flydog

EsquireCats said:

You know Apple must be onto a winner product when the FUD articles come out. It was the same b/s when the Apple Watch was being written up as a target for thieves because the sports band is easy to remove.

The report is b/s for a variety of reasons:

• The majority of stalking crime involves persons who are known to each other. However to stalk with a tracking device requires a stalker to get close enough to personally install it on the victim which isn't feasible. If the stalker knows the victim's location then tracking with an electronic device isn't the problem. In the hypothetical situation where the victim doesn't know the stalker, the same issues apply: getting close enough, and having already known the victim location. (Whereby the stalker can just follow the victim anyway.)
• The device works best when placed in the open. This is why the accessories are all designed to leave the tracker exposed. One can't install the device to something like the underside of a car and expect it to work, the device is still limited by EM physics.
• The tracker itself is linked to the owner. Stalking with this is like leaving your ID at a crime scene.
• It's a highly publicised tracking device and alerts the victim, while being trivial to disable. Anyone that finds it will know what it is, especially when it's beeping at them.
• If the software is smart enough to notify the user about being followed, it's smart enough to not publish that location.

So stalking isn't the issue with this device, the issue with this device is that if an item is intentionally taken/stolen the tracker can be easily disabled. So it makes sense to attach it to low value items such as keys. For more expensive items the route is either an accessory that gives the tracker permanence or purchasing items which already include the hardware (such as the VanMoof bikes and most Apple devices.)

Side note: It would only be "inexpensive" if it didn't require a $600 iPhone just to get started.

Despite your unhinged string of assumptions about the high degree of intelligence, technical savvy, motivation, and characteristics of the average stalker, stalking is, in fact, "an issue with this device" because it can provide a person's location without their knowledge.

InspiredCode said:

In reference to my other comment, the limitation that cross-wallet content has to be lower then IAP content I think was actually in attachment 2 of the developer agreement. This agreement contains additional rules above the App Store review guidelines. I couldn’t find it, so I think Apple may have removed it in the last year. I know this was present previously. 

Apple has both the developer agreement and the store review guidelines that both apply. They conflict all over the place and there is no language as far as I’m aware to say one supersedes the other.

Additionally, Vbucks might not be allowed by a number of rules that forbid in-app currency. For example, this one from the developer agreement:

 2.1 You may not use the In-App Purchase API to enable an end-user to set up a pre-paid account to be used for subsequent purchases of content, functionality, or services, or otherwise create balances or credits that end-users can redeem or use to make purchases at a later time.

The review guidelines say this which contradicts:

• Any credits or in-game currencies purchased via in-app purchase may not expire, and you should make sure you have a restore mechanism for any restorable in-app purchases.

This is just one example. The Apple terms are full of contradictions which is something developers complain about since nobody knows what is and isn’t allowed or might be allowed one day but not the next.

There's nothing contradictory there.  One refers to prepayment for subsequent and undefined purchases (e.g., $20.00 that a user can spend on anything at some point in the future) and the other for immediate payment of specific functionality (e..g, $20.00 worth of tokens that can be used to unlock upgrades).

What the developer agreement prohibits is creating your own Pay Pal. It does not prohibit issuing in-game tokens that can be used to unlock specific functionality within that game. 

docno42 said:

daven said:

I watch the movies that I purchased and downloaded (or rented and downloaded and view within the allotted time). 

Leave your device disconnected for a few months then try to watch that content.  It won't work.  Your devices have to phone back to the mothership routinely or the content locks.

Good luck!

Not true. 

SxyGayjust said:

How ridiculous. Almost every single treadmill has that same basic design...kids should not be around any exercise equipment while in use: treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, etc. can all hurt someone quite easily...

Not true.  If you had done some cursory research, you'd know that the Tread+ is higher off the ground than most treadmills, has no rear belt guard, the belt runs exposed for the entire length of the underside of the unit, the rear is easy to lift off the ground, and the belt is ribbed, which makes it easier to grip skin and hair.  There are certainly other treadmills that possess one or two of those characteristics, but not all of them, which is what makes the Tread+ more dangerous than the average treadmill.  Most treadmills have rear guards that make it almost impossible for someone to get sucked under, but Peloton decided not to spend an extra $10 to make a $4,000 product safer, and still refuses to do so.

The CPSC didn't just wake up one morning and decide to screw with Peloton. The design of the unit and the statistics support that it is dangerous, and Peloton's response that it should be locked in a room to prevent injuries is absurd since most people don't have special "treadmill rooms."  All Peloton needs to do is add a plastic guard.

The words speculation, unclear, rumor, and unknown appear so many times in this article, they might as well have titled it Complete Bullshit About The New iMacs.