Latest news with #fragmentation
Android Authority
18 hours ago
- Android Authority
I live between Android, Windows, iPhone, and Mac, and it's pure chaos
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority Sending a file to a laptop should be simple in 2025, right? Apparently not for me, because my tech setup is split between Apple, Google, and Microsoft. It's a frustrating multi-step process to do most things. Message my kids? Nope. Drop a file from my phone to my computer? Ya right. These are the kinds of things that happen when you live in a fragmented tech world. I come from an Android and Windows background. I'm a huge fan of Android and bought every single Nexus device from the 4 to the 6P. Now I rock a RedMagic 10 Pro. But my wife is an iPhone loyalist, and my kids use iPads. I added an iPhone to my ensemble just to stay connected, and when it was time to get a new laptop, I went with the 14 inch M1 MacBook Pro. The Apple TV 4K was inevitable. But I still use a powerful Windows PC, an Xbox, an Android tablet, and a Quest 2 VR from time to time. None of my devices work together. What's your tech ecosystem setup like? 1 votes All-in on Google/Android 0 % All-in on Apple 0 % Android and Windows 100 % Apple and Google mixed 0 % Three or more and I have a headache 0 % I don't even know any more. Help. 0 % My chaotic cross-platform setup Ryan Haines / Android Authority I swear I didn't set out to make my life this complicated. Android and Windows worked fine until I threw an iPhone into the mix. Impressed with the quality of the hardware, I found myself throwing more Apple gadgets into the mix. HomePod Mini, AirPods, and even an Apple Watch. One thing led to another, and now I'm bouncing between ecosystems just to stay connected. Windows remains the center of my digital setup. I'm a fan of Windows 11 (queue comments from the angry PC Master Race crowd). My Android phone is my primary mobile device, while my Android tablet is arguably my most-used piece of tech. However, the Apple TV 4K is second-to-none, and the HomePod Minis I have synced to it provide exceptional room-filling sound. Plus, they look cool. But then there's messages. What breaks every day Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority Messages, file-sharing, and a host of other little quality-of-life features are pure chaos thanks to this broken setup. Messaging is the worst offender. I use iMessage with my kids because it's private and secure and it just works with their iPads. I don't have to worry about them, and Apple provides excellent family safety tools. But none of that works on my Android or my PC, so I end up carrying an iPhone around just to stay in touch with my little ones. They don't have mobile numbers, so RCS isn't an option. There are very few options that are as simple and secure as iMessage, so there we are. File sharing is a close second. AirDrop is brilliant if you're all-in on Apple. Nothing else compares. Quick Share only works between Android and Windows, and even then, it's not consistent. Windows Phone Link doesn't work most of the time. If I want to move a photo from my Android to my Mac, I have to upload it to Google Drive or email it to myself and then download it again. Audio is fragmented. My HomePod Mini only works seamlessly with Apple devices. I can set up a Bluetooth connection with my Android, but Apple keeps dropping it and I need to set up a new session each time. I have a Google Nest Mini and a few Amazon Echo pucks laying around, none of which have the same sound quality as the HomePod, but at least I can use Spotify with them. Passwords are an ongoing annoyance. I was using Google Passwords and Apple Passwords and constantly updating both of them. I realize there's an Apple Passwords extension for Chrome, and I've tried it, but I like Google Passwords more. It's only worse with Passkeys. Some passkeys are easy enough to use by scanning a QR code with my phone, but others inexplicably refuse to let me sign in unless I'm on the device I used to create them, and I often forget which one that was. How I keep it all running Andy Walker / Android Authority It's not all doom and gloom in the Drescher household. I've managed to build some routines that hold everything together. Google is my glue. Calendar, Drive, and Keep allow me to keep my sanity. I recently explored trying to ditch Big Tech and go with third party apps, but it only caused even greater chaos, so I'm back to Google. My devices are split by purpose. Android as my daily driver, and my iPhone as a sort of family hub. My PC is my workhorse, but when I'm on the go my MacBook M1 Pro is a capable and reliable beast of a machine. A Plex server allows me to share media across all these devices. I've admittedly grown somewhat attached to my Apple Watch, to the dismay of my now-lonely Fitbit Charge 6. The cost of living between ecosystems Ryan Haines / Android Authority The real cost here isn't financial. It's time and mental energy. I end up wasting precious time managing sync issues, troubleshooting apps, and remembering which device has which login. I miss messages. I resend files. I get locked out of accounts. It's exhausting. Anyone who lives in a fragmented tech world knows this mental tax. You have to remember what works with what, and how to route around the things that don't. It adds up. You don't trust your tools to just work, and I suppose that was the original beauty behind the Apple ecosystem. I'm not ready to give up At this point it seems like I should just go all-in with Apple. After all, I go on about its ecosystem. But walled-off ecosystems suck in their own way. I love Android and I love gaming with my brother and friends. PC is where it's at. What we need is for non-Apple companies to get their stuff together and start creating a frictionless cross-platform ecosystem to rival Apple. Google is already on the right track, but just barely. Every platform wants you all-in with them only. None of them truly play nice with each other. Until that changes, my life will remain in a state of tech chaos.
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Pimco Sees 'Fragmentation Era' in Annual Secular Outlook
00:00 A new secular outlook. Always a fantastic team effort from you and the team every single every single June, I believe. Yeah, the era of fragmentation. Let's just start that before we get into the debt dynamics. What is that and what does it mean for the path forward? Very straightforward. The world's fragmenting into regional security alliances, trading blocs, currency zones. The process has been underway for a while, but it's accelerated under Trump 2.0. We point out it has important implications for the economy and markets. We see business cycles being amplified, markets being more volatile. But importantly, there are opportunities for investors in the fragmentation era to identify what's driving returns and repricing risk. Well, let's identify what the economic characteristics are of the era of fragmentation and what it means for the so-called long bond. Does it mean a less dependable bond bed for a 30 year maturity? Well, we're not sure. We think what it does mean is there's a very large stock of debt in the US and around the world as we come into the era of fragmentation. And so we do see already in market pricing a higher term premia. Our judgment right now is that the very long into the curve for most investors, you're not getting paid enough to take on three times the interest rate risk, which is our preference for the belly of the curve. So that's the most immediate point I guess I would make. What do you what's your reaction when you hear Jeffrey Gundlach say a reckoning is coming to the US in the US debt market? Our baseline view is that a reckoning is inevitable, but not our baseline for the next five years. We think the action forcing event in Washington to get our fiscal house in order will probably be in the next decade when the Medicare, Medicare and Social Security trust funds are exhausted. We could be wrong at some level. I hope we're wrong because an earlier reckoning means that we get our fiscal house in order. But our baseline is that that's that's something in the next decade. When you see these concerns of the US debt market and then you're also have this view that there's this fragmentation going on in the world. What does this mean for us? Exceptionalism? Is it over? Is it waning or potentially could it re-emerge in Trump to point out? We think it could re-emerge for the following reason. As we come into the era of fragmentation, there's a lot to like about the US. Strong productivity growth and innovative economy. More or less efficient capital markets. And. And those attributes have not gone away. There's a lot of uncertainty now, a lot of it generated about US trade policy and security policy. But over time, Anne-Marie, that will get sorted out. And as that goes into the rear view mirror, we think there's a decent shot that the exceptionalism mean returns. Can we just finish on the Federal Reserve? Oh, the kind of new considerations in monetary policy officials need to have in the moment that even a team, a framework, what's changed for them? I think that it will make their job more difficult in the sense that the Fed benefited enormously and all central banks did from globalization. And Jay Powell and I used to talk about that at the time is that the era of globalization lowered the cost of goods, increased efficiency, it put downward pressure on inflation. Indeed, the price of goods fell on average in the nineties up until the pandemic. And so as globalization goes into reverse and in the era of fragmentation, that process will be accelerating. It's going to make all central banks job at the margin harder because you will not have that disinflationary force from globalization. Do you think it makes it more difficult to respond to unfair shocks and respond quickly enough? I think at the margin, probably for all central banks, they have a little bit less room to respond preemptively to news of a slowing economy simply because they don't have the tailwind of inflation being a bit below target for ten or 15 or 20 years. And they want to keep inflation expectations anchored. So again, I think these effects are more at the margin, but I think it's less likely that you get preemptive moves to going into downturns. I remember a phrase of yours, an ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure. It doesn't feel like they have that luxury this time around. They have less of a luxury. And, you know, John, there is some path dependence here. I mean, we would be having a different conversation if inflation for the last four years had not been well above 2%. And I won't even use the T word here. And so I think there is some path dependence here for all central banks Christine Lagarde, Andrew Bailey and others, central banks. At the end of the day, one inflation expectations to be anchored and they want to be credible. So I think that is relevant here.
