Apple new product rumours and general news

[pesh]

finally got round to sticking an SSD in my 4 year old MBP… Blimey its quick now

 

[Crispy]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/9002721/the-mobile-web-sucks

This article takes 30 seconds to load and is 9MB

Here's why: The Verge's web sucks

This is why content blockers exist

 

[editor]

The mobile web sucks

This article takes 30 seconds to load and is 9MB

Here's why: The Verge's web sucks

This is why content blockers exist

Except most small websites with adverts are nowhere near that heavy. Many just contain Google's Adsense content, which provides really valuable income to support small sites and are very light to download. Obviously you can block whatever you like, but you may well be hurting the independent sites you love. In fact, you may well be killing some off for good....

 

[editor]

Tough, I'm afraid. I loathe adverts, in any part of life.

Want me to pay for something? Ask. I'm happy to pay for things I have an interest in or use for. Don't shove bollocks at me for something I have no interest in and will never click on out of principle anyway.

I hate adverts too. Loathe the fuckers, in fact, but they are a part of everyday life.

But there is a knock on effect when you deprive some small sites of what is often their sole income. I hope none of the sites you enjoy disappear as a result.

 

[pesh]

i've just been looking at the blogs i follow, not one of the small independent ones i care about have any advertising on them, all the others have massive intrusive ads that i'm very happy to block.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I hate adverts too. Loathe the fuckers, in fact, but they are a part of everyday life.

But there is a knock on effect when you deprive some small sites of what is often their sole income. I hope none of the sites you enjoy disappear as a result.

We shall see. All I know right now is that pages are loading far quicker and aren't covered in crap.

 

[editor]

i've just been looking at the blogs i follow, not one of the small independent ones i care about have any advertising on them, all the others have massive intrusive ads that i'm very happy to block.

That's fair enough. but an awful lot of small blogs and independent sites do rely on non-massive adverts to survive.

Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love

 

[editor]

Apple doing their Apple thing by launching their first app on Android - and it tells users how to switch to iOS. Kick back ensues;

Reviewers hilariously destroy Apple's 'Move to iOS' app

 

[editor]

Now here's a very good piece on the The Verge about Apple's real motivation here and it's as ugly as fuck:

And with iOS 9 and content blockers, what you're seeing is Apple's attempt to fully drive the knife into Google's revenue platform. iOS 9 includes a refined search that auto-suggests content and that can search inside apps, pulling content away from Google and users away from the web, it allows users to block ads, and it offers publishers salvation in the form of Apple News, inside of which Apple will happily display (unblockable!) ads, and even sell them on publishers' behalf for just a 30 percent cut.

Oh, and if you're not happy with Apple News, you can always turn to Facebook's Instant Articles, which will also track the shit out of you and serve unblockable ads inside of the Facebook app, but from Apple's perspective it's a win as long as the money's not going to Google.

But taking money and attention away from the web means that the pace of web innovation will slow to a crawl. Innovation tends to follow the money, after all! And asking most small- to medium-sized sites to weather that change without dramatic consequences is utterly foolish. Just look at the number of small sites that have shut down this year: GigaOm. The Dissolve.

Casey Johnston wrote a great piece for The Awl about ad blockers, in which The Awl's publisher noted that "seventy-five to eighty-five percent" of the site's ads could be blocked.

What happens to a small company when you take away 75 to 85 percent of its revenue opportunities in the name of user experience? Who's going to make all that content we love so much, and what will it look like if it only makes money on proprietary platforms?

These are the questions worth asking — and they deserve better answers than simply "they'll adapt." Because there's only one thing that makes adaptation such a powerful force.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9...gle-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web


And that John Gruber smug fanboy apologist really is a fucking cunt.

 

[editor]

We shall see. All I know right now is that pages are loading far quicker and aren't covered in crap.

This article seems pertinent:

The central philosophical dispute over ad-blocking goes something like this: Publishers have no right to force readers to be exposed to certain kinds of ads or allow numerous third parties to collect their information without a prior agreement; readers have no right to read or view content that they don’t pay for in one form or another, be it with money or data. What is not in dispute is that if ad-blocking becomes ubiquitous (and there’s nearly every reason to think that it will be!) it will be devastating for publications who derive much or all of their revenue from advertising—which comprises most of the professional publications on the internet. When Murphy first posted about “an hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9,” he asked, rhetorically, “Do I care more about my privacy, time, device battery life & data usage or do I care more about the content creators of sites I visit to be able to monetise effectively and ultimately keep creating content? Tough question. At the moment, I don’t know.”

Welcome to the Block Party

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Now here's a very good piece on the The Verge about Apple's real motivation here and it's as ugly as fuck:



http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9...gle-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web


And that John Gruber smug fanboy apologist really is a fucking cunt.

"Large company in competition with another company does things to try and gain advantage over company" shock!

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

• The coming reckoning for publishers is not “because of Apple”. It’s because of the choices the publishers themselves made, years ago, to allow themselves to become dependent on user-hostile ad networks that slow down the web, waste precious device battery life, and invade our privacy. Apple has simply enabled us, the users who are fed up with this crap, to do something about it. If aggressive content blocking were enabled out of the box, by default, I could see saying the result is “because of Apple”. But it’s not. What’s about to happen is thus because of us, the users.

Seems about right to me.

 

[editor]

Seems about right to me.

Yeah! Let's get rid of the adverts because I know from now on you'll be only too willing to pay for all the content you enjoy reading on the web because - like musicians - you understand that it's only fair and right that they somehow get paid for their hard work, eh?!

Oh, wait.... No, you're right. Fuck 'em. Gruber says so.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Yeah! Let's get rid of the adverts because I know from now on you'll be only too willing to pay for all the content you enjoy reading on the web because - like musicians - you understand that it's only fair and right that they somehow get paid for their hard work, eh?!

Oh, wait.... No, you're right. Fuck 'em. Gruber says so.

Why don't you have ads on this site?

 

[editor]

Why don't you have ads on this site?

Because I am EXTREMELY lucky enough to have started this forum early enough to have attracted enough of a community that is prepared to pay, and all of the people running it are prepared to do it for no financial return at all. That is exceedingly rare.

But the amount currently coming in only just covers the costs and if enough people suddenly decided to stop paying, advertising could end up as the only way to keep it going. And if those ads were blocked, the site would fold because I sure as hell aren't paying for it out of my own pocket*.

But urban75 is a very different model to the vast majority of websites. Many small independent sites are absolutely reliant on advertising as it is the only practical means for them to cover their costs and - if they're lucky - pay themselves something for their hard work. Take away that and they're fucked.

*this is all hypothetical

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Then if a site I use a) is good enough and b) has them in a non intrusive way I'll add them to be whitelist. Problem solved.

The way you're jumping on this simply because it's Apple doing it is bonkers.

 

[editor]

Then if a site I use a) is good enough and b) has them in a non intrusive way I'll add them to be whitelist. Problem solved.

The way you're jumping on this simply because it's Apple doing it is bonkers.

Of course! It's nothing to do with them being the biggest and most powerful tech company on the planet then, or the articles I've linked to that highlight the real damage that ad blockers can do to small websites.

And as for you bothering to constantly update your whitelist on a per site basis as you browse. Sure you will.

 

[skyscraper101]

Advertising on websites has no effect on me, I just tune it out.

 

[editor]

Advertising on websites has no effect on me, I just tune it out.

The huge video things that block the entire content can get the fuck off, but I don't even notice stuff like a few adverts along one side or a banner ad.

 

[elbows]

Adverts wind me up but until the last year or so it was only video/audio adverts that really pissed me off. However the rise of those terrible link-bait sites with ridiculous images to try and draw your attention has pushed me over the edge on this one. I've never used an ad blocker before but perhaps I will start now.

However I need to learn more before commenting on what Apple have done.

 

[elbows]

It's nothing to do with them being the biggest and most powerful tech company on the planet then

I don't know as they are the most powerful. I tend to think of companies that collect and use data on a huge scale, run search engines etc as being more powerful - e.g. Google.

 

[xenon]

Where are the adbloccker controls?

 

[editor]

I don't know as they are the most powerful. I tend to think of companies that collect and use data on a huge scale, run search engines etc as being more powerful - e.g. Google.

I'd say that they are.

Apple, the largest public company in the world with a market cap of $741.8bn and the world's most valuable brand, ranks just 11th on Forbes' Global 2000. The iPhone maker, which posted revenues of $199bn and profits of $44.5bn, has assets worth $261.9bn.

 

[elbows]

Still a narrow definition of power. If I wanted the most power possible, I'd want to control the likes of the most popular search engine and the most popular social networks, not the most popular luxury hardware brand.

 

[elbows]

Where are the adbloccker controls?

Not tried myself yet but it sounds like you need to get a 3rd party app to take advantage of the feature:

A Day After iOS 9’s Launch, Ad Blockers Top The App Store

And while somewhat of a geekier feature to implement – users have to download apps then head into iOS’ “Settings” to enable their blocker of choice – it seems that new iOS 9 users are thrilled to have access to this added functionality. Only a day after the release of the updated software, ad blockers are topping the charts in the App Store.

 

[elbows]

Also keep in mind its not just about the display of adverts, but all the tracking bullshit.

I quite like the stance taken by one of the new iOS ad-blocking app authors:

As I wrote in The ethics of modern web ad-blocking, web advertising and behavioral tracking are out of control. They’re unacceptably creepy, bloated, annoying, and insecure, and they’re getting worse at an alarming pace.

Ad and tracker abuse is much worse on mobile: ads are much larger and harder to dismiss, trackers are harder to detect, their JavaScript slows down page-loads and burns battery power, and their bloat wastes tons of cellular data. And ads are increasingly used as vectors for malware, exploits, and fraud.

Introducing Peace, my privacy-focused iOS 9 ad blocker – Marco.org

Granted there is a potential contradiction in his stance:

Publishers won’t solve this problem: they cannot consistently enforce standards of decency and security on the ad networks that they embed in their sites.

If publishers want to offer free content funded by advertising, the burden is on them to choose ad content and methods that their readers will tolerate and respond to.

 

[editor]

Also keep in mind its not just about the display of adverts, but all the tracking bullshit.

Except facebook will continue to do all those things on your Apple device.

Here's another take on it:

Well that’s quite a coincidence. The very same day Apple turned its News app into a mandatory blob on your home screen, it also rolled out ad blocking capabilities in iOS 9.

The day after iOS 9’s release, over ten percent of iOS users have already downloaded iOS 9,according to Paddle Analytics. That means thousands of people have discovered that they can’t get rid of the News app on their home screen. Meanwhile, those same people are probably rejoicing that Apple will finally allow ad blocking. Already, many ad blockers are vying to become the app of choice for the iOS set. So what’s the connection between these two seemingly unrelated iOS 9 shifts?...
Why Apple Decided to Block Ads on the Same Day It Started Pushing a News App

Basically, we’ve returned to the social Darwinist argument again. It’s on the publishers to adapt to the new model or die. The problem is that it’s not that simple. Because companies like Apple aren’t just pushing publishers to get new kinds of ads — they are actively trying to supplant the place of those publishers with alternative news platforms. Like, well, Apple’s News app.

Casey Johnston argues exactly this over on The Awl. Ad blocking, she writes, is a harbinger of the platform age, where small publishers are eaten by companies like Google or Facebook:

What will these “better” ads look like? One answer is that as publications transition to becoming direct content providers for the social networks and platforms whose audiences they are currently borrowing, like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google, perhaps Apple News (or Medium??)‚ many of the ads will be the same as before—placed in front of, beside, and between content—but sold and providedby the platform, rather than the publisher. Ad-blocking, insofar as it contributes to the decimation of advertising revenues, will hasten this exodus to the platforms.

And there is no way to block the ads shown to you by Facebook or Google or Twitter in their own apps, especially not on mobile. At that inflection point, the argument about how ad-blocking protects privacy by evading trackers also becomes largely irrelevant.

And the punch line:

When you consider Johnston’s comments here, it becomes obvious why Apple would make its News app mandatory on the same day it’s blocking ads for the first time ever in iOS. It’s destroying media revenue models on two fronts: with ad blocking for the web, and an app for your phone.

This isn’t about protecting consumers. It’s about Apple getting into the business of serving you news, in an app where you’ll never be able to block ads or sponsored content or “native advertising” or whatever you want to call the same old game of making you want to buy expensive shit you don’t need. When all the small news sites go out of business because they can’t “adapt” to ad blocking, Apple’s News app is there for you. Oh and also? There’s a whole new market for apps like Peace and Blockr and all the others that will soon be stuffing the App Store.

You can bet that Apple News will track your interests and feed you ads, even if you have Peace installed. Maybe these are ads that you “tolerate and respond to” as Arment would have it. But it will also mean that nobody gets to publish a small news publication without sucking up to Apple and Facebook and Google and all the other platforms with so-called ethical native advertising.

You’re trading in one kind of trap for another. And both have brands glued all over them.

 

[editor]

Still a narrow definition of power. If I wanted the most power possible, I'd want to control the likes of the most popular search engine and the most popular social networks, not the most popular luxury hardware brand.

Money is power. And Apple have more of that than anyone else.

 

[elbows]

Information is power, and google have more of it (and the ability to analyse it) than anyone else.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Tough, I'm afraid. I loathe adverts, in any part of life.

Want me to pay for something? Ask. I'm happy to pay for things I have an interest in or use for. Don't shove bollocks at me for something I have no interest in and will never click on out of principle anyway.

Yeah couldn't careless about the tiny amount of independent bloggers that no one really reads...