kdupuis77

F_Kent_D said:

I myself didn’t have any issues with any of it TBH. I don’t have child pornography on anything I own and neither does anyone I know so I have nothing to worry about. They never were going to physically look at every photo, these are hash scans for particular data in the file details itself, not the actual photos. I also allowed the notifications setting on my 11 year old Daughter’s phone to notify me of potential unacceptable messages being sent or received. Let the paranoid people kill what could actually help end the CP sickness that’s more of an issue today than ever. 

It is an interesting balance between privacy concerns and the greater good of combatting the spread of CP online. I take my privacy very seriously and feel I very slightly come down on the side of preferring Apple not routinely scanning all my files and photos, but I can also appreciate the potential benefits of doing so to potentially aid in catching these predators as well. I dunno, it's a tough one but if you parallel this to "stop and frisk" and people saying "If you have nothing to hide, you won't have any reason to be worried" it does seem to contravene reasonable search and seizure without any probable cause to blanket troll through our data. Getting back to the Apple ecosystem, this is also akin to the AirTag privacy concerns vs. effective theft deterrent/tracking capabilities debate, though of course much more serious of a problem.

But I'll also be real, I am 1000% sure Google, Microsoft, etc. are scanning my data already looking for illicit content and merely ways to sell me more stuff anyhow lol. I agree with an earlier poster that Apple will likely contain their hash scanning to iCloud data stored locally on their own servers and just not publicize this information while leaving CSAM off of people's local hardware (which, as more and more customers move towards 100% storage of their data in the cloud, will be nearly just as effective one would think - I just migrated everything on my MacBook Pro/iPad/iPhone into iCloud fully myself this past summer, with just the occasional Time Machine backup taken to the HDD in my fire safe).

Either way you look at it, there is a growing percentage of people, of a particular ideological persuasion, that would have us all believe these predators (pedophiles) are just merely "minor attracted persons" and seem to want to normalize this deranged euphemism for them. Sickening.

Oh man, if I had the Music Voice Plan (and could only listen to music using Siri) I probably wouldn't get to listen to much music haha. It works fine on my iPhone and MacBook but man is Siri dumber than a doornail with music requests on HomePods. I've got 4x Minis throughout the house and it's such a fight with amnesia Siri I just end up controlling playback from my phone or watch to avoid the frustration. Can't imagine having to RELY on Siri alone haha.

coolfactor said:

I just discovered that the Passwords built into Settings supports Verification Codes. Not sure how I missed that. I've been slowly migrating all of my codes from the Google Authenticator app over to Passwords. The fact that these codes work seamlessly across macOS and iOS gives me exactly what I need. No more reaching for my phone every time I need to log into a site.

It’s a great feature to be able to generate one time passcodes on device like that! A lifesaver for me when I am out to sea on my ship and trying to login to my iCloud account, on a government computer, without the ability to receive a text or push notification to my devices. I leave my MacBook Pro’s local time in automatic and generate my codes there because the algorithm used to generate those codes is seeded with time and date information. If you change either manually it will cease to work lol. (I change my iPhone’s manually as we change time zones because it also functions as my alarm clock haha). Good stuff!

michelb76 said:

Anyone else have issues with safari logging you out of every site all the time? I have this issue since I updated to 14.4

I travel a lot for work, so I thought it was because I had been overseas for months and it was picking up my location change... But I've been reading many users having this issue. It's crazy annoying! Constantly having to login to EVERYTHING now, not even just banking sites..

First of all, I’m sure Apple themselves destroyed a solid amount of each new iPad for their own durability testing sake before release anyhow. If a couple of YouTube tech channels want to funnel a bit of their click money into funding apple products for the same kind of testing, who cares? Yeah, you won’t catch me trying my hardest to snap my new iPad Pro in half, but I’m glad there is some 3rd party testing available for free for my own reassurance these things can handle average everyday usage.

JerryRigEverything even complemented how much stronger this year’s model is compared to the last one he broke in half a good deal easier. His methodology is always the same on the numerous products he tests which is nice for an apples to apples comparison for tons of tech products, including those not made by apple. It makes financial sense for him as well since his clicks pay for the product and then after he completes his cursory tear down, he will then clean up and photograph the device for his skin collaboration with dBrand.

i don’t care for the videos of people randomly destroying expensive tech for clicks, but these type are at least informative in their nature and allow a first look at the innards before iFixit finishes putting their more in depth videos together.

Scot1 said:

We have both HomePods and Amazon echo. 

I’m so tired of hearing from Siri, “I found a result on the Internet, I can send it to your phone if you’d like.”   When I ask Alexa the same question, she answers the question almost immediately. Make no mistake, I love my Apple products, but at least until recently Siri has been hugely lacking. I suspect that’s one reason why so many of us use Amazon or Google for our smart device devices.

It's so bad sometimes I joke that Siri is my second wife since I argue with her so much haha. But seriously, it's so stupid at doing the most basic tasks or answering the most mundane questions it's mind numbing. I have 5x HomePod Minis around the home primarily for playing back music and podcasts as I'm doing things around our place... But half the time I need to use some HomeKit stuff I put my Apple Watch to my face or pull out my iPhone and use its power button to trigger "smarter Siri" on the iPhone. I dunno why it's so much worse on the HomePod than other Apple devices, but it often has me questioning if it weren't for the HomeKit integration, should I have bought into better quality speakers that would still let me stream my Apple Music and podcasts from my devices? Thinking of it now, I always have my Apple Watch on so I don't really need Siri speakers all over the place nowadays anyhow.

I pray that the Apple Intelligence "Super Siri" comes to the HomePods when it drops in a few weeks in iOS 18.1! At least I do get a kick out of listening my wife arguing with her at times too lol.

This one for the semi-relevant laughs though: https://fb.watch/vfIYQpU3UI/

JohnDinEU said:

Like Daalseth wrote, it is pretty annoying there’s nothing between 200 GB and 2 TB (I got the 200 GB package but would definitely be interested in 500 or close to that) If anyone has a great option to move please share. Thanks.

There actually is one way around that gap if you are subscribed to Apple One (Family or Individual Plan, doesn't matter), you can adjust your plan itself based on storage of course BUT, you can also add-on iCloud storage for an additional charge. For example, my wife and I have been hovering in the 180-200GB range for a while and earlier this year it just wasn't cutting it. I was pleasantly surprised to learn I can pay the $0.99/mo additional to add the 50GB iCloud plan on top of our Apple One Family plan's 200GB for a total now of 250GB. This is fantastic as once that no longer covers us, I can just upgrade the add-on storage up to the $2.99/mo 200GB Plan for a total of 400GB. If I go any farther than that, pricewise it would then make sense to go all the way up to the 2TB plan on our Apple One plan.

Also, if you have Verizon wireless service, you can purchase Apple One, or several individual Apple services, either individual or family, under your Verizon bill at a discount. The discount is even higher if you have a military/first responder/etc account level discount as well! Our Family Apple One costs $20.00/mo (Usually $25.95 directly from Apple) and then there is a 12% military discount on top to make it $17.60/mo! So there's another money-saving tip for Verizon customers and I bet the other carriers offer something similar nowadays too!

programmer said:

So... radical question here:  if these keyboards are plugged in, do they use USB to communicate or are they still bluetooth?  They're going to be useless to me if they still use BT when plugged in.

I’m pretty sure they default to USB communication vice Bluetooth when plugged in. I’ve been leaving my Magic Trackpad plugged into my Studio Display as it has terrible cursor lag with M-series Macs and I haven’t been able to fix it other than leaving it wired up, which is so much more responsive. 

Having been on the beta since first availability, I think my favorite feature of iOS 18.2 will be a working Mail app (assuming they unf*ck this app by then lol).

chasm said:

bloggerblog said:

Netflix was the first and the name is synonymous with internet videos. Every smart TV has it preinstalled.

I was on Netflix in the early days, when they had more variety, but every year I look around to see if it can woo me back, and every year my main thoughts are "this is just like bad commercial TV, only without the commercials." Too much junk, not enough things I would be interested in, by tastes vary of course and mine are probably off the mainstream.

I tapped out of Netflix 3 years ago and recently took a week free trial just to see how it was nowadays... Oh man, you aren't kidding on scraping the bottom of the barrel! Browsing through Netflix now feels like looking through the $3 DVD bins at the local WalMart haha... Just terrible, heck even Amazon Prime video has more worthwhile stuff in it to watch now.