We heard about this over 2 weeks ago
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/10/airdrop-10-minute-limit...
This is not in response to this particular protest. iOS16 just dropped, so the timing was coincidental I guess.
This is not in response to this particular protest. iOS16 just dropped, so the timing was coincidental I guess.
This already existed. They did not see the current protest and then suddenly released it.
There have been protests via airdrop in china for months.
"The setting was reportedly added after protesters in the country used AirDrop to spread anti-government material."
Most other articles also mention this. I'm not unconvinced this had nothing to do with the feature. I'm just pointing out that this was already in the works. This was not a fast reaction to the current protests.
I don't think this is good. But Apple didn't just roll this out at a whim.
I think the timing and China-only bit is eyebrow-raising, but it'd be nice to know if this is just speculation, or if there's a credible source within Apple that's saying this is the reason why it was rolled out in China right now.
"Event A happened after Event B", is the only thing we can infer from this.
If Apple was planning to release this in a point release of iOS 16, and then the Chinese government asked them to do something, then they could have said: “We have a feature in testing that we’d planned to ship later this cycle, so we’ll push that up and soft launch it in China first and then roll it out worldwide once any bugs are hammered out.”
This constructed example both satisfies the condition “why China first?” and also contradicts the assertion “it is certain that Apple implemented this at China’s request”. It is not known whether or not, and to what degree, that Apple considered and/or acted upon a request from China.
(It is also very unlikely that China requested this “after 10 minutes” option specifically. China would rather not have unmonitored peer-to-peer communications, and Apple tends to include temporary timers in their UI for RF/GPS features.)
Apple should have hedged years ago, now they’re stuck.
But it gets far more clicks today than weeks ago.
Being pedantic about whether this was was a response to "a previous protest" is like arguing about which specific mosquito caused you to put on bug spray.