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Apple new product rumours and general news

Updated my 6+ and iPad Air 2. So far I can't really tell much of a difference. There's one or two very minor things here and there but nothing eye catching or really 'wow that's useful'. Doesn't 'feel' any faster/ stable/ etc...tried that screen split thing and it felt a bit gimmicky nothing I can see I'll be using regularly.
 
Besides, if nobody reads them then their ad revenue is insignificant and so they aren't the sort of entities editor is on about in the first place.
 

You clearly are an idiot if you think the minuscule amount of traffic they get will generate any real income. If people produce content of value people will pay for it, if you're a small blogger and expecting an income your delusional.
 
It's a meaningless debate, the numbers of people using apps to get their content compared to mobile web is staggering. All Apple have done is steer into this and make their browser a nicer experience for the shrinking market that use it.

Adblock is a godsend for user experience.
 
You clearly are an idiot if you think the minuscule amount of traffic they get will generate any real income. If people produce content of value people will pay for it, if you're a small blogger and expecting an income your delusional.

It's not my fault that you are so narrow-minded you've chosen to restrict the point to the very smallest of the small.

Your point about people paying for content is not backed up by the story of the web overall so far. Or the story of how google built a huge ad empire.
 
I've noticed the little dial that appears when you adjust the volume has disappeared on ios9. Also the side wipe app on the mini is a bit of a joke. I wonder when if they will ever get rid of that silly mechanical home button?

Apropos the ad-blocker debate. I would like to see an ethical ad blocker so you could stuff sites like the Guardian especially when they have their bottom banner which says: "We notice you've got an ad-blocker switched on. Perhaps you'd like to support the Guardian another way?"

Actually no. I think with all your anti-Corbyn and anti working people articles of late you are a bunch of cunts.

Then there's the Indy. You are reading it at 2:00 in the morning and catching you unaware a booming voice implores you to buy the latest soap. Embedded video ads are a bad idea. I don't mind static adverts because they are not intrusive.

My ethical solution is to use two browsers. Safari for blocked pages and Opera for non blocked pages.
 
This situation has echoes of the 'why should I pay for music when I can download it for free' argument. In both cases, the people creating the content are the ones getting financially stuffed while people get to enjoy their work for free, and it hurts the small and independent - and often the best - concerns the most.
 
It's still odd that some micro payment system hasn't taken off yet. Top up an account with credit, then enter a PIN and pay a few pence or what ever when you see the logo on a site and want to read the full article.

Big splashy ads seriously fuck me off, they make Voiceover stop at times. Mind you, I use the Reader function that a lot of news sites have now. Strips out everything but the article itself. This works well if you can get to them with out the other crap in the way.
 
It's still odd that some micro payment system hasn't taken off yet. Top up an account with credit, then enter a PIN and pay a few pence or what ever when you see the logo on a site and want to read the full article.
Because it's been proved time and time again that most people don't want to pay to read web content.
Big splashy ads seriously fuck me off, they make Voiceover stop at times. Mind you, I use the Reader function that a lot of news sites have now. Strips out everything but the article itself. This works well if you can get to them with out the other crap in the way.
I've got no problem with autoplaying video ads that cover most of your screen being banished forever. They can fuck right off.
 
This situation has echoes of the 'why should I pay for music when I can download it for free' argument. In both cases, the people creating the content are the ones getting financially stuffed while people get to enjoy their work for free, and it hurts the small and independent - and often the best - concerns the most.

Downloading music without paying is mostly about saving money, and very early on (before the music industry accepted the idea of online music distribution at all) about convenience.

This advertising issue is more complicated. Some sites are at fault for plastering too many adverts on their site. Others are ignorant about serious issues regarding tracking of users. I've now installed Ghostery and am having 'fun' seeing how many trackers and wasteful javascript processes are being run on sites.

Behavioural tracking can fuck off, and content creators who don't care about this get what they deserve.
 
I see the BBC has an article about whether ad-blockers will mean the end of the free content internet.

Its not a brilliant piece but it does touch briefly on some interesting issues. I'm only going to quote a couple of things of particular interest to me.

Does ad blocking herald the end of the free internet? - BBC News

"Consumers should have a choice over what kinds of ads they want to see, how fast they want them to load, and how much personal information they are happy to share," he says.

"A new model is to put users of the internet in control of their own data. Let them decide who they trade it with and for what reward," says StJohn Deakins, chief executive of CitizenMe, a group helping consumers take control of their own data and monetise it.
 
I see the Peace creator has pulled his ad-blocker. I wonder if he was leaned on? I do love conspiracy theories.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...er-marco-arment-says-success-doesnt-feel-good

:D
I think it's just "divvy liberal".

The whole "small creators" argument is dead. Small sites cannot possibly make even maintenance costs from ads. That ship sailed years ago. Small creators take commissions, use Patreon, have their work feed in to their "personal brand" (barf) or whatever. Even large, popular, well-trafficked sites have to be laser focussed on content and incorporate increasingly huge numbers of obnoxious ads to make money from advertising nowadays (I work on some). Ad payments have been tanking for a while, and it isn't ad blockers that are doing it—people just don't pay for impressions nowadays. The emperor's clothes have been increasingly less visible for a while. (It'll happen on social soon too.)

The fact that you can put ads into apps even if the browser blocks them is just another migration, like modal JS popups took over from new-window popups. That won't pay either. The industry is incredibly unwilling to actually confront this issue.
 
What an idiot. He spent all that time constructing an argument as to why ad-blockers were justified, and made a big deal about how up-to-date he was going to keep it. Why you would spend any time writing the app in the first place if you had lingering doubts about morality issues is beyond me.

I highly doubt anyone gave him a new point to consider, beyond not being able to handle the heat.
 
So, iOS9 on an iPhone 5s.

Hmmmm. Can't quite put my finger on it but it's just not quite right. All the smoothness and instant response has slightly dulled. It's not stuttering or going slow as such, but there's something making it feel slightly less slick and polished than it was before.
 
About the whole "paying for content" issue. Ads aren't paying for content. You've not been in that situation for a very long time. We don't have ads so that you can have content, we have content so that you can have ads. The entire purpose of an ad-driven website is to serve ads; oh initially ads might have supported content, but now, no. There are massive content farms producing easily-linkable "viral" content specifically for the purpose of ads, very specifically targetting what is popular on FB or whatever the best distribution medium is. The whole thing is a running joke.

So when the ads don't work—and they don't, and it's not ad blockers, and it's mostly imaginary that they ever really did, hence why the payments are tanking and advertisers are getting more desperate—who cares? They never supported anything useful. They actively acted against anything useful. Better for everyone apart from those who have made a business out of it, and tbh fuck them.
 
About the whole "paying for content" issue. Ads aren't paying for content. You've not been in that situation for a very long time. We don't have ads so that you can have content, we have content so that you can have ads. The entire purpose of an ad-driven website is to serve ads; oh initially ads might have supported content, but now, no. There are massive content farms producing easily-linkable "viral" content specifically for the purpose of ads, very specifically targetting what is popular on FB or whatever the best distribution medium is. The whole thing is a running joke.

So when the ads don't work—and they don't, and it's not ad blockers, and it's mostly imaginary that they ever really did, hence why the payments are tanking and advertisers are getting more desperate—who cares? They never supported anything useful. They actively acted against anything useful. Better for everyone apart from those who have made a business out of it, and tbh fuck them.

I totally buy into what you are saying but I think you are over-egging it just a little. Quite how little I cannot say, since I don't have the data and my personal experience is relatively limited. But for example, just because a very large percentage of online ad revenue etc may be driven by the bullshit you are describing there, doesn't mean I should exclude the possibility that some people somewhere are making useful amounts of money in exchange for meaningful content. This doesn't really negate your point though, and I know there are very real reasons why we don't hear optimistic bullshit about 'the long tail' and haven't done for years now. Almost any direction we might look in, from ad supported games to youtubers, the useful money only comes if you can get a rather huge quantity of regular eyeballs. I like the Patreon idea and monetising a small, loyal following, but I don't know how well its going.

Certainly I was one of those people who laughed when the likes of Facebook and Google talked shit about how much money they were going to make from mobile ads, given factors such as the more intrusive feeling we experience when adverts appear on mobile devices, especially when screen real estate is limited and apps are so popular.

I look forward to it going shit for Facebook, especially as the ads that appear on my feed feel more numerous and annoying these days. But I wouldn't like to predict how long we'll be waiting for the bubble to burst - its been a silly bubble since at least the time when the phrase 'web 2.0' was coined and that must be over 10 years ago now. Hard to tell how long the bullshit can be propped up since the entire global system seems to be equally bubble-based and phoney confidence sure can last a long time.
 
So, iOS9 on an iPhone 5s.

Hmmmm. Can't quite put my finger on it but it's just not quite right. All the smoothness and instant response has slightly dulled. It's not stuttering or going slow as such, but there's something making it feel slightly less slick and polished than it was before.
A slight update to this.

iOS 9 on both a 5s and an iPad 4 is a crappy, slow, buggy mess :mad:
 
  • WeChat
  • DiDi Taxi
  • 58 Classified - Job, Used Cars, Rent
  • Gaode Map - Driving and Public Transportation
  • Railroad 12306
  • Flush
  • China Unicom Customer Service (Official Version)*
  • CarrotFantasy 2: Daily Battle*
  • Miraculous Warmth
  • Call Me MT 2 - Multi-server version
  • Angry Birds 2 - Yifeng Li’s Favorite*
  • Baidu Music - Music Player with Downloads, Ringtones, Music Videos, Radio & Karaoke
  • DuoDuo Ringtone
  • NetEase Music - An Essential for Radio and Song Download
  • Foreign Harbor - The Hottest Platform for Oversea Shopping*
  • Battle of Freedom (The MOBA mobile game)
  • One Piece - Embark (Officially Authorized)*
  • Let’s Cook - Receipes
  • Heroes of Order & Chaos - Multiplayer Online Game*
  • Dark Dawn - Under the Icing City (the first mobile game sponsored by Fan BingBing)*
  • I Like Being With You*
  • Himalaya FM (Audio Book Community)
  • CarrotFantasy*
  • Flush HD
  • Encounter - Local Chatting Tool

They've announced the top 25 affected apps..
 
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