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Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/

Error 53 "security keys don't match"

If it said that, maybe people wouldn't be as annoyed. From what I can see on Apple's website about error 53 there is no indication of "security keys don't match".
My initial response however was to the bulk of the statement, all of which is about 3rd party parts.

The courts can't hold apple accountable for third party repairs that weren't within the spec of the official original parts used.

You repaired your phone with a substandard part, so what if it works for *THAT* IOS version - it's not going to work for any future versions if apple decide to fully utilise that part's speed/capabilities, and apple can't know the shit parts third party repairers are going to try to pass-off as working.

Let me iterate that again - the spec on the replacement part has changed, to that of a lower specification which *appears* to work. A typical 'car' analogy would be you getting to sue GM because your aftermarket fuel filter fucked the engine over after another 10k miles.

My response was that the whole 3rd party parts does not cover this. The same error occurs with original parts. Perhaps if there was one error code for 3rd party parts and another for "security keys don't match", or maybe the error was descriptive enough to allow the end user some way of figuring out the issue, or maybe if Apple wasn't so bad about right to repair issues, didn't gouge their customers for repairs and allowed 3rd partied to purchase official parts, OR had repair programs in place that covered any repair that an end user may have eg Linus Tech Tips iMac Pro. There might be something in it.

and then when it crashes and you can't slave it into another system to get data from it, you're hosed.

What are you talking about? You can decrypt a FileVault volume from any connected Mac machine, if you know (or can guess) the password. I've personally done this, it works fine.

As far as brute-force protection, the PBKDF is set to about 250ms. So depending on the entropy of the password could take anywhere from 20 computer days (or a few hours on a big AWS instance) to 8000 years (beyond all the computing power on planet earth).

https://opensource.apple.com/

You're welcome, Linux genius.

https://opensource.apple.com/

You're welcome, Linux genius.

By the time this hit Slashdot front page, Apple had resolved the issue. https://www.apple.com/support/...

This. My wife's 2010 MacBook Pro was starting to act flakey and she wanted a new one, but all the new ones are a step backwards. No MagSafe port, no multiple USB boards, no built-in CDROM reader, no headphone jack, the new keyboards are not fun to type on/keep clean, and really not much improvement in RAM, CPU or graphics either.

That's precisely why Apple still sell the old 2015 Macbook Pro (see the third option here). The new one has been absolutely woeful, so bad in fact that they still sell the last decent one from 3 years ago. Sure it lacks the CD/DVD drive but at least you can plug in any USB one and don't need a USB-A to USB-C converter plug to make it work.

right.. it's called vm_stat, and sar was removed from MacOS since sierra but there's still the official Apple repository for sar:
https://opensource.apple.com/s...
Download sar.c, sar.h and also sadc.h and sadc.c from a sibling folder.

Compile and test:

clang sar.c -o sar -I .
clang sadc.c -o sadc -I . -framework Foundation -framework IOKit ./sar -A -f test > testout
terminated by signal SIGFPE (Floating point exception)

And output, testout looks like this:

17:32:23 %usr %nice %sys %idle

17:32:23 pgout/s

17:32:23 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s

17:32:23 device r+w/s blks/s

17:32:23 IFACE Ipkts/s Ibytes/s Opkts/s Obytes/s

17:32:23 IFACE Ierrs/s Oerrs/s Coll/s Drop/s
New Disk: [disk0] IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@1F,2/PRT0@0/PMP@0/@0:0

17:32:23 %usr %nice %sys %idle
17:32:23 0 0 0 0

17:32:23 pgout/s
17:32:23 nan

17:32:23 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
17:32:23 nan nan inf

So it compiles, data can be collected and kindof processed, but not fully.

I've found the Apple repository of SAR thanks to this superuser answer: https://superuser.com/a/581128

And second, you're wrong. Absolutely there is a performance hit if, to call a module in another language, with different calling conventions, more code is injected.
No, there is not. For the caller it is completely irrelevant how the calling convention is. It does not matter if I push arguments from left to right or from right to left on the stack and then do a jump subroutine to the routine.

Calling between different languages is only expensive if one is running in an Interpreter/VM and the other is nativ AND you want to have an option to call back.

I see no reason why calling C++ from Swift or other way around should have any performance issues, but I never dug into it, if you have examples I'm eager to see them.

It's virtually certain that the Metal libraries were written in C For you it is certain, because you seem to love C :P

Metal is mainly written in a language called "Metal Shader Language" which is based on C++ 14: https://developer.apple.com/do...

As a consumer, you must buy Android hardware.

From your choice of vendors. If your current vendor does something stupid like removing the headphone jack that you still use, ditching fingerprint unlocking that you still use, or heavily restricting NFC functionality even though you may find it useful if it were made available to you, you can switch to another vendor's hardware and still have the same OS and access to all of your purchased apps. That's the beauty of not being locked to a single vendor.

That's kind of sort of not true, and you know it. Different vendor, no telling what you're getting OS-wise. Maybe that's changed with Oreo. But to state that you get the same OS is absolute and total bullshit. Even in the same damn version, I get OSes that behave and look quite differently from each other. This is even a claimed benefit - that vendors can customize the OS. You can't have it both ways. It winds up being build once test on all devices. It's been getting a little better, and I restrict myself to core OS features only.

That Google gives away the IDE, an IDE you must otherwise purchase BTW

Which IDE is this? You can develop Android applications in notepad.

That would be the Android Studio, a moderately/heavily reskinned version of IntelliJ, heaped on top of gradle crap. And sure, you can write your app in notepad, it'd be most painful and slow, compared to what you can accomplish codewise with an IDE. But the integration of the SDK, Fabric, and Google Play with AS makes it pretty much a slam-dunk for the most efficient way to develop Android apps, no matter what the underlying bullshit (*cough* gradle *cough*) among other things are.

All that said, you can start with iOS development at no cost. You can even micro-publish (up to 100 or 500 devices, I don't recall specifically) an app at no cost.

That sounds like a great way to launch the next killer app. But really, no, there's actually a cost to that: you must either buy Apple hardware in volume or pay $299/yr and, in either case, distribution is limited to devices which are registered as part of your organization. You might be thinking of Apple's bastardized version of sideloading, which requires you to distribute your source code, so that the end user can compile it and load it onto their device. While that might be great for an open source project, it's probably not the best way to ensure that you get to market before your competitors; after all, you're literally giving them all of your work for free.

I had no problem running some private beta software on upwards of 20 devices, but I have paid the developer fee because I'm using the Apple Store for other apps. Apple does require the code and the device to be registered with them for non Apple Store based loading unless you're into jail-breaking. There's other negatives with this approach, btw. Far better to just go through the $99 dev license. VPP is a different solution. One that I may utilize in the near future.

If you read that EULA very carefully, using an apple keyboard, mouse, trackpad or monitor is enough to get you "legal" ;) Unless that thing has materially changed its definition of equipment to be a lot more specific in the past 3 years.

So I can bring my PC, equipped with an Apple keyboard, to the "Genius" bar and they'll support an OS issue? Mind you, I wouldn't expect hardware support (unless it was a problem with the keyboard, that is). No. You want support, you buy Apple hardware. And don't claim that this is the only way they can cover the cost of that support because the OS is free; if I walked in with a PC with an Apple keyboard, running MacOS, and a briefcase

As a consumer, you must buy Android hardware.

From your choice of vendors. If your current vendor does something stupid like removing the headphone jack that you still use, ditching fingerprint unlocking that you still use, or heavily restricting NFC functionality even though you may find it useful if it were made available to you, you can switch to another vendor's hardware and still have the same OS and access to all of your purchased apps. That's the beauty of not being locked to a single vendor.

That's kind of sort of not true, and you know it. Different vendor, no telling what you're getting OS-wise. Maybe that's changed with Oreo. But to state that you get the same OS is absolute and total bullshit. Even in the same damn version, I get OSes that behave and look quite differently from each other. This is even a claimed benefit - that vendors can customize the OS. You can't have it both ways. It winds up being build once test on all devices. It's been getting a little better, and I restrict myself to core OS features only.

That Google gives away the IDE, an IDE you must otherwise purchase BTW

Which IDE is this? You can develop Android applications in notepad.

That would be the Android Studio, a moderately/heavily reskinned version of IntelliJ, heaped on top of gradle crap. And sure, you can write your app in notepad, it'd be most painful and slow, compared to what you can accomplish codewise with an IDE. But the integration of the SDK, Fabric, and Google Play with AS makes it pretty much a slam-dunk for the most efficient way to develop Android apps, no matter what the underlying bullshit (*cough* gradle *cough*) among other things are.

All that said, you can start with iOS development at no cost. You can even micro-publish (up to 100 or 500 devices, I don't recall specifically) an app at no cost.

That sounds like a great way to launch the next killer app. But really, no, there's actually a cost to that: you must either buy Apple hardware in volume or pay $299/yr and, in either case, distribution is limited to devices which are registered as part of your organization. You might be thinking of Apple's bastardized version of sideloading, which requires you to distribute your source code, so that the end user can compile it and load it onto their device. While that might be great for an open source project, it's probably not the best way to ensure that you get to market before your competitors; after all, you're literally giving them all of your work for free.

I had no problem running some private beta software on upwards of 20 devices, but I have paid the developer fee because I'm using the Apple Store for other apps. Apple does require the code and the device to be registered with them for non Apple Store based loading unless you're into jail-breaking. There's other negatives with this approach, btw. Far better to just go through the $99 dev license. VPP is a different solution. One that I may utilize in the near future.

If you read that EULA very carefully, using an apple keyboard, mouse, trackpad or monitor is enough to get you "legal" ;) Unless that thing has materially changed its definition of equipment to be a lot more specific in the past 3 years.

So I can bring my PC, equipped with an Apple keyboard, to the "Genius" bar and they'll support an OS issue? Mind you, I wouldn't expect hardware support (unless it was a problem with the keyboard, that is). No. You want support, you buy Apple hardware. And don't claim that this is the only way they can cover the cost of that support because the OS is free; if I walked in with a PC with an Apple keyboard, running MacOS, and a briefcase

Seriously, just spend one full month with zero features being added, none at all and let all your coders just try to increase performance, because, Android isn't bad but it's not good. I've been on it for 7 years now and still older iPhones with half the specs feel snappier.
I don't care if the iPhone is faking the snappy feel, the end result is it feels right.

Project treble is the first particularly clever sounding, big improvement in a while too, keep at this kind of stuff

I also very much echo the other guy. More emoji? Who cares! This is a bullet point? Really? Really?

But Apple ISN'T faking the Snappier feel! They just know more about ARM than nearly anyone else on the planet, seriously.

Oh, and if you happened to watch the WWDC 2018 Keynote a few days ago, one of the very first things they talked about (maybe even the first) in the iOS segment was that their new version, iOS 12, now in beta release, was SPECIFICALLY redesigned to bring significant performance improvements, ESPECIALLY TO THE OLDEST MODELS supported (which is back to the iPhone 5s, released in 2013).

There is only so much ReNICEing and other skulduggery you can pull to effect those kinds of changes without changing hardware.

Oh, and did I mention that they are doing all this while ALSO significantly improving battery life? (A fact noted by many who have installed iOS 11.4, too).

Oh, and unlike Android Pee, iOS 12 added some SERIOUS meat onto its bones. This is anything but an "Emoji Update":

https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-...

As a consumer, you must buy Android hardware.

From your choice of vendors. If your current vendor does something stupid like removing the headphone jack that you still use, ditching fingerprint unlocking that you still use, or heavily restricting NFC functionality even though you may find it useful if it were made available to you, you can switch to another vendor's hardware and still have the same OS and access to all of your purchased apps. That's the beauty of not being locked to a single vendor.

That Google gives away the IDE, an IDE you must otherwise purchase BTW

Which IDE is this? You can develop Android applications in notepad if you so choose, and compile them with any of a number of open-source compilers. You do need to Android SDK in order to do so, but that's GPL and, even if Google did decide to start charging for it, given that it's GPL it would be freely attributable by the community; only one person would ever need to pay for a given version. Google would never make a cent that way, as maintaining the infrastructure to accept those payments would cost more than it would bring in, which is why that's not their business model.

All that said, you can start with iOS development at no cost. You can even micro-publish (up to 100 or 500 devices, I don't recall specifically) an app at no cost.

That sounds like a great way to launch the next killer app. But really, no, there's actually a cost to that: you must either buy Apple hardware in volume or pay $299/yr and, in either case, distribution is limited to devices which are registered as part of your organization.

You might be thinking of Apple's bastardized version of sideloading, which requires you to distribute your source code, so that the end user can compile it and load it onto their device. While that might be great for an open source project, it's probably not the best way to ensure that you get to market before your competitors; after all, you're literally giving them all of your work for free.

It's not until you want to avail yourself of the App Store that you start incurring a rather modest $99 yearly charge.

Again, you mean that thing Google gives you for free: access to the market? Either way, not really relevant to a discussion about vendor lock-in.

If you read that EULA very carefully, using an apple keyboard, mouse, trackpad or monitor is enough to get you "legal" ;) Unless that thing has materially changed its definition of equipment to be a lot more specific in the past 3 years.

So I can bring my PC, equipped with an Apple keyboard, to the "Genius" bar and they'll support an OS issue? Mind you, I wouldn't expect hardware support (unless it was a problem with the keyboard, that is). No. You want support, you buy Apple hardware. And don't claim that this is the only way they can cover the cost of that support because the OS is free; if I walked in with a PC with an Apple keyboard, running MacOS, and a briefcase containing $1,000,000.00 cash, they'd still turn me away and you know it. Well, they'd offer to sell me a Mac, then they'd turn me away when I refused.

I'd have disagreed with that until 2 years ago as Apple's hardware was definitely several notches better.

HP's Envy line had Apple beat in 2009, as just a single example. If you really want to talk about build quality, pour a liter

As a consumer, you must buy Android hardware.

From your choice of vendors. If your current vendor does something stupid like removing the headphone jack that you still use, ditching fingerprint unlocking that you still use, or heavily restricting NFC functionality even though you may find it useful if it were made available to you, you can switch to another vendor's hardware and still have the same OS and access to all of your purchased apps. That's the beauty of not being locked to a single vendor.

That Google gives away the IDE, an IDE you must otherwise purchase BTW

Which IDE is this? You can develop Android applications in notepad if you so choose, and compile them with any of a number of open-source compilers. You do need to Android SDK in order to do so, but that's GPL and, even if Google did decide to start charging for it, given that it's GPL it would be freely attributable by the community; only one person would ever need to pay for a given version. Google would never make a cent that way, as maintaining the infrastructure to accept those payments would cost more than it would bring in, which is why that's not their business model.

All that said, you can start with iOS development at no cost. You can even micro-publish (up to 100 or 500 devices, I don't recall specifically) an app at no cost.

That sounds like a great way to launch the next killer app. But really, no, there's actually a cost to that: you must either buy Apple hardware in volume or pay $299/yr and, in either case, distribution is limited to devices which are registered as part of your organization.

You might be thinking of Apple's bastardized version of sideloading, which requires you to distribute your source code, so that the end user can compile it and load it onto their device. While that might be great for an open source project, it's probably not the best way to ensure that you get to market before your competitors; after all, you're literally giving them all of your work for free.

It's not until you want to avail yourself of the App Store that you start incurring a rather modest $99 yearly charge.

Again, you mean that thing Google gives you for free: access to the market? Either way, not really relevant to a discussion about vendor lock-in.

If you read that EULA very carefully, using an apple keyboard, mouse, trackpad or monitor is enough to get you "legal" ;) Unless that thing has materially changed its definition of equipment to be a lot more specific in the past 3 years.

So I can bring my PC, equipped with an Apple keyboard, to the "Genius" bar and they'll support an OS issue? Mind you, I wouldn't expect hardware support (unless it was a problem with the keyboard, that is). No. You want support, you buy Apple hardware. And don't claim that this is the only way they can cover the cost of that support because the OS is free; if I walked in with a PC with an Apple keyboard, running MacOS, and a briefcase containing $1,000,000.00 cash, they'd still turn me away and you know it. Well, they'd offer to sell me a Mac, then they'd turn me away when I refused.

I'd have disagreed with that until 2 years ago as Apple's hardware was definitely several notches better.

HP's Envy line had Apple beat in 2009, as just a single example. If you really want to talk about build quality, pour a liter

It's a weird one indeed. If I look at my iPhone (X running 11.4) Settings for "Siri & Seach" there are 9 variations of English that can be selected.
Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, **New Zealand**, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom & United States.
So why the hell ATV doesn't support NZ English when iOS does is a bit of a mystery.
Tried asking this question on the Apple consumer forums?
I suspect it's to do with lack of NZ content and not the language or technology.

Dispatch is still there, not sure what the concern is:

https://developer.apple.com/do...

Apple did have a brief grand central dispatch OpenCL implementation. It essentially wrapped OpenCL calls into a gcd like api.

... when you forget your password ...

You've also forgotten how to use the goddam phone.

If you forgot your passcode, or if a message says that your device is disabled, follow these steps to remove your passcode.

Ok, I looked at the Mohave Preview page. It has some interesting features, but man, that Apple website is really getting annoying.

For one thing, they put the web page in one long column, as if they assumed we were viewing the web page using a phone. But if you're using a big computer screen (as I am), it's a lot easier to see a summary of the web page at top of the page, and then click on a link to whatever I want to see. Apple should use responsive web design, and display the page using a layout that's suited for the screen's width.

Also, they don't just show the information these days. No, they use white text on black background, and they graaaadually fade in the text, and graaaadually raise the text higher in the screen as it appears. Are they trying to be dramatic or something? I don't mean to be grumpy, but that's just annoying.

They used a video in the "Stacks A really neat way to manage files." section. That video is fine; it shows how the stacks feature works, so it adds to the web page. (And it auto-played just once, and had a "Replay" button beneath it - thank you.) But this sliding and fading in - my opinion is that if it doesn't add to the web page, then it subtracts from it.

Teach me how to rename more than 10,000 files inside a single directory using a GUI.

https://support.apple.com/guide/automator/welcome/mac

Of course they don't want to update anything. How are they supposed to convince you that your 1-year-old phone is now outdated garbage and that you must buy a new one if you don't want to be left behind? Never mind that the old phones end up crunched into little toxic bits and shipped off by the tonne to some asian country to be 'recycled' (as if !) only this fiscal quarters' profits matter; the environment is someone else's problem.

That's why you should buy an Apple phone.

Not only are their products almost always supported for many years (generally 4-5 for mobile, and 7-10 for desktop), but for the phones (and I think the computers, too), they offer a recycling service (which they even mostly pay YOU for!) that they claim is responsible for making their new products generally about 80% recycled materials, with a goal of 100% recycled in a few years.

https://www.apple.com/shop/tra...

I can't find the article I read that quoted the 80% figure; but here is a general "rah rah" report regarding Apple's environmental efforts:

https://www.apple.com/environm...

Of course they don't want to update anything. How are they supposed to convince you that your 1-year-old phone is now outdated garbage and that you must buy a new one if you don't want to be left behind? Never mind that the old phones end up crunched into little toxic bits and shipped off by the tonne to some asian country to be 'recycled' (as if !) only this fiscal quarters' profits matter; the environment is someone else's problem.

That's why you should buy an Apple phone.

Not only are their products almost always supported for many years (generally 4-5 for mobile, and 7-10 for desktop), but for the phones (and I think the computers, too), they offer a recycling service (which they even mostly pay YOU for!) that they claim is responsible for making their new products generally about 80% recycled materials, with a goal of 100% recycled in a few years.

https://www.apple.com/shop/tra...

I can't find the article I read that quoted the 80% figure; but here is a general "rah rah" report regarding Apple's environmental efforts:

https://www.apple.com/environm...

Do you mean 2GB? https://support.apple.com/kb/S...

Apple GiveBack lets you recycle any Apple device and devices from Apple owned brands at any Apple Store and online. We'll make sure it's recycled responsibly or given a chance to be used again. Some devices may also be eligible for credit. You can bring your batteries and old Apple-products to any Apple Store, and we'll recycle them responsibly, free of charge. We accept any small product or battery without purchase of a new product or battery.

I don't think that's correct. There was no charge when we did that, but that was years ago. According to this, there's still no charge:

https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getFAQ.action#2-5

Here's an interesting technical article on how "Hey Siri" works. I'd assume that Google's equivalent or any of these that run on battery powered devices work similarly.

No kidding. Why would you install a flash app when you can just ask Google to turn on your flashlight. With brain-dead siri; good luck. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8215436

According to Apple, the average user replaces their iPhone every 3 years. Despite the fanboys that upgrade a device every time something new appears, it's not really a thing. https://www.apple.com/environm...

This "most sophisticated software" question is from the same doofus who also asked / answered:

How is murdering people considered fun in video games? What happened to all those innocent games such as Frogger, Qbert, and Donkey Kong?

Apparently he doesn't understand games are an escape from reality and has to be told what fun is. Games are fun because we don't have to worry about real-life consequences and can do things that we normally could never do in physical reality, dumbass.

e.g. Frag my buddies, drive an expensive sports car, slay dragons, virtual fishing, etc.

Maybe he should go play DnD to actually learn the answer.

Genocide in video games isn't (solely) the problem when you want to take a break from the stress of day-to-day responsibility. It becomes a problem when you do that to the exclusion of all your other responsibilities.

If you don't like violence in games there are enough good puzzle games like The Witness, Pythagorea, Top 10 Geometric Puzzles for iOS (2016), etc.

Check out Apple Configurator 2:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...

You can use it to create your own device profile, with considerably more stringent rules than the default options in the on-device menu. It's may not offer as much granularity as you prefer; but it's a good step up from the defaults. I think you can lower the number of failed login attempts down to 2. You can make complex passcodes mandatory and force aging and rotation. Theres a long laundry list of features you can disable. Hell, you could even force all internet traffic to go through a designated VPN, should you so desire.

I do have to say the interface is obtuse and unintuitive though. It's definitely not one of the software jewels in Apple's crown. But it gets the job done.

Do you ever tire of making stupid statements that can be disproven with 2 seconds of internet searching? If your claim was true why do all the modern-day app stores sell Leisure Suit Larry?

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/...
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...
Windows Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

And this version is more graphic than the original.

Except that Leisure Larry is an today’s app stores. So that sort of demolishes your claim.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...

Does it have the age verification questions at the beginning of the app?

Except that Leisure Larry is an today’s app stores. So that sort of demolishes your claim.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...

Next time your in a 7/11, take a look at the section with prepaid cards for iTunes and Android. You can buy those with cash.

https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/...

END COMMUNICATION

Aside from people just fucking it up(downright ubiquitious in USB power delivery scenarios, sometimes of the 'likely hardware damage' flavor) the trouble is that the alt-modes move what a USB port might be capable of outside the realm of the USB implementation itself.

Alt mode support is a USB thing; so compliant USB chipsets Must correctly handle the relevant signalling and handing off; but the behavior of whatever is handed off to is outside the USB spec and often in the realm of parts that are expensive enough that there is no way the USB-IF could get any serious traction even if they tried to twist arms.

Even on expensive gear with substantial punch there typically aren't enough resources for the alt-modes to be supported without various compromises and non-obvious limitations (it isn't a 100% perfect match; because the Mac Pro predates USB-C connector thunderbolt; but it's a good example of the mismatch between various types of resources at the system's disposal: it's sorta plug and play; but "attach displays to different Thunderbolt busses when possible. Don't attach more than two displays to any bus"). It's quite typical for a computer to have 10 or more USB ports; Even if the Thunderbolt silicon were free, which it isn't, it's not so typical for a computer to have an extra 20 or 40 PCIe lanes; nor is it common to have more than two or three displayport outputs(unless you are loading up on GPUs or using classy workstation cards). Even if the extra expense and board space is provided so that any USB-C port can be used for any alt-mode for which system resources are available, that still means that "you can only plug monitors into two of them; unless you have two displayport monitors and one HDMI, in which case you can use three; but if you do that only Thunderbolt devices that use PCIe exclusively will work on the remaining ports, no Thunderbolt displays" is the order of the day.

Once you get down to realistically cheap devices; where things like not having a PCIe bus; or only having HDMI because you are a cheap SoC designed for set top boxes; or not wanted to put a fancy matrix switch in so that multi-Gb/s busses are available from any USB port are to be expected the limits of what any given USB port can do are just going to get tighter.

If(and it's a big if) some reasonably sane scheme is designed to make it clear what a device can or can't do it's still arguably a win over fixed function ports(if a laptop, say, can only actually charge via one of its ports and output video over one or two others; that's still a laptop that has USB ports where it would otherwise have a vendor barrel plug and an HDMI port, which is nice to have); but it's pretty much impossible to expect reasonably comprehensive support out of devices without making them mostly expensive and overqualified.

But you can do much worse with unicode urls. For example visit this (safe) page which appears as https://www.apple.com/ in the Firefox address bar:
https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com...
If Slashdot could support unicode, then the link here could also look like https://www.apple.com/ . Of course, slashdot doesn't.

But you can do much worse with unicode urls. For example visit this (safe) page which appears as https://www.apple.com/ in the Firefox address bar:
https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com...
If Slashdot could support unicode, then the link here could also look like https://www.apple.com/ . Of course, slashdot doesn't.

I'd take less vendor lock-in choices any day. Dozens of other companies will popup and offer WiFi router. There might even be more choices after Apple leave the segment.

I don't know where you get "Vendor Lock-In" with Apple's Routers. They offer some unique Services; but as far as their Router setup and usage goes, there isn't much in the way of Vendor Lock-In (no more than a lot of other brands). WiFi is WiFi, Ethernet is Ethernet. Can't do too much to "Lock-In" those protocols. The Airport (Setup) Utility is available for Windows, and the Windows version apparently works under WINE on Linux (at least for Ubuntu) :

https://discussions.apple.com/...

Now, If you're trying to spin "AirPlay" (AirPort Express) or "Time Machine" (Time Capsule); but there is no reason you HAVE to use those functions. It's still a WiFi Router, afterall. Plus, as far as AirPlay goes, there are plenty of third-party devices and applications on every Platform that support it. So, no real "Vendor Lock-In" there.

So, can you be specific; or, as I suspect, are you just saying there MUST be Vendor Lock-In, because... Apple?

Steam

Games are the big exception. Steam itself, however, is an embarrassment, and 64-bit support is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I wonder if they ever got around to fixing the dozens of bugs that prevented running the Mac version on a case-sensitive volume. Either way, I think it's safe to say that this announcement will light a fire under a company that IMO otherwise wouldn't bother fixing anything nonfatal....

Steam for MacOS is built on HlToolbox. Valve's choice of that framework was extremely poor given that even for OSX 10.5 it was littered with big fat bold warnings everywhere that particular APIs are 32 bit only, are deprecated and/or will never be 64 bit compatible. https://developer.apple.com/li...

They also use Breakpad for crash dump capture and reporting. AFAIK there's no 64 bit build of that for OSX, either.

Maybe they should rewrite it in Electron.

If you're on OSX, Safari has multiple ways to disable video autoplay. There is the easy way, or the bullet proof method which also stops autoplay from social media like Facebook. Never needed a blocker app.

MacOS is not used to run Linux on a Mac.

It can be. macOS includes Apple's Hypervisor.framework, atop which tools (such as xhyve) can be used to run Linux inside macOS.

This is how Docker for Mac works; it runs the Linux kernel inside Apple's Hypervisor.framework, allowing you to run Linux containers. If you have XQuartz installed, with a bit of fiddling you can run Linux GUI apps inside Docker containers on the macOS desktop.

Yaz

I wonder if I can run Linux inside Windows using parallels?

MacOS is not used to run Linux on a Mac.

It can be. macOS includes Apple's Hypervisor.framework, atop which tools (such as xhyve) can be used to run Linux inside macOS.

This is how Docker for Mac works; it runs the Linux kernel inside Apple's Hypervisor.framework, allowing you to run Linux containers. If you have XQuartz installed, with a bit of fiddling you can run Linux GUI apps inside Docker containers on the macOS desktop.

Yaz

Based on the quoted time to crack the exploit is likely using brute-force - the purpose of the device is to guess those while also disabling the usual 10-guess iOS limit before the device is locked. However, iOS supports complex passcodes as well, up to at least 90 alphanumeric characters, and these are are unlikely to be cracked.

They do offer $15/mo for 5 accounts... which is the only way Spotify is worth it. The downside is that nobody offers less than $10/mo so it's hard to find a decent alternative that doesn't try to lock you into a specific platform like Apple Music

What do you mean "Lock you into a specific platform"? There is an Apple Music Client for Android and iTunes (which is also an Apple Music Client) is available for Windows, too.

https://play.google.com/store/...

https://www.apple.com/itunes/d...

Linux, as usual, takes the hindmost, sorry. I guess when it's finally the year of the Linux Desktop, things will be different...

Wait! They're different NOW! (If you have Ubuntu, at least).

https://askubuntu.com/question... ...or other Distros:

http://www.tunefab.com/tutoria...

http://www.sidify.com/guide/ho...

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux...

You can sync your iOS devices easily to local storage.

How does this work without using a Mac or a PC running a Microsoft operating system?

You save your data either on the local hard disk, on a USB source, or on a network source over any of the standard protocols.

Network source I understand, but not the other two. An iOS device has no "local hard disk". Instead, it has an internal flash memory, which is fairly small on entry-level models. Nor does it have a USB port. Instead, it has a Lightning port.

I remembered vaguely that there was some means to connect digital cameras. After a bit of web searching, I discovered that Apple had introduced support for devices other than cameras through the Apple USB Camera Adapter. It mentions "SD card readers", which I presume to include all storage devices formatted to a Microsoft FAT family file system. However, conventional hard drives will produce "attached accessory uses too much power" unless the drive is connected through a self-powered hub or the adapter is the new revision that supports USB 3. What types of data on an iOS device can and can't be synced through an Apple USB Camera Adapter?

AppleCare+ provides repair or replacement coverage, both parts and labor, from Apple-authorized technicians. Service coverage includes the following:

• Your iPhone
• Battery
• Included earphones and accessories
• Coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage, each subject to a service fee of $29 for screen damage, or $99 for any other damage, plus applicable tax

Having AppleCare+ meant that I just had the battery replaced for free in my iPhone 7. In the 18 months I've had it, the battery went through >800 charge cycles and its total energy capacity had decreased by about 15%. When a friend of mine dropped the iPhone X he just paid north of $1,000 for, replacing the screen glass cost him $30. Sure he had spent an addition $200 up-front for the warranty but if he hadn't, replacing the display would've been nearly $300. If he drops it again it's just $30 again. If it ever is totally broken, then replacing it is $99 instead of $999.

It seems like Apple has designed the extended warranty coverage to fit the way typical consumers use (and break) their phones. My sister has had her phone display replaced twice and she has a decent protective case on her iPhone. I can't remember the last time I've dropped a phone and my screen glass cracked literally this weekend when I tried to break up a fight at a bar and I knocked down. Now when I go spend the $30 on the covered repair, I know that I've got an OEM part installed in my phone and I won't ever have to worry about reduced performance or incompatibilities with software updates.

In iOS 10.0 and later, the value of advertisingIdentifier is all zeroes when the user has limited ad tracking.

In case anyone is wondering, these wonderful options can be found in the Settings app in Privacy -> Advertising. Personally, I appreciate that the privacy and data protection features of my phone are so extensive that they have to be split up into 15 separate subpages within the main Privacy page.

Despite my criticisms of Tim Cook using Apple as his personal political platform, he and the company been vocal advocates of user privacy and rights. Compared to the rest of Silicon Valley and how they view users, Apple has been truly fantastic.

HOWEVER, I agree with you that here are a lot more things, some fairly simple, that Apple should be doing to back up their words with actions. Here's just a few:

1. Loosen restrictions on VPN protocols in iOS. Everyone knows the industry standard is OpenVPN, but Apple basically restricts VPN providers from implementing OpenVPN natively in their iOS apps, forcing users to resort to L2TP or IKEv2 (or set up their cknnectjkn manually using the OpenVPN app). This is cumbersome and gets in the way of good security.

Not sure what you're actually talking about here, the Cisco VPN client uses TLS over TCP, not L2TP or IKEv2.

2. Set StartPage as the default search engine in iOS Safari (rather than Google). StartPage returns Google results, but securely and privately. Adding DuckDuckGo a few years back was good, but most users stick with defaults and most users want Google results. So give them Google results securely and privately by making StartPage the default search engine.

Trade one frenemy for another that depends on the first? Little gain here but yea, some benefit for the moment, until StartPage actually gets popular, switches on its business model and only sells 'XXX data, not your personally identifiable data' until ... they do next week.

3. Let alternative browsers on iOS submit DNT headers. Currently only Safari can do this. In fact, Apple needs to signicsntly lessen restrictions on alternative browsers, including letting users set a different browser as default over Safari. At least do this with browsers that have proven security credentials, like Firefox, Ghostery and Brave.

Seriously? Firefox has a great security record? And top it off with the fact that its market share is disappearing, I think its pretty silly to wave these as your flag to get alternate browsers on iOS. Firefox is exactly what YOU DO NOT WANT ON iOS. Its buggy and CPU intensive because the devs can't be bothered to actually work on the browser, they have to go play with other random shit that they can also not finish and leave in a incomplete/broken state. Firefox is something iOS doesn't want for some of the exact same reasons as Flash, it fucking sucks. Move on.

But the way Apple has handled iOS browsing has been very anti-security. They took a long time to get around to fixing the HSTS supercookie bug in Safari, and then in iOS 11 created a HUGE WebRTC leak issue in most every other browser that is still unpatched. Why isn't this a priority?

Because pretty much no one cares.

4. The first four were easy; this one is going to hurt. Cook, it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code. The amount of simple but critical bugs found in OSX recently is insane. At the very least, start by implementing a policy that once an OS major version number is two or three years old, it's published open source. This will build trust amongst users and help researchers find bugs, while also protecting your most current developments as proprietary.

https://developer.apple.com/op...

Get a clue and try again.

No matter how much you whine, they aren't going to give away their secret sauce. There is no company that stays in business for any length of time that does so, even the OSS zealots fantasy RedHat has a ton of proprietary code when you actually start paying for the good stuff that companies and power users want. Your idealism here is cute but unrealistic. You don't get paid by giving EVERYTHING away.

The first four were easy; this one is going to hurt. Cook, it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code

This one is easy because they've already done it. Go to http://opensource.apple.com/ and take a look. A lot of the recent vulnerabilities were found in code that has been open sourced but none of the ones that I'm aware of were found by source analysis. Apple incorporates static analysis into their workflow on a pretty aggressive basis so bugs that are easy to find by static analysis of the source code don't usually make it into their code. A lot of their recent vulnerabilities have been found by Google Project Zero and were found by fuzzing and then binary analysis. Having access to the source code might make it easier for third parties to fix it, but wouldn't make it noticeably easier for anyone to find holes.

I agree 100% that Apple has completely lost their way W.R.T. computer hardware.

When they:

* put out a new computer that is slower the previous model (the Mac Mini fiasco)
* make it impossible to upgrade RAM and SSD because they are soldered in (WTF!?), etc.

you quickly realize Apple is all about streamlining their products at the expense of versatility.

Seriously, who the fuck would buy an Mac Pro -- when the hardware is so over-priced and out-dated it isn't even funny -- so why even continue selling it?

They are out of touch with what geeks want.

* Make gamepad support a 1st class citizen on the iPad / iPhone because some touch SUCKs for certain games
* Allow me to hook up a wired (*gasp*!) keyboard and monitor to the iPad
* Allow me to listen AND charge my phone at the SAME time -- like they fucking used to.
* Provide a fucking MicroSD ram slot
* Allow me to use my iPhone / iPad as a generic storage device

Instead we get "consume only" devices with a hard-one for everything wireless. Wireless is great -- but give me the OPTION of wired.

Apple only needs to do one thing to regain their focus:

How about making it _easy_ to _create_ content -- you know, like what the Mac became originally famous for.