citpeks
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Brazilian iPhone thieves demonstrate importance of responsible password practices
maltz said:Yet another reason why using SMS to send 2FA or recovery codes is a bad idea...
And yet, financial institutions, and "security" companies like Ring still insist on using them as valid forms of verification. The latter actually made an effort to drive all their users to SMS codes, in lieu of other methods available before.
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a right to repair advocate
In principle, I am for the right to repair. I do my own repairs, when feasible, and don't like the "disposable junk" nature of a lot of goods sold today.However, as a practical matter, I understand the difference between repairing my car, an appliance, or simpler electronics, versus my iPhone or iPad.I can understand Apple's position in discouraging non-qualified personnel, or tinkerers from messing around with their products, because it can result in poor results, and ultimately reflect badly on the company. OTOH, Apple's tight control of parts and service information may be too restrictive, so something to expand the pool of AASPs can be a good thing.Ultimately, I'm afraid that a lot of the nuance will be lost by the regulators who have been directed to draft new the new rules, and the cacophony generated by a minority of dogmatic repair advocates might ultimately result only in little, if any benefit to users, as well as failing to placate the advocates, and nothing will really change.The independent shops might be able to get access to Apple's service tools and parts, but they, as well as their customers, should be prepared for the costs, as Apple won't be obligated to make them available as a cost that provides any advantage over just going directly to Apple.Sounds great, but the devil will be in the details.As for Woz, his place in Apple history is assured, but cobbling together parts to build an Apple ][ in the 70s is quite different than building an iPhone today, in many, many respects. Nobody is going to simply replace a tube in their iPad to get it working again. It has a small logic board with tiny, surface mounted (custom) integrated circuits and other components that Apple doesn't even bother to perform board-level repairs on itself.He may be the lovable co-founder/crazy old uncle who can tell you amusing stories from his heydays, but can he speak with authority about today's technology, or business, especially given his noted lack of acumen in regard to the latter? One great hit in his repertoire, but just one hit nonetheless.
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Chip shortage to get worse before it gets better, says Intel CEO
waveparticle said:The people that know the detail are hiding facts. Who are the suppliers of auto chips? No one is willing to tell this fact.Renesas is a big supplier to the auto industry. It had a fire in its main factory back in March, which did not help things. It also contracts production to TSMC, which, we know is quite busy, and prioritizing good clients like Apple. The recent Covid outbreak in Taiwan has also affected production there, including important suppliers needed for that production chain.Most of the chips used in vehicles aren't sexy, like computer CPUs and GPUs. They're smaller microcontrollers, which may be based on Arm and PPC (Moto/Freescale) architectures, but built on older processes and undergo more validation testing. They have to be more conservative, because, even now, vehicles aren't frequently patched like computers and devices are; once they're made a part of a component like a engine ECU, or body computer, they're pretty much set for the life of the vehicle, running the firmware they were originally shipped with. They also live a harder life, in more varied environments in terms of climate and RF exposure. But, with more and more glass cockpits and other tech elements in new cars, chips more like computer CPUs and GPUs are seeing more frequent use.Storms in Texas also affected Samsung's factory, which produces controllers for drives and displays, which also perform more specific functions, like the automotive chips.Not sure why the press keeps quoting Intel, which mostly deals in CPUs and such, or why it thinks it can speak for everyone else making the chips in short supply that they don't. The people who aren't guessing, and can provide better insight are those from TSMC, Renesas, Samsung, or others like STMelectronics.Product X isn't on shelves because Intel is falling short on supplying I5s and such to manufacturers. It's all the little supporting chips that are the issue.
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Microsoft Windows 11 revealed with dramatic increase in system requirements
dewme said:I only half agree about the window size and positioning issues are a shortcoming of macOS. Individual applications have always been able to implement the ability to retain their window positions and sizes themselves. I’ve implemented such behaviors in apps myself and most drawing apps with floating pallets and toolboxes do this.I suppose the operating system could provide additional support for this capability, beyond what is already provided in terms of making screen metrics available to query and firing events for things like screen resolution changes, but each application is much more aware of what its own needs are and how to move its controls around to make sure that the UI still functions correctly when the operating system enacts changes in the overall UI. I still see it at least as a shared responsibility between the OS and apps.My complaint isn't with app windows, or controls in general, but the basics, and in particular, the Finder.My style of workflow carries over from Classic OS, where every window, without fail, would retain its characteristics (size, position, content view), and used with multiple windows. The Spatial Finder paradigm that John Siracusa has repeatedly ranted about. Fix the F*cking Finder (FTFF).In turning NeXT's foundation into OS X, some useful concepts were brought over, like column view, but the basic approach was different. Some concessions were made to have the OS X Finder more closely resemble the Classic Finder, but it's as if they were made through the prism of a non-Mac user's perspective, and therefore not quite right.(Also recall that during that time, early peeks at OS X revealed a menu bar with a centered Apple that was purely ornamental, and not a functional menu. Sanity prevailed, and that was abandoned, but it did reflect the kind of "WTF is going on" thinking from the people who were shaping the new OS.)That persists to this day (or at least through Mojave, which I still use because I have a couple essential 32-bit apps; but I doubt 10.15 or 11 are any different), and manifests itself though things like opening a folder, and finding that it no longer has the desired size, position, or content view characteristics it was set up with.I find that still happens every so often, which is both maddening and frustrating. And when it does, trying to recreate the desired view doesn't necessarily "stick," which leads to more frustration. Create a folder, set up the desired views, close it, and reopen it again to find it has reverted to the default setup. That's now how the Finder should work, especially when it didn't before.There is an element of uncertainty to how windows act, and that should not be the case, even if one chooses to adopt the single window "portal" style Apple prioritized after the switch. As @Xed points out, these are fundamentals that shouldn't require a piece of 3rd party software to fix, and should have been fixed long ago.UIs do change and evolve. But consistency and predictability are traits that should be present in any interface, and sometimes that's still not the case.
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Microsoft Windows 11 revealed with dramatic increase in system requirements
In my experience Windows 10 doesn't run great with its minimum 2GB requirement (yeah,a cheap boss), so it will be interesting to see if the new 4GB requirement will be more of the same. Adding RAM resulted in a palpable improvement.One of the Mac things I really miss when using Windows is Exposé, and it doesn't appear they've added anything like that, but the Snap layout feature might be handy.I still wish Apple did a better job with window management, even something simple like remembering size and position, which sometimes goes awry, but after all these years of OS X, the FTFF dream is probably dead.
