All-Purpose Guru

As someone who has actually worked with Qualcomm in the past, I can tell you that Qualcomm is a thoroughly evil company to work with.  You even HINT that you're looking at alternatives and they threaten to sue you into oblivion.  

The idea that they are pulling test resources is not even unexpected-- they play MUCH harder ball than this usually, such as cutting off access to support engineers and documentation.  This has been their method of operation since the mid-90s.

At the time, they were the only game in town for CDMA-- luckily there ARE alternatives now and if Apple DOES seek to get rid of Qualcomm there will be lawsuits.  That's just how Qualcomm operates.

Another part of the problem is that the licensing agreement that Qualcomm requires is VERY predatory-- they don't just want a fee to use their chips, their fee is based on the cost of the ENTIRE PRODUCT.  That's one of the reasons why you haven't seen a cellular modem in the Macbooks-- Qualcomm would get a large fee based on the cost of a $2000-$3000 product, which makes even putting the chips in the device cost prohibitive.  This is totally unreasonable and unprecedented in the industry.

This isn't just about money-- Qualcomm is a very difficult company to work with in all areas.

The problem with building a plant in Texas is that pretty much ALL the infrastructure needed to SUPPLY that plant is in China, and that infrastructure would cost billions and billions of dollars to bring here, and isn't even part of Apple.  Even the trashcan Mac Pro currently built in Texas is built of subassemblies and parts made overseas.

There was a story a while back about how even the precision SCREWS needed to assemble the iPhone can't be made in the US any more and would have to be sourced from China or elsewhere.

Trump is a real estate mogul.  He has NO idea how manufacturing actually works.

rob53 said:

I agree but I wish it wasn't backed by a MasterCard although that's what Costco uses in Canada (Visa in the US). I wish the Card wasn't associated with any credit card company.

That would mean you couldn't use it on any network, and there wouldn't be any infrastructure to handle payments and suchlike.  The last time someone invented something completely new like that was the Discover Card, and it was pretty useless in the first half-dozen years after it was introduced, even though it was backed by Sears and Dean Witter Reynolds.

The BUG is that a disabled root account can be enabled without a password from the UI of the Mac.

The ONLY way to prevent this enabling of the root account is to ALREADY enable it, and give it a password.

The average user WON'T need the root account in any case, so put the password in your password safe and LEAVE IT ENABLED.

Yes, it's dangerous to have the root account enabled-- Mike's link above details the issues-- but because of this bug having it DISABLED is a very bad idea.

Disabling Guest access only closes one path to the bug, it doesn't actually FIX the bug-- Enabling root access with a password actually FIXES the problem.

Oh, one more point, my ancient Mavericks laptop doesn't show this bug.

Why you can trust my opinion: Unix developer and administrator since 1980's, professional Mac developer/user since the 1990's

Rayer said:

beowulfschmidt said:

I think it should be "attorneys general", not attorney generals.

You are correct, although I never understood that grammar portion of the English language.

In this case, "general" is an adjective modifying "attorney", it just is weird because it comes *after* the noun (because of its French origins.)

English is pretty much a dumpster fire of a language in any case.

Anybody who’s ever done engineering will tell you OF COURSE they are working on M4 MacBook Pro. They are probably in production verification (PVT) already. 
These things don’t just fall out of Jozwiak’s ass periodically.

EsquireCats said:

Tesla car with feature improperly marketed as “autopilot”.....  let’s blame Apple. 

Actually, the "autopilot" branding is consistent with its usage and capabilities in aircraft, which is where the term came from-- it is NEVER intended as autonomous pilotage, in aircraft or cars.  It is an unfortunate thing that people inaccurately equate "autopilot" with "autonomy."

Pilots NEVER stop flying the plane while autopilot is engaged- they are constantly monitoring systems, forward progress, and traffic outside.  Automobiles demand the same level of attention while on autopilot.

Every time you turn Autopilot on in a Tesla it tells you to keep your eyes on the road and that you remain responsible for the vehicle's actions.  It is unfortunate that this person decided to do something stupid instead.

@Applemagic, These options have been in iOS for a while; my examples are from iOS 9. iOS 10+ might be slightly different but similar options are available.

When you change or set up your passcode, you get a button that says Passcode Options under the passcode entry field. When you tap that, you get a choice of Custom Alphanumeric Code, Custom Numeric Code or 6-Digit Numeric Code.

1. If you enter a Custom Alphanumeric Code you can use the entire keyboard and have a code as long as you wish, using letters, numbers, and special characters, terminated by ENTER.

Note that the full keyboard is available, so you can put in accents, umlauts, and any other special characters. That is what @Soli meant by a simple long press character. I don't know if emoji work.

2. If you enter a Custom Numeric Code you can type in as many numeric digits as you wish, but will have to hit ENTER at the end of the code. The benefit of this is you get the numeric keypad to type in your code, which is less fiddly to use than the alphanumeric keyboard.

3. 6-Digit Numeric Code uses the numeric keypad, but you don't need to hit ENTER because it knows you are putting in 6 digits. (Also realize that anyone trying to crack your code ALSO knows you only have 6 digits.)

Highest security is a long custom alphanumeric code, but it's a PITA to type in if you don't have Touch ID or something like that.

cpsro said:

I'd like to get to the point of trying the camera but my 2018 MBP doesn't see the device. I've gone through the Trust settings/resetting multiple times and the Max shows "Connected" for about a second each time, before reverting to "Connect to iTunes" and never appears in iTunes on the Mac. On my iMP, the Mac notified that additional Apple software had to be installed before the Max could first be accessed. The software was automatically installed in ~3 minutes. Then the Max appeared in iTunes, but my iPhone backup is on the MBP, not the iMP. The notification of additional software did not occur on the MBP.  Both Macs are running 10.13.6 and have never seen a beta.

My wife had the same problem.  We got around it by reinstalling iTunes.  You can get a .dmg of the latest version of iTunes from Apple's website.  It didn't do anything to her music, nothing was lost.

It won't see the new phone without the software update and reinstalling iTunes reset whatever flag iTunes had to see in order to trigger the update.

Go to a hearing aid seller. They have specialized tool for cleaning hearing aids that does an excellent job.