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iOS 11 reviewed

arstechnica.com

41–50 of 296 posts

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#41
post #18

Review is not thorough. One huge change in the control center is that the wifi “toggle” doesn’t toggle wifi off anymore (wait what?). It just disconnects from the current network and doesn’t reconnect for a minute or so. If you don’t want to be tracked by wifi APs it seems you have to force touch settings into wifi and disable the adapter from there. Huge step backwards IMHO.

Eh it sounds to me that this is a great quick fix for the "I'm slightly too far from the AP to have bandwidth but I'm still maintaining a connection" problem I have almost daily. Will make an obscure security concern you've identified slightly more difficult to deal with. If you don't prefer trade offs like this, Apple likely isn't the best digital provider for you.

Who's a better digital device provider than Apple for security & privacy?

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#42

The new default image/video codec that no other browser supports seems like it's going to be ... interesting. Of course they couldn't use VP9, just like USB-C - this is marginally better, and completely fucks over everyone developing outside the tiny Apple ecosystem.

It's for the camera, not the browser, and it looks like you can change back to h.264 and JPG [1]:

> If you’re currently running iOS 11 beta 1, you can verify this by switching between the High Efficiency and Most Compatible formats under iOS Settings → Camera → Formats. Under the High Efficiency format, images will be saved as HEIC and movies as an HEVC .mov file. Under Most Compatible, images will be saved as JPGs and movies as an h.264 .mov file.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/08/ios-11s-new-heifhevc-camera-f...

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#43
post #4

> Practically speaking, do I need to be able to play phone games from 2009 on my 2017 iPhone? Not really. The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). But that's not what's happening, the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 o…

I find it hilarious that every time Apple does anything like this, people complain and Apple still sets record sales. You're fundamentally wrong and Apple knows it. They can rip the headphone jack out. They can deprecate 32 bit apps. They can remove TouchID. They can block installing third party apps. Keep complaining; neither they nor their customers care.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#44
post #4

> Practically speaking, do I need to be able to play phone games from 2009 on my 2017 iPhone? Not really. The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). But that's not what's happening, the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 o…

The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). The latest processor doesn't support 32 bit code. All 64 bit phones can support the latest OS. Why should Apple waste time, resources, and space on the device to support 32 bit code?

Backwards compatibility.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#45
post #4

> Practically speaking, do I need to be able to play phone games from 2009 on my 2017 iPhone? Not really. The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). But that's not what's happening, the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 o…

Speaking of games, are there any archival initiatives for a future retro apps scene? Not that I can think of any games that would be worth it — but just for the sake of it.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#46

The new default image/video codec that no other browser supports seems like it's going to be ... interesting. Of course they couldn't use VP9, just like USB-C - this is marginally better, and completely fucks over everyone developing outside the tiny Apple ecosystem.

To be fair; HEIC and HEVC are industry standards. If browsers don't support them, that's on the browser.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#47
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. That's bad and a lot of people will expect the old functionality.

It feels like they’re trying to educate me as a user that switching wifi off to save battery is not super smart. It’s true, the difference is minuscule at best (20-30 minutes of battery life) but maybe I want to micromanage to get these 20 minutes. Or because I am concerned about privacy. My take is that if you want to “educate” users on how best to use a feature you must leave them the freedom to do it wrong (depend…

> My take is that if you want to “educate” users on how best to use a feature you must leave them the freedom to do it wrong

This is diametrically opposed to Apple's tradition, about which they have been clear and consistent.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#48
post #4

> Practically speaking, do I need to be able to play phone games from 2009 on my 2017 iPhone? Not really. The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). But that's not what's happening, the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 o…

>"Free space" which they could already have gained back by removing the applications in the first place. Were apps previously installed as fat binaries with 64 and 32-bit architectures included, and the 32-bit chunk has now been removed? Or was that already taken care of with the "app thinning" stuff a couple of years ago?

The free space here mostly refers to 32-bit system libraries.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#49
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. That's bad and a lot of people will expect the old functionality.

It feels like they’re trying to educate me as a user that switching wifi off to save battery is not super smart. It’s true, the difference is minuscule at best (20-30 minutes of battery life) but maybe I want to micromanage to get these 20 minutes. Or because I am concerned about privacy. My take is that if you want to “educate” users on how best to use a feature you must leave them the freedom to do it wrong (depend…

Those 20-30 minutes matter when you travel, which is when the iPhone's undersized battery is already a liability.

After about a year of wear and tear, a day trip to Manhattan requires an external battery or finding an outlet somewhere. Ditto on killing or removing abusive/"too big to fail" apps like Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#50

Review is not thorough. One huge change in the control center is that the wifi “toggle” doesn’t toggle wifi off anymore (wait what?). It just disconnects from the current network and doesn’t reconnect for a minute or so. If you don’t want to be tracked by wifi APs it seems you have to force touch settings into wifi and disable the adapter from there. Huge step backwards IMHO.

Hmm, I figured this was an iOS 11 beta bug? It certainly didn't reconnect reliably after a minute, but would do so maybe once an hour.
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