Why BuzzFeed News premiered a show on Apple News before Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

Written by

Tim Peterson, Digiday:

Apple has become so serious about competing with Facebook, Google/YouTube and Twitter as a distribution outlet for news publishers that it’s paying publishers to unveil shows on Apple News first.

Last month, BuzzFeed News premiered “Future History: 1968,” a documentary series that recaps major events that happened that year, such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the race between the U.S. and Russia to land a person on the moon. BuzzFeed News released the first three episodes exclusively on Apple News, a week before uploading them to Facebook Watch, YouTube, Twitter and its own mobile app.

The Apple News launch was part of a deal in which Apple paid BuzzFeed for the first-window rights to the show’s first three episodes and cut BuzzFeed a share of the revenue from pre-roll ads that Apple sold against the episodes, said Roxanne Emadi, head of audience development at BuzzFeed.

This is a notable development in the news platform wars. Apple paying for news content jibes nicely with their steady investment in entertainment content. Not clear what form “News 2.0” will ultimately settle into. Same for Apple’s entertainment platform. This is all still forming and unfolding, both for Apple and for the rest of the players.

In a related story, this Fast Company piece, titled Say Goodbye To The Information Age: It’s All About Reputation Now talks about the critical importance of reputation in combating fake news. And reputation is one of Apple’s strengths.

The gambler who cracked the horse-racing code

Written by

Bloomberg:

If you bet on horses, you will lose,” says Warwick Bartlett, who runs Global Betting & Gaming Consultants and has spent years studying the industry.

What if that wasn’t true? What if there was one person who masterminded a system that guaranteed a profit? One person who’d made almost a billion dollars, and who’d never told his story—until now?

This is a fascinating read, worth saving for when you have the time to kick back and really enjoy.

Elon Musk: A flufferbot caused the Tesla Model 3 delays

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Elon Musk, from the Tesla earnings call:

We had these fiberglass mats on the top of the battery pack. They’re basically fluff. So we tried to automate the placement and bonding of fluff to the top of the battery pack. Which is ridiculous.

So we had this weird flufferbot. Which was really an incredibly difficult machine to make work. Machines are not good at picking up pieces of fluff. Human hands are way better at doing that. So we had a super-complicated machine. Using a vision system to try to put a piece of fluff on a battery pack. …

The line kept breaking down because Flufferbot would frequently just fail to pick up the fluff. Or put it in a random location.

Over-automation with a delightful name. Good article.

[H/T John Kordyback]

Warren Buffett: Obsessing over iPhone X sales in the near term ‘totally misses the point’ on Apple’s stock

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Warren Buffett, on CNBC’s Squawk Box:

“The idea that you’re going to spend loads of time trying to guess how many iPhone X … are going to be sold in a three-month period totally misses the point,” the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO said in a “Squawk Box” interview that aired Friday. “It’s like worrying about the number of BlackBerrys 10 years ago.”

And:

Apple has “a wide, wide gap. I mean it’s an amazing business,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick. “You can put all of their products on a dining room table.”

I’d like to see a picture of that.

I find it fascinating that one of the wealthiest people on the planet drives through McDonalds every morning for breakfast and has exact change prepped before his order is even rung up.

Follow the headline link to check out the video of this interview. Buffett is an insightful mind, a shrewd investor, and he bought 75 million shares of Apple stock during the first quarter.

Twitter urges users to change their password after bug stored passwords “unmasked”

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Twitter blog:

When you set a password for your Twitter account, we use technology that masks it so no one at the company can see it. We recently identified a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log. We have fixed the bug, and our investigation shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone.

And:

We mask passwords through a process called hashing using a function known as bcrypt, which replaces the actual password with a random set of numbers and letters that are stored in Twitter’s system. This allows our systems to validate your account credentials without revealing your password. This is an industry standard.

Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process. We found this error ourselves, removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.

This seems like a pretty major slip-up. The way I’m reading this, somewhere internal to Twitter, your password was stored “unmasked”. And to me, that means in the clear, in plain-text. Am I misreading this?

No matter. Go to Twitter Settings and change your password.

Alexa, what’s 10 to the power of 308?

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[VIDEO] There’s something very Zen about watching Alexa work through this number, occasionally changing pronunciation and strategy to get through it. (Video embedded in the main Loop post)

And, as a palette cleanser, be sure to ask Siri the same question.

Another life saved by Apple Watch, the new Check Engine light

Written by

Jennifer Vazquez, NBC New York:

The 32-year-old Monzidelis was working at his family bowling alley business, Bowlerland, on April 3, when he became dizzy and went to the bathroom, where he started bleeding. He soon received an alarming notification via his smartwatch telling him to seek medical attention immediately.

And:

Doctors believe that if he hadn’t received his smartwatch notification when he did, he would have not survived his medical emergency because he wouldn’t have paid attention to his symptoms, especially since he was a healthy individual up to that point.

Monzidelis agreed: “I would have been working in my office and they would have found me dead,” he said, adding that he is “very lucky” and “feeling like a million bucks” since the life-threatening and frightening incident.

If you started bleeding, would you head right to the emergency room? Maybe I would, maybe I’d first do some research on my symptoms, or call someone seeking advice.

I think one subtle core point here is that a notification from your Apple Watch to seek medical attention immediately feels like an alarming call to action from a trusted expert. In some ways, Apple Watch is like the Check Engine light on your car. If it comes on, you pay attention (though, some folks do ignore it). If your Apple Watch tells you to seek immediate medical attention, go immediately.

I’ve never read a story about someone’s Apple Watch telling them to seek immediate medical attention that turned out to be a false alarm. That Check Engine light generally means something.

UPDATE: From the comments:

One point that I think is valuable here is to call 9-1-1 instead of taking yourself to the ER. Calling for Emergency Medical Services gets immediate treatment faster than going to an ER where one can easily lose consciousness or having worsening symptoms while en route.

Solid point.

The original iPhone and an oral history of Iron Man’s original heads-up-display

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The original Iron Man still ranks among my all-time favorite Marvel movies (especially the lead up to the in-cave creation of that first prototype suit). If you are a fan, this oral history is an enjoyable read.

But this one bit is especially interesting for Apple folk:

Kent Seki (visualisation/HUD effects supervisor): There were many rules and driving philosophies we established along the way that led us to the final product. I remember in an early discussion in post-production with Jon Favreau. He pulled out his iPhone, which was a new thing at the time. He said, ‘I don’t want to tell you a specific graphic to make for the HUD, but I want it to feel intuitive like my iPhone.’

And:

Dav Rauch (HUD design supervisor): The iPhone had just come out like literally a week or two before the meeting with Jon – and I got an iPhone and Favreau had gotten an iPhone. When I was down there we kind of geeked out on our iPhones, and we were talking about what we liked about the iPhone because he was really inspired by it. He was like, ‘What I love about this thing is it just kind of does what it should do, and it kind of does what I want it to do and it’s very intuitive and it’s very simple.’ We opened it up and I was looking at the transitions in an iPhone. I’m like, ‘These transitions are so simple and they’re just like zooming transitions, or wipe transitions. There’s nothing fancy about this phone, but what’s fancy about this phone is that it works and it works really well.’

Good design is a virus.

[Via Apple Insider]

Using the old Mac OS is pure Zen

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That last post, the look back at the long history of the iMac, goes hand-in-hand with this one, an appreciation of the black and white simplicity of the original Mac OS. If you’ve never had the original Mac experience, take a look at Mark Wilson’s post for a glimpse at what got us here.

And if you are an old-schooler (like me), follow the headline link and immerse yourself in a nice warm pool of nostalgia.

20 years of iMac: A story of relentless design iteration

Written by

Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac:

A 20th anniversary is a milestone worthy of celebration in its own right, but even more so when describing a computer. Few technology products boast such a feat in an industry where changing customer preference and exponential technical advancement can quickly obsolete even the most well-considered plans.

This Sunday, Apple’s iMac line joins the 20-year club. Its ticket to entry is two decades of valuable lessons and ideas that tell the recent history of the personal computer industry and reveal Apple’s priorities and values. The iMac’s timeline tells many stories – some of reinvention and business strategy, others of software and hardware.

Perhaps none are more significant than the iMac’s design story. Explorations of color, form, material, and miniaturization have marked significant breakthroughs throughout the years. On this anniversary week, we’ll take a look at the design evolution of the iMac.

Really nice, long look at the evolution of the iMac. Well done.

Facebook employee fired over bragging about access to user information

Written by

Reuters:

Facebook Inc on Thursday said that it fired an employee accused of bragging on matchmaking app Tinder about his access to private user information.

And:

A Twitter user earlier on Wednesday posted here about the Tinder conversation along with screenshots, saying Facebook’s security engineer is “likely using privileged access to stalk women online”.

Here’s the link to the Twitter post that first exposed this story.

While it’s good that Facebook took quick action here, I think the underlying issue is that this employee had this level of access, that there are no controls in place to prevent this sort of employee overreach.

If the fired employee had this access, doesn’t it stand to reason that there are other Facebook folks, not bragging about access online, with that same level of access?

On the report of 2016 MacBook Pro butterfly keyboards failing twice as frequently as older models

Written by

Mike Wuerthele, Apple Insider:

Following anecdotal reports of a keyboard more prone to failure than in previous years, AppleInsider has collected service data for the first year of release of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 MacBook Pros, with an additional slightly shorter data set for the 2017 model year given that it hasn’t been available for a year yet.

Not including any Touch Bar failures, the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard is failing twice as often in the first year of use as the 2014 or 2015 MacBook Pro models, and the 2017 is better, but not by a lot.

First things first, this is some nice, boots-on-the-ground reporting. The numbers are relatively small, but seems a good, if not precise, indicator of the problem.

Apple has a second-generation MacBook Pro keyboard. It is in the 2017 MacBook Pro, and repaired 2016 models. The repair percentages on those are up from the 2014 and 2015 keyboards as well, but not nearly as much as the 2016.

Note that all Apple Store MacBook Pro stock has the new second-generation butterfly keyboard. You can’t walk into an Apple Store and walk out with the old MacBook Pro keyboard. So the data that matters going forward is the repair data on machines with that new keyboard.

I’d like to see a bigger survey of machines with that new keyboard, to get a surer sense of the success Apple has had in solving the problem. The sense I get in talking with people at my local Apple Store is that the new keyboard design made a world of difference in terms of reliability. This just words? Is the dust problem still there?

One thing that I know is true: There’s no way for an average buyer to take their machine apart and swap out the keyboard if they do encounter this problem. As Mike says, it’s not an easy repair, requiring complete disassembly of the machine.

New typeface with embedded braille, aiming for Tokyo Olympics

Written by

Kosuke Takahashi:

Currently, we rarely see braille implemented in the public space since it takes additional space and sighted people consider it not important. Braille Neue addresses this issue by making braille easy to use for sighted people. By spreading this typeset I believe more people will get acquainted with braille.

I love the concept and the execution. Follow the link, check out the font images. Not the first time this idea has surfaced, but if this becomes part of the Summer Olympic Games official signage, it will get a lot of exposure.

Overcast 4.2: The privacy update

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Marco Arment, on reducing the collection of personal data in the latest release of Overcast:

Your personal data isn’t my business — it’s a liability. I want as little as possible. I don’t even log IP addresses anymore.

If I don’t need your email address, I really don’t want it.

Well that’s refreshing.

[Via Pixel Envy]

The transition to 5G on the iPhone

Written by

Jeff Richardson, iPhone J.D.:

Yesterday, T-Mobile and Sprint announced that they will merge. If the government approves, then we will have only three major wireless companies in the United States. In the communications that I have seen from the two companies, including a joint website that went live yesterday, one of the main themes was that this merger would promote 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. This makes me wonder, what will 5G bring us, and when can we start to use it on the iPhone?

And:

The CTIA, a trade organization for the wireless industry, says that 5G can be 100 times faster than 4G, and a chart on its website predicts a transition from 100 Mbps download speeds to 10 Gbps. 5G will also feature low latency that can make the internet five times more responsive when you initiate each request.

All very interesting, but the most interesting nugget in the piece?

To date, wireless cell technology has been based on huge towers with antennas 125 feet in the air which would provide service for several miles. But it turns out that 5G will be different. 5G is much faster, but the signal doesn’t go nearly as far. So instead of a smaller number of tall towers, 5G will work with a large number of microcells placed around 500 feet apart, often on streetlights or utility poles.

But it won’t just be that microcell on a utility pole. As reported by Allan Homes earlier this year in the New York Times, “[m]uch of the equipment will be on streetlights or utility poles,” but it will often be “accompanied by containers the size of refrigerators on the ground.”

That’s a pretty significant infrastructure requirement. Which, to me, means we’ll only see 5G in the most urban settings.

The whole article is fascinating, suggests we’ll first see 5G iPhone/iPad support in 2020.

Apple, the disappearing headphone jack, and the critical nature of the Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter

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This particular wave of thinking started with this AppleInsider article, Analyst says Apple may forego Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter for new iPhones. From the article:

Apple will probably stop bundling a Lightning-to-3.5 millimeter adapter with this fall’s new iPhones, according to a Barclays memo obtained by AppleInsider.

Head to the main Loop post for some thoughts on all this. […]

Scuttlebutt regarding Apple’s cross-platform UI project

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First, if you haven’t already, take a look at this Mark Gurman article which started it all, titled Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User Experience.

At the core of the article:

Apple is developing the strategy as part of the next major iOS and macOS updates, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. Codenamed “Marzipan,” the secret project is planned as a multiyear effort that will start rolling out as early as next year and may be announced at the company’s annual developers conference in the summer. The plans are still fluid, the people said, so the implementation could change or the project could still be canceled.

True? Not true? It’s a rumor (from last December), but one that got a lot of traction.

Yesterday, John Gruber posted the piece linked in the headline, Scuttlebutt regarding Apple’s cross-platform UI project, which brings some new, well, scuttlebutt to bear:

This “Marzipan” rumor got a lot of people excited. But Gurman’s report is so light on technical details that the excitement is based mostly on what developers hope it could mean, not what’s actually been reported. The less specific the rumor, the easier it is to project your own wishes upon it. And, oddly perhaps, we haven’t seen any additional rumors or details about this project in the four months since Gurman’s original report.

I’ve heard a few things, from first- and second-hand sources. Mostly second-hand, to be honest, but they’re all consistent with each other.

Click over to Daring Fireball to read said scuttlebutt. Interesting and, because it’s John Gruber, there’s a level of credibility that takes it beyond typical rumormongering.

34 days until WWDC.

How to set up the Mac’s hot corners

Written by

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

There are a lot of little tweaks in macOS that I rely on to make a Mac feel like my own. Placing frequently accessed folders on the right side of the Dock, turning off auto-correct, and turning up mouse and trackpad tracking speed are all in this category for me.

A rather hidden but critical example is Hot Corners. My Mac just feels broken with Hot Corners disabled, and my workflow is severely slowed. Here’s how it works.

First thing first, I couldn’t agree more. Hot Corners, part of Mission Control, is an incredibly valuable part of the Mac interface. I expect most of the folks reading this are aware of this longstanding Mac feature. But if you have never taken the time to set this up, or if you are critical support for other, less knowledgable or just plain newer Mac folks, jump on over to Zac’s article and pass the knowledge along.

One thing that really appeals to me about Hot Corners is a bit of science, wrapped up under the title Fitts’ Law. From the Fitts’ Law Wikipedia page:

This scientific law predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target. Fitts’s law is used to model the act of pointing, either by physically touching an object with a hand or finger, or virtually, by pointing to an object on a computer monitor using a pointing device.

If you have to wheel your mouse all the way across the screen to home in on a link, button, or menu title, Fitt’s law kicks in. But wheeling over to a corner is super easy, requires almost no steering. And that’s why Hot Corners is so powerful. You have four easy to get to places on your screen, each of which can be assigned some specific function.

Read Zac’s piece, set up Hot Corners if you haven’t already. It’s worth it.

Apple earnings call, today at 2p PT / 5p ET — A few things to look for

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Apple will hold their quarterly earnings call with investors and analysts today at 2p PT, 5p ET. A few links worth noting:

  • To listen to the 2Q 2018 conference call live, tune in to Apple’s official earnings call stream.

  • This article from Quartz does a nice job stepping through a variety of earnings issues, each with its own trend chart. Very easy to read, with charts that are simple enough to grasp at a glance. One chart I’d search for is a bit less than half-way down, called “Apple’s non-iPhone revenue, by quarter”. Take a look at the Services line. It’s been trending up for a long time. Services has become an important buffer for Apple growth. If that line continues to trend up, that should help take the heat off any issues with iPhone sales numbers.

  • This Bloomberg article walks through some key Apple financial specifics, folding in some links/rumors as well. But what I found most appealing was the Services bar chart as well as these six things to look for from the end of the article:

  • Analysts are looking for revenue of $61 billion in the fiscal second quarter, or 15 percent year-over-year growth, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Earlier this year, Apple forecast sales between $60 billion and $62 billion for the period.

  • Fiscal second-quarter iPhone unit sales are expected to be 51.9 million, up from 50.8 million a year earlier, according to average analyst forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.

  • For the fiscal third quarter, analysts see 39 million iPhones sold, on average, down from 41 million in the same period of 2017.

  • The average selling price for iPhones will be $740 in the fiscal second quarter and $691 in the third, according to average analyst projections.

  • Fiscal second quarter services revenue will hit around the $8.5 billion level reported in the holiday quarter. Munster sees 18 percent to 20 percent growth.

  • Analysts are also looking for growth in Apple’s Other Products unit, which includes the Apple Watch, AirPods and HomePod.

Check your news feed at about 3p PT today. I expect it’ll be full of Apple earnings news.

Siri and the definition of “mother”

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Ran across this on Reddit over the weekend.

Before you start, be aware this is the slightest bit NSFW, so maybe throw on some headphones.

  • Ask Siri: “Define the word mother”
  • Siri will read a definition, then ask if you want to hear the next one.
  • Say yes.

This is kind of funny, and it certainly makes sense. I tested this on my Mac, my iPhone, and on HomePod. I appreciate the fact that all three handled this back-and-forth in exactly the same way. As you’d expect.

[Giant H/T to Robert Walter]

UPDATE: Sadly, Apple nerfed this and it no longer works. I get it, makes sense, I did enjoy it while it lasted.

Steve Jobs speaks passionately about return to Apple in 1997 interview

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[VIDEO] Apple’s deal to buy NeXT was finalized in February 1997, Apple CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997, and Steve was named interim CEO in September 1997. This interview was recorded on October 2nd, 1997.

Good to have a sense of the sequence as you watch the video (embedded in the main Loop post).

How to create a public album with Apple Photos

Written by

Kirk McElhearn:

Back in the day, with .Mac and MobileMe, it was dead simple to make photo galleries to show off your pictures on the web. In 2012, Apple added photo sharing features to iCloud, which are essentially what we have today as shared albums. I had wondered why you couldn’t create a public album, and I mentioned it on Twitter a few days ago. One person pointed out that it was possible, and showed me where the feature was; it’s not easy to find.

Good tip. Kirk walks through the steps of building and linking to an iCloud-based public photo album.

The best replacements for Apple’s defunct AirPort accessories

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Chance Miller, 9to5Mac, lays out his take on the best router and mesh alternatives, now that Apple has end-of-life’d their AirPort line.

Before you dig into Chance’s list, take a moment to read through the list of “features to look for” in Apple’s Choosing a Wi-Fi router to use with Apple devices support note.

My biggest concern about a third party solution is trust. If I buy an Apple branded product, I trust that there’s no malware embedded in the firmware/software. I trust that if a vulnerability is found, it will be patched quickly and that patch will make its way onto my device pretty quickly. I trust that if I do run into a problem with that device, I can turn to Apple, an Apple Store, or to the thriving and friendly on-line community to help solve it.

Apple selling a product does not bring the trust of an Apple-branded product. One case in point, the LG UltraFine 5K Display and the Wi-Fi interference problem. The problem was fixed, but the product was sold by Apple as it exited the display business.

My home network is the weakest point in my on-line security and the router the focal point for attempts to break in. Choosing a router I can trust is a critical decision. I hate that Apple has left this market. And no matter how recommended a router may be, I just won’t trust that my interests will come first with that company.

Apple podcasts top 50 billion downloads/streams, and more than 500K active shows

Written by

FastCompany:

A lot has changed since the early days when iTunes was mostly populated with The Ricky Gervais Show and an assortment of news podcasts repackaged from radio shows. These days, according to Apple, it is home to over 525,000 active shows, with more than 18.5 million episodes available, including content in over 100 languages. Its podcasts span the globe, covering 155 countries and, per Apple, “29 groupings of localized editorial.” In short, if you feel overwhelmed with podcast content–you’re not alone.

Mind-boggling numbers. The back end of the advertising-dollar gold-rush curve.

The Mac’s butterfly-switch keyboard, and another wave of negative sentiment

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There’s another wave of complaints about specks of dust causing MacBook butterfly-switch keyboard to stop working. Rene Ritchie walks through some high profile cases, while balancing that with his own (and others) positive experiences.

A good read, and a problem for Apple.

How so? Even if the number of keyboards that do fail are within the to-be-expected failure rates, the butterfly-switch has developed a negative reputation. I suspect that reputation has cost Apple sales as people turn to alternatives, or just don’t pull the trigger on replacing their aging MacBook Pros. But more importantly, this is tarnishing Apple’s priceless brand.

So far, all we’ve got is deafening silence on the issue.

China’s selfie obsession and the $6 billion company that grew from it

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The New Yorker:

We were at the headquarters of Meipai’s parent company, Meitu, Inc. Its first product, in 2008, was a photo-editing app, also named Meitu (“beautiful picture,” in Chinese), which young people seized upon as a means of enhancing their selfies. The company now has a battery of apps, with names like BeautyPlus, BeautyCam, and SelfieCity, which smooth out skin, exaggerate features, brighten eyes.

The apps are installed on more than a billion phones—mostly in China and the rest of Asia, but also increasingly in the West, where Meitu seeks to expand its presence. The company sells a range of smartphones, too, designed to take particularly flattering selfies: the front-facing selfie cameras have more powerful sensors and processors than those on regular phones, and beautifying apps start working their magic the moment a picture has been taken. Phone sales accounted for ninety-three per cent of Meitu’s revenue last year, and the company is now valued at six billion dollars. Its I.P.O., a year ago, was the largest Internet-company offering that the Hong Kong stock exchange had seen in nearly a decade.

This is a fascinating story. What gets me the most is how big the beautified selfie is in Chinese culture. Seems to me this wave has huge potential and has yet to emerge in the US, at least not in the same way. This seems like a massive business opportunity for the company that figures out how to build the right app.

UPDATE: A check of the Top Paid list on the App Store shows this gem at the top spot: Facetune [H/T James Hill]. Interestingly, it is the only app of its kind in the top 50. An indication of how difficult this is to do and get right?

Swiss watch CEO on the Apple Watch threat

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Peter Stas, CEO of Swiss watch firm Frederique Constant, writing on his personal blog:

I feel that the Swiss watch industry still doesn’t understand how much the Apple watch and other smart watches have eaten into the figures, particularly the figures for quartz movements. The Apple Watch Series 3 is the next level, which moves from notifications and fitness tracking to health orientation. I think this is where we will start to see the true benefits of the smart watch and once again Apple is in the lead. They are starting to inform people if their resting heart rate is too high and are even branching out into medical information. Apple has sold 18 million watches and when I go to the US I see more and more people wearing Apple Watches.

To me, the core statement here is this:

The Apple Watch is now in its third generation and who knows what they will bring with the fourth generation. If they start to adapt the case and have something other than just a black screen then the Swiss watch industry could be heading for trouble.

There is still a divide between the factors that drive classic watch sales and the Apple Watch. In my opinion, people buy an Apple Watch for its functionality and appreciate the touches Apple has added that make an Apple Watch fashionable. But people buy classic watches, like Rolex, Tag Heuer, and Vacheron Constantin, for the fashion elements, elegant construction, and appreciate the functional touches that come along with their pricey purchase.

Apple has stayed in their specific groove with Apple Watch. Though there are color, case material, and band options, each Apple Watch looks the same. If Apple steps out of that groove with this fall’s expected Apple Watch Series 4, that could spell real trouble for Swiss watchmakers.