Apple new product rumours and general news

[nick]

I assume everybody has seen this?

Jeffrey Paul: Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

An ideal time to buy the iTinfoilHat - only £499.99, or £550 for the RED version

 

[elbows]

I've got an M1 mac mini coming today, in great part because I am hoping the GPU is just about good enough for my purposes. Because for years I have been suffering from a complete contradiction between the amount of energy the high-end GPUs I've been developing for consume, and my views about energy this century. So I'm about to find out to what extent I can run a 3D fluid sim on this chip. Benchmarks look promising but it will all come down to how my own stuff runs.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I assume everybody has seen this?

Jeffrey Paul: Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

An awful lot of paranoia and what ifs there.

 

[editor]

I assume everybody has seen this?

Jeffrey Paul: Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

Blimey:

This means that Apple knows when you’re at home. When you’re at work. What apps you open there, and how often. They know when you open Premiere over at a friend’s house on their Wi-Fi, and they know when you open Tor Browser in a hotel on a trip to another city.

Since October of 2012, Apple is a partner in the US military intelligence community’s PRISM spying program, which grants the US federal police and military unfettered access to this data without a warrant, any time they ask for it. In the first half of 2019 they did this over 18,000 times, and another 17,500+ times in the second half of 2019.

Jeffrey Paul: Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

 

[editor]

An awful lot of paranoia and what ifs there.

Really. You're dismissing this research out of hand as 'paranoia' just because it criticises your beloved Apple? Wow.

Privacy - Government Information Requests - Apple (US)

www.apple.com

 

[Crispy]

Stonking performance on that new M1. Beats all intel macs in single-threaded performance, even when emulating intel. All with 150% battery life.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Really. You're dismissing this research out of hand as 'paranoia' just because it criticises your beloved Apple? Wow.

Privacy - Government Information Requests - Apple (US)

www.apple.com

No, I’m saying the article has a whiff of paranoia about it.

 

[Crispy]

No, I’m saying the article has a whiff of paranoia about it.

If they're genuinely out to get you (and for a small number of people, they genuinely are) it's not paranoia

 

[editor]

No, I’m saying the article has a whiff of paranoia about it.

So it's now gone from 'an awful lot of paranoia' to just a 'whiff of paranoia.'

You should be congratulating the author, not trying to slag him off with mental health slurs.

 

[Chz]

I've got an M1 mac mini coming today, in great part because I am hoping the GPU is just about good enough for my purposes. Because for years I have been suffering from a complete contradiction between the amount of energy the high-end GPUs I've been developing for consume, and my views about energy this century. So I'm about to find out to what extent I can run a 3D fluid sim on this chip. Benchmarks look promising but it will all come down to how my own stuff runs.

It's about equivalent to bottom-end discrete solutions, from what I've seen. So very good for integrated, but that's a pretty low bar to set. Bear in mind the M1 machines can't use external GPUs.
Whether that's good enough is up to you, of course.

 

[nick]

whether paranoid, or valid concern...

Isn't this the kind of thing that you phone is already doing - so effectively it is aligning the laptop with what already happens on mobile?

Not saying I think it is a good thing mind

 

[tommers]

whether paranoid, or valid concern...

Isn't this the kind of thing that you phone is already doing - so effectively it is aligning the laptop with what already happens on mobile?

Not saying I think it is a good thing mind

Yes. For at least the last two years.

 

[elbows]

It's about equivalent to bottom-end discrete solutions, from what I've seen. So very good for integrated, but that's a pretty low bar to set. Bear in mind the M1 machines can't use external GPUs.
Whether that's good enough is up to you, of course.

Its living up to my expectations so far

 

[sim667]

If you use either macOS or windows, everything you do is relayed back. I'm not sure why that comes as such a big surprise to people. I highly suspect most of the linux distros are the same too.

 

[magneze]

If you use either macOS or windows, everything you do is relayed back. I'm not sure why that comes as such a big surprise to people. I highly suspect most of the linux distros are the same too.

Bollocks

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Tbh I've given up on the "OSes phoning home" issue as it's been the case since XP and nothing happens. I've been whinging pointlessly about it since 2003 or whatever. The only difference in this case is that it will be harder to stop with the new chips but who cares if it's everywhere and nobody stops it as it is now?

I have a Little Snitch licence somewhere but I just stopped putting it on new machines.

 

[editor]

Loose change for Apple

Apple will pay $113m (£85m) to settle allegations that it slowed down older iPhones.
Thirty-three US states claimed that Apple had done this to drive users into buying new devices.
Millions of people were affected when the models of iPhone 6 and 7 and SE were slowed down in 2016 in a scandal that was dubbed batterygate.
Apple declined to comment, however, it has previously said the phones were slowed to preserve ageing battery life.
The deal is separate from a proposed settlement Apple reached in March to pay affected iPhone owners up to $500m in a class action lawsuit.
In 2016 Apple updated software on models of the iPhone 6, 7 and SE - which throttled chip speeds on aging phones.

Apple to pay $113m to settle iPhone 'batterygate'

The lawsuit argued the iPhone-maker slowed down device performance to make users buy newer models.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[platinumsage]

Tbh I've given up on the "OSes phoning home" issue as it's been the case since XP and nothing happens. I've been whinging pointlessly about it since 2003 or whatever. The only difference in this case is that it will be harder to stop with the new chips but who cares if it's everywhere and nobody stops it as it is now?

I have a Little Snitch licence somewhere but I just stopped putting it on new machines.

Isn't it overblown? So they get to know what software you are using. Whenever I go to the tool hire shop they get to know what tool I'm hiring too, and I bet they don't encrypt it.

 

[editor]

Isn't it overblown? So they get to know what software you are using. Whenever I go to the tool hire shop they get to know what tool I'm hiring too, and I bet they don't encrypt it.

A more accurate comparison would be that the tool hire shop would know whose house you're going and what work they're doing, even though it's none of their fucking business.

 

[elbows]

Tbh I've given up on the "OSes phoning home" issue as it's been the case since XP and nothing happens. I've been whinging pointlessly about it since 2003 or whatever. The only difference in this case is that it will be harder to stop with the new chips but who cares if it's everywhere and nobody stops it as it is now?

I have a Little Snitch licence somewhere but I just stopped putting it on new machines.

Plus I enjoy all the anti-tracking stuff built into Safari these days, and am happy to pay a premium to a company that's business model includes charging high prices for hardware rather than making their money by selling my data to advertisers.


(and not 30 days worth either since I've only had this Mac a couple of days)

 

[pseudonarcissus]

A more accurate comparison would be that the tool hire shop would know whose house you're going and what work they're doing, even though it's none of their fucking business.

ah, but the tool hire shop will be able to offer you an enhanced user experience and next time you go in, they will have just the tool you need ready on the counter for you

Whatever you do, there are limits on achievable privacy on the internet. For some reason I trust Apple a little more than Google, Facebook and Amazon, hell, I even trust Safari with my banking passwords. As Elbows says, I am happy they don't have their fingers in the advertising revenue pie. I also like the convenience of the integrated functionality. I pay extra for it, I know that. I've been suckered into their ecosystem, but I rather like it....Cute little iMac in 1999, the "cloud based" stuff since .mac in about 2001, iPhone in 2007 (and I could have stuck with a Palm Treo).

For me the effort to achieve enhanced privacy isn't worth it for be additional peace of mind I'd achieve. Other folk will have a different view on the balance of costs and benefits.

 

[sim667]

Bollocks

Thanks for your input

 

[editor]

ah, but the tool hire shop will be able to offer you an enhanced user experience and next time you go in, they will have just the tool you need ready on the counter for you

Whatever you do, there are limits on achievable privacy on the internet. For some reason I trust Apple a little more than Google, Facebook and Amazon, hell, I even trust Safari with my banking passwords. As Elbows says, I am happy they don't have their fingers in the advertising revenue pie. I also like the convenience of the integrated functionality. I pay extra for it, I know that. I've been suckered into their ecosystem, but I rather like it....Cute little iMac in 1999, the "cloud based" stuff since .mac in about 2001, iPhone in 2007 (and I could have stuck with a Palm Treo).

For me the effort to achieve enhanced privacy isn't worth it for be additional peace of mind I'd achieve. Other folk will have a different view on the balance of costs and benefits.

Most people don't have the luxury of being able to afford may Apple products. Not sure what 'additional peace of mind' I'm missing out on, to be honest.

 

[platinumsage]

Most people don't have the luxury of being able to afford may Apple products. Not sure what 'additional peace of mind' I'm missing out on, to be honest.

I'm not sure most of their products are that much more expensive than the alternatives when you average the purchase cost over their actual usable life.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I'm not sure most of their products are that much more expensive than the alternatives when you average the purchase cost over their actual usable life.

They’re not, simple as that.

 

[editor]

They’re not, simple as that.

The fanboy speaks and thus ends the discussion. We could compare the cost implications of, say, a Chromebook with a Macbook for an average user's needs, but I know it'll soon descend into nitpicking about 'specialist' apps and niche applications and other such irrelevant tosh that most people don't give a fuck about.

 

[Saul Goodman]

They’re not, simple as that.

Except most Apple fanboys simply must replace their phone whenever a newer model is released, so cost vs life analysis is kinda pointless.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

The fanboy speaks and thus ends the discussion. We could compare the cost implications of, say, a Chromebook with a Macbook for an average user's needs, but I know it'll soon descend into nitpicking about 'specialist' apps and niche applications and other such irrelevant tosh that most people don't give a fuck about.

sigh
Yes, lots of users are better off with cheap Chromebooks, they’re great. But, also for a lot of users they have limitations. So compare like with like. Top end Samsung vs iPhone, top end PC laptop against a Mac etc etc. Factor in life of product and years of OS support/upgrades. The difference is minimal.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Except most Apple fanboys simply must replace their phone whenever a newer model is released, so cost vs life analysis is kinda pointless.

Well, this “fanboy” is using a 5 year old phone and a 7 year old MacBook. Both running the latest OS quite happily.

 

[Spymaster]

sigh
Yes, lots of users are better off with cheap Chromebooks, they’re great. But, also for a lot of users they have limitations. So compare like with like. Top end Samsung vs iPhone, top end PC laptop against a Mac etc etc. Factor in life of product and years of OS support/upgrades. The difference is minimal.

Yep. Chromebook v Macbook. That's a valid comparison right there!

Not.