[HN Gopher] iOS 15
___________________________________________________________________
iOS 15
Author : plg
Score : 307 points
Date : 2021-09-20 17:23 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| alberth wrote:
| Has anyone noticed the "add comment" button on HN is now a blue-
| pill color/style with iOS 15?
|
| EDIT: this appears to only happen on mobile iOS web and not
| desktop macOS
| [deleted]
| dmitshur wrote:
| This is the iOS version that adds WebGL 2 support.
| (https://webglreport.com/?v=2)
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Can't believe more people aren't talking about this - it's huge
| for cross-platform games that can run at much higher
| performance, and the best part - no 30% fees from the walled
| garden App Store when you deliver via a webpage!
| mzkply wrote:
| The go-to-market for games without an app store (ios or
| android) is so bad that most game devs were rather get 70% of
| something rather than 100% of almost nothing... and that's
| probably why more people aren't talking about it.
|
| It'll make it easier to make cool sites, but I wouldn't
| expect any change in the games landscape. Plus it really
| looks like the 30% isn't here to stay.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Yeah and that's because nobody (from the browser vendors to
| the game engine providers) has bothered to create decent
| tooling for real-time 3D and game developers to be able to
| effectively deploy HTML5, with a specific focus on reducing
| build sizes via a combo of compression and a lazy loading
| asset fetching system.
|
| This is what our startup has been focused on for Unreal
| Engine 4 to target WebGL. We've achieved scenes that are
| sub 10MB that load in up in two seconds in the browser on
| most devices.
| majani wrote:
| Board and card games get a lot of joy from using the web.
| There's a lot of silent giants in that space such as PlayOK
| nicwolff wrote:
| Still supported on the 1st Gen iPhone SE, nice.
| zatkin wrote:
| I'm using this device now and it sure does pack a punch! I do
| have to charge it throughout the day when on heavy usage, but
| it's snappy and responsive just like my previous device, iPhone
| 12 Pro.
| DantesKite wrote:
| I had the first generation iPhone SE. Great phone. Some part
| of the phone degraded though and it started rapidly
| overheating, and then the iPhone SE (second generation) came
| out.
|
| If yours dies, I recommend that one. It's a love letter to
| the first generation.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| I'm switching to a Linux phone but recently upgraded from a Gen
| 1 SE to the newer models and I'll be purchasing another SE as a
| backup phone instead once I make the leap because I personally
| think the no headphone port and larger screen (even on the
| Mini) is a very powerful phone but also worse to use in many
| ways. Long live Gen 1 SE.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea they were going to add support for cross-
| platform Facetime calls with this. If that works well that will
| definitely replace Zoom for me.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Cross-platform is giving it too much credit. They aren't
| releasing native FaceTime on any non-Apple platforms, and you
| get a limited set of features in the browser based client that
| runs on Windows/ChromeOS/Android.
|
| It is better than nothing though. Mostly feels like a late
| response to Zoom eating Apple's lunch though.
| horsemans wrote:
| Less a "late response" and more the start of keeping a
| promise made by Jobs in 2010 to make FaceTime an cross-
| platform product supported by open standards, that was
| hampered by various legal I/P battles:
| https://www.imore.com/wheres-facetime-android
| b3nji wrote:
| The Facetime update. Enabling you to be even further away from
| people interaction, including, but not limited to, watching a
| thing while on a Facetime conversion?
|
| This truly is the end if all things
| rsfinn wrote:
| So I don't know whether you've noticed, but there's this thing
| that's been going around that makes some people want to keep
| their distance from other people, even if they might otherwise
| want to converse with them?
|
| More seriously: my father, who is about to turn 94, lives 500+
| miles away from me, and I haven't seen him face-to-face for a
| long time. It would be nice to be able to watch a baseball game
| "together", for instance. I hope I can talk him through setting
| up FaceTime...
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > It would be nice to be able to watch a baseball game
| "together", for instance.
|
| I've watched TV programs simultaneously with people in the
| same city, even, whilst talking to them on IRC/whatnot. It's
| a fun experience. Especially in these nonsensical times!
| jenny91 wrote:
| Looks like they're slowly starting to compete with Zoom on all
| those new FaceTime features.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| My phone is the electronic device I use the most (not counting my
| work laptop, which I don't own), so I'm going to wait a couple of
| days to make sure there are no glaring issues before I install
| the update.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I've been using iOS 15 for a month or more, and I've had no
| glaring issues aside from Exposure Notification using excessive
| battery usage.
| tandr wrote:
| Excessive battery usage IS a good example of a "glaring
| issue", especially for a mobile device.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| This is most true, but I've also had the same issue with
| iOS 14.8 for a while between restarts. So this is not an
| iOS 15 exclusive.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| On one specific service that is opt-in (and can be disabled
| at any time). Pretty important distinction.
| babesh wrote:
| What's up with the iCloud terms and conditions?
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| I just bought a Iphone 12 Mini (from Iphone SE Gen 1, which is
| the better phone btw) the day before the CSAM flurry started. I
| will not be upgrading my OS this year and will be switchching to
| Linux device this winter (Pinephone most likely). Good luck and
| thanks for all the -ish Apple.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Apple please translate Swedish to English! In the meantime I'll
| still have to rely on Google Translate for this :)
| tradertef wrote:
| Google translate is ages better..
| suyash wrote:
| Does anyone still use FaceTime ? How is the latest Apple Maps
| compared to google's ?
| Bud wrote:
| FaceTime is more popular than ever, and adding the ability to
| use it with Android folks will help even more.
|
| Apple Maps has gotten fairly close to Google Maps at this
| point. I actually strongly prefer Apple Maps' interface,
| although the data is still not as good overall. (Disclaimer:
| I'm biased. I worked on Apple Maps during its very early days.)
| suyash wrote:
| +1 to privacy centric apps even over inconvinience
| r00fus wrote:
| Most our family comms is FaceTime.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| I find it interesting to look at the differences between the
| localized versions of this page. Largely the same, but not
| entirely!
|
| English: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15/
|
| Chinese: https://www.apple.com.cn/ios/ios-15/
|
| Japanese: https://www.apple.com/jp/ios/ios-15/
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Care to mention the major differences?
| lgats wrote:
| CN: No Grid View Facetime Featured, No street-view walking
| directions, no "driver's license or state ID" Wallet feature,
| no "Visual Look Up", no anonymous "Hide My Email" relay
| feature
|
| JP: No Wallet (license/state id/hotel&garage unlock), no
| visual lookup
|
| This is just the difference in how the page are displayed and
| I didn't go and check to see if the actual features are there
| or not
| jumelles wrote:
| I've got a few minutes:
|
| Top image collage: Weather app is specific to city (China
| shows air quality). Chinese page replaces Ted Lasso with a
| Mojito music video.
|
| Japanese page has Greeen instead of Valiant on Apple Music.
|
| Chinese page is missing the spatial audio section with
| people's faces, and FaceTime sharing and links sections.
|
| Shared With You has six examples in English; four in Japanese
| and Chinese.
|
| Chinese page is missing some Maps info. Japanese page is
| missing the Wallet section. Visual Look Up is English-only.
|
| Spotlight section on Chinese page is missing a Billie Eilish
| screenshot; iCloud Private Relay is missing.
| isatty wrote:
| Does extensions on iOS safari mean I can finally get ublock
| origin on it?
| onedognight wrote:
| Unlikely. Safari supports stateless filtering (ie the blocker
| app doesn't get to see your traffic, but just submits rules),
| and Gorhill has said uBlock cannot work with this
| restriction[0]. I understand Apple's wanting to keeping
| blocking apps from spying and to ensure performance of the
| blockers, but the lack of uBlock on iOS is a _huge_ pain point
| for me.
|
| [0] https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
| lights0123 wrote:
| The whole point of the parent comment asking is that you can
| now install proper WebExtensions, so depending on what APIs
| they allow, this could change.
| Terretta wrote:
| Try 1Blocker.
|
| https://1blocker.com/
| sneak wrote:
| Supplement it with NextDNS, too, which also blocks most
| tracking inside of apps.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| 1Blocker has an "on-device" VPN that allows you to block
| tracking inside of apps. I find it insanely interesting how
| some apps are extremely slow because they block the UI
| waiting for a tracking request to time out (Experian credit
| check app as one example).
| dotdi wrote:
| Content blocking has been possible for a long time.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| Since 2015 https://www.hackingwithswift.com/safari-content-
| blocking-ios...
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| with uBlock origin?
| greggh wrote:
| I use Wipr on all of my devices and its great.
| brundolf wrote:
| I don't know much about ublock, but I've got a Safari content-
| blocker set up that pulls from a custom set of easylist files
| and blocks all requests to those URLs from within safari
| thebean11 wrote:
| The notification upgrades look promising! I always thought iOS
| was way behind Android in terms of customizing notification
| modes, and how each app behaves in each mode.
| TheCowboy wrote:
| Anyone have a guess about when iOS will support web push
| notifications? One shouldn't really have to spin up a native app
| just get this single feature that all other browsers support on
| every other platform.
| hbn wrote:
| Hopefully never, at least not in their current state.
|
| I've said it a few times on HN, but web notifications are
| almost entirely used for malicious purpose. Copy-pasting from a
| comment I made previously on the topic:
|
| > Take a look at your grandma's Android phone and she probably
| has 12 Chrome notifications saying she won a free iPad because
| she went on a site that asked to send notifications, and users
| are so used to user-hostile UX's that force you to agree to
| everything to use the site, they just hit "allow" so they can
| get to the content. I'm not surprised Apple doesn't want that
| on the iPhone.
| speg wrote:
| I stayed away from the beta but hopped on as soon as this was
| released. Loving the bottom tab bars in safari, I don't know what
| all the fuss was about.
|
| Interesting that this "add comment" button on hacker news has
| some weird default style with a bright blue background.
| flixic wrote:
| Initial Safari design was quite different from what shipped
| today (beta process worked!). The main differences were: all
| the buttons where crammed into the address field, dropping the
| toolbar (shipping design returned the toolbar), and the address
| bar was floating over content, detached from the bottom. This
| caused many sites to break.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| The only feature I am looking forward to is "live text" where it
| lets me simply copy text in images. That can be quite handy.
| dmd wrote:
| works great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jb889eVN5U
| JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote:
| Google Lens has had the feature for more than a year now and
| it's incredibly useful. I wonder how the accuracy of Apple's
| version will compare.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Does Google lens also recognise text based on local models? I
| am not so happy about the idea of having Google analyse all
| my photos.
| cucumb3rrelish wrote:
| I just tried it with internet turned off in both the photos
| and standalone app, and it did not work.
| [deleted]
| fudged71 wrote:
| The most useful time I have ever used this was to enter one of
| those super long randomized string WiFi passwords that is
| printed on paper. Every text field in iOS now has the option to
| enter text via OCR!
| systemvoltage wrote:
| They doubled down on animations and now they're longer than ever.
| _Facepalm_.
| zepto wrote:
| You can turn them off for the most part. I have.
| bombcar wrote:
| Where?
| peakaboo wrote:
| And nobody cares. :)
| jsudi wrote:
| 17 points and counting.
| Darmody wrote:
| I definitely do not care but some comments are just better not
| posted.
| ronnier wrote:
| I was mostly excited about the "select text in images" feature.
| You can easily copy/paste text from any image. Really cool
| feature and just built into the OS now.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Uuh, I wonder how visual lookup will compare to Google Lens. I
| almost never use google assistant because of privacy concerns,
| and having it done locally sounds wonderful. (Although, on a
| second look, the website doesn't mention whether it's local or
| not. I just know Siri is now partly done on device).
| apetresc wrote:
| Apple has confirmed it's on-device.
| judge2020 wrote:
| The RC had a lot of bugs and was unusable for some users on
| r/iOSBeta. The actual release is indeed two builds newer (19A346)
| so hopefully they've fixed these issues.
|
| Edit: looks like it's only available for people seeking it
| out[0]. Maybe they won't auto-update till 15.0.1?
|
| 0: https://i.judge.sh/troubled/Flam/YOWIKKHUYu.png
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I was running the betas for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS since they
| were released. The iOS and iPadOS betas were buggy, but I
| expected some problems.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Looks like it was available via beta.icloud.com (With an
| iCloud+ subscription):
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/25/icloud-custom-email-
| dom...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Thanks, I set up my custom doma8n a few hours ago. Very
| cool new iCloud+ feature.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| A big red flag that this is buried in Software Update... I
| would wait until the next point release if you value stability
| over everything else for your primary device.
| Wilkolicious wrote:
| I was on the beta profile, received the RC last week, removed
| the profile straight after, and now received iOS 15 (19A346).
| It's possible it's only available on the stable release
| profile.
|
| E: Ah, you're talking about from 14.8
| alibert wrote:
| "iOS may now offer a choice between two software update
| versions in the Settings app. You can update to the latest
| version of iOS 15 as soon as it's released for the latest
| features and most complete set of security updates. Or continue
| on iOS 14 and still get important security updates."
|
| https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15/features/
| pacificmint wrote:
| Interesting that they say "may" offer a choice. My phone does
| seem to offer the choice, while my iPad apparently doesn't
| and only shows 15.
| pitaj wrote:
| iPadOS has a separate release schedule
| digianarchist wrote:
| Firefox would crash every 10 odd pages for me. Hopefully
| they've fixed it.
| thih9 wrote:
| I really like the bottom tab bar in Safari; however the
| screenshot is very unfortunate, it shows a website with the
| mobile hamburger menu icon at the very top. Looks like the need
| to reach the top part of the screen is still there. I wonder if
| this will be the reality, at least for a while.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Loving focus mode and the Safari url bar at the bottom.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| What's the best foss option out there now? Graphene? Lineage? I
| hate that they're both Android based...
|
| I specifically dumped android phones because I was sick of Google
| and Apple still seemed to be the better option.
|
| Edit: Guess I upset the Apple and Google shills -\\_(tsu)_/-
| BryanBeshore wrote:
| For anyone wondering, this was supposed to be the release where
| Apple could scan your photos for child abuse. This was delayed
| for this release: https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-delays-
| child-abuse-phot...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Run an on-device scan against a hash database. Using a
| technology shown to have very frequent collisions.
|
| And then they notify law enforcement if they get a hit. Which
| means even if you're innocent - all your devices get
| confiscated for months, you probably rack up tens of thousands
| of dollars in legal fees, maybe lose your job, probably lose
| your friends and get the boot from any social organizations or
| groups.
|
| They're waiting for two things.
|
| One, CSAM to get out of the news cycle and the furor among
| users about CSAM to die down. This is standard corporate PR
| "emergency" management practice.
|
| Two, to slide it into a point release after some minor,
| inconsequential change to say they "listened to users." iPhones
| with auto-updates enabled won't automatically upgrade to a new
| major release, but they will happily automatically upgrade to a
| point release.
|
| You can of course upgrade to iOS 15 and turn off auto-updates,
| but then you won't get security updates, like the people
| staying on iOS 14.
|
| Stay on iOS 14 until Apple surrenders completely on this.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| If they get 30 (?) hits then they review the data and _then_
| they refer it to law enforcement _if_ the reviewers determine
| that they were CSAM images. It 's not for a single collision
| and it's not immediately referred to law enforcement. There
| are still major risks and concerns with this model, but at
| least describe it correctly.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Why should technology so bad it needs thirty mulligans have
| the power to completely destroy your life?
|
| And exactly how are they obligated to keep those policies?
| Answer: they aren't. There isn't some law saying '30 hits
| before we report you', and Apple is certainly going to drop
| the number as the public gets more used to the idea of
| CSAM. They'll keep dropping it until the news articles
| start coming out about how it's destroying lives.
|
| This is corporate law enforcement. You don't have a right
| to due process, any say in their policies, or protection
| via any sort of oversight.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Again, Google and Microsoft have already been scanning
| everything on your account for the past decade without
| any such protections against incriminating users based on
| false positives.
| privacyisntdead wrote:
| Account is not the same as your device
| philwelch wrote:
| How do they review the data if your iCloud photos are E2E
| encrypted?
| jduckles wrote:
| They're only encrypted when on iCloud, not when on your
| device. The hashes are computed on your device.
| philwelch wrote:
| So how do they capture the unencrypted images from my
| device for "review"?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I'm guessing you haven't been following the issue.
|
| More details in [1], but briefly:
|
| They hash the images that you're uploading to iCloud. If
| it matches one of the hashes in the database, then it
| gets encrypted and transmitted to them. No single data
| packet can be decrypted, they need 30 (?) matches with
| that database in order to get a decryption key that then
| allows them to review the uploaded images. They don't
| send the actual images to the reviewers, it's altered in
| some way. At that point the reviewer will have 30 (?)
| thumbnails (?) to review. _If_ the images look like CSAM,
| then they 'll report it to NCMEC who then report it to
| law enforcement (NCMEC is not, itself, a law enforcement
| agency).
|
| The ? are because I don't think they've publicly stated
| (or I've not read) what the threshold for decryption is
| or how they modify the images that get sent to the
| reviewers.
|
| [0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/child-
| safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
| philwelch wrote:
| > I'm guessing you haven't been following the issue.
|
| Not as closely as some people. That's why I asked the
| question in the first place. But thanks for answering.
| tillinghast wrote:
| Let the reader understand.
|
| (i.e. They're encrypted in transfer and while stored, but
| Apple holds the keys: https://qr.ae/pGSHY8, https://manua
| ls.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app...
| [search for 'iCloud'])
| danudey wrote:
| For the lazy:
|
| > Each file is broken into chunks and encrypted by iCloud
| using AES128 and a key derived from each chunk's
| contents, with the keys using SHA256. The keys and the
| file's metadata are stored by Apple in the user's iCloud
| account. The encrypted chunks of the file are stored,
| without any user-identifying information or the keys,
| using both Apple and third party storage services--such
| as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform--but
| these partners don't have the keys to decrypt the user's
| data stored on their servers.
|
| As far as I can tell, they don't say anything specific
| about where or how Apple stores the keys and metadata, so
| it should be assumed that Apple could decrypt your photos
| if they wanted to.
| thrashh wrote:
| End-to-end encryption prevents a third party from reading
| your content, but if you are getting your encryption
| software from the same people that are storing your
| encrypted data, the only thing stopping them from reading
| your data is corporate policy.
|
| Which is fine, because I use iCloud and many other cloud
| services, but you have to acknowledge the fact.
| sneak wrote:
| iCloud photos are not E2E encrypted. Apple has announced
| no plans whatsoever to make them such. Apple, their
| sysadmins, and the government can see every photo you
| have in iCloud.
|
| Apple had plans (and, an inside source tells me, an
| implementation) to do E2E for iCloud Backup, but the FBI
| asked them not to, so they scrapped it:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-
| exclusiv...
|
| This undermines the credibility of those who are
| claiming, without evidence, that this clientside CSAM
| scanning is a prelude to launching E2E for iCloud data.
| philwelch wrote:
| Okay, so basically they are just sort of pinky-swearing
| that your iCloud photos are encrypted on iCloud, but not
| in any way that prevents Apple or the government from
| decrypting them anyway.
|
| This raises the followup question of "why bother scanning
| the images on-device?", but I can infer two fairly
| obvious answers. First, the encryption still keeps
| AWS/Azure/GCP from seeing my photos. Second, and more
| cynically, they'd have to pay to do computation in the
| cloud; on-device computation is free to them.
|
| > This undermines the credibility of those who are
| claiming, without evidence, that this clientside CSAM
| scanning is a prelude to launching E2E for iCloud data.
|
| I agree; this is consistent with my initial point of
| confusion. Thanks!
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Okay, so basically they are just sort of pinky-swearing
| that your iCloud photos are encrypted on iCloud, but not
| in any way that prevents Apple or the government from
| decrypting them anyway.
|
| How do you imagine that Google and Microsoft are able to
| scan the entire contents of your account? They can all
| read the data on their servers
|
| >This raises the followup question of "why bother
| scanning the images on-device?
|
| Because running the scan on device and encrypting the
| results protects users from having their account
| associated with the inevitable false positives that are
| going to crop up.
|
| Apple can't decrypt the scan results your device produces
| until the threshold of 30 matching images is reached.
|
| If someone issues a warrant to Apple for every account
| that has a single match, they can honestly report that
| they don't have that information.
|
| Google and Microsoft give you no such protection. Any
| data held on their server is wide open for misuse by
| anyone who can issue a warrant.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Run an on-device scan against a hash database. Using a
| technology shown to have very frequent collisions.
|
| Google and Microsoft have been scanning everything in your
| account against a hash database for the past decade.
|
| Also, unlike Apple's system which doesn't even notify Apple
| of the first 30 positive results (to protect you from the
| inevitable false positives) Google and Microsoft offer users
| no such protection.
|
| >then they notify law enforcement if they get a hit. Which
| means even if you're innocent - all your devices get
| confiscated for months, you probably rack up tens of
| thousands of dollars in legal fees, maybe lose your job,
| probably lose your friends and get the boot from any social
| organizations or groups.
|
| Again, Google and Microsoft have already been doing this for
| the past decade.
|
| >a man [was] arrested on child pornography charges, after
| Google tipped off authorities about illegal images found in
| the Houston suspect's Gmail account
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-that-
| le...
| tylerhou wrote:
| Apple also has been doing this for photos uploaded to
| iCloud as they are not currently encrypted.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Apple also has been doing this for photos uploaded to
| iCloud as they are not currently encrypted.
|
| Nope. Google and Microsoft have been scanning your entire
| account for the past decade. Apple has not.
|
| >TechCrunch: Most other cloud providers have been
| scanning for CSAM for some time now. Apple has not.
| Obviously there are no current regulations that say that
| you must seek it out on your servers, but there is some
| roiling regulation in the EU and other countries. Is that
| the impetus for this? Basically, why now?
|
| Erik Neuenschwander: Why now comes down to the fact that
| we've now got the technology that can balance strong
| child safety and user privacy. This is an area we've been
| looking at for some time, including current state of the
| art techniques which mostly involves scanning through
| entire contents of users' libraries on cloud services
| that -- as you point out -- isn't something that we've
| ever done
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/10/interview-apples-head-
| of-p...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Scanning content on a gmail account is not even remotely
| anything like scanning my device.
| ilogik wrote:
| the photos are only scanned just before being uploaded to
| iCloud. If you have CSAM on your phone, just turn off
| iCloud sync
| duped wrote:
| If it's so easy to bypass then it sounds like it's a
| useless feature that won't prevent the proliferation of
| CSAM
| nopcode wrote:
| Apple is worried about content uploaded to their iCloud.
|
| As there is no clear legislation, every company is
| implementing what they feel comfortable with.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Also, if you plan on burying a body in the woods, make
| sure you turn on Airplane Mode first.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Great advice and great job repeating the manipulative
| framing of "if you're not a pedophile, you have nothing
| to fear."
|
| Also, if you have anything that may be matched by
| unknowable and unverifiable matching hashes and
| algorithms provided by multiple nation states now or ever
| in the future, including but not limited to political
| activists, protests, anti-animal-abuse activists, climate
| activists, and select ethnicities, or copyright
| violations of any kind... switch off iCloud sync.
|
| Until that switch gets ignored.
|
| This cannot and will not be limited to CSAM. The matching
| is much more complicated than "hashes of existing
| images."
|
| Here's a good in-depth interview on the tech and the
| issues.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZZ5erGSKgs
| nopcode wrote:
| >framing of "if you're not a pedophile, you have nothing
| to fear."
|
| I read it more as "if you don't like it, use another
| cloud storage solution"
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Scanning content on-server means that a single false
| positive is sitting there, ready to be maliciously
| misused by any prosecutor who cares to issue a dragnet
| warrant.
|
| These sorts of dragnet warrants have become increasingly
| common.
|
| >Google says geofence warrants make up one-quarter of all
| US demands
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/19/google-geofence-
| warrants/
|
| It's not like we haven't seen Google's on-server data
| hordes misused to falsely accuse users before.
|
| >Innocent man, 23, sues Arizona police for $1.5million
| after being arrested for MURDER and jailed for six days
| when Google's GPS tracker wrongly placed him at the scene
| of the 2018 crime
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7897319/Police-
| arre...
|
| Apple's system is designed to protect you from being
| associated with false positives, until that threshold of
| 30 matches is reached. Even then, the next step is to
| have a human review the data.
|
| Google has never been willing to hire human beings to
| supervise the decisions an algorithm makes.
| sharikous wrote:
| > Two, to slide it into a point release after some minor,
| inconsequential change to say they "listened to users."
|
| I doubt it will happen. Apple is not known for that sort of
| interaction. Whatever will happen it will happen silently
| without Apple admitting to bend down to any backlash.
|
| Also, the pressure to implement device scanning is coming
| from governments. So it is naive to think Apple will ever
| surrender. Most probably in the near future every single
| electronic device will try to leak your data as much as it
| physically can do.
| newsbinator wrote:
| > Apple is not known for that sort of interaction.
|
| Apple was not known to err on the side of "think of the
| children" or "let's help catch criminals" instead of
| personal privacy. But now they're known for new things.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| >Stay on iOS 14 until Apple surrenders completely on this
|
| Or vote with your wallet and abandon the Apple ecosystem. But
| nobody will because they don't have the bollocks.
| duped wrote:
| More that I need a smart phone for work and life but there
| are no viable alternatives to iOS and Android, and I trust
| Apple slightly more than Google not to spy on me and use it
| against me
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Literally this
| 0x6862 wrote:
| On many Android devices you can flash an AOSP RON which
| is a very viable alternative
| iosquestion wrote:
| I wonder if upgrading to iOS 15 will increase the chance of
| receiving this spyware when they do roll it out?
|
| I mean 15.X - 15.Y will likely occur automatically while the
| phone is connected to WiFi and charging.. but 14 to 15 should
| require user approval, meaning we should be safe as long as we
| never upgrade >14..?
| danudey wrote:
| Turn off uploading photos to iCloud, and then if they start
| rolling it out, disable automatic updates.
| beezischillin wrote:
| Considering that they got the algo reverse engineered from 14
| (it is already in the code running on all those devices)
| there seems to be a possibility that a security update could
| bring it online on 14 as well. Just my speculation but it
| seems plausible.
| Lamad123 wrote:
| I smashed the iphone I had into pieces, and I'm wondering
| what to do with my mac. Maybe install some linux or
| something, but I don't really know much about that! It'll
| take me a couple months of reading on it.. I am still using
| Mojave anyways.
| selykg wrote:
| That's... overly dramatic.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Crushing a device is a normal response from someone who
| needs to stop hidden device tracking and cannot afford to
| possibly get it wrong and have some tracking slip
| through.
| jeron wrote:
| Use the pieces of the iPhone to smash the Mac
| r00fus wrote:
| I honestly doubt it. They will likely roll this out to both
| latest versions. I think they said as much.
| SllX wrote:
| If you look at it as reducing their liability for hosting
| CSAM, then more likely it'll become a requirement at some
| point in order to upload your photos to iCloud at all, no
| matter which version of iOS you're on.
| krrrh wrote:
| Or just don't use iCloud photos since the local device
| scanning for CSAM is limited to the Photos app and only scans
| prior to upload to iCloud photo library which is easy to turn
| off.
|
| It's also not too difficult to have your unencrypted photos
| synced to Google Photos, Dropbox, One Drive or another
| provider as an alternative. They will scan your photos in the
| cloud which people on this site seem to have a vastly strong
| preference for. If you don't trust any of those then you're
| probably already using NextCloud or something like it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > Or just don't use iCloud photos since the local device
| scanning for CSAM is limited to the Photos app and only
| scans prior to upload to iCloud photo
|
| For now. It will spread.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Either turn off automatic updates or don't. You're
| overanalyzing this.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| They're not "overanalyzing" it. Turning off automatic
| updates means you miss security updates. Point upgrades are
| automatic, full versions aren't. Apple is clearly going to
| backdoor this in a 15.1 or 15.2 release, which means you
| then can't get any security updates and your only option is
| to go back to a backup of your device from iOS 14.
| jasamer wrote:
| Apple will allow you to stay on iOS 14 and still receive
| automatic security updates.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/psa-you-dont-
| have-to...
| makerofthings wrote:
| I think switching off automatic updates and running a few
| months behind is the safest plan. There are risks around not
| getting security updates as fast, but they are probably not
| large for any individual user.
|
| I'm hoping they'll realise that they confused privacy and
| trust and get back on track soon enough.
| simion314 wrote:
| Did they removed the code? commented it or defaulted it to off
| for now but the code is there and ready to scan.
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| I would assume no. People decompile binaries all the time and
| would likely catch it. It also could introduce dependencies
| and bugs that would require QA work and dev work.
| simion314 wrote:
| I mean they just announced it is delayed, didn't they had
| it enabled in Beta for testing? Could cause more problems
| if you remove it completely in a rush.
| gruez wrote:
| it's also worth noting that ios 14 is supposed to get security
| updates even after ios 15 is released, so if you care about
| that kind of stuff it's probably better not to upgrade.
|
| edit: more info in sibling comment
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28596442
| someonehere wrote:
| Warning to those with AirTags. Mine are gone from Find My. When
| attempting to reset one of my working/paired tags before the
| upgrade, I get a Bluetooth error when trying to set up. So all of
| my tags are dead right now and will not connect to my phone.
|
| However a friend who had one of my tags for a couple of days gets
| the notification that my tag was with them and to tap to contact
| the owner.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Oh, interesting. Mine still works as expected but I'll keep an
| eye out.
| mmcnl wrote:
| Focus Mode / Do Not Disturb infuriates me. All I want is for my
| notifications to not light up the screen and make any sounds
| except for calls. Is that so hard? It keeps getting more complex.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Is that so hard?_
|
| YMMV, I guess--I found the customizable flavors of Do Not
| Disturb immediately useful. And if you don't, the old Do Not
| Disturb is still an option.
| xtat wrote:
| The inevitable end state of a closed ecosystem is compromise
| and that's why I'm out.
| jkelleyrtp wrote:
| Apple Maps is so close to being a fantastic app, but is sorely
| missing "search along route" that Google has. Right now, you can
| press the "coffee" or "gas" button but there's no way to say,
| search for a CVS on the way back home from work. I really wish
| Apple added this instead of just suggesting searches that _might_
| be useful.
| btmiller wrote:
| I'd also really like multi-stop navigation planning like Google
| Maps has. I'm planning on a cross-country road trip to see
| family for the holidays and I'd love if Apple could improve
| upon the multi-stop planning experience that Google threw
| together. It's nice, but it's also cumbersome.
| ericmay wrote:
| That and reporting accidents and items like that (unless those
| are in the release - haven't dove into it much).
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| You can do that already since 14.5.
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212226
|
| But only in the US and mainland China for some bizarre
| reason.
| covercash wrote:
| Reporting accidents, hazards, and speed traps has been in
| there since iOS 14.
| [deleted]
| ericmay wrote:
| Gotcha - wow I guess I have really not been using Apple
| Maps (or any maps application) for some time then if I
| didn't notice that...
|
| Thanks
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| In NYC, Apple Maps this last weekend suggested I go way out of
| my way on one subway line and then backtrack on another to get
| to my destination. It also suggested none of the other direct
| routes that Citymapper was able to discern. Not sure what
| happened in the 3+ years that I've stopped using Apple Maps but
| I used it the whole way there and the experience was awful. I
| will continue not using it.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| And not funneling me out to install the awful Yelp app just to
| read restaurant ratings. :|
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Agreed. Aside from my general distaste for Yelp and their
| business practices, it is also an objectively bad user
| experience.
|
| Makes me wonder if Apple made some exclusive Yelp agreement
| before Apple Maps launched, so they'd have good ratings data,
| and we have to wait for the agreement to expire before Apple
| can move on.
|
| To me it would make good market sense for Apple to fully
| compete with Google Maps and offer Apple Maps on the web. It
| would give them more data to feed back into their
| review/ratings/business info database to further improve the
| mobile experience.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Apple Maps' ratings were announced last year and seem to be
| rolling out now:
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/23/apple-maps-native-ratings-
| and...
| spiderice wrote:
| I just installed iOS 15 an hour ago. So I checked to see
| if the new Apple Maps' ratings was in there. There is now
| a "Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down" button that allows you approve
| or disapprove of a restaurants Food & Drink, Customer
| Service, Atmosphere, and Overall experience. It also uses
| your on device location data to suggest photos that you
| took while at the restaurant, to include in your review.
| So it looks like it's finally live! (At least for some
| people)
|
| Interestingly enough, it still has Yelp reviews beneath
| it. Hopefully that just gets removed completely once
| Apple has collected enough of their own reviews.
| Someone wrote:
| > offer Apple Maps on the web
|
| If they wanted to, they could easily do that.
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs:
|
| _"Use this JavaScript API to embed interactive maps
| directly into your webpages or apps across different
| platforms and operating systems, including iOS and Android.
| Like MapKit for native apps, you can also add annotations
| and overlays to the map to call out points of interest or
| user destinations."_
|
| However, would that really give them more data? I would
| guess it would get a tiny fraction of the traffic that
| mapping apps would generate.
| Matheus28 wrote:
| At least on CarPlay, there is that option, but you have to use
| voice for anything that isn't gas and a couple of other
| categories.
| perfectstorm wrote:
| does it support offline maps/offline navigation? why don't they
| support offline maps? it's not like they have to pay royalty
| fees to support it when they own it end to end.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/feedback/maps-ios-ipados.html
| judge2020 wrote:
| Posting on HN is probably more valuable when your feedback is
| requesting new featureful changes and not just bugs. There
| are likely quite a few Apple engineers that browse this
| subreddit which might be able to make an internal push for
| these changes (eventually).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Agreed! But it can also be helpful to submit the requests
| through the usual channels. Engineers on HN can then point
| PMs and management to this data versus "someone on HN
| asked, create the story."
| pininja wrote:
| This has been my experience and is also why I push to get
| a feature request submitted, and then ask for some link
| to it. Also as a customer, sometimes when I'm writing out
| my request I realize an existing way to get what I want
| without needing to wait for them.
| Operyl wrote:
| Said engineers also push heavily for people to send in a
| FB. It's something on paper they can show their management
| to show an interest exists.
| tpush wrote:
| > [...] that browse this subreddit [...]
|
| Freudian slip here, I guess.
|
| I'd still report them through the normal channels. I
| wouldn't bet on any given Apple employee of the right team
| to happen to read a specific comment on HN.
| razorfen wrote:
| Nor do they necessarily have the ability to do
| discretionary prioritization of certain bugs or features,
| even if they did see it.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| Agree on this and multi-stop routes. I've been using Apple Maps
| with CarPlay for the last few years and I can confidently say
| it is better than google maps by a wide margin. The voice, UI,
| traffic and routing, map design won me over. The aerial and
| street view quality, while not the most important, are second
| to none.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| I'm sorry, CarPlay is awful. I'm forced to use it and the UX
| is TERRIBLE. I'm actually somewhat surprised that they've
| left it in the state it's in.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| What don't you like about it? I like it so much that I'd
| never buy a car without it again.
| jdgiese wrote:
| Agreed! I live in NYC and don't drive too often. I just got
| back from a two-week trip with a car rental and was really
| surprised at how great Apple Maps was. The map design is nice
| and clean and it works well with CarPlay. I also felt like
| the audio instructions were very clear and easy to follow.
| E.g., "pass this light and turn right at the next one." I
| also liked the "Share your ETA" feature which I used a few
| times. Really nice job Apple!
| jkelleyrtp wrote:
| Agreed. I don't know if Apple is handicapping Google maps on
| iOS (ie locking system APIs) but Apple maps is smoother,
| cleaner, and exactly what I want out of a helpful navigation
| assistant. Apple Maps give instructions in the way I as a
| navigator would. Things like "take a right turn after the
| next light" are way better than Google/Waze. Apple Maps just
| struggles in discovering an area and planning a journey -
| both of which Google excels in.
| coob wrote:
| > I don't know if Apple is handicapping Google maps on iOS
| (ie locking system APIs)
|
| It isn't
| sneak wrote:
| Sadly, you can't enable CarPlay unless you enable Siri, and
| you can't enable/use Siri without uploading your phone's
| contacts to Apple.
| aeharding wrote:
| No directions for people on bikes in Madison, WI makes this app
| still utterly useless for me.
| maxclark wrote:
| I default to Apple Maps, but Google Maps
|
| * is more accurate * has way better local search and reviews
| (Yelp is garbage)
| bound008 wrote:
| Just an FYI, you can definitely do this when using CarPlay and
| Apple Maps. There is a set list of categories you can search
| while currently navigating. I wish you could make an arbitrary
| on route search, but you can't.
| robot_erotic wrote:
| Adding onto this. You can actually ask Siri specifically the
| added stop and append "along the way", so something like,
| "Starbuck on the way". It has always found my requests on the
| route I was already on as well as the added time it will take
| away from me.
| Arrath wrote:
| I have consistently found the apple maps experience to be
| subpar when compared to competing navigation apps, most lately
| with laggardly updates to road closure status due to wildfires
| here in California. Other apps updated the roads in a fairly
| timely manner, but apple showed roads closed for several days
| after they were reopened by authorities.
| jsudi wrote:
| Anybody running AltStore on this and can confirm whether it works
| right?
| chaoskanzlerin wrote:
| I can't confirm it's running, but I guess it's been working on
| the iOS 15 beta versions?
| https://twitter.com/altstoreio/status/1413181075426213890
| staunch wrote:
| Is there a good breakdown of any changes/improvements to PWAs on
| iOS 15, like can a PWA app do background audio finally, etc?
| codyswann wrote:
| No background audio.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| The photos ML search from spotlight or whatever they call it is
| creepy accurate. Maybe just my brain bias but it seems to find
| context in images that aren't labeled. Adding OCR adds to that.
|
| But it doesn't have the same search within the photos app itself?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Is apple's photo search any less terrible now?
|
| Dunno if anyone else suffers this? Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
| Finding a years-old photo to upload is TERRIBLE. It's trivial to
| do in Google Photos, but then getting a handle on the photo when
| using the "photo selector" widget to upload it to Twitter or an
| existing email is horrible.
|
| I do this workflow dozens of times per week and the best I can
| come up with is:
|
| 1. text search Apple photos in the upload widget and be
| disappointed
|
| 2. text search Google photos and instantly find the image I want
|
| 3. "Delete from device"
|
| 4. "Download to device" (which puts it at the very front of the
| list)
|
| 5. Go back to Safari, finish composing Tweet, add photo, pick
| newest photo.
| kace91 wrote:
| Yup, been there done that. Google photos search is miles ahead,
| and the main reason I use the app (aside of obviously the cloud
| backup)
| DeRock wrote:
| Can you give an example of the type of search where Apple
| photos fails but Google photos succeeds? I only use Apple
| photos, but it supports my use case of date/location/"object
| detection" search, but wondering if I'm missing out on
| something much better.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Everything. Compared to Google Photos there's not one query
| that isn't vastly inferior.
|
| Finding text in images, finding obscure relationships between
| a query and a photo.
|
| I mean, I can search for my cars by make! Like, no logo
| showing, I type in "Porsche" and my old Boxster shows up
| including photos that don't have a visible logo.
|
| I had out of town guests visit and we went to Times Square. I
| could find pictures from a specific vantage point by
| searching for specific text in billboards
|
| The facial recognition is a million miles ahead too. Across
| all my photos Apple only recognizes a handful of recurring
| faces. Google recognizes people I don't even realize were in
| multiple pictures.
|
| -
|
| I suspect Apple is behind because they're using less invasive
| indexing or something, so I'm not saying switch... but also
| Apple Photos might as well not have search once you've tried
| Google Photos.
| carabiner wrote:
| Apple's runs on the device, Google's runs on cloud with the
| results downloaded.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Object detection is much more broad in Google Photos and
| complex queries are in a different league ("dogs in new york
| city")
| Terretta wrote:
| The 'complex queries' in Apple Photos is done as a series
| of discrete set descriptors.
|
| As you type your descriptor, tap the appropriate found set
| below (they list photos in the set) to turn it into a tag,
| then continue typing the next descriptor.
|
| For this search, you'd end up with something that looks
| like:
|
| [new york metropolitan area][dog]
|
| These result in a venn diagram of the overlaps. In my case
| with 12K photos in NY metro, it found the one dog photo I
| had.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Their tags are just strictly inferior.
|
| In Apple Photos I can search for a car.
|
| In Google Photos I can search for a specific manufacturer
| and it recognizes not just the logos but attempt to
| classify the actual cars they make. For example, it
| recognizes a Toyota from a BMW just based on the body
| shape.
|
| The text search is insane too, it can find text in photos
| you would struggle to realize was there in many cases,
| which is huge when trying to find old information.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Driveway"
|
| "Winter backyard"
|
| "forest with cats"
|
| "<childname>'s first birthday"
|
| "<name> and <name> at cottage"
|
| It's ridiculous how powerful and indispensable this
| intelligent search is. I have tens of thousands of photos,
| growing every day. Being able to text search their contents
| is the killer feature that makes it useful. Apple's photo
| library is not useful without this.
| aborsy wrote:
| Is there a timeline for the client side scanning?!
|
| Or has that plan been dropped for good?!
|
| Cause I am not gonna upgrade if these features come at a cost to
| privacy caused by client side scanning.
| sneak wrote:
| According to Apple, it's been postponed.
|
| It's obvious that people as smart as Apple wouldn't be doing
| this tremendous damage to their brand if they weren't deadset
| on launching it, so it's likely that it will launch quietly
| later, once the furor over it has died down.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| No. They've put a pin in it, but publically haven't discussed
| when it may ship (or what changes could be made).
|
| All we know right now is that it isn't in iOS 15.
| hughrr wrote:
| I'm going to upgrade. If they roll it I'm going to sell the
| phone.
| pt_PT_guy wrote:
| Is it me or most of the features could be a simple app update?
| paxys wrote:
| Most of these apps (Facetime, iMessage, Safari, Maps, Wallet,
| Photos) aren't built using their public SDK but rather have
| deep dependencies on the OS itself.
| pt_PT_guy wrote:
| Humm. gotcha. thank you
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Which is why when these apps suffer a security vulnerability
| they've resulted in privilege escalation (inc. root)
| previously.
|
| I actually think it is a bad look for Apple not to dogfood
| their own public APIs. Microsoft used to do the same thing
| with Windows and Office, and it was a bad look then too.
|
| Credit to Google on this, since many of their apps are just
| _normal_ apps. No special privileges or bypasses. Even their
| special stuff has pretty aggressive sandboxing and can be
| updated like a normal app via the store.
| cmelbye wrote:
| It doesn't make any sense for a company to ship "dog food"
| publicly to developer partners. In fact, the decision to
| make an API public is critical to get right and should not
| be taken lightly.
|
| Making a mistake in private APIs creates some burden within
| Apple as revisions are made, but this is to be expected
| from pre-release software.
|
| Making a mistake in public APIs erodes the trust of
| partners that invested time and money in the platform, and
| it leads to subpar user experiences.
| defaultname wrote:
| How Apple distributes their core apps (Safari, Mail, etc)
| is orthogonal to how they are implemented, secured, ring
| levels, sandboxing, etc. These are separate considerations.
|
| Apple's core philosophy is that upgrading the system is the
| fundamental way to get new things. With iOS 15 we've seen
| the first real fracture in this model (where they are
| promoting a "stay on iOS 14 for now" option), and maybe
| eventually they'll separately distribute some of the tied
| applications.
|
| Google started Android with a very similar model to iOS but
| quickly recognized it was turning into a disaster given the
| slow uptake of new Android versions. Turning what were
| system level components (e.g. play services) into "apps"
| was a necessity.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Google started Android with a very similar model to iOS
| but quickly recognized it was turning into a disaster
| given the slow uptake of new Android versions. Turning
| what were system level components (e.g. play services)
| into "apps" was a necessity.
|
| Apple hasn't had that same "pain" yet, iOS update rates
| are pretty high. If major OS update rates drop, then
| they'd be better motivated to cleanly separate their app
| updates from their OS updates. It just hasn't happened
| yet.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/04/ios-14-installation-
| rat...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > How Apple distributes their core apps (Safari, Mail,
| etc) is orthogonal to how they are implemented, secured,
| ring levels, sandboxing, etc. These are separate
| considerations.
|
| Strongly disagree. If Apple distributed their apps as
| normal apps, they'd have normal privileges and when
| exploits are found the scope would be limited to that app
| domain.
|
| Instead, what we have seen is that Apple's apps act like
| system services, and when escapes occur it can cause a
| wide-ranging impact (inc. root).
|
| iMessage just in the last two weeks had to be emergency
| patched (14.8) because of a root breakout used by an
| Israeli's company (NSO Group) surveillance software that
| they were selling to unsavory governments. If iMessage
| was a normal app distributed by the app store the scope
| would have been iMessage, instead of root.
| defaultname wrote:
| I understand that you disagree, however your disagreement
| seems to be based upon a pretty significant
| misunderstanding/lack of knowledge both about these apps
| and their privileges.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > misunderstanding/lack of knowledge both about these
| apps and their privileges.
|
| Yet you've been able to present none. According to your
| claims the zero-click escape that caussed the critical
| 4.8 security update to be released in the last two weeks
| isn't possible, and yet it happened.
|
| So please, by all means, explain why Apple's apps should
| be structured like this:
|
| https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2020/01/remote-
| iphone...
|
| https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-look-at-
| ime...
|
| Instead of being normal apps with self-contained app
| domains that would also limit any exploitation.
| defaultname wrote:
| "Yet you've been able to present none"
|
| What am I supposed to present? A complete history of
| computer science and system design?
|
| "isn't possible"
|
| Any app on any system, if exploitable, can be used for a
| chain attack to exploit further vulnerabilities (and 14.8
| was a bandaid for just such an attack). That's ignoring
| that iMessages is also such a high value target _for its
| own data_ , in the same way that Signal and other
| messaging apps are high value targets, and not just as a
| path to chaining 0 days.
|
| This is a not useful conversation that I hesitated
| engaging in at first glance (when someone does the "if
| only they just _waved hand_ everything would be great "
| it's founded in dubious logic 100% of the time), so feel
| free to reply into the ether.
| jasamer wrote:
| One of NSO's previous exploits targeted WhatsApp, so they
| seem quite capable of using "normal" apps to get their
| spyware on your phone.
|
| Apple's Apps are better targets of course because those
| are on every phone.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/4da1117e-756c-11e9-be7d-6d8465
| 37a...
| [deleted]
| vadfa wrote:
| >Microsoft used to do the same thing with Windows and
| Office, and it was a bad look then too.
|
| And Internet Explorer, which was one of the pillars of
| United States v. Microsoft Corp.
| slig wrote:
| I wonder how Chrome, WhatsApp, Google Photos, Instagram, etc,
| can make their apps run anywhere using only public APIs and
| Apple can't.
| [deleted]
| noahtallen wrote:
| One of the biggest ones (focus modes) might not be, as well as
| SharePlay (if it uses a new platform SDK). But new maps
| features totally could be an app update. I'm guessing apple has
| determined it to be more beneficial to do one big update at the
| same time instead of incrementally adding features to apps.
| [deleted]
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Starting to feel that way with a lot of phone features too.
| Remember when they put Memoji only in the iPhone X. I know they
| used the IR camera for fancy expression detection but really
| it's debatable how far ahead it was from anything Snapchat etc
| were doing on all hardware.
| DanTheManPR wrote:
| Apple continues to support OS updates on the iPhone 6s, a device
| released almost 6 years ago. Nor is it reserved for their
| flagship models - the 2016 iPhone SE also gets the latest and
| greatest.
|
| Meanwhile, my flagship android phone from 2018, the Samsung
| Galaxy S9, is stuck on the last version of Android. At least it
| still gets security updates, some manufacturers don't even go
| that far.
| arenaninja wrote:
| This is why I started buying iPhones. The resale value of a
| device after 2 years of usage is over 50% of the original cost
| if it's in good condition
|
| OEM quality is all over the place for Android, crapware is
| standard. It's been 4 years of iPhone for me and the only
| complaint I have is how bad Apple Maps can be
| Server6 wrote:
| I mainly use the Google Maps app on the iPhone.
| danudey wrote:
| I bought my iPhone 13 Pro, and there was an option right
| there on the page to trade in my existing hardware. I chose
| yes, and, because I bought that phone with my same apple
| account which I also have linked to the hardware, my phone
| showed up right there as an option. I tapped on it, said yes
| it's in good condition, and got like $530 CDN off my
| purchase.
|
| Could I sell my phone for more than $530? Yes. Is it worth my
| time to deal with asshats on Craigslist who arrange a time to
| meet up and then ghost you for three days, just to get a bit
| more out of it? Nah.
|
| (Despite initially trying to sell it, my iPhone Xs sat on a
| shelf for two years until someone saw it and said "Hey are
| you selling that? My phone is dying.")
|
| Presumably that also means that the phone is going to get
| refurbished, or maybe stripped for parts and recycled by
| Apple's fancy disassembly robots, which is nice.
| hbn wrote:
| Which phone did you trade in to get $530?
| dnissley wrote:
| Maybe you don't have the option in Canada, but Swappa has
| solved the sell-it-yourself problem in the US.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| How does Swappa handle fraud? ie. saying the phone is
| broken and then shipping back some other device to the
| seller?
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Apple Maps is pretty good these days IMO. I used it ahead of
| Google Maps by choice
| brundolf wrote:
| Apple Maps has been great for me, though I've heard the data
| quality varies widely based on where you live
|
| For me it's just a cleaner, simpler, less ad-infested version
| of Google Maps
| beezischillin wrote:
| I like the zoom level to information ratio a lot on Apple
| Maps, especially in the UK. It's not very good in my
| country so I reluctantly use Waze instead when needed.
| arenaninja wrote:
| I'm in the US but outside California. I find Apple Maps has
| better estimates for directions, but Google Maps is much
| more likely to have small businesses in its data set. I've
| also had experiences where it makes me drive across the
| street from my destination/1 block or two away
|
| I want to like it because, as you pointed out, it's a
| cleaner interface
| brundolf wrote:
| Yeah. I'm in Austin, which probably means my local data
| gets more attention than most
|
| They do have a mechanism for filing corrections from
| within the app, which I've used a couple times and it
| seems to actually result in fixes, which is great
|
| Hopefully they give more priority to a wider set of areas
| in the future
| arenaninja wrote:
| I've submitted corrections a couple of times, I found the
| process cumbersome. Maybe it has improved since I used it
| can16358p wrote:
| I like the interface of Apple Maps, but where I live
| (Turkey) the map data itself is very limited and buggy. It
| shows a literally 15-min walk as 2 days 16 hours by taking
| me through Greece and the islands instead of a simple
| crosswalk, for example.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Definitely helps to be in a major metro area. Even then,
| while I think Portland has pretty good detail, it was
| noticeably improved when I drove through the Bay Area last
| weekend. When that level of detail is available
| _everywhere_ (in the US, at least), Google may have
| something to worry about.
| drcongo wrote:
| I was a big fan when I lived in London, but I recently
| moved away to a new town that I don't know very well and on
| Friday it sent me on a 1hr walk that should have taken 25
| minutes. When I looked at the route it took me afterwards,
| it made absolutely no sense at all.
| windock wrote:
| That is hilarious.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This, exactly, is why I switched to iPhones. The only way
| Android devices are cheaper is if you run them into the
| ground and don't upgrade until you must. Invariably they go
| on 50% off sale within a year for the flagship models, which
| tanks their resale value. Combined with the utter lack of
| support more than the first couple years of ownership.
|
| I can upgrade my iPhone every 2 or 3 years and spend a lot
| less overall. My wallet was always open when I tried to stay
| current with Android flagships.
| arenaninja wrote:
| I found it too easy to run Android devices to the ground...
| I've run into boot loop, suddenly dead, too slow after an
| upgrade, battery starts running too hot, etc. on my android
| devices. Quality was severely lacking and somehow the
| devices are priced the same or higher than an iPhone!
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Invariably they go on 50% off sale within a year for the
| flagship models, which tanks their resale value.
|
| My strategy for my last phone was to buy the previous
| year's flagship for this reason.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That is a good strategy. I could have saved a good chunk
| of change by not insisting that I have the latest shiny.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It worked out pretty well. Paid ~PS300 for a second hand
| Samsung S7 mid 2017 and it lasted until last month (so ~4
| years) where it completely died (stuck on the rebooted
| and then stuck on the boot screen getting really hot).
| Somehow it was even still getting occasional security
| updates, although I think that was just luck.
|
| Currently using a cheap backup device I normally use for
| app dev while I workout what my plan for the next one is.
| beagle3 wrote:
| Did it get feature updates? Security updates?
|
| FWIW, the iPhone 6S (first avail oct 2015) gets iOS 15 ;
| and iPhone 6 still got a security update in mid 2021
| despite being out of feature support.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| That and hardware support for my. When my HTC developed a
| camera issue -, HTC wanted $200 and a month to fix it. It
| turned out to be a manufacturing defect and they eventually
| (after a year) gave me a new one. But by then I had moved
| to the iPhone.
| rewddit wrote:
| This is the key reason I'm moving to iPhone. The mobile
| hardware / software that utilizes it are no longer moving
| quickly enough to justify buying a new phone every few years
| for my use case.
|
| Getting meaningful updates for the duration of how long I want
| to use the hardware for is a huge differentiator to me.
| pgodzin wrote:
| Don't you have access to most of these similar improvements
| through updates to the respective Android apps (Photos,
| Messages, Translate, Camera, etc) rather than OS updates?
| mdasen wrote:
| It's so aggravating on the Android side. While a Motorola One
| 5G Ace might not be a flagship, it came out in 2021 and I'm
| stuck on Android 10. I don't know if Motorola (who says I
| should expect Android 11) is the issue or if it's my carrier.
| Android 11 came out 4 months before the Motorola One 5G Ace
| came out. A year later, no Android 11.
|
| I guess it's probably even more frustrating if you're paying
| Apple-like prices for a Galaxy S series device and not getting
| updates. At least I can think, "well, I got what I paid for."
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The original iPhone SE was $399 back in 2016 and is starting
| its sixth year of OS and security update support.
|
| You can get both an affordable device and many years of
| support after the sale.
| tim333 wrote:
| I bought my one used but like new for a bit over $130 or
| so. It's a very cheap way to have really quite a nice
| phone.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| At the same time, I do have to admit that things got very, very
| slow on the original SE. Maybe it's the battery life throttling
| thing, but just felt at the end of its life, even though the
| software kept updating.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| Probably a deteriorated battery -- I'm still using my SE 2016
| and it's still going very strong. But I have replaced the
| battery twice, once every 2-3 years.
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| It is perhaps indeed the battery because I'm using an SE 2016
| with a battery that I changed a few months back and it works
| wonderfully with iOS 14.
| Retric wrote:
| It's very much worth replacing a battery on year 3 if you're
| planning on keeping an iPhone to end of life. Harder to
| justify on year 5+, but still a real quality of life
| improvement.
| [deleted]
| DCKing wrote:
| If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus 5,
| you would have had official updates until December 2016. At the
| end of support, you could have then bought the recent Google
| Pixel (1). And you would have had official updates until
| December 2019. A little over 6 years out of two devices is as
| good as it gets on Android, at least it's as good as it got in
| the mid-late 2010s.
|
| If in October 2013 you bought a just released iPhone 5S, you
| would have had official updates until - apparently - June 2021.
| Three months ago. Assuming that was really the last security
| update to iOS 12.
|
| An official Apple device has received one and a half year's
| worth more updates than _two_ official Google devices put
| together. The difference between Android support and iOS
| support is _insane_.
|
| It's easy to point out that you'd probably need to get your
| battery fixed at least once to make a 5S last that long, and in
| 2021 it won't be any fun to use. The people that want to make
| things last have had the option though, and that's what's
| important. And with Moore's Law being dead and buried, it's
| going to be a lot easier to get things to last, too.
| briffle wrote:
| This is litterally 1 of the 2 reasons I went from a pixel
| (3XL) to an iphone.
|
| that and not having to mail in my phone, and wait a week for
| it to come back. that was completely frustrating and silly.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus
| 5, you would have had official updates until December 2016.
|
| Wait a second are you sure about that? The last official
| version released was 6.0.1 which was released in October of
| 2015.
|
| I remember this because the Nexus 5 was the phone that
| finally sealed the deal for me in leaving the Android
| ecosystem for good.
|
| These "engineers" on the Android team did not QA their
| software so when I upgraded to 4.4.4, it broke the camera
| such that every video I recorded had messed up garbled audio.
| It totally ruined a special eurotrip where I had taken tons
| of video. I guess it was my mistake for trusting Google
| enough to update right before the trip started.
|
| Anyway seeing that there is a section on Wikipedia devoted to
| all the hardware/software issues of the Pixel line, I think I
| made a wise choice to stop wasting my time with this
| ecosystem.
|
| Went to a used iPhone 5S and ended up using that phone for 5
| years. Was the best phone I ever owned.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| If you bought a Nexus 5X or 6P, your device eventually
| bricked itself due to overheating literally melting the
| solder connections between the CPU and mainboard. Software
| support isn't the only thing Android vendors are skimping out
| on.
| 93po wrote:
| I had 6P issues and it was replaced for free with an
| upgraded phone, even outside warranty period
| beagle3 wrote:
| My daughter inherited my 4S from 10 years ago that was
| sitting in the drawer for 6 years now since I got my 6s (the
| week it came out, oct 2015). She's bot yet 12.
|
| The 4S never had a screen or battery change. It's battery
| doesn't last long with YouTube or video calls, but if charged
| at night and used for emails and voice calls, will last the
| whole day. It is perfectly usable, can do FaceTime etc.
|
| We will need to replace it soon, though. Her school buddies
| all use WhatsApp which is no longer supported on iOS 9 (the
| latest on 4S).
|
| I wouldn't let her use it much longer for lack of security
| updates. The hardware - and even battery - are still usable
| at 10 years. Almost pleasant, even. Best form factor ever.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I have a lot of older relatives that love the "hand-me-downs"
| of older iPhones and other i-gadgets. They're not power
| users, they just want to FaceTime with their grandkids and
| take photos of the flowers they grew in their yard.
|
| This is one reason I pay the Apple premium: as a family, we
| get a _lot_ more mileage out of the devices. Also, I don 't
| have to stress about security, because I know they will be
| protected by updates and cloud backup for years and years to
| come.
| cjohansson wrote:
| Yeah I have 3 iPhone 6 from 6 years ago with new batteries but
| can't update iOS or install modern apps. No hardware issues at
| all but will have to throw them into the garbage for the sake
| of Apple software support policy
| gozzoo wrote:
| > Apple continues to support OS updates on the iPhone 6s, a
| device released almost 6 years ago. Nor is it reserved for
| their flagship models - the 2016 iPhone SE also gets the latest
| and greatest.
|
| I'm not sure whether this is a good thing though. After each
| major update, older devices become less and less usable. I
| would appreciate security updates, but I'd gladly skip all
| these new features that make my phone crawl.
| beagle3 wrote:
| That used to be true, but hasn't been in a while. My 6s got
| snappier with iOS 13 and snappier still with 14. Haven't
| tried 15 yet.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Also all the updated assumes a 21:9 aspect ratio that started
| with the iPhone X. Sometimes I can't use apps on the 2016 SE
| because part of the menu will render off screen or the
| interface is terrible because the true area of interest gets
| squashed down to the side of two postage stamps.
| kgermino wrote:
| You actually have that option now. I don't the specifics (how
| you do it) but I believe you can choose from two tracks: the
| traditional "update to iOS15" and "stay on 14 but get
| security updates". It's new this year though, so who knows
| how it will work in practice
| katbyte wrote:
| I have a 10 year old iPad mini which still works just fine
| and still holds a charge.
| signal11 wrote:
| > Meanwhile, my flagship android phone from 2018, the Samsung
| Galaxy S9, is stuck on the last version of Android.
|
| That's inexcusable, and this attitude carried over to security
| updates is a big reason some corporates left Samsung and went
| to Apple -- e.g. the A5, a midrange phone comparable with the
| iPhone SE, _lost_ access to updates when the device was
| perfectly usable.
|
| Samsung must've felt the feedback, because this year they
| announced a formal policy on security updates -- too late for
| the S9, but customers from S10 onwards ought to benefit[1].
| They've been a lot better with Android updates on newer phones
| too -- Project Treble probably played a role.
|
| > Galaxy devices will now receive regular security updates for
| a minimum of four years after the initial phone release. By
| extending support for security updates delivered on a monthly,
| quarterly or biannual basis
|
| [1] https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-takes-galaxy-
| securit...
| nrvn wrote:
| Send regards to the Android architecture team at Google. The
| fact that OS is tightly coupled to the underlying hardware
| has no justification. Not does the fact that they have not
| yet reviewed the architecture...
|
| MS Windows is Heaven on earth in this regard.
| de_keyboard wrote:
| Microsoft managed to sufficiently standardize / commoditize
| the hardware running Windows to the point where supporting
| old devices was fairly easy. Android devices have more in
| the firmware.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The only reason I buy a new phone at this point is because it
| falls out of security support.
|
| I'm at the point of thinking of ditching the android
| ecosystem for the apple ecosystem for my next phone precisely
| because no android carrier seems to want to support devices
| for much longer than 3 years.
|
| There are no hardware problems which keep me from using the
| phone, just the lack of software updates.
|
| The other issue is that we seem to be at somewhat of a
| plateau of phone performance. My pixel 5 is not significantly
| faster than my old pixel 2XL.
| eugeniub wrote:
| It's worth noting that Apple also sometimes releases
| security updates for devices that no longer support the
| latest iOS. For example, Apple released security update iOS
| 12.5.4[1] on June 14, 2021 for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6.
|
| [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212548
| cogman10 wrote:
| That's the sort of thing that buys a LOT of good will for
| me.
| hypothesis wrote:
| But does it really do anything to secure a device that's
| past EOL? Or is it a marketing action?
|
| Long official support is absolutely a benefit when
| looking at smartphones, however, articles keep popping up
| about Apple basically buying and sitting on
| vulnerabilities for latest and greatest iOS, because
| that's what works economically.
| canes123456 wrote:
| What? Yes, Security updates for eol devices is clearly
| better than doing nothing. Apple's externally facing
| vulnerability management program has a bunch of issues
| but I don't see how that is relevant
| foepys wrote:
| Quarterly and biannual are still a joke. It's not like Google
| is keeping all patches and releases them at once without
| notifying vendors. Nokia was a little known a few years ago
| for releasing security patches before Google did for their
| Pixel models. Sadly, this has changed.
| danudey wrote:
| Now the million dollar question: did they change because
| they stopped caring, or did they change because Google made
| them?
| jldugger wrote:
| >Samsung must've felt the feedback, because this year they
| announced a formal policy on security updates -- too late for
| the S9, but customers from S10 onwards ought to benefit[1].
|
| Well yea. The longer the lifespan of a phone, the higher the
| resale value, and the higher the retail price you can
| support. If you want to sell at AAPL prices, you should be
| able to support devices for AAPL durations.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| Leaving updates up to carriers makes it super hard to test
| mobile apps. You get a bug where it only happens on Samsung
| Whatever on Android 11, but the phone you bought for QA
| hasn't yet gotten that update. So you test on an emulators
| which, of course, don't reproduce the bug.
| danudey wrote:
| We had an issue at my previous company where our mobile
| game was crashing for like, one user. He had this whatever
| model of Samsung phone, but we had hundreds of people using
| that phone and no one else had issues.
|
| Turns out that, despite the model numbers and identifiers
| being identical, this one phone in this one country in SE
| Asia had a slightly different GPU setup and there was a bug
| in the drivers it shipped with that was crashing our game.
|
| So even though we worked with this user for like two weeks
| to try and figure out why it was _just him_ , it turns out
| that it was because the Android manufacturer/carrier
| partnership situation is a gigantic mess for no discernible
| reason; the manufacturer didn't distinguish between two
| phones that had technically different specs, and the
| carrier didn't give a shit enough to ship the updated
| driver that would fix the issue.
| codyswann wrote:
| That... that is nightmare fuel right there.
| sneak wrote:
| Meanwhile, after having every single major iPhone version since
| the original jesusphone, I'm switching from iOS to Android
| because I'd rather run out-of-date hardware and slightly more
| out-of-date software just to not have my phone spy on my local
| media contents for a remote master.
|
| Apple's days as a head-and-shoulders above clear winner are
| over.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Google already does the exact same scanning of images that
| Apple has now delayed, so, uh, not exactly gaining much there
| are you?
| privacyisntdead wrote:
| It's not the same scanning. Apple's scanning is on device
| while Google and others scan for CSAM in their respective
| clouds.
| user-the-name wrote:
| And why does that matter? Apple scans images that are
| uploaded to iCloud. Google scans photos that are uploaded
| to Google Photos.
|
| Exact same result.
| jonfw wrote:
| You think switching from Apple to Google is a plus for your
| privacy?
| serverholic wrote:
| I've seen this before. Somehow people convince themselves
| that moving from Apple to Google somehow gives them more
| privacy. It's really an incredible phenomenon.
| privacyisntdead wrote:
| Android != Google
| flyingchipmann wrote:
| Exactly. I am done with android. I will get a linux phone
| instead if there is a decent model and just get an ipad for
| mobile app needs.
| serverholic wrote:
| This is one of the reasons I switched from Android to iPhone.
| The phones are just higher quality, last longer and get
| software updates for longer.
|
| I had like 3 Android phones in a row who's GPS would start
| acting up after 1.5-2 years. My Apple devices are fantastic.
|
| Overall, the largest benefit of Apple devices is that they just
| work. I can buy them and not have to worry about them.
| MikusR wrote:
| On Android important software, like browser, is updated
| independently from the os.
| danudey wrote:
| Maybe worth noting that, internally, the first-gen iPhone SE
| _is_ an iPhone 6s; same CPU, GPU, and RAM. It 's missing some
| hardware features, like 2nd gen TouchID, 3D Touch, hardware
| image stabilization, and some other minor things, but from a
| performance/capability perspective it's the same phone.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The screen is identical, though, which is awesome-- I was
| rocking an iPhone 5S and was able to buy for dirt cheap
| someone's cracked-screen SE and swap the screen over.
|
| I fully intend for my next device to be an iPhone 8 so that I
| can eventually pull the same thing with an upgrade to the SE
| 2.
| mrunseen wrote:
| For reference, there's a video which tests compatibility of
| 8 and SE 2's parts.
|
| https://youtu.be/FTAQqih1DZs
| dont__panic wrote:
| Interesting. If I'm remembering correctly, the SE actually
| used a _worse_ display than the 5S -- Anandtech 's review
| found that the display calibration matched that of the _5_.
| So I guess I should look for a cheap 5S screen if I want an
| easy screen upgrade...
| Krasnol wrote:
| Too bad the general public doesn't care about all that.
|
| I know people who are actually annoyed but the update
| notification...
| bserge wrote:
| That's me, I don't care.
|
| I could, and someday will, install a custom ROM, but for now,
| shit just works.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Why do iOS upgrades past one major version always slow down my
| devices so much though. It's been such a disappointing waste of
| system resources.
|
| Personally this is why I tried out Android and have so far
| stuck with it, (splitting my devices up between two OSes but
| whatever). So far my Androids get 2 years of bi-monthly
| security updates and at least 2 major Android releases by
| manufacturer policy, which is all I've needed, and they don't
| effectively render my device useless (so far, fingers crossed).
| 0x000000001 wrote:
| Every major iOS update adds more functionality that consumes
| more CPU cycles even in the background. Unless something
| strictly requires new hardware to work, they include the
| features.
|
| Maybe if Apple refused to support new features on old
| hardware it would solve this issue, but then you just anger
| users who are forced to buy new hardware to get a new
| feature...
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Certainly there's a creative workaround for this
| theoretical bind in which Apple find themselves? Refuse to
| support OR enable more functionality to the point of
| wrecking the user experience seems like a suspicious
| dichotomy.
| tsywke44 wrote:
| Slowing down is mostly caused by battery wear. All my Android
| devices have had the same problem.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Battery wear, filesystem cruft, and solid state storage
| slowing down as it fills.
|
| People complaining about their phones being slow have aged
| batteries, a nearly full filesystem, and have likely gone
| through numerous system updates.
|
| On iOS it is trivial to move off files you don't need on
| the device anymore and then do a backup, full wipe, and
| restore.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| A convenient mansplain, as it does not match up with the
| fact that the devices in question here were not in the
| state you described, nor did you inquire. I wonder why we
| are giving OS upgrades such a free pass here anyway,
| since they are notorious for this.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| This too, but Apple _was_ caught a while back slowing
| down older phones at major version updates (their
| reasoning was to extend battery life / device on time).
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724
| zepto wrote:
| You sound like you think they were lying.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| It was not just battery life, it was also to prevent
| phones from spontaneously rebooting.
|
| Apple's CPUs are very bursty, and that causes them to
| suddenly draw a large current from the battery. Older
| batteries cannot handle this so the CPU doesn't get
| enough power and reboots. What Apple did was to stop the
| CPU from suddenly ramping up speed, which means the
| battery doesn't have to deal with a sudden spike in power
| demand and can keep up even if it's degraded.
|
| This does, of course, slow the phone down as it can't
| ramp up as aggressively.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| My 2nd attempt at android was a Samsung Note 5? Or 4? I
| forget. Anyway when it arrived it was crazy fast!!! Loved
| it. After 2 months it was annoyingly slow. Reset it.
| Fast. Downloaded no apps. Got slower and slower. After 1
| year I switched to iPhone for the first time (6) never
| had an issue ever since. (I did have an iPhone 4 at one
| stage which made me go MS Phone cos the crashing was so
| bad)
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| How do Google's pure Android phones compare in this regard? Are
| they supported for longer?
|
| Eg, is this premature ending of support a Samsung thing, or is
| it endemic to the whole Android ecosystem, including Google?
| Taywee wrote:
| Usually get 3 years. Pixel 3 launched in October 2018, and
| its updates end in about a month. I feel like that's still
| way too short, and causes many millions of still-usable
| phones to be trashed or recycled every year. Aftermarket OSes
| aren't an option for a lot of people, because some apps will
| refuse to run on an unofficial OS.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| A lot of aftermarket Pixels are useless because they have a
| locked boot loader as well. So even if you wanted to run an
| unofficial rom, you can't. This has tanked the resale value
| of these phones, which I'm sure the carriers are fine with.
| bserge wrote:
| That's the biggest travesty. Forget the stupid updates,
| let me install anything I want on my pocket computer.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| Google provides 3 years of updates. The Pixel 2XL, released
| in 2017 (two years after the iPhone 6s) received it's last
| update December 2020.
|
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
| GeekyBear wrote:
| They have slowly been forced to offer longer support, but are
| still currently at half as many years as Apple.
|
| >One aspect in which Android has always fallen behind iOS is
| updates, with iPhones receiving as many as six years worth of
| updates, while some Android phones are lucky to get two
| years. In this area, Google's Pixel series have held the
| crown, offering their phones three full years of updates,
| including monthly patches and three major Android versions.
| The original Google Pixel was gradually updated from Android
| 7.1 Nougat to Android 10 -- an extension from the original
| promise to only offer two major updates.
|
| https://9to5google.com/2021/02/22/comment-four-years-
| android...
| summerlight wrote:
| Usual Android phones' support is bounded by Qualcomm's
| commitment, which had been 3 years. I think they now have
| extended it to 4 years though. This is one of the biggest
| motivation of why Google is developing its own silicon.
|
| (Added) Of course, this doesn't explain why Samsung doesn't
| provide longer support. And I also don't know the reason but
| I guess their mobile division perhaps doesn't have enough
| power to negotiate against its chip division...
| johnvega wrote:
| Last time I checked several weeks ago, 2016 SE looks like it
| wasn't going to get it. This is great.
| ccouzens wrote:
| The majority of the changes in iOS 15 are updates to system
| apps. Your Samsung galaxy s9 will be recieving updates to the
| equivalent apps.
| vvillena wrote:
| Over the life of my S9, I got one major OS update, a change
| from a builtin obnoxious "Samsung news" feed to another
| equally obnoxious feed, and updates to the builtin apps that
| brought almost no new important features (the only new
| feature I actually use is the option to use a Spotify song in
| the alarm app). It just does not compare against six years of
| full blown OS updates.
|
| Oh, and the S9 comes with so much preinstalled, unremovable
| shit that it's not even funny. It's a shame, because the
| phone itself is really nice, and the Samsung custom UI and
| apps can be awesome at times. The problem is that Samsung
| sells a premium phone at prices similar to Apple's (if you
| buy brand new at release time), but this doesn't translate
| into a premium experience. This also happen with other
| Samsung products such as TVs.
| bserge wrote:
| My OnePlus is on 9, there's some update available, I don't see
| the point. It works fine.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Even Apple's mobile device security update lifespan is pathetic
| compared to desktops and laptops. If you bought a computer with
| Windows XP when it first came out, you got 13 years of support,
| and even more if it could upgrade to Windows Vista or 7. And if
| you're willing to run Linux or BSD, you can easily run
| supported software on decades-old hardware. This is the
| standard we should be holding mobile device manufacturers to.
| omegalulw wrote:
| It's one of my biggest gripes with Android. At best, I have
| gotten 2 years of updates (updates which come 8-12 months after
| the official Android release).
|
| I could, of course, install a custom ROM. But that usually
| means (in my experience) that not all hardware features work,
| battery life is worse, I have to install updates myself and I
| am usually not as confident about device security. Despite
| these, I used to install and love custom ROMs a lot in college.
| when I had the time but not anymore.
|
| On my iPad (while it lasted, RIP), I would get updates on the
| same day as official iOS release. Night and day difference.
| bmcahren wrote:
| What led you to not buy the official android phone? Are you
| aware of it?
|
| Considering all the major non-Google Android phone
| manufacturers are also the same that manufacture Black Friday
| TVs that fail on schedule, don't you sense this was a problem
| not with Android but with your choice of manufacturer?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I assume you're referring to the Pixel/Nexus devices. I've
| had two, I don't think either got updates after 3 years or
| so. A far cry from the 6 years that Apple is now offering
| with the 6S, and the 5 years most of their devices got
| before that.
| brewdad wrote:
| I don't think I've even gotten two years of Android updates
| on any phone. I don't tend to buy my phones right at the
| release date and it seems most Android phones offer 2 years
| of updates from the first day the phone was available, not 2
| years from purchase/activation.
|
| I now have an iPhone 12.
| serverholic wrote:
| For me the hardware didn't even last 2 years. I had 3
| Android phones in a row where the GPS started acting 2
| years in.
| pcurve wrote:
| Love all these pandemic driven sharing functions. Very solid
| upgrade.
| pentagrama wrote:
| > Now you can install Safari extensions on your iPhone
|
| Someone knows if uBlock Origin has plans/is able to develop the
| extension for Safari iOS?
|
| For Safari MacOS is kind of not available. Does not work for
| Safari 13+, and is maintained externally
| https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#safari-macos
| pacbard wrote:
| uBlock Origin has been broken on macOS since Safari 13 / macOS
| Catalina [1].
|
| If they ever get the port to work on a newer version of Safari,
| it could work on iOS.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
| cwizou wrote:
| > If they ever get the port to work on a newer version of
| Safari, it could work on iOS.
|
| I looked at it at the time but sadly the Content Blocker API
| that Apple released is incredibly crippling compared to the
| feature set of uBlock Origin.
|
| Basically, you can onlly generate lists of domains that you
| want to block, package that in (multiple !) batches of 50k
| (at the time I think) and let Safari do the blocking for you.
|
| This removes the ability to do anything non-static basically,
| which is where uBlock Origin really shines, so I don't expect
| anyone to make a meaningful port anytime soon, sadly.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Hoping this will allow (some?) firefox extensions as well
| (considering how firefox on ios actually works). My single
| biggest gripe with the phone is no ublock with firefox.
| pentagrama wrote:
| You are right, since Firefox (and all other browsers) on iOS
| are somewhat Safari with a skin, maybe Firefox for iOS now
| can introduce extensions. At least the same "approved"
| extensions that now works on Firefox Android (more are
| coming).
| dont__panic wrote:
| I would really love an extension like AMP Redirect on my
| iPhone. AMP pages are almost completely unusable on my phone.
|
| Additionally, an Old Reddit Redirect clone for Safari would be
| a huge QOL upgrade too.
| iscmt wrote:
| Released today, fully open source as well.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/app/amplosion-redirect-amp-
| links/id15...
| iscmt wrote:
| Incidentally, the same dev also created Apollo[1]. IMO,
| it's the best mobile Reddit experience.
|
| [1]: https://apolloapp.io/
| xeroaura wrote:
| Anyone that's been on the beta find any nice to have Safari
| extensions?
|
| And do these extensions also apply to (non-safari) apps using the
| webkit UI to render a page? Like content blocker applies to these
| as well as safari.
| jshier wrote:
| 1Blocker has released an update for all platforms which adds a
| script extension to block YouTube ads. Doesn't help in the
| YouTube app or on the AppleTV, which is most of my usage, but
| is nice on the Mac (with today's Safari 15 release).
| yoavlavi wrote:
| iOS apps aren't allowed to release updates targeting new OSs
| until they're out, so we're all in the same boat there
| cloin wrote:
| There's a list of a few available now here:
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/20/here-are-the-best-new-safari-...
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I just installed Amplosion. The fact that I can now get rid of
| that AMP bullshit completely makes iOS 15 a major upgrade for
| me already.
| shantara wrote:
| The feature the impressed me the most during the WWDC
| presentation - the cross-device drag and drop functionality
| between Mac and iPad - unfortunately won't be included in the
| initial 15.0 release.
| zaptrem wrote:
| FindMy for AirPods also delayed
| mig39 wrote:
| Was there a new feature? My AirPods have been on FindMy for a
| long time already.
| shantara wrote:
| FindMy for AirPods only works when they are close enough to
| have a Bluetooth connection to the phone. It does not take
| the advantage of the FindMy network.
| hyperstar wrote:
| My i-thing says it's up to date at 12.5.4. Wonder what that means
| securitywise.
| philwelch wrote:
| It means it's old and doesn't support iOS 13. My iPad says the
| same thing.
|
| And according to Wikipedia, iOS 12 isn't receiving security
| updates anymore :(
| tompazourek wrote:
| However, the 12.5.4 is still quite a recent update (from
| June). I think there could still be some security fixes in
| the future, but probably only for very serious
| vulnerabilities.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Looks like you lost updates a few years ago, if anything big
| securitywise happens there's a chance they'll fix it otherwise
| you just gotta be hopeful you don't run into anything
| nefarious.
| cmg wrote:
| That's where I'm at with my iPad, which is stuck at iOS 10.
| It still works pretty well for taking notes or browsing the
| web, even though that version of Safari is getting pretty
| old.
|
| For security, it's completely signed out of iCloud and all
| other services, and Safari is mostly for research purposes
| (so no social media, email, etc).
| Qi_ wrote:
| Can anyone speak for iPhone 6S performance with 15? I'm on 14
| currently and it runs quite smoothly. I assume it would be
| similar on 15.
| mig39 wrote:
| I've been running the developer beta on the 6S since the
| beginning. Seems just fine to me!
| Qi_ wrote:
| Glad to hear it! Seems like not too long ago mobile devices
| were worthless after a few years, but those days are past.
| dmitshur wrote:
| I'm using a 6s Plus temporarily for a few days, and only
| installed iOS 15 less than an hour ago. So far subjectively
| speaking it seems about the same as iOS 14.8 was.
| xtat wrote:
| Is it me or do these updates look more and more like they should
| be dot releases?
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