Used the app for a few days, and realized that keeping TikTok out of the hands of US tech companies is best for the users.
1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.
2. (Most important) copyright hunters will have a harder time ruining the experience.
3. Includes the ability to DOWNLOAD videos! (this blows my mind. I mean, consider the cat and mouse game google and others play to make video downloads difficult/impossible)
Yeah. This kind of interface problem is absolutely mind blowing to me. iOS especially always feels almost dumb enough to be unusable to me in comparison with my computer. For example, the other day I just wanted to download an Mp3 to my phone so I'd be able to play it at night with the cellular network turned off.
It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible on iOS, and there are no native apps which helped with the problem. I had to jump from questionable app to questionable app until one would let me "paste a youtube link in" which eventually worked; albeit, it still won't let me play my new song in the native music app! It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.
Try using a mp3 or whatever as a ringtone or alarm tone. Laughs We don't do that around here. I'm not even sure you can buy extra ringtones from the app store. Think different. And with different I mean e unison.
I’m not sure exactly what you tried, but it’s actually quite easy to download a file to the Files app.
As a quick sanity check: use something like YoutubeToMP3 [0] to generate an audio file. Then, clicking the URL of that MP3 will prompt a download modal that will save straight to the Downloads folder in Files - right from Safari.
Is there anyone that comes out worse from the U.S. + China TikTok saga than Kevin Mayer?
He left leading Disney's streaming division after being passed over for CEO to become Bytedance's COO and CEO of TikTok, only to leave three months later during the company's toughest time.
Now we learn Bytedance isn't actually selling its operations to Oracle and the the most valuable startup in the world marches on to market dominance without him. Huge reputation hit.
This might just save Bytedance/TikTok. Any word on when they will go public?
Their TikTok app sort of has first-mover-advantage in the new realm of AI-recommendation-engine that actually is worthwhile. Their AI algorithm is the key.
Netflix and YouTube uses the same algorithm for video recommendations, but to be honest, that implementation is not as relevant in adding more value to those companies.
I'm an avid tt user but frankly their algo is little more than "show them videos from their area". They used to allow you to ignore videos from certain users but the feature was retired. Their recommendation engine is on the same level as youtube's and probablt not as good as spotify's algo.
As I've said before: try using tiktok and tapping "not interested" on any food video that comes up. After a month of doing this they will still show you food videos in the fyp.
Their feed is extremely edited by their moderators and AI has very little to do with it.
Was there ever any information on what specifically made him leave? I can't imagine he was completely unaware of the fact that there are tensions around TikTok and that it would impact his job.
It paves the way to normalizing corruption from the highest level in America. This means businesses with US operations (US businesses as well as foreign businesses) will forever be aware of this corruption and try to curry favor with the highest levels. If they don't curry favor, they will find other ways or simply avoid the American market. This means America is now more like third world democracies than a real pioneer of freedom.
Thus, the deal accomplished something that forever scars business in the US.
Exactly. It's a handout to Trump's buddy Larry Ellison, and it screws perceived political opponent Google by canceling a big existing cloud contract. Trump has to love everything about this deal. But that isn't the worst part.
The worst part is that this screws the future of the open internet by establishing precedent for segregating everything by country. The US was probably the biggest force supporting a global network without borders. Now that's all hypocrisy. The future of the internet is clear, if it wasn't before: Great Firewalls around every country. It will be really bad for Silicon Valley as a whole and that's yet another reason for Trump to love this deal. He's building a wall on the internet too.
> That makes it less of a sale and more of a glorified hosting deal. It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else. [from the article]
Trump is in every way no different than a 3rd world dictator. And this is just yet one more way.
Maybe the opposite is true? Ellison being administration-friendly acted as a stalking horse and gets the deal because it doesn't really change TikToc's business, but makes for a campaign press-release.
I don't understand why the Verge is framing this as likely to be approved. It seems like the Gov't. told Bytedance to divest from US Operations, Bytedance refused to divest and instead set up this trusted tech partner thing, which means that no IP will be change hands and control will still be maintained.
This deal seems not to meet the requirements set out by the US Gov't. Have the goalposts been moved or will this deal be rejected?
It will be approved, the goal was to put it in a place where the US government (read: trump goons) could control and monitor it, and Oracle is such a place. Larry Ellison is a huge trump donor so there’s zero chance it gets held up.
I would like to understand if Oracle gets to see the user data. If yes, that might be a good deal for them because the data, especially at such large scale, is very valuable.
In this case, they would not need TikTok's algorithms, as they can develop/train their own from TikTok's data.
If Oracle can not see the user data, then it's just a glorified hosting deal, as people mentioned.
> "It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."
If you're in ByteDance's shoes, this sounds like a perfect counteroffer to the US government position. If you believe the US concern might be more politics than governance, you offer a solution that gives a political win with minimal operational impact.
Readit News
1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.
2. (Most important) copyright hunters will have a harder time ruining the experience.
3. Includes the ability to DOWNLOAD videos! (this blows my mind. I mean, consider the cat and mouse game google and others play to make video downloads difficult/impossible)
It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible on iOS, and there are no native apps which helped with the problem. I had to jump from questionable app to questionable app until one would let me "paste a youtube link in" which eventually worked; albeit, it still won't let me play my new song in the native music app! It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.
https://ytmp3.cc/ provides a general purpose online youtube to mp3/mp4 conversion service with no fee or registration.
As a quick sanity check: use something like YoutubeToMP3 [0] to generate an audio file. Then, clicking the URL of that MP3 will prompt a download modal that will save straight to the Downloads folder in Files - right from Safari.
[0]: https://ytmp3.cc/
https://support.spotify.com/us/article/Listen-to-local-files...
Spotify has pretty low-level access to playing music on iPhones.
It does. The issue is that the alternative brings its own set of user hostile behaviour. At least this devil I already know.
The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.
I'm using TikTok lite.
TikTok only requested STORAGE permission when I wanted to save a video. That's all.
Tubemate - one of those youtube apps requires: Read phone state and location permissions. Won't launch without it.
He left leading Disney's streaming division after being passed over for CEO to become Bytedance's COO and CEO of TikTok, only to leave three months later during the company's toughest time.
Now we learn Bytedance isn't actually selling its operations to Oracle and the the most valuable startup in the world marches on to market dominance without him. Huge reputation hit.
Their TikTok app sort of has first-mover-advantage in the new realm of AI-recommendation-engine that actually is worthwhile. Their AI algorithm is the key.
Netflix and YouTube uses the same algorithm for video recommendations, but to be honest, that implementation is not as relevant in adding more value to those companies.
As I've said before: try using tiktok and tapping "not interested" on any food video that comes up. After a month of doing this they will still show you food videos in the fyp.
Their feed is extremely edited by their moderators and AI has very little to do with it.
It paves the way to normalizing corruption from the highest level in America. This means businesses with US operations (US businesses as well as foreign businesses) will forever be aware of this corruption and try to curry favor with the highest levels. If they don't curry favor, they will find other ways or simply avoid the American market. This means America is now more like third world democracies than a real pioneer of freedom.
Thus, the deal accomplished something that forever scars business in the US.
The worst part is that this screws the future of the open internet by establishing precedent for segregating everything by country. The US was probably the biggest force supporting a global network without borders. Now that's all hypocrisy. The future of the internet is clear, if it wasn't before: Great Firewalls around every country. It will be really bad for Silicon Valley as a whole and that's yet another reason for Trump to love this deal. He's building a wall on the internet too.
Trump is in every way no different than a 3rd world dictator. And this is just yet one more way.
Over time, the congress has 'delegated' more and more powers to the president making the US more and more a revolving dictatorship.
This deal seems not to meet the requirements set out by the US Gov't. Have the goalposts been moved or will this deal be rejected?
Hey we know you're spying using TikTok. Share the tool you use to spy so we can see, too.
China said: OK fine but you can only spy on your own citizens. Plus we also still get to.
Is that right?
In this case, they would not need TikTok's algorithms, as they can develop/train their own from TikTok's data.
If Oracle can not see the user data, then it's just a glorified hosting deal, as people mentioned.
If you're in ByteDance's shoes, this sounds like a perfect counteroffer to the US government position. If you believe the US concern might be more politics than governance, you offer a solution that gives a political win with minimal operational impact.