Dan Scropos on Justin Ryan watched Friday's Lakers-Bucks game live on the Apple Vision Pro (video) - 'This removes the main barrier from elite seating—scalper markups and wasted time. Most folks *can* afford elite seating. What they can’t afford is to waste time in travel, parking, walking, concessions, long restroom lines, the emptying of the stadium afterward, and then the wait to get out of the stadium parking lot, only to hit another wall of traffic. AVP eliminates all those drawbacks and the usual markup.'
on Justin Ryan watched Friday's Lakers-Bucks game live on the Apple Vision Pro (video) - 'Before I moved to the Inland Northwest I lived about 45 miles east of LA off Interstate 10. I was a big Lakers fan, but in 6 years I only saw 2 live games. I would have loved to seen more. Why only two? It took over 2 hours to drive from San Bernardino to Inglewood (home of the Forum) at that time of day. This was before the 210 bypass was completed. Had the Apple Vision Pro been available I would have been a buyer. Of course, that shouldn’t be surprising, I’m a big proponent of the Vision Pro. I think, once its ecosystem (2 years?) is in place unit sales are going to soar. That Apple is touting Vision Pro capabilities to this degree now, tells me it has solved its screen supply limitation, and we will see more aggressive sales efforts soon. Cook said Summer 2026. I believe him.'
on Justin Ryan watched Friday's Lakers-Bucks game live on the Apple Vision Pro (video) - 'With these sports leagues now being able to develop an additional revenue stream through the AVP, the term sold out will become inconsequential. As will SRO. (Standing Room Only). His impressions aside, which were obviously extremely positive, for those of us living in Los Angeles, his comment about not having to fight several hours of traffic coming and going is the most telling feature of all. Apple doesn’t innovate anymore?'
on Justin Ryan watched Friday's Lakers-Bucks game live on the Apple Vision Pro (video) - 'The potential outside of sports is also limitless, once economies of scale are fully realized.'
on Why hasn't Apple pulled Grok from the App Store? - 'I’m going to respectively push-back Bill. Grok is a generative AI chatbot and language model developed by xAI, which builds, trains, updates, and maintains Grok and its model family (e.g., Grok-1, Grok-3, Grok-4). xAI could certainly update Grok to flag prompts that include several key words that are determined to be part of generating the child porn imagery it produces at a user’s prompt. Yes, this could also be said of Word. But Grok is generating this imagery; Word is producing what the user writes, not prompts Word to write. I’m not a lawyer, so my reasoning on this may be off. Just my take.'
on Why hasn't Apple pulled Grok from the App Store? - 'It’s very easy for Gruber to talk. He has no employees. He doesn’t have thousands of people whose livelihoods might be disastrously impacted by a rebuke from Trump or Musk. Surely, managing the current political scenario is one of the more unpleasant things that Tim Cook has to do to earn his paycheck.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (1/12-1/16/26) - 'On a decade basis, AAPL has, even now, gone up 9.5X its price per split-adjusted share from a decade ago, which makes it a very decent investment., On a half-decade basis, it has just doubled. Of course, it’s bern a pretty tough half-decade for Apple, ever since it cracked the 30 trailing P/E valuation level on a more permanent basis. IMO, Apple’s next half-decade could be one of its best, and I fully expect at least another double, but possibly a triple or even, if everything falls right, a quadruple. I’m personally fine with another double, because I will be fortunate to still be here posting a half-decade from now, and a whole decade would be pure gravy. So I’m not in a hurry to modify our present 100% bet on AAPL. YMMV, and good luck to you, whichever road you take.'
on This week's Apple trading strategies (1/12-1/16/26) - 'By the way, this video snippet is from Thursday’s Fast Money podcast. I suggest viewing or listening to the first twenty minutes of the episode. It includes an interview about Apple with Gene Munster. The podcast is available through Apple Podcasts.'
on Why hasn't Apple pulled Grok from the App Store? - '(Quote from here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/why-x-s-ai-bot-grok-is-under-fire-and-what-users-need-to-know/ar-AA1TGE3X )'
on Why hasn't Apple pulled Grok from the App Store? - 'I hate that this app exists in its current implementation, and I think that Apple could and should pull it. but please allow me to make a lawyer’s point in Apple’s defense: The guideline says “Apps should not include content that is … deeply offensive [or] creepy.” Grok does not “include” such content. Rather, Grok includes software machinery that allows creepy people to “roll their own” offensive imagery. Sadly, there are too many creeps and deeply offensive people in this world. Microsoft Word is software that allows users to compose documents that are quite offensive, even key parts of major crimes. But this fact does not cause The Verge to call out Microsoft. If I were advising Apple on this, I would point the foregoing out, and I would encourage them to have a dialogue with Grok, encouraging them to build in software limitations to prevent the creation of child pornography. My guess is that Apple is doing this already. Does the Verge author know otherwise?'
on What China learned from Trump's 'decapitation' of Venezuela - 'But the Philippines have radical Islamists. 🙂 No where to run. No where to hide! Line from an old Kingston Trio song “…some sunny day, someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away!”'
on Neil Cybart: Is there a business opportunity in Apple Vision Pro rental arcades for sports? - 'Same formula…well designed, pro level hardware and Services revenue via App store commissions. (NBA League Pass is $159.99/year.)'
on What China learned from Trump's 'decapitation' of Venezuela - 'If mainland China were to invade Taiwan, it wouldn’t be just Apple stock that tanked. A lot of U.S. tech companies get their chips made there, not just Apple. MY TAKE X-Ping will continue to rattle his saber, and threaten Taiwan. But won’t invade. Why? Because China’s Taiwan policy is about political posturing by nationalists. A shooting war, in reality, offers little economic benefits – certainly not in the short-run. BOTTOMLINE: China’s got far more to lose than to gain by militarily invading Taiwan. First off, multinational American tech depends on Taiwan for proprietary chips. Losing it would be akin to an existential threat. They would react very negatively towards mainland, China. So regardless of who’s in the White House, I doubt the U.S. is going to sit idly by and allow it to happen – as some fear, simply based on Trump‘s dumb willingness to surrender Ukraine to Putin. Second, mainland China currently does a lot of business with Taiwan. What would be the upside of starting a war, other than to perhaps assuage X-Ping‘s fragile authoritarian inner circle’s ego. I mean, even if the PRC were to overwhelm Taiwan’s military and take it over, the end result would be a political and economic disaster. Important Taiwanese tech companies would either collapse, or exit. And China would become a pariah to international investment for years. In other words, it would be economic suicide for China to start a shooting war with Taiwan. China’s goal to be the world‘s biggest market with vast economic opportunities would be wrecked. I mean doing business in China by outsiders was already tough. A war against Taiwan is essentially a power move against big American Tech, and would backfire. Apple stock would really be clobbered. That’s for sure. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Putin, X-ping and Trump divide the world into three spheres of influence, and the human race ends up living under the giant Orwellian boot of authoritarianism? Let’s hope that isn’t the case. Besides, boots and running shoes are manufactured in the Philippines.'
on What China learned from Trump's 'decapitation' of Venezuela - 'In following many articles in TWZ dot com, here’s my worry & my hope. MY WORRY Lots of articles about Chinese advancements in developing their air, land, & sea assets , all pointing towards an obvious intended invasion of Taiwan. MY HOPE That it never happens obvi, by any means, without Taiwan losing its sovereignty. But if it does, also lots of articles about USMC & USN rethinking of its strategies & tactics & innovative uses of its arsenal/assets to use in a Pacific War. Again, prayers it doesn’t come to this.'
on Apple: Liquid Glass blamed for iOS 26's dismal adoption rate - 'Here’s an updated look on this issue by 9to5Mac, their update shows much more typical uptake numbers: 9to5mac com/2026/ 01/08/most-iphone-users-are-still-running-ios-18-with-ios-26-adoption-slow-report/ “(From the Statcounter report) Here are the percentages for iOS 26 usage: iOS 26.1: 10.6% iOS 26.2: 4.6% iOS 26.0: 1.1% So four months after its release, iOS 26 is only in use by about 16% of iPhone users, while iOS 18 remains over 60%. Is this normal for new OS versions? Not according to Statcounter data. In January 2025, over 60% of users were on some version of the latest iOS 18 software—roughly four times as many as are on iOS 26 in the same timeframe. In 2024, iOS 17 similarly had over 50% adoption already. Update: As a second reference point, TelemetryDeck ( dashboard telemetrydeck com/notebooks/9EEFEBBC-2722-42DC-B6FD-DDB13B8CACF0 ) has iOS 26 adoption performing much better, with around 60% of users on the latest software and about 37% still on iOS 18. Clearly, the two services have differing methodology in tracking user data. The difference between the two services is that Statcounter is tracking iOS 26 adoption via web impressions, while TelemetryDeck tracks directly via apps that use its SDK. Data from third-party developers ( bsky.app/profile/ philkast.com/post/3mbwv6u5rus2y ) appears to be closer to TelemetryDeck’s numbers rather than Statcounter. 9to5Mac’s Take Apple doesn’t share OS usage numbers very often, leaving third-party sources the best way to judge a software release’s adoption. If these numbers are anywhere near accurate, it begs the question: why are users holding off upgrading? Perhaps it’s Apple’s highlighting that battery life might be impacted, or its delay in making iOS 26 the ‘recommended’ update in Settings, or concerns about the Liquid Glass design.“ To counter, as with all major iOS updates, the battery life is impacted TEMPORARILY as the update needs to re-index all the user’s data, emails, photos, messages, apps and iCloud storage. In addition, all of the apps are usually redownloaded over time and in the background while the phone is on and in operation or when the phone is not being used. This requires a lot of processing power, RAM and NAND memory usage, and a ton of WiFi and/or cellular data communications, further impacting battery usage and perceived life. If WiFi or cellular data signal or speeds are not fast or stable, the process can take even longer. Same thing applies when getting a new iPhone and restoring from a backup. And when installing on an older eligible iPhone with a well used and probably partially depleted battery, the battery life can be heavily shortened temporarily. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t fully explain this with each new major iOS. Generally, the update process can take anywhere from 2-5-7 days operating in the background depending on how much local and iCloud data the user has, plus speeds of app downloads and reconfiguration. After that, generally the battery life returns back to its prior levels. Most people also fail to reset or re-optimize their settings (like screen brightness, fetch/push, display rates, etc.) if they want to maximize their battery life. As for Liquid Glass, if you don’t like it, there’s plenty of ways to change or toggle settings so that it’s minimized or not used. From Gemini: “To “turn off” the Liquid Glass effect on your iPhone (iOS 26+), you can’t fully remove it, but you can significantly reduce it by going to Settings > Display & Brightness, selecting the new Liquid Glass option, and choosing Tinted instead of Clear; also, in Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, enable Reduce Transparency, Increase Contrast, and Reduce Motion for the most muted appearance. Here’s a step-by-step guide: Adjust Liquid Glass Settings (iOS 26.1+): 1. Open the Settings app. 2. Tap on Display & Brightness. 3. Select the new Liquid Glass option. 4. Choose Tinted for more opacity, or stick with Clear if you prefer more transparency but want to control other settings Reduce Transparency & Motion (Accessibility Settings): 1. Go back to the main Settings screen and tap Accessibility 2. Select Display & Text Size 3. Turn ON the Reduce Transparency toggle 4. Turn ON the Increase Contrast toggle (optional, for better readability) 5. Go back to Accessibility, select Motion, and turn ON Reduce Motion (this removes the “lensing” effects) Customize Home Screen (for deeper effect): 1. Long-press on a blank area of your Home Screen 2. Tap Edit, then Customize 3. You can select options to darken icons or the background for improved visibility By combining these settings, you can significantly diminish the prominent, frosted-glass look of Liquid Glass, making your iPhone interface much less transparent and more defined“ discussions apple com/ thread/256136970'
