I may be smashing the State today, but yesterday I was helping Tim Cook turn Apple around.
No, I didn’t buy one of the new Minis, or even a new-used iPhone.
I had the battery replaced in the old iPhone 5. Set me back all of fiddy magic beans.
You’re welcome, Timmy old hoss. Don’t spend it all in one place.
Mad Blog Media 
did you do it yourself or take it to one of those centers of inelegance?
I considered doing it myself, but it looked fiddly as described by iFixit. So I went to the Magic Kingdom instead.
That place is always worth a visit. They got all the cool toys, and it’s great for people-watching, because it’s always hopping. Yesterday it looked to me like a madhouse, but a tech judged it “slow.”
An interesting aside: Another tech described my 6-year-old iPhone 5 as “vintage,” and said the battery replacement could croak it entirely. Meanwhile, I use a 20-year-old G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac full of bad news, cat hair and any number of my self-installed techno-whims to color the BRAIN cartoons. So it goes.
I’m still using an I5s and can’t see any reason to upgrade until it looks like it is about to croak.
Khal: Still got an iPhone 4 going strong. Hope muttering that hasn’t jinxed it.
Aren’t you glad that you were dealing with an Apple Genii? Otherwise it might have taken 15 minutes.
I wasn’t in a hurry. All that thing does is take calls from Russians and emails from Nigerian princes. And let the NSA follow me around, of course.
$50 for two more years of reliable usage, provided you don’t update the operating system. Cuz if you do, Apple will be operating on you, a little procedure known as walletoscopy, which can lead to checking account depletion syndrome.
Yeah, that dude is pegged at iOS 10.3.3. It’s got like 1.3 GB of space left, is all. And I have to use a SanDisk comosellama to pull pix off every couple weeks or it swells up like a poison toad.
But I couldn’t feature buying a new one, anymore than I can buying a new car. I want any headaches, I’ll go fall down on a trail somewhere. Again.
I’m currently using a SE. I like it for the form factor but given my aging eye sight, I’ve been considering an upgrade. The only thing keeping me from it is that the current iPhones don’t yet support the coming 5G networks. I guess I’ll be squinting for a bit longer
The SE is basically a 6 in 5 clothing, yeah? I was looking around for one of those but they’re hard to find. Best Buy and AT&T have a few as prepaid options.
Like you I’m a squinter. But the Russians and Nigerians don’t seem to mind. They keep hosing me down with their bullshit whether I can see it or not.
I got my SE in late 2016 and the thing has been faultless. It’s all I could ever use, need or want in a phone. I fully intend to use it until the end of time. Or until the Asshole is shoved outta office – whichever comes first.
Glasses are way less expensive.
I’ve seen enough. Hasn’t everyone?
Chapeau, mon ami!
You bet.
“…it’s always hopping. Yesterday it looked to me like a madhouse, but a tech judged it “slow.” Yet the Apple folks are not happy.
When did economies change to the point they are seen to be thriving only when consumers are spending a whole lot of money they don’t have? Then when it all blows up they call it the “business cycle” as if this all is impossible to avoid. Boom followed by bust over and over again. But of course capitalism is the best way, dontcha know? Just like democracy, but I wonder if all the alternatives to capitalism are actually worse?
As Cactus Ed Abbey famously wote: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
Apple’s sort of growth was insane and unsustainable, especially since (a) the products themselves (software and hardware alike) are pretty solid and durable, and (2) the Chinese market proved more challenging than management had anticipated.
Customers have realized they don’t have to trade up for the new model every year, or every other year, especially if the new model lacks features they liked (headphone jacks) and includes “upgrades” they consider of dubious value (Touch ID, Face ID). Sound familiar? See “auto industry.”
So Apple’s moving into “services,” which can mean pretty much anything. Music. TV. Software subscriptions a la Microsoft and Adobe. Air sauce and wind pudding. Teaching you how to use the products you already own while evangelizing for the new ones they want you to buy.
One of the long tables at the Magic Kingdom the other day was filled with people taking instruction on how to use their Apple Watches. That’s something you can sell all day long. The corner IBD could be doing this with e-bike operation, electronic shifting, disc-brake maintenance, how to ride a straight line, etc. (and I bet a bunch of them already are).
I bet I don’t use 20 percent of the capacity of any of my Apple products, and if I weren’t so insistent on puzzling shit out on my own I could be down there at the Magic Kingdom getting an M.A. in GarageBand.
The most conservative estimate I could find is that about 60% of the US economy is consumer spending on US made products and services. Add in foreign made stuff, like Apple stuff, and you get to 70%. Buy more shit ain’t working especially when consumer debt finances much of that buying. When the next recession hits it will be worse because of debt default. We are seeing a little of that already with the federal furlough of workers. Many can’t afford to miss one paycheck without defaulting on debt. The economy is FUBAR.
It really is scary how close to the edge some folks are skating. Could be fake news, but I recall hearing somewhere that a surprise $400 expense might be more than the average Joe/Jane could handle.
We had a metric shit-ton of credit-card debt Back in the Day® until Herself buckled down and set about wiping it out, one peso at a time.
We’re down to one house payment and one car payment now. Operating expenses go on the credit card, which gets run up and zeroed out monthly.
Hindsight being 20-20 we probably should have spent five thou’ bringing Herself’s beat-to-shit 2002 Subaru up to speed instead of buying the ’11 Honda CR-V on time. But she drives to work five days a week and needs reliable transportation.
I make do with the ’05 Furster because I drive about every 10 days, to the grocery and back. Also, and too, it’s paid off.
All we have is a modest mortgage payment, much less than rent would cost. The balance is low enough we could bail quickly out if needed. No other debt. Any work this joint needs is funded by saving up for a month or two. We had a nest egg for contingencies when we retired; we still have it plus a little more. My fiscal weakness is vehicles. We would have a larger nest egg if I would quit buying Toyotas. Our nephew is thinking about riding the Santa Fe century with us. So, I would need the room of he Rav4 to get 4 people and two bikes up to Khal’s hometown. But, we have toyed with the idea of selling it and getting by with the Corolla iM which handles 95% of our car needs. All I need to do is put a receiver hitch on it for a bike rack. Easy, sleazy, and about 125 bucks.
It’s worse than we thought https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/01/why-half-of-americans-cant-come-up-with-400-in-an.aspx
Cars are for sure a money-pit with average costs to run one almost $9K a year. We paid mine off soon after The Prof came along, then bought her a new one with a loan we paid off quickly. That 1993 car ran just fine (after mine was junked) until 2 months before we bailed out of the USA, so we spent $1000+ on rentals in the time before actually escaped.
Now we just rent/lease one for the Piedmont Cycling Resort each season and get by with our feet and bicycles with a rare car rental the rest of the time.
I’ve just recently retired my 1990 Toyota Corolla, 438,000 kms & we owned it for 28 years . Never let us down once, but started to develop significant body rust & given it;s age under NZ laws it had to be inspected every 6 months for a Warrant of Fitness to use on the road. I felt quiet emotional when they came & took it away to be junked.
We’re doing our part to help the Italian economy, though I suspect most of the revenue (just like in the USA) finds its way back to the PRC. Our apartment here in Napoli is well set up, but the cook wants some more kitchen stuff so off we go, back to the “Chinese Store” to get whatever she needs. When I sit down to eat I have no issues on what we spend on cooking or kitchen equipment. Whoever gets this place next will find it very well set up for proper cooking.
Meanwhile- https://cycleitalia.blogspot.com/2019/01/cycleitalias-great-pizza-shootout-part-1.html