Lots and lots of thoughtful comments. Worth scrolling through.
Apple
Drawing and smart annotation with the new Pages
[VIDEO] Jeff Benjamin does an excellent job showing off the new Pages (video embedded in main Loop post). Even though it was announced at yesterday’s Education event, the new Pages is for all of us and is available now. Smart annotation is an excellent add. No crayon required.
All about the Logitech Crayon
From Logitech’s official Crayon specs page:
Using the same technology found in Apple Pencil®, Logitech Crayon delivers sub-pixel precision, lightning fast responsiveness, and dynamic tilt to bring new dimensions to learning.
Not quite the same as Apple Pencil. No pressure sensitivity. But it also sells for $49 versus the Apple Pencil’s $89 (since Crayon is only sold through Education market, makes sense to compare to Apple Pencil education price). For students, I suspect the Logitech Crayon will be just fine.
iPad has palm rejection technology that ignores any touch that doesn’t come from Logitech Crayon, so students can stop worrying about their hands and just focus on the task at hand.
And:
A flat shape prevents Logitech Crayon from rolling off desks or getting lost.
Hmm. I wonder why Apple doesn’t consider this.
Logitech Crayon has almost 8 hours of writing time between charges — enough for a full school day. Additionally, a fast charging option provides 30 minutes of battery in 90 seconds.
Lots of good stuff here. One important thing to note: The Crayon does not use Bluetooth. Its wireless frequency is specific to the iPad announced yesterday. Just as Apple Pencil will not work with an iPhone, Crayon will not work with other iPads.
All told, this seems a great solution for the education space. And the way I read this, looks like Crayon is only available through the Apple Education channel.
Will Apple IBM Deal Let Watson Replace Siri For Business Apps?
Bob O’Donnell, Tech.pinions:
Even though it wasn’t the first time that Apple and IBM have announced partnerships in the enterprise space, as a long-time tech industry observer, there’s still part of me that finds it surprising to see an Apple executive speak at an IBM event.
Such was the case at last week’s IBM Think conference in Las Vegas, where the two announced that IBM’s Watson Services was going to be offered as an extension to Apple’s CoreML machine learning software. Essentially, for companies who are creating custom mobile applications for iPhones (and iPads), the new development means that enterprises can get access to IBM’s Watson AI tools in their iOS business applications.
And:
At a basic level, you could argue that there may be future battles between Siri and Watson. Given all the difficulties Apple has had with Siri, versus the generally much more positive reaction to Watson, that could prove to be a significant challenge for Apple.
Lots more to process in the article, definitely an interesting read, but at the heart of this IBM/Apple collaboration is the collision course between Watson and Siri.
Will the partnership cede the business space to Watson’s brand? Will Siri have a role there? Will they share the space, with Siri handling the admin work and Watson the analysis?
All interesting (to me at least) questions. And it points to a future problem, as the world gets filled, more and more, with devices that interact with the likes of Siri, Alexa, GooglePerson, Cortana, and yes, even Watson. I’d like to see a standard evolve for this sort of interaction, something that allows me to ask Siri to interact with a hotel’s services, even if they are provided by IBM or Amazon. Food for thought.
Tim Cook calls for more regulations on data privacy
Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook has called for stronger privacy regulations that prevent the misuse of data in the light of the controversial leak of Facebook user information.
Cook called for “well-crafted” regulations that prevent the information of users being put together and applied in new ways without their knowledge during a session on global inequality at the annual China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday.
Two quotes from Tim:
“I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” Cook said after being asked if the use of data should be restricted in light of the Facebook incident. “The ability of anyone to know what you’ve been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life — from my own point of view it shouldn’t exist.”
And:
“We’ve worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them, that one day something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it,” he said. “Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once.”
Apple goes to Hollywood. Will its story have a happy ending?
John Koblin, New York Times:
Known for its bold designs and its big marketing campaigns, Apple relishes its status as a dominant force in the corporate world. So it was noteworthy when one of its executives, Eddy Cue, struck a note of humility during a discussion this month at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Tex.
“We don’t know anything about making television,” said Mr. Cue, a senior vice president who oversees the team in charge of the company’s original programming initiative. “So what skills does Apple bring to that? And the viewpoint is: very little. There’s other things we bring. We know how to create apps, we know how to do distribution, we know how to market. But we don’t really know how to create shows.”
And:
Since October, Apple has made deals for 12 projects, nine of them “straight-to-series” orders — an aggressive method of creating new programming that skips the pilot-episode stage.
When Apple began courting producers last year, it said it had a budget of about $1 billion to work with. Now it is becoming clear that the company will blow well past that figure.
And some numbers:
With the rise of streaming, the old Hollywood system is cracking. With plans to spend up to $8 billion on content in 2018, Netflix has committed to a strategy of offering something for everyone, and other companies have been tempted to try their luck in an increasingly crowded field. There were 487 scripted shows released last year, a number that will rise to more than 500 in 2018.
Apple recognizes the importance of playing in this space, recognizes the opportunity that comes from a major business model in transition. They’ve got the cash to aggressively move in, creating content on the fly. There will certainly be mistakes along the way, but this is a new frontier and Apple will learn by doing. I think this is smart, long term thinking.
I think this headline will defy Betteridge’s law and the answer will be yes.
Netflix barred from competing at Cannes
Film festival head Theirry Fremaux, on allowing two Netflix films in the Palme d’Or competition last year:
“Last year, when we selected these two films, I thought I could convince Netflix to release them in cinemas. I was presumptuous, they refused.”
And:
At the time, Netflix tried to secure temporary permits to screen the films for less than a week in France, day-and-date to their online releases. That move wasn’t permitted because of France’s strict chronology laws and the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement.
As a result, the festival has changed the rules to require theatrical release in France.
And:
“We have to take into account the existence of these powerful new players: Amazon, Netflix and maybe soon Apple.”
The film industry is changing rapidly. The movie Unsane is in theaters right now. It was filmed exclusively using iPhones, no film cameras involved.
Netflix is being barred from Cannes competition because they do not show their films in theaters. Why not prohibit Unsane because it was not truly “filmed”? To me, this move shows Cannes as a purist, for sure, but also shows Cannes as a festival rooted in the past.
Apple proposes new accessibility emojis
Emojipedia:
In a submission to the Unicode Consortium today, Apple has proposed a suite of new “accessibility emojis”.
New emojis proposed include a guide dog, hearing aid, prosthetic limbs, as well as people using canes and different types of wheelchairs.
Here’s a link to Apple’s actual Unicode proposal with all the details.
Love that Apple thinks this way, that accessibility support is so ingrained in the culture.
Apple’s “pay with a glance” iPhone X Apple Pay ad
[VIDEO] Can’t help but wonder if this ad was made by the same team that did the wonderful Unlock ad we wrote about last week.
This new ad, called “Fly Market”, has the same frenetic energy, with things flying around, jumping into place. I love the “Back to the Future” callout (the two flaming tracks as the chair leaves the store) and the catchphrase, “Pay with a glance. Apple Pay on iPhone X.”
Take a look. Embedded in the main Loop post.
Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music, and social networks
RadioTimes:
“Right now, music streaming is a utility,” Iovine says. “All the services are exactly the same, they do the same trick. If one of them lowered their price the rest are toast, because there’s no unique offering.”
He suggests that Apple Music will have to look at the frontrunner in the film and TV streaming game, Netflix, and try to replicate its model in order to scale in any meaningful way.
And:
“Netflix has tons of original catalogue, six billion dollars worth of original content every year. That’s a value. All of the [music] streaming services have exactly the same catalogue and exactly the same music. And that’s partially due to the labels; they want it that way. But it’s not smart, and it will show in the end. Unless the streaming services become platforms and have something unique about them, they will not scale. Period.”
And:
“When Shawn Fanning started [music sharing site] Napster, he said, ‘I want to trade songs’,” Iovine says. “He didn’t say, ‘I want to destroy the record business’. So, right now, what engineers are saying – because I work with a lot of them – they’re saying, ‘This bit of communication between artist and audience is still flawed.”
Reading this article, I felt a great sense of deja vu. The reference to The Defiant Ones as new had me searching for a data, sure that this was an old interview. But this was posted yesterday, and Jimmy does point out moving to a consulting gig at Apple, which is certainly current news.
No matter, I thought Iovine’s comments are insightful. Apple clearly sees the value in a music business social network, having tried any number of kicks at the can with no big wins. But I’d like to see them try this again, both because I would love a more powerful way to share music, and because I know if Apple finally gets social right, that solution will respect my privacy.
Erasing complexity: The comfort of Apple’s ecosystem
I absolutely love this long piece by MacStories own Federico Viticci. Federico explores an important Apple theme, that Apple products are much more than the sum of their parts, that the surrounding ecosystem is the rising tide that lifts all boats. The ecosystem makes each Apple product easier to use, adds value to each product.
Here’s one quote about AirPods and the potential of Apple-branded over-ear headphones that, to me, really brings this point home:
For me, the best headphones aren’t necessarily the ones that sound “the best”. Sure, there is a time and place for sitting down, putting on a great pair of quality over-ear headphones, and just listening to music. I still do this with the H6 and Momentum Wireless, and it’s exactly why I hope Apple is indeed working on their own over-ear headphones. But over time I’ve realized that the absolute best sound reproduction isn’t my priority. Simplicity, reliability, and fast access to audio in my ears is what I’m looking for.
This really clicks for me. It’s why I don’t get too wrapped around the axle when Siri doesn’t quite get my intent. There’s so much value simply having the ability to do the things that Siri does well, that I am OK working around the things that Siri has not yet mastered.
Great job by Federico. Read the whole thing, see if you don’t agree.
The scorched earth nuclear option for removing Facebook from your Mac
Andrew Orr, MacObserver:
We’ve shared plenty of tips on how to delete Facebook, remove third-party apps, control privacy settings, and delete bulk content. But what if you want to go even further? It turns out we can, and we can block Facebook completely by editing the hosts file.
In this guide we’ll be adding Facebook-owned domains to the hosts file, which will block them from our system. This is important because even if you deleted your Facebook account, Facebook can still track you around the web like Google does via its advertising platform.
This whole Facebook thing really has me torn. Personally, I was never a fan, at best a reluctant user. But I do get the benefit of reconnecting with old friends, that sort of thing.
But what I really hate is how deeply Facebook has embedded itself into the details of people’s personal data. So much so, that it has become almost impossible for the average person to extricate themselves from Facebook’s clutches.
Read the linked article, which walks you through one way of eliminating Facebook from your Mac. I’m not recommending this path. I don’t like any solution that has you disable a critical part of your Mac’s security infrastructure (in this case SIP). And, as is pointed out for iOS, and as Kirk McElhearn points out is possible for the Mac as well, you can use an ad blocker to achieve a similar end.
I take no fault with Andrew’s article. I’m using it as an example to point out how inexorably tied we’ve all become to Facebook.
What I’d like is a switch that let me remove myself from Facebook’s databases entirely, a do-not-track setting that Facebook would be required to respect. Fat chance of that happening.
Apple promotes upcoming Shinjuku store and Japanese retail expansion with vivid imagery, neon signage
[VIDEO] Follow the headline link, check out the neon signage. I think it’s gorgeous.
The new Shinjuku Apple Store is incredibly well placed. It’s just blocks from Shinjuku Station, by far the world’s busiest transport hub. My 2 cents, this will be one of the most successful Apple Stores in the world.
I also love the neon-themed video Apple built to promote the store. It’s embedded in the main Loop post. Enjoy.
Follow up on APFS and the Apple Store Genius Bar
A few days ago, we ran a story, sourced from Charles Arthur and The Overspill, titled Beware taking your Mac running High Sierra to the Genius Bar: APFS might surprise them.
In a nutshell, Charles talks through taking his MacBook Pro, running macOS High Sierra, to the Apple Store for repair, and having his hard drive wiped because the tech did not detect that the drive was formatted as APFS.
As follow up to this, I spoke with a number of Apple Store employees, curious to see if this was a one-off situation, specific to one Apple Store, or if this was a hole in the system.
A few quotes:
Geniuses are required to take tests about all new hardware and software once it’s released. This is driven from the top at corporate. APFS is not news to Geniuses. Sometimes overly eager Technical Specialists or Technical Experts are allowed to take Mac appointments and APFS may be news to them.
And:
100% of the Geniuses I’ve worked with know about APFS.
And, in reference to the store manager contacting Charles and wanting feedback:
Managers almost always call when people fill out those surveys and indicate they had a negative experience or something went wrong. Apple’s deep concern for customer service is one of the things I love the most about the company.
The strongest takeaway from all this? Apple Geniuses really know their stuff and care about Apple. Small sample size, perhaps, but that’s what it feels like to me when I visit a store.
I’d also say, if you are at an Apple Store and things start going south, consider asking if the person helping you might be willing to bring someone else in to offer an opinion. The goal would be to escalate the problem without hurting anyone’s feelings. To me, this situation with Charles should not have happened.
Save your AirPods’ serial number to replace lost parts
From this Reddit thread:
Take a screenshot or picture of your AirPods serial number. You can’t replace any parts without it.
Do this when you first get them!!
You can take a picture of the box or a screenshot from Settings > General > About > AirPods so that Apple can pull up the serial number.
If you lose the case and don’t have the serial number anywhere, you can’t even replace the case without it.
First things first, I do think it’s worth taking a screenshot of your AirPods serial number. It’s not that you can’t recover it if you lose, say, the case, but it will save you the hassle of hunting it down later.
I also think it’s interesting that the serial number only appears when you are connected to a device. So if you run out of power and lose your case, having the serial number on a screen shot will make replacing that case a bit easier.
I do believe that you can use anyone’s case to charge your AirPods. So if you lose your case, borrow one (from an Apple Store if need be) and charge up, then connect to your iPhone and look up the serial number.
All that said, here’s how to bring that serial number up on your iPhone:
- Go to Settings > General > About
- Notice that, if your AirPods are not connected, there’s no line for AirPods
- Connect your AirPods. The AirPods line should appear in the About list.
- Tap AirPods
That’s it. In addition to the Serial Number, you’ll also see the Model Number, Firmware Version, and Hardware Version. Take a screenshot, save it in Photos.
How to send an Animoji as a still or sticker in Messages
Obviously, this requires an iPhone X, but if you have or plan to get one, this is worth knowing.
Church of England to accept Apple Pay
The Guardian:
Churchgoers will no longer have to fumble in their pockets and purses for loose change or notes as the Church of England introduces contactless payment terminals in more than 16,000 churches, cathedrals and other religious sites.
Contactless payments have been on trial in 40 Anglican churches since last summer, and from Tuesday they will be extended to all dioceses with the aim of making donations easier and faster. Congregations will also be able to donate via text message.
Fascinating. And inevitable.
Study confirms Apple Watch can detect abnormal heart rhythm with 97% accuracy
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
The heart rate monitors built into the Apple Watch and other wearable devices can detect abnormal heart rhythms with 97 percent accuracy, according to a new study conducted by the team behind the Cardiogram app for Apple Watch in conjunction with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
More than 139 million heart rate and step count measurements were collected from 9,750 users of the Cardiogram app who also enrolled in the UC San Francisco Health eHeart Study, with the data used to train DeepHeart, Cardiogram’s deep neural network.
This is a perfect use case for machine learning. Tons of available data, combined with a simple tag. Simple? Read this:
Once trained, DeepHeart was able to read heart rate data collected by wearables, distinguishing between normal heart rhythm and atrial fibrillation with a 97 percent accuracy rate, both when testing UCSF patients with known heart issues and Cardiogram participants.
Basically, DeepHeart plows through a ton of data and gets very good at identifying a heart’s rhythm as either normal or atrial fibrillation. The first phase of machine learning is training, where you hand the model a ton of data, each identified with the proper tag. After all the data is entered, a successful model will be able to identify new data with a high degree of accuracy. 97% is an incredibly good result.
Atrial fibrillation often goes undiagnosed, which is where the Apple Watch and other wearables can help. The Apple Watch won’t replace a traditional EKG, but it can alert people to a problem much earlier than it might otherwise be detected.
This tech will help save lives.
‘BabelPod’ brings indirect Bluetooth audio and line-in to HomePod
Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac:
Software architect Andrew Faden hacked together a line-in and Bluetooth input for HomePod called BabelPod. Based around a $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W and a few other essential parts, Faden created a clever workaround that affords both indirect Bluetooth and line-in connectivity for Apple’s recently-launched wireless speaker.
Faden also had to write the software to take a line-in or Bluetooth connection and translate it into an AirPlay stream that the HomePod can understand.
This is a terrifically clever idea. Seemed only a matter of time until someone came up with this sort of solution.
On last week’s “HomePod One Month Later” Vector podcast, Rene Ritchie and I discussed Apple’s rationale for not shipping HomePod with a line-in port or generic Bluetooth support. Rene made the excellent point that if Apple did support those, the early HomePod reviews would have been based on the performance of external devices upon which they had no control. Fascinating point and one I agree with.
Here’s a link to Andrew Faden’s BabelPod page. Lots of detail in case you want to make your own.
Steve Jobs on education
[VIDEO] Nice find from Andrew Leavitt of 17 Orbits. Just in time for Apple’s March 27th Education Event, here’s Steve Jobs talking about education.
Interesting video (embedded in the main Loop post), filmed from a projected image. Not clear when this was made, but I’d guess this is around 1999 or so, given the presence of the clamshell iBook, which was released that summer.
How to manage and interact with your contacts using Siri
This post is full of useful tips, including several different ways to set contact relationships (Ryan is my son, or Jim is my boss, that sort of thing). Really good.
Apple announces new wave of Apple Watch bands
Just in time for Spring (it is snowing like crazy as I write this, but still), Apple has announced a new wave of Apple Watch bands featuring Spring colors and styles.
Follow the link, look at the images. Some nice looking bands.
How to teach Siri to pronounce a name correctly
Lory Gil, iMore:
Siri’s voice pitch and natural language has improved significantly over the years. But, just like humans, she can sometimes mispronounce a name. You can teach her how to pronounce names correctly. Here’s how.
If you’ve never gone through this exercise, this is well worth your time, a tip updated to the latest and greatest version of iOS.
Beware taking your Mac running High Sierra to the Genius Bar: APFS might surprise them
Charles Arthur, The Overspill:
I wrote a while back about the problems I had with my 2012 retina MacBook Pro, and its strange shutdowns – which I suspected, but couldn’t absolutely prove, were due to the graphics card problem that these models have been known to suffer from: when the discrete graphics card was activated, there was a chance it would go completely off the rails.
Finally it shut down and didn’t seem to want to start.
And:
The only way to absolutely prove that the problem with the computer was the graphics card, of course, was to take it to a Genius Bar. After eventually getting an appointment (the Mac Geniuses are rare, compared to the iPhone/iPad Geniuses), I turned up with the rMBP which I’d left for dead.
If you’ve got a Mac, especially if you are running High Sierra, take a few minutes to read this story.
My hope is that this is specific to Charles’ Apple Store and not a symptom of a much wider problem. And I do take heart in the fact that the store manager wanted feedback, wanted to find the problem with their systems.
But I do think this solution should have been driven from the top, at corporate. APFS is not news.
From the very end:
But anyhow, if your Mac does break down, and you’re on High Sierra, make sure to tell them if you’re on APFS when they come to the diagnostics. And if they tell you that you need to wipe your drive and start again, just make sure to ask them: “are you certain it’s that, or could it be your network drive can’t read the APFS file system on my machine?” It can’t hurt to ask.
Indeed.
Apple AirPods: the audiophile review
Vlad Savov, The Verge:
As The Verge’s resident headphones obsessive, I’m not supposed to like the AirPods. My initial reaction upon first seeing them many months ago was to pour scorn on Apple’s designers for crafting a pair of expensive and easy-to-lose cigarette butts. The AirPods were the resurrection of the awful Bluetooth headsets of years past, I thought. But this year, I finally got around to testing a pair of the AirPods for myself, and I finally understand why everyone who owns them loves them.
And:
My wireless-doom scenario is walking into my kitchen, which is so full of metal things that it’s like a Faraday cage, while leaving my music source device in the bedroom: every non-Apple pair of wireless headphones I test becomes unusable in that situation. With the AirPods (and the Beats Solo and Studio 3, which have the same W1 wireless chip) connected to my MacBook Pro, I maintained a pretty decent connection with only minor dropouts in the kitchen.
And:
The design of the AirPods case is a total masterpiece. It’s tiny but holds multiple extra charges for the earphones, and the rounded sides make them irresistible fidget toys. The tension of the case lid is perfect, delivering a satisfying snap when it opens and closes.
Interesting read. Late to the game, but a solid take on both the pros and cons.
Apple grabs two-year lead in Face ID 3-D sensing race
Reuters:
Most Android phones will have to wait until 2019 to duplicate the 3D sensing feature behind Apple’s Face ID security, three major parts producers have told Reuters, handicapping Samsung and others on a technology that is set to be worth billions in revenue over the next few years.
And:
Tech research house Gartner predicts that by 2021, 40 percent of smartphones will be equipped with 3D cameras, which can also be used for so-called augmented reality, or AR, in which digital objects cling tightly to images of the real world.
And:
According to parts manufacturers Viavi Solutions Inc, Finisar Corp and Ams AG, bottlenecks on key parts will mean mass adoption of 3D sensing will not happen until next year, disappointing earlier expectations.
That means that China’s Huawei, Xiaomi and others could be a total of almost two years behind Apple, which launched Face ID with its iPhone X anniversary phone last September.
Supply chain management is a critical part of Apple’s product strategy. The more of its parts and raw materials that Apple can control, the more accurately it can plan for a product’s release and lifecycle.
And if Apple can control an up and coming vital technology, preventing rivals from shipping competing product? That’s a game changer.
Want an Apple TV 4K for $105? Read on.
This deal was spotted by Loop reader David Kaplan. I tried to find the hole in this logic, but seems like a genuine bargain.
DirecTV is running a limited time offer:
- Prepay for 3 months of DirecTV Now (online access to DirecTV)
- Get a free Apple TV 4K
- Cancel any time
The lowest tier of DirecTV Now costs $35 a month. Prepay that for 3 months, that’s $105, and get yourself access to DirecTV Now for 3 months and get an Apple TV 4K.
Read the fine print. Let me know if you see a flaw in this logic.
As always, caveat emptor.
Apple’s great new iPhone X ad, and the tiny bug it highlights
[VIDEO] First things first, if you haven’t yet seen it, take a minute to watch Apple’s latest iPhone ad (embedded in the main Loop post). It’s a wonderful, tumultuous, explosion of visuals, all focused on a single point. Unlocking is easy.
This whimsical treat has vaulted near the top of my favorite Apple spots, a refreshing complement to the Spike Jonze HomePod ad from a few weeks ago.
Apple Marketing is on a roll.
An interesting side note, spotted in this tweet from Benjamin Mayo:
https://twitter.com/bzamayo/status/974734836115099649
Check the image in the tweet. Notice the text that has scrolled outside the iMessage bubble. This is not Benjamin being picky. This is him noting an iMessage bug that he’s campaigning to get fixed, one that made it all the way into a commercial.
Details.
Siri, HomePod, and white noise
Yesterday, I came across this tweet from Joe Cieplinski, the excellent bass player from the band Airplane Mode:
https://twitter.com/jcieplinski/status/975468136119132160
I had to try this myself:
Hey, Siri, play white noise
Siri’s response:
OK, here’s the self-titled album by White Noise
Then, Siri plays white noise, which lasts about 30 minutes.
What I found interesting about this is that Siri is actually playing a track named “White Noise” by a band called “White Noise”. This is an incredibly prescient move by the band. They’ve bottlenecked the white noise concept, intentionally or not, funneling all white noise requests into streams of their album, which, presumably, translates into revenue for White Noise.
Imagine if you created a band named Jazz and produced an album named Jazz and a track named Jazz. If the logic above holds true, every time someone says, “Hey Siri, play Jazz”, your music would get the call.
Except, even if that did work, I can’t imagine Apple or Spotify would allow that to stand. This White Noise thing is an oddity. Interesting.
To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google, seek devices near crime scenes
Tyler Dukes, WRAL, Raleigh, North Carolina, reporting on two unrelated murders:
In March 2017, months after investigations began into both shootings, separate detectives on each case, one day apart, employed an innovative strategy in criminal investigations.
On a satellite image, they drew shapes around the crime scenes, marking the coordinates on the map. Then they convinced a Wake County judge they had enough probable cause to order Google to hand over account identifiers on every single cell phone that crossed the digital cordon during certain times.
And on reactions from defense attorneys and privacy advocates:
They’re mixed on how law enforcement turns to Google’s massive cache of user data, especially without a clear target in mind. And they’re concerned about the potential to snag innocent users, many of whom might not know just how closely the company tracks their every move.
To get a sense of just how much location tracking Google does, check out this Quartz post from last November:
Many people realize that smartphones track their locations. But what if you actively turn off location services, haven’t used any apps, and haven’t even inserted a carrier SIM card?
Even if you take all of those precautions, phones running Android software gather data about your location and send it back to Google when they’re connected to the internet, a Quartz investigation has revealed.
According to this story, and others I’ve read, Google can track your location, even if you take out your SIM card. Amazing.
Read both of these stories. They are riveting and chilling.