Marvin
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After 14 years, Apple has finally retired the famous MacBook Air wedge shape
bsimpsen said:tht said:Rudimentary math states that 2024-2008 = 16 years.
Thinnovation!
One might reasonably wonder why it took AI two years to tell us about it.
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M3 MacBook Air vs M2 MacBook Air -- Compared
appledapple said:in clamshell mode, you cannot use touch ID, which I do for all of my passwords. I don’t understand. If you open it up, I’m guessing that one of the displays stops working I was excited for two monitors, but this is a dealbreaker. It’s a dealbreaker for meif you don’t use touch ID then NBD
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMMR3LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-touch-id-and-numeric-keypad-for-mac-models-with-apple-silicon-us-english-black-keys
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK293LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-touch-id-for-mac-models-with-apple-silicon-us-english
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Passkey: Which popular apps and services offer the new feature?
sflagel said:beowulfschmidt said:sflagel said:Why am I not getting this? How is Passkey different from the saved Usernames and Passwords saved on my iCloud Keychain, other than that the Passkey is hidden even from me? If I use Passkey on a site, how do I log-in on a third-person device, say a company computer at work? And what if I have different accounts for the same service on one device, say separate Amazon accounts?Depends on whether I can use the same passkey on, for instance, a Mac, an iPhone, a Windows PC, an Android tablet, and a Linux desktop. If I set up a site with a passkey, can I then export that passkey to another (non-Apple) device or must I set up a new one? Note that I do not know the answer to this question.I personally have that functionality because I use a password manager that works cross platform, and holds the passwords on my local network. Passkeys sound like they are not portable, being machine specific, so I'd be less enthusiastic.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/71-million-passwords-for-facebook-coinbase-and-others-found-for-sale/
Passkeys are encrypted keys that don't require typing and aren't stored server-side. Users don't have to think up new ones or remember them or additional security questions.
If a phone and passcode is stolen, a user could be locked out (iOS 17.3+ provides added protection for stolen devices) but the same would be true for password managers. The same account recovery methods would be used for both.
For accessing an account on another computer, you'd need the security device with you or sync from a cloud keychain. Different services can provide their own login techniques but can be similar to online banking where you put in a username then get a token from a phone or scan QR code and this would allow logging in on a 3rd party device.
Different devices can setup their own passkeys, a single account can have multiple keys, they just need to be verified against an account.
https://blog.google/inside-google/googlers/ask-a-techspert/how-passkeys-work/
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'Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile' landing on iOS on March 21
Sarsara_777 said:I can't understand why they don't release this for Apple Silicon Macs too? It would need the minimum of tweaking from the iPad version, basically just remove touch controls & support different aspect ratios
https://support.activision.com/articles/ricochet-overview
iOS is a sandboxed OS. It's a similar issue with Genshin Impact:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/j1ce1y/about_our_anticheat_system/
Developers would need to build a Mac version of their anti-cheat software.
Maybe Apple can build a sandbox system to run iOS games on Mac similar to the iOS simulator so that apps can be run without 3rd party anti-cheat software.
The games would run inside the sandbox software, which would block any attempt for the OS to modify or communicate with the running binary. Since Apple controls the OS, they don't need to be running 3rd-party drivers. -
Apple doesn't care about games, long-time Apple Arcade developers say
beowulfschmidt said:jgreg728 said:Apple is so godd**n stupid with their “gaming efforts”. Here you have a full fledged service in the middle of the App Store - the only App Store on iOS tvOS and iPadOS - along with announcements and grandstanding of how console level games can be played on their newest hardware. WHY AREN’T MORE AAA GAMES MAKING IT TO ARCADE???? Why aren’t Apple TVs being made with it in mind??? Why didn’t they try to get games like RE4 and Death Stranding on the service?? Arcade has the infrastructure and hardware it needs to be a mainstream Steam, but Apple just has their heads up their asses when it comes to reaching the potential of their services in general. They need to do better.Why aren't more AAA games making it to Arcade? Because AAA games now consume tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of development resources, and they will not be profitable on the pittance Apple pays out from Arcade games, that's why.Note that I'm addressing the issue of Arcade, not Apple devices in general.
https://gamingbolt.com/marvels-spider-man-2-had-a-total-budget-of-315-million
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/playstation-layoffs-confirmed-to-have-impacted-insomniac-games-the-studio-behind-marvels-spider-man
Sony Interactive let go 900 people (8% of their employees). EA just let go 5% (670 people):
https://www.techspot.com/news/102071-ea-lay-off-around-670-people-sunset-games.html
This shows the scale they operate at. Microsoft's gaming department has 20k employees and around 40 studios after buying Activision. Big budget games take a long time to make - 3-6 years and a company has to release dozens of games in that timeframe.
To launch a AAA game every month, it needs over 20 studios working in parallel. This is why companies want to get more recurring revenue from games like Fortnite, Roblox and Candy Crush - live service where they are played for a long time.
Most of the top live service games are mindless shooters but ones like Minecraft, The Sims, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are quite wholesome games and would be better suited for Arcade. This is probably why they put Disney Dreamlight Valley on Arcade recently, some reviewers have hundreds of hours of play time, the reviewer below has 1400 hours:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1401590/Disney_Dreamlight_Valley/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198052393055/recommended/1401590/
There aren't many good independent studios that Apple can buy. All that's really left, excluding Asian studios, are: EA, Roblox, Take 2, Ubisoft, Playtika, CD Projekt Red, Embracer Group, Paradox Interactive, Remedy, People Can Fly, Don't Nod, CI Games, Focus, Atari and some lesser-known companies and many don't want to be bought or are part owned by Tencent, NetEase etc:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/video-games/largest-video-game-companies-by-market-cap/
I think they missed an opportunity with Tomb Raider. Embracer Group got that IP and the studios for $330m. That would have been a good franchise to have exclusive on Apple devices. They could potentially buy Embracer Group, which has a market cap of $2.4b. 16000 employees across over 100 studios, 850 franchises, in a single buyout with some big IP and it's profitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group
https://embracer.com/
This group has been cutting costs because they lost some funding, it says here they are selling the developer on Warhammer and Star Wars KOTOR remake:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/embracer-group-is-reportedly-selling-warhammer-40-000-space-marine-2-developer-saber-interactive-for-500-million/ar-BB1j7HO1
$2.4b doesn't seem like a big investment for what they get if the investors are willing to sell. They are willing to make exclusive partnership deals too. Amazon made a deal for Tomb Raider:
https://www.amazongames.com/en-us/news/articles/amazon-games-crystal-dynamics-tomb-raider
Apple has been making some inroads with Resident Evil and Death Stranding, new developments take 3+ years to make it to market. Apple doesn't need to be a gaming competitor to Microsoft, Sony etc, some strategic investments are enough.