chasm

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chasm
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  • Apple reaches agreement with unionized Maryland Apple Store workers

    chasmchasm
    red oak said:
    They will be last to receive any new benefits or pay enhancements Apple Retail unilaterally rolls out to all the stores 

    They will now need to transactionally ask and negotiate for every-single-thing  


    You should try reading the last paragraph of the article.

    Such an action is illegal.
    OferblastdoordanoxgatorguynubusVictorMortimer9secondkox2ronnmuthuk_vanalingammichelb76

  • Tim Cook confirms that Apple has been working on generative AI for years

    chasmchasm
    noelos said:
    I'm sorry - but the excuses about Siri being crap because of privacy concerns just doesn't hold water.

    "Hey Siri - play Scarborough Fair". Now I have "Scarborough Fair" by Simon & Garfunkel in my library, and I'd guess this is the version that 99.9% of people would want 99.9% of the time and it's a track I've also asked Siri to play literally hundreds of times because it helps my toddler get to sleep.

    And yet, every time it is a gamble if she will play this, or some other rando version, or some other rando song completely. Siri learns NOTHING and doesn't even use the contextual knowledge available to make a reasonable guess of what you want.

    Or what about a simple query while I'm driving and I idly ask what year some actor died. "I can't answer that while you're driving". Is that to preserve my privacy or is it just because they haven't put in the work to make Siri be able to answer simple queries in natural language?
    Okay, let’s go over this:

    As I mentioned, if you issue requests poorly, you can get bad results. Your S&G request is a good example of this. If you want a specific artist’s version of a song, you need to include the artists’ name in the request. A thousand acts (at least) have covered this song, so saying “Hey Siri, play Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel” will probably get you the right version, though I admit there’s a possibility you might get a live version by them — but if you add the phrase “from my library” I think you’d hit 100 percent accuracy.

    As for your driving and asking questions query, I’ll remind you that Siri is not a chat bot. It is MUCH more restricted by Apple while you’re driving so that you don’t get distracted, and this is by design. Apple does not want you asking Siri random questions while you are driving, because that indicates that you are distracted or want to be distracted.

    You may find that too restrictive, and I think you have something of a case, but when it comes to driver distraction I’d rather Apple err on the side of being over cautious and thus more limited. When I’m NOT in motion, suddenly Siri can answer a question like that handily. I just asked it “what year did actor John Wayne die,” when I was at home, and it gave me a very full answer, including his age and location when he died as well as the date.

    I am certainly NOT saying there isn’t any room for improvement in Siri; quite the opposite! I’m just explaining why it behaves in some of the ways it behaves.
    FileMakerFellerjas99designrroundaboutnowAlex_Vwatto_cobraMacProjony0

  • Apple doesn't care about games, long-time Apple Arcade developers say

    chasmchasm
    Massiveattack87 said:
    AAPL needs to bring more innovative ideas here. 
    Their games are just childish.. 

    Nothing what I would play longer than 2 days... 
    Apple Arcade is not aimed at competitive gamers like teens and adults.

    It is aimed squarely at the casual game market that made it king of mobile gaming. In particular, Apple aims Arcade at families with children.

    This is why there’s no IAP, no ads, and no subscriptions. It’s a **child safe** gaming environment that has a handful of games adult casual gamers would enjoy. You are barking up the VERY wrong tree looking for “serious gamer” titles.
    foregoneconclusionwilliamlondondanoxbaconstangmacxpresstmaymuthuk_vanalingamdewmewatto_cobrarue

  • Epic takes its 'Fortnite' fight with Apple to the Supreme Court

    chasmchasm
    carnegie said:
    Apple is likely to file its own cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to consider aspects of the case, today or tomorrow. I think the deadline for filing that petition is, as it was for Epic, tomorrow.
    They already did, a few weeks ago now. Sweeney is being Mr. Last Minute Filer, here.

    If the court takes up the case, we’ll need to ask the billionaire owners of at least two of the judges what THEY think in order to get an idea of how the court will rule. :)
    ronntenthousandthingsdarkvaderbeowulfschmidtdavkurai_kagewilliamlondonFileMakerFeller13485watto_cobra

  • Old iPads are a staple in US homes, long after they've gone obsolete

    chasmchasm
    randok said:
    I'm writing this on an "Early 2014" MacBook Air, which I use as my daily computer, and I can do almost everything I want (except visit a few stubborn banking sites). Apple should embrace the truism that longevity is an environmental win and make more of it. 
    Those banking sites are trying to tell you that your computer IS. NOT. SECURE. You should take that warning VERY seriously. You’re no longer receiving any kind of updates, security or otherwise. I typically retire my machines at that point and buy a new or newer one.

    I would strongly suggest you “semi-retire” that older machine to “offline activities only,” like I’ve done with my beloved 2012 MBP. It’s pretty much a games and database machine now, and that’s just fine with me (I modded it for a larger SSD and additional RAM, and it still runs like a champ for its vintage).

    Your 2014 is a ticking time bomb on the net. It is really important to use a new/newer machine for activities that need online security, and that’s not just banking stuff. Really old machines can still be useful, but should absolutely NOT be online.
    williamlondongregoriusmFidonet127Applejacswatto_cobra

  • Apple, Visa, Mastercard face lawsuit over high merchant fees

    chasmchasm
    eriamjh said:
    It would be nice to know what min, max, and average merchant fees are in the world of credit cards.  

    This is what pays for things like daily cash, and cash back, and all those perks.
    As you note, the merchant fee is a service charge by the credit provider that comes out of the merchant’s selling price. Broadly speaking, it varies by card from one percent to three percent.

    To put this in the simplest terms, there are four parties involved in a credit card transaction: the customer, the customer’s issuing bank, the merchant, and the merchant’s bank. Amex and Diner’s Club do things a little differently, since they aren’t issued by the customer’s bank, but the idea is the same.

    Apple Pay only comes into play when you use an NFC terminal and an Apple device to pay with your card. At that moment, Apple Pay becomes the platform to provide a whole new level of security on the transaction, and coordinates the payment and fees between the customer’s bank, the merchant, and the merchant’s bank.

    Apple’s fee for this comes out of the merchant’s bank fees. Without getting into the details, this amounts to 0.15 percent of the value of the transaction. So if you bought something (say a new Mac) where the total price before taxes was $2,000, Apple would get $3.*

    *this estimate is based on the total fees Apple charges the merchant’s bank as of 2014. To the best of my knowledge, that total hasn’t changed, but it might have.

    The merchant is supposed to “mark up” the price of the items to cover their base cost, the cost of doing business, and allow for profit. So Apple’s “slice” of this entire transaction should already be covered as part of the fee the merchant’s bank charges the merchant, i.e. part of the cost of doing business.

    So I can sort of see why Apple Pay has to be included in a lawsuit challenging the fees banks and credit card companies charge merchants, but Apple isn’t actually the source of the issue in any way IMO, and frankly they more than justify their tiny fees for the services they provide, which have made using credit cards VERY significantly safer than they were before, since:

    A. The actual card information is never exposed when you use Apple Pay, and
    B. Then entire transaction is encrypted to avoid interception, and
    C. Apple Pay eliminates the possibility of theft, unauthorized use, or leaving behind a physical credit card by accident.
    ronnXedBart YiOS_Guy80mike1badmonktdknoxwatto_cobra

  • Apple engineers lack optimism about the Apple TV strategy, claims report

    chasmchasm
    Is it worth the price upgrading from a Apple TV 3 to the 4K or going for the Google Chromecast? 
    Yes.
    The Chromecast, like anything from Google, is a security and privacy nightmare masquerading as a functional peripheral. Does it work, and it is cheaper? Yes. Will you be further profiled and advertised to/manipulated by literally any entity or individual that wants to target you? ALSO YES.

    Upgrading to the new one from the 3 is a no-brainer IMO. In addition to regaining features and apps like YouTube that are disappearing from the 3, you get:

    * Dolby Vision/HDR10 support if your TV supports it
    * The ability to control both the TV and the Apple TV box with a single remote (which finally has a mute button!!)
    * Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio over AirPlay if you have HomePods (and coming this fall, HomePod minis)
    * A vastly better remote
    * eARC support for your other connected-to-the-TV devices (DVDs, consoles, etc)
    * Apple Arcade support
    * A three-month free trial of Apple TV+ if you don't already have it (So cheap! So good!)
    * Um, 4K ... and the superior Apple TV 4K interface, screen savers, and TV calibration
    * Little features I enjoy, ike "what did he/she say?", the TV app to let me know where something I want to watch is available, and the Apple Events app, which I am not sure is available on other stores/platforms.

    The security and privacy aspects alone justify the higher price for me, but all these other features and that make the new Apple TV 4K a downright bargain in my eyes. The TV I own has a Roku interface (no longer connected to the internet) ... dear lord what a grossly inferior and spyware-like experience!

    Those smaller stick units from Google and Amazon and Roku have their uses, I guess ... smaller to take with you when travelling, for sure ... but the trade-off is too much for me. My old Apple TV lasted many years, while my friends with cheaper sticks seem to replace them every 2-3 years for various reasons (mostly when one of the companies gets in a fight with one of the streaming app companies ... or they just "stop working one day.")
    Japheypulseimagesapplesauce007scstrrfjeffharriswatto_cobrapscooter63

  • macOS Sequoia beta review: yet again small but welcome changes

    chasmchasm
    abriden said:
    I would be willing to pay for the OS if they'd just fix the bugs in Finder that send me back to the root-level every time I delete an item in column-view, or provide auto-resizing of columns in column-view, or allow me to hide all unwanted fonts in font-menus.

    No new features please, just fix the bloody bugs.
    I’m not sure you actually know what a “bug” is.

    Your first complaint certainly SOUNDS like a bug, to be fair, but neither MacPro above nor I can reproduce this bug. Try using the method MacPro describes and report back, please. A genuine “bug” is an unexpected issue that happens to more than one particular user, so we’ll put that one in the “possibly a bug” column for now.

    Auto-resizing of columns in column view is a feature (or in this case, the lack of a feature), not a bug.

    “Allow me to hide all unwanted fonts in font-menus” — how would the machine know which fonts you don’t want at any given moment? Even Apple Intelligence (or any other AI model) wouldn’t’ be able to read your moods at any given moment, but even if UriGeller PsyOS could read your mind on something like this, it would still be a feature (or lack thereof), not a bug.

    If there’s some fonts that you know you are never, ever going to use — uninstall them. There’s a handful that are required for the system to operate/apps rely on that cannot be uninstalled, but the rest can be:
    https://osxdaily.com/2011/10/03/installing-removing-fonts-in-mac-os-x/

    PS. Those little crawly things you may occasionally see in your house — those are actual bugs. :smile: 
    MacPromuthuk_vanalingamAlex1NOferwilliamlondonwatto_cobra

  • Hands on: Apple's USB-C accessories leave us wanting more

    chasmchasm
    I am absolutely 100 percent neutral on the placement of the Magic Mouse charging port. Once every six months or so, I get a notice that the battery on the Magic Mouse needs charging (I don’t use the Mouse as often as I use my other machine’s Magic Trackpad).

    I ignore the warning, but I make a mental note to plug in the mouse before I go to bed. Mouse continues to work as normal for the entire rest of the day.

    Plug in the mouse when I am done with that machine. Next day, unplug the mouse. Good for other “X” number of months of use.

    People who whine about the placement of the charging port just like whining about petty BS. Apple put that port there deliberately because they DO NOT want you to use it as a wired mouse. If you want a wired mouse, buy one.

    PS. Memo to the people who leave their Magic Keyboard or Magic Trackpad plugged in 100 percent of the time: you’re (slowly) ruining the battery.
    Fidonet127Alex1NstompymdwForumPostedge57Alex_Vwilliamlondonwatto_cobra

  • Trump gives Apple a giant break with wide-ranging tariff exemptions

    chasmchasm
    libertyandfree said:
     Like I have repeatedly stated on this site and others, . Apple would not be harmed by these tariffs.  It’s amazing how people still do not understand how Trump operates and what his intentions are even after him being president for 4+ years.   Many view him as incompetent or corrupt and greedy but he is just following his America First policies and truly is trying to put America in a better position.  Those suffering from TDS will never see this. 
    And did he? Did he put America in a better position?

    The answer to that is "no," and that will become increasingly obvious as things made outside the US leap up in price, above and beyond the inflation he hasn't done anything about either.

    He has shown the world that he is erratic, incompetent, and a liar. While I'm delighted that this reversal will benefit US tech companies, and while I support the idea of bringing more manufacturing back to the US where it is practical and possible to do so, this move is only a move back to the status quo under the previous administration. 

    The fact that Russia was specifically excluded from ANY of these tariff shenanigans should tell Americans who is really running the US these days. An uninhabited island ruled by penguins got slapped with tariffs, but not Russia.

    Draw your own conclusions, folks.
    londordecoderringradarthekatAppleZuludanoxTomPMRIbaconstangsconosciutowillettkiltedgreen