don’t expect to buy another phone for at least five years. Why would I? It’s a great phone and I almost exclusively only use it for CarPlay when I’m driving, plus maybe a few pictures of things around the house. One of these days I want to use it to take some better pictures of my coin collection, but that would involve pulling them out of the safe deposit box and I have a feeling that may never happen. The bank is over four miles away!
Phones, particularly iPhones, have become pretty darn good and they don’t change all that much year to year. Yes, the 14 got emergency satellite, but what could be coming that would make me and a few hundred million other folks trade up? I bet there are a lot of people at Apple worrying their overpaid little heads about that!
No need to fret, Apple, the iPod Retouch is your answer. Make a new iPod Touch line with all the features of a phone but no cell service! Make cheap ones and Pro ones, just like you do now, but leave out the cellular chip.
Crazy idea, right? Apple discontinued the iPod Touch a few years back because nobody wanted it anymore — well, some somebodies did, but not enough.
Funny, though, those suckers are on eBay for over $300. Just sayin’.
I hardly ever use my phone as a cell phone. I’ve heard that a lot of younger people never use their phones that way: it’s all What’s-a-thingy and Signally or whatever the latest internet talkie-talkie app is. Most oldies like me couldn’t imagine not calling the pharmacy to renew a prescription, but I do it online. And my wife always asks, “What did they say?”
Why call anyway? Very few businesses answer their phones, and if they do, you go to voicemail hell. It’s far easier and faster to use whatever internet method they offer. And the ones that don’t offer anything? Get off your horse, Gramps, we have Uber now!
How hard would it be for Verizon, T-Mobile, et al. to tie the internet to voice? THEY DO IT NOW! That’s the Wi-Fi calling option on your iPhone or Android thingy. Your call goes through those internet pipe things but still gets to the old phone lines. Amazing, huh?
Apple shouldn’t be wasting money paying royalties for cellular modem chips and paying engineers to develop their own. Convince one cellular company to buy in to these no modem iPhones and the world would follow.
Cellular modems would be like your appendix: maybe it was useful once, but it’s a waste of money now.
Oh, oh, danger Will Robinson! What about emergencies! Duh, skip back a few paragraphs; have you already forgotten about satellites?
Of course Verizon, the T-boy, and everyone else make a lot of money from cell services, so there would be resistance, but think about it: isn’t this inevitable? Don’t cell modems feel a bit vestigial?
Apple Has Fixed More of My Gripes and One of Them is Really Funny They do pay attention to feedback Photo by OSPAN ALI on Unsplash As much as I am an Apple Fan boy, sheeple, sycophant, fool, or whatever else the Android guys would like to call me, I do have my gripes. Some of my gripes could be fixed by third party apps, some by third party hardware, but I prefer to stay foolishly trapped in the Apple ecosystem as much as I can. Anyway, a little bitching and moaning can be therapeutic, right? A couple of years back I put some of my complaints out into the world. I’m an Apple Fan, Except When I’m Not There goes my Special Sycophant Status In addition to that, I pleaded with Apple at their feedback page. I do that with anything Apple does that annoys me, whether I tell the world or not. You should too. Product Feedback We would love to hear your comments about any of our hardware and software products. Send us your thoughts. And, unbelievably, Apple has fixed, or will soon fix, quite
I Owe an Apology to Anyone Using Voice Over Maybe you do as well? Accessibility is important Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix) TECHNOLOGY Safari can show text in photos, Voice Over should read it, but it doesn’t Yesterday I posted an article about Google Bard and made a bad accessibility mistake. I posted screenshots of Bard and ChatGPT rather than pasting in the content. That was sloppy. I want to thank for calling me on my error at “ Your ChatGPT Screenshots Suck ”. I won’t make that mistake again, but it also reminded me to be more aware of Alt Text. Alt Text is important If the text had been short, I could have used the Alt Text option to add what a sighted person can see. Unfortunately, Safari and probably the Web Accessibility Standards only allow a limited amount of explanation in Alt Text. I didn’t think of it anyway, so that wouldn’t have helped. Voice Over should recognize text in photos As shown in the screenshot above, Safari does have a “Show Text” ability. Coincidentally, I onl
My Great-Grandfather’s Toy Cannon I’m not sure that “toy” is the right word, however, that is the word my father and his mother used. Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix) History The “toy” cannon The picture above is a Lawrence family heirloom. I’m not sure that “toy” is the right word, however, that is the word my father and his mother used. I know that it was a gift to Herbert Myron Lawrence, my father’s grandfather. My father gave it to me and I, in turn, have given it to my oldest daughter. HML engraving I do not know how old Herbert was when he received this. He was born in 1851 and died in 1937, which does not identify the time frame of the gift. However, my father did say it was a gift, not something he bought for himself. That could be a misunderstanding. The cannon is engraved with HML initials. One reference I found asserts: In fact, toy cannons date back to the American Civil War and before, and not only were they popular toys for children, they were remarkably dangerous. Many of t
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