David H Dennis

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David H Dennis
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  • Apple using 100 percent recycled magnets in iPhone 12, removing headphones and charger fro...

    How can I give my old charger to the person who gets my old iPhone if there’s no replacement with the box?  This also seems like a really rotten trick to play on someone who is new to iPhone. 

    This really stinks for people who want their friends to inherit their old devices.
    pulseimages
  • Inexpensive 'Apple Watch SE' may arrive at Apple's 'Time Flies' event

    It would be useful for me because my girlfriend's kids have Android phones, and here in Costa Rica, iPhones are too expensive for a gift.  I'd like to give one of them my current Apple Watch when I buy a new one, and this makes that feasible.  That way they can do fitness tracking with me, which would be very cool.  I just hope the new software would work on older watches as well as the spiffy new models.
    watto_cobra
  • Apple may launch its own web-based search engine

    Google has to get those billions they pay Apple somewhere, presumably from the ads.  And they would not make much money if they gave Apple more than a relatively token percentage.

    So it should be relatively easy for Apple to make more money  by selling ads based on your search terms, which does not represent a privacy issue.  You are never connected to a live identity, you are just someone who searched for MacBook Pros.  Then you get ads for them.

    I think many people would like a search provider more trusted than Google but with a better brand and more resources than DuckDuckGo. I think it's potentially a very good business for them.
    watto_cobra
  • Apple silicon Mac documentation suggests third-party GPU support in danger

    MplsP said:
    the software developers in the crowd can answer this for me-
    Apple has shown that it can design processors. Even if we assume they can also design a graphics processor with capabilities on par with AMD or Nvidia, what does that mean for the software? If a developer has a piece of software that was designed to work with a 'traditional' graphics card, will it need to be re-written to actually work well with Apple's processor? Requiring software to be re-written would mean less software that is optimized and less software in general.

    Also, there's the problem of scale. Every Mac sold will use the Apple processor but the majority of people buying Macs don't really care about graphics processing. That makes the return on investment for designing and developing a high-end graphics processor more difficult. By using a 3rd party graphics card you let the other company develop and only the people who are interested in the capabilities pay for it.
    Think about it this way.

    For several years now Apple has implemented a graphics layer called Metal.  The name implies that it is a very direct interface to graphics cards.  But it is not completely direct, because Apple does not control the graphics cards and so there has to be a translation layer between what Apple does and the card's implementation.

    So imagine if Apple controls graphics.  Then Metal really is metal — the cards will be designed from the ground up to implement Metal directly.  Pow!  That should mean far superior performance to traditional cards.  Unless you don't think Apple can afford to hire the world's best graphics engineers?

    And of course the neural network features alone show that Apple has proven expertise in multi-core processor implementation.

    So to directly answer your question, Apple graphics programmers use Metal.  So whatever they write will run without changes on the new platform.  Just a lot faster, that's all.  Bam!

    macplusplusGG1fastasleeptmaychiajony0watto_cobra
  • Apple acquires popular weather app Dark Sky

    Dark Sky is a great app!  I hope the developers did well by this and will continue to work with Apple to improve weather forecasting for all.
    watto_cobra