While the article is written as a rant, which hurts the author's credibility, the points, IMO, are valid.

Did you actually try doing the math? $11 billion divided over 650k employees is roughly $17k which amounts to $75 per day assuming the employee works around 225 days a year which in turn amounts to less than $10 an hour assuming the employee works for 8 hours a day.

So you’re saying they could afford to give their workers a $5/hour raise and still retain a healthy profit? Why the snide question at the beginning, then?

> On an unrelated note, I am pretty upset that my Samsung ~$1200 TV has ads built into it.

On a lighter note, don’t TVs have ads anyway?

No, shitty TV stations have ads. Not all of us watch that trash.

I was burnt by a third party application using mmap over NFS recently. Definitely not fun by any definition of it.

And it gets a SIGSEGV and segfaults.

> Those services being tied RIGHT INTO the OS is a huge advantage.

That is a disadvantage to me. I prefer not to keep all my eggs in one basket.

Read the next sentence after what you quoted.

What I mean is that services CAN BE hooked into the OS. My messaging service being independent from my messaging app (sms as an example.) What I mean is, by default, Google has best in class services. (Photos and Maps are clearly superior to Apple.)

Being able to SET my default maps service. I need the os to be aware of what kinds of queries my maps app can handle.

Being able to swap out my voice assistant between google, alexa, cortana, m. I need the hardware and os layer listening, ready for me to trigger my voice assistant, but once they do, they should had it off to the service of my choice. Or my Roku being able to deep link directly to content within apps, apps that advertise their content to the os search.

Android is built to allow google, a manufacturer, or a user to swap out services, but still allows the service to feel integrated.

I do think there is a distinction between Android and Google Play Services. GPS is an advantage, and a great set of default services, but im not stuck with them for the life of a device, if I choose to replace them.

Maybe that will kill the trend? I certainly hope so! :-)

I do too! Can't wait for under the OLED screen hidden cameras to have one giant slab of screen.

You might want to check the reason for the limitation before making such comments. A display can be stretched to the three edges of the phone —- it is the fourth edge that is the problem — as Xiaomi demonstrated with Mi Mix 2. At least some space is needed to house the display driver, camera, sensors etc.

Sorry, reading on a phone. Really didn’t see the responses before responding. It was not my intention to pile on.

Xiaomi got rid of the forehead entirely by moving everything to the (relatively small) chin on Mi Mix 2. While that is not great for the front facing camera usage since many (most?) apps don’t support 180 degree rotation, I don’t see why the design can’t be flipped. Just build a phone with a reasonable sized forehead. Although I don’t particularly mind the design choice for Galaxy Note 9 or Nokia 7 Plus — a narrow forehead and chin.

Hedging their bets? Since iPhone XS devices are are a rather large risk and they need something to fall back on in case they don’t do well. If they do, we may not see a successor.

iPhone SE was probably a similar bet since a lot of people were complaining about the large iPhone 6/6S — not to mention the Plus variants.

You are not the only one.