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Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#251

Post by prehkugler »

pilif wrote: post #73

Now that we have to consider the iPhones to be backdoored by the NSA, I wonder whether I really want to give them my fingerprint together with the rest of my data. I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked (like it was possible on that Mythbusters episode for example). Personally, I think I'd rather stay with my passcode. Did you btw know that you can turn off "simple passcode" and then u…

I think it's prudent to note that Apple made specific guarantees of fingerprint privacy; however such explicit guarantees haven't been made for passcode privacy.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#252

Post by swamp40 »

bratsche wrote: post #229
swamp40 wrote: post #60

I was really hoping for NFC support - sigh. I do love the fingerprint sensor and the intelligent auto-focusing features, though. Blurry smartphone pictures are so ubiquitous these days.

Why does everyone keep going on about NFC? It's been on Android for years and it's never been used in any meaningful way. I don't see Apple introducing some new hardware component just for the sake of adding it. They'll introduce something when they have a really solid use for it, which is something that Google seems to have never really had with NFC.

Something is going to replace the credit card.

If Apple had thrown their weight behind NFC, that would have closed the deal.

I give them one more year (one iWatch release, and the iPhone 6 release) and then I agree, NFC will be a dead end.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#253

Post by smacktoward »

Pxtl wrote: post #83

I'm still weirded out by the idea that Apple has finally split the iPhone line into "premium" and "value" streams. It just seems so... un-Apple. The whole "last-year's-model" discount was a bit of a kludge, but still Apple stood out from the rest of the industry with such a simple product line - device, biannual release, size, that's it.

Steve Jobs' first big contribution towards turning Apple around was cutting down their product line into two products in every category: a premium one and a value one.

At first this meant they cut back to only selling four products: two desktops (premium Power Mac and value iMac), and two laptops (premium PowerBook and value iBook). But as new products came on they eventually got this treatment too.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#254

Post by TrevorJ »

dev_jim wrote: post #166
pilif wrote: post #73

Now that we have to consider the iPhones to be backdoored by the NSA, I wonder whether I really want to give them my fingerprint together with the rest of my data. I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked (like it was possible on that Mythbusters episode for example). Personally, I think I'd rather stay with my passcode. Did you btw know that you can turn off "simple passcode" and then u…

Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?

I don't see how this is snarky. We know that data is being scooped up in an opportunistic manner. It would be foolish to not consider the security implications when deciding which devices/technology to adopt.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#255

Post by bedhead »

swamp40 wrote: post #116
bedhead wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphone hardware is in the 9th inning. These devices have mostly hit the natural limits of what's achievable for now. Bad for Apple since this effectively levels the playing field.

I disagree completely. Perhaps the 9th inning of a preseason game? Flexible displays are coming soon. The paths for easy integration with multiple low power wearable peripherals have just been forged, and the area is still in its infancy. Mobile payments have not fully arrived yet. The phones are all still in rectangular boxes - something that will look ridiculous in 20 years. I think there is a lot yet to come hardw…

Flexible displays would certainly be neat, but their utility for a cellphone largely escapes me.

Wearable peripherals are a different category, they're not smartphones. Regardless, I dont have terribly high hopes for these future devices.

Mobile payment is mostly not a hardware issue. It's a software issue and a matter of coordination or market forces selecting a standard or two. It's things like THIS that are the next battleground in mobile: services and integration.

They are in rectangular boxes because that shape, for various reasons, happens to be extraordinarily efficient. TV's haven't changed shapes.

I think smartphone hardware is pretty much dead. The major leaps - touch screens (which is so ridiculously underappreciated as an innovation), HD screens, HD cameras, CPU horsepower, nice OS's, voice recognition, blah blah - are behind us. There is a reason that almost all of the best selling smartphones look alike, feel alike, and generally have the exact same feature sets. The differences between each other, in the grand scheme of things, are lamentably minute.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#256

Post by eric_cc »

danabramov wrote: post #158
lewispollard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire NSA thing to date is a huge scandal, and yet no one (outside of the tech community) seems to really care... Not many people are closing their accounts associated with NSA complicit companies.

Do you really fail to see the difference between disclosing user info already on the servers to the NSA under legal orders and announcing a new product after the leaks, claiming it does not send any data, and doing the exact opposite without any additional benefit? Why would Apple do this? I don't recall reading NSA can now force companies to include finger sensors, and then force them to collect data they wouldn't b…

You are sound really really naive. You sound like the kind of person who is "shocked" by new scandals.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#257

Post by RyJones »

gfodor wrote: post #200
RyJones wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have fingerprints. A large part of the world population doesn't have readable prints. What now? People on blood thinners, elderly people, Asians, women all have less distinctive prints. I don't have prints due to psoriasis. Fingerprints are a horrible biometric.

Saying that fingerprints are a bad biometric because some people can't use them is like saying escalators are a bad idea because some people can't use them. They might be a bad biometric but it's not because they aren't universally available to everyone.

When it's used as a gate, it is an issue. It took the Seattle PD and whatever agency actually issues civilian CAC (HSPD-12) a long, long time to get enough prints to allow me access to do my job. Both eventually had to accept three very partial prints as evidence.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#258

Post by jad »

cheald wrote: post #171
dev_jim wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?

Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to serve.

> Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying...

Who said what they're doing is illegal? The whole problem is that the entire surveillance regime is completely secret and completely legal.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#259

Post by mcintyre1994 »

afterburner wrote: post #218
danabramov wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But would they still go about implementing it? I mean, it sounds crazy from a business perspective.

What if the NSA told them they had to have access to the data, or else jail and whatnot.

Am I understanding this correctly? What if the NSA went to Apple and said you have to get us access to everyone's fingerprints or you'll go to jail and other stuff, so Apple put a fingerprint scanner on the iPhone? It seems like a stretch to me.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#260

Post by seangarita »

pilif wrote: post #73

Now that we have to consider the iPhones to be backdoored by the NSA, I wonder whether I really want to give them my fingerprint together with the rest of my data. I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked (like it was possible on that Mythbusters episode for example). Personally, I think I'd rather stay with my passcode. Did you btw know that you can turn off "simple passcode" and then u…

The government already has your fingerprints... DMV, TSA...
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