maltz

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maltz
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  • Apple's smart doorbell to utilize MagSafe, ring AirPods Pro

    maltzmaltz
    kkqd1337 said:
    I don't understand the attraction of a battery powered doorbell. Unless it was REALLY impossible to run power to one. But is that ever really the case? Just spend some money and get a power line run to it. One expense will save you a lifetime of pain.

    Recharging your doorbell seems like an unnecessary hassle to me.

    I don't get that either.  I mean, even if the device uses more power during a ring than a typical doorbell transformer provides when operating the chime, it's trivial to put a small battery or supercapacitor in there to pick up the slack during ring events.  And it can't use more power than a doorbell transformer provides all the time, or it would be using too much power to be battery powered in the first place.  But powering a doorbell camera from the existing line does require wiring modifications (and/or added hardware) inside the chime box as well.  Maybe it's just an ease of installation thing.
    watto_cobra

  • Apple could bring out second-gen AirTag by May or June

    maltzmaltz
    Louder speaker, longer range, better battery life would all be welcome, but not things I'm really longing for.  The main thing I'd like to see are other form factors for things like wallets, and larger versions with decade-long life where size isn't an issue.

    I also wish they could figure out a way to have better anti-theft functionality.  I get that it conflicts with anti-stalking features, though.  One way I've thought of is an "Anti-Theft" mode that you could put an AirTag into when it's being used for that purpose.  When in this mode, the AirTag "hides" - no phone alert, no beeping etc.  But it also removes your ability to track it when it's out of range of your device, so that only Apple and/or law enforcement can track it at that point.  Police can track your stolen item, given the AirTag serial number from your Find My list, but you can't use it for stalking.  Maybe have a 24 hour period when you try to put the AirTag back into normal mode, during which time you still cannot track it, but it does start alerting anyone it's tracking to its presence.
    dewmewatto_cobra

  • Apple cut too much by removing MagSafe from the iPhone 16e

    maltzmaltz
    From a convenience standpoint, Magsafe is a little easier than Qi charging, but it's hardly a big deal to place the phone in the right spot - I did it for many years.  And if you're optimizing for charge speed, AI's own tests show that neither wireless option is anywhere near as fast as wired, especially early in the charge curve when the battery is <80%.
    Graeme000watto_cobra

  • How to measure your Mac's network performance with iPerf3 in Terminal

    maltzmaltz


    A couple of places in the article talk about iperf 3 being a memory testing tool that is also used for bandwidth measurement.  I've never heard of anyone using it for memory testing, and I don't even know how you would.  It's certainly not mentioned in the docs anywhere that I can find.  iperf and all its variations are for *network* performance testing.  Also:

    Unlike earlier versions, iperf3 is single-threaded whereas the earlier versions were multi-threaded.

    That's not true since iperf3 3.16 (2023).  Both are multi-threaded, and both can test using multiple simultaneous streams.  (Though the default is single-stream.)  From iperf3's man page:

    -P, --parallel n
                  number  of parallel client streams to run. iperf3 will spawn off
                  a separate thread for each test stream. Using multiple streams
                  may result in higher throughput than a single stream.

    But unless your CPU is very old/slow, I doubt single-vs-multi threaded would have much impact on testing anyway, at least up to gigabit.

    [edit - I've realized I misunderstood a few things about iperf vs iperf3, so sorry if a previous version of this post confused anyone...]
    anonymouse

  • Reverse charging rumor resurfaces for the iPhone 17 Pro

    maltzmaltz
    It's probably worth mentioning that even iPhone 16 (maybe others?) can reverse charge Airpods and Apple Watch right now, but it requires a charging cable.  So saying Apple is testing "reverse charging" without specifically mentioning wireless doesn't even seem like a rumor - this is something iPhones already do.

    Wireless reverse charging would be great, though.  Especially if it could reverse charge other phones and Airpods and Watches, but I wonder if the latter is possible, since they seem to require a different charge pad than a phone.
    dewmewatto_cobra