ecarlseen
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Third-party App Stores will only work for 30 days if you leave the EU
I wonder how they'll know if the user is in the EU.Should a purchaser leave a European Union country, an app downloaded from one of these app stores can only be updated for 30 days -- but it will function beyond that time frame. Users can still use the marketplaces to manage previously installed apps, but they must physically be in the European Union to install marketplaces and new apps from those stores.
Location services?
IP address?
Turning off location services and using a VPN may work around this. It will be interesting to see how hard and far Apple will be willing to go to push enforcement.
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A new call feature on X is on by default, and you should probably turn it off
If you're using a VPN app or Apple iCloud Private Relay then you are protected here. The "Enhanced Call Privacy" option will degrade call performance somewhat if enabled, so it's an important feature to be aware of but it's not necessary for everyone.There's also an option to enable a feature called "enhanced call privacy."
Unless you've checked enhanced call privacy, X will disclose your IP address to the person on the other end of your call. Your IP address can be used to get a rough approximation of your location.
By toggling on enhanced call privacy, X will route your call through a peer-to-peer service that hides your IP address from the other party. AppleInsider highly suggests that, even if you're fine with receiving calls, you should still enable enhanced call privacy.
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What's really going on with Apple's modem chip efforts?
I lived in San Diego for years and have had quite a few friends on Qualcomm's engineering teams, and this is what I've heard:Many of the nuts-and-bolts details of making cellular modems (especially everything from CDMA / 3G onward) are kept as trade secrets - they aren't in the patents or official specifications. The specifications cover the results you're supposed to achieve for successful compatibility, but how to actually meet those specs in the very messy real world of hideously-congested spectrum, signal blockage and reflections, MIMO, etc., has a difficulty level of "completely insane." Remember that Intel, one of the world's largest and most successful silicon engineering companies backed by a huge pile of operating cash and purchase agreements, fell flat on its face trying to do this. Their 4G modems were garbage and they could never get 5G to work at all. Apple also has loads of top-tier engineering talent and a mountain of cash, but they are going to have to hack through a lot of difficult problems along this journey and it's not surprising that they're behind schedule.
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New HomePod vs 2018 HomePod - compared
Seriously, while the decrease in WiFi protocol and the amount of speakers and microphones might seem like odd decisions, the end product might actually be better and sound better too… I’ll be waiting for comparison reviews and might replace my two original HomePods (which are still working perfectly after 5 years, running the latest firmware) if they are found to be better sounding.
Y’all should give the product a chance before writing it off. Just my two cents.I wasn't attacking the new HomePod. I have an original HomePod. Sits by my bedside. I use it often. I'm quite happy with it, even at the price. I'm glad they've introduced a real replacement.I was merely explaining why WiFi-4 is still a popular choice with device vendors. The comment about WPA3 was a side-issue related to that. Incidentally, WiFi-4 spec was finalized in 2008, WiFi-5 in 2015. WPA3 was not available until 2018, was integrated as part of 802.11ac Wave 2 (WiFI-5½) and WIFI-6, and was not considered mandatory for WiFi logo requirements until 2020 (there were a lot of cheap garbage WiFi-6 devices that only have WPA2). It's theoretically possible to use WPA3 with WiFi-4 and WiFi-5 radios and somebody has probably done it, but it's not official spec. WiFi-7 is bringing changes to fix the whole IoT WiFi mess with some accommodations for ultra-low-power devices (yay!).To really get into the weeds, the WPA3 issue with IoT is that the protocol requires massively more CPU power than WPA2. Keep in mind that most IoT devices run on microcontrollers that are so simple and tiny they make even small ARM cores look like gigantic power-hungry beasts by comparison.
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New HomePod vs 2018 HomePod - compared
Because it's based on the S7 chip from the Apple Watch. WiFi 4 may be old, but as long as you don't really care about massive bandwidth then it still absolutely rules in terms of signal range vs. power consumption. This is why most battery-powered wireless security cameras and other IoT devices still use WiFi 4. The newer standards would trade off battery life for no meaningful gain in performance. Now that WPA2 deauth attacks against cameras are becoming more of a thing, some of them are moving up to WiFi 6 so they can use WPA3 (which still doesn't solve the jamming problem but whatever; if it's important then run a wire).charlesn said:Sometimes I really don't understand Apple decisions. WiFi 7 is just around the corner, with the draft standard having been written two years ago, but the 2023 Home Pod takes us back to WiFi 4 (or "n") that debuted in 2009? I get that it doesn't need the speed of WiFi 6, but there are far fewer routers and devices currently using 6, which becomes a helpful factor when you live in an apartment building and 40-something networks other than your own come up under wifi. How much extra could wifi 6 support have cost Apple? Similarly, why not support the latest Bluetooth standard, 5.3, in a newly released speaker, instead of 5.0 from 7 years ago?
This doesn't really hurt anything performance-wise on the HomePod and lets them use what is likely their least-expensive CPU that does everything important.
