numenorean

Since when did Apple become "The Dongle Company"? No dongle, no play.
That phrase is my description of Apple this year. It started with the 12-inch MacBook, then moved to the iPhone 7...

Funny story. Was at a party with everyone plugging their phones in to play music, and the only person who couldn't? The iPhone 7 user, because of course, no headphone jack. Hahaha. No dongle, no play. That sucks.

... and now the new MacBook Pros follow the same ridiculous design philosophy. It's a pro machine that requires a dongle to interact with absolutely anyone and anything. It replaces a machine that has an SD card slot and an HDMI connector as well as two standard USB3s, a headphone jack, and two DisplayPort/Thunderbolt2 connectors, you know, the connectors ACTUAL professionals need and use every day. When you live in the real world, you see how practical having some of those ports really is, especially MagSafe, which has saved my MacBookPro a million times. Instead, Apple continues to indulge Jony Ive's obsession with removing usefulness for thinness. Eventually, the world may catch up to USB-C connectors, or we'll have a different one altogether, or not, but having it as the ONLY connector only forces us to carry more and more dongles at 20 to 40 bucks each. Apple...the Dongle company. The most ironic part of the whole presentation was Phil Schiller having to include VGA in his presentation, not DVI, but VGA, because in the real world, it continues to be ubiquitous, just like headphone jacks.

The new TouchBar is very cool though, and better than expected. I presume they left a model with keys to placate disabled users and those who prefer them. My biggest worry about the TouchBar was addressed and I love the possibilities of it. The positioning is a bit too far from the hand, requiring more effort than with keys or a keyboard, but it would have been too radical to put it in the logical place which would have been in the center row of the keyboard. I'm sure eventually we'll have those rumored e-ink display, configurable keys and other advanced keyboard formats. The current one seems an interesting step in the right direction. We'll see.

Just pondering...

rotateleftbyte said:

e350coupe said:

Are the majority of commenters really believing what you are saying. The FBI is trying to prevent further episodes like this, and Tim Cook is only interested in protecting his bottom dollar, the entire worth of Apple is not worth the single life of any of those of who died. Come to reality people we do not protect these people, and the only ones concerned in their protection, are obviously doing something, they have to protect. I guess the people who side with Apple on this will not care until it someone they care, or love, that gets killed.

As someone who has seen terrorist acts at first hand (IRA bombing of the Old Bailey in London) I probably have a different view than you of the matter at hand.
If Apple give in then we might as well just have been living in the old East Germany where almost everyone was an informer of one sort of the other. Or the world painted so vividly in '1984' where just having thoughts that didn't toe the government line was enough to get you sent to [insert gulag of your choice here].
Personally, because the two people who commited this offense went to the trouble of destroying their own phones and not this one leads me to think that there is nothing on it that would incriminate them.
so why the demand to see what's on it? I feel that is nothing more than a move to get access to everyone's phone, data (even if held locally) by setting a precident. Once the box is opened you can't close it again.
Oh, and to hell with the 5th Ammendment and any thoughts about using it in future. Pleading the 5th won't work if you have anything anywhere on this planet stored electronically that relates to the crime you are charged with.
The other bits of the US constitution that this rides rough shod over does IMHO make the whole thing useless. Did the founding fathers really mean for it to end this way? Somehow I doubt it.
Just my irrelevant $0.02 worth on the subject.

Well put rotateleftbyte, and as to what the founding fathers think of this, they were actually quite clear on the subject matter:

Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

Thomas Jefferson: "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." (Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.)

Jefferson also warned against using the "sluices of terrorism" as an excuse to remove our privacy and liberty.

George Washington: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

Patrick Henry: "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

The FBI already caught the perpetrators. The job is done. Anything else is an attempt to violate the principles of the founding fathers, the constitution, and the United States of America.

Just pondering...

fmalloy said:

dipdog3 said:

The more the US Government sues Apple in order to break into an iPhone, the better I feel about my privacy.

Yeah, because even terrorists need to keep their private data secure! It's totally ok for Google and Facebook to exploit your personal data for financial gain, but man do terrorists need their data confidential! And if Cook, Ive, or Eddy Cue's families were brutally murdered by terrorists I'm sure they'd continue to champion privacy and refuse to unlock a dead mass murderer's phone, right?

You've said it yourself: a DEAD mass murderer's phone. The killers have been caught and killed. The case is closed. Justice happened already. The families have had their revenge. So, yeah, Cook, Ive, and Eddy Cue would continue to champion privacy, as the phone wasn't useful to achieve the desired end result. Any further exploration is nothing but an excuse to spy on the innocent as it would not provide any useful information. Installing a backdoor would allow anyone, FBI or criminals, to access any private information (your bank account access, credit cards, your private thoughts, your identity) for whatever purpose they desire. Terrorists have plenty of tools for security and encryption against government's eyes beyond the U.S. and Apple (most anyone can encrypt communications without an iPhone beyond the U.S.), and in this case, Apple is the only company worried about protecting citizens from both criminals and an irresponsible government. Every terrorist has been caught (and most of them killed) without this, so endangering everyone with a backdoor isn't justifiable.

Again, as said by the founding fathers of our country:
Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Thomas Jefferson: "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." (Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.)

Just pondering...

1. If the perpetrators have been caught and killed, you don't need the keys to their phones (since you obviously didn't need them to catch them). You're just looking to violate innocent people's privacy using it as an excuse to get what you want. (They didn't need the Boston bombers' phones to catch them either.)
2. Apple isn't in the business of removing encryption and shouldn't be expected to, unless the FBI wants to pay Apple a few million to establish an encryption removal business (and they shouldn't be able to break their secure software, if it's really secure). Perhaps the FBI doesn't understand what "secure" or "private" means. It means we feel secure in our privacy, because we are (thanks Apple).
3. This has nothing to do with terrorism and all to do with spying on innocent citizens. Perhaps someone should spy on those who want a backdoor and break their personal encryption, exposing them to the reality of unsafe phones. I'd like to see what that FBI director says after his phone is hacked and his data exposed.
4. Our phones carry much more personal data than reasonably required for any investigation. To look into some of our phones would be to peer into our heads. It could be said that our phones are our second brain or memory. Should we give them access to our thoughts simply because we record them on a phone? I don't think so. A lot of the information could be highly misinterpreted, and it has been in the past with innocent people.
5. If you think that because you've never committed a crime and never will, you shouldn't worry about the government spying on you because "you have nothing to hide", think again. It's all great until you get convicted of a crime you didn't commit. Ask any of the innocents released this year, one of them after 12 years in jail.

Two of our founding fathers said it best:
Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Thomas Jefferson: "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." (Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.)

Just pondering...

Some of the comments here are just plain sad. It would seem some people here shouldn't live in the U.S. since they would like to censor freedom of speech and eliminate the rule of law. Abortion clinics are legal. You can say whatever you want and think whatever you want, but they continue to be legal, and therefore, people have a right to find them and use them. If Siri aspires to be used for search, then the search should provide what I'm asking for: an abortion clinic. It shouldn't attempt to push someone's specific view or sense of morality upon me. It should simply deliver what I asked for like any other search engine. Someone looking for an adoption clinic would have used adoption and not abortion as their search word, or did Siri not understand the difference between the two? What would the reaction have been, had it been the other way around? It's not sad. It's not strange. It's been a legal practice since 1973, which means it's been legal and normal and happening in large numbers for a large portion, if not all of our lives. If one disagrees, one can attempt to vote it out. That's a democracy, and that's what the U.S. is supposed to be. In the meantime, people can continue to do it and search for it.

I'm glad they corrected it. It has nothing to do with belief or opinion. It's legal and people have a legal right to search for it and use it. It's not being advertised. People are looking for it, and they should be able to find it.

So, Siri, where can I abort adults?

Just pondering...