Dowd asked Thiel to confirm or deny that the age of Apple is over. "Confirm. We know what a smartphone looks like and does. It's not the fault of Tim Cook, but it's not an area where there will be any more innovation," replied Thiel. It's depressing to imagine that the iPhone was as good as it got. Stare at an Apple Watch for a few seconds, however, or at someone trying to answer a call on one, and you'll see his point. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. There have been many grumblings that Apple seems unable to lift spirits the way it once used to. Apple, though, wasn't the only company to enjoy Thiel's dark thoughts.

The main interview with Dowd trod familiar ground, but offered its own highlights too, Some featured Thiel's penchant for saying the opposite of the received wisdom, just to see if it might be wise too, He said that any move to oust him from Facebook's board after his support for Trump was revealed was "kind of crazy." After all, he said, he's the ghost 2 iphone case second-longest-serving board member, Well, of course, Kind of crazy, Asked whether Trump was similar to Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- with whom Thiel was once a member of the PayPal Mafia -- he replied: "I'm going to get in trouble, but they are, actually, They're both grandmaster-level salespeople and these very much larger-than-life figures."And so we must conclude that Tim Cook may not be a grandmaster-level salesperson, but Trump and Musk are..

In a few years' time, will Thiel's prescience be grandmaster-level? Or are we currently witnessing another mere Grandmaster Flash-In-The-Pan?. Life, disrupted: In Europe, millions of refugees are still searching for a safe place to settle. Tech should be part of the solution. But is it? CNET investigates. Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET. You can find them here. Commentary: In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the VC also says Elon Musk and Donald Trump are very similar.

A whopping 85 percent of online AirPods buyers are male, said Slice, and over a third of those fall into the category of millenials, the youngest recorded buyers, and also among the most important, Since Slice records only online sales patterns and not purchases from actual brick-and-mortar stores, this is just one window into Apple's AirPods success, It's clear, though, that the unusual Bluetooth headphones are catching on -- ghost 2 iphone case even if they do look like electric toothbrush heads, Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool..

Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET. Here. Between Beats and AirPods, Apple is looking at a sweep in online sales, says one report. Apple's AirPods have been on sale for less than a month, but they're already taking over online sales in the wireless headphone space, according to online shopping analyst Slice Intelligence. The AirPods began selling December 13, immediately upsetting Beats headphones, the previous leader in the category. Since Apple also owns Beats, that gives the Cupertino, Calif., titan just over 40 percent of the current market for wireless headphones among online buyers. Bose is the next-largest independent brand, at 16 percent share.