jbdragon

waverboy said:

Still waiting for real wireless charging...that'll be the real game-changer.

Ya, there's not a single phone made that has Wireless Charging!!! They are all Inductive Charging. The same type of thing that my Electric Tooth Brush charges by. It's not the Qi standard, but it is Inductive Charging. The tooth brush sits on a base and that base is plugged into the wall. There's no physical electrical connection to the Tooth Brush. Sits on a base and is charged by a coil.

I don't give a crap about Inductive Charging. It's OLD TECH. I don't see what the big deal is. It's more Energy efficient to just plug it into a cheap cable then a $40+ charging pad that's still plugged into the wall. I dock my iPhone next to my bed every night and that's pretty darn fast.

When I can walk around a room and not have to even get out my phone and it's charging. That's Wireless Charging. If I can place my phone anywhere in my house. Toss it onto the sofa. Throw in on a table. Doesn't matter, there's no mat under it and it charges, THAT is wireless charging. If I can pick up my phone and answer the call, or check my messages and the phone is still charging. THAT is wireless charging. You can't do any of that with FAKE Wireless charging, which is really just Inductive Charging. I don't care if it's from Samesung, or Apple, I could care less about Inductive Charging.

When there's a phone with real wireless charging, I'll be first in line for it.

dabrace1984 said:

CNN did a test with two identical female twins and they were able to beat the Face ID security.

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2017/10/31/iphone-x-first-impressions.cnnmoney

Apple did say TWINS could fool the system, but as twins get older then generally start to look different. My Mom and Aunt are twins and seeing them as kids, they looked the same. Now they don't and haven't in years. They just look like sisters. As long as I can remember back, they've never looked the same.

So when it comes to twins, it's how close to a match are they that the camera can see. Parents can in general tell their twins apart in a number of ways. Yet they can fool other people. So some twins it'll lock the other out, and in some cases, they're a close enough match where they can fool the system.

Seeing how well it works like this, you can understand how a picture would NEVER work. Where a MASK is never going to work. You're not going to get the persons face just exactly right on your own face. Really if someone is trying to get your face in that kind of detail, you have even worse problems.

I use Siri all the time.  I do have a echo dot and a google mini to play around with along with a couple HomePods.  Out of them all, my #1 go to device is my Apple Watch.  It’s everywhere I’m at.  It’s not locked into s room by a power cable.  It can be outside with me.   I have to say Siri works really well on it.   I think a big thing with these voice assistance is home control and I’m a HomeKit house.

Google and Amazon, I paid $30 for those devices.  Have never once ordered anything from them. I have a Ecobee 4 with Alexa built in and yet Siri is just easier to use with it.  I play with all 3 of them and they all have their own pros and cons.  The list of apps with Siri shortcut controls continue to grow.  So you don’t have to even use the shortcut app. I do think it’s a fantastic feature and needs some more advertising from Apple.  

Have you been to Alexa’s Skill store?  There’s a lot of then, but looking at the reviews of them, they’re lucky if they can get 3 stars.  A large percentage are not rated all that high.  It’s a ton of crap. You would think that Alexa wold just work on my Ecobee 4 as it’s built in.  Why not?  But no, you have to go to Amazon and activate the skill for it.  I’m also not a fan of having to ask or tell Alexa to do something and with what.  Siri and even Google are smarter in this area than Alexa who plays dumb.  For example, if I want to adjust the temp, with Siri I can just say "Hey Siri, or on Apple Watch, not even say that, Adjust temp to 68."  It’ll do it.  It knows what I’m talking about.  With Alexa, I have to say something like "Alexa, tell Ecobee to set temp to 68".  Again the tell it to do something and what device.  It gets worse when I have to say MySmartBlinds to control those.

Well I have one!!!! I've been BETA testing mine now for a month!!! It works great. I can use my Apple Watch or iPhone. I can go say to my Apple Watch, "Hey Siri, Open Garage" and BAM, it opens right up. Then I can say "Hey Siri, Close Garage" and BAM, the light on my garage door flashes and beeps for a few seconds and then it starts closing.

Yesterday I installed the "Leviton DH15S-1BZ 15A Decora Smart Switch for iOS". I only got one to test it out. I looked at a few of them, and this one looked the BEST. So I replaced 1 of my light switches in my Garage to this. The switch on the far side that powers up 3 light fixtures. 2, 4 T8 Florescent Bulbs and one for 2 T8. So that makes 10 lights this switch powers on and off. It works like a normal switch in that you can manually turn the lights on/off and normal. It doesn't rock like a normal switch, it clicks and stays in the middle. What I liked about this one is that it works over Wifi, for far greater distance and reliability then Bluetooth. I was controlling it on the other side of my house. It also works with your normal wall plate. I needed that since it's in a duel switch plate. I plan to swap out the other switch next to it. So I can now say, "Hey Siri, Turn ON garage light" and it turns on. Of you hold the button down on your iPhone and just activate Siri that way, you can just just Turn on Garage light. My Dad lives with me and he loves it. Even better then Siri for the Garage Door.

Once you activate it using their app, it's now in Apple's Home App. You could even control it in there. But the other thing you can do is Automate things. There's not a log of light output from a garage opener. So why not Link the light switch to the Garage Door opener. So when you Say, Hey Siri,. Open garage, that your garage lights auto turn on. You could also set it up to turn off when you ask siri to close the garage.

Right now it works great. The one thing you have to make sure is that you have a White Neutral wire in your switch box besides the black wires and ground. You need a basic tester so you can figure out which black wire is the HOT wire, and the other going to your lights is the LOAD wire. I just pigtailed a short white wire to the other white wires for my switch. it's pretty simple. Make sure you kill the power at the circuit breaker when working on it. This is a great way to add Siri support to lights that you normally wouldn't be able to do with some Box you plug into a outlet and then a light into that.

The other things you can do is have it come on/off by a geofence, or you can set the light to go on/off by set times. Good for when you go on Vacation and want to make you home look more lived in. I plan to get a couple more shortly. They do currently cost $44.99 each. It's really not a bad price. Once you start using Siri, you want to use to do more and more things. This switch doesn't work with the Amazon ECHO in case you're wondering.

So I have a Helmet Speaker/Mic when riding my Motorcycle, connected by Bluetooth to my iPhone. I can now Siri open my garage door from down the block and pull right into my garage when I get to my driveway. That's pretty nice!!! You could go for a walk come home and just Siri open the garage. It's the main way I get in and out of my house. The front door is rarely used except for guests. It's that way for many people. The other nice thing. No need to keep a clicker in your car/truck. Park in the driveway light I do, someone could break by window and now get right into the garage and then right into the house. Even worse, break in while I'm gone someplace. Take it, plus by Registration. Something with my address and drive to my house, and click, right into the garage and into my house while I'm not home. No need for a clicker anymore, just use SIRI.

I haven't used TikTok ever and have no plans to ever use it.   I don't think it should be banned anywhere than from Government use.    Then again I don't think government phones just have much of anything on it, then what is required.  You have your Government phone for work, you have your own personal phone for outside of work.

Just another reason to not use Facebook Messanger.  In fact, just another good reason to get away from Facebook altogether!!!

As the EU gets more and more insane with all these policies.  It makes it more and more harder for anyone NEW to get into the market.  It's just to costly.  Basically, locking these companies in place.  What happens if Google and Apple pull out of the EU?  Could that happen?  Google is not even in China.  With the trade ban with China continuing to grow, who knows how much longer for Apple?   The EU is a huge market.   At some point, these companies need to put their foot down as the EU is getting too controlling for their own good.

If you don't like how Apple or Google does things with THEIR phones, how about an EU company makes their own OS and sell their own phones!!!  Oh wait, regulations is so insane, it's almost impossible for startups in the EU.  Where are they?  It's pretty rare.  Everything they keep doing is just locking in place these U.S. companies because no one in the EU can afford to do anything.  It takes a lot of money and TIME.   Better for the EU to just steal it from American companies.

I never get why anyone would Pre-order for Digital content? What, you think they'll run out?

If Apple wasn't screwing users with $1000+ repair jobs when you can bring it someplace and they'll fix it for $100 or even FREE in some cases as it's a simple fix and yet Apple says you need to replace all this stuff for whatever reason, Ya, Right to Repair should be the rule. There is no need for Apple to do this with battery's. This is Apple just trying to scare people and forced to go to Apple. You can tell this when you use even Apple's own batteries and it still does this message.





Stop with the excuses. This is why Apple has been getting away with locking their stuff down just so only THEY can fix things. Or really up sell you to new hardware. How about you buy a new car, it's time to replace the tires, you go to a 3rd party tire shop, get new tires put on, start to drive away and a Warning Service light pops up on the dash? Oh no!!! Find out you have to go back to the Ford Dealer Ship, and get Official Ford Tires that are keyed for your car. If you took those FORD tires and put them on Another Ford, the same warning message would pop up. This is what Apple is doing!!!! Wake up.

Watch some of the other videos from Louis Rossmann, including one about Apple's T2 chip.

robin huber said:

Hoping that Apple settles with writers separately. 

It doesn't work that way with Union strikes!