[freeplay]

I think they burried the lede here. Conversations with Siri are probably pretty generic but being able to evesdrop on keyboard dictation is pretty severe. I know people that use dictation for the majority of their text messages and email.

[girvo]

> I know people that use dictation for the majority of their text messages and email.

Yeah, I'm one of them. The iOS keyboard has slowly become so bad that it's easier to dictate instead, and my partner does the same while driving via CarPlay. This is horrible to read about.

[wingerlang]

I recently saw a conversation somewhere about this, people said turning off swipe-typing made a significant difference in the keyboard experience. Haven't tested it myself as I use swipe, and have no issues. But might be worth a try.

[ollysb]

Wow, this makes a huge difference, to the point where I can type without even looking at the keyboard (tried with and without looking).

[Foobar8568]

I moved from a Huawei P10 plus to a fairphone 4, and I'm not sure what happened but the typing and autocomplete experience is awful

[zote]

Maybe it's the keyboard, Huawei phones usually had SwiftKey as the default keyboard

[girvo]

I saw that too. It definitely helps! But it’s still less accurate somehow even than it used to be afterwards

[emrah]

Huh it appears to be true

[cstejerean]

Even worse, it looks like on MacOS you can just straight up start recording on-demand, no need for dictation or siri.

> Even worse, this particular exploit would also allow the app to request DoAP audio on-demand, bypassing the need to wait for the user to talk to Siri or use dictation.

[SamuelAdams]

And this is why I have the internal microphone disconnected on my macbook pro. The only time a mike is attached is when I'm actively using it, and even then they have hardware kill switches.

Simple kill switches would be nice to see but I doubt Apple would ever implement something like that.

[lilyball]

The internal microphone is entirely unrelated to this bug.

[coldtea]

It's not this bug that's the reason he has the internal microphone disconnected. It's the presense of such bugs...

[dontbenebby]

>I think they burried the lede here. Conversations with Siri are probably pretty generic but being able to evesdrop on keyboard dictation is pretty severe. I know people that use dictation for the majority of their text messages and email.

I agree with your take!!

If you scroll to the "Full TCC Bypass on macOS" portion, you can see that this bug allows folks to turn on an Airpod and direct that audio to a macOS device. This could enable what is known as a Tempest Attack[0,1]

>BTLEServerAgent did not have any entitlement checks or TCC prompts in place for its com.apple.BTLEAudioController.xpc service, so any process on the system could connect to it, send requests, and receive audio frames from AirPods. This exploit would only work on macOS, because the more restricted sandbox of iOS prevents apps from accessing most global mach services directly.

Stuff like that are why I hate Bluetooth in general, and I'm on the fence if either my laptop OR phone will be Apple products when I replace them.

(They seem to cater to people who replace their devices every year and camp out outside the Apple store for new Apple stuff like nerds rather than the folks who didn't want to spend every weekend messing with kernel drivers and thus adopted what I will continue to refer to as "shiny BSD" even though they long since changed the name from OSX to macOS.)

-- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)#Public_rese... [1] http://m6rqq6kocsyugo2laitup5nn32bwm3lh677chuodjfmggczoafzw[...

[aquajet]

How many people use diction? I'm surprised cause I know virtually no one who uses diction, myself included.

[crazygringo]

I use it constantly for brainstorming ideas and thinking out loud. Very rough first drafts of essays, stuff like that.

Basically whenever I just want to get my thoughts out and I'll be the only person reading it, so I don't worry about typos because I can always figure out what I meant.

It's a godsend in terms of speed. I type fast but my brain still goes faster. But I definitely speak faster than I can think.

It only works privately in an office or at home though, obviously. Not helpful on the subway.

[jdwithit]

My father in law (mid 70s) uses it constantly to compose text messages. I'm not sure I've ever seen him type one.

[girvo]

My partner uses it constantly while driving. It's illegal to use a phone while driving, and we have cameras everywhere that will catch you if you have it in your hand and smack you with a near $500 fine and points on your license. So dictation is extremely common.

[code_duck]

To throw in my anecdote: very frequently. I've been using it since I first saw it as an option in 2013. Only on my phone, never on my laptop.

[ok_dad]

My mother does it because of arthritis. Constantly.

[JustSomeNobody]

I use it when I want to send a text message that's longer than a few words. As long as I can do that without being a jerk to those around me.

[throwaway290]

I use dictation a lot, I hate typing on touchscreens and hate voice messages.

[JKCalhoun]

Ha ha, worse, I use it so often in Messages that when I leave an actual voice mail I say out loud, “Period” to end a sentence.

[throwaway290]

Same happened to me most times I tried to use voicies. Question marks, commas, full stops...

[dmd]

Me, all day pretty much.

[willis936]

I don't for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the possibility of an exploit that leaks it. I don't trust software.