Dan_Dilger

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Dan_Dilger
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  • How Apple Silicon Macs can supercharge computing in the 2020s

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger

    dinoone said:
    ARM recent vulnerabilities (incl. Checkm8, Spectre and Meltdown) surfacing in past Apple silicon efforts, including the currently pervasive T2, are concerning indeed. 
    Hope Apple is finally reacting to such Achilles’ heel in its Apple Silicon strategy. Which, if appropriately handled, could turn into a strategic advantage on competing mainstream silicon.
    Checkm8 could affect T2 Macs with an intel processor, but Spectre and Meltdown are vulnerabilities that relate to branch processing, which isn't something a T2 would be doing and says nothing about Apple's silicon itself. These vulnerabilities affected all modern CPUs, and Apple was best positioned to protect users with OS-level fixes. 

    None of this is "concerning indeed."
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  • COVID-19 disaster shows off Apple's true core

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger

    hucom2000 said:
    Let’s be real here for a second. 

    Of course these actions are good. Certainly. But goodness may or may not be the primary motive. 

    Personally, I suspect that the primary motive is to limit the damage to the company‘s bottom line. The longer the crises, the greater the recession, the greater the loss.

    It’s smart leadership. Money well spent from which ever angle you look at it. It’s a win-win.

    But it’s not altruistic. For that it would have to be selfless - which it is not.
    Altruism means doing things selflessly for others, it does not mean there is no subsequent benefit to the doer. Mothers are altruistically selfless, and yet we love and celebrate them and take care of them in their old age. They do benefit in some way, despite being selfless and doing things that are right but perhaps not fun to do.

    What I wrote was that "By unambiguously stating that Apple's executive team has the freedom to make decisions that are right and good, regardless of ROI, Cook was defining Apple as a leader in corporate altruism." One can argue that Apple is benefitting in some ways from its charitable work without changing the fact that Cook has sought to define Apple as being a force for good, beyond just being a manufacturer of good products. 


    I also laid out why I think Apple is pursuing things like accessibility, supplier responsibility, donating to disaster relief, etc. It's not realistically to limit the damage to the world economy so Apple can sell more iPhones, because feeding the hungry and keeping first responders safer isn't really going to have any discernable effect. 

    I wrote that it is primarily an exercise of power and capacity. There is nothing that feels better than helping other people and making a real global impact. Cook is not only doing this to feel good himself, but also to attract and retain talent to work at Apple. No amount of stock options or wages can compete with making people feel like they are changing the world and benefittitng society on a global scale. To feel like you are part of such a thing is incredibly empowering and motivating. Self-actualization is the top of the motivation pyramid. 

    So yes, I agree that Apple is not "doing good" for nothing at all, but the primary benefit is strengthening its people, not defending short term revenues. Sure, people also might tip their scales in decision making to think they'd rather get a Mac or an iPhone than some cheap generic PC or an Android simply because they are aware of Apple's disaster relief, but I can't see that being so important. Being able to attract and retain the best engineers and creatives because they feel like they are changing the world is Apple 101.  

    And if you saw the reaction and the feeling in the air of the theater full of Apple shareholders watching Cook slice this guy in half and saying Apple doesn't do things only for ROI, it was powerful. All those people felt that much more proud to be investing in a company that had principles and morals and values. It's like being in church and feeling your prophets were great because they were good. It's spine-tingling religion. 
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  • 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon M1 review: Unprecedented power and battery for the ...

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger

    charlesn said:
    Great review for one of the most baffling MacBook Pro upgrades I've ever seen from Apple. Love the new chip and how could you not--apparently there is a "free lunch" where you get amazing processing power with much less heat and much longer battery life, and it's called the M1. But this seems like an especially lazy upgrade otherwise. 

    What better time than with the introduction of the M1 to address some other long-in-the-tooth issues for the MacBook Pro? I'm not talking a complete redesign--just updates with tech that Apple already has on the shelf:

    14" screen in the same case with narrower bezels
    1080p camera. HELLO? Even post-pandemic, Zoom meetings for business will be essential--honestly, how do you stick a 720p camera in a new 'Pro" laptop that you're essentially rolling out in 2021? Sure, the image processing may make it look "good for 720p," but the added cost to Apple for a better camera would have been miniscule. 
    Fast WiFi 6. I'm not even talking about 6E, although that level of future-proofing would have been fabulous. But this new Pro doesn't even have the antenna array needed to support the fastest data transfer rates of which WiFi 6 is capable. 
    5G Mobile Connectivity. How hard could this be to implement when even the most basic iPad offers cellular?
    Touch Bar: Really? Still? Stick a fork in it, Apple... it's done! This is one of those technologies, like 3-D Press on iPhone, that might have been a good idea, but was never widely implemented by the developer community. 

    Again, none of these suggestions involves a new case design or some yet-to-be-introduced tech like mini-LED. This is off-the-shelf tech that Apple has implemented in other products and has been requested for the MacBook Pro for years in some cases. 
    The MBP's WiFi 6 (ax) listed max is 1.2Gbps and Intel Macs with WiFi 5 (ac) have a max of 1.3Gbps. Throughput isn't the only advantage, as WiFi 6 has other protocol benefits. But there are also constraints related to size and antenna design (where they can be placed in a unit). 

    Overall, when you make one change you know where the issues are. If Apple were to introduce a ton of changes without the time to complete the engineering (a 14 inch display and a whole new case design, and "5G" etc, are not ingredients you sprinkle on) its products would not be good. 

    Also, have you noticed this year there's a pandemic raging and Apple and its suppliers are constrained in what they can do? Despite this, it launched 5G iPhones across four new model types, introduced new watches and iPads and debuted HomePod mini. To suggest that it could also radically change the entire definition of its MacBooks is not really realistic. 

    The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks. 
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  • Dire predictions for Apple's supply chain, retail demand were wrong

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    firelock said:
    “ without a functional public health system”

    Oh please. I generally like DED articles but this is just a hyperbolic political screed.
    The US healthcare system is pretty good for employeed healthy people making over $50k, but that's not representitive of the overall population. If you lose your job or run into a temporary financial situaion, just gettting treatment for COVID can easily return a $70,000 bill, and most Americans don't even have $400 saved up for such events. What we are finding out is that the healthcare available to the poorest can impact the affluent. There is no "public health" system in the US, as millions of its citizens have no insurance at all. That includes many people who work full time. Public health is a system that covers the public, not just people who have employeers paying $300-500/month to cover their medical expenses.
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  • Editorial: No Bill Gates, Windows was not iPhone's 'natural' nemesis

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    macplusplus said:
    “As the PC business grew into an increasingly valuable segment, IBM attempted to develop its own, more sophisticated OS and hardware platforms with PS/2 OS/2. It continued work with Microsoft to do this, but as soon as Microsoft felt it could do better on its own, Gates' Microsoft dumped IBM and launched its own plans for Windows.”
    You’re right that OS/2 was the sw platform, but PS/2 was the name of IBM’s hw platform intended to replace the easy to clone IBM PC with a proprietary new architecture.

    MSFT worked with IBM on OS/2 and then backed out to focus on Windows instead. But IBM launched PS/2 on its own, only to get undercut by the rest of the industry that kept shipping faster old PC clones. 

    PS/2 introduced the standard for mini-DIN keyboard and mouse connectors, which is why they were still called that up until USB. 



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  • 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon M1 review: Unprecedented power and battery for the ...

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger

    ednl said:
    The USB 4 name is misleading. It's technically correct because the new specification doesn't mandate supporting the fastest speed (40 Gbps). The actual supported USB speed is 10 Gbps on the new Macbooks, just like on the old ones. It's exactly the same "USB 3.2 gen 2".
    USB 4 is effectively TB3 converted to the USB spec for licensing. 

    Apple's M1 is the first hardware licensed to deliver "USB 4." It also supports USB 3.2 g2. So there aren't really USB 4 peripherals out there yet. And if its supports TB 3 at 40Gpbs, what makes you think the top speed is 10?  
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  • 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon M1 review: Unprecedented power and battery for the ...

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    mwhite said:
    How do we get an iPad app on our M1 computer?
    Developers make them available in the Mac App Store, and you download them.
    If you already have the app, you can even use automatic downloads to keep your M1 Mac up to date. 

    There isn't a way to share apps directly from your device to the desktop tho. 
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  • Apple Silicon Mac mini dev kit looks like a desktop iPad Pro

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    GeorgeBMac said:
    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an output device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Fortunately, that is no longer the case -- iPad is wearing big boy pants now -- and ready to challenge MacBooks.  In fact, with yesterday's announcements, one wonders why one would choose a MacBook over the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.
    The original iPad had an external keyboard. And while the trackpad cursor is an interesting development, it hasn't materially changed the usefulness of the platform. The core value of iPad is its mobility and the fact that it can be used without setting up any "desktop" to work from. 

    Apple is obviosuly not trying to "challenge" MacBooks. On what planet does that even make sense?

    And lots of people buy a MacBook to use it as a conventional, light & thin notebook used for typing. That's not new either.  
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  • Why the Mac's migration to Apple Silicon is bigger than ARM

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    BeDifferent said:
    How can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about?

    Apple designs their own cores. All they license from ARM is the instruction set.

    You know nothing, Apple Insider!
    Yes we've written extensively about this. Referring to the custom arm64 CPU cores in Apple's SoCs as "ARM cores" does not mean that they are based on ARM Ltd's reference designs. It means they use the arm64 ISA. 

    The fact that ARM has named its licensing company, its reference designs and its chip architecture ISA all the same thing is perhaps a point of confusion, but it appears you are not actually confused but rather just screaming to hear noise.
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  • M1 Macs deliver Apple's first support for USB4

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    dv_42 said:
    Lmao, so I see Appleinsider continues to publish fake news.

    The entire premise of this article is false. Tiger Lake laptops (which include Thunderbolt 4) were released in late October. Thunderbolt 4 includes USB4, but it's faster.

    https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/asus-zenbook-flip-s-review

    https://sundogblognet.wpcomstaging.com/thunderbolt-4-is-usb-4-maxed-out/

    No, Apple was not first. Does anyone here do any research before writing an "article"?
    Do you have a real link to USB4 laptops currently on sale? Your first from September points to a model that was expected to arrive in October, but searching Asus brings up USB 3.x models. The other is from January. 

    Thanks 
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