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A new LG 5120 × 2880 monitor is causing electronic suffering:
The spiritual successor to Apple's Thunderbolt Display, the LG UltraFine 5K monitor, which only started shipping out from the Apple online store this week, appears to suffer from a major fault: when placed within two metres (6.5ft) of a wireless router, the display starts to flicker; move it really close, and the monitor goes black and becomes unusable. An LG Electronics support person confirmed the issue, saying it "only happens for the 5K monitors we have, not other LG monitors."
If that wasn't bad enough, 9to5Mac's Zac Hall reports that his LG 5K monitor, under the duress of a nearby Wi-Fi router, can freeze the MacBook Pro that it's plugged into, forcing a reboot to bring it back. When he moved the router (an Apple AirPort Extreme) from beside the monitor to another room, everything went back to normal.
A support rep for LG Electronics confirmed that the 5K monitor can be adversely affected by a nearby wireless router and said that the issue doesn't affect any other LG monitors. Hall was asked to place the router "at least 2 metres away" from the monitor and "to let us know" if the problem still persists after that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:58AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good [wikipedia.org]
"In economics, Veblen goods are types of material commodities for which the demand is proportional to its high price, which is an apparent contradiction of the law of demand; Veblen goods also are commodities that function as positional goods. Veblen goods are types of luxury goods, such as expensive wines, jewelry, fashion-designer handbags, and luxury cars, which are in demand because of the high prices asked for them. The high price makes the goods desirable as status symbols, by way of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure; conversely, a decrease of the prices of Veblen goods would decrease demand for the products.[1]"
That said, until maybe five years ago most Apple products really were better in many ways, especially the MacPro (server grade hardware for a desktop) and MacBook Pro (a nice balanced package). There were tradeoffs like openness, but they often seemed worth it for ergonomic reasons (e.g. try to otherwise find a very quiet desktop or a good 15 inch laptop with a high-quality centered trackpad). Apple may still make some great products like phones (maybe?) -- but not for the same user base of developers, artists, and media makers who supported Apple for decades. Hard to believe only about 10% of Apple's revenues are from Mac hardware (vs. phones an services), which makes me feel it is obvious Apple will continue to de-prioritize Macs going forward. Also, the continual forced upgrades of OS versions without much backward compatibility among app makers is a drag that was not so obvious when OS X was newer. And recent Mac laptops have suffered from hardware issues from the lead-free solder and non-removable primary storage is a non-starter for many professionals. Plus, as we all use the web more and more, it's harder for the underlying hardware and OS to stand out as worthy of much attention.
http://www.imore.com/see-apples-q2-earnings-chart-and-graph-form [imore.com]
But Apple obviously has been doing something right to have so many profits for both PCs and phones:
https://www.engadget.com/2013/04/17/apple-sells-5-of-pcs-world-wide-makes-45-of-the-profit/ [engadget.com]
"Apple sells 5% of PCs world-wide, makes 45% of the profit"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-share-of-smartphone-industrys-profits-soars-to-92-1436727458 [wsj.com]
"Apple sells less than 20% of smartphones but takes in 92% of global smartphone profits, as other makers struggle to break even."
The problem is that Apple's services could eventually be eclipsed (so many places out there to buy access to music or apps). And Android etc. hardware is usually now equivalent or better to iPhones. But Apple has a history of inventiveness and recovery and clever marketing, so who knows what will happen next?
[Written on a $300 Acer 15" Chromebook that is good enough for most web browsing tasks and even runs VSCode and Node.js with crouton.]