Ghost asks you to publish a review after you sign up to Ghost(Pro). I'm not sure this is what they had in mind, but overall I have to say that I'm enjoying the software.
There’s obviously no certainties - and I’m not a betting man - but I think this author is on to something.
Healthcare fits the brief of a “painful, expensive problem where technology can help”. That’s the fundamental criteria for any software development, and in this case requires good integration with hardware. That kind of problem plays to Apple’s strengths.
Coupled with their long-standing and (apparent) sincere interest in customer’s health and well-being and this seems a safe bet.
I think a lot of the criticism this article levels at The Ocean Cleanup's efforts is pretty unfair.
Whilst it might take 10 Jenny's (20 ships) 5 years to clean up 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that's significantly less plastic in the sea than if they sat on the sidelines because what they've got isn't perfect. 20 small ships traveling incredibly slowly is nothing compared to the tankers and freighters delivering all the cheap plastic crap in the first place.
Similarly, mentioning that their efforts are negligible compared to the plastics still being dumped into the sea whilst also pointing out that removing it from the sea is more costly than preventing it in the first instance actually undermines the snarky "why bother" tone they've taken.
Yes, preventing plastic from entering the sea, and reducing the amount of plastic created in the first place is something we should (and are?) trying to accomplish world-wide as that's where the biggest payoff lies, but it still leaves plastic in the sea that needs removing: something these guys have taken a good crack at solving and done better than anyone else as far as I know.
Whole article reeks of a defeatist — "it's hopeless, why bother?" — attitude. I'm pleased to see progress, however small.
I came here to say this. Whether you take out AppleCare or just take repair costs on the chin: Apple is probably walking away with a decent chunk of cash because the cost of repairs are so high relative to the cost to them - even in the case where a "repair" is actually a replacement.
As most repairs (screens for example) are capped within the AppleCare period and carry an excess I think the only situation where Apple doesn't make a profit is when breakages and faults are solely their fault and a result of poor engineering. As we all know, they are terrible at admitting fault in these instances because what it could cost them is mind-boggling.
The other point I took from this post is how increasingly fragile these devices are. Aside from a pre-unibody 17" MacBook Pro that regularly fried it's components, all my iDevices have been pretty reliable and sturdy. That said my iPhone 7 Plus suffered a smashed screen from far less abuse than my 4S did. Equally my wife's new 12 Mini seems even more prone to damage than the 7 Plus.
If I was repairing or replacing devices as much as he seems to be (particularly headphones) then I'd be reconsidering my purchasing preferences. You wouldn't buy a car where where misfires and free replacements are expected (as with most AirPods and crackling issues) - you would find an alternative.
I can forget almost anything no matter how obvious, but if it's linked to a location or is spacial then my recall is spot on. I can't tell you anything about 90% of my education but could give you exact waypoints for a 3 day walk I did over 15 years ago.
I've tried harnessing this ability with the 'mind-palace" techniques where information is associated with a visualised place. I worked at a large outdoor store for a few years with a huge stockroom and used that as my base. As I was learning programming I assigned topics to sections of the stock room and related concepts with specific products. Sounds nutty but it did seem to work (I can still recall all this information).
Remembering things this way fell by the wayside though as it requires very intentional "remembering" in the first instance. It's exactly like filing — you have to do it upfront. I never used it enough that this became second nature.
I do write code on paper though, but I quickly realised that writing in a journal is suboptimal for me. When I studied design we were encouraged to take notes on loose-leaf paper both to reduce the "preciousness" that comes with bound notebooks and so that we could reorder pages but also spread it out for a high-level view. For this reason my preference is writing code on index cards where each card is a data structure or function which then get grouped into modules (thinking Elixir here).
Despite this preference I tend to just use a notebook for scribbles and "working memory" notes because I'm prone to losing cards. I've toyed with the idea of a huge blackboard and post-it notes in my office before which I may look into again soon.
“Trust” is entirely my issue with Apple too. I spent some time - and even wrote a post on my site - trying to clarify my thoughts and the steady erosion of trust seemed to be what I most object to. I too am trying to take control and responsibility for the computers I use now. Proving tricky, but baby steps…
“Trust” is pretty much my central issue with Apple now. I posted this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28250157) earlier that addresses the CSAM issue specifically, but I think this article demonstrates that it’s a broader issue than any single feature or announcement.
After thinking over Apple's recent announcements I managed to get my thoughts together and in black and white. I'm submitting them to Hacker News not because I believe others need to read it, but as a sanity check. A lot of the discussion I've read has been here so I know many are invested in this issue and it's repercussions.
'Cross-platform' in the sense that it has to accommodate mobile and desktop which is certainly one of the hardest bits of cross-platform. I know true cross-platform is infinitely harder because the differences go all the way through the OS and down to CPU architecture.
I too would like to see where WASM can go. I think that combined with cross-platform "cores" like Agilebit's use of Rust could be a very viable solution longterm.
I bought an M1 at release and in past 6 months have bought a new Apple TV, a HomePod Mini and a number of HomeKit accessories. My wife got a 12 Mini recently when her 7 Plus was smashed and I had planned on buying a new iPhone this autumn to replace my 7 Plus. These are all exceptional purchases as I rarely buy this much tech at once, but it was part of a commitment to Swift and native iOS and macOS development as I felt their on-device computing and hardware advantage was a strong reason to try something other than my predominantly backend web development.
I’m now conflicted. I’m not sure whether I’ll go ahead with my planned purchases and career change.
I believe in fixing things rather than walking away, but I think my agency as a developer (even if I worked directly for Apple) is limited. I probably hold far more power as a customer, and if past-Apple is indicative of future-Apple, it’ll be money that prompts them to reconsider decisions like these.
I’d happily move to working with other systems, I already run a dual-booting PC for some of my other work and quite like the idea of managing photos on my own server. Media like music and films is a harder issue as I’ve bought around £1500 worth of films on iTunes over the years and lost my music library when switching from iTunes Match to Apple Music. Another factor is that my family (parents, grandparents, etc) are all now used to FaceTime and asking them to use an open source alternative would be non-trivial.
All this to say “I’m not sure”. I don’t think they’ve done enough yet to warrant knee-jerk abandonment but I am watching closely, researching alternatives and holding off on any more investment (financial or education) in their ecosystem until I’m confident one way or the other.
I spent a bit of time watching the sessions after this years WWDC. I’m primarily an Elixir developer but have wanted to try Swift for a while, so the introduction of Actors felt like a good point to jump in.
My enduring impression after learning Swift Actors is that a LOT of additional complexity is introduced because of reference types. The data inside an Elixir process is just that: data, but the possibility of the data in a Swift Actor being a reference to a class suddenly makes everything complicated.
Regardless of the technical achievement from a compiler perspective I found that Swift’s Actors didn’t map well to my understanding of them from Elixir/Erlang and that they weren’t a net positive for solving the kinds of problems actors are suited for. I’ll concede this is all very personal and subjective though.
The indictment here that Agilebits was willing to go above and beyond to maintain native code on both iOS and macOS yet couldn’t justify it even after going all-in on SwiftUI for iOS is striking. It demonstrates just how hard cross-platform is and how far off Apple are with getting SwiftUI to ubiquity.
I think they’ll regret more than the confusion they’ve caused after the dust settles. Regardless of the security and privacy implications of their changes and how I feel about those; I have never associated Apple with CSAM more than I do now, and I’m sure it’s the same for many others that have been following this story.
The “think of the children” might have been a good wedge if their long term agenda involves expanding this kind of scanning, but it’s creating some strong ties between CSAM and their usually very “clean” brand.
If their aim was to comply with their reporting requirements and demonstratively prove that this kind of content can’t hide within Apple’s ecosystem (a huge advantage in many peoples eyes) then surely they should have opted for the least controversial option? From reading comments, I think very few would have pushed back against comparing image hashes on their servers after upload, even if that became a blocker to E2EE - that we don’t have, and might not ever get anyway.