10 ms·
It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Not only that once capability is revealed
by hughrr 5y ago
It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Not only that once capability is revealed it can be required by governments and manipulated under warrant. Particularly in some regimes, mine included, the vendor can be compelled to do something and not say anything. My comment doesn’t even cover how monumentally flawed the entire thing is either.
So I’ve been on the verge of doing this for years so this was the final push and motivation.
Yesterday I sold my iPad and Apple Watch. They are being shipped today. I’m just waiting on refunds on my AppleCare for my MacBook and iPhone now and I will sell them.
Yesterday I had a Nokia 215 arrive as a replacement phone. Also a monster pile of PC bits arrived which have been assembled into a Ubuntu running desktop. I am spending today migrating my data over carefully. When the MacBook sells I will buy a Nikon DSLR.
At the end of this I lose perhaps 20% convenience for an immeasurable privacy gain, lose a big chunk of the distractions from my life and end up with some cash left over which I will use to go on holiday.
The only thing I will miss is Apple Music but it’ll give me a chance to curate my music collection without distraction again.
- zpeti 5y agoGreat to hear someone else is doing the same. For me the biggest issue is I have young kids and the convienence of quick photo taking is good on a smartphone. Might look into pinephone or something similar.
- hughrr 5y agoFortunately mine are teenagers now so that bit of my life is over mostly. I only get photos of them lurking, hiding and giving me the middle finger and that’s about it :)
- asddubs 5y agowell make sure to take plenty of pictures, you will cherish the memories of them lurking, hiding and giving you the middle finger for the rest of your life
- hutzlibu 5y ago"Might look into pinephone or something similar." Pinephone is my hope, too, but do not expect anything stable soon. That will take some time, probably years. It does not happen on its own, though, they need support now to make it a real alternative and not just a tinker toy.
- squarefoot 5y agoThey have other interesting products on their site. I'm also waiting to decide if getting this Pinephone or waiting for a beefier one with more battery life (1), but I can wait since I'm not into smartphones. In the meantime I supported them by purchasing their solder iron, plus tips and other add ons, which works surprisingly good for the price, and I'll probably buy one of their SBCs. So if anyone wants to support them, there are other ways to do that. (1) To Pinephone designers: I would absolutely love a 2cm thick Pinephone if that allowed some more speed and serious battery life. I'm serious about that; my current phone is a Nokia 8110 4G (the new "banana") which is 1.5 cm thick, and although the OS is a joke and I use it only for calls and as 4G access point for my laptop, wrt usability it's the best thing I've bought in years.
- fsflover 5y ago> I would absolutely love a 2cm thick Pinephone if that allowed some more speed and serious battery life. This is exactly what the keyboard mod is for. The keyboard has 6000 mHa battery (although it does not make Pinephone run faster).
- Fnoord 5y agoThere's like three major options if you want to run a FOSS smartphone, and I'll sum them up. Pinephone: Cheap. The device isn't very powerful. With people coming from an Apple device, that's a problem. Fairphone 3: Fair. The hardware isn't very powerful either, and the device is more expensive, but the product is better for the people who assembled it and the environment. Librem 5: Open. Even more expensive than Fairphone, but the hardware features killswitches, and there's no binary blobs. Lacks the fair advantages Fairphone has. Each of these can run a myriad of FOSS OSes from a deGoogled Android (ASOP-based fork) such as /e/ or Ubuntu or Debian/Arch/Ubuntu mobile versions or SFOS (Sailfish) community version (without Android emulation layer!), and each hardware and software has their pros/cons. I use a Fairphone 3 with stock firmware with a Pinephone as back-up phone (and have to use a Samsung flagship device for work). Previously I used a Fairphone 2 with LineageOS + microG (kind of like predecessor of /e/ before that took off). PS: On the gaming side, I'm getting a Steam Deck. Its a bang for the buck compared to Aya Neo/Nintendo Switch/gaming smartphones). No, it isn't open hardware, but the device runs Linux and you get root on it, plus all the reviews (including Linus Tech Tips) are positive.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoI understand that fear, but honestly this can not move me because I will unequivocally get worse or less candid photos of my kids if I switch to anything else. Apple has created the best portable camera I've ever used; it's not even close (this is coming from someone who used to make a living with photography). I really hate this situation but I'm clinging to the fact that I don't use iCloud and my kids are too young for iMessage.
- amelius 5y ago> It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Can Apple force people to install this even on devices they already sold?
- hughrr 5y agoNo but they just refuse to service your updates without this enabled.
- amelius 5y agoEven security updates?
- dspillett 5y agoProbably, at least until someone successfully gets a court to say otherwise, by which time it'll be irrelevant because everyone will either have installed & enabled it to get the updates or (less likely given how entrenched many iDevice users have become) moved to other products. And after the case to stop them refusing security updates for those without it installed+enabled, there will need to be another one to force them to allow it to be disabled, then a few circuits around the court of public tattle to make it really disable and not magically re-enable itself at random intervals.
- easton 5y agoInterestingly, iOS 15 is the first version of iOS in history to be optional if you want security updates. You will be able to choose if you want to go to iOS 15 and get the new features (including the CSAM prevention stuff), or you can stay on a security update only channel for iOS 14 (for a unknown period, but I'd guess until WWDC 2022? N-1 seems reasonable). https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15-preview/features/ https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15-preview/features/ (under settings)
- tchalla 5y agoIf you don't use iCloud Photo Library or sync photos to the iCloud, none of this will apply to you. https://daringfireball.net/2021/08/apple_child_safety_initiatives_slippery_slope https://daringfireball.net/2021/08/apple_child_safety_initia...
- Raed667 5y agoI'm not really sure about feature phones either. Modern Nokia ones come preloaded with Facebook and Whatsapp.
- hughrr 5y agoYou can remove them from the screen and they are not used unless activated.
- Raed667 5y agoAgain why are they there in the first place? Also how many eyes are on KaiOS anymore? How sure are we of its sandboxing and all other security/privacy aspects?
- hef19898 5y agoAs soon as I have time it will be CalyxOS on my current Pixel 2. Once I got to update, no idea when, to a Pixel 5 I'm going to try Graphene OS. Oh, and Linux on my private laptop. I don't think you can do anything else to avoid FAANG's eyes. And MS's. Which sucks, I still remember when the only thing tp worry about was malware, not being spied upon by OEMs. Oh, and being spied upon by three letter agencies and their counterparts, but there is not much you can do about that either way.
- kowlo 5y agoYou may struggle to get the same functionality from a Nikon DSLR, but at least it has a better camera. Are you switching from a laptop to a desktop machine? Do you have no use for the portability anymore?
- hughrr 5y agoI still have a company issued laptop (Windows based). I don’t need a laptop for personal stuff.
- beardedwizard 5y agoIf you value privacy you won't use a company laptop for personal business.
- thunfischbrot 5y agoDoesn't that really depend on how you use it? They might have a separate user account or even a whole separate OS installed like I do, encrypted, and use only online services.
- hughrr 5y agoYes the two worlds are and always will be kept separate. I could have worded that better before. I have a desktop (not laptop) for my own stuff and a laptop for company stuff and a dock and KVM setup for it. I am not using the company laptop for personal stuff.
- vel0city 5y agoBefore buying the DSLR, I'd recommend at least checking out the 1" sensor size market. These cameras still take excellent quality photos in a wide range of lighting conditions but are so much more compact than having an interchangeable lens system. I sold my DSLR a couple of years after getting my G9x Mark II. The DSLR was always gathering dust compared to the G9x which with a small belt case could easily be taken anywhere. That said these cameras are definitely not as flexible as a full SLR nor will you get the same performance. Its a large sensor when compared to a camera or other point and shoots but its still nothing compared to APS-C.
- dylan604 5y agoThere are plenty of Micro 4/3 sensors that have interchangeable lenses too though, so you don't have to be locked into a compact camera with built-in lenses. You can have the best of both worlds.
- noahjk 5y agoI've heard good things about Panasonic's LUMIX G7, and it looks to be at a very reasonable price point. I personally use a Fuji X-T3 which is also more reasonably priced than full-frame, between that and Micro 4/3 price-wise. The main differentiators for a smaller sensor are low-light performance & dynamic range, but 99% of the time these won't matter. Megapixels shouldn't really even be considered - any of these cameras can take a photo to put on a billboard, DPI scales in relation to optimal viewing distance
- vel0city 5y agoAgreed, those are also an excellent middle ground from a full-sized DSLR to a compact shooter but still give most of the performance and about all the flexibility of a DSLR.
- f3d46600-b66e 5y agoHow does Nokia 215 solve the problem? All messages, including any images, wi now go through the carrier's network (and the recipient's carrier) and be subject to intercept, analysis, and sale by those two entities. I'm not sure how is that better? Wouldn't AOSP/Lineage with Signal installed be better?
- hughrr 5y agoI only need to make calls on it and send SMS. I never assume those are private.
- strzibny 5y agoCarriers, at least in the Czech Republic, are very restricted in what they can do. Regular phone calls and SMS messages are much more private than anything else out there.
- ryan_lane 5y agoIt's not the carriers you need to worry about. Regular calls and SMS are absolutely not private.
- ursugardaddy 5y agoI don't know if the 215 supports tethering, but there are feature phones that do paired with a laptop or even something like a steam deck (running linux) is the way to go if you really need mobile internet you get privacy and freedom from the smartphone-service-based-everything-forever lifesytle, it's nice
- f3d46600-b66e 5y agoOn a DSLR front: are there now DSLR/cameras that do the type of "computational photography" that pixel or iphones are doing? Not having to edit the pictures is a huge plus, and JPG files in Nikon, even with dynamic range on, are pretty mediocre compared to Pixel phone.
- hughrr 5y agoYou can post process that from RAW if you want to. I generally want people to not fuck around with my images before I get to do it though if I'm honest.
- cultofmetatron 5y agoGenerally, if you are shelling out the kind of money for a dslr or mirrorless, you want control over the final image. I shoot in raw and tweak the images I like by hand in darkroom. Lightroom is another option if you want to support adobe. It takes longer but the end result looks MUCH better than anything your phone can produce. That said, sometimes I just want to take a selfie and not fiddle too much. Thats when I use my google pixel.
- ValentineC 5y agoWhat might be useful for the next generation of prosumer cameras is being able to capture depth data (which is probably the main differentiator allowing computational photography to work on smartphones), with editing tools like Photoshop eventually supporting it.
- cultofmetatron 5y agolidar builtin to the mirrorless that takes a depth would be amazing. not just for computational photography but also to make focusing way more accurate!
- blacktriangle 5y agoEven Apple Music has gone to shit. iTunes keeps managing to get worse and worse, and they're pushing hard to pretend you don't have your own collection to get you to buy into the subscription model. At this point I'm going back to owning a seaparate dedicated music device that is totally divorced from the computer. There's just something intentional about walking over to a CD player or record player, picking out an album, and putting it on compared to mindlessly browing Spotify playlists.
- altantiprocrast 5y agohttps://www.navidrome.org/ https://www.navidrome.org/ might help (I'm unaffiliated, just sharing)
- ryantgtg 5y agoNo sure if the parent (grandparent?) would find this helpful: but here’s the setup I use that provides a cool amount of options. I use a Yamaha receiver (R-N803) that has their MusicCast software on it. And I use these various inputs: - CD - Phono - USB. A little teensy usb loaded with music I’ve collected for the last 25 years - however, I’ve cleaned it up so it’s not filled with random things that makes my wife go “what is all this stuff! I just want to see MY music!” - I have a Navidrome server running on a pi, with a hardrive connected to it. It basically contains the USB + all the other random stuff. This is played via the bluetooth input and Play:Sub app on my phone. - Likewise I play the bandcamp app via Bluetooth through the receiver, and spotify as well (I mostly use spotify for listening to the back catalogs of established artists). - Net Radio. Access thousands of radio stations, worldwide, that stream their service. It’s pretty cool! There’s more. But, point is the setup is cool and diverse and it’s pretty easy to use.
- Cwizard 5y agoI recently started looking into buying my music again since 90% of my Apple Music listen time goes to the same generic piano playlist. I figure I could have bought the playlist 10 times over by now... My question is where do you buy music these days? I would like it digitally but I would like to own it (no DRM stuff). Any suggestions on a good store to buy music online? Last time I bought music I did it on itunes...
- cultofmetatron 5y agoget the z5. I got it a month ago, its smaller and lighter than a dslr and the image quality has been excellent. heres my photo gallery all shot with the z5 https://www.flickr.com/photos/193526747@N04/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/193526747@N04/
- hughrr 5y agoThat’s actually what I’m looking at so far. Thanks for the gallery link - some nice shots in there
- ayush--s 5y agowhy would you miss apple music? spotify wipes the floor with apple music!?
- darthrupert 5y agoSounds to me like you just wanted to buy a lot of new stuff.