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eclecticlight.co What does Game Mode do?

Apple claims it gives a game highest priority CPU and GPU access, and reduces Bluetooth input and audio latencies too. Does it, though?

Summary

Game Mode is turned on automatically by putting a recognised game into Full Screen mode; there’s no alternative method. A game is taken out of Game Mode automatically by returning it from Full Screen mode, or (possibly) manually in its menu in the menu bar. Game Mode is controlled by gamepolicyd. Game Mode results in RunningBoard making some services, including gameconsole, critical, and suppressing other background servics. These could improve the game’s access to CPU cores, but this seems unlikely to have much effect on performance. Game Mode appears to increase GPU load by the game, although it’s not clear whether this is significantly greater than would be achieved by Full Screen mode alone. Game Mode puts Bluetooth into Low Latency mode, reducing input latency from game controllers, and audio latency to output devices.

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Watch video linked from Mastodon to hear the difference due to the bug.

Bug still exists in Sonoma

Full thread: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111160426488046610

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TL;DR: a repair shop owner from Germany managed to create a tool to calibrate the display angle sensor (used to trigger sleeping on Macs when the lid is closed)

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appleinsider.com Apple uses hidden watermarks on iPhone 15 boxes to verify authenticity

Extra precautions have been taken for iPhone 15 boxes that give retail employees and buyers a new way to verify the device is real — but you'll need a UV light.

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9to5mac.com 10x optical zoom – Apple's three reasons for not offering it

The iPhone 15 Pro Max stands out from the other models in this year’s lineup mostly because of the periscope...

  1. People hardly ever use 10x zoom
  2. 10x optical zoom is hard to stabilize
  3. Aperture trumps zoom
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9to5mac.com Online Safety Bill passes in the UK w/o iMessage impact... for now

The British government’s hugely controversial Online Safety Bill has today passed in the second chamber of Parliament, and after six...

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www.macrumors.com iPhone 15 Models Finally Show Battery's Cycle Count

iPhone 15 users will be able to check their battery's cycle count for the first time, according to information shared on X (formerly Twitter). ...

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www.macrumors.com iFixit Lowers iPhone 14's Repairability Score Due to Apple's Parts Pairing Requirement

Repair website iFixit today announced that it has retroactively lowered its iPhone 14 repairability score from 7/10 to 4/10 due to Apple's...

Repair website iFixit today announced that it has retroactively lowered its iPhone 14 repairability score from 7/10 to 4/10 due to Apple's post-repair parts pairing requirement, just over a year after the device launched.

"Although we enthusiastically awarded it a solid score at launch last year, thanks to its innovative repair-friendly architecture—of which we remain big fans—the reality for folks trying to fix these things has been very different," said iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, in a blog post. "Most major repairs on modern iPhones require Apple approval. You have to buy parts through their system, then have the repair validated via a chat system. Otherwise, you'll run into limited or missing functionality, with a side of annoying warnings."

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9to5mac.com Replacing broken back glass on iPhone 15 Pro is less expensive

Apple last year announced a discreet but important change when it comes to the structure of the iPhone 14 and...

iPhone 14 back glass: $169 iPhone 14 Plus back glass: $199 iPhone 14 Pro back glass: $499 iPhone 14 Pro Max back glass: $549 iPhone 15 back glass: $169 iPhone 15 Plus back glass: $199 iPhone 15 Pro back glass: $169 iPhone 15 Pro Max back glass: $199

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appleinsider.com MetaStealer attacks aim to infect Macs used by enterprise

Malware called "MetaStealer" is being used by hackers to attack businesses and to steal data from Intel-based Macs, with techniques including posing as legitimate app installers.

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www.macrumors.com Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 Battery Capacities Revealed in Regulatory Database

Apple does not list battery capacities for the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 models, but MacRumors has discovered this information in a...

Apple Watch Series 9 (41mm) 282 mAh Apple Watch Series 8 (41mm) 282 mAh Apple Watch Series 9 (45mm) 308 mAh Apple Watch Series 8 (45mm) 308 mAh Apple Watch Ultra 2 564 mAh Apple Watch Ultra 542 mAh

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9to5mac.com iPhone 15 pre-orders now live: Pricing, USB-C, deals, and more - 9to5Mac

iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro were unveiled to the world on Tuesday during Apple’s special “Wonderlust” event. Starting today,...

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www.macrumors.com iPhone 15 Battery Capacities Revealed in Regulatory Database

Apple does not advertise battery capacities for its new iPhone 15 lineup, but MySmartPrice has obtained this information from a Chinese regulatory...

iPhone 15: 3,349mAh iPhone 15 Plus: 4,383mAh iPhone 15 Pro: 3,274mAh iPhone 15 Pro Max: 4,422mAh

iPhone 14: 3,279 mAh iPhone 14 Plus: 4,325 mAh iPhone 14 Pro: 3,200 mAh iPhone 14 Pro Max: 4,323 mAh

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www.theverge.com Here’s why Apple put a Thread radio in the iPhone 15 Pro

Could Thread one day replace Bluetooth in Apple’s ecosystem?

The iPhone could be a Thread border router, but it probably shouldn’t be

The iPhone could control Thread smart home devices faster

Thread could replace Bluetooth as a way to connect peripherals like the Apple Watch to your iPhone

Thread would be fine for most smartwatch uses but not for audio streaming

Thread might just be a bonus radio

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9to5mac.com Replacing the battery in your Apple Watch just got more expensive

Apple this week announced the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. They’ll be available in stores...

From $79 to $99

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  • On iOS, Avelon is the best Lemmy client I have ever used (in my opinion even better than Apollo was), though some features are still missing. Smooth, fluid, beautiful, functional!

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    tvOS 17 Code Confirms A17 Chip for iPhone 15 Pro, A16 for iPhone 15
  • I think this is good advice. Also, the non-pro models tend to be lighter (we’ll have to see if this is true for the 15 series as they are rumored to switch to Titanium, which is lighter).

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  • Jump
    Coming soon: Fedora for Apple Silicon Macs!
  • More info:

    https://asahilinux.org/2023/08/fedora-asahi-remix/

    https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110825522690584932

    Some key points:

    • We aim to officially release the Fedora Asahi Remix by the end of August 2023.
    • Very soon after Asahi Linux started (well before our Arch ARM-based release), Neal Gompa joined our IRC channels and we started talking about working towards integrating our work into Fedora... The Fedora Asahi project started in late 2021, and work began in 2022 alongside the Arch ARM release.
    • Working directly with upstream means not only can we integrate more closely with the core distribution, but we can also get issues in other packages fixed quickly and smoothly. This is particularly important for platforms like desktop ARM64, where we still run into random app and package bugs quite often.
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  • Jump
    Stardew Valley+ Now Available on Apple Arcade
  • I think for some cases the app already in the App Store has ads and other monetisation (e.g. IAP). In these cases the app is modified to remove these and allow you to get the benefits that were behind a paywall in-game

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  • Jump
    Apple watching & logging EVERY APP YOU OPEN [Louis Rossmann]
  • Apple's stated reason for not covering mail, contacts and calendar is "Because of the need to interoperate with the global email, contacts, and calendar systems, iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendar aren’t end-to-end encrypted". I think it's worth mentioning that critical bit of context. https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/security/sec973254c5f/web. Apple does have to balance usability and security, though this might not be as secure / private as you or I would like.

    I think it's a little misleading to say they considered backdooring it. They intended to scan images for CSAM before uploading it to iCloud Photo Library. A lot of speculation was they wanted to E2EE photos but were worried about the reaction from the FBI and other bodies, given the FBI had pressured them on this before, and so settled on this compromise. If they had managed to do this, they wouldn't be able to access the photos after they had been uploaded, hence, they had to scan them prior to the uploading.

    They attempted to do this with a very complex (and honestly still relatively privacy-preserving) way of comparing perceptual hashes, but perhaps they realised (from the feedback accompanying the backlash) this could easily be abused by authoritarian governments, so they abandoned this idea.

    I would assume that a company like Apple is getting significant pressure behind back doors, and they cater to an audience that is unforgiving for any slight reduction in performance or ease-of-use, and wants security features that are almost fully transparent to them. Given these constraints, I'm not sure they can improve much faster than what they've demonstrated. Smaller, open-source projects probably don't have these constraints.

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