Now that they have a barometer... just need to add air motion sensors, a humidity sensor, a thermometer, vibration sensor, UV sensor, and an air quality sensor / airborn particles measurement, Oh yeah, and an Ebola/Microbe detector

Right!! And Google would never record your searches in a non ananomized history which you have to explicitly turn off in your google account.

This is why a search engine should not be allowed to run their own advertisement channel provider or share search/user profile information with advertisement channel services or 3rd party companies.

Because Google runs Adsense, they have a perverse incentive to act against their customers'/users' best interests.

I've noticed the same thing. With all of the "privacy" related options enabled, there is still a great deal of chatting with Apple servers.

I would say it's naughty of Apple to provide opt-out options and communicate anyways. It would be better for them to just display a notification that you won't be able to opt-out, except by returning the computer or downgrading back to Mavericks.

If they offer a privacy opt-out that claims to stop communications with Apple, and you check it, and the software still communicates, then IMO: Apple should be fined by the government and given a mandatory order by the feds to turn over and destroy all copies of information gathered.

To get this, Apple doesn't need to know what the person typed.

Correct... for browser GUI design Apple doesn't need to know what they were looking for.

It would be the search engine provider who needs to know what the user typed, and based on what they clicked --- if they found what they were looking for, and which result they found most relevant.

But the search engine provider doesn't need access to other information like what brand of mouse they were using, or which particular search box the user utilized.

Desktop Linux will be at a disadvantage? As in, revenues will be halved? What?

I'm saying that the proprietary vendors will continue to have a competitive edge in improving their user interfaces to compete, since the vendors that require the stats will have more datapoints about OS usage which are also less biased.

As for revenues.... half of zero is still zero, and it's theoretical rate of increase in market share which could eventually be affected.

Probably, there must eventually be some way of addressing privacy concerns besides just "opt-out"

Yeah, it should be opt-in. At the very least, opt-out.

The challenge is that it will skew the statistics.

Collecting anonymized UI instrumentation data doesn't really have privacy concerns, other than revealing your OS.

However, whether you choose to opt-in or opt-out says something about you that may very well be closely connected to other behavior traits that affect your usage of the user interface --- such as whether you prefer GUI or CLI, how much computer/Linux expertise you have, how comfortable you are editing text-based config files, etc.

I personally believe that the more experienced computer users are likely to have acquired more skepticism surrounding software vendors, and users who are more ignorant are also likely to be more trusting of the marketing message, resulting in skewed data due to selection bias: in other words, less useful data which mostly only reflects a segment of the audience.

Desktop linux will collect data too, otherwise they will be at a huge disadvantage.

Instrumenting how users interact with your OS informs the process of upgrading UI / UX designs.

You have it wrong... there's no recommended daily dose of Refined sugar for sure. You definitely need to eat products that contain sugars, or you will die.

Keep in mind.... meat, all fruits and vegetables, milk, yogurt, butter, contains sugars, bread, raw potatos, rice, corn, wheat, all contain sugars.

You don't need any sucrose or artificially refined sugar products in your diet, but you do need simple and complex sugars, you just get them automatically, because all nutritious foods contain them.

The only real problem taking it apart is cutting the stupid tape, which you then have to replace.

Well this sounds like a new problem Apple have created then.... the mid 2010 27" iMAC had no tape to cut or replace; just some annoying magnets that made it very difficult to put the thing back together by ripping screws away from your screwdriver and occasionally causing them to get flung into the computer.....

Eh? Slashdot, Ycombinator, and most other major news sites have no thumbs down options.

Youtube, Quora, and Reddit do, but I would say they are unusual exceptions to the rule.

Most sites provide no "downvote " option, only Thumbs up / Like, or occasionally "Report to moderator"

They have a kind-of-Dislike option for things that show up in your news feed, and it is called: I don't want to see this

And comments have an X button.

It understandably requires two clicks to dislike.

Just driving away software whose developer can't or isn't willing to adapt to their rules.

He says the lack of support for trial software and upgrades drives developers away by preventing them from making a living.

Many developers offer a "lite" inexpensive or free version, or app that relies on the purchase of additional consumables once a "free included amount" runs out, then you can pay to upgrade, by buying the Pro version of the app or in-app consumable purchases.

The lack of a trial function is only an issue due to lack of imagination by some developers / app marketers.

For Mac software, some developers also offer trial editions outside the app store, so the lack of a trial option isn't in itself a reason to not offer a product for sale in the app store.

This is beneficial for users and encourages them to try out more software, knowing that they will get to keep something, regardless if they think it's worth it to pay.

Forced sandboxing kills many applications before they get started

This helps keep users' equipment safe and sound from malicious software. Compare to Windows and Android which have a bigger malware problem. It is in users' benefit.

the review system isn't helpful to anyone.

The review system is not new. It has been there from the beginning. Mac/iPhone apps are a closed garden. If you want to play in this garden, then you have to abide by Apple's standards for application quality and visual consistency with the platform, and your software will be reviewed for quality according to these standards.

These standards are benefitting the users of applications, and they are helping keep apps in the app store high quality, filtering out apps which have failed to meet certain minimums.

It's true that certain apps can't fit into this model, but the app would have to have extremely high value for users to be willing to wander out of the app store and take that risk.

Common firewalls do exactly what was described in a default configuration.

I'm not saying the ISP couldn't be doing it intentionally, but it's not valid as an automatic conclusion without confirmation.

There's a firewall on one end or the other manipulating traffic.

ISPs commonly block or filter port 25 as a spam prevention measure.

It's not a network neutrality violation, because the port is blocked regardless of what app or service is using it.

Also, you can likely use port 587 and it will probably work just fine

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Buy Buy Buy... time to back the truck up.
Often when stock prices go down due on bad news: the fall is short lived and represents a buying opportunity.

Sorry (J/K), couldn't resist.

I think not too long ago, folks were discussing how the spam war was won. Their spam filtering is so good, that, for the most part for users, incoming spam is no longer a huge issue.

If they did it would make checking for the occasional false positives in my spam folder a teeny bit easier.

If it's IN your friggin' spam folder, then they've blocked the spam. They decided it was spam and hid it from your inbox. No filter's gonna be perfect, and the Spam folder is to help you go back if you become aware you are missing an e-mail.

You remind me of e-mail users the complain if they get a spam message in a quarantine digest. Then you remind me of e-mail users that complain if they get a non-spam message in a quarantine digest.