Tech firms rush to assess damage from CIA leak

Written by

Wall Street Journal:

Just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, mobile phones belonging to executives on Apple Inc.’s security team began to ring. WikiLeaks had just published a massive trove of documents, purportedly taken from the Central Intelligence Agency, that described the spy agency’s intrusion capabilities for computers and other gadgets, including iPhones.

Apple engineers quickly began calling colleagues to bring them up to speed on the data dump and to coordinate the company’s response to this new security threat, according to a person familiar with the situation.

WikiLeaks dumps, the rest of the world jumps.

Netflix adding tech that lets you edit storylines with your remote

Written by

Daily Mail:

Whether you love happy endings or a harsh blast of reality in TV dramas, you could soon be able to decide what you get. Netflix, the TV-streaming company behind hit shows such as The Crown and House Of Cards, is working on ways to give viewers control of key plot decisions.

Some of the storylines will be simple and linear, like the Choose Your Own Adventure books many grew up with.

For example, viewers might decide whether an inmate in the prison drama Orange Is The New Black joins a gang or not.

This is a fascinating development. Imagine a future where you can steer movie plots based on your preferences. Or, perhaps, an AI in your Apple TV could know you well enough to choose and customize content for you. The future!

Searching your Mac and iOS photo library

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If you’ve never tried doing a search in your Mac or iOS photo library, check out this post for Mac and this post for iOS. There are some searches you can do without any prep work on your part (search for “cat” or “water”), but some searches do require some effort on your part (search for a particular person, for example).

I do wish there was a way to run a search on all images on my device, rather than just the images that have been imported into Photos. I suspect that eventually, images on our devices will all be tagged in some way, all backed up, and all searchable, whether we created them or not.

Team plagiarizes Golden State Warriors. Team is undefeated.

Written by

New York Times:

Steve Green, the men’s basketball coach at South Plains College, was recovering from an up-and-down season last summer when he decided he needed to make a change. So he planted himself in front of the television in his living room and began to study — really study — his favorite team.

Green scribbled down every cut, every back screen and every curl. In pursuit of a goal that was so ambitious that it bordered on audacious, he consulted with his assistants and overhauled his playbook.

The results? His team is 28-0 entering the post-season. Audacious plan. Visionary. And it worked.

Apple’s official comment on Wikileaks, CIA, and Apple product hacking tools

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From the New York Times:

In what appears to be the largest leak of C.I.A documents in history, WikiLeaks released on Tuesday thousands of pages describing sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.

And from Business Insider:

According to the WikiLeaks files, it appears that the CIA has teams specifically dedicated to breaking into Apple products, including iOS, the software that runs on iPhones and iPads, and even Apple’s line of routers, AirPort.

The WikiLeaks files suggest that the CIA may have access to undiscovered and unreported bugs, or exploits, in iOS, the iPhone operating system.

Business Insider posted this official comment from Apple:

Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers’ privacy and security. The technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we’re constantly working to keep it that way. Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 percent of users running the latest version of our operating system. While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities. We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates.

Ever since this issue started to emerge, I’ve always felt that our interests and Apple’s are aligned, that Apple has our back here.

The Bluetooth keyboard Apple should be making

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A battery that lasts an entire year before you need a recharge. Pair with 4 different devices, each one getting its own dedicated keyboard button to make switching between devices trivial. Supports Mac and iOS devices.

At $95, this looks like a no-brainer purchase. Great find by Jeff Benjamin. Watch the video in the main Loop post and buy the keyboard here.

Patient plays guitar during brain surgery

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[VIDEO] Daily Mail:

‘I was told that I had to undergo a surgery and there were two methods. One totally sedated or, two, to wake me up during surgery.’

But because the second option had a much greater chance of success, he decided to choose that.

My guess is, they wanted to make sure they were cutting in the right place, his ability to play the guitar was an indicator. Both oogy and fascinating. Video embedded in the main Loop post.

NY Times: Apple’s devices lose luster in American classrooms

Written by

Natasha Singer:

Apple’s Macs and iPads have lost significant ground in the U.S. educational market during the last three years, in 2016 slipping to third place behind Chromebooks and Windows devices, according to new research.

The research in question is this report from Futuresource. From the report:

At an operating system level, Chromebooks continue to gain market share, reaching 58% in 2016, up from 50% in 2015. The strong combination of affordable devices, productivity tools via G-Suite, easy integration with third party platforms/tools, task management/distribution via Google Classroom and easy device management remains extremely popular with US teachers and IT buyers alike.

And:

Whilst the growth of Chromebooks has certainly been a major headache for Apple and Microsoft, they are not standing still. Both made major developments through 2016, Apple announcing the ‘Classroom’ app and major education focused functionality updates on iOS 9.3, including the ability to share iPads.

To me, the issue is not Apple devices losing luster. As the linked report makes clear, this is about the growth of Chromebooks and the Google ecosystem. Google’s ecosystem is incredibly affordable, just perfect for the education market.

Apple sues Qualcomm in UK court

Written by

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. sued Qualcomm Inc. in a U.K. court, adding to lawsuits across the globe in a sprawling battle over patents and licensing fees between the iPhone developer and the largest designer of mobile phone chips.

And:

Apple is separately suing Qualcomm in California, accusing it of monopolizing the market for chips for wireless devices and withholding $1 billion in retaliation for cooperating with South Korean antitrust authorities.

At the heart of the dispute between Apple and Qualcomm is a push by phone makers, with support of some regulators, to reduce the patent royalties Qualcomm charges. Qualcomm gets the bulk of its revenue from selling chips, but more than half of its profit from a separate licensing business.

Sprawling. Exactly.

Bare Bones to retire TextWrangler, fold features into BBEdit

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If I read this right, Bare Bones Software will take all of TextWrangler and fold it into the demo version of BBEdit. When your free 30-day demo expires, you’ll still have basic BBEdit features and ALL of the TextWrangler features.

Smart move, and respectful of the user base. And it still doesn’t suck.

My 2015 MacBook Pro Retina exploded

Written by

Daniel Dourvaris:

One afternoon as I was lying on my bed browsing the internet, my MacBook Pro suddenly turned off. I turned it back on and within a few seconds there was weird hissing sound, followed by white smoke and thin flames coming out of from the back.

I got up and ran with the laptop for the bathroom where I could put it on the ceramic tiles. Not more than ten seconds had passed and already the heat from the bottom of the laptop burnt my middle and ring fingers so badly I had to let it drop.

And:

There was a bang as I backed away causing the back to pop and smoke kept pouring out. It kept sizzling for a few minutes and then finally it stopped.

The house had filled up with smoke everywhere, the acidic stench of melted plastic made my eyes water.

Look at the pictures. Amazing. Looks like melted modeling clay.

This is scary.

It’s long been known that Lithium batteries can swell up inside a computer case, causing problems with, for example, the trackpad in some older designs, as they are being pressed from beneath. But that’s nothing compared to the danger of a situation like this.

WSJ: New iPhone to have USB-C for power instead of lightning connector

Written by

Takashi Mochizuki, Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. has decided to adopt a flexible display for one model of the new iPhone coming out this year and has ordered sufficient components to enable mass production, people familiar with the matter said.

And:

They said Apple would introduce other updates including a USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company’s original Lightning connector.

Two pretty big claims. The transition from lightning to USB-C makes sense to me. The MacBook and MacBook Pro have made the switch to USB-C for power. Presumably, this unified approach would allow me to travel with a single power adapter/cable which I could use for both MacBook Pro and iPhone.

And Apple adhering to a widely adopted standard could only help them in their negotiations with other countries who have long ago made clear their preference for standardized vs proprietary phone chargers.

As always, take these rumors with a grain of salt.

Warren Buffett on Apple and stickiness

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Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, one of the world’s shrewdest, hardest working investors. He does his homework before he spends a dime.

As has been widely reported, Buffett more than doubled his ownership in Apple stock (was 59M shares on Dec 31, now up to 133M shares) so far this year. In yesterday’s interview with CNBC, Buffett lays out his logic. Compelling.

You can watch part of his more than three hour interview here.

From the official transcript:

When I take my great-grandchildren to Dairy Queen they bring along friends sometimes. They’ve all got a iPhone and, you know, I ask ’em what they do with it and how … whether they could live without it, and when they trade it in what they’re gonna do with it. And of course, I see when they come to the furniture mart that people have this incredible stickiness of — with the product. I mean, if they bring in an iPhone, they buy a new iPhone. I mean, they’re … it just has that quality. It gets built into their lives. Now, that doesn’t mean something can’t come along that will disrupt it. But the continuity of the product is huge, and the degree to which their lives center around it is huge. And it’s a pretty nice, it’s a pretty nice franchise to have with a consumer product.

And:

what I do know is when I take a dozen kids, as I do on Sundays out to Dairy Queen they’re all holding their Apple, they barely can talk to me except if I’m ordering ice cream or something like that. And then I ask ’em how they live their lives. And the stickiness really is something. I mean, they do build their lives around it, just like you were describing. And the interesting thing is, when they come into … when they come into get a new one, they’re gonna get they overwhelmingly get the same product. I mean, they got their photos on it and, I mean, yeah, I know you can … you can make some shifts and all that. But they love it.

And:

Apple strikes me as having quite a sticky product and enormously useful product that people would use, and not that I do. Tim Cook’s always kidding me about that. But it’s a decision-based … but again, it gets down to the future earning power of Apple when you get right down to it. And I think Tim has done a terrific job, I think he’s been very intelligent about capital deployment. And I don’t know what goes on inside their research labs or anything of the sort. I do know what goes on in their customers’ minds because I spend a lot of time talking to ’em.

Obviously, Buffett doesn’t base his buying decisions on anecdotal evidence. But I feel certain that observations like this trigger some switch that makes him dig deep into the financials. And clearly, Buffett likes what he found.

Apple, Siri, and the inconsistency that comes with complexity

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From Fast Company:

Every phonemaker on the planet has been gunning for Apple for a decade (and a bunch of them are no longer in business). Apple’s speedy and continuous reinvention has kept the competition at bay. New features, new materials, and new designs are cranked out like clockwork, year after year, and at a scale that has become truly astounding. The difficulty of the engineering, manufacturing, and marketing integration required is hard to overstate. And each year, Apple’s products get better.

Well stated. Apple’s products continue to raise the bar. At the same time they continue to get more complex, more sophisticated.

And with that rise in complexity comes cracks in the process. As Dan Moren points out in Adventures in Siri failures, inconsistency is an issue that bedevils Siri.

Hop over to the main Loop post for links to the referenced posts, and some op-ed on Apple, Siri, and complexity.

When will Apple win its first Oscar?

Written by

Andrew Murphy, Loup Ventures:

We think Apple will win an Oscar in the next five years. That’s how long it will take for Apple to scale its original content spend from less than $200m today to $5-7b. The reason why expect $5-7b in Apple original content spend in five years is because Apple must catch up to Netflix and Amazon, the former of which will likely be spending more than $10b per year at that point.

Wait, what? Apple? An Oscar?

Not such an outlandish claim, actually. Apple is still dipping their toes in the original content waters. But once that wheel starts turning, they’ll make deals with quality content creators, in the same was as Netflix and Amazon. This is the new studio system.

Apple Park: March drone footage

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[VIDEO] Apple’s new headquarters is looking tantalizingly close to completion. Some lovely footage here. Can’t wait to tour it. Video embedded in the main Loop post.

The future of Steve Jobs’ iPad vision for Post-PC computing

Written by

Daniel Eran Dilger, Apple Insider:

In 2010, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad as a new product category between the smartphone and notebook. It ended up dramatically shifting demand in the PC industry, but sales have since plateaued. Here’s what Apple can do, has done and is doing to build iPad into the Post-PC future of computing.

And:

The reason Apple is now increasingly targeting PCs in its iPad advertising–rather than other tablets–is that there’s little value left in the outside “tablet market” to grab. Not even the second place tablet maker Samsung is doing well in tablets.

Interesting, thoughtful piece. A bit of a long read, but if you are interested in the business side of the iPad and Mac, worth your time.

BeatsX review: For real? Just pick up some AirPods

Written by

Jordan Novet, VentureBeat:

When I picked up a pair of Apple’s wireless AirPods a few weeks ago, I thought the included charging case was a clever touch.

But the case wound up being so useful that it spoiled me for Apple’s other wireless earbuds, the BeatsX. After two weeks of testing a pair of BeatsX headphones, I’ve found they also fall short of the AirPods in one make-or-break area: battery life.

And there are other drawbacks, too, The AirPods case, with its satisfying clasp, is an instant Apple design classic, whereas the included BeatsX silicone case doesn’t always completely protect your headphones — sometimes parts of the cable end up sticking out. And it gathers lint. Just look at it.

If you are trying to decide between BeatsX and AirPods, this take is worth reading. The difference between the two carrying cases is just one small piece of a larger puzzle, just a taste of each respective product’s approach to design, but in my opinion, a telling taste.

If nothing else, take a look at the image of the BeatsX case in the linked post, then imagine wrestling a rubbery, springy, coiled BeatsX headset into that case. Compare to the plop, plop of dropping your AirPods into their case. Then add in the take on battery life.

If that matters to you, you’re likely an AirPods customer.

Nintendo Switch unboxing, initial impressions

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[VIDEO] If you are into the idea of buying a Nintendo Switch, you’ll want to watch this video, if only to get a sense of the different core accessories that you’ll want to consider, which will add to the $300 price tag. Jump to the main Loop post for the video.

Apple to investigate iPhone 7 that smoked, melted

Written by

Mashable:

Brianna Olivas says her rose gold iPhone 7 Plus exploded and began smoking Wednesday morning when her boyfriend grabbed his phone and began recording. The video, which Olivas shared on Twitter later that day, shows smoke pouring out of one side of the phone and the iPhone’s case melting away.

Here’s the tweet, embedded video:

https://twitter.com/briannaolivas_/status/834556234166448128

While the dramatic video may bring to mind the now infamous Samsung Galaxy Note7, which was recalled after handsets began bursting into flames, there is no evidence what Olivas experienced is tied to a wider problem.

And:

Olivas says she has since turned the phone over to Apple. Reps have told her they are conducting tests and expect to know more within a week. For its part, an Apple spokesperson says the company is aware of the video. “We are in touch with the customer and looking into it.”

We need safer battery tech. Lots of smart minds are working full-time on this problem.

Twitter is locking accounts that swear at famous people

Written by

The Verge:

Last night, developer Victoria Fierce had some harsh words for Vice President Mike Pence. Incensed over the Trump administration’s recent rollback of transgender protections, Fierce let loose on Pence. “Fuck you,” she tweeted. “I gotta piss, and you’re putting me — an American — in danger of assault by your white supremacist brothers.”

Almost immediately, she got the notification. Twitter had detected “potentially abusive activity” on her account, and put her in temporary timeout as a result. For the next 12 hours, only followers could see her tweets — which meant she wouldn’t be able to lobby the Vice President.

Still chewing on the implications here. Victoria’s account was temporarily firewalled (the range of her tweets was limited), not suspended. Not sure I would use the word locked, as The Verge did in their headline. But that nit aside, this is part of Twitter’s new anti-abuse campaign that started rolling out last week.

For the average recipient of abuse, that’s good news: when a troll quote-tweets you with an insult, you simply won’t see it. But the limits are raising new questions in light of the political speech that is often hosted on Twitter. The average person has an expectation that their account will not receive insulting tweets on a regular basis. But what about, say, the president of the United States?

Interesting question, difficult problem to solve.

How to restore data from iCloud

Written by

Michael E. Cohen, TidBITS:

iCloud, however, much like real clouds, is notoriously opaque. It’s hard to see just what you have stored in it. Nonetheless, Apple has made it easy, at least, to fix some truth-related issues in iCloud, and you can do it with a readily accessible tool: a Web browser on any Mac or PC. With it, you can revert to backups of your contacts, calendars, reminders, and shared bookmarks, and even restore files deleted from your iCloud Drive.

If you have an iCloud account, this is worth a walk through, just to get a sense of the available options.

Making your iPhone take dictation

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J. D. Biersdorfer, New York Times, points out a variety of ways to do dictation on your iPhone:

Hold down the iPhone’s Home button (or say “Hey Siri” to wake up the software), say “Make a new note,” and then speak your thoughts — reciting the punctuation like “period” or “comma” aloud. The resulting note can be emailed, copied, pasted or shared with a compatible text app.

And:

In Settings, go to General and then to keyboard to find the Dictation option buried at the bottom of the screen. When the setting is enabled, a small microphone appears on the keyboard of text-entering apps like Notes, Google Docs, Microsoft Word for iOS, or Apple’s own Pages word processor.

That setting is off by default. Check it. Good to know where this is.

Of course, you can also use a variety of apps to do dictation. J. D. highlights a few. Good stuff.

Apple fan finds stack of Apple security docs from 1979-80 in goodwill bin, scans/uploads them

Written by

Ben Vandermeer:

I was at the Seattle Goodwill outlet recently and noticed the Apple logo on letterhead sticking out from a bin of books, so I started digging. What I found were the 1979-1980 files of Jack MacDonald, manager of system software for the Apple II and /// at the time.

They tell the story of project “SSAFE” or “Software Security from Apples Friends and Enemies.” This was a proposal to bring disk copy protection in-house to sell as a service to outside developers. Inter-office memos, meeting notes and progress reports all give a good idea of what a project life cycle looked like. Different schemes and levels of protection are considered, as well as implementation primarily on the Apple II+ and the upcoming SARA (The Apple ///) and Lisa computers. Randy Wigginton is featured prominently throughout, along with mentions of Woz, distribution lists including “S.Jobs” and many other familiar names.

The documents were all a jumble so I’ve put them in chronological order and scanned the collection.

Pretty interesting collection of documents. Here’s a link to the PDF if you want to browse. You’ll definitely see some famous Apple names in there.

An iOS app that never runs out of memory. Why is this great idea necessary?

Written by

Jake Underwood, MacStories, reviewing Moment, an iOS app that takes video, but only keeps either the last 5 or 10 seconds and never runs out of space:

I set my phone up, pressed record, and after a couple of minutes ended the recording. When I opened Photos, the video was there immediately as a clip of the last 5 seconds I recorded.

First, this is a clever idea. It solves a real problem, that of capturing 5 to 10 seconds of video when space on your iPhone is low.

But to me, this raises another issue. Why is this app necessary? Surely Apple understands how frustrating this is. After all, Google built an entire ad campaign around never running out of space when that critical moment comes.

At the very least, why doesn’t the camera app warn you that space is low when it launches? Even better, why not reserve some emergency space and warn the user when they first dip into that reserve. They can still take that critical picture or video, but then they’ll know enough to delete or offload pictures or videos to make more space.

In the short term, we have solutions like Moment.

Here’s a link to Moment in the App Store.

Tim Cook, location, and the image of a corporate HQ

Written by

Wendy Lee, San Francisco Chronicle:

Cupertino is so populated by Apple employees that some people have jokingly called it “Appletino.” Later this year, Apple will open a visitor center, cafe and store to the public at Apple Park, which the city estimates could could draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

In addition to the campus, Apple will continue to have engineers at its buildings on Infinite Loop. Chief executive Tim Cook will move his office to Apple Park.

That last bit has been making the rounds. Seems obvious to me. Where else would Tim Cook keep his office?

More from Wendy:

Apple hasn’t revealed the total cost for the project, but Bloomberg estimated in 2013 that it could be near $5 billion. The design will help the company recruit, and also reflects how Apple is always pushing the envelope on technology, said Mina Chow, a senior lecturer at University of Southern California School of Architecture.

“Corporate headquarters are all about making a statement,” she said. “Even when you had the period of emperors and kings, it’s all about making a statement. Architecture is the identity of a culture. We build what we believe we are.”

And that last bit is the most fascinating to me. We build what we believe we are. And this particular “we” is really Steve Jobs, no?

With your iPhone locked, ask Siri, “What’s my name?”

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This is a bit of a public service announcement. I came across this tweet yesterday:

https://twitter.com/afronomics_/status/833784254848970756

The poster tells the story of finding someone’s iPhone and discovering that she could see all her information, including her home address, on the lock screen. To read through this yourself, tap the embedded tweet (the link just after “please read”).

Without judging the danger of having your phone number exposed on your lock screen, at the very least, it’s worth knowing if this info is exposed.

So take a moment and use an unregistered finger (so you don’t unlock the phone), press and hold your iPhone’s home button, and ask Siri, “What’s my name?”

If Siri says, “You’ll need to unlock your iPhone first”, cool, you’re all set. Now rinse and repeat for your kids iPhones, see what info is exposed on their locked devices.

To customize what Siri reveals on your iPhone, go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode, enter your passcode, then scroll to the section labeled ALLOW ACCESS WHEN LOCKED:. To learn what each of the setting do in this section, jump to this Apple support page, then scroll about halfway down the page. You’ll find links for each of these settings that go into more detail.

And realize that someone who has your phone number can pretty easily find your home address. Know your settings, know what info is exposed on your lock screen.