arthurba

This has been a well known problem for years. I'd be curious to know what finally made them act (or pretend to act).  Presumably some network threatened to block their browser or something.

Who would have guessed that a web browser supplied by an advertising company was designed be advertising friendly?

I can guarentee that they will not fix this.  They'll stop a single ad using up so much data/cpu, but they'll just fix that by using a higher rotation.

About 2 years ago my sister in law visited the US from Australia so I gave her an old iphone on Verizon to use for the duration.  We restored her last backup, so it was just like her phone.  Off she went.

After 1 day, I was getting exceeded data notices from Verizon.  I assumed initial syncing of mail etc. was the cause, maybe some tethering.  Whatever.

Anyway, every. single day. I. got. excess. data. charges.

So when she calls me up I offer to walk her through finding the data use by app, just to find out what's behind it.

It's chrome.

"But I just view a couple of pages a day, usually the NY Times" and some web based email that a client/customer requires her to use.

I suggested that she maybe uninstalls chrome and uses safari for the duration.

Oh, no!  Not possible.  Inseert "safarin never works, I must always use chrome" speech someone has previously fed her.  No she wouldn't install uBlock or any other ad-blocker (some of her clients are in the advertising industry, and she considers adverts to be her meal ticket).  So I ended up negotiating a larger data deal with Verizon that month...  The things we do for family right?

Who would have guessed that a web browser supplied by an advertising company was happy to continue to run adverts continuously even when you are not looking at them.  The fact that they get paid for each ad rotation has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I can guarentee that google will not fix this.  They'll stop a single ad using up so much data/cpu, but they'll just fix that by using a higher rotation.

It seems a bit weird to me.  I run a small software company, and we sign our installers.  When we sign the installer, the signature is timestamped.  The certificate only needs to be valid at the time of timestamping.  If you don't sign with a timestamp, then yes the signed installer is only valid for as long as the certificate is valid - but that's why you sign with a timestamp.  It's pretty standard across the industry.  It's why you can still install microsoft patches years later, or my own companies software.

I guess Apple have done this deliberately to ensure old installers expire, but that's pretty poor behaviour.  How many Mac Admin's are today downloading / updating their cache of installers?  How many man hours of wasted time?  You can probably measure the drop in productivity against US GDP.  It should be a crime to force us all to waste so much effort.  Force employers all over the country to have their staff unproductive for a few hours - how about 4 hours of income fined from Apple - how would they feel about that?

Ok - I’ve long had a gripe with this behaviour from Apple - it’s their Achilles Heel. 

I first encountered it years ago with iTunes. Apple would release the latest iTunes and it would run on/support 7 year old Windows XP, but only run on the last 2 or 3 Mac OS X releases. 

iTunes today is worse - the latest release will run only on Mojave, but it runs on Windows 8 (an 8 year old OS) just fine. 

Now they block lock access to apple.com for 5 year old MacOS releases, but not 8 year old Windows releases. 

Apple make their money from hardware - so they do everything in their power to get you to upgrade your hardware.  I get that - and I prefer it than buying from an advertising company who do everything in their power to get you to give up personal information and watch adverts.  But it’s the choice between two evils,  not the choice between good and bad. 

If apple would just update the SSL libraries on those old MacOS releases then they would be secure for web browsing.

chasm said:

I do see the "I'll tap you when I'm ready" message from time to time (maybe once in 50, certainly not the problem you're having), but let me tell you what the problem is and a potential fix.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

But, err, no, it doesn't help.  Trust me, I've researched all the known solutions to this - they don't work.  

1)
The phone and watch are both joined to known good wifi networks.  Safari works fine.  Hey Siri "hold on...".  The phone works flawlessly, the watch, not so much.  

Note: I never carry the phone and watch together, so I mean the phone is on a good wifi network at home and the watch is on a known good wifi network where I am.  Yes I regularly 'forget' bad networks, yes I have 'ask to join unknwn networks' enabled.  Search the apple forums and there are a LOT of posts saying the fixes don't work and Siri always responds with 'hold on...'.  The solution is for Apple to start logging when this message comes up, and logging when siri successfully takes a message - and if the ratio gets too low, say 1 in 10, then it needs to pop up a message saying "you've just scored a free replacement watch, lifetime applecare, a free mac pro and $1million dollars.  please come to the apple store so we can give it all to you" then investigate the cause and fix it.  Yes, I'm applying economic theory of cost - the problem doesn't get fixed because there is no cost to Apple, my solution gives Apple a great big fat cost, which they can reduce by fixing the problem.  Easy.  Not going to happen, and I'll keep the watch because I don't really need Siri (not that I'd know if it's any use, because, duh,  'hey Siri!' 'Hold on...').

2)
And regarding "hey siri, ... that's not how you pronounce it."  Yep, that sets the pronouciation field in the contact record.  Already done that, already said I did 

“Hold on...”

”i’ll Tap you when I’m ready”

AWS4 cellular. Siri works like once in 20.  I don’t even bother anymore - I check it a couple of times after each software update then go back to ignoring it. Pathetic. 

Proper nouns in dictation also needs work.  It doesn’t seem to use the pronunciation in contacts even when it’s available.  Some way generally to feed back so dictation gets better, like the ability to tap a word and fix it and dictate it a few times so it learns.