Ask Paul: March 15 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and happy Ides of March. Here’s another attempt at answering some great questions from readers.

Folding phones

christian.hvid asks:

Many would agree that foldable phones are the Next Big Thing in mobile, and for obvious reasons … However, all the designs we’ve seen so far are devices that are made up of two halves. In other words, a phone with a typical aspect ratio of 1:2 folds out into a square tablet, which is almost useless. Obviously, the right design is to have a three-segment fold-out, thus forming a tablet with the perfect aspect ratio of 3:2 (coincidentally, a 6″ phone would turn into a 9.7″ tablet, also known as the classic iPad size). Do you know if anyone is actively trying to achieve this? Or is it just too difficult?

No, I’m not aware of anyone working towards what I think of as an “accordion-ing” design, not yet. But it’s early days, and companies will need a few generations to even deliver a two-pane folding phone that makes sense in that it’s thin, light, and reliable enough for general use. Even still, I wouldn’t describe the aspect ratios of the current devices as useless. If you look at this image from the Android Q Beta 1 announcement, you see two very tall and thin displays that together look pretty cool. Not sure what the experience of using just one display would be like, of course. But the aspect ratio of the fully-opened device is, wait for it, 3:2. And maybe the move to folding displays will lead to new aspect ratios that are today unfamiliar and even odd-looking.

But if you don’t like this, I bet we’re going to see a lot of different takes on the dual-screen design in the next year or two.

On a related note: the selfie cam. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a number of more or less innovative solutions for getting it out of the way, ranging from notches to pinholes to manual and motorized sliding tops. But nobody has dared to do the obvious thing: removing it altogether. Or even better, putting out two versions of every major phone: one for teenagers with a selfie cam, and one for adults without one. I certainly wouldn’t miss it – the selfie cam is just about the most ridiculous and useless feature a phone could have, and I would happily trade it for a few more square millimeters of screen real estate.

Yeah, I only rarely use a selfie-cam, but I think I’d miss it if it were gone. (And I do use it sometimes.) I suspect that so many people do use it that removing it would be disastrous. It’s more likely that technological advances will simply make it possible for the camera to get smaller and smaller and work from behind the display.

HBO NOW

helix2301 asks:

Paul my wife and I are debating go we get HBONOW (we’re cord cutters) or do we wait till its over and spend $25 dollars to buy the last season of Game of Thrones. Spoilers online and FB / Twitter can always be cause for concern since they tend to spoil a week to week show like GOT.

We were going to wait and binge the final season of Game of Thrones. But we literally just signed up—HBO NOW is $15/month—because there’s other content there we want to watch now. This includes the latest season of True Detective, which we can now binge-watch, plus the previous Game of Thrones seasons, for which we’ll cherry-pick individual episodes (based on some online recommendations) to catch up on the convoluted storyline. Between that and the final season of Veep, which I think starts tonight, and several other HBO shows we’re interested in, we should be good to hold onto HBO NOW at least through June, I bet.

HBO NOW is free for seven days: It may be worth taking a look and seeing whether it makes sense to subscribe for a few months, since you could get Games of Thrones plus a lot more for almost two months for just the cost of that one show. (You could also watch the final season as it rolls out if that’s what you want.)

Home swaps

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

I’m sure you have posted it somewhere, but what service(s) do you use to arrange your home swaps?

We’ve used Intervac for over 15 years, and trust and recommend it.

What are some of the typical things you have found necessary in prepping the house for a swap?

The nice (and terrible) thing about a home swap is that it forces you to clean and declutter your home to a level that I suspect most people don’t normally do, other than when they’re preparing for a move. Aside from that, we also move valuable items (electronics, jewelry) and personal data (tax information, etc.) to a secure location during the swap. In the past, this was my parent’s house, and this past year we used a family member’s home here in PA. But it could be a safe, a safety-deposit box, or whatever.

We have used vrbo and Airbnb for the last few trips, but for a longer trip, that would definitely get expensive.

Right. You don’t pay when you home swap, which is what enables longer trips. You’re literally living as you do at home, but as a local in a different place (be it international or domestic).

I know I keep threatening this, but my wife (and I) will soon be launching a home swap blog that addresses a lot of this stuff. I’ll post on Thurrott.com when it’s live.

Big tech and antitrust

Polycrastinator asks:

With breaking up the tech giants in the news, how would you go about doing this (or would you go about doing this) if you were in charge? I’m interested in Microsoft specifically because in many ways that seems like the biggest challenge to me (split Windows from Azure? Who would want to own that Windows business, then?), but I’d also be interested in your thoughts about the other big companies.

In the sense that antitrust laws (and all laws, really) need to catch up with modern technology, it is perhaps time for them to also evolve to address the problems that are unique to big tech. That is, we’ve often used this old-fashioned bar to describe a monopoly here in the United States, but that’s prevented regulators from going after firms that are big and powerful but don’t technically have a monopoly. Apple is perhaps the best example of this.

Apple is in trouble in the EU specifically because the antitrust laws there focus on market power and its impact on competition. Here in the U.S., it’s all about harm to consumers, and market power doesn’t factor into it unless the company in question is literally a monopoly.

I don’t see Microsoft running afoul of this either way; if anything, it is a secondary player in a big market for cloud computing. But Amazon, Apple, and Google, especially, should all be heavily regulated if not split up to prevent them unfairly taking advantage of their reach to enter new markets, head off competition, and/or harm consumers by eliminating choice. I look at this week’s Apple/Spotify case as a great example of what needs to happen because so many will not begrudge Apple the right to do what it will with its App Store and yet it is also very clear how badly its policies are harming companies and hindering competition. In doing so, it is also hurting consumers. It’s obvious that Apple needs to be stopped.

The iPhone’s ringer switch

Daekar asks:

I was recently issued my first personal iPhone for work … I figured out that they have a hardware switch for turning off the ringer … It’s not only Apple, this is just the most recent example that comes to mind. Samsung does it too… instead of making nice flat screens, they’ve got to add curves to the screens where they do nothing but compromise usability and durability. WTF is it with phone manufacturers and weird irrational decisions like that?

I do agree that it’s odd that a button-phobic company like Apple kept the ringer switch but got rid of the headphone jack. And, yes, I’ve been bitten by that switch being turned off inadvertently. But I like it, to be honest, and the version on OnePlus’s phones, which has three positions, is even better.

I also happen to like the curved screens on Samsung’s flagship devices, though I understand why some do not. (And Samsung does sell flat screen devices that are roughly in the same class for those people.)

Ultimately, these things are just differentiators. Some make sense, some don’t.

Rectifying Apple/Spotify

Daekar asks:

I get where you’re coming from on the Apple/Spotify issue, but I also can’t imagine any solutions to the dispute that don’t involve industry-shattering amounts of collateral damage. Do you have any suggestions on how it should be handled, bearing in mind that the precedent will apply to all platforms, providers, services, and developers?

I feel like Spotify’s recommendations for relief hint at the right compromise.

The firm feels that all “apps should be able to compete fairly on the merits, and not based on who owns the App Store. We should all be subject to the same fair set of rules and restrictions—including Apple Music.” Exactly right. Today, Apple unfairly promotes Apple Music over Spotify and keeps Spotify off of HomePod.

Spotify thinks that consumers should not be locked in or forced to use systems with discriminatory tariffs such as Apple’s. I don’t see a future where third-party app stores are allowed in iOS. But Apple’s system punishes subscription-based services unfairly because it’s not taking 30 percent of a one-time fee but is instead getting 30 percent of every single monthly payment for the first year (and then 15 percent per month after that). That’s robbery. Perhaps there should be some time limit on this, like three months, and Apple would only be paid that fee is the subscription lasted at least that long. Another compromise might involve major version upgrades, where the three-month fee would kick in again for all x.0 releases or whatever.

Finally, Spotify says that Apple should not be able to “control the communications between services and users, including placing unfair restrictions on marketing and promotions that benefit consumers.” This is obviously the case. Customers who subscribe to services on iOS become Apple’s customers, not Spotify’s. And the inability to directly communicate to customers is unacceptable. In these cases, Apple is just a broker, and should not get the customer’s information or the ability to communicate with them at all.

Xbox v. PS4

donald0 asks:

I just bought LG’s largest 4K TV as a mid-life crisis indulgence (in addition to the roadster). Xbox or PSP? And bullet points on why? PS. Not a call of Duty fan (sorry I stink at FPS).

I assume you mean PS4 there. If so, Xbox. And Xbox One X specifically.

Why? Because it offers far better graphics/frame rates than the PS4 Pro and will show off your TV’s capabilities better. I would add in an Xbox Games Pass as well so you have a good selection of games to play right off the bat.