The app is a repository of artist-submitted and curated wallpapers. The app allows for SD downloads, but you have to watch 2 ads, or HD downloads if you have a subscription ($12/month or $50/year).
The pushback is due to multiple factors:
- Quite a few of the wallpapers are simple gradients, and one is just the color orange. So they don't quite feel "curated".
- The app asks for some unnecessary permissions (cross-app/site tracking, and location tracking).
- The app doesn't look to be something that was actually made by MKBHD and his team. It's had an online presence since 2021. To many, it feels like he just bought it, slapped his name on it, and is using his "brand" to push an inferior product.
> Quite a few of the wallpapers are simple gradients, and one is just the color orange. So they don't quite feel "curated"
Pardon my language but then don't fckng use the app!
What if you put your car for sale for $20K and then someone else says: nah that piece of junk is not worth that much and then steal it from you and give it to someone else for free. That seems to be what's happening here.
Well, I'm not using the app, so... But that doesn't absolve someone of public ridicule or commentary.
MKBHD, who has been a huge proponent of privacy, asking for my LOCATION for a wallpaper app? You and I both know its for ad targeting, and happens whether you're paying a subscription or not.
Also, where in my original comment did I say anything about stealing the artwork?
People making an average hourly don't think of things that way. Paying $28/month for a phone provides much more liquidity for the unexpected, when the other option is spending over 25% of your months income, you're SOL if your car breaks for whatever reason, or you get a flat tire, or your water bill was unusually high.
I keep up with astrology personally since I do find that my beliefs, practices, and actions line up fairly closely with my sign (Cancer). But, I know it's basically just a bunch of hand waving and guesses.
I use it more as a tool to ask myself questions, or thinking of things from a new point of view. For example, my horoscope today says "Practice expressing yourself without seeking affirmation." And, yeah, that should be something I work on, my feelings don't need to be validated to be true.
I worked at B&N for 4 years (2 before and 2 after the sale), it actually has been pretty good so far for the business. The stores have been given much more creative control over what they stock so it takes advantage of what's popular at that location (my location was known for our manga and young adult variety).
There have been some bad moves taken at the corporate level (cutting the book procurement team, massive reductions in corporate headcount, etc). This makes the stores have to be a lot more self-reliant and increased workloads. Pay kinda increased, but is still way below the average for retail.
Ultimately, it's good for the business, but it's not as great of a place to work at anymore. When I started, the average non-managerial employee tenure was 6 years, now it's only 2 years there.
They can do it, but is it going to make them money? Google's $20b/year payment made up 20% of their income in 2023. 20% of their income was just free money, and their dev team doesn't have to do anything for them to get it.
Would Apple or their shareholders accept a minimum 20% loss in income, plus whatever the expenses would be to build a Search and Ad platform, plus the continued expenses of maintaining and updating it?
Google is paying Apple $20 billion for $60 billion worth of traffic. Apple said it would cost $6 billion per year to build and run a search engine. I don't think it would take much of an ad platform to pull in enough money to make it work for Apple and their shareholders.
It all comes down to whether or not Apple sees search as a key part of their phones and so far they haven't. FWIW, I think they're right - it's not a key part the same way Maps is, for example.
Still, 20% of their net income is guaranteed free money. I doubt there are minimal (if any) expenses on Apple's side to maintain the status quo of Google being the default search engine.
I work in the printing industry currently. A book such as this which has to take into consideration impeccable color accuracy (most likely using a Pantone printing process), high-quality photo printing, hard-covered, and bound to last a long time can absolutely be VERY expensive to produce, especially if they are not being produced at a factory-level scale and are viewed as collectibles.
National Parks (and the ADA) are some of the few great things that America has going for it and turning Yellowstone National Park into a power plant would not be one of them.
You are not even trying to understand. Aesthetics is not more important than existence. If Yellowstone is not mined, then when it blows, there will be no Americans left to appreciate it.
Secondly, the mining stations will be limited. Yellowstone is a vast land. There is expected to be no diminishing of the forest.
Absolutely nothing you said about her is based on any facts or analysis in that article. Don't fall into incel behavior here with projections and unfounded assumptions spouting them off as fact. Do better.
Homeownership is one of the main ways that Americans transfer wealth, as it's usually the only asset that adults nowadays have that can be transferred outside of whatever's in their bank accounts.
When homeownership becomes restricted due to PE firms and Investment firms buying up entire communities to turn into rentals, the wealth transfer is hampered. Well-off adults are still having to rent and are now directly competing with younger Americans who are still growing in their careers and pay scale.
This puts older Americans in a tough spot of not being able to generate wealth or equity that can be transferred to their children. And this puts their children and younger Americans in a spot where they cannot afford to live where they work, and cannot afford to save enough to begin the journey to homeownership. And the promise of a wealth windfall when their parents pass is becoming less and less common.
What is worse the PE firms can collude (internally and/or externally) to withhold units for rent to influence prices once they capture enough of the market.
The pushback is due to multiple factors:
- Quite a few of the wallpapers are simple gradients, and one is just the color orange. So they don't quite feel "curated".
- The app asks for some unnecessary permissions (cross-app/site tracking, and location tracking).
- The app doesn't look to be something that was actually made by MKBHD and his team. It's had an online presence since 2021. To many, it feels like he just bought it, slapped his name on it, and is using his "brand" to push an inferior product.