Slashdot Mirror

Almost certainly.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

It's still harder to fake than a finger scan, potentially saving planes from being redirected mid flight You leave prints everywhere and can be scanned while asleep or non compliant. You don't as of yet leave a highly detailed face scan everywhere and it won't work with your eyes closed or face contorted. You are required to use a password in any case. If the faceID gets a couple of fails you need to use the password to unlock even if you then provide the right face; this was demonstrated live on tv at the official launch.

You forgot the speaker problems
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/several-iphone-x-owners-experiencing-crackling-or-buzzing-sounds-from-earpiece-speaker.2087816/
and faceid fails
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Security-firm-beats-Face-ID-with-a-mask_id99744

apple taking others tech and making it better; isnt that the standard apple worshippers position

A lot of old applications, i.e. 32-bit, are doomed on the Apple platform. On the surface that might not seem such a bad thing, but I fear many plug-ins and other stuff people don't know they depend on are gonna break. Just because some software is no longer actively supported don't means it's not damn useful.

Mac Mini has been on the same hardware since 2014, of course it's not a top seller. Mac pro hasn't been updated since 2013! Of course they're not the top sellers. They're three and four- year old machines that when they came out weren't the bleeding edge of hardware possible. That they sell at all, at this point, should be telling them something, though.

(source of dates: Macrumors Buyers' Guide)

Mac mini might be dead, though. Tim Cook recently made an announcement that you basically shouldn't buy one just yet, and we all know how well that worked out for the Osborne.

he has caused the Mac to lose about a third of its users.

Citation? Over 8 years, Mac sales appear to be flat, but I don't see them declining.

in IOS 11:

https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

But hey, they're a walled garden and just after your money.

1. Your eyes have to be open for this to work. If a cop grabs your phone, close your eyes. If they try to get you to unlock it, open one eye, then the other, until it fails. If a cop grabs your phone, the first thing he'll do is look at it, thus triggering failure #1. It only takes 2 failures to trigger the passcode requirement. https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

2. As we are discussing right here in this very story, if it fails to unlock by face, IT THEN ASKS FOR A PASSCODE. And it WON'T OPEN AGAIN UNTIL THAT PASSCODE IS ENTERED. So you are just as secure as if you were already a passcode-only person.

This is actually MORE secure than the current thumbprint system, which can ABSOLUTELY be opened if you are restrained. There's no way to close your thumbprint when you're in handcuffs. As has been discussed elsewhere, you can not (in the U.S., generally, blah blah blah) be compelled to give your password but you can be compelled to put your thumb on a device.

3. Also, there's this: https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

You'll be happy to know that someone has you covered.

Problem is this will never make it into the Mainstream kernel. The Linux Kernel devs have opposed a stable driver ABI for decades now. The chipset manufacturers have happily setteled in and provide only binary blobs with ABI adaptions for a certain timeframe, and everybody is happy except for the screwed customers.

Considering there is more than two billion active Android devices I doubt Google cares much, when you take away all the desktop device drivers, architectures and other bits of Linux that aren't that relevant for Android how many core changes are there? And if they dedicate one cent per device to maintaining a fork, that's $20 million.

The actual REAL quick disable hot key in iOS 11 is press the side button five times quickly.

Tapping the side button the phone five times in iOS11 disables touch login and requires the passcode, which the US police cannot (legally at least, $5 wrenches aside) compell you to provide. Presumably it'll do the same thing for face login too.

"
For Apple's part, Tim Cook last week pointed out numerous ways he disagrees with Trump, but stated that his personal beliefs weren't enough to make him walk away from the Trump administration's councils, because he felt the need to keep the bigger picture in mind. "At the end of the day, I’m not a person who’s going to walk away and say, “If you don’t do what I want, I leave.” ... But I care deeply about America. I want America to do well. America’s more important than bloody politics from my point of view."
"
Source.

Holy crap! Did you know you can get basically Pandora for free? And more than likely your car already has the equipment for it!! I usually plug the iPhone in before I start the car up, but one day I totally left it in the cup holder forgetting to plug it up. I thought that the silence would have been a cue for me to plug it in but boom! Music was playing when the car turned on. I looked at my phone, looked at the console of the car, back at the phone, back at the console. I just couldn't understand what this new "FM" device was! But it's basically free music. I got to work, turned off the car, waited a second, turned it back on, and boom the FM device was back!

Anyway, I wonder if Apple will ever build an app that allows me to access my "FM" device account? Also, is the membership built into the price of a car? I just don't understand how a streaming service can exist without me paying for it.

I never saw any of these warnings.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

It sucks that Apple make the late minute decision to just screw us and their users over like this.

By last minute do you mean since October 2014 when Apple said that after Feb 2015, all apps must support 64 bit. Also when Apple rejected 32 bit apps submitted after June 2015. And in Sept 2016 when Apple started removing apps that were not 64 bit. Now Apple never said for sure that iOS 11 would be 64 bit only but to say "it's a last minute decision" is disingenuous.

Apparently not.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/13/ios-drops-china-smartphone-market

People wont even pay 50c for an iPhone app.

Wrong.

First of all if you really need some high performance Macing, there's the iMac Pro coming out at the end of this year...

But I don't know why you are even asking where the Mac Pro is, since everyone who cares already knows it's coming after 2017.

Right now I could use a better GPU for rendering. Of course the CPUs are maxed out too, but a new GPU would be great and could extend the life of the machine.

The new MacOS will support external GPU cards. Right now only available to developers, but that is bound to change.

Exactly. Google's market dominance is as close to free consumer choice as one can get.

LOL, so why is Google dumping _BILLIONS_ of dollars of cash on companies (like Apple) to make their search engine the default, and to bundle Chrome if people were going to install it anyway?

Man, Hope you Google shills get paid well, but dude.. come up with better propaganda. Google simply paid their way to the market-share they have. Free market.. haha.. thats a good one !!

https://www.macrumors.com/2016...

This is counter-PR pushed out BY Amazon to counter Apple's Phil Schiller participating in an interview where he said that a "Voice Activated Smart Speaker could benefit from a Screen".

Considering that every time I browse something on Amazon, it appears magically in banner ads EVERYWHERE I browse, and yet, every time I browse something on Apple's site, it, er doesn't, I'd say I trust Apple to actually produce a device that doesn't spy on you.

But this "Leak", coming in the heels of the Schiller interview earlier this week, is no accident, or lapse of security.

And if it is, remember this is the same company that's handling your "overheard" Alexa audio...

since they face no consequences

They face no consequences unless they post copy (write something). True? Untrue? Don't matter. Tomorrow's another day. Business journalism. Pays bills.

In other news, Apple has $250 Billion sitting around in cash, in spite of spending on a completely insane spaceship headquarters and still not offering a decent tower workstation. Upcoming iPhone 8 rumored to be cool.

Whatever. Probably fit the entire Pentagon inside the courtyard of that spaceship. But if they would just take an 8-figure round-off error on that cash and give it to me, I would be ok with that.

since they face no consequences

They face no consequences unless they post copy (write something). True? Untrue? Don't matter. Tomorrow's another day. Business journalism. Pays bills.

In other news, Apple has $250 Billion sitting around in cash, in spite of spending on a completely insane spaceship headquarters and still not offering a decent tower workstation. Upcoming iPhone 8 rumored to be cool.

Whatever. Probably fit the entire Pentagon inside the courtyard of that spaceship. But if they would just take an 8-figure round-off error on that cash and give it to me, I would be ok with that.

Apple did just gut their affiliate program.

But not QUAD CORE Kaby Lake's. Check again.

They didn't have to use kaby lake.

Yes they did. It was the only way to hit their Thermal Budget (which was a very good thing!)

I happen to AGREE with the decision to use USB-C/TB3 on the new MBP. Seriously.

Good for you, it would seem that maybe the reason you're so defensive is that you missed the key point that I said first and then also reiterated that I am referring to ***some*** of the market, just like Craig Federighi said "it didn't well suit some of the people we wanted to reach". You understand what that means right?

I most certainly do. In this case, I think those users are actually WRONG. Difference between "perception" and "reality". Those users PERCEIVED that there was some great impediment to using their legacy peripherals with the new MBP, when in the vast majority of cases, there was not. Problem was, the internet whiners got out ahead of Apple, and Apple didn't nip the growing meme in the bud like they should have.

The limited RAM and relatively poor GPU performance means it, like the Mac Pro, doesn't suit well to some of their supposed target market.

The fact is, there are many "peer" laptops released at the same or nearly same time that also had a max. RAM of 16 MB; but nobody seems to target THEM as being "limited RAM".

There is nothing "relatively poor" about the performance of the AMD GPUs. Apple made a design decision to support more/higher-res external displays at the expense of some gaming performance. Many more people use Macs for high-end graphics and monitor-heavy applications like video-editing than they do gaming; so it seems to be a reasonable engineering trade-off for their market.

But again, the internet whiners started trotting out FPS-rates in a few games, and the PERCEPTION got ahead of Apple's ability to reign-in and explain (which they did) their GPU decision. But by the time they got their explanation out, it was drowned in a maelstrom of 12-year-old gamers whining about this week's latest game.

But here is the bottom-line from the linked article above:

"... if pushing two high-end 5K screens at once was a design goal for Apple, AMD was the only way to go."
 

As for the USB issue it is a small issue but Apple built a reputation on being sleek and efficient rather than having clumsy solutions and they've certainly regressed in that respect.

Now if you like it and can suffer the performance issues and don't mind the clumsiness then great, that's good for you. The fact that it doesn't work well for me is also fine, I'm not sure why you have such a problem accepting that, but I hope they remedy that in the future just like are doing with the Mac Pro.

The "clumsiness" that you mention is only TEMPORARY, and represents a design that is Forward-Thinking, rather than "rooted in the past".

So, Apple gets "dinged" for putting "obsolete" hardware in their designs; but when they put in the latest (laptop) CPU, highest-level External-Display Support (in a laptop), and best I/O Ports for the next 5 years (that are inexpensively and relatively painlessly backward-compatible to most legacy ports), they get hammered for that, too???

So, what's a computer-designer to do? Look back, or look forward.

Apple chose the latter. But it seems that they are damned if they do, and damned if they don't...

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

As others have pointed out, check out this page.

Well, the time since the last update is always the longest right before the next update.

As others have pointed out, check out this page.

And they didn't simply "not update the Mac mini" they actually went out of their way to downgrade the machine. A slow 1.4GHz on the low-end model? Soldered RAM so you're forced to pay Apple's RAM prices at the moment of purchase for future-proofing your machine?

I'm guessing Tim Cook really believes his "iPad is better than a laptop" nonsense. All the profits in the world means nothing if they can't make decent Macs anymore. Some of us need computers to work, not toys.

MacRumors' buyers guide rates everything but the MacBook Pro as "Don't buy" right now...

https://buyersguide.macrumors....

Yeah, because everyone who's in the know about Apple realizes that a desktop upgrade is imminent. Even I recommended to someone not to upgrade their aging iMac (2007, still going strong, but the display is getting a bit dim), but rather buy an external monitor for it and wait for the next models. So, $250 and he has a nice Dell display that has the same resolution as his 24" iMac, and will eventually serve as the replacement display for his wife's mini, who's display has developed a brightness-difference between the left and right sides.

MacRumors' buyers guide rates everything but the MacBook Pro as "Don't buy" right now...

https://buyersguide.macrumors....

Develop on what? iPads? Because Apple stopped caring about their Macs years ago.

Develop on what? iPads? Because Apple stopped caring about their Macs years ago.

" brand new" Mac Pro is 1169 days old,

No they are not. The design is old. The hardware is new.

Uh? We could talk about the other things you wrote, and I would even agree with some of them, but you are wrong on this one. This is the very same Mac Pro that has been introduced on December 19, 2013 and is still sold at the same price for the same components: Ivy Bridge E Xeon processors, Dual AMD FirePro GPUs, etc. Note that even the full roundoup from my first link reads:

Chips appropriate for an upgraded Mac Pro have been available since 2014, so it is unclear what Apple is waiting on before introducing a new Mac Pro machine.

RT.

Sales and marketshare have nothing to do with users [...] And the user base for Macs is increasing steadily.

Fair enough, but then according to your reasoning the user base for PCs is also increasing? Fine, but we warned: don't let Phil Schiller hear you talking about keeping "Macs for 5 years and longer" or he will poke fun at you mercilessly. Yes, even when a " brand new" Mac Pro is 1169 days old, a Mac mini is 868 days old, an iMac 506 days old, etc. Talk about double standards!

RT.

T-Mobile just responded. Three lines unlimited data, $100, taxes included. https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

As reported by MacRumors The deleted browser history was listed in a record called literally named "tombstone" that was separate from other iCloud functions.

That doesn't like an accidental defect in design in any sense.

For even more proof that the OP is way off-base, reports just came in indicating that Apple sold 5.2 million Apple Watches in the last quarter alone. Contrast that with Rolex, which makes 2,000 watches a day, equating to about 700,000 per year. Granted, the holiday quarter is Apple's strongest, but those numbers would suggest that Apple in one quarter outsold Rolex's entire year by a factor of 7, indicating that their unit sales are doing just fine and that they're not hiding behind revenue numbers like the OP was suggesting.

Uh, Apple's earnings show 14 weeks for Q1 2017 and 13 weeks for Q1 2016. They literally said it out loud during the call.

So, no. You are either not paying attention what they are reporting or out-right lying.

Livestream of the conference call from an Apple friendly source if you don't believe me:

http://www.macrumors.com/2017/...

If you look at the patent, it's to deposit a substance to a semiconductor wafer with photolithography for IC fabrication.

http://www.macrumors.com/2017/...

Some of these news outlets are just not even trying anymore.

http://www.macrumors.com/2017/...

iOdor is going to be released.

Afraid not. MacRumors debunked this "news" before it was ever posted to Slashdot, but the real news story is likely to be of more interest to long-time Slashdot readers, since it's actually something decently nerdy.

I'll let others with more expertise in the subject go into the details, but the cliff notes version is that Apple is patenting a means for depositing material during the photolithography process used to fabricate computer chips. Not as exciting to the general public as a vaping device, but certainly more worthy of Slashdot's front page.

TFA has been retracted and an apology has been put at the top of the page due to the erroneous reporting. Shockingly, the redditor got it wrong and the Internet-at-large didn't bother doing the slightest bit of verification before posting their clickbait headlines about a company being evil.

MacRumors has some additional reporting on what actually happened, but the gist of it is that no reviews at all were being posted for the 5K display until earlier today. In fact, the Ratings & Reviews section of the page was entirely disabled for that page until earlier today, presumably because someone forgot to activate the section after the product went on sale. Cached copies of the page confirm that that's been the case since the page went live last year, so the notion that Apple deleted bad reviews is demonstrably false, given that there never was a way to submit reviews--good or bad--in the first place.

Anyway, the inability to submit a review was already fixed by the time Slashdot posted this story, but, no doubt, people will be talking about the fictional bad reviews that Apple censored for months to come, simply because a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

According to the MacRumors Buyer's Guide, only the MacBook Pro is a recommended buy, and that's one of the most panned Macs to ever come out. With sales of Apple Watches, iPads & iPhones tanking, they better have a boatload of new offerings in 2017 to turn things around, or they'll really be in trouble.

No, that was dropped today as the danger of Samsung Note 7s is now considered common knowledge, the FAA has decided.

Apple has suffered from a lack of progress ever since Jobs died. They are treading water... it took them 5 years to update the MacBook, and what we got was lackluster. 'Predicting' that they will succeed and Microsoft will falter is dubious.

On the other hand they got a friend of mine who hasn't worn a watch since 1998 to buy an Apple Watch. Actually two, first he bought one for his significant other and then he got jealous and bought one for himself. I know anecdotes aren't data, but Apple doesn't have to defend every market they're in as long as they grow new ones. I could see Apple launching a 2-in-1 convertible like the Surface Pro and decide between that and iCloud they don't care much about having any other kind of Mac. It would be enough for a vast majority of the PC users and the rest would simply be a market Apple won't serve.

I'm willing to bet that your friend is an outlier, one of the few who can afford to spend $370 for a watch, not just once but twice. Yes, there is a market for the Apple watch, but it currently isn't anywhere near big enough to push apple device sales to the levels being discussed.

As for Apple creating a convertible laptop, why? All they really need to do is create an iPad that runs OSX, but then they would eat into the Mac market. In fact, Time Cook has already said that they wouldn't do this... http://www.macrumors.com/2015/...

It gets even better. Contrary to the headline, 2016 was actually his highest-paid year yet. Yes, his base salary was lower, but the reporting over at MacRumors mentions this tidbit (emphasis mine):

While Cook earned roughly $1.5 million less from his base salary and non-equity incentives in 2016, it was also the year in which he reached five years as CEO and unlocked nearly $137 million in previously-awarded stock bonuses tied to both his tenure and Apple's performance under his leadership. Accordingly, Cook earned roughly $145 million last year, his biggest payout yet as head of the company.

In other words, while he didn't receive $1.5 million on account of missing the goals for 2016, he still received additional compensation worth $137 million for hitting the 5-year goals they set when he began as CEO, so the poor guy shouldn't starve anytime soon.

And I have NEVER seen a nag screen to force me to update, are you sure you were using an Apple product?

Are you sure *YOU* have ever used one? Jesus its all over the internet. https://www.google.com/search?...

http://forums.macrumors.com/th...

http://apple.stackexchange.com...

You can temporarily delay the nags by deleting the update (but it redownloads it) or blocking apple's servers on your domain, but you can never switch them off. EVER. This is how Apple has yet again decided to ream its users in the ass.

You sound like an Apple hater making up stuff.

You sound like someone who likes to bend over. That makes you a good Apple customer.

This is not new news. People have been complaining of bad battery life well before Consumer Reports: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/.... The bottom line is it shouldn't have such drastically different test results with the same repeated tests. Whether it's the batteriesSafari or otherwise, it should be at least consistant. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...

But one VERY possible reason it wouldn't be was if Safari exhibited an intermittent bug, where SOMETIMES, one or more Runaway Processes run at 100% CPU and/or GPU for as long as it is Launched (and maybe even after it is Quit).

Why do people keep ignoring the 800 lb Gorilla; that being, that the problem seemed to "Follow" Safari. Safari = Wildly Differing Battery-Life; Chrome = Battery Life per Apple's Published spec.

DUH!!!

This is not new news. People have been complaining of bad battery life well before Consumer Reports: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/.... The bottom line is it shouldn't have such drastically different test results with the same repeated tests. Whether it's the batteriesSafari or otherwise, it should be at least consistant. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...

But one VERY possible reason it wouldn't be was if Safari exhibited an intermittent bug, where SOMETIMES, one or more Runaway Processes run at 100% CPU and/or GPU for as long as it is Launched (and maybe even after it is Quit).

Why do people keep ignoring the 800 lb Gorilla; that being, that the problem seemed to "Follow" Safari. Safari = Wildly Differing Battery-Life; Chrome = Battery Life per Apple's Published spec.

DUH!!!

This is not new news. People have been complaining of bad battery life well before Consumer Reports: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/.... The bottom line is it shouldn't have such drastically different test results with the same repeated tests. Whether it's the batteriesSafari or otherwise, it should be at least consistant. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...