ecarlseen

Can everyone quit slagging the guy for not having sufficient backup? Should he have had it? Definitely. But there's absolutely, positively zero excuse for vendors like Adobe (and Microsoft last month with the Windows 10 update) playing so absurdly fast and loose with customer data. These software vendors are forcing their customers into far more expensive subscription pricing models in a vain attempt to maintain revenue growth and correspondingly high stock prices for just a little bit longer, which is sketchy enough, but they're also getting much worse at quality control in the process, which is flat-out evil. Adobe has been one of the worst custodians of IT quality and security in the history of computing with their egregiously and shamelessly poor stewardship of the Flash plugin. Microsoft infamously fired most of their QA personnel a few years ago in order to foist that work onto their "insider" fan base, which has made their extremely poor reputation in that are decline even further. Yes, users do stupid things, but in cases like this we need to focus hard on the deeply evil neglect that certain software vendors have had for our data as well.

Should a purchaser leave a European Union country, an app downloaded from one of these app stores can only be updated for 30 days -- but it will function beyond that time frame. Users can still use the marketplaces to manage previously installed apps, but they must physically be in the European Union to install marketplaces and new apps from those stores.

I wonder how they'll know if the user is in the EU.

Location services?

IP address?

Turning off location services and using a VPN may work around this. It will be interesting to see how hard and far Apple will be willing to go to push enforcement.

foregoneconclusion said:

That's what eventually led to the warrantless wiretapping provision being eliminated by Congress: public pressure. However, there were plenty of people that were ignorant of the Patriot Act and what it contained, thus Edward Snowden's success in repackaging old news from the Patriot Act a decade later as if it were something new to be worried about.

Warrentless wiretapping was never eliminated. The only restriction put into place were wiretaps that affected everybody in the US. So you could still have one order for "all devices east of the Mississippi" and another order for "all devices west of the Mississippi" and still be in compliance with the new law. Or an order allowing surveillance of "all Democrats" (or "all Republicans") and still be in compliance. From a privacy standpoint, it was a completely worthless gesture. From a propaganda perspective, it allows those who favor panopticon-level surveillance to lie and tell people that "Something Was Done!!!"

But nice try, fedboi.

I've thought for some time now that the day that Apple purchased Beats and seriously delved into the content industry will go down as the day Apple lost its soul. The iPhone Music app fine for using Apple Music streaming, but it seems to want to fight you over managing and using your own music. At that point, it's not longer an iPhone - it's an Apple Phone. The "i" is ... maybe not gone, but it's being shown the door. The trend isn't just limited to the Music app. The iPhone (and Apple Watch) seem to want to decide what I want to do at any given moment, and they do a very poor job of it. Sadly, as the hardware begins to mature and no longer sustains aggressive update cycles (as happens in any industry), expect this to get much, much worse. Hopefully Apple finds their way back at some point, or at least stops trying to ram this down our throats Microsoft-style.

Seriously, while the decrease in WiFi protocol and the amount of speakers and microphones might seem like odd decisions, the end product might actually be better and sound better too… I’ll be waiting for comparison reviews and might replace my two original HomePods (which are still working perfectly after 5 years, running the latest firmware) if they are found to be better sounding.

Y’all should give the product a chance before writing it off. Just my two cents.

There's also an option to enable a feature called "enhanced call privacy."

Unless you've checked enhanced call privacy, X will disclose your IP address to the person on the other end of your call. Your IP address can be used to get a rough approximation of your location.

By toggling on enhanced call privacy, X will route your call through a peer-to-peer service that hides your IP address from the other party. AppleInsider highly suggests that, even if you're fine with receiving calls, you should still enable enhanced call privacy. 

If you're using a VPN app or Apple iCloud Private Relay then you are protected here. The "Enhanced Call Privacy" option will degrade call performance somewhat if enabled, so it's an important feature to be aware of but it's not necessary for everyone.

Available... unless your cellular services is through a business account and it's impossible to complete their carrier validation process (which it should let me skip because I'm just buying the phones outright). I guess Apple doesn't want our business.

Interesting. Roland recently snapped up Beats competitor V-MODA (who arguably has a much better product). I guess no hard feelings...