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Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

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Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#681

Post by vvhn »

ihuman wrote: post #672
Bud wrote: post #660

Hey, not to break up the bash-the-NSA discussion, which is legit and badly needed, but did anyone notice just how bad the fact-checking is in this article? It's terrible. Error 1: article says the A7 is a "40x CPU performance bump". Wrong; it's 40x over the original iPhone, not over the A6. Error 2: article says graphics are "56x faster". Same error. Error 3: article claims the M7 is a motion sensor; it's not. It's a…

To be fair, error 1 and 2 came from Apple during the press conference. Edit: I am wrong, ignore this.

was that a press conference after the event because in the event they were clearly shown (and mentioned) to be over the original iPhone with the added claim that half of the total improvement so far is over the iPhone 5 ( a very roundabout way of saying the performance has doubled as compared to the previous iPhone)

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#682

Post by dreamfactory »

stanleydrew wrote: post #308
cheald wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not snarking at all. I'm observing that comments about the NSA are entirely apropos given the current climate we live in. Yes, you're right, at this point, it would take something extremely radical to convince us that the NSA isn't spying on us anymore. Therefore, we should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to…

Well now you are backtracking into a semi-legitimate interpretation of your comment as not snarky. If you didn't mean to snark you could have just originally said "We should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it." That is a useful comment th…

The security and related technological implications of the device seem relevant to any potential user and completely on topic to me. Agree it's unfortunate that battery life, form factor etc are overshadowed by recent revelations, and regrettable that Apple chose such a tasteless feature in the circumstances.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#683

Post by reginaldjcooper »

bobbles wrote: post #676
Bud wrote: post #660

Hey, not to break up the bash-the-NSA discussion, which is legit and badly needed, but did anyone notice just how bad the fact-checking is in this article? It's terrible. Error 1: article says the A7 is a "40x CPU performance bump". Wrong; it's 40x over the original iPhone, not over the A6. Error 2: article says graphics are "56x faster". Same error. Error 3: article claims the M7 is a motion sensor; it's not. It's a…

I haven't been able to find a single forum/thread for the Apple announcements today (anywhere) that wasn't completely filled with either: 1) NSA flaming 2) 'lol no 5 inch / 1080p screen' style comments. 3) filled with disappointment that the iphone isnt a whole world more than what has been leaked. How useful it would be to find a forum where actual on-topic discussion was visible and it was the crap that got filtere…

Isn't it fair to be disappointed? They dropped the visual upgrade and introduced dozens of new bugs, forcing developers to put in some serious hours. And the result is what?

The best feature released is downloading new content in the background. That's wonderful, but not enough. iOS background processes are still crippled, so I can only have an open socket in the background if it's part of a VoIP app. And for some reason the VoIP flag also signals that I want the app to run on startup?

I don't see why we should care about iPhones or iOS anymore. The latest upgrade is a fingerprint scanner and it's faster. Ok. The operating system finally drops the idiotic skeuomorphism and lets people share photos with Apple's version of NFC. Includes a 2D game engine. Great. Oh beacons? Wonderful, now we can opt-in to targeted localized advertisements.

I'm more interested in getting a device that doesn't force its requirements inbetween me and my workflow. That means widgets, sideloading, intents, and applications that can edit the same files. Removing the animations or reducing their duration (jailbreak an iPhone, install the Accelerate package, and tell me that isn't a much better experience).

On iOS you still can't even delete their default apps if you don't want them. I thought Apple was supposed to be about style? My old iPod Touch still has a folder full of apps I don't want. And an empty Newsstand.

Apple is for children and the computer illiterate. The only benefit of iOS over Android is that you don't need to be totally vigilant over what you install. But the cost is living in a walled garden under the watchful eye of your nanny. I'm disappointed in iOS and the iPhone. They are becoming increasingly irrelevant. They're going to find that the preferred style changes over time, whereas Android is going to have a technical fan base for quite a while even after the "massive screens" fad dies down.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#684

Post by NamTaf »

batiudrami wrote: post #659
NamTaf wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe anyone wants a bigger screen. It's a phone, not a computer. I use it to quickly check email/web pages on the go, not write an essay. A bigger screen just means it ties up more room in my pocket.

The only real use for a bigger screen is that using the internet is considerably more usable. The easiest way to see this is to compare the internet on an iPhone vs iPad - even though you have exactly the same inputs (assuming you don't use a stylus), the iPad is orders of magnitude easier to browse the web on. There is a similar effect (though obviously lesser) to interacting with web pages on a 5" screen vs a 4" on…

Of course, but if I want to do more than passing browsing then I would want to do it on a device other than my phone. My phone's net connection is for finding out quick info, like transport schedules or the current score in a sports match. It's not for doing extended browsing. Hence to me, a bigger screen is detrimental.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#685

Post by reginaldjcooper »

sliverstorm wrote: post #559
paganel wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but think a about it this way: your fingerprint is now in a central database backed-up by lots of processing power so someone can match it pretty quickly and, all of a sudden, you realize you can no longer commit anything "bad", ever, because "they" may catch you based on the data they have about you. And to someone who may ask me "why would you want the freedom to do something bad?" I'll answer that thre…

you can no longer commit anything "bad", ever, because "they" may catch you Is it just me, or is HN getting really frikkin' paranoid? to someone who may ask me "why would you want the freedom to do something bad?" I think you're over-reaching.

I think that is over-reaching, too.

But pragmatically, the more data they have, the more likely you are to show up as a false positive. Worst case; you handle something in a hardware store and it's later made into a bomb by a third party. You're going to need a solid alibi for that one.

Or you get placed at the scene of a protest even though you weren't present for it. Now you're on the terrorist list.

Additionally they can catch you more easily for victimless crimes, like if your fingerprints are on a bong they collect. I figure it's easy enough for them to stick you with a felony even without actively helping them get more data. So I'm trying to minimize the felonies I can be stuck with.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#686

Post by gnaffle »

Geee wrote: post #536
gnaffle wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple being added to PRISM would, from what I read, mean that content on Apple servers could be searched, not information stored on phones. If iPhones phoned home information on stored on phones, I'd expect there to be a huge shitstorm and ample evidence of suspicious traffic. Do we have any evidence _at all_ that this has happened?

Yes, NSA can specifically target iPhones, which I think happens by backdooring the computer which is used to sync the device. One of the NSA slides had a private photo from an iPhone of 'a former senior government official of a foreign country'. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-...

Which is completely different scenario than "the iPhone being backdoored". You don't have to sync your device to a computer that is online, except for the first activation.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#687

Post by dzhiurgis »

nutate wrote: post #61
rodedwards wrote: post #53

Better photos, TouchID, snappier performance -- a traditional incremental Apple upgrade befitting the "S" moniker. I've long been wondering when/if Apple would take on NFC and things like payments more aggressively. I get the feeling that they're going to skip NFC entirely, and that TouchID is going to be a large part of processing transactions without the need for any physical device interaction (swipe/tap/bump). Ri…

The new PayPal Beacon works with bluetooth LE... NFC seems like a step back from that.

Exactly. I think it has a massive potential to take off together with Touch ID.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#688

Post by gnaffle »

plg wrote: post #538
gnaffle wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple being added to PRISM would, from what I read, mean that content on Apple servers could be searched, not information stored on phones. If iPhones phoned home information on stored on phones, I'd expect there to be a huge shitstorm and ample evidence of suspicious traffic. Do we have any evidence _at all_ that this has happened?

All I mean is that if you're using all of Apple's iCloud services (email, calendar, safari, not to mention iPhone backups to iCloud), your phone already "phones home" with a ton of info. We know that the info can be sucked out of Apple (or Google, or Faceboob, etc) if the NSA wants to (for now). So if they have your fingerprint data ... or even the ability to suck stuff off your phone ... then ... well qed look obvio…

Well, I'm in the camp that doesn't use any iCloud/Google services or Siri for security reasons, so I understand your point of view.

For me, it's very relevant whether we have any evidence that the government is collecting data residing _on_ iPhones on any scale, or whether the iPhone has any such capabilities built in. As far as I know, this hasn't been reported.

I know that Apple technically can push out a software update that would enable data collection or even covert audio recording, but in the end I have to make a decision on the likeliness of this vs. the convenience of having a smartphone handy.

Regarding fingerprint data, the US already has that and will continue to do so for 50 years, due to the fact that I had to travel to the US for work related reasons. Not happy about that, but, well, that's life.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#689

Post by mixmastamyk »

baddox wrote: post #641
jasomill wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, because some regulatory agency or other would refuse or revoke certification of a device that has a "disable radio" feature that doesn't work. I wouldn't assume that a device is incapable of accumulating GPS tracking information in "airplane mode" and forwarding it when the radio is turned back on, however, or that intelligence and law enforcement agencies would never quietly disable "airplane mod…

There are also agencies which regulate privacy concerns, like the FCC. Why would one agency be more trustworthy than another?

There's a branch of philosophy that takes this to your conclusion... we can't really trust anything in this world.

However, while the NSA has surely overstepped its bounds I don't believe it is omnipotent. At some point its influence ends. I'm still willing to believe in airplane mode. Perhaps next week's scoop will change that, but for now I'm somewhat confident it works.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#690

Post by gbog »

maaku wrote: post #662
gbog wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are in Europe then you may have better enforced laws protecting you. If you are in Africa your government might not have the expertise and resources to spy on you. If you are in China, well...

You have absolutely no protection from the U.S. government. Your European rights and protections meaning nothing in an American court.

Ok, I kinda misunderstood the GP's point, but even then, as Europeans our governments still have gone some lengths in protecting Europeans' privacy.

For instance, something in the safe-harbor blabla says citizen data handled by public angencies in Europe is not allowed to go through US nor, obviously, to be stored in the US. This rule is not new: in my previous job we had to ditch gmail and gapps in order to comply, and it was f*ing painful.

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