Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

Written by

Rani Molla, Recode:

If it feels like Amazon’s site is increasingly stuffed with ads, that’s because it is. And it looks like that’s working — at least for brands that are willing to fork over ad dollars as part of their strategy to sell on Amazon.

Jump to the recode article and look at the sample images, especially that big search result for “cereal”. Amazon has long had sponsored ads, but this new move makes it that much harder to find genuine (not paid-for) results.

Amazon, squeezing out every penny.

Apple surveying iMac Pro buyers for key features, suggesting prep for new Mac Pro

Written by

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple has recently been sending out surveys to customers who purchased an iMac Pro, asking them about which features drew them to the pro-level machine and what they like or dislike about the iMac Pro.

And:

Apple regularly sends out surveys of this nature to customers, but this line of questioning on the iMac Pro suggests Apple is perhaps trying to suss out key features that pro-level users want to see in future pro machines, such as the Mac Pro machine that’s in the works.

And:

Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi admitted last year that with the 2013 Mac Pro, Apple designed itself into “a bit of a thermal corner” given the restrictive size of the trash can-shaped Mac Pro and its inability to handle the thermal capacity needed for larger single GPUs.

“A bit of a thermal corner”. Love that turn of phrase. This survey seems a solid sign that Apple is doing their best to learn from their mistakes, hit a home run with next year’s Mac Pro.

Type your name using famous logos

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Follow the link, type your name, or anything you like, and it will be rendered using famous logos.

For example, here’s me:

This exposes something a bit funky about Safari (both on Mac and iOS). Apparently, it does not support color fonts. If you do your typing in Safari, you’re words will appear in black and white. But if you flip over to Firefox (which I did for the image above), you’ll see your logo letters in glorious color.

I’d love to see the creator of this site add more logo letters to the font. There are two capital M’s (Monster and McDonalds), but only one capital A.

Interesting.

Apple Music gains better organization of releases on artist pages

Written by

Federico Viticci, MacStories:

In an update rolled out last night following the release of global top charts, Apple redesigned artist pages on Apple Music with separation of different kinds of music releases.

While the old artist page design of Apple Music mixed albums, singles, EPs, live albums, and more under the same ‘Albums’ section, the new Apple Music features separate sections for different types of music releases. The new sections include singles and EPs, live albums, essential albums recommended by Apple Music editors, compilations, and appearances by an artist on other albums.

This is great news, and a long time coming. Apple is making some terrific moves in the Apple Music space, along with the redesigns of the iOS and Mac App Stores. Kudos.

A deceitful ‘Doctor’ in the Mac App Store

Written by

Patrick Wardle, Objective-See:

You probably trust applications in the Official Mac App Store. And why wouldn’t you?

Yup.

However, it’s questionable whether these statements actually hold true, as one of the top grossing applications in the Mac App Store surreptitiously exfiltrates highly sensitive user information to a (Chinese?) developer. Though Apple was contacted a month ago, and promised to investigate, the application remains available in Mac App Store even today.

Read the post for all the details (good work from Patrick Wardle and Twitter user @privacyis1st) but here’s a good summary from John Gruber, in a Daring Fireball post called The Curious Case of Adware Doctor and the Mac App Store:

What a bizarre story this is. Adware Doctor was a $4.99 app in the Mac App Store from a developer supposedly named Yongming Zhang. The app purported to protect your browser from adware by removing browser extensions, cookies, and caches. It was a surprisingly popular app, ranking first in the Utilities category and fourth overall among paid apps, alongside stalwarts like Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X.

Turns out, among other things, Adware Doctor was collecting your web browser history from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and uploading them to a server in China. Whatever the intention of this was, it’s a privacy debacle, obviously. This behavior was first discovered by someone who goes by the Twitter handle Privacy 1st, and reported to Apple on August 12. Early today, security researcher Patrick Wardle published a detailed technical analysis of the app. Wired, TechCrunch, and other publications jumped on the story, and by 9 am PT, Apple had pulled the app from the App Store.

So the issue was reported on August 12th but not taken down until 26 days later, on September 7th.

But wait, there’s more.

Guilherme Rambo, in a 9to5Mac post titled Additional Mac App Store apps caught stealing and uploading browser history:

When you give an app access to your home directory on macOS, even if it’s an app from the Mac App Store, you should think twice about doing it. It looks like we’re seeing a trend of Mac App Store apps that convince users to give them access to their home directory with some promise such as virus scanning or cleaning up caches, when the true reason behind it is to gather user data – especially browsing history – and upload it to their analytics servers.

Today, we’re talking specifically about the apps distributed by a developer who claims to be “Trend Micro, Inc.”, which include Dr. Unarchiver, Dr. Cleaner and others.

These apps have been removed from the Mac App Store.

This raises some serious issues. Is this the tip of the iceberg? Are there other apps in the Mac App Store that do the same thing, but are not yet discovered? Is this just one technique of many? And what about the iOS App Store?

I am very reluctant to run any app on my Mac unless I either know and trust the developer or the app comes from the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store is a trusted source. If that trust is broken, either on the Mac or iOS, that’s a real problem for Apple.

I’m hoping we see some formal response from Apple, with some sense that they are aware of the issues involved and have new steps in place to root out existing apps that use this “give us access to your Home directory” (or similar) approach, steps that will prevent this issue from recurring.

Paul McCartney, Jimmy Fallon pranking tourists

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[VIDEO] These two clearly have a friendship, as well as a shared enjoyment of a good prank or two. Funny stuff. Video embedded in main Loop post.

On that first one, watch the reaction to Jimmy, then the bigger one to Paul. Just right.

Fountain pen vs iPad Pro

Written by

Reddit:

It came about when I was having a discussion on /r/penmanshipporn about how remarkably like a fountain pen the Apple Pencil feels, in the way it glides over glass. It was clearly designed by someone who loved and appreciated fountain pens, so out of curiosity I wrote the same things side by side. I have tiny handwriting, so it was interesting to see how closely they match. The only reason it does is because the feel of these two writing instruments is SO similar that muscle memory does it justice.

Check out this image, showing the results side-by-side. Apple Pencil is a remarkable achievement.

AirPods for $139

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Frys has what I read as a one-day-only sale on AirPods. Why one-day-only? The promo code embedded in the URL is today’s date.

Complete speculation here, but: Wondering if this is clearing inventory to make way for a new generation of AirPods.

Ken Kocienda, on the process of crafting the very first iPhone keyboard and Apple’s culture of secrecy

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This is just a great read, especially if you are interested in the history of the iPhone and of Apple in general. One tiny highlight:

I was in the audience on that January day [that the iPhone was launched] in early 2007 and when I walked in that morning I didn’t know what the product would be called. We called it “Purple,” which was the code name for the phone, and it was a surprise.

The fact that the team was able to keep the iPhone name a secret until the reveal is amazing to me. Certainly, that name would have been a reasonable guess, given that the iPod existed and this was a phone extension of the iPod. But it would have been speculation, not a leak.

Apple rolling out web portal to respond to government, law enforcement customer/data requests

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Apple:

We believe security shouldn’t come at the expense of individual privacy.

And:

Apple receives various forms of legal process requesting information from or actions by Apple. Apple requires government and private entities to follow applicable laws and statutes when requesting customer information and data. We contractually require our service providers to follow the same standard we apply to government information requests for Apple data. Our legal team reviews requests to ensure that the requests have a valid legal basis. If they do, we comply by providing the narrowest possible set of data responsive to the request. If a request does not have a valid legal basis, or if we consider it to be unclear, inappropriate, or overly broad, we challenge or reject the request. We report on the requests every six months.

We’ll continue working for greater transparency and data security protections on behalf of our customers.

And, most importantly:

Apple has never created a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government direct access to Apple servers. And we never will.

The site has links to Apple’s Transparency Reports, as well as links to Legal Process Guidelines, both for US and non-US requestors.

That “And we never will” is a powerful statement. The portal is said to be rolled out by the end of the year.

911 day time lapse, traveling around the world, no shaving

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[VIDEO] Tell me, by the end of this video (embedded in the main Loop post), you don’t see Jim Dalrymple-like results.

And do stick around to the end (even if you jump there), to see the map showing their travels.

Daring Fireball: iPhone naming rumors, 2018 edition

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Fascinating read. Apple’s branding path here is a puzzle.

iPhone 8, followed by iPhone X. OK, I get that. iPhone X is a new chapter. No more home button, no more Touch ID. New screen technology, new gestures.

So does the word Plus have any value in this new wave? Does the letter “s”, as in iPhone 6s, have any value?

Looking forward to Wednesday’s event.

iPhone X trade-in value at record 68% of new price a week before new iPhones revealed

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

A tech trade-in site says that today’s trade-in value is still 68% of the original sales price even a week before this year’s models are revealed, in strong contrast to one of Samsung’s flagship phones.

With the latest report suggesting that this year’s iPhone X successor, expected to be called the XS or Xs, could start from $800, that could represent an opportunity for a very cheap upgrade to the new model if you have a spare phone you could use to span the gap.

A new iPhone X starts at $999. 68% of that is $679.32. Which, if true that the base price of an iPhone XS is $799, would give you an upgrade price of $119.68.

Interesting. Especially when you consider that Apple offers a max (according to their web site) trade-in value of $290 for your existing phone.

Malware takes advantage of specific Safari setting

Written by

Patrick Wardle, Objective-See (via Michael Tsai):

Once the target is visits our malicious website, we trigger the download of an archive (.zip) file that contains our malicious application. If the Mac user is using Safari, the achieve will be automatically unzipped, as Apple thinks it’s wise to automatically open “safe” files.

This is a pretty long read, but it all comes down to the way macOS Safari treats downloaded files, and one specific setting in Safari Preferences:

Preferences > General > Open “safe” files after downloading

Here’s a picture of that setting, a checkbox down at the bottom of the General tab. I’ve unchecked mine. You might want to take a look at yours.

Key to all this is the word archives at the end. That includes .zip files, which can contain, well, bad stuff.

Read the linked article. As I said, I’ve unchecked my setting, have not yet encountered a problem set that way. This as bad as it seems?

UPDATE: This issue has, apparently, been around since the dawn of time, but that the default is supposed to be unchecked. I just unboxed a new Mac, factory settings, no migration, and the setting was on/checked. Public version of High Sierra.

I invented the iPhone’s autocorrect. Sorry about that, and you’re welcome

Written by

Ken Kocienda:

When I started working with a small team of engineers and designers at Apple in late 2005 to create a touchscreen operating system for Purple—the codename of the super-secret skunk works project that became the iPhone—we didn’t know if typing on a small, touch-sensitive sheet of glass was technologically feasible or a fool’s errand. In those early days of work on Purple, the keyboard was a daunting prospect, and we referred to it, often quite nervously, as a science project. It wasn’t easy to figure out how software might come to our rescue and how much our algorithms should be allowed to make suggestions or intervene to fix typing mistakes. I wrote the code for iPhone autocorrection based on an analysis of the words we type most commonly, the frequency of words relative to others, and the errors we’re most likely to make on a touchscreen keyboard.

More than 10 years after the initial release of the iPhone, the state of the art now is much as it was then. Even with recent advances in AI and machine learning, the core problem remains the same: Software doesn’t understand the nuance of human communication.

Interesting piece. This is part of the publicity effort to promote Ken’s new book, Creative Selection, which went on sale yesterday. Looking forward to reading this.

Apple Park construction time-lapse, and a bit of map wandering

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[VIDEO] Came across this Apple Park construction time-lapse video yesterday (embedded in the main Loop post). The video is from last year, is relatively high resolution, but jumpy. Obviously, this is as many frame grabs as the source data allowed. It did make me wish for both an even higher resolution, and enough images to create a single smooth animation.

Pulled me down a bit of a rabbit hole. First, I went to Google Maps and searched for Apple Park, checked out that satellite imagery. I then searched for Googleplex, to check out the satellite imagery of Google’s headquarters.

Of course, I then had to do the same thing on Apple Maps. As you’d expect, the satellite captures were from different dates, but the image resolution was relatively high. As I explored, I also realized how much of the satellite and Google street view imagery continues to be updated.

To get a better sense of this, I took a look at a giant construction project that is still underway, a building in Philadelphia that will be the tallest building in the US outside of New York and Chicago. To find it, search for:

1800 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA

In Google Maps, you can see the building underway, already pretty tall. In Apple Maps, the site is still a parking map, the building not yet begun.

Not a slam at Apple Maps. I’m sure if I kept looking, I’d find major construction projects where the reverse was true. I just found this interesting.

This year’s iPhones likely to establish a lasting tech lead thanks to 7nm A12 chip

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Apple is likely to establish a technical lead over most smartphone brands as the company moves to a 7nm process for the A12 chip that will power this year’s flagship iPhones. That lead could last well into next year.

And:

This leaves only Apple chipmaker TSMC with 7nm process capabilities, though Samsung has announced plans to develop its own 7nm process in an attempt to win back some of Apple’s A-series chip business. Apple used to split its chip orders between Samsung and TSMC, but the Taiwanese chipmaker beat Samsung to a 10nm process, and has been Apple’s sole supplier since the iPhone 7.

Fascinating. A smaller gap between chip elements means more elements per chip, faster data flow, less heat, and more energy efficiency.

Being first in this particular space to 7nm seems a big deal. That said, Huawei has a 7nm-chip-based phone said to ship in October, and Samsung is hard at work on their own 7nm chip, said to ship in early 2019.

iOS 11 adoption rate hits 85 percent, Android Oreo approaching 15 percent

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As we move close to the official release of iOS 12, Apple has updated their official iOS adoption tracker. 85% of active devices, as measured by the iOS App Store, are using iOS 11, as shown in the pie chart below.

As we always do when Apple updates their numbers, let’s take a look at Android’s official adoption rate numbers. Here ya go:

The two most recent versions of Android are Android 9 Pie (officially released on August 6th) and Android Oreo (August 21, 2017). As you can see, Pie has not yet made a dent in the universe and Oreo is approaching 15% (when you combine Oreo 8.0 and 8.1).

What a difference between the two platforms. The largest issue caused by this fragmentation is the inability to get critical updates out to the masses. Apple is about to release a brand new OS, and it will work on the vast majority of iPhones in the wild. And there are no carriers or third party manufacturers that stand in between users and their updates.

Now that’s the way to polish a rusty knife

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[VIDEO] If you have even the slightest interest in cooking and/or knives, watch the video embedded in the main Loop post. This is just one example from the outstanding JunsKitchen YouTube channel, a rabbit hole of excellence.

There’s a lot to watch for here. Start with the reclamation project, but stay for the incredible knife technique. I am a big fan.

Lyft driver finds Pixel 3 XL in car; No one cares

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Snarky headline, but Gruber has a point:

The almost complete lack of attention paid to this story exemplifies the niche status of Google’s Pixel phones — which is sad, considering that they’re indisputably among the best Android phones.

Short of posts like this, chances are you were not aware that this happened.

Chances are excellent that if one of the new iPhones was left in a Lyft, the internet would have exploded, and someone at Forbes would have written a headline connecting the event to a confirmation of Apple’s demise.

Here’s a link to the original Verge post. If you care.

An Android fanboy spends an enlightening week with an iPhone

Written by

C. Scott Brown, Android Authority:

When the opportunity came up here for a writer to switch to an iPhone for a week to see what it’s like, I jumped on it. I figured this would be a way to put my convictions to the test. Is Android really better for me than iOS, or have I just become complacent and comfortable with Android?

I like the premise. But the execution was flawed.

Take a few minutes to make your way through the article. Scott clearly likes a lot about the iPhone, highlighting lack of clutter, the rewrite of the iOS App Store, iPhone’s superior Bluetooth implementation, and the ease of use of the Camera app.

But one dealbreaker for Scott:

The horrible layout of the keyboard makes you need to do not one, not two, but three taps to insert a comma in a sentence. First, you tap the keyboard-swap button, then you type a comma, then you hit the button to go back to the main keyboard.

Three strokes to use probably the second-most-used punctuation mark in the English language.

But as I pointed out in this tweet this morning, there’s a quicker way to type a comma. Press and slide the number (123) key, release on the comma, and you remain in the alphabetic keyboard. Fast and, once you know about it, easy.

The issue here is low discoverability. And, to me, the flaw in Scott’s experiment was tweeting out his concerns, to see if there are shortcuts (like the comma shortcut) or other solutions with the issues he raised, before he published.

All that said, this was an interesting read for me. There are clearly things iOS does better and things Android does better. Another example Scott raised was the way Android groups Notifications. If only he’d asked. This is a feature Apple has in place in the iOS 12 beta, coming soon to iOS devices everywhere. And iOS’s lack of fragmentation means anyone with an iOS device can get it, either by trying the public beta or waiting a few weeks for the release. No need to wait for a carrier update that might never come.

And those keyboard shortcuts? They’ve been around a long, long time. But if that comma thing was new to you, check out this terrific post (from 2016!) chock full of gems like this.

Thieves hit 5th Bay Area Apple Store in a fortnight, grab $50k’s worth of products

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Thieves have raided the fifth Bay Area Apple Store in less than two weeks, grabbing around $50,000’s worth of display products in less than 30 seconds.

It’s also the fourth time than this particular store has been robbed

And:

Display devices are automatically rendered useless once they leave the store Wi-Fi, but it may well be that thieves are able to sell the devices to people who fail to check them, or that they are broken for parts.

First, I loved the use of the word fortnight in the headline. Made me smile.

Trying to wrap my head around the money trail here. Is there an iPhone parts black market? If so, there’s got to be a lab somewhere where they pull these phones apart. Are the parts that lucrative?

Is it possible the thieves have some way to defeat the Apple security measures and are reselling the devices?

And, finally, this is the fourth time this store has been robbed. Need someone watching the front door for people in cinched hoodies. Maybe some machine learning to watch the front door, ring an alarm if it can’t detect a face.

Apple’s official iPhone 8 logic board replacement program

Written by

Apple:

Apple has determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 8 devices contain logic boards with a manufacturing defect. Affected devices may experience unexpected restarts, a frozen screen, or won’t turn on. Apple will repair eligible devices, free of charge.

Affected units were sold between September 2017 and March 2018 in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, and the U.S.

If you’ve got an iPhone 8 and you are experiencing these sorts of issues, follow the link and enter your iPhone serial number to see if your device qualifies for the program.

Apple discloses minor crash involving self-driving test vehicle

Written by

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. disclosed in a filing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that one of its autonomous test vehicles was involved in a crash.

This is the first time a collision involving an Apple autonomous vehicle has been reported by the California DMV. The car, a Lexus SUV in self-driving mode, was rear-ended by another vehicle when it was preparing to merge onto a highway.

The Apple self-driving car was rear-ended, so this is not a flaw or weakness in Apple’s Project Titan. To me, it is a reminder that Apple operates, as much as possible, in stealth mode.

Will Apple build their own Apple Car, or focus on building software and hardware technologies that can be incorporated by more traditional automakers? If this sort of thing interests you, take a few minutes to make your way through this excellent rollup of what we know about Project Titan.

Long lost original demo of Imagine by John Lennon

Written by

[VIDEO] Jason Kottke:

While sifting through boxes upon boxes of the original tapes for Yoko Ono, engineer Rob Stevens discovered something truly remarkable that had gone unnoticed all these years. “Early 2016, during the gestation period of this project, I’m in the Lennon archives with my people going through tape boxes that have labeling that’s unclear, misleading, or missing entirely”, says Stevens. “There’s a one-inch eight-track that says nothing more on the ‘Ascot Sound’ label than John Lennon, the date, and the engineer (Phil McDonald), with DEMO on the spine. No indication of what material was on the tape. One delicate transfer to digital later, the “Imagine” demo, subsequently enhanced superbly by Paul Hicks, appears within this comprehensive set. It was true serendipity.”

Listen for yourself. Video embedded in main Loop post.

How to use the extra features packed into Apple’s tiny AirPods

Written by

William Gallagher, Apple Insider:

Yes, AirPods are clearly for playing music but you can rapidly choose where that audio comes from —and just what happens when you tap on the AirPods. AppleInsider details all the options.

This article goes beyond simply listing all the options you can assign to taps to each ear. For example, there’s this little nugget:

Just opening the AirPod case tells the iPhone to pay attention and shows battery information. You get the current charge of the case and an average of that for the two AirPods. Put one AirPod in your ear and now you get the individual battery charge for each one.

It’s worth checking this instead of relying on that average, too, because very often the two AirPods will have different levels of charge. Even though you always charge them in the case together, one may be significantly lower than the other.

That’s because one of them may have been acting as a microphone when you’ve received phone calls.

That last bit is pretty interesting and does explain why I sometimes have wildly different charge in my left and right AirPods.

Good post, worth a read.