That said, IMO on Safari Wipr all the way (though I use Brave Origin with its built-in blocker now, which is stellar).

I like to be able to call my wife when I'm on the bike without stopping and taking my phone out (often I cycle without my phone).

Sure, you do not need it like food, but it is pretty handy.

I do turn off pretty much all notifications though. Getting distracted by a watch is annoying.

Also, not a single provider can pull the rug if I'd like to use a particular model.

Photoshop binary you can run on your own computer = open weight

I don't think this is a correct analogy. You are not allowed to distribute modified versions of the Photoshop binary. Most open weight model licenses allow you to make and distribute your own finetunes, etc.

- The US could request your data. You probably shouldn't use e-mail for anything sensitive anyway for many reasons. E-Mail was traditionally not encrypted and I think that many servers still allow plain-text communication. The protocols are old and there are all kinds of downgrade attacks. Aside from that, even if your service does not fall under the CLOUD Act, you are probably f*cked anyway, because most people you communicate with are using services that fall under the CLOUD Act.

- The US can force the provider to block your account. The workarounds are: regularly backup your e-mail (easy for services that offer IMAP) and, most importantly, use a domain with an extension that is not under the control of a US (or probably five eyes) registrar.

Use an E2E-encrypted messenger with perfect forward secrecy, etc. for most personal communication.

We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers.

Before people start strawmanning, yes, we do the same for house mortgages. But a living space is essential, but more importantly, long-term the value typically stays the same or rises. So, even if you cannot afford the mortgage anymore, you can sell the house, pay back the mortgage company and keep the capital you accumulated so far.

A phone is also an essential now, but they lose value over time, and many midrange 300-500 phones are barely worse than an iPhone nowadays and will also have 6 years of monthly security updates, etc. (if you pick the right brand).

These schemes are only there to trick people who probably couldn't afford luxury products into buying them. People who can afford an iPhone, can also save up for one or buy one outright.

Using Klarna is also indicative of Apple's moral rot. They are well known in Europe for willingly getting people to buy things they can't afford (I guess similar to US credit cards) and high-interest rate loans. They are a morally bankrupt company and it's sad that Apple has sunk so far just to make the line go up.

The 17 was a good step up, but it's hard to cheer for finally getting a 120Hz display, while 300-400 Euro Android phones had them for a few years already.

The iPhone Air was the only really interesting model. But with only one camera and high introduction price, I don't think it was a failure in the market. Samsung had a similar problem with the S25 Edge - fewer cameras, but priced near the Ultra (the Air/Edge are a steal at the current pricing of 880/520 Euro, if you can live with the battery life).

I'd love to see more actually meaningful features. While the Samsung privacy display of the S26 Ultra may not have been perfect the first iteration, it's a innovative feature that is useful to a lot of people. (No, a privacy screen protector is not the same, I want to see most apps with the full flagship display glory.)

Another issue is that the pricing barely gets reduced over the year, while you can already get an S26 for just over 600 Euro.

I think the outcomes are very hard to predict, it depends a lot on both economical factors, technological factors (how much will LLMs still improve beyond benchmaxxing), societal factors, etc.

It's like the early internet where there was the whole gamut of opinions between 'its a nothingburger' to 'it's the democratic town square of the world'. In the end, it was neither.

Whoever gets it right will be called a visionary, but realistically nobody had a clue.

I have stopped visiting the discourse and other discussion venues years ago, they have permanent culture wars, drama, and people on power trips. It is sad seeing a project burn out so many people.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49193173

Points: 230

# Comments: 199

One note though: removal of system apps with adb is blocked in Android 17. You can only disable system apps on Android 17:

https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...

If they used nukes in Ukraine, the strategic deterrence against other nations with nukes would still be in place.

They didn't use them against Ukraine because of many other reasons, e.g. because they would have taken Kiev in days, it didn't make sense to make land that you want to conquer radioactive, and the political fallout would be too big.

I think now they won't do it because China is too important to them and China made it clear that using tactical nukes is out of the question.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/07/11/asia-pacific/ch...

What if they did it? They would be a paria politically, but countries would still buy their oil/gas because they need it and it's cheap, nobody would start nuking Russia over Ukraine [1], and using tactical nukes against nations that don't have them would become much more acceptable.

It is kind of telling that China has to be the ones reigning them in, which is a good sign that they are replacing the US as the world's superpower, which also comes with maintaining some stability in important markets, erm, countries.

Aside from that our best hope is that the functional Russian arsenal is much smaller than Russian claims due to the lack of maintenance, corruption, etc.

[1] Trump would just have a phone call with Putin and then parrot whatever narrative the Kremlin has. For France and UK, nukes are purely for self-protection, so they would only trigger a counter-attack if Russian nukes appear to be coming towards them (so it's probably better for Russia to avoid The Netherlands and Belgium too).

With modern hydrogen bombs, they are largely a farce anyway. Still, we are only one misinterpreted event away from nuclear escalation. The fact that Russia hasn't used a tactical nuke against Ukraine yet is a miracle and largely thanks to China:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/07/11/asia-pacific/ch...

I think under Biden, there were two safeguards: China + Biden threatening to sink the black sea fleet in retaliation. But yeah, Trump's primary international strategy is: whatever lines 'me and my bro's pockets'. If anything, his policies have been a message to many countries that it's probably better to get your own nukes in case the US has you in their crosshairs.