Spencer314

lordjohnwhorfin said:

How does this compare to what’s available in the PC world, whether Intel/AMD or the more comparable ARM based Snapdragon?

The M4 Max score is quite a bit ahead of Intel CPUs on both single and multi-core performance on Geek Bench 6. 

https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks

I'm sure NVIDIA GPUs are still faster, but it's a bit more difficult comparing them since they don't really run the same benchmarks. It's also pretty hard to compare AI engines for the same reason. 

hammeroftruth said:

Apple's refusal to unlock the phones from the San Bernardino attack in 2015 was the first high-profile case. The FBI paid a large sum to Cellbrite to bypass Apple's security, but it's unclear if they found anything useful. This incident sparked a debate about whether there should be a backdoor into Apple's security, especially in light of concerns about government surveillance.

They didn't find anything of value, which is basically what Apple had expected based on the iCloud data that they did have. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute

Also, the FBI screwed up the ability to get the phone to do a final iCloud backup, which would have resulted in the most recent content of the phone being available to law enforcement without cracking the phone. 

nubus said:

Will the lack of parts pairing cause more devices to be stolen? Apple should have the right to block parts from stolen devices to protect us.

I would have thought this would be one of the points, but the article didn't mention it. If you can't salvage one phone for valuable parts for another, then the third party repair industry won't end up as as a laundry service for stolen phones. Also, parts like fingerprint readers would be more difficult to replace with unsecure backdoors if their security chips have to be matched up. 

It does sometimes feel like a lot of the pushbacks on Apple are almost harkening back to an earlier era when our devices weren't the center of our financial lives and so weren't critical to our personal and financial security. 

Perhaps we will eventually at least be able to pay extra for locked-down phones that we can provide to relatives (who will then replace their login passcodes with "1111" thus undoing our of our efforts to keep them comparatively safe). 

What's less surprising than the fact that fake apps can make it through Apple's overwhelmed review process is the fact that Apple does such a poor job of taking them down when they are reported. You would think that fake apps would be taken down within days of being reported by a legitimate source, rather than remaining in the app store for months or years. 

There is a case to be made for a non Apple app store that does a better job than Apple of providing properly curated apps. But, users are going to have to figure out which ones are trustworthy by themselves, creating an annoying meta problem. 

Honestly, given the history here, Apple deserves to lose this one. I did get myself an Ultra 2 prior to the ban, and quite like it. But seriously, from all the reports, Masimo initially negotiated with them in good faith for a potential deal, then Apple raided their employees and immediately filed patents covering technology that Masimo had in development or had already patented. Maybe Masimo's price for licensing was unreasonable and Apple didn't see another choice, but intellectual property law is what it is and Apple f'd over the wrong company.