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Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

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Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#211

Post by mmis1000 »

aroman wrote: post #194
judge2020 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, true 0 would mean the battery couldn't ever charge again. My iPhones have consistently always turned off when the indicator is on 1%, which of course is probably 5% of the actual battery.

> true 0 would mean the battery couldn't ever charge again what?

Due to how battery designed. A actually fully discharged battery can't be charged normally.(the power control chip on the battery need a bit power to function normally) Typically this can't happen because your phone will shutdown before that.

But if you used up the battery and not charge for a long time (1 months or so). This can happen because batteries discharge themselves slightly even not being used.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#212

Post by kall »

mmis1000 wrote: post #204
baggiponte wrote: post #202

The weirdest thing is that Apple can do this and not use it to make wake up alarms go off after the device is shut down lol

I remembered that some old functional phone has such compatibility. Their alarm will ring no matter your phone is off or on. Being totally independent to the phone function.

I‘m pretty sure all Nokia phones did that.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#213

Post by authorityofnil »

aroman wrote: post #194
judge2020 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, true 0 would mean the battery couldn't ever charge again. My iPhones have consistently always turned off when the indicator is on 1%, which of course is probably 5% of the actual battery.

> true 0 would mean the battery couldn't ever charge again what?

Battery chemistry often relies on there being ~some charge. Completely dead battery would be, as the name implies; dead

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#214

Post by user-the-name »

nudpiedo wrote: post #205
user-the-name wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Find My network is designed so that only you can track your own devices using it, nobody else can.

Neither hackers and the NSA right?

Exactly. It is cryptographically secured.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#215

Post by kall »

I hope a flagship feature of the next iOS is an "emergency low power mode".

Shut down on the last 5% of battery and make that last for 24h or something in that range. Use only dim white on one part of the OLED, show me the time, sound alarms, show important notes, give Wallet/Apple Pay access, allow one last battery draining SOS call and add a compass for good measure.

Maybe they could even afford to wake up the radio every 30 minutes and fetch some important info. In a few years they could even open it up to third party developers.

If I put my phone in airplane+low power mode, max dim the screen and carefully wake it, 2% already goes for quite a few hours. Maybe they could do way better than 5%/24h even.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#216

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

pininja wrote: post #15

Very interesting read. This seems to be implemented as a Bluetooth LE app running on the ultra-low power “always on processor” used for a variety of features, like “wake-up on motion.” Much like an Tile or AirTag is implemented. No comment on what this is capable in the future.. but for now this shows power usage / signal strength / proximity of other “actually on” devices are a limitations of this feature. What’s im…

> I’ll be pretty shocked if I’m “spied on” with this style of device.

A few days ago I was trying to figure out what an AirTag is, so I read the Apple website. They claim that ordinary people don't need to worry about being tracked, because users who are travelling with an AirTag that is not theirs will have an alert sent their iPhone.

This raises three questions which were conveniently elided on Apple's website:

1. What prevents people from using AirTags to track Android users?

2. How does the notification balance false positives, true positives, and notification fatigue in the situations where "someone next to me on the bus leaves an AirTag behind." How is it distinguishable from "someone snuck one into my pocket on the bus"?

3. Under what circumstances will Apple be willing to suppress the notification that one is being tracked by an AirTag?

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#218

Post by cb22 »

kall wrote: post #215

I hope a flagship feature of the next iOS is an "emergency low power mode". Shut down on the last 5% of battery and make that last for 24h or something in that range. Use only dim white on one part of the OLED, show me the time, sound alarms, show important notes, give Wallet/Apple Pay access, allow one last battery draining SOS call and add a compass for good measure. Maybe they could even afford to wake up the radi…

Android (and BlackBerry before that) have had something similar to this for a while.

On a BlackBerry, it would shut down the radio and give you a "Battery too low for radio use" message, but you could trick it into turning the radios back on by dialing 911 and then hanging up really quickly.

Various Android manufacturers do their own version of this, Sony had Ultra STAMINA mode and Samsung have an option to do a whole bunch of power optimizations as well as limit apps to those explicitly specified.

For me, the main critical purpose of my phone is to communicate with others in realtime which happens using things like WhatsApp, Slack or Email (maybe the odd call). If I can't use those, then it might as well be dead!

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#219

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #187
harry8 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen w…

Tangentially related to events you may not consider to be relevant now, but become so in the future is Roko's Basilisk. Reader beware. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk

I'd call this a stupid idea, except Roko's suggestion is exactly what the "communists" did in my country when they came to power.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#220

Post by SSLy »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #216
pininja wrote: post #15

Very interesting read. This seems to be implemented as a Bluetooth LE app running on the ultra-low power “always on processor” used for a variety of features, like “wake-up on motion.” Much like an Tile or AirTag is implemented. No comment on what this is capable in the future.. but for now this shows power usage / signal strength / proximity of other “actually on” devices are a limitations of this feature. What’s im…

> I’ll be pretty shocked if I’m “spied on” with this style of device. A few days ago I was trying to figure out what an AirTag is , so I read the Apple website. They claim that ordinary people don't need to worry about being tracked, because users who are travelling with an AirTag that is not theirs will have an alert sent their iPhone. This raises three questions which were conveniently elided on Apple's website: 1.…

>1. What prevents people from using AirTags to track Android users?

AirTags are BLE beacons, that Android phones will simply not pick up and not send their signal to the mothership. A background noise.

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