Comment by daemonologist

Comment by daemonologist 9 hours ago

31 replies

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I have a couple of older relatives with Macs, and every time you fire them up for the first time in a while (these people might go several months without using their computer) the Apple ID sign-in nagging is insane. It'll pop up the same sign-in notification a dozen times and seems to lock up the settings app until you deal with it. I usually think of myself as quite patient but when I see that little window it inspires strong feelings.

scrollaway 7 hours ago

The Apple ID sign in is insane in the first place. Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards?

One day the eu will yell at them to do things normally and then Cook will go on stage to showcase what an awesome idea they had that nobody thought of before: “standards!”. Wait no, that’s usb c.

Side-rant over.

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  • speleding 6 hours ago

    My elderly parents have managed to destroy more than one iPhone / Mac (dropped a glass of wine on the keyboard on the last one). Using the "Restore from iCloud" is a god send to get all their messages and settings back. So I'm willing to go through some pain / privacy invasion for that.

    Reply View 20 replies
    • ykonstant 6 hours ago

      Kind of off topic, but is "spilled liquid on keyboard" still this unfathomable engineering barrier that nobody can break to make a more robust laptop for one of the most common causes of damage?

      Reply View 18 replies
      • Spooky23 33 minutes ago

        It’s complicated, especially as laptops have gotten thinner and tolerances tighter. Dell and Lenovo/IBM used to have laptops with drains.

        Lenovo definitely has splash resistant laptops, and most semi-rugged devices are spill-safe, but spilling coffee is still a service event as the cream ruins the keyboard.

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      • rvba 10 minutes ago

        The manufacturers dont want to do that because this increases costs and also makes them sell less laptops.

        Iphones have glass backs for a reason. Sales boost

        Although a premium brand could do it.

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      • mrheosuper 4 hours ago

        IIRC Old thinkpad has drain hole in the keyboard to prevent this.

        Reply View 0 replies
      • joenot443 3 hours ago

        I'd imagine it's cost, right? I'm sure Apple or Microsoft COULD make a waterproof body, but would people pay more for it?

        If it cost an extra $100 to make my laptop keyboard water proof, I think it'd be a hard sell for me.

        Reply View 2 replies
      • xtiansimon an hour ago

        Still waiting for dish washer safe keyboard and mouse…

        Reply View 3 replies
      • iamflimflam1 5 hours ago

        Electronics and liquids are just not a great combination.

        Unless of course you stick to pure alcohol or distilled water…

        Reply View 4 replies
    • scrollaway 6 hours ago

      There is nothing preventing storing standard 2FA secrets on iCloud. You shouldn’t blindly accept substandard behaviour because of imagined technical requirements.

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  • bootsmann 5 hours ago

    > Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards?

    Walled gardeners be gardening

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  • joenot443 3 hours ago

    > Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards?

    Ever since the Great iCloud Hack of 2014, Apple dialed up their end user auth to the max. [1]

    It was after that hack when bad actors from around the world realized getting into someone's Apple account could be as lucrative (or more) than their bank or email, and so here we are today.

    I'm not sure what else Apple can do here. People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud, stuff which can't be refunded or bought back. I think having such an annoying, stringent, and walled-in auth system is probably the only way Apple PMs are able to move past the disaster of 2014.

    [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-says-apple-to-add-secu...

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    • notmyjob 2 hours ago

      >People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud

      Totally absurd to blame anyone but apple for that. Apple pushes features, like iCloud, so they can do show and tell every year and make their stock go up. More a stock go up business than anything else. Features, like iCloud, are the problem. People who like that stuff are also the loudest fanboys and often the least technologically literate too.

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  • jacquesm 6 hours ago

    I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever. I do have a Google ID and I can't wait for the day that I can finally retire it. All of these feel like the exact opposite of what the internet should have been, this centralization and abuse of critical mass is a serious problem.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • crossroadsguy 4 hours ago

      Google a/c was the easiest to retire for me. Stopped using Android [0], Gmail - done!

      Apple ID, on the other hand - if you use an Apple device then a whole lot of (safety) features are literally tied to an Apple a/c and don't even exist without it. I can't remember I ever had a MSFT ID.

      I dream of a day when device makers are forced to expose APIs where one can add a device account provider a/c or device id provider a/c which offers various features like theft protection, remote lock et cetera or a self hosted solution. Yeah, that's just a dream.

      [0] I do use one for work/testing and there's a throwaway Google a/c added on that created using a disposable email from SimpleLogin.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • thaumasiotes 6 hours ago

      > I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever.

      I don't know whether I have a Microsoft account or not.

      I didn't want to have one, obviously. But at some point I wanted to use Visual Studio and setting that up required me to create a Microsoft account. I continued not to use that account as an account on my computer, because why on earth would I do that.

      So, other than using Visual Studio, that account never did anything at all, sort of like you'd expect from an account that you forced someone to create under duress.

      One day I opened Visual Studio and a popup message displayed, telling me that because of what appeared to be fraudulent behavior by my Microsoft account, it was being revoked or disabled or whatever. (But I was still free to continue using Visual Studio.)

      OK.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • jacquesm 6 hours ago

        They just can't help themselves. It's as if someone's career depends on the number of users in the system, no matter whether or not they actually provide value to the users by having them in the system. Everybody and their dog wants you to be part of their eco-system. The best way to get me to not use a service is to have an account requirement that does not provide any functionality that I could have had without that account. It is also why pianojacq.com does not have any accounts, there simply isn't anything that you could do with an account that you can not do without.

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      • ludicrousdispla 3 hours ago

        I refuse to update to windows 11 because it requires setting up a Microsoft account. So all new computers (and some of the old ones) in our family have had their disks wiped and Ubuntu installed instead. We started doing this even before the Cortana/AI bs.

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  • astafrig 4 hours ago

    > then Cook will go on stage to showcase what an awesome idea they had that nobody thought of before: “standards!”. Wait no, that’s usb c.

    That never happened.

    Reply View 0 replies