Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 80 posts

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#51

Post by n1000 »

hashkb wrote: post #37
n1000 wrote: post #11

It's been around for a while already. The dictation feature in OS X 10.10 already knows that trick. The thought of the little thinks is what still makes me stick with OS X.

> The thought of the little [things] is what still makes me stick with OS X. This rubs me the wrong way because it's a vicious (positive, I guess) cycle. You keep buying iPhones, they stockpile billions in cash, and they can "think of the little things" (which is really just "How can we make OS X more like iOS and less suitable for power users?"). It's sad... but I can't imagine anyone taking the time to hack this to…

I can't say I haven't tried. Every 12 months or so I install Linux and so far always came back. I bought a Surface Pro 4 because it seemed so Appleish, only I hardly ever use it. Windows 10 seems like the worst of both worlds. I spent hours on hacking simple configurations (as in *nix) and feel under heavier surveillance than on OS X.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#52

Post by moepstar »

n1000 wrote: post #11

It's been around for a while already. The dictation feature in OS X 10.10 already knows that trick. The thought of the little thinks is what still makes me stick with OS X.

Should be in there since 10.9.x, albeit in the form of the dictation feature, not Siri...

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#53

Post by yuhong »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #50
Unklejoe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Windows is at a disadvantage here since it doesn't know the physical layout of the components on the hardware it's running on. It would be up to the laptop manufacturers to include a driver to do such.

> It would be up to the laptop manufacturers to include a driver to do such. Which means it's not going to happen, and if it does, it's not going to work right. The "IBM Compatible" or "Wintel" commodity hardware platform has proven to be a powerful force for making computers less expensive and easier to use, but there's something to be said for vertical integration.

I once wondered what would happen if Intel bought Compaq in 1991, and eventually AMD does something similar in the early 2000s (it was in 2006 that they bought ATI for example). It would not quite be vertical integration, but the point is that it would be still a step forward.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#54

Post by mikeash »

burke wrote: post #36
mikeash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume it wouldn't be a timeout, but a higher temperature threshold. If the machine is on the verge of melting already then you wouldn't want to turn off the fans at all.

If the machine is on the verge of melting already, it's likely just going to hard-shutdown below the OS level. All this could really open them up to is a hard-shutdown, and I imagine they would have implemented this as a higher threshold, not a complete disable -- at least, it seems like a really easy problem to foresee and circumvent.

Great point. You might make it shut off, but you should never be able to damage anything, no matter how clever the OS tries to be.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#55

Post by AstralStorm »

throwanem wrote: post #42
hashkb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thought of the little [things] is what still makes me stick with OS X. This rubs me the wrong way because it's a vicious (positive, I guess) cycle. You keep buying iPhones, they stockpile billions in cash, and they can "think of the little things" (which is really just "How can we make OS X more like iOS and less suitable for power users?"). It's sad... but I can't imagine anyone taking the time to hack this to…

Can it really be called "lock-in" when it's an effect of changes which to many people make the product more desirable for its own sake? Microsoft in the 90s wasn't really known for such behavior, to say the very least.

The alternate, Aldous Huxley version of lock-in, instead of the George Orwell version of lock-in.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#56

Post by AstralStorm »

crymer11 wrote: post #4

And only if you're using the internal microphone. I was trying to test this and couldn't reproduce it until I realized I was using headphones with a mic. Unplugged the headphones, activated Siri and the fan instantly turned off.

I wonder how they prevent their CPUs from burning up when they do this and there happens to be some kind of heavy load in the background...

Is someone up for a free warranty Macbook replacement? ;)

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#59

Post by ninedays »

hashkb wrote: post #37
n1000 wrote: post #11

It's been around for a while already. The dictation feature in OS X 10.10 already knows that trick. The thought of the little thinks is what still makes me stick with OS X.

> The thought of the little [things] is what still makes me stick with OS X. This rubs me the wrong way because it's a vicious (positive, I guess) cycle. You keep buying iPhones, they stockpile billions in cash, and they can "think of the little things" (which is really just "How can we make OS X more like iOS and less suitable for power users?"). It's sad... but I can't imagine anyone taking the time to hack this to…

The problem with this reasoning is that you assumed that Apple always had lots of money and that Apple always stockpile billions of cash but that is completely untrue. Back when Apple was months away from bankruptcy, Apple still had this dedication to details that we still find amazing today.

I am amazed by how quickly people forgot in what position Apple was more than a decade ago.

Apple caring about their products has nothing to with money. It just shows that they really care.

Post reply on HN