Not only for iPhone, but for Mac as well. It's easy to install bsd on a machine when you have access to the best hw engineers and documenters on the planet.
Seamless integration has been around since the first real-time chatrooms though. Again, just making a better UI
For phone calls that's just VoIP which was around waaaaayyy before the iPhone, Skype was doing something similar in the consumer geek market in 2004/5. They just brought it to the big consumer market, and again, made it 1000x easier to do.
There's an old saying in computing. "you improve usability by taking away options and features" apple didn't necessarily invent this mindset. But they perfected it.
They took BSD, a security focused, but not very user friendly, offshoot of Linux/unix and made it "popular" by adding several layers of polish and doing a lot of the configuration work for you and made it osx. This was a time when Linux usability/management on the personal/newbie scale was garbage. If you wanted to install a certain distro of *nix, you better make sure you have supporting hardware and the right up to date tutorial, which is managed by an unknown volunteer, which was usually some person bored on the weekend a few months ago and never updated, they've made *nix installation and management a lot better though recently.
They also did this with music. People used to have large collections of unorganized mp3s in the early 00s, unless you were really anal and had a lot of time in your hands, because you were likely downloading them from several different illegal places, and legally buying mp3s were all over the place. You could buy the album off this weird obscure website that you didn't want to trust with your CC information, because there were a lot of mom and pop music stores online. Then apple brought out iTunes and allowed both buying and managing (and eventually upgrading, traveling around with) music to be dead simple.
For smartphones, they stole a LOT from BlackBerry, but they took it to the next level. Blackberry had email, a private messaging network, and mobile web scrolling waayyyy before anyone. And so many people loved it so much that even Obama famously didn't want to give his up when he took office. Then apple came out with the iPhone, and blew it away with a bigger screen and again, a lot more polish.
Innovation happens in small steps over years. Apple didn't invent mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, or computing, they didn't invent security, encrypted audio/video calls, or music management. They've done a lot of crappy stuff, and they charge super high amounts of money for less than state of the art hardware. Their innovation could be summed up by this profound statement I remember a friend said to me once around 2003/4.
"Osx, because making Linux pretty was easier than fixing Windows"
I've tried this. Guy next to me was playing a video game on full blast that I can hear over my noise cancelling headphones. I asked him if he could turn the sound down.
He said "F you! This is my console. I do what I want! You're the only one complaining so shut the f up".....
It basically copies the best of every other messaging platform. I was at my in-laws where everyone on my wife's side has an iPhone and we're talking about a LOT of the features.
can tell if notifications are turned off on phone
read receipts
higher quality limit on video/pictures sent
messaging that can be done in wifi-only areas (imagine having a few group threads/people you CANT talk to while at home because you live in a dead zone)
Any other big feature of any other messaging app I was able to think of (Signal/Whatsapp, discord, slack) is all there (except public chatrooms and private servers obvs), WITH OS integration
I still like my pixel, but I get it now.
Still holding out hope that Google allows for RCS features to come to Google voice.
Wife thinks I'm being lazy bc I crash and don't help with baby on weekend mornings .. I call her lazy when she falls asleep after I put the toddler to bed on weekdays.
Between my wife and I we can make a lot of good staples (roasted chicken, beef and potatoes, etc.) but we're not masters of the kitchen by any stretch.
You go to a restaurant to have someone else make the dinner and hopefully they are better than you are to make something tastier. As a side you don't have to deal with cleaning dishes.
That and hopefully they have a good wait staff to liven up things
Ok so next question. If the computer can magically create anything. And they are on almost all space stations (including cardassian/federation ones) what's the point of a bar?
Gambling makes sense. Paying for food/drink when you have a replicator doesn't.
Right, I get that. I'm just thinking that the song isn't about racism. Other than the fact that he's black and has the black man's blues. If the song was talking about his life as a black man or how he ended up a bum that would be different. But it's the way a child sees a black guy with killer guitar playing skills. Very innocent
Call me naive, but I always thought Curtis Lowe was about society not respecting bums who play good music for beer/wine money aka the starving artist. Even though the protagonist loved him as a mentor/entertainer.
Racism or the fact that he was black wasn't the main factor in the issues the protagonist is singing about, just that he happened to be black.... though I'm betting it didn't help the way people/protagonist's mom viewed the two of them spending so much time together
I always say him as an inspiration to Bleeding Gums Murphy and Lisa in the Simpsons.
Just my 2 cents. I agree with the rest of your list though.
Similarly, I dated a woman named Annie a few years back. Everyone of my geekier friends, when I introduced her, asked, "are you ok? Are you ok Annie?"!
The thing that is killing me is Netflixs attempt to crack down on password sharing.
I share an account with a few family members. If I want to watch a program on Netflix, which my brother pays for, I have to call him up to get the unlock code. He has a newborn and sleeps weird hours.
People don't like cable, because it's too expensive and inconvenient
People start pirating
People like having 2-3 streaming services that show everything, without ads, for much cheaper even combined than cable. They stop pirating.
People don't like having 20-30 streaming services that show only a little in each service, NOW WITH ADS!?!?! and that become MUCH more expensive than cable ever was.
Right. If the 20 teens and 20's taught me anything, it's that everyone has a story going on behind their eyes and they're always the main character/hero in their own story.
Not only for iPhone, but for Mac as well. It's easy to install bsd on a machine when you have access to the best hw engineers and documenters on the planet.