darkpaw

Reasons why I'm not going to use this app:

- The development of the app was given to a specific company. It was not sent out to tender. Now, you can argue that we don't have a lot of time and we needed it developed quickly, BUT...
- The reported budget for the app was £250 MILLION... (Not sure on the veracity of that figure, but it's been widely reported. It may just be part of the deal between UK.gov and Palantir/Faculty.)
- It is being developed by both Palantir (run by the right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel) and Faculty...
- Faculty is an AI startup run by someone called Marc Warner...
- Marc Warner's brother is Ben Warner...
- Ben Warner was recruited to Downing Street by Dominic Cummings (if you don't who DC is, he's basically an unelected advisor to our inimitable dickwad, Boris Johnson)...
- Ben Warner was instrumental in the Vote Leave campaign.

Further:
- Dr Ian Levy is Technical Director of the National Cyber Security Centre. He put out a blog post pretty much saying, "Everything is fine. We won't grab your data, no-sireeeee, and we absolutely won't expand the remit of this app, until we absolutely feel the need to do exactly that". Within hours, NHSX said they'll expand the remit of the app where necessary. So-called "mission creep".
- The app ONLY works for NHS England, so spending any time with someone from, say, Wales or Scotland, won't work because they won't be using the NHS England app; they'll be using the NHS Wales or NHS Scotland app.
- The app will NOT work with the Apple/Google solution which means if you go abroad, neither your device nor anyone else's will match, so will record zero interactions.

So, no. I won't be downloading this app.

The Apple/Google solution would've been exactly what we needed, and it works across borders. Apple even provided the source code necessary to create a functioning app. Sadly, our government thinks it's the dog bollox when it comes to everything, so they've gone off on their own.

You wonder why the UK currently has the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe? Because our government is pathetic. Our MPs are idiots. Our Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said he wanted to test 100,000 people a day by the end of April. 30th April comes along and lo and behold we hit 122,000 tests! Oh, sorry, no, we hit 76,000 tests. The other 46,000 tests were actually just mailed out and hadn't actually been used. They did this to save his political career. In the days following the 30th April we tested 66,000 people then 56,000 people.

The UK is an f-ing joke.

Diller ... compared Apple's 30% fee to a credit card company, which would take a fee of around 2% on transactions. "It's irrational, 30%. I mean, it makes no sense," he insisted.

The credit card company takes 2% because they're only doing the transaction. What about all the other stuff, like hosting the apps, marketing, employing people to review apps, paying for bandwidth, paying for R&D, paying for the tools the developers use? Add it all up, and it's not as though 2% would cover it.

This guys should've kept quiet, because now that I'm reading about Expedia's business model and how they make their money, I'm not gonna use them.

After initially rejecting the Apple-Google model for Exposure Notification, the National Health Service on Thursday said it had "agreed to join forces with Google and Apple, to bring the best bits of both systems together."

The NHS had reportedly been testing both its own proprietary system and one based on the Apple-Google API, but found problems with their own. Per the BBC, the NHS solution only detected 4% of nearby iPhones while logging 75% of close Android devices.

Apple's and Google's system, registered 99% of nearby Androids and iPhones, but had weaker distance calculations, the NHS said.

However, Apple said it is "difficult to understand" the distance issue claims from the NHS.

Apple also expressed surprise that the NHS was working on a new version...

This whole omnishambles is caused by the actions of NHSX, which is "a United Kingdom Government unit with responsibility for setting national policy and developing best practice for National Health Service (NHS) technology, digital and data, including data sharing and transparency." (Wikipedia)

The NHS has not been involved in this app; it was outsourced by the UK government to Pivotal VMWare.

Don't denigrate the NHS by claiming they had anything to do with this Matt Hancock-up.

bulk001 said:

People are always critical that Android makers are copying Apple. What innovation has Apple brought to iPhones recently? Thinner - yes, a newer camera - yes, increased speed in opening Safari - yes. Higher pricing to make it look cooler and more exclusive to the editorial writer here who says higher prices are better - yes. Beyond that? Not much between my current iPhone and the 6 I have as a backup. 

The "not much" part is the innovation bit:

• Face ID (and faster Face ID in the iPhone XS & XS Max)
• Bionic CPU
• The industry's first 7nm CPU in a mobile phone
• Faster CPU
• Faster GPU
• Better battery life
• Better screen technology
• True Tone
• P3 Wide Colour
• Dolby Vision
• HDR10
• 3D Touch
• Tap to Wake
• 120MHz touch sensing (on the iPhone XS & XS Max)
• Portrait mode photos
• Smart HDR
• Dynamic depth of field

Etc.

Wasn't it a commercial land grab that Facebook et al did in the first place? They pushed adverts onto my screen, whether I wanted them or not, and then they tied them to my browsing habits. Apple's ATT gives ME the ability to tell Facebook to sod off, and I have done so.

What this article seems to ignore is that we need Macs to write apps for every single iOS device out there. Without the Mac there would be no iOS, and if Apple keep paring down their offering, people won't be able to write apps because they won't want to be forced to buy something they aren't 100% invested in.

Some people prefer laptops for app development, some prefer desktops. Some need the cheapest Mac (the Mac mini) because they have a great app idea but don't have $1000 to try it out, and some are writing huge apps that need the raw processing power of a Mac Pro. It's not just "professionals" who buy the Mac Pro. Lots of people like to have the best they can afford. Not everyone is an uninformed consumer who just buys the low-end iMac because it was on display.

This is hilarious:

A Treasury spokesperson [...] said, "The UK continues to be at the forefront of the global action to tackle tax avoidance..."

According to this Tax Justice Network article from 21st November 2020:

The UK and its "spider's web" of overseas territories are responsible for more than a third of global tax avoidance each year, a study has found.
Abuse of the tax system by multinational firms and wealthy individuals deprived countries of $427bn (£321bn) for hospitals, nurses, schools and other public services last year, according to advocacy group the Tax Justice Network. Of that figure, more than $160bn was facilitated by the UK and its territories and dependencies.

Holy hell, it's difficult to read this story.

If you had X then Y happened unless you had Z in which case A*B-(4/C) would happen unless there was a goat in the country in which you were born. Jeez.

I had a Facebook account for about a year. Their algorithms decided to surface a video of two teenagers putting a kitten in a plastic bowl, squirting lighter fluid onto it, and setting it on fire.

I reported it. Facebook's moderators said it didn't breach their guidelines because "it could have been a video from an animal charity that was pointing out what they have to fight against". It wasn't from an animal charity - what sort of animal charity would show that?! - it was on the teenagers' pages.

In that moment, I closed my account, and I have had nothing further to do with that hellsite.

I don't care what Zuckerberg calls his wet dream. He is a terrible person, and I won't be having anything to do with him or his 'metaverse' bollox.

Facebook-owned Instagram showed a number of adverts for a "4K 10-300X40mm Super Telephoto Zoom Monocular Telescope (Released In July 2020)". It looked pretty cool, but rather than buying it I checked out the product and the company.

The product is available on Amazon for about £10-15.

This company were charging $59.99 (~£46).

The company has reviews showing it is a scam. There are 100+ reviews stating the company either doesn't send the product or sends an inferior product then offers you 30%, 40%, maybe 45% back as a refund. In the UK this is both false advertising and a criminal offence. I believe it's called a "bait and switch" in the US?

Facebook should be checking out these companies before they allow them to advertise on their platforms. So, you know what? I don't care that Facebook will lose money from Apple's new software. They aren't standing up for "small companies"; they're standing up for their own self-interests and finances.

It is Apple who is keeping people safe from such sh!tty companies, not Facebook.