At least in the US, Toyota is wildly successful across every segment. The RAV4, Camry, Corolla, and Tacoma do massive numbers, even though the compact and midsize sedan market is collapsing. Even niche offerings like the GR Corolla can be challenging to procure from a dealer. The Toyota Tax in the used market is unbelievable. For a huge number of people, there is no manufacturer that gets even close to the same amount of respect that Toyota does. Their victory was so overwhelming that it permanently changed how manufacturing is done and an entire generation of prideful Americans will readily admit that the Big Three were on the back foot in the 80s and 90s.
Not to say that China isn’t capable of something similar, but you do have to understand that your tastes/value assessments are very much not representative of the sizable US market on the whole if you would seriously take a Sentra over a Corolla, or an Equinox over a RAV4. The calculus may be a bit different in the European market, of course.
“Only for industrial uses” is kind of a crazy thing to say when you say it out loud, don’t you think? You might as well say “only for having real-world impact”.
You do not need a 2nm processor to run an engine, perform an ultrasound, drop a missile on someone's head, make 10 million parts in a factory, or fly a plane. The vast majority of the increased processing power we've developed since the mid-2010s gets pissed away rendering 30MB websites or generating AI cheating fruit husband videos. Every phone SoC release for the last 10 years combined has done less in the real, concrete world we live in than industrial controls hardware from 30 years ago.
We can vibecode SaaS junk that we will have all forgotten about this time next year at never-before-seen speed, but every single day, hundreds or thousands of times a day, you brush up against something that was built by an AB or Siemens PLC installed in 2004 that might be slated for decommissioning in a decade or so.
>You do not need a 2nm processor to [...] drop a missile on someone's head, make 10 million parts in a factory, or fly a plane.
What a silly argument. You DO NEED those 2nm CPUs and GPUs to run the CAD and CAE work to design an effective missile and run the battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing to decide when and where to drop that missile. Otherwise if you stay low tech on 20 year old HW, you end up like Russian army today.
Look at EU supercomputers that run these tasks along with the computation needed for high-margin EU industries like pharma such as Novo Nordisk, and it all runs on low-nm US chips made in Taiwan, not EU made microcontrollers and mosfets. Where's EU domestic sovereignty there?
>Every phone SoC release for the last 10 years combined has done less in the real, concrete world we live in than industrial controls hardware from 30 years ago.
An out of touch argument on manipulating a definition of "real work". Work done by industrial controllers isn't "more real" than that done by CPUs and GPUs. By this definition the janitors and handyman in the hospital does more "real work" than the x-ray tech sitting looking at cat videos between looking at x-rays all day. Our economy, yes even in the EU, works on who and what creates more added value to the economy, not whose job is more tough and gritty getting their hands dirty. Work smart, not hard.
>We can vibecode SaaS junk that we will have all forgotten about this time next year [...] you brush up against something that was built by an AB or Siemens PLC installed in 2004 that might be slated for decommissioning in a decade or so
Again, more ignorance. Jobs on vibe coding a SaaS pays way better in Europe and gets you better perks and working conditions, than writing the code of a PLC. Ask me how I know(former embedded programmer here in the semi industry). Or just look up the salaries on the jobs market. The SW industry just pays way better than the industrial controller HW industry. Yeah, the latter is important too, but clearly not important enough when you see the salaries you're offered, meaning they don't actually value it as much.
Your luddite comment just reeks of the typical German/European ignorance and arrogance that made us fall behind the tech race, the EV race, etc leading to the EU losing a lot of GDP and influence on the world stage: "We don't need this battery EV car shit, you can just use diesel engines from 10 years ago", "we don't need this fancy self driving shit, our drivers love driving our cars themselves".
>You DO NEED those 2nm CPUs and GPUs to run the CAD and CAE work to design an effective missile
We've been able to do intensive CAD and CAE to make effective missiles for a long while now. Modern process nodes are not required. Iran has been doing appreciable missile damage to US bases, and has never entered the TOP500.
> and run the battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing to decide when and where to drop that missile.
We have current, ongoing conflicts where it's clear that battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing is taking the backseat to just shooting people, blowing people up, and blowing obvious buildings and installations up. I know that is a gross oversimplification, but militaries worldwide have been chasing after sci-fi shit that's going to be The Future of War just for 99% of the ideas to hit the scrap pile while the remaining 1% develop into incremental improvements in doctrine. The most impactful idea to come out of the Russia-Ukraine war has been strapping an RPG-7 round to an ATmega328-controlled quadcopter, no Nvidia H200s involved.
>Otherwise if you stay low tech on 20 year old HW, you end up like Russian army today.
I'm sorry, but I don't know how you can say with a straight face that technological issues are even close to the top of the list of issues for the Russian military.
>Look at EU supercomputers that run these tasks, along with the computation needed for high-margin EU industries like pharma such as Novo Nordisk, and it all runs on low-nm US chips made in Taiwan,
Something being high margin doesn't mean it's a critical part of European sovereignty. Novo Nordisk making 75% of its profits on selling weight loss drugs to overweight Americans is indirectly good for the bloc because money is generally useful, but it's hardly a matter of security. A lot of low-margin businesses are massively subsidized for this reason. Why do you think the US has such massive subsidies for farming?
>not EU made microcontrollers and mosfets. Where's EU domestic sovereignty there?
The MCUs and FETs are what allows any semblance of day-to-day life to continue. If you had to choose to be a nation with only power electronics and MCUs, or a nation with only high-end CPUs, any sane person is picking the former. It follows that you focus on making sure the former is in place first.
>An out of touch argument on manipulating a definition of "real work". Work done by industrial controllers isn't "more real" than that done by CPUs and GPUs.
In a literal sense, yes, in most cases it is. You NEED the microcontrollers and power electronics to support the production of critical infrastructure and equipment more than you need the latest phone SoC. Even if you have the cutting edge CPUs and GPUs, if you are cut off from other componentry, you're not getting very far with it.
>By this definition the janitors and handyman in the hospital does more "real work" than the x-ray tech sitting looking at cat videos between looking at x-rays all day.
The tradesmen built the hospital in the first place, and the support staff keep it running. Yes, the x-ray tech would massively outstrip the strategic importance of the people that actually build and maintain the hospitals if buildings lasted forever and you never planned on building another hospital again.
>Our economy, yes even in the EU, works on who and what creates more added value to the economy, not whose job is more tough and gritty getting their hands dirty. Work smart, not hard.
Alcohol, advertising, gambling, and porn create a huge amount of added value. These are of very little interest to national security.
>Again, more ignorance. Jobs on vibe coding a SaaS pays way better in Europe and gets you better perks and working conditions, than writing the code of a PLC. Ask me how I know(former embedded programmer here in the semi industry). Or just look up the salaries on the jobs market. The SW industry just pays way better than the industrial controller HW industry. Yeah, the latter is important too, but clearly not important enough when you see the salaries you're offered, meaning they don't actually value it as much.
Those salaries are massively suppressed by various cultural dynamics in Europe, and a misplaced trust in the US to protect it. Europe is waking up to the possibility that the US may not be a permanent ally. The government that no longer trusts NATO's biggest spender isn't concerned about your wish that they would primarily invest in cutting edge technology that has as-of-yet undetermined returns in national security so that you can have a salary closer to what you would see in an American tech company.
>Your luddite comment just reeks of the typical German/European ignorance and arrogance that made us fall behind the tech race, the EV race, etc leading to the EU losing a lot of GDP and influence on the world stage: "We don't need this battery EV car shit, you can just use diesel engines from 10 years ago", "we don't need this fancy self driving shit, our drivers love driving our cars themselves".
I'm in the US. I don't have a dog in the hunt. I do agree that European ignorance/arrogance has put your nations and you personally in a bad position. I truly am sorry that you can't make the money you want working on the things that will allow you to endure if the rubber actually meets the road. Even though that's all true, prioritizing cutting-edge chip fab over the basics that are supporting your ability to defend and provide for yourselves at the most basic level is just an incorrect move. It is not a coincidence that this stuff picked up steam after the war in Ukraine started, and Trump started floating the idea of leaving NATO.
>Novo Nordisk making 75% of its profits on selling weight loss drugs to overweight Americans is indirectly good for the bloc because money is generally useful
The highest margin businesses in EU run on US IP made in Taiwan. How is that on sovereignty? I literally addressed this twice. It's a massive vulnerability that nobody in the EU is even remotely addressing. Making our own 0,02$ microcontrollers and mosfets is missing the forest from the trees. Why do you think China is making their own GPUs now?
>The tradesmen built the hospital in the first place, and the support staff keep it running.
Except there's more tradesmen than x-ray techs on the market, and training or importing the former from aboard is a lot easier and cheaper than the latter. Flawed argument.
>The MCUs and FETs are what allows any semblance of day-to-day life to continue.
So does having shoes on your feet, yet we don't onshore shoe manufacturing in the west.
>Those salaries are massively suppressed by various cultural dynamics in Europe, and a misplaced trust in the US to protect it.
No, they're suppressed by the EU business elites who want cheap labor. The US is the convenient boogieman so that the Europoors don't guillotine their leaders and oligarchs.
>so that you can have a salary closer to what you would see in an American tech company.
Haha, that's just wishful thinking. HW and embedded SW jobs still pay like shit in Europe because the EU economy is so shit it's too addicted to offshoring and driving labor costs into the ground in the race to the bottom to increase shareholder value. So everyone still wants to be a Saas tech-bro than an engineer because it pays better.
>prioritizing cutting-edge chip fab over the basics that are supporting your ability to defend and provide for yourselves at the most basic level is just an incorrect move.
My brother in Christ, cutting edge fabs can also make 0,02$ microcontrollers and transistors in case of war, they're not stuck making GPUS. There's no logical reason to stay on ancient processes nodes other than because you're too broke to afford cutting edge fabs. Why do you think China is so depurate to make cutting edge fabs and not stay on >7nM?
Your arguments are mostly flawed based on poor understanding of sovereignty, supply chains and market economics.
If the former all go missing, the consumer is not going to buy a new phone/laptop/etc. this year. If the latter go missing, agriculture and manufacturing companies (e.g. the automotive industry) go broke. The former have more profit, the latter are more important.
>The former have more profit, the latter are more important.
That's a massive contradiction stemming from ignorance, based your skewed and subjective definition of what's more important.
With more money from selling the former high-profit stuff, you can just buy the latter low-margin stuff from a sea of suppliers/countries locked in a race to them bottom to sell to you. Which is how the US economy works and grows.
And the later being less profitable is at constant danger from rising competitors in Asia meaning EU companies have more competition and less margins and why their wages are lower.
If you're still confused on how you judge what's more important, in essence, making more money IS what's more important, not making low margin trinkets that you subjectively see as being more important. Like the arab states don't make jack shit, but they still get to buy the most cutting edge shit they need thanks to their massive oil money.
Because with your logic, making shoes would be more important, because without shoes people wouldn't be able to walk outside their houses, when shoes are actually low margin commodity readily available from thousands of sweatshops, not something any country takes pride in manufacturing domestically anymore, for better and for worse.
Good data point. I'd assume that drivers of big cars are often worse/more dangerous drivers. Hard to control for in statistics, but a good driver in a big car is more protected against other bad drivers. For reference, I drive a compact car.
There's a lot of sociological observations you can make. RWD Challengers and Hemi Chargers are obviously going to be death magnets. The Altima gets the exact type of numbers you would expect. The WRX is surprisingly low. The Outback is no surprise considering your average Outback driver. Most of the chart toppers are the type of car you would buy if you're looking for trouble or you don't know how to drive. People with more expensive cars seem to be making an effort to not die in them.
A good road driver just generally positions themselves to not get hit by other cars, regardless of whether or not they're in something pretty nimble or a fat pig boat.
This argument sucks and there’s no point making excuses for Microsoft when we know full well that they can ship updates without constant severe defects. Somebody isn’t a power user just because they use their computer for more than watching YouTube and light web browsing. The type of shit that is being broken on a month to month basis now would have been scandalous in past versions of Windows.
That being said, we’re never going back to what we had in the past. Fixing it would be nasty business.
> we know full well that they can ship updates without constant severe defects
How do you know that? I guess you don't work for a big company. Incompetence is the norm, not the exception.
> Somebody isn’t a power user just because they use their computer for more than watching YouTube and light web browsing
Strawman argument. I didn't say that. I said that the author is a poweruser, and the author is doing a lot more than "watching YouTube and light web browsing".
Because I started giving a shit about it functioning properly starting with Windows XP and have been using the product for basically as long as I can remember. I’m not saying they’ve never had stinkers but you’re being obtuse if you actually don’t notice how extreme the bugs have gotten for basic tasks.
As an aside, I’ve basically only worked for large companies. Incompetence being common doesn’t mean everything is hopelessly terrible.
> the author is a power user
Installing routine updates isn’t power user activity. It’s actually mandatory and the system constantly nags you if you don’t do it. Installing an image viewer isn’t power user activity. If you seriously believe that’s the case you have a rotten view of the user and we are never going to see eye to eye on this. I genuinely hope you don’t manage or design software.
Based on your constantly shifting positions and extreme defensiveness, it's pretty clear that you're not arguing in good faith, here. So I agree that it is best if you don't continue.
Sheesh, how did we get to this point? This is actually disturbing. Well, I guess I'll have to work on my main point a bit more so it doesn't spiral out of controll like this next time!
1. Appealing to the attitudes of 150+ years ago leads to all sorts of absurdities. We live in 2026.
2. The US not functioning without illegal immigrants is a bad thing. More often than not, employers like illegal immigrants because they can abuse them in some way or another. If you actually interact with illegal immigrants or the people that employ them, this is clear. “We need modern indentured servitude” is not the country I want to live in. I would rather these industries just be subsidized by the government to whatever extent it takes for US citizens to take the jobs with all of the protections we expect workers to have.
3. Not every country is short of workers. Employers may be short of workers that they can lord over, but refer back to point 2. Pointing to Canada’s policy as an example of a “smart move” is a strange play.
The current administration is certainly not working on the above premises, but I’m floored when I hear supposedly progressive people going on about who is going to work the psychologically scarring meatpacking plants if we don’t take on an undefined number of people who are only here to get shit on for a good paycheck. I have compassion for illegal immigrants, which is exactly why I don’t want them in the US.
My point wasn’t that exploiting illegal immigrants is good.
My point was that with the sorely lacking rules already in place, illegal immigration is a problem and at the same time there is still a supply problem.
So acting even more high and mighty like it’s the greatest place on earth to be and require people who want in to grovel even more certainly isn’t good policy.
I’m also confused why you think Canada isn’t doing it better? You can immigrate but your profile needs to match what the country needs: its win win, because once you’re there you have a fair chance at a good life (integration, job, etc) vs taking anyone in and then having issues with people who can’t find jobs, be happy in the country, and integrate into society.
But the process around the US visa and immigration program is a lot more hostile than it needs to be. I had the displeasure to deal with this grinder and it’s really showing that the attitude is “you’re less than nothing, it’s up to you to prove you’re worthy of us even reading the forms you filled in and paid for, fuck you very much”
It’s an awesome looking machine even if it’s a bit dated for some people’s tastes. Any way the wind blows, it’s massively preferable to today’s largely soulless designs.
Their strategy is more in-depth than that, and they’re more accurately looking for sharps. Somebody working minimum wage in a trailer betting for “their guy” isn’t a problem, even if they’re not going to make the book much money. Somebody working minimum wage in a trailer smurfing for a sharp can be a huge problem. You can read first hand info from professional bettors, books don’t like to reveal their risk management methodology for obvious reasons.
Seller protections on eBay are effectively non-existent. I’ve sold $50,000+ of stuff on the site and their compulsory Money Back Guarantee that they make on your behalf will make your blood boil when you get bullshit INAD shakedowns because the buyer didn’t feel like reading or didn’t know how properly use the item. Even if you have written communication from the buyer sent on eBay outright saying they’re abusing the system, eBay doesn’t care. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, but the extra 7% FVF they take on top of their base 13.5% is offensive.
At this point I just lie and cheat the system as much as I can. I’ve had a significantly better experience since I started carefully massaging every metric, threatening INAD abusers with mail fraud reports, coaching buyers through returns to keep my metrics up, etc. I always have and always will do right by honest customers, but I’m done just grabbing my ankles when it comes to dealing with eBay and their policies.
Yup, it's time to let go. The forces that eat away at quality software are running an indoctrination campaign with budgets in the billions of dollars to ensure that people don't remember what quality software is. You can do right in your own work and with your own people but most peoples' experiences are going to suck for the foreseeable future.
Even if they fix the keyboard, iOS as a whole can't really be fixed. This is a single symptom of a much larger problem. So much is broken, poorly implemented, or so laughably tasteless that it hurts my head to think about how it's positioned and accepted as a "premium" product. I understand that most people notice so little about the design of their surroundings that it's basically impossible for them to understand that this junk is inflicting thousands of tiny psychological cuts daily, but it makes me so very very sad that this is acceptable to so many people.
- As mentioned, keyboard input is offensively broken. Whiffed inputs, the entire text selection/cursor manipulation model sucks (not being able to select in the middle of a word is inexcusable unless you have Stockholm syndrome for the bandaids), the cursor manipulation is broken, keyboard gets stuck open or closed, etc. etc. I'm convinced the input design for this phone is a CIA psyop designed to drive you to madness so they can recruit you as a sleeper cell.
- Passcode inputs are also broken. Trying to enter your passcode at easily achievable speeds results in dropped inputs.
- Above point wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for fingerprint scanning being given up for Face ID, which is complete dogshit that constantly fails-to-passcode trying and failing to scan my ceiling, or my face when it's against a pillow in the morning. It's also completely worthless when I'm unable to fully point my face at the phone (working on vehicles or in some other enclosed area) or am trying to use the phone completely off of muscle memory.
- The gesture navigation system is a fundamentally bad idea. I'm an average-sized man and reaching over to the left hand side of the screen to make back inputs requires me to shift my fingers on the back of the phone just to make the reach for the input. This is on a base-model iPhone 16, which is already a touch too large for many hands to deal with this input system. The hitboxes for navigation inputs are too small and many of the inputs are often shared with actions in apps, resulting in taking all sorts of actions you didn't want to. Android style 3-button navigation at the bottom of the screen solved this many years ago. As an aside, the 60 FPS screen on an $800 phone as a "fuck you" push to upgrade to an even fatter pig of a phone that suffers even more from the bad navigation is funny.
- The GPS is fucked up, at least on the iPhone 16. It takes forever to find its bearing, after which it usually holds onto it until losing its mind again at the most inconvenient time. The only phone I've seen with a worse GPS is a Unihertz Jelly. Being in the same league as a $150 niche night market special is shameful.
- I have a frustrating number of calls get dropped. I don't know exactly where this issue comes from but it's noticeable, I run into it a couple times a week. My previous S24 on the same carrier never dropped calls under the same circumstances, so I know not having this issue is possible.
- The flashlight implementation sucks. Being able to tap it off with screen input is incredibly frustrating when I'm fumbling around trying to do something in the dark. And of course, it turns the screen on so you can make this accidental input every time you turn the flashlight on with the assignable side button. Being able to adjust the brightness is something I've never found any use for and mostly just serves to annoy me when I accidentally turn it down with another unintended input, but maybe somebody somewhere gives a shit about this, I guess.
- The split notification/settings menu is incredibly annoying. The settings menu is already a reach on the smallest mainline models, the notifications menu basically requires whole-hand movement. 20% of the space in the notifications menu is taken up by a fuckoff huge clock that you can't configure the size of. The lack of notification icons results in me having to actually unlock the phone and check things instead of just being able to know at a glance (I know they wanted to distance themselves from the roached Android notification tray look but I don't care).
- Liquid Glass looks like shit. So does a lot of the rest of the phone but I don't really hold some moron designer's bad visual taste against a product unless it affects the usability of the product. And of course, it affects the usability of the product. I actually laughed out loud having a literally unreadable lockscreen clock after the iOS 26 update, with the factory-provided moon background to add a little more salt to the wound. It reads poorly and is tacky to boot.
- This is pretty minor but the constant nags about iCloud are very funny. These assholes just couldn't resist hounding you for 99 cents more after you bought their $800 fuckup. It's like getting nagged about a Sirius XM subscription in a Lamborghini.
Individual points may be taken care of, but the disease is terminal. The iPhone's success at this point is driven by network effects, marketing, and its posturing as a premium product. Grown adults have an emotional attachment to the brand and the lifestyle statement. Android vendors are aping this stuff now. The memories of quality software and the ability to recognize it is being actively erased from the collective memory. Hoping that any of this is going to change at this point is just pissing in the wind.
