Abalos65

mjtomlin said:

Abalos65 said:

jbdragon said:

mjtomlin said:

rogifan_new said:

"There's nothing about the way we run search in the App Store that's designed or intended to drive Apple's downloads of our own apps," said Schiller. "We'll present results based on what we think the user wants." 

So why did they tweak the App Store search algorithms then? Saying we did nothing wrong but we changed our algorithms anyway makes it seem like they were doing something wrong and corrected it after being outed by the WSJ and NYT.

Did you read?

They tweaked the algorithm so that grouping results by “producer” excluded Apple’s apps, but apparently left others as is.

Yes, Apple handicapped themselves to give others more of a chance. It's really UNFAIR to Apple, but I get it. People like to bitch. I don't think some people will be happy unless Apple is NEVER listed at all in any search.

Do you read the NYT article about the ranking of the App Store? Are the examples they showed fair in your assessment?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/09/technology/apple-app-store-competition.html

Depends... honestly... Everyone who searches the App Store is an Apple customer and user, first and foremost. It stands to reason a majority of people not in-the-know might very well search for Apple apps when they first get their devices. That would in fact sway results in Apple’s favor more often then not. The tweak Apple put in place might just be a handicap to get around that?

These articles are great when they only run with a single scenario - usually sensationalizing the negative. 

mjtomlin said:

Abalos65 said:

mjtomlin said:

Good for Apple.

The importance of Google’s Project Zero cannot be overstated, but the handling of this issue was sloppy and irresponsible. It’s now obvious this was little more than a smear campaign against Apple as the issue was not only fixed in a timely manner 6 months ago, but singling out iOS as the only target was disingenuous when vulnerabilities in Windows and Android were exploited as well.

There is no way the Project Zero team did not know ALL the facts of this “attack” and it’s apparent that Google marketing must’ve stepped in and decided to publicly disclose only certain aspects to disparage iOS.

Can you give a link to the supposed vulnerabilities being exploited in Windows and Android which Project Zero brushed under the rug?

The last part of your comment I find troubling, as it is a statement without a shred of evidence.

What’s more troubling about your comment is that people seem to want to hold some schmucks comment on a message board to a higher standard than actual journalists or “informed” bloggers. All over the internet supposed reputable writers make claims without anyone asking for “evidence” and they blindly follow.

There was nothing false in what the Project Zero engineers blogged about - which was the intricacies of the extremely complicated exploit; the hackers had to find and exploit more than a dozen different vulnerabilities to affect an iOS device. That exact exploit was in fact iOS only, but to believe or think that the hackers didn’t also target the other two major platforms is pure ignorance.

Anyone in-the-know believed that as well, and I believe it was Forbes that uncovered the fact that both Windows and Android vulnerabilities were exploited and the “two year” figure actually applies to those exploits, not iOS. Apple has the ability to determine how long a specific vulnerability has existed due to the fact that they know when that code was released into the wild and they have stated it was only possible to exploit up to two months prior.

The irony of this whole issue is that it was probably much, much easier for the hackers to “break” into Android and Windows, than it was to find a way into iOS.

cat52 said:

For those who think Europe has a well funded military, this article may catch you by surprise:

A German battalion assigned to Nato's rapid response force used broomstick handles instead of guns on a joint exercise due to chronic equipment shortages:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11420627/German-army-used-broomsticks-instead-of-guns-during-training.html


So please spare us the talk of how Europe can defend itself.

knowitall said:

seanj said:

avon b7 said:

lkrupp said:

iCave said:

I'm not sure which country you are from, but looking at high quality health care and affordable education provided in most of the European Union, it bears evidence that high taxes, when used the right way, do pay social dividends.

Complete baloney. The ONLY reason the EU has the social programs it has is because the EU members have NO military budgets to speak of. Instead the EU relies on the United States to protect it from the Russian Bear, the Middle East Islamic radicals. If the U.S. pulled out militarily from the EU and NATO those countries would have no choice but to dramatically increase their military budgets and those social programs would suffer big time. For over 70 years now the U.S. has spent its treasure to keep the peace in Europe.

Now that is baloney. The absence of conflict in Europe is precisely because of the EU. 

As for external threats and U.S 'protection', simply pull out of NATO if it costs too much!

That won't happen because the U.S wants to keep its military bases in Europe. It wants to continue selling arms. It needs NATO allies. Without them (however 'small' their financial contribution) the Gulf wars would not have been possible and with so much debt, the U.S is rapidly approaching a point where it might have hardware to parade around but no be able to use in actual conflict. Wars are expensive.

I'll take a balanced welfare state over any of that.


https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nato-budget-is-funded-2018-7

You're believing the spin from the Eurocrats I'm afraid, the EU has done NOTHING to prevent conflict in Europe.
When Yugoslavia split and war broke out, including ethnic cleansing, it wasn't the EU that stopped it, it was NATO with the USA and UK at the forefront.
As for the current ongoing war in the Ukraine, that's solely due to the EU courting the Ukraine to get them to join as part of their ongoing aggressive expansionist policy. Every observer pointed out that Russia would never allow Ukraine to join, but the EU persisted.
Meanwhile there is civil unrest across Europe - weekly riots in France for months - and the rise of extremists on both left and right due to the EU's disasterous Euro policy. Economists warned back in the 90's that allowing countries with divergent economies to use a common currency would result in economic collapse, so rules were put in place to stop it. But when Eurocrats realised that Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and France would fail the test and be excluded from the Euro, they decided to ignore their own rules. As a result they set in train the sovereign debt crisis that erupted in 2009 and is still ongoing. The reason they did this was simple to trap these countries in the EU, leaving after having adopted the Euro would be nearly impossible.

The USA and Canda should consider a mutual defence pact with a smaller set of countries - the UK and France account for nearly 50% of ALL of europe's military capability. In the long term, the like of Macron in France and the Eurocrats in Brussels want to undermine NATO and rely more on an EU Army. The hilarious thing is they don't want to fund it properly, for example, Germany's armed forces reduced to a token force with most ships, aircraft, and submarines unsable due to repairs being required.

The EU is forced upon its citizens (with no option to vote on it) by politicians aiming to get a very profitable second career at the EU parliament (effectively selling out the interests of their own country).

Rayer said:

AppleInsider said:

This is the computer that Phil Schiller should have saved the "can't innovate anymore, my ass" line for.

It's actually not all that innovative. It is a desktop computer with Intel's latest (assumed) Xeon CPU, off-the-shelf RAM, a custom motherboard (which Apple has always done to my knowledge), and a copy of Nvidia's SLI technology that they invented 15 years ago.

Yes, it is a super powerful computer, but that is because of the components that make it up. Nothing special that Apple did here that hasn't already been done by other companies. Even the "case comes with optional wheels" isn't original.