Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
My iPhone, My Enemy
I have been around computers since I was nine, so I know what early adoption of system updates can lead to. There was one update I am aware of that would permanently disable any device that received it. I have no idea how the manufacturer compensated their victims in that case. So on every new device part of my nesting routine is to make sure that automatic updates are turned off. Let them destroy someone else’s device, I need mine running.
So then I received a notification on my iPhone that I should leave the phone on overnight for an important update, the defective COVID-19 exposure detection app rejected by the UK because Apple and Google could not reliably distinguish between a signal three feet away and one 30 feet away with maybe a wall or two between, has now been integrated into iOS but, the message assured, use of the app would be entirely opt-in. So if I update my iPhone the defective app proposed to Europe to decide who is shoved pell-mell into forced quarantine will become a part of my configuration.
But I will have complete control over whether the function is activated.
Right.
Like I had complete control over whether the app was uploaded when that became available.
And when I didn’t, this.
And just to be sure that I got the message, they remotely changed my settings to automatically install iOS updates.
So helpful of them.
My phone has spent a lot less time powered and online, lately. And I am taking no more iOS updates. So anyone who urgently requires my attention should use email or FaceTime. While I shop for an unsmart flip phone with no Bluetooth that I can easily upload my address book to. Recommendations welcome.
When Apple gave millions to the Communist insurrection via instruments like BLM and Antifa, excuses were made. They just did not understand. Did not investigate whom they were giving logistical support to in the terrorization and destruction of our cities. In summation, they just weren’t very smart.
Or they are being gleefully sinister.
Published in Technology
I’ll be watching for suggestions. I’m with you.
No, no, you don’t understand. Trump is the authoritarian, not Apple.
Thank you for the belly laugh.
Thanks to the unhelpful people at Verizon upon my last call for service, my phone hasn’t done updates or saved to the “cloud” in 22 weeks. With all the forced applications, I’m ok with that, and plan to upgrade my phone and change service providers soon. No way am I going back to a flip phone! But I did hear on the radio in the car about the very thing you describe regarding the tracking app. Doesn’t it need to be downloaded by the user?
Are we owners of technology, or does it own us? These are the occasions when I miss the days of landlines and the only way to have a roaming call was with a ten-foot curly cord. I had this one!
I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone, but it’s the software’s fault. Whenever I charge my phone, this algorithm places two photos of us in this “People & Places” folder, then loads a bunch of pictures in the “For You” folder.
I hate these features because you cannot turn them off. I am not alone. I’ve googled this issue, and lots of folks like myself have sent a request to Apple to put in a switch to turn these things off. Our requsts seem to fall on deaf ears because apparanetly there are enough people who like Apple software selecting which precious memories to highlight.
Which goes to one of my bugaboos:
Technology without human controls will eventually run amok . . .
Yes, it needs to be downloaded, but it is now part of the OS so if you download the OS you have downloaded the app.
Yes! By the time the wireless handsets became a thing I had a twenty foot curly cord.
I have an issue along those lines, turning off Siri has become more and more challenging over the years. The eavesdropping and intelligence collection is simply unacceptable. Remember, our national security establishment is operating under the principle that whatever information is mined by private sources is fair game for them to collect as well, and China does not even pretend to care who they steal data from, so when Google or Apple mine your data to “help you” they are creating higher levels of personal surveillance throughout the culture. Siri is no longer really optional in iOS, even when I go through the settings and turn it off for each app, I still see evidence of spying on some of those apps by what notifications and suggestions I receive.
China can share that data with Antifa enforcers as part of bringing a neighborhood under heel. Or a corrupt president. Or a rogue government agency.
In a time of violent insurrection, Apple is not our friend.
I was hoping this’d be a post about the Mueller Gang erasing 15 iPhones after the IG requested them.
I’m leaning hard towards getting an old timey flip phone until I can figure out how to do a Linux smartphone with the things I rely on.
I’ve always shied away from Apple I prefer Android for my phones anyway. Of course that just shifts the intrusive meddling over to Google rather than Apple. I would seriously consider an open-source cell phone OS. I don’t need much, and I could easily switch over to something like LineageOS for the phone if I could just find a stable build for my old phone.
So they say. With that message being delivered by the same people who told us we needed serious COVID measures enacted for our own good, but not to worry, all would be well in 6 weeks.
And it has been how many months now?
A problem you can easily encounter there is that flip phones mostly stopped at 2G service, some have 3G, but I don’t know if I’ve seen any with 4G. As the carriers increasingly “deprecate” 2G and even 3G service – they actually remove the towers and other equipment that provide service to them – you may find that a flip phone simply Will Not Work. Anywhere.
Speaking of Mueller, a nice German name, Hitler, ooops! I meant Hillary was supposed to offer up testimony on September 9th. Do you know if she did that?
Apple still takes the public position that their advantage is they don’t sell user’s data. That is Google’s whole schtick. And, as a techie, I know how much more secure the iOS architecture is. Each app has its own space secured by encryption applying a private key that is secured in a chip and claimed to be unretrievable. In tech security circles, Android is understood to be a bowl for goldfish.
Not challenging to me. I’ve never used it and don’t see any need to. Unfortunately, our oldest son (who lives with us) uses it, and my wife talks to Google. So I have good reason to be uncommunicative at the dinner table and read a book instead of talking.
If they have the time and energy to have accidents like that, maybe they need less budget and staff.
This is the stuff they always spend on. Close the monuments. Close the parks. Cancel military training and furlough the universe, but nothing deters the public servants from serving themselves.
Is this update 13.7 that wants to install on my phone?
What really fries me is that the Democrats tried to put a brand-new FBI edifice into the latest “stimulus” proposal in order to reward the FBI for its criminal behavior in trying to overturn the election, and Republicans never put up a squeak about it that I heard. They haven’t passed the Democrat proposal, which is good, but they should specifically denounce this item and bring it to public attention. Put it in YouTube ads.
Yes.
That you’ve never used it, doesn’t mean it’s not currently active on your iphone, if that’s what you have.
These things are always enabled by default, and they make it harder and harder to disable it.
EDIT: I’m not ready to go Linux phone, and am only partially Linux on laptop/desktop, but I’ve been tracking this guy’s content to see how it’s going. He updates when he finds new options.
Android here. And these days the phone doesn’t follow me everywhere I go.
Blu, a Brazilian company, I believe still makes old style 4G flip phones that have no internet connectability.
Yikes. My Ipad wants to install 13.7.
The photos app is, to quote a certain fellow, a bag of hurt. It’s a ghastly mess. It tries so hard to be helpful, but it just creates confusion. My favorite part is the alert you get when you try to turn off one of the features, and it says this will DELETE ALL YOUR PHOTOS, which it doesn’t really do.
The other thing is that you can keep turning off features you don’t want, and then something else turns them back on again, without telling you.
KaiOS looked interesting. Briefly. Google bought a big chunk of it.