Slashdot Mirror

...except on iOS.

Here you go:

https://www.cultofmac.com/5499...
https://privacy.apple.com/

But Apple is cooool. MUST HAVE! No one will date me without the latest iDevice... waaaaaaaaaa!

https://www.cultofmac.com/5635...

Citation required

Easily done!

https://www.cultofmac.com/5711...

https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/05...

https://appleinsider.com/artic...

https://www.engadget.com/2018/...

https://www.imore.com/how-ios-...

ET FUCKING CETERA...

Any questions?

Well to be fair also they have had this message for awhile.

https://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-c...

"You void your warantee if you root/fix your phone/fail to say three 'Hail Apples' every night" is one of the most enduring myths I've seen. Apple cannot "void your warantee" for anything they want, believe it or not, we even have laws that prevent it right here in the Banana Republic States of America. Alright, they're hardly ever enforced, so you can be forgiven for not knowing that they exist, but for what it's worth, Apple is violating the law by doing this, and the FTC is at least starting to pretend like they are going to do something about it. https://www.theregister.co.uk/... https://motherboard.vice.com/e... https://www.cultofmac.com/5407... https://venturebeat.com/2018/0... "But. but, it's a free market! Apple should be able to stick a three-foot long kilbasa in your rectum as punishment for not bricking your phone within 3 days of their releasing an update! What, you think you're special? If you don't update, you might get infected, and then infect others, so it's your obligation to brick your phone like everyone else because a working phone can be compromised! You owe it to them! It's right there on page 27 of the fine print! You agreed to it so you have to do it! You agreed to it! You agreed to it of your own free will! In a free market no less! A free market!" The "free market" hasn't devlolved quite that much yet, but give it another couple of years and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I somehow doubt the charging logic can do much about the situation when the battery is punctured and explodes

The "battery exploded because it was punctured" is a thing made up by Apple apologists, rather it seems more likely that the battery was punctured by exploding. Typical Apple to dodge responsibility for its mistakes, remember "you're holding it wrong?" Except this time, Apple runs the risk of killing people. In fact, people have actually died using Apple products. When Apple sends its astroturfers out to social networking sites to lie about punctured batteries it shows what Apple really is, a cult that will stop at nothing to hide its mistakes.

...you should also remember they were sued, successfully, by the patent troll that claimed to own the protocol...

Which would make them not patent trolls. They defended their patents against the most well-funded legal team in existence, and showed that the protocol used their invention. They most certainly did not claim to own the protocol.

They were/are Patent Trolls. First it was FaceTime, then it was iMessage. I didn't call them Patent Trolls, the entire Tech-Press did:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...

https://www.engadget.com/2017/...

https://gizmodo.com/apple-orde...

https://techcrunch.com/2016/02...

http://fortune.com/2016/02/03/...

https://www.cultofmac.com/4302...

https://www.macrumors.com/2018...

Oh, and this Discussion Thread EXACTLY addresses the original question:

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

etc. etc...

VirnetX patented something fairly obvious that they had no intention of ever bringing to market, which, after all, is the entire reason behind the Patent system, and simply lay-in-wait for someone with deep pockets to accidentally trip-into their patent-trap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Significantly helped along by:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I mean, the obvious corruption got so bad that the Supremes had to put a stop to it!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

So, don't paint Apple as the bad guy here.

That's a terrible example of a nobody who never built a notable SV company.

This is a much a better example

Steve "Abdulfattah Jandali" Jobs, telling reporter he doesn't know any Lisa. Who's Lisa?

Steve Abdulfattah Jabs looking like a 70s porn star

"Abused the legal system". I love it. If you idiots actually read the complaints it includes a complaint from the adjacent property where they were concerned about the local flooding such a site would cause. And Apple wasn't making it subterranean, did you even see the plan? Here it is: http://www.cultofmac.com/43022... But yeah, looks good, right? No problem there.

(A) Looks to me from that picture that the data centre is surrounded by trees to the point where you can't even see the thing until you are practically on the parking lot in front of it so no need to make it subterranean, but I suppose it would still offend your delicate sense of aesthetics when you fly over it in the hot air ballon you fill up with your Apple hate rants, and (B) How exactly does a datacenter cause flooding?

Sorry snowflake, I am not complaining aobut anything. I am saying that I wouldn't want a data center in my town, especially one that looks like this:

https://www.cultofmac.com/4529...

Looks like a local environmental nightmare to me. But if you are OK with it, then good (I guess?)

Probably started when these guys got it wrong, eh?

"Why You’ll Probably Never Own A Mac With An ARM Processor" - 2012

Apple watch was on the border line of Jobs/Cooks

Earrpods is just a late-to-market Bluetooth headphone... point release over the existing headphones.

I'm guessing that the watch was in development or that plans were made about it while Jobs was still alive. I suppose the wireless earbuds could count, but I think HomePod is a better example, even if it isn't terribly novel in itself as it does represent Apple getting serious about speaker technology and by several counts they did a good job there.

Here ya go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071... Here's another: https://www.cultofmac.com/4376...

Actually, that's not quite true. Fuchsia uses Flutter and Dart for the UI layer. https://www.cultofmac.com/4423...

If it's a zero-sum-game (favor profits OR favor customers, pick one), and Apple is making high profits, then why is Apple also ranking first in customer satisfaction?

Endowment effect ...
After you have paid $2700 for a laptop you would be trying to justify your purchase and would be thinking that it is the greatest thing. Thinking otherwise would make you a fool who just spent $2700 on a laptop without HDMI port.
Having used expensive MacBooksPro and expensive DELL laptops, I would choose DELL laptop any time over a mac for many reasons. Both windows and macos have their problems but windows problems is much simpler to resolve since there is a large user community. Good luck searching for help on any problems with your mac.

My opinion is that Apple optimizes the "tripod" with an eye towards high profit levels, not towards customers. Which is fine, it is absolutely their decision to make, whether they want to optimize high-profits or customers.

If it's a zero-sum-game (favor profits OR favor customers, pick one), and Apple is making high profits, then why is Apple also ranking first in customer satisfaction?

Once we've dispensed with the defensive Slashdot non-reponse ("because Apple customers are ignorant brain-washed sheep, and not enlightened and wise like we are"), and keep in mind that "the customer is always right", we must conclude that Apple has figured out how to keep customers happy/loyal and keep profits high at the same time.

Which is a pretty good thing to know how to do, and largely explains why Apple is currently swimming in an ocean of cash.

Precisely!

My opinion is that Apple optimizes the "tripod" with an eye towards high profit levels, not towards customers. Which is fine, it is absolutely their decision to make, whether they want to optimize high-profits or customers.

If it's a zero-sum-game (favor profits OR favor customers, pick one), and Apple is making high profits, then why is Apple also ranking first in customer satisfaction?

Once we've dispensed with the defensive Slashdot non-reponse ("because Apple customers are ignorant brain-washed sheep, and not enlightened and wise like we are"), and keep in mind that "the customer is always right", we must conclude that Apple has figured out how to keep customers happy/loyal and keep profits high at the same time.

Which is a pretty good thing to know how to do, and largely explains why Apple is currently swimming in an ocean of cash.

Fuck off. Apple was already caught years ago with CarrierIQ, you don't get to throw stones.

1. That was iOS 5, 6 years ago.

2. It was easily disabled by the user on iOS

3. On iOS, it logged nothing but diagnostic data, and had no access to ANY personal information or key logging whatsoever.

4. It was on EVERY platform at the time; but on iOS, it was actually used for a legitimate purpose, unlike on Android.

5. It has been gone for over half a decade..

Nice try, Hater:

https://www.cultofmac.com/1325...

Block network access on apps which don't need it (like most games). This prevents any data being sent back to the app's mothership, not just microphone data. Both iOS and Android allow you to block specific apps from using cellular data (on the premise of preventing data hog apps from using up your monthly data quota).

On Android you can go a step further and control which individual apps can use cellular data, WiFi for LAN access, or WiFi for Internet access. It may require root though. AFWall+ is one such app. (A side-effect if you've never run the app prior to blocking it can be that it can never download an ad to display.)

It's simple, they didn't want the users to know about it. It's planned obsolescence.They knew the Lithium batteries would deteriorate after a few hundred charge cycles, ~18-24 months and the software would slow down the phones.

The fact that it was NOT disclosed, tells you about their motive. Sell more hardware.

If that was the real motive, the "slowdown" would have been baked-into iOS 2 rather than iOS 10 or 11.

Instead, the timing of this (no pun) makes it OBVIOUS that the "current spike-spreading" code was added to iOS when Apple said they had a software-fix for the iPhone 6 "shutdown" problem. They just didn't take the infinity amount of time it would take to discover how that fix would affect every single iPhone on the planet, and thus, eventually, someone noticed. But what's clear is that Apple was DEFINITELY NOT "trying to sell new phones". New iPhones have been PLENTY faster year-over-year on their own!

https://www.iphonebenchmark.ne...

And lest you think that those recent performance figures are in any way ho-hum compared with the competition, read this:

https://www.cultofmac.com/4626...

http://appleinsider.com/articl...

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/i...

So, Apple doesn't HAVE to slow down their older phones to "make their new phones seem faster." They ARE faster (and also fastEST!)

Apple was run by a guy who used to park in disabled spaces for ages, so it's safe to say accessibility is not something they've traditionally been too worried about.

https://www.cultofmac.com/2613...

Well, actually Apple has quite a significant share of time-related bugs and it almost seems like they are trying to... ehm... "corner the DST market" ? :)
For example, I distinctly remember my iPhone forgetting to wake me up in time a few years ago after DST. From a quick search I see it was 2010. So, iOS 4.1 had a bug where repeating alarms did not work across DST change boundaries. What was infuriating about the bug is that Apple had ample warning, as 2-3 weeks before the Europe, it hit Australia and NZ. That was not enough time for a fix (Apple appears to have suggested "use non-repeating alarms" aka "you're doing it wrong"), so it hit Europe and, then, a week later the US as well. Then they had a DST bug in 2013 as well.

But of course apart from DST there have been other gems like the aforementioned 1970 bug...

And these are the high profile bugs, as a developer I know of subtle bugs that you have to work around since Apple declares them as "as designed" (for example, the date formatter "HH" may or may not be affected by the "24h time" slider in settings, depending on what is the default of that slider in the phone region.. ugh).

Why does my phone need to identify objects and people on the photographs that I've stored on it? The fact that it's 'invisible' and causes people to be confused about battery drain means people don't even know their phone is doing it.

Yeah, I expect there's a real good reason why the phone needs to run face recognition on every photograph I have stored on my phone. Righto.

It's only "invisible" to paranoid idiots line you.

The rest of us watch Apple Keynote addresses and read OS "Feature" Pages, tutorials, TV commercials and other media reports, websites, reviews, etc, where these features are (gasp!) revealed, demonstrated, and openly discussed.

And BTW, you sick fuck, because Apple DOES respect your privacy, ALL of the face categorization process and data is done ON DEVICE (that's why it slows down your phone, you moron!).

https://goo.gl/images/ccjsMV

https://goo.gl/images/8osDNj

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

https://support.apple.com/en-u...

https://www.iphonetricks.org/1...

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/i...

https://www.cultofmac.com/4920...

https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/20...

Oh, and I found these links in about 5 minutes, using that secret, Dark-Web search tool, you probably haven't heard of it. It's called "Google".

You're stuck working within whatever apps you can find that can interconnect. But you're not allowed access to the filesystem. Google has been doing some horky business in recent Android releases with regard to filesystem access, but they've not yet gotten even close to the prohibitiveness that Apple has enforced all along.

That wasn't much of a problem before, with third-party Apps like GoodReader, and Apple's "Sharing" capabilities.

But in iOS 11, due to be out in just a couple of days (September 19), there is a "Files" App, which exposes the filesystem, very similar to the macOS "Finder".

https://www.cultofmac.com/4859...

So, suck it.

For anyone paying attention, Apple is famous for selling overpriced gear. Also, for anyone paying attention, Apple is the go to brand for people wanting a status statement instead of just a computer or a phone. Also, if anyone have been paying attention, people with no clue about computers tend to prefer Apple products. There you go some justification for the supposed hate you see... if you are paying attention.

Funny. Many, many, many Developers use Apple computers (and likely their mobile devices, too). Even St. Linus used/uses a MacBook Air:

https://www.cultofmac.com/1628...

So, I guess Linus Fucking Torvalds has "no clue about computers", too, eh?

And I have conversed with a number of 3 and 4 digit UIDs here on Slashdot that use and prefer Macs. Oh, and I have decades of experience as an embedded Developer, and have used Macs for Development, even way back in the day, when it was REALLY hard to find a decent toolchain that ran on Macs.

So, in short: You have NO FUCKING CLUE what you are talking about, fucktard; so STFU and GTFO...

It's "beautiful" (personally, I think it looks like a toy) at the expensive of modularity, upgradeability and repairability. If any one single component goes bad, say a RAM chip, the SSD, the GPU or the screen, you have to toss the whole thing and buy another. With a properly designed desktop or laptop PC, I can just swap parts in and out.

But, now you're switching arguments from "just a luxury item" (all form and no substance), to completely different criteria. Nice try.

RAM is (still) easily upgradeable in iMacs. As is the mass-storage (although not as easily).. I assume it will be so in the iMac Pro, too.

And 99% of laptops these days, no matter the brand, are no more repairable for the average person than your TV's Remote Control.

So, it sounds like you would be more of a customer for the upcoming "modular" Mac Pro. No one knows exactly what "modular" means, but "upgradability" (which brings along with it, "repairability") of things like the CPU, GPU, SSD, RAM, etc. were specifically mentioned.

https://www.cultofmac.com/4747...

Now, whether that means that the "modular" Mac Pro simply ends up being Apple's 21st century's "take" on a Tower PC remains to be seen....

Nothing new here, even with the iPhone 7, the variant with the Intel modem is slower. Heck, the iPhone 6S had two different CPU suppliers, and battery life differences cropped up over that. Oh yeah, and the original iPhone had some LCD screens with a negative black issue.

I'm sure the faithful will still line up to play the iPhone 8 lottery. Do you feel lucky?

The difference in the UFO test is like night and day to me -- 120 fps is "sharp" and in focus. The lower the frame rate the more "blurry" and "stuttery" it looks.

This isn't rocket science -- just simple physics.

* At 120 Hz refresh rate the UFO moves 1 pixels per quantum.
* At 60 Hz the UFO has to move 2 pixels per quantum.
* At 30 Hz the UFO has to move 4 pixels in the same quantum.

Now 4 px/quantum it looks jerky and stuttery-as-hell compared to 1 px/quantum. Not everyone is as blind as you.

When I'm gaming I can _instantly_ tell when the frame rate drops from 60 Hz to 30 Hz. 120 Hz is harder to tell, but it is still noticeable.

First, maybe if you actually _listened_ to professional gamers they would tell you the _exact_ same thing -- micro-stuttering IS important -- maintaining a SOLID, consistent framerate is THE most important thing in UI. Setting the bar low means people don't step up to the plate -- instead they will half-ass it with shitty 30 fps.

Here is a demo of why 30 Hz is crap -- holy lag batman!

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Second, as alluded above with the video, 120 Hz is important to minimize lag input. If you actually knew anything about rendering you would understand LATENCY. Not only rendering latency but INPUT latency.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/...

If Apple's marketing material is accurate, it mentions a change from the 120 Hz sampling rate of the capacitive touch screen in normal use to 240 Hz when the stylus is detected.

Having a sampling rate of 120 Hz when the display is only 30 or 60 Hz is laggy as hell. You want to keep BOTH at high rates, preferably in sync.

If you would listen to artists using tablets they say the same thing. Minimizing input lag along with a high frame rate is extremely important for artists to have a "natural" feel. THAT is the one of the strengths of traditional art forms -- they have 0 ms lag in pencil, brush, etc.

* http://www.cultofmac.com/38847...

Again, go read the Anand review of the iPad Pro Page 9

After a few trials I measured an approximate latency for the iPad Pro of roughly 49ms or 3 frames of delay, while the Wacom Cintiq in this configuration had roughly 116ms or ~7 frames of delay. Itâ(TM)s worth mentioning here that the camera I used was recording at 240 FPS, so these figures could be off by around 4ms even before accounting for human error. Although the Cintiq 22 HD does have higher latency, I wouldnâ(TM)t put too much into this as itâ(TM)s likely that a more powerful computer driving the display would narrow, if not eliminate the gap entirely.

For reference, I estimated the Surface Pro 3 to have about 87 ms or 5-6 frames of delay, and the Surface Book to have about 69 ms or around 4 frames of delay. However, in the case of the Surface devices I was using Fresh Paint, which is a drawing application that isn't exactly comparable to Photoshop but is sufficient for comparison purposes. To give an idea for how much the application has an effect on latency, the Apple Notes app has roughly 38 ms or around 2 frames of latency from when the stylus tip passes over one point to when the inking reaches the same point.

Third, GEE, why are the VR guys targeting 90+ Hz? Because it makes for less nausea.

* http://www.roadtovr.com/sony-c...

Fourth, you are not an Graphics / UI / UX expert. You don't have a fucking clue about the importance of why _every_ millisecond matters in jank free animation -- so stop pretending that you do a

I'll give people the benefit of doubt, but it sounds like a whole ton of commenters here are going on with guesswork.

First of all, no, it's not easy in any way shape or form to create a rogue touch ID reader that would "send signals" allowing the iPhone 7 to be unlocked.
It'd already be plenty hard for someone to open up a phone and replace it surreptiously, let alone coming up with new hardware that would be compatible.

Do you guys even know how the TouchID reader works? Well, neither do I of course... it's proprietary. But here's an overview:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12...
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09...
https://support.apple.com/en-u...

Basically, it works like a very specific and proprietary camera/microscope. It detects fine detailed fingerprint information, converts it into code and sends it to the SoC to be processed via software.
Nothing is processed on the button itself, and even if it was, you wouldn't be able to easily figure out what it did - or it'd be unsecure by definition.

But again, the hardware is very proprietary. You'd probably need insider knowledge of production to even come close to making something that would work like it, and it'd be expensive as hell to reproduce one. The companies that makes these things have secretive processes that not only would be incredibly hard to figure out, it'd be outright impossible to reproduce without proper technologies.

Do people even realize how much easier it'd be to just chop up someone's finger and bypass the whole thing anyways?

Even if you couldn't go to such extremes, it'd be easier for hackers and malicious actors to try to reproduce an entire detailed human finger complete with ridges, pores and whatnot (at it's current stage) than creating some rogue device that could bypass the security enclave somehow.
And you cannot retrieve information from previous fingerprints used for authentication because they are encrypted in the phone storage, not in the reader.

The only likely scenario where Touch ID could be used to steal fingerprints, depending a lot on how it works, would be to use an original unit modified to store readouts, and then creating new hardware that would send those into the system. But that's quite unlikely... if not outright impossible. Again, it depends on how exactly the reader works. Note though how no one every did anything like this, because it just doesn't make sense. iPhones will always have easier vulnerabilities to explore to retrieve data.

It's always good to note though that fingerprint sensors should NEVER be used as the sole authentication method if you have sensitive information inside the phone. Because, like I said, it's a matter of finding a way to make a very detailed reproduction of your finger. With 3D print technology and camera technology always improving, it'll be doable at some point in time.
It was already done for the iPhone 6, though not something that just anyone could do:
http://www.cultofmac.com/29688...

Apple is already facing a class action lawsuit regarding the so called Error 53, related to iPhone 6 bricking the phone if the Touch ID was replaced, so it really doesn't look good for them to repeat the whole deal for the iPhone 7.
https://www.macrumors.com/2016...
Australia's consumer protection agency also just filled a lawsuit:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/...

And you know, the company has backtracked because the very same excuses some commenters are making here were not enoug

Not the button itself, but on the button assembly, yes.

TouchID Button Assembly

Really? People are still parroting the defensive "It's your laws!" after Apple has been found guilty of breaching the law on so many occasions?

Time and time again people say these companies are just following the laws, time and time again we find out they're not as they get hit with record fines:

Japan: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Ireland: https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

France: http://www.cultofmac.com/45566...

China: https://www.cnet.com/news/appl...

It's not just Apple of course, but can we stop pretending these companies are merely following the law when they do this? It's pretty clear they're not given the number of occasions they've been demonstrated to be guilty of outright tax evasion, not mere simple avoidance.

I'm amazed given how dead the "They're just following the law!" line is that people are still parroting it, obviously they're not, hence the constant barrage of fines that are now catching up with years of criminal tax evasion by large tech companies.

If anything needs changing with national laws it's that the penalties need to be increased substantially to act as a real deterrent which they're clearly not now, but that doesn't change the fact that companies like Apple, Google, et. al. have been engaging in outright illegal tax evasion. The idea they have gets parroted a lot, but it's based on the assumption that because they haven't been caught yet they're innocent, but it doesn't mean they actually are innocent as we keep finding out now that the multi-year investigations are finally catching up with them.

Ok.

Apple doesn't fix known exploit for 3 years:
http://www.cultofmac.com/13261... /got bored and didn't read the other 3 million search hits.

Or an iPhone fatality or you, soon to suffer a gastric detonation due to excessive anal tension.

Phew. Good thing https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/apple-scrambles-after-40-malicious-xcodeghost-apps-haunt-app-store/ never happened. Or http://www.cultofmac.com/241463/researchers-sneak-malicious-ios-app-into-the-app-store-undetected/ that. Or even http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-china-malware-idUSKCN0RK0ZB20150921 that (which is a precursor to the first link I posted, so they obviously aren't even very good at fixing the problems when they show up!)

But hey we live in a world of alternative facts, so believe whatever you want I guess. Truth is irrelevant in our brave new world.

Oh, how quickly people forget Apple's failed attempt to sell a gold iWatch for $10,000 - $17,000. Or the $115,000 iWatch?

And as another poster pointed out, you're a sucker to take it in for maintenance every year. It doesn't need it.

Sapphire can be made transparent, my watch has a sapphire crystal lense, which is pretty much clear.

https://www.google.com/search?...
http://www.cultofmac.com/26706...

Almost all of the biggest offenders were iOS apps, so if you never had an iPhone you were spared the vast majority of incidents where skeuomorphism caused problems. Ideally, you're right, skeuomorphism should be helpful, but many designers used it to create the illusion of quality by borrowing images and textures from physical objects that they perceived as being valuable. Here is a thorough breakdown of the nausea of the era.

You only keep your hardware for a year? Or are you talking about paid insurance?

They're well known for ignoring hardware issues:
MagSafe Adapter Class Action Lawsuit
Touch Disease / Bendgate
2011 Macbook Pro GPU Overheating Issue

There are dozens more - including using a defective SATA cable in recent iMacs. I don't have time to list them all. Being a statistical anomaly like yourself does not make Apple actually better than they really are.

Not only that, they have openly swiped designs from Braun. They don't exactly have a great track record with stealing ideas either. Though I think that most people realize that Apple takes ideas and meshes them together in new, often useful, ways. It was their bread and butter under St. Jobs.

Cult of Mac is one of many industry pubs documenteing this history.

The analyst cited in the article has a pretty good repuation (Google him). Doesn't seem prudent to outright reject his projections because you disagree with them.

Ming-Chi Kuo has an amazing reputation predicting future Apple products. There is zero history of predictions about sales and consumer preferences, which are completely different. No Apple insider or supply chain source can help shed light on that.

The analyst cited in the article has a pretty good repuation (Google him). Doesn't seem prudent to outright reject his projections because you disagree with them.

That is true of every smartphone in existence. So what that means is that Apple copied my Nexus phone, so they are more guilty of copying.

They look nothing alike, you are just too pro Apple to even see the differences.

They all look alike, because they have been copying the iPhone (which was quite different from every other phone, and especially every other Android phone when it debuted) since the original iPhone in 2007. You are just too anti-Apple to see that. But maybe this will jog your memory. Or maybe this.

Why must I re-litigate this every other WEEK on Slashdot, when the evidence, dated nearly a YEAR after the iPhone debut and nearly 6 months after its RELEASE, regarding who-copied-who is right there in black and white? Heck, Android didn't even HAVE touch-input capabilities AT ALL until more than a YEAR after the first iPhone debuted!

So please, just stop. You're just embarrassing yourself.

Don't take his word for it

http://gizmodo.com/an-iphone-i...
http://www.cultofmac.com/29186...
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/...
https://www.cnet.com/news/ipho...
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news...
https://9to5mac.com/2014/02/22...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/02/...
http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/09/29/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/09/30/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/ipho...

And those are just the first two pages of Google links. It's not just Apple - all phones do this. All phones with lithium batteries have a chance of entering thermal runaway. It's inherent in the materials. That said, the Note 7 was close to two orders of magnitude above what a consumer device really should be in terms of spontaneous combustion. Still low probability, but too high for the disruptive nature of and heat generating device on an operating aircraft.

Which is terrible, because these days even Acrobat Reader has a function to add your signature to a form and save it without jumping through analog hoops. Preview on Mac can do it as well.

How many cars do you have, Steve? Just curious.

Looks like about four, as far as cars go.

Well, they did it once, who's to say they won't do it again?

Sorry if I misunderstood. It would be if it weren't for "the Apple way" stuff getting in the way.

No worries. As I said, I think I didn't state my question too clearly. And quite frankly, I'm not sure I did much better on the second attempt, LOL!!!

"The Apple Way" stuff you are referring to: Are you talking about the GUI, or macOS' propensity to play a bit of hide-and-seek against the casual browser of System files (which is easily defeated temporarily or permanently) (caution: Sound on that Page)? By the way, that stuff works on other "Hidden" Directories, too. Or are you talking about something(s) else?