Apple rarely leads the charge.

Absolutely that is how it is now, but they did coin the format every modern smartphone uses today. And originally they were way ahead of the competition in almost every aspect. They were so dominant, that for years there was a shortage for every other manufacturer of components to build smartphones that could compete!
But a lot has happened since the still pretty recent emergence of the first iPhone, that absolutely revolutionized the concept of smartphones.
And the competition is absolutely cutthroat, so even major renowned labels couldn’t keep up.
Like Nokia, HTC, Ericsson that were all major brands, are now almost completely gone. Obviously the Blackberry RIM is almost gone too, and I think Microsoft is out completely now, despite they were a significant factor before iPhone, and investing billions in an attempt at a come back!

So it is quite amazing that a statement like Apple rarely takes a lead is so easily taken as a true statement, considering how different it was just a few years ago. A testament to the absolutely crazy development cycle smartphones still have.
Apple does however still lead on the SOC by a good margin.

Apple is pioneering better SOC than anybody else.
But apart from that you are perfectly right, none of the big 3 companies are actually pioneering anything anymore.
Google never was, but leaned on 3rd parties that made some very good Nexus phones, ending with the Huawei made P6.
Now Google is only pioneering making a cheap camera look good heavily retouched with AI.
Now the pioneers are mostly Chinese, while Samsung seems to be falling behind.
Google Pixel was never a front runner, iPhone was traditionally in some areas mostly software, while Samsung was in both software and hardware.
If you want the coolest newest stuff, it seems China is ahead with Xiaomi, Honor, Vivo etc.
The Samsung S25 Ultra is still absolutely a great phone, and I think recognized as the leader to beat, as a well rounded high end package.

Regarding camera I think it’s getting damned hard to say which is best, comparison tests with many photo’s seems to swing between one phone maker to another, and movie stabilization also vary, even with good camera.

I think Samsung is still clearly ahead of Google and Apple, and the Chinese phones too have strengths and weaknesses. I like Xiaomi a lot in their flagship killer range, but on the top tier, they still have problems with camera stabilization Samsung handles better IMO.

The thing that impresses me most, is how much phones still improve in a single generation.
Maybe not enough to ditch the old one, but definitely enough to make the new model worth considering even when you can get last years model at a pretty hefty discount.

Oh I tagged him as ignoramus gigantica.

one has to reject the fact, because one cannot reject reality.

Facts are based on reality, you cannot reject facts without rejecting reality. The stupidity of the above is mind blowing. 🤣🤣🤣

It’s called progress because the cost in frame 4 is just a tenth what it was in frame 1.
Of course prices will still increase, but think of the PROFITS!

No, this is what Prediabetes is:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/prediabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20355278

Telling me I can’t add sugar to my own water is bad.

I’m not sure what real world thing you made this analogy for? But this is a straw man, because nowhere are you told you can’t add sugar to your food.
You may be told you shouldn’t, because it’s unhealthy. But you can still add sugar even to commercially sold food in amounts that by European standards make it actually illegal to call it food. Making it either cake or candy.
American Fruity loops is an example that is illegal to call food in EU because of too much sugar. Apart from a number of additives that are illegal too in EU. You could still sell it in EU, but not as a breakfast cereal.

You should not be unhappy if sugar is regulated in food you purchase. And you definitely can put more on it at home if you really want candy instead of food. Sweetener is a cheap way for the industry to make something taste batter, despite having extremely low quality.

Yes regulation help protect people from getting ill having accidents and even dying due to lots of stupid preventable shit too.
And of course that also help the economy despite it’s only a secondary effect.
Things like fire regulation, car safety and of course health regulation in food.
These are all things that protect us every day, but most people are completely oblivious about all the ways regulation help. And only focus on the potential bit of extra paperwork, and a bit of extra cost, that they are ignorant about is recouped in benefits to all that outweigh the cost multiple times.

What we need is not less regulation, but better regulation!

Amen.

And it’s not like regulation is even bad for economy overall

Exactly, regulation is actually beneficial for the economy, because it stimulates fair competition.

USA is such a shit country, I was absolutely disgusted seeing the eggs are packaged in styrofoam instead of cardboard!
Americans are ruining their country failing to regulate even the most obvious things, because Americans believe regulation is bad, when most of the time, even bad regulation is better than no regulation.

Firefox isn’t looking much better, either.

False equivalence.
Firefox is CLEARLY without a doubt the better choice in every aspect that has to do with abuse of privacy and power.

A lot of that makes sense, and the issue of just pretending to be nice is absolutely also an American thing. That’s being superficial, and that’s just about stereotypical American.
And absolutely for many countries culture and politics are intertwined. IDK so much about China, but for USA the culture of violence is absolutely both in politics and in the population. USA is a very atypically violent country for a democracy.

That’s horrible, I don’t really know what to say, except best wishes to you.
I always thought Chinese were a more pragmatic people than most, but this is not pragmatic of your parents, this is cynical and evil.

Seems to me that Islam is discriminating strongly against women, and that could absolutely be a factor to prevent this sick culture from being abandoned.
I know there are Muslims who are good people, but I don’t think the religion is helping.
I knew many Muslims when I lived in Copenhagen, from many different countries, and common for the men were that they were way more discriminating against women than is normally acceptable among cultural Danes. They also commonly claimed that the women preferred it that way! For instance regarding very stereotypical strong gender roles.
I also don’t believe the honor thing is without heavy influence from religion, and religion is helping preserve these medieval standards in modern times.

I know there are Muslims that are more modern and more moral, and just like most Christians have abandoned ancient doctrines that are clearly bad.
It just seems to me that Islam has not progressed away from such practices as much as Christianity generally has.
For instance by far the most Muslims still believe apostasy is a sin that should be punished. In a modern society that is unacceptable.

Funny then that when they move to another culture, and take it with them, it is always muslims.

What do you mean what was the plan?

I mean what the hell were they thinking back from around 2014-2020?

This is the new CEO, spinning into “stripping Intel off for parts” mode.

Exactly, they seemingly still don’t have anything close to a plan on anything that used to be their main strength. They’ve only doubled down at first, and now they are pulling back. Making a “better” CPU is not a plan or a strategy.

The cards are good value, but I don’t think so, the die is to big, so they are expensive to make, and despite the good value, they are not very successful in the market.
It may be something that could succeed if they continue, but they are not there yet.

The cards are good from a consumer perspective, but not from a business perspective.

So if she had been average it would be OK?

It’s insane how twisted in the head you have to be to think that killing your daughter is the honorable thing to do!
Religion is harmful to both individuals and society. Extreme religion is extremely harmful to both individuals and society.

Bot is just doing what it was told to do. 😋