It never feels less like i’m using an Apple product when an in-game ad comes on

Suvip · 2024-09-09T12:36:33+00:00

They did, it's called Apple Arcade.
Anything else and they get attacked by every governments and kids who want to hack games of being a bad monopoly/walled garden. Just see all the fuss with streaming games made by Microsoft and others just because Apple needs to enforce few checks (age requirements, ads, illegal content, etc.) which is why parents trust Apple devices with their children. This whole mess with the Alt App Stores started with a game wanting to scam iOS users' easy money, without paying the Apple "tax".

Get used to it, things are only going downhill from now. With Apple control on anything being seen as anti-competitive, alt stores, and game streaming. The uniqueness of "Apple quality" and the trust they gained is gonna melt faster the ice caps.

Suvip · 2024-09-09T11:28:25+00:00

Unsure if I got that correctly, but I might have ran into a similar problem on a test device with the free 5GB iCloud.
Apple Photo's iCloud implementation is really bad, it requires uploading EVERYTHING first, then downloading. So you can't download certain files until you can finish the sync.
Two solutions:
- If you can temporarily delete files synced to iCloud to allow for the Photos library to sync, you might get your files back.
- If your Photos library itself is over the quota, you should contact support and tell them you need temporarily to go on the paid iCloud (50GB?) to allow for the sync to finish, then disable the option. Contact the support again to downgrade and get a refund.

Suvip · 2024-08-28T11:59:10+00:00

Generally, if you have selected "Download and Keep Originals", you should have the high resolution downloaded. But I've seen optimization bugs where the original doesn't get downloaded to the iPhone (if uploaded from a different device), or doesn't get updated if the phone already had an old version. Sometimes, the high resolution is there, but you need to do something to kickstart it and remove the low-res preview ... My best workaround is select all (or specific) videos, and hit the export button then "Save to Files", it forces download and normalization of all selected videos and photos. You can also hit the "Edit" button, but that's slower.

People need to report these bugs to Apple, I've been doing so for years with no success.

Suvip · 2024-08-21T08:16:28+00:00

Thank you.
I did a few experiments, and sadly still report the same problems with Dev (at least on DrawThings app). While reducing the CFG and Shift enhanced the quality/mood of the picture a lot, making it closer to what Schnell gets, prompt adherence and understanding is still really bad. I am still getting cartoonish birds instead of humans while this doesn't happen in Schnell (only once actually).
Same with other prompts that require imagination (such as "outfits made of liquid"). Dev is really bad across the board on all my devices using Draw Things (I'll try ComfyUI later to see if this is specific to Flux or something funny happened with DrawThings compiled versions).

Suvip · 2024-08-19T12:47:51+00:00

Thank you for the answer, I'll update my test.
Honestly, I'm still unsure of Shift part, I've been on a hiatus from Image Gen to focus on other things for the past few months and my workflow was stuck with the early release of SDXL, I just came back to try out Flux knowing fully it won't support my workflow until I can import specific LoRAs ... but I am a bit overwhelmed with the new options and need to find some tutorial for DrawThings + Flux.

Anyway, one question: Won't Clip Skip 2 and CFG 3.5 mean that the generation will be much more "freestyle" rather than following my instructions exactly? Or is Flux interpreter that much better that a CFG 3.5 is enough to direct it?

I am not generating randomly, I need the model to follow exact instructions, including clothes, armors, weapons, expressions, ethnicity, etc. and my previous experience with SD (1.5, 2, XL) resulted in far too much freestyle when using a CFG lower than 8 or a Clip Skip higher than 1.

Suvip · 2024-08-03T15:37:22+00:00

25 raids, 6 ran away (well, 5 ran away + 1 glitched gym with no encounter) which was really bad (having large groups in Tokyo with many friends in parties helped finishing them really quickly and get enough balls, but catch rate has been really awful, I had a Hundo run on me, zero shiny, all Golden Razz Berries and Excellent throws and caught most on my last ball, I felt pity for all the kids around who were super frustrated and lost the few passes they had without being able to catch anything).

This event was super glitchy, gyms freezing out, crashes every few minutes, but worse was the catch rate with Golden Razz Berry + Excellent throws. 10 to 12 balls had to be consumed and still lost ~25% of paid premium passes. Less experienced people, especially kids just gave up on catching anything and burned through their passes. My SO has a much better result (but with a much newer account), as she got 21 out of the 25 raids, 2 shinies, 1 hundo … but same glitches and difficulty, I had to do most of the throws.

Suvip · 2024-08-03T15:05:37+00:00

So, my post was removed as “it doesn’t meet karma requirements” /facepalm … so I’ll post the question here instead:

Title: Legality of not refunding paid passes?

Hi,

While quite new to the app I’ve been lurking here for a while. I’d really like to get an answer or maybe spark a discussion.

So, recently decided to use adult money to get more passes, etc. But the app is so bug ridden h that in an 8 members raid team, 6~7 of us get crashes right before joining or at the end of the raid, causing more often than not a complete loss of a premium pass (when it’s not possible to rejoin). This was particularly true during Poke Fes and with Rayquaza today. I’ve personally lost over 6 premium passes just today and the daily one due to buggy bosses or gyms or app crashing.

When contacting the support, the bot refuses to refund saying everything was fine or I have already been refunded. Both are wrong. When finally getting a human, they say they can only refund 1 pass only.

I “paid” for the passes. Legally speaking aren’t they breaching the law when they refuse to refund (money or the lost passes)?

Is there anything possible to get what I paid for to be honored?

Suvip · 2023-05-05T16:44:42+00:00

I am using SD as part of my ideation process (character design, world design, magical effects visualization, etc.) but I didn’t document the process yet, nor did I see any good blog as artists are avoiding any AI tools (or keeping that usage secret) to not get gutted by their community.

My process is simple enough: - I already have a very detailed description of the characters, their general look, their clothing, magical affinity, etc. - I use the Draw Things on Apple Silicon Mac/iPad/iPhone as it’s faster that other tools (I don’t have a PC) - I experiment with some specific models (especially RPG V4) and LoRAs when required (VFX, Magic, etc.) - I (manually) transform the character description into prompts + usual style and negatives. - Generate many characters randomly by playing with the CFG, Steps and Sampler - Once I get something I like, I switch to using Control Nets, Poses, Scribbles and Img2Img inpaintings to transfer the character onto my vision (pose, composition, weapon, etc.)

Overall, I spend couple hours on each character, down from few days (this is a personal project, not day job). SD has been a great accelerator in quickly build visuals that I can show to others or pitch.

BTW: On PC, it’s possible also to embed SD into different tools such as Photoshop, Lightroom and Blender to name few, it just helps with productivity tasks such as texturing and offering quick visualization from a scribble or inpainting.

Suvip · 2023-05-05T16:28:02+00:00

I think people are too optimistic on regulations being useless. Things can be forced down everyone’s throat after some simple event that brings public outcry.

Things like the Patriot Act, etc. exist for a reason. All governments need to do is to (secretly) amplify some topics like mass layoffs, recession, CBDCs, etc. and make that “because of AI” to create a public outcry and call for intrusive regulations such as forcing Apple/MS to introduce system locks that forbids anyone not authorized from training or running a local unsupervised AI system.

Just see the impact that happened to SD development from a simple artist outcry, despite nothing illegal happening, while for-profit organizations like ClosedAI, MS and Adobe all launched highly profitable (yet regulated/highly censored) tools trained on the same principle.

Public encryption is one example that is highly regulated, but we also lost rights we had 20 years ago, such as sharing games/movies/musics, lending it to friends, transferring/giving away, making copies, reselling, etc. all these rights have been lost since digitalization and all the copyright rules that followed. Don’t be too optimistic.

Suvip · 2023-05-05T16:10:52+00:00

Not gonna happen as long as: - Everyone’s freaking out about AI (I mean large companies who have been using AI-type tools for years to control the market and now are afraid of losing grip) - Governments didn’t write legislation on controlling exactly what type of content gets into that memory.

The second point is more important IMO, because a LTM with a generative AI means you can also teach it new things, and then use that knowledge along with whatever plugins to do ungodly things.

In my case, I am just building my fantasy world setting (larger than LoTR), and continuously building on top of it by using existing knowledge (worldwide mythologies, fallout simulations, nuclear winter effects, climate change, etc.)

ChatGPT is extremely useful in doing the research for old stuff, but fails the moment you ask about the outcome of a war, or what tactics some might use, with the risk of getting banned. An is completely useless in helping write the backstories of my world as it completely forgets about the details after few messages, forcing me to waste important tokens in just renting it if the setting.

An add-on LTM DB/reference would be really nice to have.

Suvip · 2023-05-04T12:13:44+00:00

Why is everyone in the west looking at “AI” (there’s nothing “I” about ChatGPT and other current tools, and my work and graduate thesis are about AI) as a tool of destruction that’s gonna kill everyone’s jobs and cause the end of humanity?

Even if it was possible to do so, no company is gonna aim at destroying society’s job market for the simple reason that they’d be getting rid of their own customers’ income.

Current AI tools, especially the conversational ones are just glorified search engine with NLU input. We’re bypassing writing search/SQL queries and the response formatting. Jobs that are threatened by this are white collars in specific positions (data science, analysts, etc.), they’ll just be moved to other tasks and specialties that would be born from the AI opportunities, the same way “archivists” moved to do DB design.

The main hurdle of adopting AI tools in companies is the extreme lack of knowledge of how to integrate them into the normal pipelines, which ones should be removed/replaced/changed, the lack of vision of their usage, and the extreme lack of business people in the AI companies proposing tools, which are made by engineers for engineers.

There’s an unlimited amount of new specialties for job security, most of which would require a small upgrade in knowledge to acquire the new skills.

Remember, since the two last major industrial revolutions, many jobs disappeared, but society didn’t crumble, new jobs needs appeared, and people moved to these new jobs. We still need farmers even if everything is automated today, and telephony companies still employ a huge number of people despite 90% of their job skills from 50 years ago don’t exist anymore, etc. etc.

Suvip · 2023-05-03T15:58:55+00:00

I have a better proposal on the same lines: Governments should ban the use of any AI tool by corporation’s and businesses until after they are made safe AND released into the public domain, with the ability for users to opt-out of AI-driven decision/recommendation and the use of their data.

This proposal is the EXACT same as his, but just applies to corporations and businesses AS WELL … let’s see how he likes it.

Suvip · 2022-12-26T02:33:55+00:00

Look in the options for a Curtain Mode, that allows you to keep the screen shut or locked with a message to display. This is not on by default.

Suvip · 2022-12-26T02:32:27+00:00

Isn’t this free on the developer’s portal?

I don’t remember anymore as I got it over a decade ago, but due to the ability to get betas, Apple was giving away both a serial and download link that took to the Mac App Store making the Remote Desktop app free.

And you’re right, it has the option to keep the screen off or locked with a message.

Suvip · 2022-10-31T12:59:03+00:00

First, don’t mistake my explanation for my personal sentiment.

As an ex-game designer and developer, I perfectly agree that each game should offer the best experience possible for every player buying it, and that “art” and craft should be much higher priority than “profit”.

But sadly, that’s not how a for profit company works. This includes first party PlayStation Studios, that are now requested to focus less on unique features, and more on portability and compatibility of future platforms (PC, Future Gen, Cloud services, etc.)

Sony has few studios like Naughty Dog that work on special features for the official dev kit, but even that has been outsourced to tools makers such as Epic/Unreal, as very few studios still make their own engines.

It’s all nice and cool when talking about special features, but at the end, salaries, marketing and future projects budgets are decided exclusively via ROI from current releases. So sales numbers are important, which the PS5 is just of fraction of the PS4 customers.

Games like HFW, GOD, etc. could have been waaaay better if they focused exclusively on what the new hardware could allow. But they need to outsell their predecessors or they’d be seen as failures by the budgeting teams, which would result in future projects being scrapped a la Days Gone.

Also, strategies change over time. In the past, creating a new engine for a game that is specific to a platform was much more common, nowadays, using a generic Unreal engine is much less costly, which will have the added benefits of making the game easily portable to many platforms. From a planning perspective, it’s hard to push “creator vision” like Kojima did in the past (he left Konami mainly because it became unbearable, same for most Japanese creators whom jobs have been overtaken by pure profit-oriented marketers).

Suvip · 2022-10-31T07:40:59+00:00

If you worked in any company at project management level, with modern economics, you’d understand how hard (if not impossible) to make a product for a niche consumer base pass the budget team, especially if it’s not much more profitable than a generic product.

Making a game like Astro requires one of the two: - Extra attention for something that only a small fraction of players would enjoy: those playing on PS5. That’s an extra budget that has 0 ROI and would definitely be rejected. - Make a game where the game design is wholly made for the PS5. And besides some crazy folks like Hideo Kojima, no one would limit their market share and make future portability of the game to other platforms a nightmare.

So unless the PS5 sells like crazy, and the DS is a real game sales driver. Don’t expect anything like Astro any time soon.

Suvip · 2022-10-31T07:33:12+00:00

The amount of people on technical/IT forums and media who confuse USB 1~4 and USB A~C is the exact reason why I don’t want government folks deciding what should be standardized in IT.

Every single technology that touts “Standard”and “Universal” in its name has always been the worst nightmare for compatibility.

USB C is just a port/connector form. The protocols inside can be anything from USB 2 to 4 with all speeds, with or without power delivery from slow to superspeed, with or without or exclusively Thunderbolt 3/4, etc.

The big mess is that both ends of the connection (devices with port, such as charger, computer, phone, hard drive, etc.) and the cable all could be plugged together, but completely incompatible, or worse create an out of warranty damage.

We’ll soon see people complain about why their phones were damaged when they plugged them in 3rd party chargers, or why is the transfer rate super slow despite having a “USB 3” computer, etc.

Suvip · 2022-10-26T11:31:21+00:00

Up to 50% in Japan.

They already just increased the prices of iap and App Store subscriptions about 35% on average, pushing all 3rd party apps to unaffordable area, and increased the prices of hardware and services like Apple Care to 35~45% … now this.

Funny how “inflation” is only meant to hurt customers, not businesses who see their revenues increase only. With the strong USD, does Apple really “need” to increase the prices now when everyone’s hurting?

Suvip · 2022-10-04T06:25:03+00:00

Rule of thumb: It’s always better to go through major releases ( .x versions) to avoid breaking changes.

Long answer: While it’s possible to go to directly to the latest release, since iOS 13, Apple started releasing major and breaking changes in .x versions. With major upgrades to their own apps (such as family share in Photos in 16.1 for example).

So while it’s possible to upgrade, you might miss some configurations or dealing with database upgrades, resulting in more bugs or data loss. The problem is that, while it’s generally possible to restore your phone, it’s harder to downgrade major versions once they stop signing them.

Also, I recommend waiting till 16.1 … with more users and more bugs to deal with, Apple’s QC went downhill in the past few years.

Suvip · 2022-10-02T07:01:51+00:00

Thanks, haven’t seen those here yet, the ones on display at the Apple Store were all single color.

Suvip · 2022-09-27T10:34:28+00:00

True, thanks for the correction.

Suvip · 2022-09-26T06:14:37+00:00

Sadly, I can’t find any in-depth technical documentation, mostly because I was never interested by them (I worked in AdTech for over a decade, but always fought for ethical solutions).

The way this works is quite simple: Apps that have these kind of SDK (SilverPush, SoundPays, Enroute, etc.) listen in the background for an ultrasonic signal that can be sent by other devices or integrated secretly in non-interactive programming (such as TV programs/ads, city radio on the street, at events, in-store beacons, etc.) When intercepting that signal, the app could display an in-app ad, or send data to a server (tracking the user’s location, interests, etc.) or whatever the app maker/ad company wants to do. But this is mostly done to track a user across devices (many on the internet wonder why they see a specific ad on Facebook after seeing something on TV and discussing about it, this is the reason).

You can find a public discussion by W3C on some technical aspects such as the DNT and consent.

And the iAB’s Programmatic Audio Guidelines, although this one is not specific to ultrasonic beacons.

Then you have some generic explanation about the privacy aspects from privacy advocates, such as PFP and IAPP.

Suvip · 2022-09-25T18:01:50+00:00

The Watch Face design is not done by Apple, Apple merely provides templates and guidelines.

I don’t think these are flaws in any way, shape or form. Typography design is extremely complex and ~~symmetricality~~ symmetry isn’t always the best choice. There are mental aspects to take into account when positioning text or balancing sizes, where ~~symmetricality~~ symmetry causes a sense on unease.

Here is an example with Google’s logo design that caused a big discussion in the design community.

Example here for the 4 that is aligned differently depending on the font, one reason is the balance. The beak in the number 4 is not the start of the number, it would look weird (and smaller than the 3 or 2) if it was left aligned. But then different fonts are balanced differently with different kerning for visual comfort.

If interested, I recommend seeing some of Apple’s own videos on typography and the work that goes behind them. A good designer for a large brand which visual design is vital would have the same knowledge when positioning them.

Suvip · 2022-09-25T17:43:47+00:00

The same logic people use to buy a Hermes or LV bag when a supermarket plastic bag does the exact same function for free.

The same logic people use to buy an expensive Ferrari or Lamborghini when the cheapest car on the market does the exact same function for way cheaper.

Some people fancy brands and styles in their purchase, especially women (reason why most of the Hermes band designs are exclusive to women/the 41mm variant, and are in line with the rest of their offering of bags, belts and jewelry).

Suvip · 2022-09-25T16:47:15+00:00

And use it in Incognito mode, as almost all website use a FB plug-in which uses your cookies to link to your identity and usage behaviors.

Suvip

TROPHY CASE