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When Will IT Support Guys Learn?
The CEO of the company I work for (450 employees) called me today over Microsoft Teams because he was seeking for help and explanations for a problem with repeated authentification requests when using Microsoft 365 services on his devices (an iPhone, an iPad). He wasn’t sure why he was getting that many requests. After calling the IT department for support, he was baffled by the responses he got for his problem: reboot your phone, uninstall Apple Mail and re-install, that type of shitty responses. After a few tries, he finally got the “real” reasons: iPhone aren’t supported officially and weakening the security posture of the whole company, he should get an Android. What a shitload of bullshit, which is often typical from IT guys who don’t understand or know Apple devices. I’m so tired of this, after all those decades.
Back to my call with my CEO, after trying to understand the situation and find a sound explanation, I told him that the type of answers he got was unacceptable. We are an IT company for god’s sake! He was shy of admitting the same and surprised by this nonsense. He is the CEO, a smart guy. We should do better.
The iPhone is not weakening the security posture of the company, some IT support guys are1.
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I don’t want to generalize but this type of support from unknowledgeable IT guys is still way too much prevalent these days. ↩︎
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Claim of the moment: Perplexity AI ignores robot.txt files and crawls websites even when the site owner says no. https://rknight.me/blog/perplexity-ai-is-lying-about-its-user-agent/
Woah, that is not cool, at all. Even if I don’t care too much for AI bots to crawl and ingest my content, I would expect them to respect those author and site owners who decides otherwise. It’s not the best way to build trust.
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📝 Just like my old iPods, the iPod name is just collecting dust, despite being the best name they ever came up with.
https://lmnt.me/blog/ipod.htmlI agree. The iPod name more accurately describes the current iPhone. However, it’s unlikely that Apple will revert to this name, despite its strong brand recognition.
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It Sunday time and so my weekly creative summary is out! This is the Craft hosted version. The email version is coming out later today. Enjoy. By the way, the Craft version, this week, contains a sub-page that won’t make it in the newsletter edition, thanks to Craft.
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Pondering
In a week, I’ll be preparing to fly to Croatia for a three-week vacation with my wife. I’m still considering several aspects of the trip. How much blogging should I do during this time? Should I stay quiet and focus entirely on my vacation and photography? What camera equipment should I bring? Should I bring my MacBook Air in addition to my iPad Pro?
I need to decide the right balance between being present in the moment and documenting the journey through my blog. While I enjoy sharing my experiences, I also want to fully immerse myself in the trip without the constant pressure of content creation. As for the camera gear, I’ll need to carefully assess what I’ll actually use versus what I might pack just in case. The MacBook Air could be helpful for editing photos on the go, but the iPad Pro is a more compact and convenient option. Ultimately, I want to travel light and focus on making the most of this vacation with my wife.
I still have a week to figure this out.
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Apple Private Cloud Compute Curiosities
Apple announced a significant development at this year’s WWDC: the creation of its own cloud infrastructure named “Private Cloud Compute” for securely handling certain Apple Intelligence requests. As an IT professional working in data center technologies, I have a few questions that remain unanswered even after watching John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live:
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What CPU is used in each server? I wonder if Apple is utilizing high-end versions of its Apple Silicon chips. It’s worth noting that there was no update to the Mac Studio this year. Is Apple diverting M3 Max or M3 Ultra production to build its Private Cloud Compute data centers (which currently feature 32 Neural Engine cores in the M2 Ultra)?
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What type of case design is Apple using for the servers? Are they modified versions of the Mac mini, or are they using a rack-mount variant of the Mac Studio?
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Is Apple deploying data centers only in the United States or across multiple continents? I suspect the latter, for the sake of redundancy and capacity.
I expect that sometime in the future, perhaps at WWDC 2025, Apple may reveal details about the first year of Apple Intelligence in a short video. We’ll have to wait and see.
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Refreshing take also a good reminder:
@stroughtonsmith After seeing WWDC, I’m actually buying a iPad Air M2 next to my mini 6. But I have never seen and expected iPad as anything more than what Jobs used in his introduction. Never replacing my Mac, never replacing my iPhone.
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Two Highly Different Approaches
Microsoft is recalling “Recall” after all, and this makes them look rather bad. This happens on the same week of Apple revealing Apple Intelligence which received a more positive set of reactions.
We are witnessing two different approaches to the challenge of intelligently integrating generative AI prowess to the base operating system. These two events couldn’t be more evocative of how different Apple and Microsoft strategy and culture are. Guess which approach I prefer? I’m excited for Apple Intelligence, but I appreciate the time it will take to make it right.
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Reddit can be a toxic environment, with bullies and users who aggressively enforce their views on what is appropriate content for a specific subreddit. Today is a bad day for me. 😞 How should I react to this?
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Referring to this post from MacStories’ Viticci, I might be living or coming from a different planet, but I do not want to block any of my sites from AI bot crawlers, none of them, even if it is from Google, OpenAI, Apple or even Meta. I want to embrace this new era while being critical to what is happening. More to come soon.
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Two of my preferred visual things in iOS 181 is the colorful visual effect of Siri and the default wallpaper, which is also very nice. Siri animation is so relaxing and less intrusive than the big colorful ball. These are small changes but welcomed changes nonetheless.
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I’m not using iOS 18 yet. Should be later in the summer, late in August, I guess. ↩︎
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I’ll save money with Apple Intelligence in the next 12 months as indicated in my subscriptions page. #apple #appleevent #wwdc24 #wwdc
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Mind blown. That’s all for now. More thoughts to come soon. 🤯 #wwdc #apple #appleevent #wwdc24
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Fun fact: The only time I use the TV.app on my Mac is to watch Apple event. #apple #appleevent #wwdc #wwdc24
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Well, happy WWDC / dubdub day from Numeric Citizen, following Apple since 1982! #apple #appleevent #wwdc #wwdc24
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Apple Intelligence & Current Apple Silicon
If Apple Intelligence1 requires a new generation of hardware to be fully appreciated, I would be surprised and be a little sad. My expectation would be that last year’s generation of hardware should be, at the minimum, enough. Otherwise, it might send a wrong message that even current Apple Silicon isn’t enough to power generative AI-based experience. How could this be, after all, Apple always brag about its silicon superiority. Tim Cook said that their silicon was their current competitive edge… but was he referring to future chips only? I hope not.
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Provided it’s the real name. ↩︎
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It’s Sunday, and it’s time for the new edition of My Creative Summary newsletter! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I love putting it together!
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Apple's AI Push at WWDC 2024
“Apple will put a major emphasis on AI at its upcoming WWDC, as the company aims to catch up to competitors in this rapidly evolving space. While Apple’s approach has been more measured, the pressure is on to provide a clear growth narrative, which its AI initiatives may struggle to directly deliver. Unlike Microsoft and NVIDIA, Apple does not have an obvious path to monetize AI, instead focusing on using the technology to enhance its existing products and services.” — ChatGPT summarizing this article from M.G. Siegler.
I’m more than ok that Apple doesn’t try to monetize their AI journey.
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In case you didn’t know me, I’m on this week’s People & Blog edition. It was fun to answer Manuel Moreale’s questions.
