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If you use Dropbox, this matters. I’m shocked that they added this arbitration clause to the Terms of Service, but they did. Here’s the short version:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them.

This isn’t tech related, but it is a fantastic read.

Flappy Bird, you’ve met your match - Flappy Phone. Except they are serious, the new Samsung Galaxy S5 has a flap over the immensely hideous USB 3 micro B port. On one hand, this is a “face palm” moment. On the other hand, I applaud them for avoiding the 2 hours of listing gimmick software features that no one cared about like they did at the S4 unveiling. 

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the fingerprint scanner is “quite unreliable and virtually impossible to activate,” but I’m sure no one will notice (*cough).

There is pessimism, then there is reality. This is the latter. I dream of a revitalized television experience, I’d pay top dollar for it, and I think it will happen… eventually. The major technology media outlets have taken hold of this idea and run with it far beyond reason. You’ve got business men and women theorizing and then just assuming “the engineers will figure out the details.” 

Consider this: the engineering side of it has been figured out for a while - brilliant smooth UIs, voice control, motion sensors, Bluetooth remotes, unified search, all of these exist today. That isn’t the problem. There are two major issues where the tech media has praised solutions yet I strongly disagree with their viability; when I say “major” I mean fundamentally damning to the entire notion.

Apple has made a strong business on trusting that consumers are willing to pay good money for great products. This WhatsApp deal demonstrates the exact same thing. People are willing to spend what they consider to be a fair amount of money for a great product with a great user experience. Obviously some people don’t call Apple’s prices “fair,” but that’s a topic for another time.

This $19B WhatsApp deal makes me extremely happy (and I don’t use WhatsApp or Facebook) if only for the reason of demonstrating that a customer experience focused product still has tremendous value. We don’t need free products with ad support to make the world spin.

There has been no shortage of speculation since news broke that Apple’s M&A representative spoke with Elon Musk about acquiring the increasingly famous auto maker. Josh Ong has made a great case for why it might make sense, so I won’t duplicate that.

The whole issue has some red flags that stand out to me as pretty major reasons an acquisition wouldn’t happen.

1. The auto industry is a low margin industry, especially on the low end. Tesla is not yet competing in the lower end market, so their margins are likely much closer to Apple’s than Hyundai’s, but Tesla has plans to expand into the $30,000 arena where there is simply no way to have Apple-like margins.
2. The whole situation seems Google-y. Apple’s wheelhouse is making beautiful and simple computing devices. An entry into the auto industry, despite Jobs’ reported desire to do so, is un-Apple-like. With that being said, the auto industry is so slow to adopt new technology that it would be quite easy to disrupt.
3. Setting aside the magnitude of the purchase being vastly beyond anything Apple has purchased before, the fact that they couldn’t make this purchase quietly is worth mentioning. Apple tries to keep those as quiet as they can, this one would be making headlines around the world.

No surprises here. The rumors of the 2014 iPad Pro were unfounded when they started, and I called them out as such. Now, only a few months later and half a year before the originally projected launch, analysts (in this case Kuo, but he hasn’t been the only one barking up this tree) are backing off of the notion that Apple will be releasing a 12" iPad this year.

It is well known that Apple tries a huge number of technologies, sizes, and materials as part of their standard R&D. It is certain Apple has experimented with a larger iPad, probably even has some pretty late-stage devices., but that doesn’t mean they’re releasing one soon.

The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions #

The intent behind Microsoft’s new ‘one experience, everywhere’ mantra is noble. They see the increasingly common situations in which the iPod, iPhone, and iPad serve as gateway drugs, err products, to the Apple ecosystem. Microsoft isn’t trying to become Apple by any measure, but they are trying to shift the perception of their products toward the more intuitive and user friendly end of the spectrum, and these are qualities Apple is famous for.

For years countries outside the United States have used a system called EMV for their credit cards. The short version is that there is a chip inside the card that authenticates the transaction, plus the users has to enter a PIN instead of signing the receipt*. This has some major benefits. The biggest is security, and after the Target credit card leak I think that’s becoming more important to everyone. If someone steals your credit card number, they’ll still need your PIN to make charges.

I know, dead horse. I’m going to beat the dead horse because somehow the vast majority of people I know are closer to Inbox Infinity than to Inbox Zero. They think it is daunting, overwhelming, or impossible to change; they couldn’t be more wrong.

To be clear, my life doesn’t revolve around email. I don’t get thousands of emails per day, but these practices scale to days where I have gotten a few hundred emails. I never miss an email. Ever. Not seeing an email is not an acceptable excuse in my opinion, though I’d argue I’m in an overwhelming minority here.