freeassociate2

Welp, looks like the racists (”it doesn't effect me so it can’t be racism”) are out in force.

They key here is that even though the limits of oximeters are known, Apple went ahead and introduced the feature regardless of how it would impact users’ experience. No disclaimers. No apparent skin tone detection. No on Watch warning or dialogue allowing you to adjust for skin tone. And do on. It’s marketed, engineered, and now defended as working for the default skin color assumption... i.e light-skinned people. It’s not a leap to assume that has there been more people with darker skin tones involved in the decision making, this would have been flagged as a bug or a non-starter. So yes, this is the sort of structural or chain of casual racism that you can encounter.
—
The separate case regarding medical treatment outcomes will likely be the more serious and far-reaching. The medical industry has a history of these types of errors in judgment. We’ll have to wait and see how well the device makers trained people, what disclaimers are in training literature, research papers and the like, as well as how well hospitals and other organizations trained their staffs.

I’ll remind everyone that if the shoe were on the other foot, and light skinned people’s lives had been endangered by a fault in the device or training, this would be a major shitfest in general, in the news cycle for weeks, and likely the target of very public and swift government reaction.

Also, anyone trotting out “frivolous lawsuit” — have a care. That term has been weaponized to question the legitimacy of valid the legal rights of black and brown Americans for decades. Do some research before you use that as a point of argument.

There’s also a bunch of folks that mixing up the two cases. The case for medical treatment is being referred to as supporting evidence that Apple management and engineers should or would have known about the technology’s limitations as currently designed.
—
For anyone interested in well researched institutional racism, how casually it’s applied, and what cumulative effect it continues to have on generations of Americans, I highly recommend The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. It’s an excellent example of legal and historical analysis being applied to understand American legal history, and how it’s been used to create and defend racial hierarchies.
—
Please think twice before responding to me in anything less than a civil and respectful way. If all you’re going to do is trot out manufactured talking points and threats to society, don’t bother. You’ve had quite enough air-time already. I won’t engage trolls.

For anyone with a good-faith question or argument, I’ll do my best to respond, given my limited time and energy. (And also limited patience. Educate yourselves, people. If it were an engineering issue, you’d go look up info in technical and science resources — not Faux News and it’s ilk. Do the same here. Read a book, even if you disagree with it. Or ask me for a link or several.)

ravnorodom said:

This is unexpected. It’s like Porche produced external hard drive at one point. 

Porsche Design Group. They’re pretty much a separate entity from the car company. They make a bunch of different products. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_Design

I have a question for the more technically knowledgeable folks. I keep seeing the “designed itself into a box” idea trotted out. I’m curious why people would think that the M series chips would be subject to that kind of bind, when it’s reasonable to say the the A-series hasn’t in many iterations. It’s clear the architecture itself has room to grow — multiple billion-dollar companies have ARM-based commercial and consumer initiatives in place.

So given that Apple’s teams now have multiple generations of chip and hardware design experience to draw upon, and a culture that doesn’t rest, why should anyone think this is a screw-up, rather than the natural design process and temporary technological limitations? I’m sure we’re all well aware just how difficult it is to create and implement leaps in chip tech, and that one of the keys to success has always been in how well the software leverages those advances into significant improvements for end-users.

I’m genuinely… mystified… by the doom-seekers that look for any sign of internal dysfunction to point to as a sign of the impending apocalyptic collapse of Apple or its desicion-making. It’s been decades since Apple was “beleaguered” to death. Why do folks still fall into this mental trap? It’s practically a TV Trope. (In fact, the second I post this, I’m going to look over on the site.)

Sincerely, 

Really Confused Reader

PS - I own a 14 Pro Max and from my point of view it’s no less impressive than other generations have been. The experience of using is full of both delight, productivity, and creativity. I’m one of those folks that flips their phone every generation, as it’s the computer I get the most work out of besides my work machine. Other family members updating from the 11 Pro Max and the 12 have also been suitably happy with their purchase decision.

Also, per the odd comments on the M1 and M2, we have multiple machines here for work that span both Mac and PC generations, including the latest. The M-series are machines consistently the best performing on almost every metric, and the most pleasant to use. From a real world use pov, I just don’t get the comments. (Or the idea that a product could be ‘less impressive’ if no company has released something more impressive. It’s like comparing an athlete’s performance to what they’ve done in the past — circumstances are completely different and variables are hard to control. The only metric that counts is if they win. It’s nice to set a record, but that in no way detracts from the accomplishment of winning against other elite athletes. Unless you’re truly jaded, I guess.

Annnnnnd … all the people not working in Apple stores, certainly not members trying to unionize, and those with little or no union expertise (nor any expertise in managing a unionized company), please sound off. Your wisdom is so very pertinent. 

apple4lizife said:

It’s just apple trying to deflect what they did in china,   to get ahead of the Curve to try to avoid criticism going forward ..  Nobody cared about airdrop feature for all of sudden “let’s limited it to 10mins” 

My guess is you’ve missed all the articles about people being AirDrop bombed with alarming or intentionally disturbing material in small or closed spaces.