Apple’s Services Presentation

Apple presented its service-focused offerings after spending the front half of last week refreshing a number of platforms. While initial responses across the Internet have been mixed, the Apple Card seems like the most sizable win for revenue growth in the face of smartphone market saturation. The cash back rewards when using the service with Apple Pay is fairly attractive. The advances in security, when combined with the ease of use that comes with Apple Pay (where enabled), is a clear demonstration of doing more with less. The randomization features of the CVV ID and actual card number are impressive. It’s certainly not outside of the realm of reality for Google to follow this approach as there are plenty of Android handsets globally which support NFC payment technologies.

The Apple News+ service, which effectively demonstrates what the organization had planned for the Texture acquisition, may not reel in as much services revenue as the company had hoped. While we find the concept appealing and the privacy angle to be admirable, the recognition that not everyone desires access to such content in a paid format is a reality that exists. The one-month trial may not be as generous as the three month trial for Apple Music but it’s enough time to determine if sufficient value is derived from the associated subscription cost.

The Apple Arcade announcement is more akin to Xbox Game Pass than the very recently announced Google Stadia service. The outcry over Diablo Immortal being a mobile-only experience demonstrates that core gamers don’t fully accept mobile devices as being a viable and desired game platform. There are certainly excellent games available under iOS and Android. However, the bulk of the casual gamer space tends to latch on to free-to-play or microtransaction-driven experiences for their Match 3, puzzle or farming fix. The anomalies that various review sites have noted with traditional controller interaction with iOS platforms may make Apple Arcade a non-starter. The verbiage of “console-quality” graphics with the A12X CPU may have been a hint of Apple’s desire to obtain more revenue from gamers. Having the ability to experience titles on a big screen via integrations using AirPlay2 may enhance the value of Apple Arcade. Only time will tell on this one.

Last but not least is the Apple TV+ streaming service which will be available on the Apple TV app on native and non-native platforms may be telling more about the fate of the Apple TV streaming device. If an app that plays well with AirPlay and iTunes shows up on every competing and complementary platform, how long will it be until the Apple TV 4K goes the way of all things Apple AirPort? The naming of the service was a larger miss in our minds. Better alternatives for the service name could have been:

  • Apple Vision
  • Apple iWatch
  • Apple iVue

These are just a few options which would stem confusion between services and devices.

QNAP QTS 4.3.6 – End of the line for some models

While QNAP has been pushing out a number of updates for the QTS 4.3.6 operating system, the release notes continue to provide warnings to owners of the following NAS models that future updates beyond this release will no longer be offered due to hardware limitations:

While these units will still receive updates until 2020 or 2022 (depending on model), the overall lifespan feels compressed. We’ve been putting the newer TS-328 model through its paces and have been left wanting just a bit more performance in comparison to the x86-based counterparts. It would appear that the upgrade path for those who have adopted an ARM-based product from QNAP is becoming a bit more limited as time progresses. Even though a 1-3 year gap exists before the listed devices will no longer receive further security updates, planning should commence now for those who may be affected by QNAP’s efforts to phase out devices which utilized the Annapurna Labs solutions.

Microsoft’s Inactive Retpoline Patch

As part of the latest round of operating system patches, Microsoft has released KB4482887 for Windows 10. Prior Spectre and Meltdown mitigations required additions to the registry to account for antivirus validations before they would be applied. This check was later removed yet the enforcement of the necessary protections was not enabled by default. This newest release provides the necessary mechanisms to use retpoline. However, we’re back to the “here’s a patch that isn’t enforced yet” conundrum that transforms risk management or vulnerability mitigation into a drinking game.

What’s the point of providing an update when its protections aren’t being actively enforced? Why release a game-hindering patch when the workaround involves removing what was recommended for installation? Since 2015, Microsoft has released a few patches in the name of security which do not enforce the necessary protections for the attack vector. Executing an authenticated scan using a market-leading vulnerability assessment tool will reinforce that applying a patch is no longer sufficient for Windows.

If you’re interested in being ahead of the curve and leveraging the retpoline additions for KB4482887. the registry values provided at BleepingComputer will get you most of the way there. The reason we’re saying “most” is because of the post-modification checks we executed using the Get-SpeculationControlSettings Powershell cmdlet. This wonderful cmdlet will aid in determining which protections are active. Declarations are well spelled out and account for the need to enforce protections based upon your processor of choice (Intel, AMD, and ARM derivatives). Needless to say, the true value which will be assigned to the FeatureSettingsOverride registry key involves a bitwise or to facilitate values of True for Speculative Store Bypass on a system wide basis and for Retpoline.

Multiple knowledge base articles pertaining to protection against speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities are… well.. multiple. The value of FeatureSettingsOverride will ultimately be yet another value based on the evaluation of the bitwise or between the data provided by BleepingComputer and the data contained in the guidance for IT Pros. For Ryzen processors, 0x448 (1096) is the pro play.

Intel’s Assertion of Apple’s Transition to ARM

The increased noise pertaining to Apple’s plans to transition their traditional compute offerings to ARM-derived solutions continues to gain steam. These rumors are normally followed by insistence that people will abandon their Apple product of choice (MacBooks, iMacs, Mac minis). The general public is very skeptical of the success of such a change. Linus Torvalds has even chimed in on why ARM-based solutions won’t succeed in the datacenter.

The prior anemic performance of Intel’s integrated graphics solution and lack of true innovation due to subtle tweaks to clock speed or minor adjustments on an extremely mature 14nm (insert the total number of +’s of your choice after said measurement) manufacturing process certainly resulted in a product that fell behind Apple’s needs. With the departure of Brian Krzanich, the acquisition of external talent including Jim Keller and Raja Koduri, and proposed changes to how Intel will implement next-generation technologies, Apple’s move to the internally developed A-series SoC’s may be a solution to a problem which won’t exist for much longer.

The current state of the next-generation of Intel graphics looks to be shaping up to provide serious competition to incumbent vendors. The leaked benchmarks for the Intel Iris Plus 940 iGPU solution show the appropriate focus finally exists for the graphics pipeline. If the stand-alone Intel GPU offerings scale this level of performance up to something that comes within a stone’s throw of what AMD and Nvidia are offering in a given price range, both the PC and Mac platforms would offer the kind of generational performance increases that haven’t been present for close to a decade.

Apple introduced the A7 chip as a “desktop class architecture” and has claimed that the current generation A12X chip in the current-generation iPad Pro to provide “console quality” graphics. A desktop variant of the A13 and beyond may indeed be competitive with what Intel offers in 2019, but the investments and strategic roadmap which Intel is executing upon may make this ARM transition an exercise in futility. Customers that have remained with the Apple ecosystem for traditional computer platforms have experienced architectural shifts before for the sake of performance. What we’re likely to see over the next 18-24 months may bring into question Apple’s architectural shift and long-term plans in this space.

Troubled Times for Windstream

Ars Technica has nicely summarized the challenges that Windstream encountered which have led to Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The large scale of services that this organization provides for businesses and consumers will hopefully continue in an uninterrupted manner while this company takes the necessary measures to emerge with superior prospects. The total debt load noted in the article highlights how capitally intensive the communication services that everyone relies upon can be. Over the past decade, the creative maneuvers pertaining to dividend reductions, the spin-off of assets into a real estate investment trust, and the subsequent events that followed these efforts have culminated in today’s announcement. We have friends that work for Windstream. It’s unfortunate when companies fall upon hard times. The cost cutting measures that will manifest during the restructuring efforts will certainly impact a number of employees.

Radeon VII – Paper Launch and Thoughts

On February 7, 2019, the Radeon VII GPU was allegedly released. Many reviews with differing opinions yet mostly consistent data hit the web. Attempting to purchase this card within the United States was a non-starter; AMD’s site was sold out within minutes and none of the other major e-tailers had any stock available. While a number of manufactures such as AsRock, MSI, XFX, and others announced an offering, the associated marketing materials confirm that they’re effectively reselling the reference design with the “value add” of alternative packaging and some stickers on the fans.

At $699, the defining feature of this solution involves the most up-to-date manufacturing process and memory allocations that are better suited for professional workloads. While the readily-available GeForce RTX series has plenty of offerings with custom cooling solutions, better-than-Founder’s Edition performance, and next-generation technologies (ray tracing, DLSS), the Radeon VII didn’t launch with equivalent commitment. Is it a rushed product that effectively shoehorns the Radeon Instinct MI50 components into a prosumer-usable package? Based on availability, the answer is a resounding yes.

The thermal aspects of this “RTX 2080” competitor (in rasterization and frame rate only) provided by Steve Burke’s analysis over at Gamers Nexus demonstrate that advanced fabrication processes can only take technology so far if the core fundamentals related to optimizing performance aren’t achieved. The GCN architecture as a whole is getting long in the tooth. While it’s still sufficient for modern workloads such as gaming, content creation, and 3D rendering, consumers of these solutions have had to deal with ever-increasing heat generation and ever-shrinking performance gains with each successive iteration. The Radeon VII and RX 590 both lend service to this fact.

The hype train is slowly building for Navi, yet there are some in the media that aren’t aware that the inherent limits of GCN will still be retained for the new GPUs. If the move from 14nm to 7nm for the Vega architecture wasn’t enough to provide consistently superior performance against the GeForce 1080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080, the potential performance envelope for a Polaris-class GPU with a die shrink and GDDR6 memory will most likely meet the same fate against the competition.

The net-new GPU hotness (pun intended) from AMD won’t release until 2021. Arcturus, the code name for this effort, will be the first product that moves on from GCN. The following article from Anandtech (circa-2011) demonstrates AMD’s transition from pre-GCN VLIW designs to what we’ve effectively been using for a very long time now. We’re pessimistic in our belief that Navi will not be sufficient for maintaining competitiveness with nVidia. With a renewed secondary front from Intel in the graphics arena, AMD can’t afford to have Arcturus flop.

A salvage of the 7nm Vega architecture for gaming purposes would most likely require additional capital that doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend at this point. More efficient implementations of Vega as part of the Ryzen G APUs demonstrate that acceptable performance and low power consumption are indeed possible. The commitment to HBM2 via silicon interposer has created additional challenges from the thermal perspective. The die consistency noted in a number of reviews is a positive development which is immediately offset by the poor contact that the reference cooling solution establishes with the die. The improvements identified at Gamers Nexus when the stock thermal pad is replaced with an application of quality thermal interface material show that the potential for more headroom exists.

As the Vega64 can be had in reference designs at $399, we don’t expect an uptake in Radeon VII adoption outside of media and prosumer use cases. Based on the lack of custom PCBs and cooling solutions from AMD partners, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that these partners came to the same conclusion.

The Apple Extension to Other Ecosystems Continues

We had questioned how long it would be until the iTunes and AirPlay 2 features would proliferate to other television platforms during yesterday’s update. We didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Today, LG announced comparable support to what Samsung announced for new models as did Vizio. While Samsung may maintain an edge in not leaving owners of fairly new 2018 sets out in the cold, the proliferation of options at this point only leaves a Roku and Sony announcement up in the air. Whether or not the expected uptick in the use of Apple’s services by individuals that are firmly entrenched outside of the macOS/iOS ecosystem manifests, this approach is certainly unprecedented. We’re expecting that these developments will make more sense after Apple’s WDDC later this year.

CES 2019 Announcements Have Begun

Can you feel the excitement in the air?!?! Over the next week, product announcements and presentations from a myriad of companies will shape the technological landscape for this year. While we’re expecting some surprises over the next few days, the initial wave of marketing publications or early releases of information have left us… slightly disappointed. Why is this?

For starters, the next wave of Chromebooks may come equipped with an AMD processor. This is good news as it provides additional options for consumers. Mass-market Chromebooks have been versatile and easy-to-use products that fulfill many use cases where a traditional laptop isn’t necessary. This also provides AMD with another revenue stream. While trade-offs have to be made at some level to reach the sub-$300 price point where most of these units fall, the use of AMD’s legacy cores is a cause for concern. When paired with the abysmal 720p screens that HP still foists upon unsuspecting consumers, the end result will most likely be something that pushes toward blue/purple from a display perspective while not offering the battery life that Chromebooks have been known for. Acer’s inclusion of a 1080p screen will warrant serious consideration at the $279 MSRP if the CPU can pass the muster. If we’re lucky, CES 2020 will offer Chromebooks with an Athlon 200GE-level APU at a comparable price point.

nVidia will be going all-out very shortly. The early reveal pertained to their BFGD finally coming to market. 65″ screen, 4K resolution, HDR support, and G-SYNC with a 144Hz refresh rate. All for the low price of $4,999. No, that’s not a typo. While I’m sure it will be impressive, the less than spectacular lifespan of the Dell S2716DG (replaced once under warranty, refurb unit failed about eight months later) may have tainted our view of the longevity and benefit of G-SYNC. When it worked, frame rates were noticeably better, even if the panel was less than satisfactory from a color accuracy perspective. Hopefully, these displays find a market and last long enough to be paired with a future-generation nVidia GPU that can drive this beast to the point where the high refresh rate benefit can be realized in conjunction with all graphical options being set to their maximum limit.

Finally, in the “strange bedfellows” department, Apple will be bringing its services and AirPlay 2 to Samsung TVs. Potential admission that Apple TV (4K or otherwise) isn’t doing well? Realization that there may be a non-trivial number of customers outside of the walled garden that would like to interface with a large screen sans additional purchases? Whatever it is, it feels questionable. The salient points raised by Nilay Patel over at The Verge do highlight the potential for lost sales of Apple’s streaming device. This development also makes it less likely that a lower cost “streaming stick” will be coming out of Cupertino. If Apple’s bringing their services to the Tizen platform, what’s holding them back from doing the same for webOS (LG), Roku (Sharp, TCL, HiSense, and Roku streaming devices with sufficient horsepower), or the FireTV platform (Toshiba, Insignia, and the millions of Amazon Prime subscribers that have a Fire TV device)?

While we still hate the new Apple TV remote with a passion, the image quality and performance of Apple TV is silky smooth and dependable. Support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 formats aid in providing an optimized picture for compatible sets. Additionally, Apple TV plays nicely with a myriad of network-based ad-blocking solutions. This is something we can confirm from first-hand experience that the Roku does not. Apple still hasn’t fixed the network flapping issue on the 4K box. While enabling these technologies in mass market products is one of the more consumer-friendly actions taken by Apple, we’d rationalize that the majority of consumers have already standardized on something that is NOT an Apple product for media consumption. A properly calibrated at the factory set with impeccable fit/finish and a “storage compartment” for an Apple TV device would have been an epic win. We can only jump to the conclusion that Apple was unable to achieve their desired margins on a Cupertino-developed television. Time will tell how this partnership works out.

#netflixfail for “interactive streaming”

The fine folks at Netflix advertised their first foray into an interactive streaming experience with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch on December 27th. The release of the movie the following day came with an undisclosed caveat; the movie can’t be watched on Apple TV and Chromecast devices. We discovered this deficiency within an hour of the MacRumors article that highlighted this issue.

While this limitation could theoretically be accepted for the third generation units that did not possess a dedicated App Store, voice interface, touchpad remote or support for Bluetooth controllers, to experience this fail on a fourth generation Apple TV (or an Apple TV 4K) is certainly unacceptable. Based on the 2012 release date of the third generation hardware, limitations of a single-core A5 CPU and absence of an available app ecosystems, Netflix would get a pass. However, it’s pure laziness or a lack of proper preparation on Netflix’s behalf when the newer fourth generation platform shares commonality with iOS and contains ample performance capability.

Before the Netflix account is cancelled, the movie was tested on a 2018 iPad. The concept has some novel branches but ends up being disruptive to the experience. Some choices have minor continuity implications to later scenes in the movie, while other branches don’t appear to be fully fleshed out. It’s not a bad experiment except for the fact that Netflix failed to recognize that they automatically excluded a portion of their viewing audience based on sales data. Engagement with customer service was lackluster to say the least. Any acknowledgement that their verbiage and disclaimer as to why this movie doesn’t “work” with Apple TV or Chromecast was missing entirely in the chat session we established.

While there may be a possibility that Netflix will modify the tvOS app to support this type of content (and future implementations if this is a direction that they’re going), there have been too many poor decisions without a viable explanation in 2018. The overabundance of “everyone gets a comedy special”, when paired with the abrupt cancellation of the various Marvel series (Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Daredevil, and – theoretically – Punisher and Jessica Jones once they air their next season), demonstrates their inability to maintain franchises consistently. The half-completed efforts for Arrested Development, shorter episode seasons of marquee shows, and the impending loss of a non-trivial portion of Netflix’s content library creates an opening for alternative services to take a slice of market share for good.

To quote any of the “sharks” from Shark Tank when they’re excluding their potential to invest in a product, “We’re out”.

RIP The New Screen Savers

Those of us that experienced TechTV will have fond memories of The Screen Savers show. TWiT brought the series back as The New Screen Savers (TNSS) with many familiar faces from the original series. At the end of the latest episode on Saturday, Leo Laporte dropped the bomb related to this program being eliminated. While there is never a lack of content for viewing on the Internet in general, we feel that this series shouldn’t have ended up on the chopping block. The format and variety of topics covered made technology accessible for a sizable audience. While there are certainly costs associated with developing and presenting content of this nature, the program was well differentiated and didn’t appear to address an oversaturated market. Hopefully, the “new” program coming in 2019 will integrate portions of what was unique to TNSS.