theirongiant

crowley said:

I have heard of the EFF and know what they do.  They've done some decent and worthwhile campaigning in the past, but they're very close to being

no-compromise privacy zealots.  And I doubt Apple are going to be much bothered to engage with people who cannot be reasoned with given the concurrent obligations Apple feels that it has.

"no-compromise privacy zealots" is how a lot of people would describe Apple.  Remember the San Bernardino case where they refused to help decrypt the shooter's iPhone? What about when the FBI asked for a backdoor to help fight crime?  In both cases, Apple has clearly said "NO, we will not help you hack our phones because it would compromise our users' privacy."  Beginning in MacOS 10.8, Apple added privacy checks that required applications to ask permission to read your personal data.  In Mojave (10.14), they ramped it up with the requirement to ask permission to use the camera and microphone, and in Catalina (10.15) they make apps ask permission to use screen recording or scan most files on your disk.  They have made an entire series of commercials about privacy.

The one place, sadly, where Apple has "compromised" is in their dealing with China, where they contracted iCloud to GCBD, a company that is capable of being influenced the Chinese Communist Party.  Without this arrangement, the CCP would have embargoed ALL iPhone sales inmainland China.  Period.  This set a terrible precedent, and the EFF and others continue to give them flak for it.  The CSAM image scanning would be a bridge too far, because scanning and reporting rules could be enforced by foreign governments looking to silence dissidents for sharing memes or pictures that match a "known database" of images.

If multiple high-ranking executives at Apple have to come out with damage control PR in the span of one week, this should be a clue that the initiative, however well-intentioned, is deeply unpopular and should be abandoned.

Apple is not law enforcement or a government agency.  They can't say no forever.  They've already said yes to exemptions for China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia just to keep selling the phones in those countries.  This CSAM process can and will be abused by foreign governments to coerce Apple to carve out exemptions under the threat of having Apple devices banned, embargoed, or cut off from the Internet.

Fair point.  Corellium hasn't announced that they are ceasing operations so they didn't "lose" per se.  One of three things happened:

- Apple didn't have a case and wanted to give up quietly;
- The judge only found that Corellium violated portions not significant enough to hinder normal business;
- Apple is going to buy the company and offer some new bundle with Xcode CI in the cloud, and a cloud-based device simulator.  They'll sell it as "Developer+" for $9.99 a month on top of your regular Developer subscription.

I know, I know.  Don't give them any ideas.  But any dunce can see that the entire business world is hot on subscription services for maximum cash extraction.

I bought this TV from Best Buy less than a month ago to use in the office as a second monitor, not knowing anything about its feature set.

I was pleasantly surprised by everything.  Setup was quick, operation has been very smooth.  It's very light (only 20 pounds) so mounting on the wall was a snap.  The TV lets you turn the picture off when playing AirPlay or Chromecast content.  Apps are treated like inputs, so you can switch between HDMI 1 as easily as Crunchyroll or Plex.  AirPlay Mirroring from a Mac is nice and smooth, 60fps over Wi-Fi.  The speakers also sound very good for built-in's.  There is a setting that optimizes sound for wall-mount or stand-mount.

To give you an idea of how stable the OS is, I've started Chromecasts from a phone app that streams live music ... left them running for days on the TV (muted / picture off) and completely forgotten about it.  A few days later I press a button on the remote and find the Chromecast is still running and streaming music.

It doesn't have local dimming, or extreme brightness like the Vizio PX65-G1 in my living room, but this is not a prime movie-watching TV.  It's more than adequate for gaming and casual viewing, and I think the price is very reasonable considering the rich feature set and support for HomeKit and AirPlay.

The "Pro Card" was actually ProCare, an add-on service exclusive to Apple Retail.  I used to sell these when I worked in the store back in 2005.  It was $99/year and allowed you to skip the line for genius bar appointments and get an hour of support per week for almost anything.  I had a lot of older customers buy them just to get tutorials on how to keep their computer organized, use Office apps, iPhoto, iMovie, etc.  It was more fun that working the floor because I didn't have to worry about selling anything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCare