I've been trying to figure out which models are affected, but so far haven't found it in any of the reporting. Recent bans over Qualcomm's patents have only affected older (usually outdated) models, or else have only affected models that hadn't yet received the latest software updates. I'm wondering whether this is more of the same or whether this will actually have an effect on current flagship models running the latest version of iOS.
Well, they sure weren't very upfront about it not being ABI stable in the past.
Other than dropping by your home to deliver the news in person, I honestly don't know how they could have been more up front about it. They talked about it in a keynote, WWDC sessions, written roadmaps, e-mail lists, tech podcasts featuring Apple engineers as guests, and other documentation. Hell, I've never even coded a line in Swift and I felt like I couldn't avoid the information had I wanted to, simply because it was constantly coming up in software development circles.
Now, that doesn't change the fact that the plans have indeed changed over the years. I think I even remember them suggesting that Swift 3 would be ABI stable at one point, which clearly didn't end up being the case. But they've been keeping people in the loop all along and explaining the delays. Even so, most of the language reached ABI stability in 4.x and earlier, so the benefits of full stability in 5.0 are somewhat muted.
version 4 would be the last version to break backwards compatibility
Given that the only people who won't be able to run Swift 5 code are the ones whose devices won't have support for iOS 13 (i.e. devices from likely 2013 and earlier), this only affects organizations supporting apps on unsupported hardware from 6+ years ago (i.e. a vanishingly small number of organizations, at least when it comes to mobile). If you're a developer in that space, you're already familiar with the hassles associated with supporting outdated hardware, such as needing to link against outdated libraries and frameworks or using an older version of a language. It's the sort of stuff we have to do all the time in industry, so I'm not sure why anyone would be bothered by it.
So basically this is what Google just announced in Stadia
Not even close. Other than being about gaming, the two are basically nothing alike, regardless of whether you think one is better or worse. These are two VERY different approaches to gaming, each of which makes different compromises and plays to different strengths of their respective companies.
it will only run on Apple hardware.
At least so far, yup. And just a subset of it at that! That said, with Apple just announcing that they're bringing their TV app to other platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire, and smart TVs from various manufacturers (e.g. Samsung, LG, Vizio), it's entirely possible that Apple may revisit that decision in the future. Likewise, with rumors of ARM-based Macs on the horizon, it wouldn't be surprising if it expands to the Mac as well in the near future. In the meantime, however, this is clearly Stadia's greatest strength: the ability to run AAA titles at the highest quality on any screen, without the need to shell out for AAA hardware.
And apparently require touch screen controls because it doesn't come with a controller.
First off, this is a software subscription service, so it doesn't come with any hardware. Instead, it's designed to run on a variety of hardware, some of which—such as the Apple TV—lack a touchscreen, so your assumption is incorrect. You also seem to be unaware that there are a huge number of games for iOS/tvOS that are designed to work without a touchscreen (Apple even features games intended for controllers in a section of the App Store). There are probably a dozen gaming companies already making "MFi" (Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad) controllers that are compatible with iOS/tvOS. If Arcade ever makes its way to Mac the situation is even better because—as is the case on Windows or Linux—any HID-compliant peripherals (e.g. DualShocks, Xbox, etc.) will work just fine, so long as you have a way to connect it (e.g. Bluetooth, wireless adapter, USB, etc.).
All the downsides of Stadia but with none of the upsides.
Quite the contrary, it actually addresses nearly every downside of Stadia: - Stadia won't work if you lack home broadband/have an outdated router or AP/your Internet goes down, but Arcade will - Stadia won't work well when you're in a car, flying, taking public transit, etc., but Arcade will - Stadia won't work if you share a connection with a network hog, but Arcade will - Stadia collects data on your use and allows games to do so too, but Arcade doesn't do that or allow that - Stadia has one controller shape/size, but Arcade has a huge number of options
That said, Arcade comes with its own set of compromises, most of which are things that Stadia excels at: - Arcade's quality is limited to the hardware it's running on, but Stadia can run at full quality on virtually anything - Arcade only runs on a subset of Apple hardware, but Stadia runs on practically any screen - Arcade requires on-device storage, but Stadia requires no storage - Arcade ONLY has highly curated exclusives, but Stadia is an open platform
Or, as I said at the top, they're two wholly different approaches, each with advantages and disadvantages.
Between the two, I'm probably more excited about Stadia, though I honestly doubt I'll sign up for either, given that I'm the sort of gamer who waits for games to hit the bargain bin before picking them up (I have a backlog of over 200 games I already own that I haven't played but want to play, so why pay a monthly fee for "maybe" entertainment when I already paid for sure entertainment?). Not only do I think that Stadia's drawbacks (which already don't really affect me much) are likely to decrease in severity with time, I also expect it to have a more compelling library of games, given that Apple has yet to demonstrate that they get gamers, despite numerous false starts at getting ser
Or are you saying that Apple doesn't have it but Mastercard does, which is even worse?
Yup. The credit card processor will obviously need to know who to send money to and how much to send, so if you have qualms about the data collection practices of credit card processors for existing cards, I'd wager you'd have those same qualms about this card as well. I know Apple specifically talked about better privacy with regards to Goldman Sachs (though not to the level Apple is holding itself), the bank underwriting the card, but I don't recall whether they mentioned holding Mastercard to that higher privacy standard as well.
So, to clarify, that Apple is not inserting itself as a data collecting man in the middle was the only point I was trying to get across with the statement you quoted. I apologize for my poor phrasing that left it open to different interpretations.
This was actually a fairly surprising and somewhat welcome announcement.
As a physical card, it's made of titanium and has nothing more than your name and the chip. No security code, no expiration date, no signature, etc. that can be copied or stolen. You get 1% cash back on everything you purchase with the physical card, it automatically redeems the cash back every single day, and the cash back is available to you for immediate use either as cash or as credit towards your statement. It also randomly generates a new credit card number for every transaction, ensuring that your card can't be used for anything beyond the transaction you're actively engaging in, and Apple apparently collects no information on you about where, when, or how much you're purchasing, while also requiring privacy by default (i.e. you don't have to write in to ask them to not use your info for marketing purposes) from their financial industry partners. There's also no late fees, overage fees, or other fees that you'd typically expect, and you can apply and get approved from directly within the app.
When used via Apple Pay either in-person, in-app, or online, the cash back goes up to 2% (3% for purchases from Apple), with all the same perks.
All of which is to say, they carved away some of the typical cruft and gave it a nice UI to try and make the statements easier to read (e.g. human-readable store names and locations instead of ALL-CAPS abbreviations) and they tried to make understanding payments easier (e.g. interactive calculations for interest payments).
Not sure that this will really change much in the industry, but it's a nice looking card, nonetheless.
Wow. No. You've very obviously confused "commonplace" for "ethical". The two are in no way related. Just because something is commonplace does not mean that it is ethical. Not at all.
For example, while gang violence was common in Prohibition-era Chicago, that doesn't mean it was ever ethical. Nor is it ethical to engage in graft, even if the practice is common, perhaps even accepted, in your culture. Likewise, to pull an item from your list, while bullying was tolerated to a greater degree in past decades, it was always understood to be unethical behavior. You'll find the topic and evils of bullying explored in all sorts of different ways throughout fiction and nonfiction of the last few centuries. E.g. Just off the top of my head, the Chronicles of Narnia, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, A Christmas Story, various studies of Hitler's behavior, etc. all of which show bullying as an evil in one way or another.
You are correct that social norms shift with time and culture, and likewise the means by which ethical behavior is practiced can shift as actions take on different meanings (most obviously, the acceptance of words—particularly ones used to describe groups of people—will shift with time due to changes in their connotation or denotation), but the ethical principles guiding ethical behavior have remained virtually unchanged for millennia. It's just the implementation of those principles that changes with time. As you should with children (or, frankly, anyone), teach the principles/concepts/ideas, rather than having them memorize behaviors/rules/actions, that way as cultures changes or new situations arise they'll be fully capable of applying what they already know, rather than being at a loss for what to do.
That's fair. Like I said right at the start, it all comes down to the individual, so if it doesn't work for you, that's fine.
Even as someone who enjoys a good theater crowd, I've probably had more instances of theater-goers being annoying than I've had of theaters being awesome, but over the years I've learned that opening night for a big new film is a great time to have an awesome experience (it's the fans who bought their tickets weeks in advance and are excited to be there), whereas something like a Friday night for a foreign language flick is probably a bad idea (it's people who decided to watch a random film on a whim because they didn't have weekend plans, and thus have no compunction against being a distraction if it's boring or confusing to them). YMMV.
For me, despite having a powerful surround sound setup with a good-sized screen and comfortable seating at home, there actually are several circumstances where it still makes sense to head to the theater. It all comes down to the individual, however.
1) When the audience adds to the experience. Being in a packed theater (with spacious, comfy recliners) on opening night for Infinity War was loads of fun. The theater was incredibly animated, with a lot of whooping and cheering as each superhero engaged in their heroics. While you definitely don't need it, having an engaged crowd can really add something special to the movie watching experience for certain types of movies (e.g. action and comedy, sometimes horror), in much the same way that '90s-era sitcoms are much better with a laugh track than without.
2) When the film is big on spectacle and bluster. While horror, romcom, comedy, drama, suspense, etc. don't really benefit much from a bigger screen or better speakers, big budget blockbuster action flicks do a better job of being even more larger-than-life when they're on a huge screen with sound that can rattle you to the core. Even among those of us who have decent setups at home, few would suggest that they're truly on par with the technical aspects of the theater. For bigger-than-life films, it may be worth the (potentially marginal) technical improvement you get from going to the biggest screen with the best sound you can find.
3) When the when matters. For most movies, I don't care when I see them. If they're good today, they'll be just as good in five years, and if they won't be good in five years, then they probably weren't actually good today either. But if you're one of the people who is into a long-running franchise (e.g. Marvel, Star Wars, Bond, Conjuring, etc.), there's an element of needing to keep up so that you know what's going on/don't get left behind. If there's a movie in that franchise that you want to see in theaters (for whatever reason), but the previous one won't come out for home release before the new one arrives in theaters, heading to the theater for the previous release (e.g. Captain Marvel before Endgame) might be your only (legal) way to keep up.
4) When there's artistic expression at play. Certain directors care very deeply about the technical aspects of how their films are presented. Perhaps they filmed in IMAX (e.g. Christopher Nolan) or true 3D (e.g. James Cameron). Perhaps they filmed at higher frame rates (e.g. Peter Jackson). Perhaps they're using a very particular aspect ratio (e.g Stanley Kubrick). Depending on the circumstances, it may be that only a small fraction of theaters will show the film the exact way it was intended to be shown, and oftentimes no home release will ever get it exactly right according to the director's standards. If that sort of stuff is something that matters to you, you may have no choice but to see it in the theater. I've known people who drove hundreds of miles to see a film in a theater that was actually capable of showing the film in exactly the way it was intended to be shown.
5) When it's cheaper. Ours is an unusual situation, admittedly, but movie tickets are really cheap where I live (Bryan/College Station, Texas). As in, Friday night general admission tickets are just $10 for off-brand IMAX ($11 if you want name-brand IMAX at the other big theater) or just $7 for a regular screening, and it's even cheaper on Tuesdays, at just $7 for off-brand IMAX and $4.50 for regular. Even cheaper if you're a student or senior. At prices like those, both my wife and I can go see a film two, three, possibly even four times for less than the cost of a new blu-ray, and we can do it months earlier too. $9 for an evening's entertainment for the both of us is an easy ask, particularly so if it's a movie we want to see but don't intend to own.
Also worth pointing out: BBEdit was pulled from the Mac App Store, not the (iOS) App Store, whereas Kaspersky is complaining about (iOS) App Store stuff. The difference matters. With the Mac App Store, the vast majority of apps are available outside that storefront and macOS’ default behavior allows apps outside the store to run without problem. Not so in iOS, where users have no realistic choice for circumventing any seemingly capricious or onerous requirements Apple enacts that might hamstring developers.
In order to get to the page you cite, you've explicitly followed the "social networks" page link, which you'd expect to have information about social networks given the title.
Information? Absolutely. Third-party content that can be used to track users being loaded? Not necessarily. Moreover, regardless of what you or I might expect, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would be allowed.
This isn't the EU, it's individual member states' governments not complying with EU data protection rules.
To be fair, Cookiebot did not do any testing on europa.eu or other official EU sites for this report. That we lack evidence of tracking (because no testing was done) does not mean that those sites lack tracking. But because I was curious, I had Cookiebot fire off a compliance test on europa.eu while I quickly perused it to see if I could find anything that loaded third-party resources from the usual bad actors. Sure enough, it didn't take me long to land on a page that attempted to load images from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks. While their doing so may be in compliance with the GDPR, anyone here is likely aware of just how easily images can be used to track individuals.
Right as I was typing the above up, the results of the compliance test hit my inbox. According to Cookiebot's e-mail, europa.eu is "Not compliant" with EU regulations due to its failing at "Prior consent on other than strictly necessary cookies (ePR)".
I'm not arguing against anything else you're saying, other than the notion that it's only the member states who have non-compliant sites.
Just think about how wrong your view of the EU is that you leapt to this conclusion without apparently even reading the summary, which clearly states that it is member states' web sites at issue.
Again, to be fair, the Key Insights page in the report itself says "82% of official EU government websites are harbouring Google marketing trackers" right after saying "89% of official government websites of EU member states contain 3rd party ad tracking". Given the difference in language, it's easy to see how even someone reading the report could misinterpret the two phrases to indicate that the former includes EU sites. Again, it doesn't, but I can see how someone could easily misinterpret it that way.
I actually decided to give Vivaldi a try after making that comment above (I glanced at Brave too, but figured I'd start with Vivaldi). So far, I'm very impressed with Vivaldi, and though I'm only a few hours into it, I think I may have a new favorite browser.
Only in firefox can you tweak a setting to prevent the backspace key from navigating to the previous page.
I just tried hitting Backspace in both Chrome on Windows and Vivaldi on Mac, and neither of them navigated to the previous page. I don't have any third-party extensions or plugins installed to change that behavior, though one of the first things I do in a new browser is disable hotkeys I don't intend to use, so it's possible I removed that hotkey because it's not something I would want to use either. Are there specific circumstances where they navigate to the previous page on Backspace? Because while I know it used to be a behavior I'd see in some browsers, it's not something that I've seen recently.
Responding a second time, but your comment actually reminded me that I had meant to check out Vivaldi but had settled on Opera the last time I switched browsers, before ever giving Vivaldi a try. I'm trying Vivaldi out now, and my first impression is "Wow!". I've had a few hiccups, but it has several features baked into it that I typically have to install extensions to do, plus it runs Chrome extensions natively (including one that didn't work in Opera for me).
I've only been using it a few hours so far, but already I think I have a new favorite browser. Thanks for the push over the edge!
[...] and an ad blocker that I would probably not use (prefer uBlock Origin).
Just a quick note on this: Opera's ad blocker can be disabled in its settings, and I too prefer to use either uMatrix or uBlock Origin. I'm actually using both in Opera right now (the Chrome versions, since they're generally more up to date than the ones published in Opera's extension library). I use uMatrix to block everything by default, then use custom rules in uBlock Origin to hide a handful of individual page elements that I don't care to see.
While that's true and is a great reason to not use Opera, it doesn't speak to the user experience differences that the OP says turned them off from Opera, which is what I was curious about.
Last year I wanted to get away from Chrome, so I decided to embark on a tour of other browsers until I found an alternative that worked for me. I decided in advance that I'd give each one a month or two before deciding whether to move on, since I knew that there would be an adjustment period for any new-to-me browser as I tweaked settings, found solutions to problems I encountered, and discovered alternatives to the extensions I was used to. Firefox was the first I tried because I knew it had recently made some significant changes, it had been nearly a decade since I had last regularly used it (I fondly remember using it back when it was Phoenix and Firebird, and I off-and-on used it as my primary browser in its early years as Firefox), and I was eager to see it back in action.
Sadly, I finally gave up on Firefox after what felt like death by a thousand cuts. None of the issues were significant in and of themselves, but the compounding effect of all of them was enough to put me off. One that stuck out to me is something simple and obvious that I couldn't believe any browser was still getting wrong in 2018: if I double-click a monetary amount like "$1,234.56", I expect that "1,234.56" (or "$1,234.56") will get highlighted/selected for copying, that way I can easily take that number and paste it in a budget app or spreadsheet. This is an extremely common use case that should be low-hanging fruit for any browser to get right.
Chrome? Works as expected. Safari? Works as expected. Opera? Works as expected. Firefox? You get "1", "234", or "56", depending on where you double-click.
Now, I expected a few little niggles like this, so I went looking for a fix and discovered that in about:config you can change layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation to false, which gets around this particular issue. Unfortunately, that flag value disables using punctuation as a delimiter at all, which causes all sorts of other issues. For instance, you can no longer double-click to select a value in a Google Sheet formula: you'll get the entire formula instead if you try to do so.
I might try doing a survey of browsers again in a few years (i.e. once Safari's extension ecosystem has more time to develop after Apple pushed the reset button on it not too long ago, since the lack of necessary-to-me extensions was its biggest turn off), but for now, I ended up on Opera and have been quite satisfied with it. Not only was it the most similar to Chrome right out of the box, I was also able to customize it the most to my liking once I discovered the Install Chrome Extensions extension that let me run almost all of my Chrome extensions natively in Opera.
Honestly curious: in what ways do you find Chrome's user experience to be better than Opera's? I just recently switched to Opera after finally getting annoyed at all of the privacy invasiveness of Chrome, and I found that it's indistinguishable from Chrome in the vast majority of cases once I installed Install Chrome Extensions and added all of my important Chrome extensions back that I had been missing.
Normally I wouldn't post this many days later, but I want to take a few minutes to correct some misconceptions you seem to be under, and while you should take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, the only thing I want to convince you of with this post is that you should brush up on some of this stuff so that you can contribute more effectively to the conversation next time.
This just further damages the credibility of the patent system.
To start with, it sounds like you don't understand the distinction between utility and design patents, otherwise you'd have realized that the statement makes no sense.
The "round corners patent" was a design patent, i.e. a "patent" in name only. In every other way design patents behave like trademarks: they don't expire, they must be maintained, and they can't cover anything with utility. They're there to help companies protect product design—most famously the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle—rather than to protect an invention or functionality. That stands in sharp contrast to utility patents (i.e. what we think of when we say "patents"), which expire after a set number of years, are explicitly and exclusively for things that have actual utility, and need not be maintained to be asserted.
In the same way that Coca-Cola's design patent doesn't preclude others from making bottles with curves, Apple's design patent didn't preclude others from making devices with round corners such as ones with smaller radii, bigger radii, elliptical radii, etc.. In fact, it couldn't give them the rights to all round corners, since round corners provide utility (e.g. round corners are more comfortable in the hand than sharp ones) and design patents can't cover utility. Even so, it did give them the right to protect their particular round corners.
Round corners: $1bn.
So, two factual corrections here.
First, while I think the case is actually still working its way through the courts (the Supreme Court pushed it down to a lower court around the start of the year for some additional deliberation), the latest number isn't anywhere close to $1B. From what I recall, it's more like $300M. Second, while the round corners design patent is a part of the case (or was? it might have dropped out along the way...can't remember), most of that award was based on a number of other violations Samsung was found to have engaged in.
Technology required to make the device function: $fuck all.
So, while you're correct that Qualcomm holds a number of standards-essential patents that are absolutely necessary for the functioning of cellular devices, not one of them are relevant to this case. This particular case was for three inessential patents (minor optimizations for power and data) that were so unnecessary Apple literally issued a software update to work around all of them . Qualcomm's own experts agreed that Apple's software approach would be sufficient to circumvent the patents.
Given that none of them were the essential patents you thought they were, a lower valuation hopefully makes quite a bit more sense now.
Although a great deal of it has found its way to science labs [...]
In the early 2000s I was doing some work with a NASA contractor and had the good fortune of being able to suit up and go into the clean room/vault where all of these samples are kept at JSC. In walking around, it struck me how many samples were in the vault vs. in the cases in the clean room where they could be worked on. After I asked, I was informed that roughly 95% of the samples were still in “pristine” condition in the vault, meaning they had been left entirely untouched in their original nitrogen-rich environment ever since getting back from the moon.
95%.
All of the research up to that point, over three decades’ worth, including the samples sent out to scientists, had been done on just 5% of what was brought back.
Mind you, this post isn’t a critique or commentary. This is just me trying to give some context to that comment from the summary.
You started that sentence off accurately, but finished it incorrectly. It should have finished with, “and if you’re not, there’s now something reasonably accurate that you can pick up for cheap!” Apple Watches are only expensive until you compare them to virtually anything in the medical device market. Devices like these make pervasive diagnostics SIGNIFICANTLY more affordable.
Key phrases in the article. Looks more like damning with faint praise. Why only "sometimes"? For something that is worn as much as an Apple Watch, it should "nearly always" be able to spot a problem.
You REALLY don’t like Apple, do you? Because you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and come up with anything against this.
Being able to cheaply (by medical standards) and passively detect a previously undiagnosed, major medical issue in 0.5% of participants with a false positive rate of 16% or less using a device that people are actually interested in regularly wearing (i.e. unlike most medical devices) is simply incredible. Doctors have no idea how prevalent some of these ailments actually are, since they tend not to see them until major symptoms start to present themselves or the person is already in a hospital setting for some other condition. If they’re able to start getting good data about how often and to whom these things happen in the population and how the symptoms develop across a wide number of people, they can start to understand the risk factors and develop better treatment plans.
This is a good thing, but you’re right, it should be better.
Thankfully, it already is. This study was started quite awhile ago, so it only included Series 3 and earlier Apple Watches. Notably, it didn’t include the Series 4 watches that came out later with significantly better sensors and the ability to conduct ECGs on the spot, so things are already much better, just like you wanted.
This sounds like an incredible invasion of privacy. If the device was not designed to do this, and I didn't purchase it to do this, why is it doing this?
Perhaps because these people specifically volunteered for this study? Apple announced it from the stage of a keynote a year or two back and opened it up to the public that same day. Participants had to fill out medical forms and the usual medical waivers before they’d be a part of the study, so this isn’t a case of yet another big company harvesting data from unaware users like you’re trying to paint it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been trying to figure out which models are affected, but so far haven't found it in any of the reporting. Recent bans over Qualcomm's patents have only affected older (usually outdated) models, or else have only affected models that hadn't yet received the latest software updates. I'm wondering whether this is more of the same or whether this will actually have an effect on current flagship models running the latest version of iOS.
Well, they sure weren't very upfront about it not being ABI stable in the past.
Other than dropping by your home to deliver the news in person, I honestly don't know how they could have been more up front about it. They talked about it in a keynote, WWDC sessions, written roadmaps, e-mail lists, tech podcasts featuring Apple engineers as guests, and other documentation. Hell, I've never even coded a line in Swift and I felt like I couldn't avoid the information had I wanted to, simply because it was constantly coming up in software development circles.
Now, that doesn't change the fact that the plans have indeed changed over the years. I think I even remember them suggesting that Swift 3 would be ABI stable at one point, which clearly didn't end up being the case. But they've been keeping people in the loop all along and explaining the delays. Even so, most of the language reached ABI stability in 4.x and earlier, so the benefits of full stability in 5.0 are somewhat muted.
version 4 would be the last version to break backwards compatibility
Given that the only people who won't be able to run Swift 5 code are the ones whose devices won't have support for iOS 13 (i.e. devices from likely 2013 and earlier), this only affects organizations supporting apps on unsupported hardware from 6+ years ago (i.e. a vanishingly small number of organizations, at least when it comes to mobile). If you're a developer in that space, you're already familiar with the hassles associated with supporting outdated hardware, such as needing to link against outdated libraries and frameworks or using an older version of a language. It's the sort of stuff we have to do all the time in industry, so I'm not sure why anyone would be bothered by it.
Sadly, as works of fiction, fake news is still protected by copyright.
So basically this is what Google just announced in Stadia
Not even close. Other than being about gaming, the two are basically nothing alike, regardless of whether you think one is better or worse. These are two VERY different approaches to gaming, each of which makes different compromises and plays to different strengths of their respective companies.
it will only run on Apple hardware.
At least so far, yup. And just a subset of it at that! That said, with Apple just announcing that they're bringing their TV app to other platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire, and smart TVs from various manufacturers (e.g. Samsung, LG, Vizio), it's entirely possible that Apple may revisit that decision in the future. Likewise, with rumors of ARM-based Macs on the horizon, it wouldn't be surprising if it expands to the Mac as well in the near future. In the meantime, however, this is clearly Stadia's greatest strength: the ability to run AAA titles at the highest quality on any screen, without the need to shell out for AAA hardware.
And apparently require touch screen controls because it doesn't come with a controller.
First off, this is a software subscription service, so it doesn't come with any hardware. Instead, it's designed to run on a variety of hardware, some of which—such as the Apple TV—lack a touchscreen, so your assumption is incorrect. You also seem to be unaware that there are a huge number of games for iOS/tvOS that are designed to work without a touchscreen (Apple even features games intended for controllers in a section of the App Store). There are probably a dozen gaming companies already making "MFi" (Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad) controllers that are compatible with iOS/tvOS. If Arcade ever makes its way to Mac the situation is even better because—as is the case on Windows or Linux—any HID-compliant peripherals (e.g. DualShocks, Xbox, etc.) will work just fine, so long as you have a way to connect it (e.g. Bluetooth, wireless adapter, USB, etc.).
All the downsides of Stadia but with none of the upsides.
Quite the contrary, it actually addresses nearly every downside of Stadia:
- Stadia won't work if you lack home broadband/have an outdated router or AP/your Internet goes down, but Arcade will
- Stadia won't work well when you're in a car, flying, taking public transit, etc., but Arcade will
- Stadia won't work if you share a connection with a network hog, but Arcade will
- Stadia collects data on your use and allows games to do so too, but Arcade doesn't do that or allow that
- Stadia has one controller shape/size, but Arcade has a huge number of options
That said, Arcade comes with its own set of compromises, most of which are things that Stadia excels at:
- Arcade's quality is limited to the hardware it's running on, but Stadia can run at full quality on virtually anything
- Arcade only runs on a subset of Apple hardware, but Stadia runs on practically any screen
- Arcade requires on-device storage, but Stadia requires no storage
- Arcade ONLY has highly curated exclusives, but Stadia is an open platform
Or, as I said at the top, they're two wholly different approaches, each with advantages and disadvantages.
Between the two, I'm probably more excited about Stadia, though I honestly doubt I'll sign up for either, given that I'm the sort of gamer who waits for games to hit the bargain bin before picking them up (I have a backlog of over 200 games I already own that I haven't played but want to play, so why pay a monthly fee for "maybe" entertainment when I already paid for sure entertainment?). Not only do I think that Stadia's drawbacks (which already don't really affect me much) are likely to decrease in severity with time, I also expect it to have a more compelling library of games, given that Apple has yet to demonstrate that they get gamers, despite numerous false starts at getting ser
Or are you saying that Apple doesn't have it but Mastercard does, which is even worse?
Yup. The credit card processor will obviously need to know who to send money to and how much to send, so if you have qualms about the data collection practices of credit card processors for existing cards, I'd wager you'd have those same qualms about this card as well. I know Apple specifically talked about better privacy with regards to Goldman Sachs (though not to the level Apple is holding itself), the bank underwriting the card, but I don't recall whether they mentioned holding Mastercard to that higher privacy standard as well.
So, to clarify, that Apple is not inserting itself as a data collecting man in the middle was the only point I was trying to get across with the statement you quoted. I apologize for my poor phrasing that left it open to different interpretations.
This was actually a fairly surprising and somewhat welcome announcement.
As a physical card, it's made of titanium and has nothing more than your name and the chip. No security code, no expiration date, no signature, etc. that can be copied or stolen. You get 1% cash back on everything you purchase with the physical card, it automatically redeems the cash back every single day, and the cash back is available to you for immediate use either as cash or as credit towards your statement. It also randomly generates a new credit card number for every transaction, ensuring that your card can't be used for anything beyond the transaction you're actively engaging in, and Apple apparently collects no information on you about where, when, or how much you're purchasing, while also requiring privacy by default (i.e. you don't have to write in to ask them to not use your info for marketing purposes) from their financial industry partners. There's also no late fees, overage fees, or other fees that you'd typically expect, and you can apply and get approved from directly within the app.
When used via Apple Pay either in-person, in-app, or online, the cash back goes up to 2% (3% for purchases from Apple), with all the same perks.
All of which is to say, they carved away some of the typical cruft and gave it a nice UI to try and make the statements easier to read (e.g. human-readable store names and locations instead of ALL-CAPS abbreviations) and they tried to make understanding payments easier (e.g. interactive calculations for interest payments).
Not sure that this will really change much in the industry, but it's a nice looking card, nonetheless.
Things that were ethical
Wow. No. You've very obviously confused "commonplace" for "ethical". The two are in no way related. Just because something is commonplace does not mean that it is ethical. Not at all.
For example, while gang violence was common in Prohibition-era Chicago, that doesn't mean it was ever ethical. Nor is it ethical to engage in graft, even if the practice is common, perhaps even accepted, in your culture. Likewise, to pull an item from your list, while bullying was tolerated to a greater degree in past decades, it was always understood to be unethical behavior. You'll find the topic and evils of bullying explored in all sorts of different ways throughout fiction and nonfiction of the last few centuries. E.g. Just off the top of my head, the Chronicles of Narnia, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, A Christmas Story, various studies of Hitler's behavior, etc. all of which show bullying as an evil in one way or another.
You are correct that social norms shift with time and culture, and likewise the means by which ethical behavior is practiced can shift as actions take on different meanings (most obviously, the acceptance of words—particularly ones used to describe groups of people—will shift with time due to changes in their connotation or denotation), but the ethical principles guiding ethical behavior have remained virtually unchanged for millennia. It's just the implementation of those principles that changes with time. As you should with children (or, frankly, anyone), teach the principles/concepts/ideas, rather than having them memorize behaviors/rules/actions, that way as cultures changes or new situations arise they'll be fully capable of applying what they already know, rather than being at a loss for what to do.
That's fair. Like I said right at the start, it all comes down to the individual, so if it doesn't work for you, that's fine.
Even as someone who enjoys a good theater crowd, I've probably had more instances of theater-goers being annoying than I've had of theaters being awesome, but over the years I've learned that opening night for a big new film is a great time to have an awesome experience (it's the fans who bought their tickets weeks in advance and are excited to be there), whereas something like a Friday night for a foreign language flick is probably a bad idea (it's people who decided to watch a random film on a whim because they didn't have weekend plans, and thus have no compunction against being a distraction if it's boring or confusing to them). YMMV.
For me, despite having a powerful surround sound setup with a good-sized screen and comfortable seating at home, there actually are several circumstances where it still makes sense to head to the theater. It all comes down to the individual, however.
1) When the audience adds to the experience. Being in a packed theater (with spacious, comfy recliners) on opening night for Infinity War was loads of fun. The theater was incredibly animated, with a lot of whooping and cheering as each superhero engaged in their heroics. While you definitely don't need it, having an engaged crowd can really add something special to the movie watching experience for certain types of movies (e.g. action and comedy, sometimes horror), in much the same way that '90s-era sitcoms are much better with a laugh track than without.
2) When the film is big on spectacle and bluster. While horror, romcom, comedy, drama, suspense, etc. don't really benefit much from a bigger screen or better speakers, big budget blockbuster action flicks do a better job of being even more larger-than-life when they're on a huge screen with sound that can rattle you to the core. Even among those of us who have decent setups at home, few would suggest that they're truly on par with the technical aspects of the theater. For bigger-than-life films, it may be worth the (potentially marginal) technical improvement you get from going to the biggest screen with the best sound you can find.
3) When the when matters. For most movies, I don't care when I see them. If they're good today, they'll be just as good in five years, and if they won't be good in five years, then they probably weren't actually good today either. But if you're one of the people who is into a long-running franchise (e.g. Marvel, Star Wars, Bond, Conjuring, etc.), there's an element of needing to keep up so that you know what's going on/don't get left behind. If there's a movie in that franchise that you want to see in theaters (for whatever reason), but the previous one won't come out for home release before the new one arrives in theaters, heading to the theater for the previous release (e.g. Captain Marvel before Endgame) might be your only (legal) way to keep up.
4) When there's artistic expression at play. Certain directors care very deeply about the technical aspects of how their films are presented. Perhaps they filmed in IMAX (e.g. Christopher Nolan) or true 3D (e.g. James Cameron). Perhaps they filmed at higher frame rates (e.g. Peter Jackson). Perhaps they're using a very particular aspect ratio (e.g Stanley Kubrick). Depending on the circumstances, it may be that only a small fraction of theaters will show the film the exact way it was intended to be shown, and oftentimes no home release will ever get it exactly right according to the director's standards. If that sort of stuff is something that matters to you, you may have no choice but to see it in the theater. I've known people who drove hundreds of miles to see a film in a theater that was actually capable of showing the film in exactly the way it was intended to be shown.
5) When it's cheaper. Ours is an unusual situation, admittedly, but movie tickets are really cheap where I live (Bryan/College Station, Texas). As in, Friday night general admission tickets are just $10 for off-brand IMAX ($11 if you want name-brand IMAX at the other big theater) or just $7 for a regular screening, and it's even cheaper on Tuesdays, at just $7 for off-brand IMAX and $4.50 for regular. Even cheaper if you're a student or senior. At prices like those, both my wife and I can go see a film two, three, possibly even four times for less than the cost of a new blu-ray, and we can do it months earlier too. $9 for an evening's entertainment for the both of us is an easy ask, particularly so if it's a movie we want to see but don't intend to own.
While the story of BBEdit is an interesting one, you seem to be unaware that Apple announced from the stage at WWDC last year that BBEdit would be returning to the Mac App Store.
Also worth pointing out: BBEdit was pulled from the Mac App Store, not the (iOS) App Store, whereas Kaspersky is complaining about (iOS) App Store stuff. The difference matters. With the Mac App Store, the vast majority of apps are available outside that storefront and macOS’ default behavior allows apps outside the store to run without problem. Not so in iOS, where users have no realistic choice for circumventing any seemingly capricious or onerous requirements Apple enacts that might hamstring developers.
In order to get to the page you cite, you've explicitly followed the "social networks" page link, which you'd expect to have information about social networks given the title.
Information? Absolutely. Third-party content that can be used to track users being loaded? Not necessarily. Moreover, regardless of what you or I might expect, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would be allowed.
This isn't the EU, it's individual member states' governments not complying with EU data protection rules.
To be fair, Cookiebot did not do any testing on europa.eu or other official EU sites for this report. That we lack evidence of tracking (because no testing was done) does not mean that those sites lack tracking. But because I was curious, I had Cookiebot fire off a compliance test on europa.eu while I quickly perused it to see if I could find anything that loaded third-party resources from the usual bad actors. Sure enough, it didn't take me long to land on a page that attempted to load images from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks. While their doing so may be in compliance with the GDPR, anyone here is likely aware of just how easily images can be used to track individuals.
Right as I was typing the above up, the results of the compliance test hit my inbox. According to Cookiebot's e-mail, europa.eu is "Not compliant" with EU regulations due to its failing at "Prior consent on other than strictly necessary cookies (ePR)".
I'm not arguing against anything else you're saying, other than the notion that it's only the member states who have non-compliant sites.
Just think about how wrong your view of the EU is that you leapt to this conclusion without apparently even reading the summary, which clearly states that it is member states' web sites at issue.
Again, to be fair, the Key Insights page in the report itself says "82% of official EU government websites are harbouring Google marketing trackers" right after saying "89% of official government websites of EU member states contain 3rd party ad tracking". Given the difference in language, it's easy to see how even someone reading the report could misinterpret the two phrases to indicate that the former includes EU sites. Again, it doesn't, but I can see how someone could easily misinterpret it that way.
I actually decided to give Vivaldi a try after making that comment above (I glanced at Brave too, but figured I'd start with Vivaldi). So far, I'm very impressed with Vivaldi, and though I'm only a few hours into it, I think I may have a new favorite browser.
Only in firefox can you tweak a setting to prevent the backspace key from navigating to the previous page.
I just tried hitting Backspace in both Chrome on Windows and Vivaldi on Mac, and neither of them navigated to the previous page. I don't have any third-party extensions or plugins installed to change that behavior, though one of the first things I do in a new browser is disable hotkeys I don't intend to use, so it's possible I removed that hotkey because it's not something I would want to use either. Are there specific circumstances where they navigate to the previous page on Backspace? Because while I know it used to be a behavior I'd see in some browsers, it's not something that I've seen recently.
Responding a second time, but your comment actually reminded me that I had meant to check out Vivaldi but had settled on Opera the last time I switched browsers, before ever giving Vivaldi a try. I'm trying Vivaldi out now, and my first impression is "Wow!". I've had a few hiccups, but it has several features baked into it that I typically have to install extensions to do, plus it runs Chrome extensions natively (including one that didn't work in Opera for me).
I've only been using it a few hours so far, but already I think I have a new favorite browser. Thanks for the push over the edge!
[...] and an ad blocker that I would probably not use (prefer uBlock Origin).
Just a quick note on this: Opera's ad blocker can be disabled in its settings, and I too prefer to use either uMatrix or uBlock Origin. I'm actually using both in Opera right now (the Chrome versions, since they're generally more up to date than the ones published in Opera's extension library). I use uMatrix to block everything by default, then use custom rules in uBlock Origin to hide a handful of individual page elements that I don't care to see.
While that's true and is a great reason to not use Opera, it doesn't speak to the user experience differences that the OP says turned them off from Opera, which is what I was curious about.
Last year I wanted to get away from Chrome, so I decided to embark on a tour of other browsers until I found an alternative that worked for me. I decided in advance that I'd give each one a month or two before deciding whether to move on, since I knew that there would be an adjustment period for any new-to-me browser as I tweaked settings, found solutions to problems I encountered, and discovered alternatives to the extensions I was used to. Firefox was the first I tried because I knew it had recently made some significant changes, it had been nearly a decade since I had last regularly used it (I fondly remember using it back when it was Phoenix and Firebird, and I off-and-on used it as my primary browser in its early years as Firefox), and I was eager to see it back in action.
Sadly, I finally gave up on Firefox after what felt like death by a thousand cuts. None of the issues were significant in and of themselves, but the compounding effect of all of them was enough to put me off. One that stuck out to me is something simple and obvious that I couldn't believe any browser was still getting wrong in 2018: if I double-click a monetary amount like "$1,234.56", I expect that "1,234.56" (or "$1,234.56") will get highlighted/selected for copying, that way I can easily take that number and paste it in a budget app or spreadsheet. This is an extremely common use case that should be low-hanging fruit for any browser to get right.
Chrome? Works as expected.
Safari? Works as expected.
Opera? Works as expected.
Firefox? You get "1", "234", or "56", depending on where you double-click.
Now, I expected a few little niggles like this, so I went looking for a fix and discovered that in about:config you can change layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation to false, which gets around this particular issue. Unfortunately, that flag value disables using punctuation as a delimiter at all, which causes all sorts of other issues. For instance, you can no longer double-click to select a value in a Google Sheet formula: you'll get the entire formula instead if you try to do so.
I might try doing a survey of browsers again in a few years (i.e. once Safari's extension ecosystem has more time to develop after Apple pushed the reset button on it not too long ago, since the lack of necessary-to-me extensions was its biggest turn off), but for now, I ended up on Opera and have been quite satisfied with it. Not only was it the most similar to Chrome right out of the box, I was also able to customize it the most to my liking once I discovered the Install Chrome Extensions extension that let me run almost all of my Chrome extensions natively in Opera.
Honestly curious: in what ways do you find Chrome's user experience to be better than Opera's? I just recently switched to Opera after finally getting annoyed at all of the privacy invasiveness of Chrome, and I found that it's indistinguishable from Chrome in the vast majority of cases once I installed Install Chrome Extensions and added all of my important Chrome extensions back that I had been missing.
also imac pro not updated.
Actually, it was. Ars just doesn't seem to have reported on it (yet).
Normally I wouldn't post this many days later, but I want to take a few minutes to correct some misconceptions you seem to be under, and while you should take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, the only thing I want to convince you of with this post is that you should brush up on some of this stuff so that you can contribute more effectively to the conversation next time.
This just further damages the credibility of the patent system.
To start with, it sounds like you don't understand the distinction between utility and design patents, otherwise you'd have realized that the statement makes no sense.
The "round corners patent" was a design patent, i.e. a "patent" in name only. In every other way design patents behave like trademarks: they don't expire, they must be maintained, and they can't cover anything with utility. They're there to help companies protect product design—most famously the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle—rather than to protect an invention or functionality. That stands in sharp contrast to utility patents (i.e. what we think of when we say "patents"), which expire after a set number of years, are explicitly and exclusively for things that have actual utility, and need not be maintained to be asserted.
In the same way that Coca-Cola's design patent doesn't preclude others from making bottles with curves, Apple's design patent didn't preclude others from making devices with round corners such as ones with smaller radii, bigger radii, elliptical radii, etc.. In fact, it couldn't give them the rights to all round corners, since round corners provide utility (e.g. round corners are more comfortable in the hand than sharp ones) and design patents can't cover utility. Even so, it did give them the right to protect their particular round corners.
Round corners: $1bn.
So, two factual corrections here.
First, while I think the case is actually still working its way through the courts (the Supreme Court pushed it down to a lower court around the start of the year for some additional deliberation), the latest number isn't anywhere close to $1B. From what I recall, it's more like $300M. Second, while the round corners design patent is a part of the case (or was? it might have dropped out along the way...can't remember), most of that award was based on a number of other violations Samsung was found to have engaged in.
Technology required to make the device function: $fuck all.
So, while you're correct that Qualcomm holds a number of standards-essential patents that are absolutely necessary for the functioning of cellular devices, not one of them are relevant to this case. This particular case was for three inessential patents (minor optimizations for power and data) that were so unnecessary Apple literally issued a software update to work around all of them . Qualcomm's own experts agreed that Apple's software approach would be sufficient to circumvent the patents.
Given that none of them were the essential patents you thought they were, a lower valuation hopefully makes quite a bit more sense now.
Although a great deal of it has found its way to science labs [...]
In the early 2000s I was doing some work with a NASA contractor and had the good fortune of being able to suit up and go into the clean room/vault where all of these samples are kept at JSC. In walking around, it struck me how many samples were in the vault vs. in the cases in the clean room where they could be worked on. After I asked, I was informed that roughly 95% of the samples were still in “pristine” condition in the vault, meaning they had been left entirely untouched in their original nitrogen-rich environment ever since getting back from the moon.
95%.
All of the research up to that point, over three decades’ worth, including the samples sent out to scientists, had been done on just 5% of what was brought back.
Mind you, this post isn’t a critique or commentary. This is just me trying to give some context to that comment from the summary.
If you're rich, you can better protect yourself!
You started that sentence off accurately, but finished it incorrectly. It should have finished with, “and if you’re not, there’s now something reasonably accurate that you can pick up for cheap!” Apple Watches are only expensive until you compare them to virtually anything in the medical device market. Devices like these make pervasive diagnostics SIGNIFICANTLY more affordable.
Key phrases in the article. Looks more like damning with faint praise. Why only "sometimes"? For something that is worn as much as an Apple Watch, it should "nearly always" be able to spot a problem.
You REALLY don’t like Apple, do you? Because you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and come up with anything against this.
Being able to cheaply (by medical standards) and passively detect a previously undiagnosed, major medical issue in 0.5% of participants with a false positive rate of 16% or less using a device that people are actually interested in regularly wearing (i.e. unlike most medical devices) is simply incredible. Doctors have no idea how prevalent some of these ailments actually are, since they tend not to see them until major symptoms start to present themselves or the person is already in a hospital setting for some other condition. If they’re able to start getting good data about how often and to whom these things happen in the population and how the symptoms develop across a wide number of people, they can start to understand the risk factors and develop better treatment plans.
This is a good thing, but you’re right, it should be better.
Thankfully, it already is. This study was started quite awhile ago, so it only included Series 3 and earlier Apple Watches. Notably, it didn’t include the Series 4 watches that came out later with significantly better sensors and the ability to conduct ECGs on the spot, so things are already much better, just like you wanted.
This sounds like an incredible invasion of privacy. If the device was not designed to do this, and I didn't purchase it to do this, why is it doing this?
Perhaps because these people specifically volunteered for this study? Apple announced it from the stage of a keynote a year or two back and opened it up to the public that same day. Participants had to fill out medical forms and the usual medical waivers before they’d be a part of the study, so this isn’t a case of yet another big company harvesting data from unaware users like you’re trying to paint it.