macwise

y2an said:

Beats said:

The fact anyone can reverse engineer this is scary.

Anyone with the right (fairly advanced) skills can reverse engineer anything, given time and resources. 

Right. And the "anyone" you need to pay special attention to in this situation is the one who purports to be your benevolently patriarchal Uncle. And Uncle, in all his infinite wisdom, has continually asserted his influence on those you trust to keep your data, your information, your *life* yours — and in this case, the entity you have decided to trust, well that's Apple. 

Apple is the modern-day version of your locked bureau. And that locked bureau was clearly and unequivocally OFF LIMITS from Uncle.

When this provision was affirmed, it didn't matter if you had nothing to hide. You had the right to that locked bureau.

It didn't matter if you had the severed head of an innocent child in that bureau, either. You had an indisputable right to privacy from a prying Uncle's eyes except in VERY special circumstances.

It would have been preposterous if a bureau manufacturer had built a skeleton key and EULA for the piece of furniture which allowed them to inspect the contents of your bureau — as a neutral third party, of course — anytime they chose. It would have been even more unthinkable had the manufacturer's policy included a provision which allowed them to report the contents of your private papers and effects to Uncle should they deem them illicit. 

Now, how much do we need to worry about Uncle, and his wily ways of creeping on our privacy and autonomy? 

Well, seeing as how Uncle incarcerates more of its own fam, and spies on, invades the homes of, and bombs more innocent humans than any other patriarchal entity in the entire human race, I'd say it's a serious point of concern. And any person here or elsewhere dismissing this backdoor attempt to peek into your bureau as "not that big of a concern" has forgotten or been forever blind to the real risk this poses — and the consequences it brings — to civilized society. 

Sky Tripping's nature-based meditation app is free (full access) while the pandemic is underway: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sky-tripping-meditations/id1067060823

volcan said:

SpamSandwich said:

I agree with Nola. Screw Stephenson. Our rights are inherent and the Constitution is there to PROTECT our individual rights.

Which part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights grants your rights to purchase cell phones that do not have encryption back doors pre-installed?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

- Bill of Rights, 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Have you really never read the Bill of Rights?

Like most Apple TV owners (4th gen), my development team was so pleased with the new screen savers. We were all enraptured by the views, and the simple but captivating streams showing a bird's eye view of beautiful places around the planet really delighted us. When we were invited to an AppleTV Tech Talk in LA, we expressed our appetite for more videos.  Apple suggested we make our own app and produce more videos.

Unwilling to wait any longer for Apple to produce more films, we took their suggestion to heart.  That started a year-long process of building an app and curating stunning films much in the style of the Apple screen savers, only with more of a focus on nature. The app we launched is called Sky Tripping (http://skytripping.com), and it is available for tvOS and iOS.  

It has been gratifying to produce these films, and enlightening as we've learned along the way that these films of nature actually have the power to positively affect our health, much like meditation and spending time physically in nature. Most of us are nature starved, and it's difficult to deny that these films bring with them the ability to restore peace and calm when you're feeling stressed.

I'm so happy to see that Apple has finally produced more films, as they're nothing short of extraordinary.  That said, I'm also glad they took so long to follow up with round 2, as it has given us the impetus to build our own app, something which no doubt would never have happened had Apple been more forthcoming with their additional views as originally promised. 

"High resolution and contrast from the 48MP sensor

"You get a little bit more dynamic range in the 24-megapixel photos," McCormack explains. "Because when shooting at 24-megapixels, we shoot 12 high and 12 low -- we actually shoot multiple of those -- and we pick and then merge."
When shooting a 48MP image, the iPhone has to rely on an extended dynamic range algorithm instead, providing less exposure data. So, the dynamic range should be wider in 24MP images."

This segment seems to clear up a lot of confusion that I at least had during the Apple Event and when reviewing related promotional materials Apple has released on the new phone cameras.

To wit, I was confused by the references to 24mp, but ended my search for clarity last week under the impression that the resolution of the 1x camera in the iPhone 14 Pro Max (48mp) was being downgraded to a "new and improved fancy-pants" 24mp camera in the iPhone 15 series, with lots of computational data to make it good and stuff. I was a but underwhelmed and disappointed by this move. Thanks for (somehow) managing to make that all more clear than Apple's highly-groomed comms.