Linked List: February 24, 2022

Thursday, 24 February 2022

‘Leaked Plan Shows Intel Will Try to Be More Efficient Than M1 Max by Late 2023’ ★

William Gallagher, writing for AppleInsider:

A presentation slide claiming to show Intel’s projected future roadmap includes plan for Arrow Lake processor to outperform Apple’s M1 Max by late 2023 or early 2024.

Intel has already claimed to be producing processors that exceed the performance of Apple’s M1 Max. However, the difference is within a margin of error while at the same time, Intel’s processors require dramatically more power. Now the company is reportedly aiming at a new processor that will beat Apple’s 2021 chips by early 2024 at the latest.

Competition is good, and now that Apple has raised the bar for desktop performance-per-watt efficiency, of course every other chip maker is trying to catch up. It would be shocking if Intel didn’t have a plan to catch up.

But, Intel had plans for moving to a 10nm process, and again for 7nm, that didn’t work out. Plans are easy; execution is hard.

iOS 15.4 Adds a New, Less Gendered Voice for Siri ★

Ina Fried, reporting for Axios:

With the latest version of iOS, currently in testing, Apple is offering a Siri voice that is less explicitly male- or female-sounding, Axios can confirm.

Why it matters: It’s part of an effort by Apple to offer a more diverse array of options for its virtual assistant. Last year it added two Siri options recorded by Black voice actors. [...] Apple confirmed the new voice was recorded by a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but did not offer further details.

Over at Macworld, Michael Simon has an audio clip of the new voice. It’s rather uncanny how gender-neutral it sounds. I listened to it yesterday and it sounded slightly female to my ears; today I listened again and it sounded slightly male. Sort of like one of those optical illusions that changes when you stare at it.

Also interesting that Apple no longer describes any of these voices. You listen to them and make up your own mind what they sound like, and which one you prefer.

Facebook’s Stolen Privacy Ecosystem ★

One more thought re: yesterday’s item on the WSJ’s “Inside Facebook’s $10 Billion Breakup With Advertisers” report, which mentioned small businesses whose customer acquisition costs have gone up — and in some cases, skyrocketed — because of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency’s effect on Facebook

I often turn to the analogy of Facebook’s profiting from exploiting users’ privacy — and complaining about Apple now giving users control being bad for business — to that of a pawnshop complaining about the police cracking down on a burglary spree that the pawnshop had profited from. There are small businesses that are built on Facebook, which depend upon Facebook’s surveillance-based ad targeting.

But arguing that it’s wrong, in any way, for Apple (and perhaps, soon Google) to give users the control to close these tracking loopholes because it’s going to hurt these small businesses built atop Facebook’s targeted ad capabilities is like arguing about the plight of small business that depend upon cheap goods purchased from the hypothetical pawnshop that’s been buying those goods from burglars. The whole thing has, up until Apple instituted App Tracking Transparency, been illegitimate, even if the small businesses did nothing wrong themselves.