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The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

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Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#41

Post by BerislavLopac »

elcapitan wrote: post #14
elmigranto wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> targets Professionals All we know, there's a word "pro" in marketing materials (includes product names). Who they actually target with that is Apple's internal affairs, and everyone should judge for himself, whether it matches one's requirements. Some people are fine with X limitation, but that doesn't mean they aren't "serious" users. Some people find limitation X to be a deal breaker, but that doesn't invalidate…

>> targets Professionals > All we know, there's a word "pro" in marketing materials (includes product names). Who they actually target with that is Apple's internal affairs, and everyone should judge for himself, whether it matches one's requirements. So nowadays Apple's "pro" is more like the "pro" in Playstation Pro.

More to the point, it's like the "pro" in iPad Pro.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#42

Post by binaryapparatus »

hellofunk wrote: post #12

The title of this HN post has been edited and does not reflect the article. The correct title is: "Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros"

I thought that duplicate links merge automatically?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057200

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#43

Post by _pmf_ »

coldtea wrote: post #10
_pmf_ wrote: post #6

My theory is hat the reason the touch bar exists is that Apple needs to get rid of overstocked (or contractually overproduced) Watch SoCs.

Apple doesn't make design decisions based on redundant stock. Besides, Apple Watch sold extremely well for its product category.

> Apple doesn't make design decisions based on redundant stock.

One would like to think that way.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#44

Post by adamlett »

Remmib wrote: post #19
iSnow wrote: post #3

Another indication that Apple is no longer committed to professional customers of their computer line and their needs - iDevices get the required admin tools, but the target demographics for their computers are consumers and web dev shops where everyone tends to their systems.

I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market... The Chromebook Pixel 2 is absolutely gorgeous, but it still comes with a prohibitively small SSD. They need to develop their own super-robust and sexy Linux distro and drop the ChromeOS nonsense. I just can't figure out why they aren't doing this.

"I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market"

There could be many reasons. Off the top of my head:

* Google is not a devices company (disregarding recent forays into the the high end smartphone market), but a services company. It's not in their DNA to this, and it doesn't fit their (current) business model. The don't have the required hardware competences, nor the required sales or distribution organisations.

* Even if Google had the required competences to do this, it's highly doubtful that it's a worthwhile pursuit. The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing, and the competition is fierce. To the extend that Apple neglects this market, its probably because the ROI is too low. To make hardware that seriously challenges Apple (and other PC manufacturers) requires large investments.

* It doesn't support Google's other businesses. Google is already present on all the existing platforms. They are not going to sell more ads doing this.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#45

Post by m_eiman »

na85 wrote: post #23

Seems to me that if the OS can write the touchpad firmware, it's of dubious security value as a sort of "secure enclave" for fingerprint id or whatever else.

As long as the embedded SoC checks the firmware signature, it's not a problem.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#46

Post by JulianMorrison »

Remmib wrote: post #19
iSnow wrote: post #3

Another indication that Apple is no longer committed to professional customers of their computer line and their needs - iDevices get the required admin tools, but the target demographics for their computers are consumers and web dev shops where everyone tends to their systems.

I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market... The Chromebook Pixel 2 is absolutely gorgeous, but it still comes with a prohibitively small SSD. They need to develop their own super-robust and sexy Linux distro and drop the ChromeOS nonsense. I just can't figure out why they aren't doing this.

A linux distro that isn't 100% locked down and limited to infrastructure like Android and ChromeOS is a fuss and a nuisance to maintain, it takes expensive specialists, it takes money, and it invites security issues. And "developers" is a teeny tiny market.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#47

Post by cptskippy »

blauditore wrote: post #24
chillacy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be good with less corporate governance on the machine they issued me, more in line with what google does. The windows machines are unusable with all the forced updating, antivirus inefficiencies, and basically spyware. The Macbooks are on their way there, though you can at least still unload the kexts today

> The windows machines are unusable with all the forced updating, antivirus inefficiencies, and basically spyware. Hardly ever had such problems on machines I was able to manage myself. I'm not sure what you're referring to by "forced updating"; the W10 upgrade or just regular updates?

My company uses a product called LanDesk to manage updates on machines instead of WSUS. It pops up at least once a week if not once a day and says that I have to reboot. It gives me 60 seconds to choose to reboot now or postpone the reboot boot for 4 hours but you can only postpone 3 times before it automatically reboots. If you don't act in those 60 seconds, the system reboots. It doesn't matter if you were getting coffee or having a bio break.

It doesn't initiate the system shutdown command or at least doesn't wait long enough to allow programs like Outlook to safely shutdown so I've had corrupted mail files that needed to be rebuilt because of it.

Further more, LanDesk has a vulnerability scanner and remote administration utility that are both always running. On top of that we use McAfee's virus and malware scanner and firewall. Cisco's Web Security Agent that monitors all network traffic. And a product called WebSense which as near as I can tell logs everything you do in browser.

We deal with PCI, PII, and HIPPA related information though and they pretty much require this kind of nonsense.

Idk, the whole Windows 10 "spying" and "forced" update policies seems insignificant by comparison.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#48

Post by orbitur »

_pmf_ wrote: post #43
coldtea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't make design decisions based on redundant stock. Besides, Apple Watch sold extremely well for its product category.

> Apple doesn't make design decisions based on redundant stock. One would like to think that way.

All the (expensive and custom-manufactured) evidence backs up that thinking, so I'm not sure why you're being snarky about it.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#49

Post by pawadu »

SyneRyder wrote: post #22

The "Fun Bugs" section is really concerning. So, if you set the date on a new MacBook Pro to 1/1/1970, your MBP will fail to boot, because the OS in your keyboard still has a bug that was patched in iOS, but not in keyboardOS? I must be misreading that bit, surely?

So I can cause some serious economic damage around the Bay area by spoofing a few NTP messages?

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#50

Post by blauditore »

cptskippy wrote: post #47
blauditore wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The windows machines are unusable with all the forced updating, antivirus inefficiencies, and basically spyware. Hardly ever had such problems on machines I was able to manage myself. I'm not sure what you're referring to by "forced updating"; the W10 upgrade or just regular updates?

My company uses a product called LanDesk to manage updates on machines instead of WSUS. It pops up at least once a week if not once a day and says that I have to reboot. It gives me 60 seconds to choose to reboot now or postpone the reboot boot for 4 hours but you can only postpone 3 times before it automatically reboots. If you don't act in those 60 seconds, the system reboots. It doesn't matter if you were getting…

Yeah, I've seen such stuff too, and I hate it. Such setups are part of the reason for Windows' bad reputation. IMO, too strong security measures tend to reduce security at some point, because users get annoyed and try to circumvent them.

A blank W10 installation with Avast is blazingly fast and quite reasonable with update handling. A lot has changed since Vista, or even 7 and 8.

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