blah64
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Apple policies against data collection an advantage in digital health market, Cook says
christopher126 said:
Thanks Blah...I wasn't specific enough in my Post. I did ask them "if they harvest and sell my data." They all replied promptly to my emails. Thanks for the additional info.blah64 said:christopher126 said:I've switched off all my sharing of data with Apple and developers on all my devices, MacBook, iPad mini, SE.
I've deleted all superfluous third-party apps. I only use Apple first-party apps, E.g., Podcasts, Notes, Pages, News, etc.
I use DuckDuckGo as for search, iTunes for entertainment and iCloud for cloud services.
I've emailed the few third-party apps I need, i.e., Ting (mobile phone provider) SmartReporter, DropBox, ToothFairy, Brother (Printer) etc., and they've all responded they don't share data with FaceBook or Google!
Best.That's a nice start. But asking only if they share with fb/goog is only part of the picture. An important part, no doubt, but not the only concern. Many companies share with a wide variety of data brokers and others as well. It would be better to ask (if they'll tell you) ALL 3rd parties that get ANY information about customers, even if "anonymized" (since so-called anonymized data often really isn't anonymous).Also, most printers themselves (not even talking about the apps) phone home if you attach them freely to your WiFi network. Our printers are firewalled from sending ANY information outbound, but that's beyond the typical consumer's ability and printer manufacturers know that and take advantage of it. Just like all the IoT stuff these days. I'm looking at you Ring!
Best Regards.Not to belabor this, because you're not only paying attention, but acting on what you've learned, which is better than 98% (made up #!) of people I talk with.But when you ask about, or if they respond with stuff like: we don't "sell" your data, those are weasel words. Maybe these few companies you contacted don't actually sell your data, but that doesn't mean they don't give it away, trade it, rent it, or allow others to access you via indirect use of that data. It's dirty out there in the data collection world.Remember, google will also say they don't "sell your data", and while I have no way to prove it, I believe those words. However, they do create incredibly detailed profiles of you and sell access to you based on that data. It allows them to get away with saying that they don't sell or give away that data, but it's still there, and taken advantage of by countless other companies. The mere fact that it exists also means that it (or portions) will almost certainly be hacked at some point (again), and eventually government will end up with access as well. I don't think this last part will happen imminently, but eventually it's almost certain to happen, there's just too much value there, and because lawmakers' opinions ebb and flow with political tides, it only takes a single "high tide" to change everything.Bottom line is that this amount of personal behavioral data isn't safe for any company to own.In any case, you're taking good steps, just want to try to raise your awareness even further because it sounds like you care.
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Apple policies against data collection an advantage in digital health market, Cook says
christopher126 said:I've switched off all my sharing of data with Apple and developers on all my devices, MacBook, iPad mini, SE.
I've deleted all superfluous third-party apps. I only use Apple first-party apps, E.g., Podcasts, Notes, Pages, News, etc.
I use DuckDuckGo as for search, iTunes for entertainment and iCloud for cloud services.
I've emailed the few third-party apps I need, i.e., Ting (mobile phone provider) SmartReporter, DropBox, ToothFairy, Brother (Printer) etc., and they've all responded they don't share data with FaceBook or Google!
Best.That's a nice start. But asking only if they share with fb/goog is only part of the picture. An important part, no doubt, but not the only concern. Many companies share with a wide variety of data brokers and others as well. It would be better to ask (if they'll tell you) ALL 3rd parties that get ANY information about customers, even if "anonymized" (since so-called anonymized data often really isn't anonymous).Also, most printers themselves (not even talking about the apps) phone home if you attach them freely to your WiFi network. Our printers are firewalled from sending ANY information outbound, but that's beyond the typical consumer's ability and printer manufacturers know that and take advantage of it. Just like all the IoT stuff these days. I'm looking at you Ring! -
Facebook to rein in suspect market research programs following reprisals from Apple, publi...
sflocal said:
Facebook already allows users to download everything that FB knows about them.racerhomie3 said:Make Facebook release all information it knows about its users. It’s time for transparency.This isn't true, and it's misleading when people keep repeating it.1) Facebook maintains shadow profiles of people who do not have accounts. There is no way to even know what data points they've gathered about you unless you create an account. If someone doesn't have an account in 2019, clearly they have a reason for not wanting one, so essentially that data is not visible to those people. https://www.cnet.com/news/shadow-profiles-facebook-has-information-you-didnt-hand-over2a) The quantity of data that FB has for most people is so voluminous that people, i.e. humans, can't understand what it means to a huge machine learning system. This is called Information Asymmetry, and it's an important economic, read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry2b) This is really important, and people just don't understand. FB will show you a bunch of data points, but they will not show you all their correlated and derived information. That's the stuff that's dangerous.For example, you can see geo-coordinates of where you've been, and you can even request FB to delete them (though FB is notorious for never actually deleting anything, just making it invisible to you, the user). But what they will never show you is what information they derive about you from those raw data points. You tend to stop by at a hotel on Thursday evenings before going home. That might not seem unusual looking at a map of just your travels; maybe you're a salesperson or you're friends with the evening desk clerk. But wait, one of your opposite-sex coworkers also stops at that hotel on the same Thursday evenings on the way home, departing at the same time. FB knows you're both married, and this data has allowed them assign a high likelihood that the two of you are having an affair, which can then serve as input to a bunch of other analyses. It doesn't even matter if the conclusion is correct or not, this is data that FB has about you that you will NEVER get to see. It may even be ephemeral, but it exists because the core data exists.Just following your location from home to work and back tells them whether you drive, take the train, take the bus, and that in turn serves as inputs to other analyses. Depending on your mode of transportation and the specific locations that you live and work, they will make determinations about how much money you make, whether you live an active life, whether you're likely to use recreational drugs, and thousands of other assumptions like political affiliations, religious affiliations, etc. Based solely on your location data, depending on population density where you live, it can be easy to see if you visit a gastrointestinal specialist, or an oncologist, or a rheumatology clinic. Even if you don't post anything about it.But of course people do post, they send "private" messages to their friends, send emails to their doctors' offices, visit web sites with FB trackers (like buttons), they upload their full Contacts List data, and all the other stuff FB users tend to do. The examples above were based solely on location, imagine what can be derived from all of this information combined. And then there's the data purchased from data brokers like Equifax, Acxiom, and hundreds of others.Bottom line is that the data points FB shows you are only a small fraction of what FB knows about you.Obviously, FB is not the only company that does this.
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Apple plans new 16- to 16.5-inch MacBook Pro in 2019 aimed at pro designers
I actually semi-agree with this. It was an interesting article, and it did make a point, but the situation was contrived.fastasleep said:
If we're thinking of the same article — it was only in the context of charging devices at a conference, and the guy literally packed the wrong stuff to charge all devices at once and was willfully obtuse about the whole thing. It was ridiculous and had a clickbait title about not being ready to move to USB-C yet, even though it covered nothing other than a manufactured problem.blah64 said:Making the full changeover to USB-C without any kind of transition period where people have both available is really shitty. Of course it's totally Apple's personality. Eventually, USB-C will probably be where things end up, but even AI staff, who I note are generally big USB-C cheerleaders, wrote about their difficulties trying to go USB-C-only, and also articles explaining the complexities of
There are a few other issues about cable types that have been covered here, but any professional should be able to navigate those issues.
Sure, and I said something about that above. With enough effort, understanding, buying the right cables or adapters, and remembering to have them with you all the time, this is something that can be worked around. It doesn't mean it's convenient.Right now I have a set of machines where all the connectivity I need is super convenient. Everything just works, it's with me all the time on all my machines, and I don't have to carry around any dongles or adapters. Nothing. So regardless of workarounds, for me the stripping of ports is a big step backwards in convenience. Not to mention, having to deal with this across multiple machines.I'd prefer a faster machine, but even the slope of that vector has come way down. The processor speed difference from my machine to the top of the line 2018 (non BTO/CTO) is only 80-ish %, and that's over almost 7 years of updates! Yes, other subsystems have improved as well, so the real-world throughput would be somewhat better than that, but I'm not ready to drop a big chunk of change and an enormous of time to rebuild all my tools, drivers, etc. without a really huge improvement to my overall usage. And this doesn't even include the displays.Other than eventual huge speed differentials, I'm not sure at this point what would pull me to ever update my laptops. That's messed up. The reason I'm troubled is that eventually they will physically die, and also the OS updates will stop being available for this generation of hardware. So at some point it's going to cost me a bunch of money AND become less convenient.
I feel like you're overstating this somewhat. I honestly don't see any "grossly obvious reflections" much less my face in either light or dark rooms, unless there's something like a direct line of sight to a lamp or something. I've got a 30" ACD (matte) and my MBP screen in front of me at both home and in my office and while I can definitely tell the MBP is more reflective, I would not say any reflections are "grossly obvious". And again, I'm fairly sensitive to reflections similarly to the way you describe. It's definitely WAY better than the 2011-2012 iMacs in this room I'm in at the moment. just saying.Clearly, changing positions can help alleviate the worst of the worst, but daylight is daylight, reflections are there. Even in a fairly dark room, the display itself casts enough light that one's own face is reflected in the screen. I truly don't understand how people can ignore such grossly obvious reflections.Again, you can think what you want, but they are there, and I can't ignore them. They don't generally give me headaches, like many people get, but eye strain and stress, yes. Difficult to concentrate. Maybe you could code while someone is nudging you or playing with your hair all day, or talking loud on the phone right next to your office, but I can't. Same with reflections, they're a constant distraction, and people's eyes end up working harder than they need to, causing stress.Even iPhones are yuck, from a glare perspective. Thankfully the screens are very small, and extremely adjustable angles being as they're handheld. I still see the reflections, but fortunately for me, I don't spend much time on phones.Research shows that glare on computer screens leads to digital eye strain. Pull up any credible source.even Popular Science. ;-)They all suggest things like matte screen filters. That used to be the default. Then we had to pay to get it as an extra. Now, no options at all. And no, the stick-on filters suck, unfortunately.
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Apple plans new 16- to 16.5-inch MacBook Pro in 2019 aimed at pro designers
I wouldn't say that's a good reason to remove the matte option. It's one factor out of several competing factors, that weighs favorably toward glossy for some people. While gamut and dynamic range are indeed wider on glossy, reflections are clearly worse, as is focal eye strain, and everything I've read says that color accuracy is higher on matte, not glossy. Quick search for a recent comparison article here: https://www.imore.com/matte-vs-glossy-which-display-should-you-buy ; I'm not an expert in this area, but I've read the same thing about color accuracy for many years from many sources. Even if you could find an article that stated otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to believe it over all the countless other analyses I read during the time of changeover to glossy displays. Color accuracy isn't a big deal for me personally, but is there something everyone else is missing?lorin schultz said:
Does it help any to know there's a good reason the matte screens went away? They limit both the color gamut and dynamic range the screen can reproduce. Getting rid of the matte finish allows for displays that have a much broader range from dark to bright and much more accurate color.blah64 said:But the biggest mistake you made is trying to say what works for me as far as screens go. First, I pay a LOT of attention to this, and I am not ignorant of the machines Apple builds. I've been buying and using Apple computers almost exclusively for 40 years, Macs for 34 years, primarily as a developer for many of those years. I live close enough to an Apple store that I probably visit more than once/month on average, and I know dozens of friends and family with these crappy screens that I've tried over and over through the years. I've seen the reflections change with refinement from product to product, and over 6-7 years of glossiness I've seen some improvement of these "mirror screens", but it was from horrendous to just bad. And then at one point they actually got worse again. There is one simple statement that you cannot argue with, and that is that there are reflections. They're never not there. Apparently many humans have the ability to ignore reflections, but I don't understand that phenomenon, and quite frankly I don't understand how anyone can tolerate reflections in a screen you're staring at for hours on end. In any case, doesn't work for me, they are quite literally unusable.
Knowing that obviously doesn't affect your sensitivity to reflections, but it might be motivation to look into strategies for dealing with it. Maybe it's worth sometimes adjusting the screen angle or your seating position if the trade-off is a more accurate image.
Clearly, changing positions can help alleviate the worst of the worst, but daylight is daylight, reflections are there. Even in a fairly dark room, the display itself casts enough light that one's own face is reflected in the screen. I truly don't understand how people can ignore such grossly obvious reflections. I read a lot of people say "oh, you'll get used to it". But they're not only fatiguing (glossy screens cause your eyes to work harder to focus), they're mentally stressful (for me). It makes me think about things like: what if your job required a coworker sitting next to you while you're working, poking you in the arm, over and over and over and over. Never stopping. For-ev-er. I suppose some people might eventually learn to cope with it and say "oh, you'll get used to it" and actually think they're no longer feeling it themselves, but I'm very confident that I would never get used to it. I'd end up choosing a different company, or career.I know it's not just me, my quick search above also let me to: https://macmatte.wordpress.com/A little out of date, but good information, hundreds of comments, and one comment (let me go find it... comment #15, meta-lists a bunch of different survey results). It's not an insignificant portion of the population that prefers matte, it's just that with nothing else available on the Mac platform, most people can deal with it. That's not exactly a resounding victory cry.
It's not as daunting as it sounds to be Boy Scout prepared. All my devices have USB-C cables on them. To the end of the cables I have attached these compact, inexpensive adapters:blah64 said:And keychain adapters? LOL. I'm sure as hell not going to add crap to carry around in my pockets 24/7, it's bad enough with all the keys I need to carry, phones, glasses, etc. I'm over capacity as it is. Perhaps for someone who carries a purse that could be feasible, but it's not a good general solution. This is just making excuses and trying to cover up for a lack of ports.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01C43FUIW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06__o00_s00
If I have to connect to a USB-A port in the wild, it's already on the cable. If I'm attaching it to my own computer, I pop off the adapter and put it in my pocket. It's less disruptive in my pocket than loose change.
While we're on the subject of ports, please indulge my favourite rant:
My wife's Mac has ports for Ethernet, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt 2, SD card, and two USB-3 ports, one of which is permanently occupied with a mouse dongle. If I want to connect a second USB device I'm screwed, while the Firewire and Thunderbolt ports sit there doing nothing.
My Mac has four universal ports. Any one of them can be anything I want. They can be any combination of Thunderbolt, USB-A, USB-C, DisplayPort, HDMI, Ethernet, power input, power output, etc. etc. almost ad infinitum, just by using the appropriate cable.
My kit for hitting the road fits in an envelope. All my peripherals already have USB-C plugs on them. Some of them obviously came out of the box with USB-A cables, but I just replaced them with inexpensive USB-C versions. That means I carry no more cables than I did before. In order to accommodate plugging my stuff into other computers, those USB-C cables have the adapter shown above attached to them. The net increase in carry volume is zero, since they're attached to the cables. For connecting other people's stuff to my computer I have a small, lightweight adapter that provides USB-A, Ethernet, and HDMI. All from a single port.
Most of the dongle arguments I've heard exaggerate the severity of the issue. I carry exactly ONE adapter that's small and light enough that I'll forget it's there if I put it in a shirt pocket, and I gain a ton of flexibility. It's my carefully considered opinion that Apple's approach to ports on the MacBook Pro is a major win for users.
I think you mean it's a major win for you, and your use case. ;-) I won't argue that.You say "if I have to connect to a USB-A port in the wild, it's already on the cable", but if you're off-site and need to connect to someone else's drive, it's almost certainly going to be a USB-A, which means unless you have one of your drives with a USB-C cable or adapter with you, you're hosed. So you need to carry an extra cable or adapter all the time, there's really no way around that. In this fairly common scenario you'd need the opposite adapter from the one pictured above, right? So two adapters at least.But thanks for the link, I know there are quite a few cheap adapters available. Though to put cables with adapters on every external drive here, I'd need a dozen or so, plus with that strategy I'd need them for all the USB flash drives we use as well. It makes more sense to keep the adapters with the laptops. But unless you always keep them plugged in the sockets (not okay when putting in a case), it's just something else to remember to pack and have to deal with in general. And when in my office I'm often moving locations between 3 floors, and no, I don't repack and carry my travel bag around with me. Not to mention I'd still need an external adapter or dock for all the SD card data xfers we do. Adapters and dongles and docks are adequate solutions for desktop/stationary computers, far less so for laptops.I'm not saying people can't deal with this issue, clearly they can. I'm not saying that having USB-C ports is a bad thing, it's not, it's likely to be the future. What's bad is arbitrarily taking away *all* the other ports prematurely to make a statement. For me personally, there's a real loss of functionality and/or notable inconvenience without much (anything?) in the way of offsetting benefit for me, at least for now. And this isn't even talking about the reflective displays (deal breaker for me) and the questionable new keyboards, which have had serious issues.I used to look forward to the new laptop models coming out every year, and I'd upgrade maybe every 18 months or so, cringing at all the money I spent, but always enjoying incremental benefits every step of the way. It's just not like that anymore. Instead, it's a set of trade offs, and that's unfortunate.
