Linked List: September 18, 2020

Friday, 18 September 2020

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87 ★

Nina Totenberg, for NPR:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington surrounded by family.

So it goes.

‘The Reluctant Debut of the A14 Processor’ ★

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

But all of those figures compare the A14 in the iPad Air to the A12 processor in the previous model, not the A13 processor found in the iPhone 11 series. Now, Apple would likely claim that it’s only fair to make a comparison across devices with similar screen sizes and thermal characteristics. But in scrupulously adhering to the comparisons to the A12, Apple is not telling us how much faster the base A14 processor — likely the foundation of the next generation of iPad Pro models and possibly even the first round of Macs running Apple Silicon — is compared to its immediate predecessor.

I don’t think Apple’s doing this because it’s not proud of the A14. (On the contrary, Apple seems very aware of how important this chip is, including the fact that it’s Apple’s first to be manufactured using Taiwan Semiconductor’s new 5-nanometer process.) No, this is about leaving some space for Apple’s forthcoming iPhone launch event to boast a bit more about the A14. Which makes sense. The iPhone is Apple’s most important product. It deserves to be boasted about a bit.

It was really conspicuous that Apple would only offer performance comparisons to the A12, ostensibly because that’s the SoC in the previous generation iPad Air, and so they felt it fair to compare iPad to iPad. But we know, from 10 years of experience, that the performance characteristics of an A-whatever in an iPad are very similar to the performance characteristics of the same A-whatever in iPhones. The X and Z suffix chips — like the A12X and A12Z — are different, and to date, have only appeared in iPad Pros in recent years, and prior to that, only in high-end iPads before there were “iPad Pros”. But the no-suffix A14 in the new iPad Air is almost certainly effectively identical to the A14 we’ll see next month in this year’s new iPhones. I truly wonder if that’s the only reason Apple isn’t shipping new iPad Airs yet — to keep A14 performance under wraps for the iPhone event.

Apple Is Already Seeding Developer Betas of iOS 14.2 ★

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 updates to developers, just one day after releasing the iOS 14 update and a few hours after hinting at the iOS 14.2 beta in an Xcode beta update.

So where’s 14.1? I think Michael Simmons has the simple explanation:

My guess is that iOS 14.1 was skipped for iPhone 12 next month, and they’re already in production with 14.1 preinstalled. We’ll find out soon enough…

They may not be in production yet (or at least not at the stage where they install the OS), but yes, I think iOS 14.1 is the version for the new iPhones coming next month, and it’s effectively frozen at this point, so all ongoing development at Apple has already moved to 14.2.

Trump Administration to Ban Downloads of TikTok and Block Access to WeChat on Sunday ★

Steve Kovach, reporting for CNBC:

The Commerce Department announced it will ban U.S. business transactions with China-owned social apps WeChat and TikTok on Sunday.

The announcement sets up two different time frames for WeChat and TikTok, with a full ban on WeChat going into effect Sunday along with a ban on updates and maintenance to the TikTok app. TikTok has a Nov. 12 deadline before companies are banned from providing cloud and internet services for the app, which could give Oracle more time to hammer out its offer for TikTok to satisfy President Trump.

Be careful of headlines along the lines of “U.S. bans TikTok” — right now it’s just new downloads that will be banned, not use of the app if already downloaded. Predictably, TikTok has shot to the top of the download charts.

WeChat is in a different boat — it’s set to be fully banned. The politics of this distinction couldn’t be more clear. Peter Kafka:

WeChat: Enormously popular with Chinese-Americans. Owned by Chinese company. Will be crippled in US Sunday night.

TikTok: Enormously popular with Americans including some Trump voters. Owned by Chinese company, trying to do deal w/ Trump supporters. Will be OK through election.

Larry Ellison is a big Trump supporter, just in case you weren’t aware of how flamboyantly transparent the cronyism is with the Oracle-TikTok deal.