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Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

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Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#271

Post by oofbey »

southerntofu wrote: post #219
oofbey wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does building closed source products fight open source? They’re not at odds with each other.

Because either you're struggling for human progress doing research and building tech that empowers people, or you're struggling for profit building harmful tech for the common people. Apple is in the latter category (to be fair, most if not all hardware/software manufacturers are) and has shown time and time again that they were strongly opposed to consumer rights: - pushing updates to slow down older iOS to "encoura…

"You're either with us or against us" is a successful rallying cry for extremists, but it's not how most people view the world. I think if you survey FOSS developers, you'll find a LOT of them (including me) use and enjoy Apple products - not sure how this fits into your world view. It's possible, I'd say completely normal, to both want to make money, and to improve the world. I think most people see this as a balance that needs to be struck.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#272

Post by oofbey »

fsflover wrote: post #230
oofbey wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does building closed source products fight open source? They’re not at odds with each other.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/18922

Interesting - I didn't know you couldn't submit GPL-licensed code to the app store. It's surprising to me, but I can imagine a legal reason why it could be difficult for them to support. Still, seems like it should be possible.

But GPL isn't the only kind of open source. In fact, it's an extreme form. I've spent a lot of time contributing to open source projects, but I stay away from GPL, because they are really limiting in what you can do with them.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#273

Post by hackernewsdude »

least wrote: post #112
wnevets wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My other concern was if these are hijacking your data plan. Maybe it's not that significant amount if you have a huge plan but like Ting for example gives you 100MB of data usage each month on their basic plan. That's MEGAbytes. I checked my system clock app for example, and it's using like 500 MB a year of cell data. So the cumulative data it uses per year is about half of that plan's budget. I remember just a yea…

> Its kinda amusing how those concerns are rarely brought up for Apple products. It's always brought up with regards to Apple products. Any justified or unjustified controversy surrounding Apple is magnified because of how divisive they are as a company. You're making this remark in a thread dedicated to discussion surrounding this controversy.

You're right, but I think the magnification of Apple news is more a result of them being the largest company in the world than them being divisive. Every decision Apple makes affects a significant portion of humanity.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#274

Post by birdyrooster »

Shared404 wrote: post #257
birdyrooster wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's set aside that regulation like that will come with a bunch of other stipulations which will capture the market for the incumbents... There are unintuitive outcomes which could arise like: smaller companies might need to develop a product with access to the web to keep costs manageable, but larger companies, using their capital, are able to establish proprietary wireless connectivity (which is not the internet)…

> Peer to peer connectivity over public networks is a great asset for smaller companies with disruptive ideas, and this could destroy that. I have no issues with a product having an option for internet connectivity, or even requiring it if it is a critical component of it's function. Internet connectivity is not a critical component of my 's function however.

Yeah that wasn’t what I was arguing. There are some products which act based on real-time information from a network and without network access, would cease to function.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#275

Post by walrus01 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #268
jaywalk wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, although the public hotspot speeds are usually fairly limited so it shouldn't impact your private network too much. I use my own equipment for a whole host of reasons, but I also appreciate having WiFi I can connect to more often than not without having to drain my phone's battery using it as a hotspot.

Extra WiFi traffic, even if not coming from your AP or devices, will still interfere with your own AP and devices for the reasons walrus01 pointed out, that WiFi is half duplex and needs to share the same RF space as every other WiFi device nearby.

and even worse in the scenario where the associated wifi clients are kind of far away and at a weak signal (like -77), so they're using more air time for more rudimentary modulation vs. the devices in your house that are using at least 64QAM. there's only a finite amount of airtime in a half duplex system...

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#276

Post by throwmeback »

scrollaway wrote: post #222
bgro wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant shipping activated AirTags as a “prank” or to otherwise cause chaos. People are already shipping individual activated ones to see where they end up. Or if 500 separate people saw those news stories and each did it individually for legitimate package tracking, perhaps that would be a more believable situation.

That's a $50k prank to … use up some data and battery? For 50k you can do a lot more damage "as a prank".

I assume you never visited YT?

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#277

Post by headsoup »

andybak wrote: post #146
agentgumshoe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one would use it if it was opt-in, that says something about the actual demand for such a thing, aside the product makers.

No it doesn't. It says something about network effects and the psychology of opt-in vs opt-out.

Not the psychology so much as the behaviour. As in, I can get away with doing X by making avoiding it opt-out. The psychology, aside the decision to make an effort, I imagine as being aware and informed in terms of that decision. Which falls back to the behaviours performed to prevent that.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#278

Post by neop1x »

samatman wrote: post #218
walrus01 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day that I install any amazon sidewalk enabled device in my home is the day I hang up my hat and resign in shame, as a network engineer who's been building internet infrastructure since 1999. It's so gross and wrong. amazon doesn't get a free ride on my residential internet service or arbitrary use of radio spectrum in my home. note: I also have no smart doorbells, cloud connected security cameras, internet enabl…

It's a reasonable way to live your life, but it's worth noting that most WiFi smart bulbs and switches can be liberated with a not-unreasonable amount of effort: https://blog.fosketts.net/2020/05/29/liberate-wi-fi-smart-bu... Personally I benefit from being able to control the type of light and change it over the course of the day, and I've found a couple of uses for automatic switches which improve my life as well.…

Zigbee devices can be used in a closed mesh network, without an internet connection or any proprietary cloud or subscription. One needs a USB coordinator dongle [1], a small computer like raspberry pi, zigbee2mqtt [2] & Home Assistant [3]. It works perfectly. Devices implement various standardized "profiles" documented in an open standard ZCL/dotdot and a lot of devices from different manufacturers work right out of the box.

[1] https://sonoff.tech/product/diy-smart-switch/sonoff-dongle-p... [2] https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/ [3] https://www.home-assistant.io/

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#280

Post by iszomer »

bgro wrote: post #193
dwighttk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn cellular data off in iOS. If you have 100MB a month it would probably be smart to turn it off until you are ready to check email or whatever and there is no Wi-Fi.

100MB is enough to send hundreds of free internet messages such as iMessage or more traditional chat apps which avoids using limited text messages on the plan. That’s a legitimate reason to keep it enabled. If you don’t use text/call data and can get away with mostly messaging on wifi and then having that the cell connectivity for wife check ins or emergencies at work, this plan costs like $5 a month or something. Co…

I use an app network firewall and restrict via whitelist of what I want to use on cellular data or fixed wifi (mobile hotspots are tricky).
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