The TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.
It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.
Did the video actually say this? I scrubbed through and found it interesting, but from what I gathered, microphones were only activated when AI voice input was used. Granted, there was no investigation on how trigger happy the beginning of recording might actually be. Did I misinterpret?
Not only that. If shows that it does capture lots of ambiance conversations and switching microphone recording to be easily.
Also there is a scare bit that they show an almost silent stream of audio actually contains audible conversation. Why was it even recording?
The "own the glass" thing is the most consumer disrespect I have heard in a while. They claim they own the TV and YOUR LIVING ROOM.
They know they are invading your privacy, they know the make it fricking hard for you to be able to disable it.
They are pyschos.
I'm ditching buying LG forever
But weren't most recordings manually started in the video? Either through the UI, or via the root access they have?
I might be missing something here, but I did not see the TV automatically recording stuff by itself (or them showing it is transmitted somewhere) without a visible UI element showing that the microphone is active.
It seems that they turned the TV into a wiretap via root. That is a concern and might give some lessons for LG that they need to invest more into security of their devices (privacy indicators, attested boot, anti-root / anti-persistence measures, hard-shutting off the microphone without privacy indicators)...
But you can pull of similar attacks with a compromised laptop / computer or smartphone.
Of course, it's a TV, why does it need that stuff?
Still though, I think the video itself is a bit misleading that it claims (or many people think) it automatically records and transmits all this stuff, while this was not shown here (unless I miss something).
My takeaway was just that the root access gave them the ability to find out what was being recorded, and they were able to play back recordings that it made.
It didn't appear to me that they were initiating anything.
This should be grounds for a class-action lawsuit. It’s lying, it’s scummy, it’s an abuse of consumer trust, and it’s written off LG as a company to do business with. I’m surprised we aren’t already seeing DPAs in the EU take on LG.
Imagine the amount of power they have now with AI, by recording the conversations of half the planet. Imagine the amount of money they would be able to make in the stock market with this data, by following the trends of these conversations. I'm sure the hedge funds have already been doing this for 20 years.
I'm not sure about that. Although this reporting is aimed at the everyman, the problem they describe is far more impactful for elites and corporations. This is pervasive violation of their personal, corporate and legally privileged privacy, and is a vector for systematic corporate espionage. So I suspect US Senators will soon get phone calls from donors really upset about this.
This seems to be the worst case scenario, put into practice by highly popular device manufacturer.
There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..."
I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...
> There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..."
The execs shown in those clips used some pretty revealing language. They describe a customer's (compromised) house as an "LG household" where they "know who's in [it], we know which devices are there... we know how to extend that reach into mobile" and tell advertisers they can "own the living room."
The sense of entitlement is so over-the-top that it's difficult to distinguish from satire.
I shared this thought with a friend of mine recently, primarily in regards to the use of residential proxies:
They don't care about any effect on the individual people.
They view their thing in a vacuum with some kind of religious fervor. It's a form of psychosis, and it seems increasingly prevalent in tech company leadership and so spreads into those who aspire to be tech company leadership types.
I don’t have a deep understanding of residential proxies. But if you had an internet plan with a data cap, it would surely count against both download and upload, yeah? That alone is a huge violation.
These companies need to be fined into the dirt. We need a corporate death penalty, to be honest.
It's like AI model collapse, where they're surrounded by feedback they're doing everything right, no matter what, for a long time, the feedback loop just drifts away from baseline reality.
I do the same thing. My concern is that if somebody makes the decision to spin up an open wireless network it’ll just try to connect to that and upload all of the telemetry it’s been holding onto.
I’m considering opening mine and taking a desoldering braid to both the RJ45 and wireless antenna solder joints. This might break the TV, but at this point if it does I’m ready to just throw it in the trash and find a commercial display.
I bought a television. I didn’t buy an invitation to be watched in the name of surveillance capitalism and until America gets its shit together with data privacy and consumer protection laws this is just going to continue happening.
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I did watch the preview and all of Steve’s latest work has been great so
I’m sure it’ll be great.
I wonder whether it's better to connect it to a network that is then firewalled off from the internet. That may prevent it from looking for alternatives.
> Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems
I do wonder about the hackability of this. Will it be a purely telemetry connection or will it be able to stream video via that connection as well? (not that data costs as much these days as it used to). Can we piggy back the rest of our internet data on this connection? LG TV as modem/router?
Will they include GPS, so they can also connect your home address to the profile they're creating on you? Location-specific advertising value would make that answer: yes!
They would probably use a low cost IoT plan, which (without volume discount) is something like $1/mo and a few cents per MB. So they may be able to send content ID info or conversation transcripts, but video would be too expensive unless the user pays.
GPS is probably unnecessary since mobile phones are constantly mapping out WLANs. You can get a decent approximation of GPS with just a wireless scan in most places.
I saw a previous conversation here where someone said they were able to “repurpose” a similar IoT modem to get some free data, but the modern chips are soldered on and tightly integrated, so it would be harder to reuse unless you get root on the device. I think they use eSIMs stored in a secure element in the CPU.
I've thought for a while on this and with 5G RedCap I really see a day where they include a fully ad-supported 720p streaming TV service over the 5G link and some kind of "premium" offering to pay more for higher streaming quality (but still be screwed over by ad city to cover the 5G link).
Consumers will buy it if they're told they "never have to worry about an over the air TV antenna again" because it has a magic 5G antenna in it!
Hard to get a gps fix indoors. My guess is to infer it from OTA tv channel IDs and relative signal strengths. Wouldn’t need a big database and the transmitters don’t move much.
See “datacasting” for data side. Would be 1-way so hard to know how many eye/ear balls get the noise; I mean; ad.
Couldn't you still get a reliable GPS fix by observing over longer time periods? But it requires a relatively expensive hardware component so geolocating via nearby wifi APs would definitely be cheaper. Google offers a convenient API for that and there's a semi-public database over at WiGLE.
Seriously. My fucking CPAP machine ships with a 5g modem so my info can be easily available to my physician. Can’t turn it off, no clue if I’m even paying for it given how obtuse the billing situation is with how the company charges health insurance
But this response is like when there were meat safety issues in the US and some people said "then buy another brand". People didn't buy that argument (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and so regulation was enacted to protect the public.
It's clear that this problem must be handled with regulation, too. I'm all for markets solving problems, but I'm also for recognizing when it can't. I haven't seen the whole video yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's NOT just LG.
I have an older TCL TV that I've never connected to the internet. Of course, that doesn't prevent it from finding open wifi access points and exfiltrating data without my consent. Based on this (really marvelous) reporting from Gamers Nexus, I probably need to double-check what is actually happening.
BTW corporate meeting rooms with smart TVs...shouldn't have them.
We bought a new tv two years ago and I spent probably a week researching to find the least-smart set I could.
The best option is display only units made for businesses, like what they use for restaurant menus, but those are usually twice the price of normal tvs because they're not app subsidized like smart tvs are.
What I ended up going with was Hisense. They ship with Google TV, but it's disabled by default. On first power up, it asks if you want to activate the Google TV features, and you can just say no. The thing then runs like a basic display.
I have stopped using TV sets more than a decade ago.
Instead of a TV set, I use a very big monitor, which is connected to a mini-PC (an old Intel NUC with Linux), which also has a TV tuner. Besides just showing a TV channel, a mini-PC can also record it and it can play any other kind of movie or music files, or it can stream some video from the Internet.
Can you watch youtoube on that setup? If that's linus, what desktop environment do you use? How does infrared remote control works, like mouse - point and click? Of you can select applications with Up, Down, Left, Right buttons on the remote, like on usual TVs?
At first I thought about something like https://libreelec.tv/ but Kodi instead of the much more powerful mpv is not an option.
So probably a custom lightweight distro with mpv outputting to DRM directly and a game controller to navigate some file explorer ? Maybe try to script around some speech-to-text LLM to be able to say "Play me X", heh.
Or just control it via ssh because that's actually simpler for me.
That was a long two hours. 15 minutes longer than two hours actually. It was well spent overall since Gamers Nexus covered the privacy intrusions that LG has built into the OS for their smart TV line and likely all of their other smart home devices. "We own the glass" and "we own the living room" don't tell the whole story.
The enshittification of TV ownership and usage through smart TVs and the apps and other software that runs without user knowledge is a huge problem wherever these devices are sold. The TVs track and log every device on owner networks - smart watches, thermostats, smart phones, etc, anything that uses wireless or that accesses the internet from inside the home.
I am so glad that I have avoided "upgrading" our TV, almost montly, for years now by simply sending all the Best Buy texts to spam or deleting them. The best way is to opt out of Best Buy communications and after watching that video I will do that.
Our TV is a Panasonic plasma TV from 2012. I need to exit the last streaming service that we subscribe with and that will get it set to an OTA device used when weather int he area is bad enough that having that real-time local weather channel adds value.
From the video - RCE vulnerabilities could allow anyone to drop code on your TV that enables them to use it as a surveillance device. Lots of microphones in the device and no way for the user to disable them. The TV is listening all the time and, using the very sensitive microphones, can detect and record voices in conversations happening in other rooms more than 60' distant. They are effectively whole-house listening devices probably using MEMS microphones due to excellent sensitivity of the devices. Users are fingerprinted and everyone in the house can be identified, even children and those who are frequent enough guests to have been ID'd. Everything that happens triggers the recording.
I suspect Amazon's and Google's devices were the same with their voice triggers. LG does not allow the user to disable that functionality even after the user has disabled it (apparently) through the deeply buried menu option.
LG pushes updates to TVs that improve the tracking ability for LG and their "partners", which includes Microsoft through MS's ownership of Nuance. LG tried to separate their data collection/advert business to circumvent restrictions on ...
Man there is so much there. Fortunately the only LG product I own is a dumb monitor. I will be contacting relatives to offer advice about what to do with their smart devices, LG or others, so I know this starts another round of investigation for me.
No Samsung or LG at my house. Almost done canceling subscription-based "services" like TV content and gaming (XBox) stuff. I don't have software subscriptions so that's great. And, I should be finished with MS OSes pretty soon and flipped to Linux on new devices.
A lot of the shit and shit infrastructure that some of you build is destructive. One day, you will get your just desserts after shafting people with Binding Arbitration agreements, huge TOS and Privacy Policies, and other types of enshittifying end results.
If I am ever well off enough to consider a home theater, it seems I will need to make it a faraday cage and open up the TV to snip all of the microphones and disconnect the Wi-Fi antennae (or maybe even drill any modem chips on the circuitry if we want to go bonkers) as well as any webcams.
Do they make audiophile grade aluminum foil yet? Seems like a neat business opportunity for customers like me
"Samba unites TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions. We help the world’s leading brands and agencies reach the right audiences, measure real outcomes, and access signals no one else has."
The tradeoff is picture quality. Those panels are dumb and also bad. That's one of the main problems with the marketplace. The best displays are tied to some shady practices like the one in the OP.
Can we please agree on calling devices with a cpu and os that spy on the owner smart? I personally think that closed operating systems with spyware is quite dumb for user privacy.
Here are LG's contract terms for appliances.[1] They are awful.
Not only can they listen in. You have a contractual requirement to tell everyone in range of an appliance that they may be eavesdropped upon.
CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.
> The law has been unable to keep up with tech changes.
Nah, for the most part the law has been unable to keep up with (or choose to oppose) corporate power, and new ways it's being used. Usually there's no magic quantum doohickey which demands fundamentally new legal theory.
For example, take this TV spyware thing, and rewind to the year 1986, and imagine RCA started selling televisions with microphones in them that recorded what was in your room and radioed it back to headquarters for some reason.
Obviously the costs wouldn't have worked at the time, but is there anything that was missing in our ability to describe the risks and wrongness? The concepts of privacy and consent, contracts and monopolies, ownership and licensing... They were all there 40 years ago.
In short, I'm concerned that "keep up with the technology" is sometimes a way to shift blame, from an immediate political alignment problem towards a nebulous future technological one that is so ill-defined it can never arrive
> imagine RCA started selling televisions with microphones in them that recorded what was in your room and radioed it back to headquarters for some reason
The problem is that there are real use cases (whether you want them yourself or not) for having an always-on microphone that phones home. The discussion for regulators and lawmakers then becomes about how the data is handled, and that is where they get left in the dust.
Can you actually even turn and keep the microphone off or does it toggle itself back on like Apple's Wifi and Bluetooth one-touch toggle off for now buttons?
> we know better for you so we’ll adjust the behavior accordingly
9/10 times I've used this setting, what I've actually wanted was to temporarily change the behavior. This just saves me from the need to remember to undo it (which I won't remember in a timely manner).
This isn't "we know better than you" paternalistic control - the default/easy behavior should cater to the actions and situation we do regularly. I'm sure they do, in fact, know that for most of their customers, when they disable wifi it's because that user wants to temporarily disconnect from the current wifi, but will want to use wifi shortly after, but won't necessarily remember to go into settings and re-enable.
It should be symmetrically facile to do both behaviors, assuming there's not an invisible thumb on the scale that wants to procedurally force you to make the choice most in the company's interest. But its not.
It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.
Yet, here there is needless nuance added because there is a benefit to the company that the device is either chronically or as much as possible connected to the internet, connected to bluetooth, low battery mode is off, and if they cant have it connected to the internet and bluetooth, well, at least keep the beaconing on and sending out signals and at least meshing so advertisers and stores and their own Find/lost services are still able to benefit.
Thats not even getting into passive Fingerprinting and secondary furtive location tracking. I was surprised to learn that having bluetooth on identifies your device to stores and anyone else who can track bluetooth devices in range. Even when you toggled off bluetooth, you're still being profiled. I wonder if actually going into settings and turning off bluetooth or wifi even totally stops the device from continuing to signal in all ways, it would be unsurprising if thats another UI nicety that doesnt actually mean what it says or implies
> It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.
Why?
I get you have some principled opinions or deep belief about tracking or betrayal from corporations or something. That’s nice.
But why should it be easier to do the things that people don’t want to do often instead of the things that people do want to do often?
Good UI makes repeated actions easier than rare actions. That is good UI because it makes the common action easier, conspiracy theory about tracking and fingerprinting be damned.
A bunch of the morons out there who turn off wifi out in public because they read some random NYPost article about it "tracking" you, would then be bitching to Apple and/or their cell carriers about why their performance is so bad at home when it doesn't auto-join wifi overnight.
I would agree with you that it should operate like a dumb toggle if they didn't have the notification saying that it would auto re-enable again.
So do you agree with it pestering you to enable iCloud if you dont want to and the fact that one of the options "allows" you to delay being asked again to accept something you never want is ok since it has the notification that it will try again later as implied by Not Now (but we'll try it again ad finitum later and circle back until you consent to Yes)?
Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles. The same reason you see a handle on a door a pill before you read the sign that says push. The sign is literally there because the physical design is telling you something different. It is literally mixed signals.
Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer. Hell, if they really wanted to keep the toggle like design, make it look like a spring.
But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why people get confused. It is also crazy considering how much Apple prides themselves on design. If it was good design, you wouldn't need the sign...
Could you sketch a spring-loaded button? I just have a hard time imagining how could this time dimension be added properly to a button - not that I would disagree with you in general.
Also, is this really different from a button that reflects state? E.g. you have a battery saver button that automatically turns on at <20%, is that fundamentally different than a button that resets to a given value at 0:00? I genuinely don't know, just asking questions here.
For the sideways toggle switches, the usual single line.
For the buttons when you pull down the menu, literally any physical change would help, not just color and a message. Highlight the circular edge and make it work like a count down. Make it a polygon instead of a circle. Rotate the symbol in that count down. There's a million ways to do it differently
> Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles.
Yes, good design needs no language. However, it's not reasonable to see a toggle and think it's a permanent toggle. Esp, when it's a button. There are many buttons in the world which doesn't toggle. In iOS, a toggle is also different from a button.
> Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer.
They did, actually. They added clear messaging, think about a LCD screen on top of a button, and have iconography communicating the status clearly.
> But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent...
I'll respectfully disagree here with you.
> ...because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle.
Sorry to disagree, but this is not true:
- Enabled: Blue background
- Temporary disconnect: White background
- Disable: Line through icon.
Also, again, a real toggle has a different design in iOS, you know, which looks like a Braun inspired sliding switch.
> In iOS, a toggle is also different from a button.
Yet they're all circles
> They added clear messaging
And it's common to put pull/push signs on doors. That doesn't fix design.
> Sorry to disagree, but this is not true:
If that was enough we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's not a few people being annoyed/confused either. I'd wager if you asked professional designers outside Apple that they'd agree that they don't communicate well.
They're inconsistent:
- Radio buttons are blue when on but white when temporary disabled
- all other buttons are white while enabled
- cellular is green when enabled
- battery saver is yellow when enabled
- airplane mode is orange when enabled
- the icon is red for rotate lock and silent
- white background means both enabled and temporary disabled
- on most of the radio buttons they're blue when enabled and white when temporary, no off
- on others (vpn, rotate, silent, battery, etc) white background while enabled
- personal hotspot, satellite, silent, and automotive cues have a cross out when disabled
- nothing else does
- that includes radio things like VPN and airplane
Do I really need to continue? I trust you can find more on your own.
I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Additionally that there are shapes other than circles and ellipses
> If that was enough we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's not a few people being annoyed/confused either. I'd wager if you asked professional designers outside Apple that they'd agree that they don't communicate well.
Maybe we can try, why not?
> Do I really need to continue? I trust you can find more on your own.
I mean, I'm a bit tired right now, but will try tomorrow.
> They're inconsistent:
I don't think so: Anything broadcasts signal is blue, anything cellular is green, and since Airplane mode disables every radio transmission, it's orange. It makes sense for me.
> white background means both enabled and temporary disabled.
If something is enabled with a white background, it's icon has color. If something is temporarily disabled, its icon becomes transparent.
> personal hotspot, satellite, silent, and automotive cues have a cross out when disabled
Is it only my stupid brain thinks that a cross out means "unavailable", independent of the reason? It may have been turned off, can't be turned on.
Also, many of the radio-related settings has text next to it. Not available, turned off, disabled, etc.
> I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Thanks for reminding me the following:
- Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Differentiate without color.
- Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color filters.
I have seen device used by a completely blind person who only communicated with the device via touch and voice. It was slow (phone has to talk a lot), but he was not incapable. He used it way better than me.
So, I'll be dead honest: I'm happy with the design language of current iPhone. Is it perfect? No, but its use of color and clustering things make me way faster on using it. A regular grid with thin icons as used in Android is way more slower for my tiny brain, I'm not intelligent, sorry.
We might not agree, and we don't have to. This is what propels world forward, but we don't have to be this angry while disagreeing. We talked about cardiac arrest with a friend today. It's painful for everyone involved.
VPN is blue in the radio box but not if you put it in the main menu. I'd also claim that a VPN doesn't broadcast
OTOH personal hotspot, which does broadcast, is white.
I think the display pattern is at least partially location dependent.
> Thanks for reminding me the following
Thanks, I didn't know about these. I've only been on an iPhone for 2 years but really missing Android (but not Google).
Though the first one doesn't seem to do anything for me. What's it supposed to do?
> A regular grid with thin icons as used in Android is way more slower for my tiny brain
Android has its own problems lol. I'm not going to say they're perfect. I'll complain about them too.[0]
> We might not agree, and we don't have to. This is what propels world forward, but we don't have to be this angry while disagreeing.
You're right, I got too heated, and I'll apologize for that. Thanks for keeping your cool and calling me out. I really respect that and it's something I think we need to do more frequently.
Because to your bigger point, you're right. No single one of us knows the "perfect solution" (not just one exists). And I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
[0] I think engineers should always be a little grumpy, because it's how we improve things. We fix our frustrations. But I'm not trying to say angry or hateful. There's productive arguing and fighting.
Marvin was able to touch the surface of the ship and open up an entry hatchway, and the interior of the ship was completely black. There were black controls labelled in black, on a black background, with a little light that lit up black, which made it difficult to control the ship. The ceiling and walls of the swaying cabin were also black, as well as the seats, control panel, the instruments and the little screws that held them in place. The thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when a corner of the foam underlay was lifted up that was also discovered to be was black.
Notice the bluetooth toggle only says it disconnects bluetooth devices until tomorrow. It doesnt turn off bluetooth because there is a profit incentive to keep all devices meshing for use in FindMy and AirTags and all that.
Same with WiFi. It doesnt even turn WiFi off, it just "disconnects" but keeps WiFi searching and whatever else. Why not have the option to make the toggle actually do the same thing as having to go all the way to Settings to do when the intention is clear and obvious?
Why does it take 2 presses and going a level deep to turn off something when the easy toggle makes it so smooth and easy to turn on which is conveniently the behavior they want
I'd claim it is a bit worse. They use dark patterns here. You can see in another sibling's comment that we disagree on this but I think Apple is teaching the user the wrong thing. And I agree with you that actually disabling is confusing and difficult unless you've already learned their pattern. But at that point it is still needlessly cumbersome, which I'd still call a dark pattern
The user expects it to turn off bluetooth or turn off wifi. I want you to try this experiment:
1. Toggle WiFi and BlueTooth from your command centre thing
2. Go to > Settings
3. What information is shown for Wifi and for Blutooth?
It will likely say something "No connection"
4. Tap each one and voila, both should show the green On toggle status. You have not turned off Wifi or Bluetooth, it has merely "disconnected" them, depending on your Wifi settings it will likely try to autojoin your known hotspot and they're back in business likely well before the automatic "tomorrow reconnect" comes that the toggle ostensibly sets in motion
Its not technically lying but the expectation when you turn off a toggle is it turns off that which you physically and intended to toggle. This abdicates that reasonable expectation and twists it ridiculously.
Its bad enough that theres no easy optionto actually turn it off short of automating it, its just sneaky and a clear conflict of interest
TL;DR: I understand you and your frustrations, but I use Apple devices exactly because of the opinions of it. Not everyone hates these behaviors with a passion of a thousand suns.
Long version:
We have different expectations from our systems. I personally use Mac laptops as well, and Apple devices use P2P wireless and Bluetooth for so many little things you use everyday, so when I click it and it explicitly prints "Disconnecting from Bluetooth devices until tomorrow" prominently, I'm happy with the functionality. If I want to turn it off, I can go to settings from control center in three taps at most.
About your experiment:
- When I disconnect Bluetooth for a day, it shows Bluetooth as on and adds a note: "New Bluetooth connections have been turned off from Control Center." It has a big button above it: "Allow New Connections".
- When I disconnect Wi-Fi for a day, it shows Wireless as on and adds a note: "New Wi-Fi network connections have been turned off from Control Center". Clicking a network to join makes it connect again.
If I open an app using Bluetooth while it's disconnected, it shows a dialogue saying that new connections are disabled, but app needs new connections. You can enable it on the spot.
Unless you give explicit permission, it never connects to a wireless network or Bluetooth device. A couple of times I forgot that I disabled the connections and wondered why it didn't connect to wireless network at home. Same for Bluetooth. I wondered why it asked me to enable it, then remembered that I turned off connections.
When you're running on low power mode, half of the features of the iPhone shuts down from 5G to mail fetch and beyond. HDR display is disabled, system FPS is halved, etc. etc. It's of course natural something wanting to run at normal speed. However, on busy days, I click it once in the morning and never think about it.
I never understand the general anger about something not working as expected. I understand where you are coming from, but the primary reason I'm using Apple hardware is "I already manage a thousand servers, I don't want another one to manage in my pocket".
That thing takes care of itself, let it be backups, updates and whatnot. Yes, Apple devices has their opinions and some users might not agree with that, but another thing I don't understand is, how it's good when some free software has its opinions and how it's bad when the source is closed? I mean, everything has opinions and a set modus operandi, and Apple devices work that way.
For once, I like how that thing works and I can just depend on it.
For the battery life thing, my old iPhone X lasted 4+ years per battery, and I used that one for 10 years until its battery gave up, and I didn't aggressively manage that one. My current one lasts two days despite me capping its charge at 80%, and not using power save mode aggressively.
I mean, being this judgemental and angry about a computer is bad for your health. Nobody forces anyone to buy these things, and there are choices. At the end of the day, it's a computer, but its form factor and hardware quality is top notch, I'll give them that. If you really want to use an Apple device, being open minded and giving the default settings a go is always a good idea. I like to have an open mind about things. I mean, things evolve and new things sounding stupid sometimes works so well that leaves the user baffled. I'd rather try and don't like a setting or let my habits change than being an old man yelling proverbial cloud.
The issue is its training people to be ok with basically being lied to about what their device does and doesnt do, and hiding things from them that can hurt their own personal interest in favor of the company. Thats backwards but I guess thats the price of convenience people are willing to pay so it all works out I suppose
The thing is, there's no lie, but if you want to frame it like that, I won't argue further. A different icon, a clear message on top, more notes in respective settings pages doesn't fit into my framing of lying, to be honest.
You may not like the behavior or design choices of a certain piece of hardware, that's also OK, but labeling behavior as something which is not is wrong IMHO.
Also how do you explain the constant nags to Enable iCloud with the only options being eithet Yes, or Not Now (but we'll bring it up regularly until you say yes)?
> Also how do you explain the constant nags to Enable iCloud with the only options being eithet Yes, or Not Now (but we'll bring it up regularly until you say yes)?
While I find iCloud useful and use it regularly, I don't think nagging people until they break is a good thing to do. I didn't setup a new Apple account or a new Apple device from scratch since forever (I migrate forward so I don't setup anything), so I didn't know that Apple resorted doing that. Sad.
> Love to hear your thoughts about how im wrong about what i want and bring treated like i only have two contrived choices rather than a true third no option that takes me out of the sales pipeline forseeably
Thanks for your prejudice, but I'm not that person you're thinking I am. No offense taken though, but I feel obliged to remind you this: https://xkcd.com/438/
There is a reason why Snowden cuts the internal microphones and cameras out of his mobile phones. I suppose you can permanently turn off the TV's microphone(or microphones) in the same fashion.
there is a tiny physical switch right next to the power button on my lg tv that supposedly turns off the tv microphone. the remote mic has no such switch though
These (and other TOS agreements) fall under the category of "adhesion contracts".
Because the buyer has no real ability to negotiate, any ambiguity is resolved in their favor. A judge can also strike provisions that a reasonable buyer would not expect, or that are unconscionable. So it's up to the judge's judgment.
The cooler thing is that if a substantial amount of the 216M TV owners tried to arbitrate across the country/world, they'd cave so fast. Arbitration is cheaper than an individual law suit, but much much more expensive than a class-action.
Apple (and Google, and most others) process wake words on device. Imagine the technical complexity and expense of a billion devices streaming audio that is like 0.01% wake words.
> 8. I understand that LGE will retain the collected Voice Information for 6 months to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, and after this period, it will be deleted or anonymized, depending on the case.
Somehow feels like it might be used for more than just wake word detection.
Keep all the processing on device? Do so in a way that is legal in the jurisdiction you are selling the devices in without claiming it's the owner's responsibility to get consent from all individuals (even if they cannot legally consent because they are, say, a child!?) to comply with wiretapping laws in their own home? Choose not to sell an object that comes with software made to spy on you and sell all it learns to advertisers?
That fact that you read something like this as acceptable "legal boilerplate" just shows how, very sadly in my opinion, invasions of privacy have been normalized by these corporations.
In a place where recording audio requires consent from all parties, I don't think it matters whether "all the processing is on-device" given that the law was probably written with tape recorders in mind. If I buy a device that can record audio, and place it in my home where unsuspecting guests are recorded by it, whether that recording is transmitted to the manufacturer or stays within my home seems irrelevant.
tempted to go into my nearest big box electronics store and then sue them when they don't tell me the LG tv's they have on display are eavesdropping on me.
They have video surveillance signs. Audio is a different category in a lot of states. In California, it's illegal to record audio without consent of all of the parties, and I believe you can get a civil remedy of $5000 for this.
In states with multi or all-party consent, there is usually some wording like "reasonable expectation" of privacy, which you don't have in public by default. The store could argue you have no expectation of privacy there, so they can record audio.
> (c) For the purposes of this section, “confidential communication” means any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.
Is that actually for smart tvs? The first paragraph includes "the products you may access or otherwise connect to via the ThinQ mobile application (not including Smart TVs)" and "These Terms of Use do not apply to any other LG products or services, including Smart Media Products."
> 8. I understand that LGE will retain the collected Voice Information for 6 months to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, and after this period, it will be deleted or anonymized, depending on the case.
> 9. I understand that this Smart Media Product is a household device. If this Smart Media Product will be used by more than one person, I represent that, in addition to agreeing to this Agreement, that I have obtained consent from all other members of my household whose information may be collected through this Smart Media Product and am providing consent on their behalf.
What's absurd is that this doesn't void the terms by default. There should be limits to what companies can put in their ToS beyond which those terms aren't enforceable.
Because LG is a large corporation and if there is something we have learned (or had proven) in 2026 is that laws don't apply if you oligarch hard enough.
Actually LG is not just a large corporation or even a oligarch, it is one of the major south korean chaebol groups and therefore has way more power in the legal and political space.
The problem is the ToS can be overruled by the law. But you can still put wild stuff in there without consequence, it just won't hold up in court of course. However this makes it so that companies use the ToS as a scare tactic to deter people going to court in the first place, "look you agreed to us being able to do something illegal, you will lose court against our expensive lawyers".
ToS from a lot of tech companies say the wildest shit that doesn't hold up in court and they should get a penalty for putting that into these documents, as it is misleading and misrepresenting the agreement that the customer has with them.
Until some responsibility for illegal statements in the ToS happens I will read most comments from a ToS with a grain of salt and a lot of skepticism.
What's even crazier is that companies doing this have a full team of lawyers, they know it won't hold up in court, but they also know there are no consequences for deliberately put things there that won't hold up in court.
A bit more crazy that they are gambling on the likelihood of winning in case they are actually challenged, cementing a twisted precedent just to keep the next quarter on trend.
Losing in court also represents such a ridiculously small portion of the profits they amassed because of such practices that it's actually illogical not to break the law.
Unfortunately, no. Common law requires famously very little consideration for a contract to be valid [1]. I can sign a contract where I give $100 and am given a penny back and that'd be valid consideration.
IANAL but without concent I think LG is comitting a crime here. The owner who ostensibly agreed to obtain concent through the ToS might be breaking their agreement, but wouldn't that be a separate issue?
ToS and other click licenses have been making shit up for way too long.
IANAL, but I believe the argument is that agreeing to the TOS constitutes consent. Even though no reasonable person would believe such a thing would be in the TOS and no reasonable person reads the full TOS (no person actually could...).
Perhaps we start suing one another for not disclosing the wire tapping, forcing the lawsuit upwards towards LG. It'd be more efficient to sue LG, but lawyers don't seem to be done those things. At least not that I'm aware of
IANAL, but only the owner can consent through the TOS. The owner does not collect or process the data, so it's entirely on LG to ensure proper consent, not the owner. Breaking a TOS is not a crime, and can only be punished by restricting or disallowing access to a service, but collecting personal data without consent is a huge problem in the EU.
I<3ANAL but even if the owner agrees to the TOS, there’s no way other users or guests are verifiably consenting or any way for LG to verify before collecting data.
I could hit someone and say it was someone else’s fault, but delusion isn’t a legal defense.
It’s clearly unreasonable to assume that LG can know and procure consent from everyone you choose to allow into your living room.
It’s reasonable to push the burden of procuring that consent onto whoever controls entry to the space, with terms like this.
As a thought experiment, let’s take a service like Zoom where you can record video of participants. It’s reasonable to say “you’re operating the camera, if someone appears in the background, it’s your responsibility to make sure they’re informed and consent to the recording”. In fact, trying to establish the identity of the person in the background for the purposes of procuring consent is probably a greater intrusion on privacy than not.
The problem here is different. The problem is that the volume of data being collected is clearly unnecessary for achieving the purposes it’s intended for.
> It’s clearly unreasonable to assume that LG can know and procure consent from everyone you choose to allow into your living room.
If only they had a big interface to ask the user to push [AGREE] to be spied upon. I would call it a RemoteVision and put the [OK] button in a TeleControl so the user can agree every time they turn on the device.
> It’s reasonable to push the burden of procuring that consent onto whoever controls entry to the space, with terms like this.
I don’t agree. I think if consent can’t be obtained, the only reasonable action here is to not collect the information.
The comparison to a zoom meeting is not 100% because if you’re walking past such a camera, you’re pretty likely to notice it and have the option to not step into view or obscure your face.
I think the legal argument would be that the owner of the recording device (in this case the TV) was informed and therefore responsible for informing others.
The question I think would centre on two things: is burying the information in a ToS acceptable for “informing” and is the amount of data collection proportionate for providing the service. I think the answers to both those is no.
I agree with your framing of the two problems, but I’d add a third: It is a large mistake to assume that the person installing the TV (thus agreeing to the ToS) is going to be present whenever it is being used around new people. It just assumes too much about the way people organize their lives, homes, purchases.
> Even though no reasonable person would believe such a thing would be in the TOS
Even if they did, it's a bad to let clickthrough TOS subvert laws and privacy. This idea that contracts can dismiss all other considerations needs to die.
Various courts have already invalidated clauses of click-through agreements that no reasonable person would expect to find in such an agreement.
Terms of service are not an absolute "I'm rubber you're glue" type shield against all possible accusations of wrongdoing, however much companies would love us to believe they are.
A strong implication of this consent implicitly involves the device recording me when I tell the device to record me.
If the device is recording me all the time and silently uploading it, and I'm not aware, I can't give my consent. That's wiretapping, zero-person-consent.
Ask how you (or for that matter, a jury) would feel about your phone doing the same.
Maybe? If they aren't we should change our laws so that they would be. We don't have to normalize or accept companies wiretapping and spying on people just because spying makes those companies more profit.
Is a tesla spying on you by default and uploading onboard audio and video? If so, yes definitely that is a crime.
If the Tesla is monitoring for whether you are awake behind the wheel and sounds the alarm without that information ever leaving the car, that is another thing entirely.
But isn't it the same as Facebook letting you consent (without actually reading the ToS) that your friends on that freshly-uploaded photo agreed to appear online and have their face scanned?
I have an LG TV. It has been pestering me with those licensing agreements from time to time, but interestingly enough, I was only required to agree to fairly reasonable basics, everything else I just ignored and left for later.
I'm guessing this is an oversight and the TV does record, but then this is criminal. But, nobody will bother to prosecute them I guess...
Technical solutions are insufficient for such disregard, the company needs to be sued out of existence, and laws made to prohibit and punish such behavior
Now do a analysis on everything else, including the smart fridge in the kitchen.
Or what I am trying to say: Everybody has devices which have the potential to spy on you.
Unless your first name is Richard, only travel with open source hardware and software, and you have to ask someone to lend you a phone if you want to call someone even when you are at home.
How does that make this right? And that a device has the potential to spy with an update doesn’t mean it does or will.
Of course, the AVR will be able to snoop and send what is available. Any smart fridges, ovens, appliances, whatever can. Doesn’t mean that they or should. Also doesn’t mean we should just lie down and give up.
Ad executives in early 2010s took note of the public response to whistleblowing of the NSA PRISM program and Edward Snowden leaks.
10+ years later, this is their response. They have learned a large majority of people just don't give a shit. We are sheep. A majority of people just want "cheap" shit, no matter the cost.
This world is cooked man. Need an asteroid to wipe this planet clean, bro.
I wonder if in the EU, if you refuse everything, you're protected or screwed. Juridically, you should be okay, but is it rational to trust them to respect the law when breaking it is probably more profitable?
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] threadThe TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.
It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.
The "own the glass" thing is the most consumer disrespect I have heard in a while. They claim they own the TV and YOUR LIVING ROOM.
They know they are invading your privacy, they know the make it fricking hard for you to be able to disable it. They are pyschos. I'm ditching buying LG forever
Totally and absolutely, and seemingly proud of it. Just gross.
I might be missing something here, but I did not see the TV automatically recording stuff by itself (or them showing it is transmitted somewhere) without a visible UI element showing that the microphone is active.
It seems that they turned the TV into a wiretap via root. That is a concern and might give some lessons for LG that they need to invest more into security of their devices (privacy indicators, attested boot, anti-root / anti-persistence measures, hard-shutting off the microphone without privacy indicators)...
But you can pull of similar attacks with a compromised laptop / computer or smartphone.
Of course, it's a TV, why does it need that stuff? Still though, I think the video itself is a bit misleading that it claims (or many people think) it automatically records and transmits all this stuff, while this was not shown here (unless I miss something).
It didn't appear to me that they were initiating anything.
I'm not sure about that. Although this reporting is aimed at the everyman, the problem they describe is far more impactful for elites and corporations. This is pervasive violation of their personal, corporate and legally privileged privacy, and is a vector for systematic corporate espionage. So I suspect US Senators will soon get phone calls from donors really upset about this.
:pray emoji:
Definitely need to find a powerful-adjacent group that could be damaged by the kinds of leaks these TVs represent.
There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..."
I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...
The execs shown in those clips used some pretty revealing language. They describe a customer's (compromised) house as an "LG household" where they "know who's in [it], we know which devices are there... we know how to extend that reach into mobile" and tell advertisers they can "own the living room."
The sense of entitlement is so over-the-top that it's difficult to distinguish from satire.
They don't care about any effect on the individual people.
They view their thing in a vacuum with some kind of religious fervor. It's a form of psychosis, and it seems increasingly prevalent in tech company leadership and so spreads into those who aspire to be tech company leadership types.
Essentially little difference from running a tor exit node.
My position is that I assume that most people running a residential proxy are not aware that they're running a residential proxy.
These companies need to be fined into the dirt. We need a corporate death penalty, to be honest.
Would you rent out your Internet connection to unknown parties to do whatever they wanted with?
I've been on the end of one of the above, hence my sensitivity to the topic.
LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956688
LG monitors installing adware on Windows PCs | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953226
LG TVs aren't the only ones spying on you [video]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575176
My LG tv post-update is never allowed on a network and it will never be updated again. Hopefully it never breaks…
I’m considering opening mine and taking a desoldering braid to both the RJ45 and wireless antenna solder joints. This might break the TV, but at this point if it does I’m ready to just throw it in the trash and find a commercial display.
I bought a television. I didn’t buy an invitation to be watched in the name of surveillance capitalism and until America gets its shit together with data privacy and consumer protection laws this is just going to continue happening.
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I did watch the preview and all of Steve’s latest work has been great so I’m sure it’ll be great.
Details?
> Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems
I do wonder about the hackability of this. Will it be a purely telemetry connection or will it be able to stream video via that connection as well? (not that data costs as much these days as it used to). Can we piggy back the rest of our internet data on this connection? LG TV as modem/router?
Will they include GPS, so they can also connect your home address to the profile they're creating on you? Location-specific advertising value would make that answer: yes!
GPS is probably unnecessary since mobile phones are constantly mapping out WLANs. You can get a decent approximation of GPS with just a wireless scan in most places.
I saw a previous conversation here where someone said they were able to “repurpose” a similar IoT modem to get some free data, but the modern chips are soldered on and tightly integrated, so it would be harder to reuse unless you get root on the device. I think they use eSIMs stored in a secure element in the CPU.
Consumers will buy it if they're told they "never have to worry about an over the air TV antenna again" because it has a magic 5G antenna in it!
See “datacasting” for data side. Would be 1-way so hard to know how many eye/ear balls get the noise; I mean; ad.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geolocation...
https://wigle.net/
Can anyone recommend a non-spying TV brand or a model? (Modern)
But this response is like when there were meat safety issues in the US and some people said "then buy another brand". People didn't buy that argument (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and so regulation was enacted to protect the public.
It's clear that this problem must be handled with regulation, too. I'm all for markets solving problems, but I'm also for recognizing when it can't. I haven't seen the whole video yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's NOT just LG.
BTW corporate meeting rooms with smart TVs...shouldn't have them.
The best option is display only units made for businesses, like what they use for restaurant menus, but those are usually twice the price of normal tvs because they're not app subsidized like smart tvs are.
What I ended up going with was Hisense. They ship with Google TV, but it's disabled by default. On first power up, it asks if you want to activate the Google TV features, and you can just say no. The thing then runs like a basic display.
Instead of a TV set, I use a very big monitor, which is connected to a mini-PC (an old Intel NUC with Linux), which also has a TV tuner. Besides just showing a TV channel, a mini-PC can also record it and it can play any other kind of movie or music files, or it can stream some video from the Internet.
User will typically want to have a remote control and have applications like youtube.
So probably a custom lightweight distro with mpv outputting to DRM directly and a game controller to navigate some file explorer ? Maybe try to script around some speech-to-text LLM to be able to say "Play me X", heh.
Or just control it via ssh because that's actually simpler for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8duCxY-gnZ0&t=5s
The enshittification of TV ownership and usage through smart TVs and the apps and other software that runs without user knowledge is a huge problem wherever these devices are sold. The TVs track and log every device on owner networks - smart watches, thermostats, smart phones, etc, anything that uses wireless or that accesses the internet from inside the home.
I am so glad that I have avoided "upgrading" our TV, almost montly, for years now by simply sending all the Best Buy texts to spam or deleting them. The best way is to opt out of Best Buy communications and after watching that video I will do that.
Our TV is a Panasonic plasma TV from 2012. I need to exit the last streaming service that we subscribe with and that will get it set to an OTA device used when weather int he area is bad enough that having that real-time local weather channel adds value.
From the video - RCE vulnerabilities could allow anyone to drop code on your TV that enables them to use it as a surveillance device. Lots of microphones in the device and no way for the user to disable them. The TV is listening all the time and, using the very sensitive microphones, can detect and record voices in conversations happening in other rooms more than 60' distant. They are effectively whole-house listening devices probably using MEMS microphones due to excellent sensitivity of the devices. Users are fingerprinted and everyone in the house can be identified, even children and those who are frequent enough guests to have been ID'd. Everything that happens triggers the recording.
I suspect Amazon's and Google's devices were the same with their voice triggers. LG does not allow the user to disable that functionality even after the user has disabled it (apparently) through the deeply buried menu option.
LG pushes updates to TVs that improve the tracking ability for LG and their "partners", which includes Microsoft through MS's ownership of Nuance. LG tried to separate their data collection/advert business to circumvent restrictions on ...
Man there is so much there. Fortunately the only LG product I own is a dumb monitor. I will be contacting relatives to offer advice about what to do with their smart devices, LG or others, so I know this starts another round of investigation for me.
No Samsung or LG at my house. Almost done canceling subscription-based "services" like TV content and gaming (XBox) stuff. I don't have software subscriptions so that's great. And, I should be finished with MS OSes pretty soon and flipped to Linux on new devices.
A lot of the shit and shit infrastructure that some of you build is destructive. One day, you will get your just desserts after shafting people with Binding Arbitration agreements, huge TOS and Privacy Policies, and other types of enshittifying end results.
Do they make audiophile grade aluminum foil yet? Seems like a neat business opportunity for customers like me
https://samba.com/
Such a pity the name is associated with freeing proprietary software.
The _real_ samba: https://www.samba.org/
I want the public to get upset about this.
Also, can anyone articulate exactly what data the TV is scraping about your other network devices? IP, name, what else?
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...
With no real influx of 8K tvs one of these will last quite a while until you need to upgrade.
Not only can they listen in. You have a contractual requirement to tell everyone in range of an appliance that they may be eavesdropped upon.
CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.
[1] https://www.lg.com/us/terms
Nah, for the most part the law has been unable to keep up with (or choose to oppose) corporate power, and new ways it's being used. Usually there's no magic quantum doohickey which demands fundamentally new legal theory.
Obviously the costs wouldn't have worked at the time, but is there anything that was missing in our ability to describe the risks and wrongness? The concepts of privacy and consent, contracts and monopolies, ownership and licensing... They were all there 40 years ago.
In short, I'm concerned that "keep up with the technology" is sometimes a way to shift blame, from an immediate political alignment problem towards a nebulous future technological one that is so ill-defined it can never arrive
The problem is that there are real use cases (whether you want them yourself or not) for having an always-on microphone that phones home. The discussion for regulators and lawmakers then becomes about how the data is handled, and that is where they get left in the dust.
This comparison rubs me off the wrong way every time I see, because.
1. The notifications clearly tell the behavior (doing $THING until tomorrow).
2. There's a way to turn them "really off".
What LG does is completely different. IIRC from the teaser of this video, the microphone is never "completely" off or apps can re-enable them somehow.
It should work just like a physical button. I don’t appreciate the “we know better for you so we’ll adjust the behavior accordingly” MITM.
9/10 times I've used this setting, what I've actually wanted was to temporarily change the behavior. This just saves me from the need to remember to undo it (which I won't remember in a timely manner).
This isn't "we know better than you" paternalistic control - the default/easy behavior should cater to the actions and situation we do regularly. I'm sure they do, in fact, know that for most of their customers, when they disable wifi it's because that user wants to temporarily disconnect from the current wifi, but will want to use wifi shortly after, but won't necessarily remember to go into settings and re-enable.
It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.
Yet, here there is needless nuance added because there is a benefit to the company that the device is either chronically or as much as possible connected to the internet, connected to bluetooth, low battery mode is off, and if they cant have it connected to the internet and bluetooth, well, at least keep the beaconing on and sending out signals and at least meshing so advertisers and stores and their own Find/lost services are still able to benefit.
Thats not even getting into passive Fingerprinting and secondary furtive location tracking. I was surprised to learn that having bluetooth on identifies your device to stores and anyone else who can track bluetooth devices in range. Even when you toggled off bluetooth, you're still being profiled. I wonder if actually going into settings and turning off bluetooth or wifi even totally stops the device from continuing to signal in all ways, it would be unsurprising if thats another UI nicety that doesnt actually mean what it says or implies
OTOH, it benefits the phone owner to use wifi, as it's lower power use than cellular the majority of the time.
Why?
I get you have some principled opinions or deep belief about tracking or betrayal from corporations or something. That’s nice.
But why should it be easier to do the things that people don’t want to do often instead of the things that people do want to do often?
Good UI makes repeated actions easier than rare actions. That is good UI because it makes the common action easier, conspiracy theory about tracking and fingerprinting be damned.
I would agree with you that it should operate like a dumb toggle if they didn't have the notification saying that it would auto re-enable again.
Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles. The same reason you see a handle on a door a pill before you read the sign that says push. The sign is literally there because the physical design is telling you something different. It is literally mixed signals.
Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer. Hell, if they really wanted to keep the toggle like design, make it look like a spring.
But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why people get confused. It is also crazy considering how much Apple prides themselves on design. If it was good design, you wouldn't need the sign...
Also, is this really different from a button that reflects state? E.g. you have a battery saver button that automatically turns on at <20%, is that fundamentally different than a button that resets to a given value at 0:00? I genuinely don't know, just asking questions here.
For the buttons when you pull down the menu, literally any physical change would help, not just color and a message. Highlight the circular edge and make it work like a count down. Make it a polygon instead of a circle. Rotate the symbol in that count down. There's a million ways to do it differently
Yes, good design needs no language. However, it's not reasonable to see a toggle and think it's a permanent toggle. Esp, when it's a button. There are many buttons in the world which doesn't toggle. In iOS, a toggle is also different from a button.
> Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer.
They did, actually. They added clear messaging, think about a LCD screen on top of a button, and have iconography communicating the status clearly.
> But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent...
I'll respectfully disagree here with you.
> ...because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle.
Sorry to disagree, but this is not true:
Also, again, a real toggle has a different design in iOS, you know, which looks like a Braun inspired sliding switch.They're inconsistent:
Do I really need to continue? I trust you can find more on your own.I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Additionally that there are shapes other than circles and ellipses
Maybe we can try, why not?
> Do I really need to continue? I trust you can find more on your own.
I mean, I'm a bit tired right now, but will try tomorrow.
> They're inconsistent:
I don't think so: Anything broadcasts signal is blue, anything cellular is green, and since Airplane mode disables every radio transmission, it's orange. It makes sense for me.
> white background means both enabled and temporary disabled.
If something is enabled with a white background, it's icon has color. If something is temporarily disabled, its icon becomes transparent.
> personal hotspot, satellite, silent, and automotive cues have a cross out when disabled
Is it only my stupid brain thinks that a cross out means "unavailable", independent of the reason? It may have been turned off, can't be turned on.
Also, many of the radio-related settings has text next to it. Not available, turned off, disabled, etc.
> I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Thanks for reminding me the following:
I have seen device used by a completely blind person who only communicated with the device via touch and voice. It was slow (phone has to talk a lot), but he was not incapable. He used it way better than me.So, I'll be dead honest: I'm happy with the design language of current iPhone. Is it perfect? No, but its use of color and clustering things make me way faster on using it. A regular grid with thin icons as used in Android is way more slower for my tiny brain, I'm not intelligent, sorry.
We might not agree, and we don't have to. This is what propels world forward, but we don't have to be this angry while disagreeing. We talked about cardiac arrest with a friend today. It's painful for everyone involved.
OTOH personal hotspot, which does broadcast, is white.
I think the display pattern is at least partially location dependent.
Thanks, I didn't know about these. I've only been on an iPhone for 2 years but really missing Android (but not Google).Though the first one doesn't seem to do anything for me. What's it supposed to do?
Android has its own problems lol. I'm not going to say they're perfect. I'll complain about them too.[0] You're right, I got too heated, and I'll apologize for that. Thanks for keeping your cool and calling me out. I really respect that and it's something I think we need to do more frequently.Because to your bigger point, you're right. No single one of us knows the "perfect solution" (not just one exists). And I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
[0] I think engineers should always be a little grumpy, because it's how we improve things. We fix our frustrations. But I'm not trying to say angry or hateful. There's productive arguing and fighting.
Same with WiFi. It doesnt even turn WiFi off, it just "disconnects" but keeps WiFi searching and whatever else. Why not have the option to make the toggle actually do the same thing as having to go all the way to Settings to do when the intention is clear and obvious?
Why does it take 2 presses and going a level deep to turn off something when the easy toggle makes it so smooth and easy to turn on which is conveniently the behavior they want
1. Toggle WiFi and BlueTooth from your command centre thing 2. Go to > Settings 3. What information is shown for Wifi and for Blutooth?
It will likely say something "No connection"
4. Tap each one and voila, both should show the green On toggle status. You have not turned off Wifi or Bluetooth, it has merely "disconnected" them, depending on your Wifi settings it will likely try to autojoin your known hotspot and they're back in business likely well before the automatic "tomorrow reconnect" comes that the toggle ostensibly sets in motion
Its not technically lying but the expectation when you turn off a toggle is it turns off that which you physically and intended to toggle. This abdicates that reasonable expectation and twists it ridiculously.
Its bad enough that theres no easy optionto actually turn it off short of automating it, its just sneaky and a clear conflict of interest
Long version:
We have different expectations from our systems. I personally use Mac laptops as well, and Apple devices use P2P wireless and Bluetooth for so many little things you use everyday, so when I click it and it explicitly prints "Disconnecting from Bluetooth devices until tomorrow" prominently, I'm happy with the functionality. If I want to turn it off, I can go to settings from control center in three taps at most.
About your experiment:
- When I disconnect Bluetooth for a day, it shows Bluetooth as on and adds a note: "New Bluetooth connections have been turned off from Control Center." It has a big button above it: "Allow New Connections".
- When I disconnect Wi-Fi for a day, it shows Wireless as on and adds a note: "New Wi-Fi network connections have been turned off from Control Center". Clicking a network to join makes it connect again.
If I open an app using Bluetooth while it's disconnected, it shows a dialogue saying that new connections are disabled, but app needs new connections. You can enable it on the spot.
Unless you give explicit permission, it never connects to a wireless network or Bluetooth device. A couple of times I forgot that I disabled the connections and wondered why it didn't connect to wireless network at home. Same for Bluetooth. I wondered why it asked me to enable it, then remembered that I turned off connections.
When you're running on low power mode, half of the features of the iPhone shuts down from 5G to mail fetch and beyond. HDR display is disabled, system FPS is halved, etc. etc. It's of course natural something wanting to run at normal speed. However, on busy days, I click it once in the morning and never think about it.
I never understand the general anger about something not working as expected. I understand where you are coming from, but the primary reason I'm using Apple hardware is "I already manage a thousand servers, I don't want another one to manage in my pocket".
That thing takes care of itself, let it be backups, updates and whatnot. Yes, Apple devices has their opinions and some users might not agree with that, but another thing I don't understand is, how it's good when some free software has its opinions and how it's bad when the source is closed? I mean, everything has opinions and a set modus operandi, and Apple devices work that way.
For once, I like how that thing works and I can just depend on it.
For the battery life thing, my old iPhone X lasted 4+ years per battery, and I used that one for 10 years until its battery gave up, and I didn't aggressively manage that one. My current one lasts two days despite me capping its charge at 80%, and not using power save mode aggressively.
I mean, being this judgemental and angry about a computer is bad for your health. Nobody forces anyone to buy these things, and there are choices. At the end of the day, it's a computer, but its form factor and hardware quality is top notch, I'll give them that. If you really want to use an Apple device, being open minded and giving the default settings a go is always a good idea. I like to have an open mind about things. I mean, things evolve and new things sounding stupid sometimes works so well that leaves the user baffled. I'd rather try and don't like a setting or let my habits change than being an old man yelling proverbial cloud.
You may not like the behavior or design choices of a certain piece of hardware, that's also OK, but labeling behavior as something which is not is wrong IMHO.
While I find iCloud useful and use it regularly, I don't think nagging people until they break is a good thing to do. I didn't setup a new Apple account or a new Apple device from scratch since forever (I migrate forward so I don't setup anything), so I didn't know that Apple resorted doing that. Sad.
> Love to hear your thoughts about how im wrong about what i want and bring treated like i only have two contrived choices rather than a true third no option that takes me out of the sales pipeline forseeably
Thanks for your prejudice, but I'm not that person you're thinking I am. No offense taken though, but I feel obliged to remind you this: https://xkcd.com/438/
Because the buyer has no real ability to negotiate, any ambiguity is resolved in their favor. A judge can also strike provisions that a reasonable buyer would not expect, or that are unconscionable. So it's up to the judge's judgment.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/adhesion-contract.asp
you ask if they're enforceable but that's the wrong question, the real question is will anyone do anything to stop them?
This is the kind of thing that states need to make explicitly illegal.
Somehow feels like it might be used for more than just wake word detection.
That fact that you read something like this as acceptable "legal boilerplate" just shows how, very sadly in my opinion, invasions of privacy have been normalized by these corporations.
> (c) For the purposes of this section, “confidential communication” means any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.
Penal Code § 632(c)
> 8. I understand that LGE will retain the collected Voice Information for 6 months to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, and after this period, it will be deleted or anonymized, depending on the case.
> 9. I understand that this Smart Media Product is a household device. If this Smart Media Product will be used by more than one person, I represent that, in addition to agreeing to this Agreement, that I have obtained consent from all other members of my household whose information may be collected through this Smart Media Product and am providing consent on their behalf.
The issue is that we haven’t made this shit against the law yet.
How can that be concent?
I've been wondering; do you like to sing together with the LG chime sound?
ToS from a lot of tech companies say the wildest shit that doesn't hold up in court and they should get a penalty for putting that into these documents, as it is misleading and misrepresenting the agreement that the customer has with them.
Until some responsibility for illegal statements in the ToS happens I will read most comments from a ToS with a grain of salt and a lot of skepticism.
A bit more crazy that they are gambling on the likelihood of winning in case they are actually challenged, cementing a twisted precedent just to keep the next quarter on trend.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law)
ToS and other click licenses have been making shit up for way too long.
Perhaps we start suing one another for not disclosing the wire tapping, forcing the lawsuit upwards towards LG. It'd be more efficient to sue LG, but lawyers don't seem to be done those things. At least not that I'm aware of
I could hit someone and say it was someone else’s fault, but delusion isn’t a legal defense.
It’s reasonable to push the burden of procuring that consent onto whoever controls entry to the space, with terms like this.
As a thought experiment, let’s take a service like Zoom where you can record video of participants. It’s reasonable to say “you’re operating the camera, if someone appears in the background, it’s your responsibility to make sure they’re informed and consent to the recording”. In fact, trying to establish the identity of the person in the background for the purposes of procuring consent is probably a greater intrusion on privacy than not.
The problem here is different. The problem is that the volume of data being collected is clearly unnecessary for achieving the purposes it’s intended for.
If only they had a big interface to ask the user to push [AGREE] to be spied upon. I would call it a RemoteVision and put the [OK] button in a TeleControl so the user can agree every time they turn on the device.
One can dream.
I don’t agree. I think if consent can’t be obtained, the only reasonable action here is to not collect the information.
The comparison to a zoom meeting is not 100% because if you’re walking past such a camera, you’re pretty likely to notice it and have the option to not step into view or obscure your face.
The question I think would centre on two things: is burying the information in a ToS acceptable for “informing” and is the amount of data collection proportionate for providing the service. I think the answers to both those is no.
I agree with your framing of the two problems, but I’d add a third: It is a large mistake to assume that the person installing the TV (thus agreeing to the ToS) is going to be present whenever it is being used around new people. It just assumes too much about the way people organize their lives, homes, purchases.
Even if they did, it's a bad to let clickthrough TOS subvert laws and privacy. This idea that contracts can dismiss all other considerations needs to die.
Terms of service are not an absolute "I'm rubber you're glue" type shield against all possible accusations of wrongdoing, however much companies would love us to believe they are.
If the device is recording me all the time and silently uploading it, and I'm not aware, I can't give my consent. That's wiretapping, zero-person-consent.
Ask how you (or for that matter, a jury) would feel about your phone doing the same.
If the Tesla is monitoring for whether you are awake behind the wheel and sounds the alarm without that information ever leaving the car, that is another thing entirely.
What were they thinking? And most importantly: what TV are they using at home?
I'm guessing this is an oversight and the TV does record, but then this is criminal. But, nobody will bother to prosecute them I guess...
The discussion seems to imply that they are seen only after purchase (I haven't read the article).
If that is so they are void and unenforceable in most jurisdictions as you cannot agree to something in a contract that you cannot read.
Are such terms enforceable in the US?
We have sugar-free, lactose free I want Smart free devices!!!
TV with smart features: $999. TV without smart features: $1,200
Is there a DNS setting in LG? Could it be as simple as switching to a local DNS server on your network running nextdns.io?
Or what I am trying to say: Everybody has devices which have the potential to spy on you.
Unless your first name is Richard, only travel with open source hardware and software, and you have to ask someone to lend you a phone if you want to call someone even when you are at home.
Of course, the AVR will be able to snoop and send what is available. Any smart fridges, ovens, appliances, whatever can. Doesn’t mean that they or should. Also doesn’t mean we should just lie down and give up.
10+ years later, this is their response. They have learned a large majority of people just don't give a shit. We are sheep. A majority of people just want "cheap" shit, no matter the cost.
This world is cooked man. Need an asteroid to wipe this planet clean, bro.
No network connection, apparently the BBC thinks I should use the LG app to watch UHD TV, perhaps they’re in league with LG