heinzel
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Apple is back to lobbying against right-to-repair bills
I think this is a terrific idea, basically putting software infrastructure in place to allow the user to choose whether to use an Apple-keyed part or a third-party part. It would be part of the registration process for new phones. It also would have to allow phones to be marked for sale or use (if already owned by the person using the parts from a device to repair another device), to keep the parts’ validation chain intact. Finally, devices could drop out of the system when they are no longer supported, and then their parts could be used to repair other devices or be repaired by previously registered parts from other devices without restrictions.mfryd said:There are both advantages and disadvantages to parts pairing."Security" also includes physical security. Locking a phone to a particular Apple ID, and parts pairing both reduce the value of a stolen iPhone.If an iPhone is locked to a particular Apple ID, it has less value as it can't be used by anyone else. That means the value in a stolen iPhone is in "parting" it out. However, if the parts are locked to a particular serial number, they have less value as it can't be used to repair a different phone.If Apple can reduce the value of a stolen iPhone, then I am safer, as it is less likely that I will get hurt by someone trying to steal my iPhone.The real question is whether the good done by parts pairing outweighs the bad done by parts pairing.One solution is software. Right now, Apple only allows the pairing of a replacement part if it was purchased from Apple. They could change this policy. Instead they could allow pairing of any part, unless that part was already associated with an iPhone that was locked to an Apple ID (or reported as stolen). That would keep the advantage that the parts to a stolen phone have little value. Yet it would allow the owner of a broken phone to sell the parts for others to use. It also allows Apple to continue to restrict replacement parts to genuine Apple parts.While it seems that a third part screen would not be a security risk, we used to think the same thing about third part USB or FireWire devices. However clever people have figured out how to hack into computers using these sorts of devices.
The only drawback that I can see (other than it being a costly process to implement, based on how many software and hardware engineers would need to work on this) is that from the outside this at first seems way more restrictive than what people think is the current status quo, and that it’s difficult to broadcast the details of why to implement a complicated system like this to the public/lawmakers. But then, such was setting up the App Store, and ultimately most people agree that it’s a good idea to track software provenance instead of just installing whatever.
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Vanpowers UrbanGlide Pro E-Bike review: Navigates the city with ease
Worth noticing that superior hardware (yet without app support) is available for much less, e.g. currently $1600 for a 1 kWh battery, 750 W motor, 9-speed shifter: https://www.juicedbikes.com/products/crosscurrentx?variant=39461568577600 (disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the manufacturer, but I have owned one of these for the past 5 years, it's been awesome for commuting).
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iPhone 15 has new battery health controls to prevent charging past 80%
Yep, keeping the battery from fully charging increases both service life and overall energy delivered (from https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries). This data is from charging at constant 20°C temperature; the increased battery temperature when charging phones likely further exacerbates capacity loss, especially when rapid charging with high current.elijahg said:Actually... Most wear to lithium batteries is in the topping charge (80%+). Preventing the battery exceeding 80% does genuinely increase battery lifetime quite significantly. If a user doesn't discharge their battery to <20% by the end of the day, there is no point in charging it to 100% and causing more wear. Better to use the lower 0-80% than the upper 20-100%. This is why Apple limits the charge to 80% as much as possible at night, which is a relatively small proportion of time, but the battery improvement is enough that they deem it worth it.
I hope this comes to older iPhones too.
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Everything Apple Sherlocked in macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16
I agree. The Touch Bar may not have many uses but it has saved me countless hours by allowing me to scroll through pre-content video ads. That alone has made it extremely useful.markbriton said:I’m just jumping in to show some love for the Touch Bar! I totally understand why it’s not for everyone, but I was really pleased to see it survive. I’m someone who hardly ever used function keys in the first place, so the Touch Bar is a nice little feature for me that I use occasionally, certainly more than I ever used that row of keys before. I wish developers would show it a bit more love, but now that it seems banished to the 13” MBP only, I fear it’s days are numbered. Personally I think it should be an option on all the MBPs, I’d happily pay a little extra for it, but it sounds like I might be the only one!
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'M1X' MacBook Pro set to arrive in 'several weeks'
The Touch Bar may be somewhat of a gimmick and mostly orphaned, but it has one trick up its sleeve that has saved me days of my life: the video progress bar on the Touch Bar can be used to fast forward through most mandatory ads, which is super-convenient when e.g. watching online news. Unless there’s another way to do this, not having a Touch Bar will mean waiting for up to a minute until an ad is through. Doesn’t sound like much, but guesstimating that I use it to skip perhaps a dozen 30-second ads per day, over the five years I’ve had my MBP that adds up to 182.5 hours!!MplsP said:
I've had a Touch Bar on my MBP for 5 years. I've gotten used to it but rarely do I find it useful for much more than what I could do with the plain function keys and on a regular basis my fingers will overshoot the number keys and touch the Touch Bar, triggering some action I don't want.rcfa said:Not happy about the lack of touch bar.
The Moment the revised edition was made with a separate physical ESC key, everything was fine.
The only instance where the touch bar wasn’t an asset but a drawback was during a Boot Camp Windows recovery boot, when one was supposed to press an Fn key before the touch bar drivers to enable it acting as function keys was loaded, but that was easily fixed by temporarily attaching an external USB keyboard.
If Apple does indeed do away with the touch bar entirely, and not just some entry level models, it’s a pity.
Regardless, it's been an orphan 'product' since the day it was introduced. They put in in the MacBook pros but never added it to any of the desktops and never even expanded it to the entire line of laptops. It was often counterintuitive, made you look down at the keyboard to use it, and was prone to accidental inputs. (Oddly, though, when I intentionally touched the icon to change keyboard layouts it would fail to register more often than not.)
The fact that they never expanded it to desktops meant developers were put in a quandary about how to implement it and couldn't use it for any major workflows lest they strand desktop users. If you used both a desktop and a laptop you either had to continually adjust when going back and forth or never bothered to use it at all. About the only thing I really found it useful for was skipping through ads on YouTube.
When it was first introduced, a lot of people called it a gimmick. Turns out they were pretty much right. I'm glad to see Apple is saving the money and using for other things.
Edit: sorry MplsP, I just realized you mentioned this already for YouTube, another place where the Touch Bar saves a lot of time - my 182.5 hours are a gross underestimate, then!
