291–300 of 851 posts
I had a really hard time finding an in-stock fast wireless charger for my pixel 3, and ended up just not purchasing it. Kind of a pain since the usb-c charger is always getting gunked up from putting the phone in my pocket.
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I don't understand replies like this one I keep seeing on HN. I thought the controversy around what apple wanted to do was that it was happening on device and not in the cloud. The user you're replying to made that distinction so what gives?
Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be uploaded anyway on-device before upload. Using that they could add multiple redundancies and they wouldn't need to look at your stuff on the cloud at all before getting multiple positive matches. And even then the first level is a human checking if it's an actual match or a false positive. This was somehow a huge invasion of privacy, when people were competing o…
In this case, the steelman is that Apple has turned a capability barrier (if your scanning is on the cloud, you simply cannot scan local photos) into a policy barrier (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the software which means you don't do so.)
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I thought face unlock has been a security vector for the iPhone, and that even Apple is thinking of dropping it?
It doesn't look like it, they still release phones exclusively with face unlock. What security issues can it have? Fingerprint sensors could be fooled with less work. And fingerprint sensors don't work always (e.g. for me they don't).
The same could be said for fingerprint though. I think the more secure biometric unlocks require the occasional pin verification anyways.
Thanks Google. Think I’ll be buying this. I want as little to do with Google’s services as possible in my life, but they really deserve credits for making a modern usable smartphone that is reasonably open. There is just one single feature I will be buying this for - the 5 years of software updates. While good image processing is definitely a pro, all of these software you’re presenting features I really don’t give a…
5 years of security updates, 3 years of feature updates. On the page it says on the 12th footnote, "Feature drops for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US. Your Pixel will receive feature drops during the applicable Android update and support periods for the phone. See g.co/pixel/updates for details." On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says…
Both Android vendor and Apple hardware continue to work long after the software has become "outdated". That hardware does not die when the software becomes "obsolete". The vendor may choose to ignore this fact in the interest of sales but it does not mean that authors of applications must ignore it as well.
The third factor besides the vendor and the authors of applications are the operating system authors. With older PC-like hardware, I can run the latest versions of NetBSD. Forever. I update when and if I decide it is time. x86 has its benefits. It is sad that these pocket-sized computers called "smartphones" are so inflexible.
A non-HN reader recently told me that the "tech" industry has turned us all into "beta testers". The entire "updates" concept needs a serious examination. Updates are not a substitute for quality control.
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You are thoroughly misrepresenting what Apple does. I initially thought you don't know what they do, but apparently you do very well. Still: they scan photos locally - those are not cloud photos, those are local photos. And they have deployed the technical capability. You can bet that once capability exists, they will bend to government demands - there's ample precedent for that. SO, yes, Apple, unlike all others, sc…
> Still: they scan photos locally - those are not cloud photos, those are local photos. They are cloud photos. I say that because: 1. The photos are in the process of being uploaded to the cloud when they are scanned 2. The result of the scan is attached to the photo only when it is uploaded to the cloud. If the photo is deleted from the cloud, or the upload is canceled, the scan result is discarded Practically, the…
This is what I don't understand about the whole argument about this CSAM debacle. I've read quite a bit of the discussion about this, as I'm someone who takes privacy fairly seriously, and it never really gets discussed. Could someone maybe point me in the direction of some literature about this? Is someone doing extensive load and packet analysis? Don't they(Apple) upload at least some E2E data?...
My iPhone already does an insane amount of "indexing", including image classification. This is all under the hood and I have no idea what else its doing, for all I know its mining Monero. Additionally all my iOS devices seem to send an inordinate amount of data to the cloud; I'm particularly sensitive to this because I don't have a strong internet connection, and frequently have to turn off WiFi on my phone or iPad when playing online games to stabilize my ping.
I'm also skeptical that you can really insure privacy from a 5 eyes country. Maybe I just read too many spy novels as a kid, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination for me to guess how any given decently large western company could be completely infiltrated by a multinational espionage coalition.
Idk, I tend to like that Apple is fighting against Ad-tech, as that power dynamic is at least believable. I do think that playing around with deGoogled Android is fun and in my experience is much more suited to dropping off the cellphone grid. I have an Android running Lineage and microG and with OSM and Kiwix(wikipedia is indispensable, IMO) as well as a handful of other apps, it serves the majority of the purposes of a cellphone without the need for data. I still daily drive my iPhone, mostly because the UX is a lot better than deGoogled Android.
This will get downvoted immediately but what the heck. I understand we need better representation for people of color in many places - but dang Google, not a single white guy on the Pixel 6 page [0]?? Dozens of photos of people, not one white male. Sort of jarring in the reverse if you ask me. [0] https://store.google.com/product/pixel_6?hl=en-US Edit: Because the common reply to mine seems to be "Well now you know h…
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I know Whatsapp photos that I never even opened (from groups I probably muted long ago) end up in the phone library whenever I do the (manual) monthly photo dump to my PC. But yes, I agree with the comment, there's no reason to hide between details: Apple plans to introduce the capability of scanning photos on your local device and comparing hashes against an opaque (non-reviewable) list of hashes that they (along wi…
Sure, but then don't pretend that this is not something every other cloud provider is doing (and has been doing) for years. This is only such a hot-button issue because 1) people love bashing Apple, and 2) Apple actually solicited feedback instead of implementing it silently behind the scenes.
What no one has done before and what I totally don't accept is someone scanning photos on my device, which is what Apple is doing.
The in the cloud vs. on your device aspect of this debate is the most important part and cannot be glossed over.
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Which is ok, and if you don’t use Safari then you don’t have to worry about this.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic here--all iOS browsers are custom skins on top of Safari . Yes I'm aware of WKWebView and how it's not the same as Safari. I'm using the classic meaning of browser skins, dating back to browsers like Maxthon which were wrappers over Trident in exactly the same way.
It's similar to complaining about other basic features of iOS IMO (like complaining there's a default settings app or that iOS just works a certain way).
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I don't understand replies like this one I keep seeing on HN. I thought the controversy around what apple wanted to do was that it was happening on device and not in the cloud. The user you're replying to made that distinction so what gives?
Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be uploaded anyway on-device before upload. Using that they could add multiple redundancies and they wouldn't need to look at your stuff on the cloud at all before getting multiple positive matches. And even then the first level is a human checking if it's an actual match or a false positive. This was somehow a huge invasion of privacy, when people were competing o…
Fairly sure that most of the worry around that was because such a system could very easily be changed to do the same to any photo.
And people felt like their phone wasn't theirs and that it could snitch on you. We know that you truly do not own your phone, but most people do not view it that way.
Sure, it is technically better than doing that check on on a server, but the general public do not currently view it that way.
Personally do not like the system as you would be unable to escape it if it started scanning local photos (which I feel is only a matter of time), something you can with google drive and such, by not using them.
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But a manual reviewer in Cupertino or elsewhere still gets access to your personal (possibly very intimate or otherwise private) photos. Privacy from law enforcement is hardly the only privacy that people value.
They would only have access to the photos that are being reviewed. And you can either choose between (a) someone having to see your photos or (b) relying on an automated but imperfect process. You have to pick one.