[VIDEO] The video of the interview is embedded in the main Loop post. Follow the headline link to a transcript of the interview. This is the source of the comment, “We acquire a company on average, every two to three weeks”, that’s been flying around the blogs the last day or so. But the interview is much more than that, and absolutely worth watching.
Apple
Angela Ahrendts shares lessons she learned while working at Apple
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
Former Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts left the company last month, and ahead of her departure, she sat down to share her thoughts on her experiences at Apple on LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast.
Here’s a link to the podcast itself. If you are interested in Angela’s voyage, it’s a good listen, about 30 minutes.
Dynamic wallpapers for your Mac
Got a Mac running Mojave? Check out Dynamic Wallpaper Club, browse and download dynamic wallpapers for your Mac. To install the downloaded HEIC files, go to:
System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Desktop
I’d accumulate all your dynamic wallpapers in a single folder, then click the + to add that folder to the Desktop Folders list.
New York Times: “Regulators should take a close look at the iPhone App Store”
This ran in the New York Times on Thursday. I was on the road, but left it in my queue to post this morning.
This is opinion from the New York Times Editorial Board, doubling down on their (in my opinion) poorly thought through hatchet piece attacking Apple for taking down apps that used mobile device management for ways in which it was never intended.
This feels like the Times Editorial Board was caught on the wrong side of the MDM argument, and switched gears to find another avenue of attack.
At the heart of this new (old) argument:
Even if we take Apple at its word that it was only protecting the privacy and security of its users by removing screen-time and parental-control apps, the state of the app marketplace is troubling. Why is a company — with no mechanism for democratic oversight — the primary and most zealous guardian of user privacy and security?
As a reply to this, consider this response op-ed from Macworld’s Michael Simon:
The Times’ point that Apple shouldn’t be “the most zealous guardian of user privacy and security” just doesn’t hold water. What if the developer of one of these parental control apps had been caught using its permissions to spy on what kids were watching and reading? That would have made much bigger headlines than a handful of disgruntled developers. Apple users take privacy seriously, and they want to know there’s a gatekeeper in place.
I’m not a fan of the timing of the New York Times op-ed, coming on the heels of its wrongly logicked argument about MDM. Feels like a vengeance move.
How to share files using iCloud Drive
William Gallagher, Apple Insider:
Once you understand how it works —and know the right sequence of steps to go through —then file sharing with iCloud Drive is tremendous when it’s working. It’s just that setting it up is surprisingly confusing, so let’s walk through it.
And:
The way that you share files from iCloud Drive varies slightly between iOS and Mac, but the principle is exactly the same on both. You find your file, choose Share and then specify who you’re sharing it with.
Remember that your file has to be in iCloud Drive and remember that you cannot do this with a folder. You can’t even select two or more files and share those. It’s one file at a time, as tedious as that is.
I really want to use iCloud Drive. But I end up using Dropbox. It’s just easier.
That said, this is a good “how to”, well written, absolutely worth reading, just to know how this works.
Voice assistant usage poll: Apple’s Siri tied with Google Assistant, Alexa in third, privacy a priority
From Microsoft’s 2019 voice report:
- Siri and Google Assistant are tied at 36%
- Alexa at 25%
- Cortana at 19%
- Other at 1%
Another nugget:
In 2018, we found that 23% of respondents currently own a smart speaker with another 30% planning to purchase . In our research in January 2019, we found that 45% of respondents now currently own a smart speaker with an additional 26% planning to purchase one soon.
You can find the report here. It’s an interesting read.
Spotify hits 100 million paid subscribers, loses $158 million
New York Times:
In its first-quarter earnings report, Spotify said it had 217 million users around the world, up from 207 million at the end of last year. Of those, 100 million are paying subscribers, compared with 96 million at the end of 2018.
And:
In its most recent quarter, Spotify, which is based in Stockholm, had revenue of 1.5 billion euros, about $1.7 billion. That was a 33 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. It had a net loss of €142 million, or about $158 million.
Apple has about 56 million paid subscribers (the article says 50 million), recently passing Spotify in the US.
And:
Just as Spotify was set to open in India, Warner/Chappell, one of the biggest music publishers, sued the company, saying it had not secured the proper rights to include Warner/Chappell songs. Spotify set up shop in India anyway, saying its use of Warner/Chappell music was allowed under Indian copyright law. The case remains active in an Indian court.
Fascinating to watch this heavyweight battle unfold.
Thanks to Overcast, now you can share a short podcast clip
Marco Arment, Overcast creator:
Podcast sharing has been limited to audio and links, but today’s social networks are more reliant on images and video, especially Instagram. Podcasts need video clips to be shared more easily today.
I’ve seen some video clips from tools specific to certain podcast networks or hosts, but they were never available to everyone, or for every show. So people mostly just haven’t shared podcast clips, understandably, because it has been too hard.
Not anymore.
And:
With today’s 2019.4 update, you can now share audio or video clips, up to a minute each, from any public podcast. Simply tap the share button in the upper-right corner.
Great feature, huge help for podcasters trying to get the word out. I hope this becomes a standard for all podcast apps, especially this one.
Side note from 512 Pixels on how this feature came to be.
Last year I bought my 82 year old, Serbian grandmother an iPad
Reddit:
Last year I bought my 82 year old grandmother an iPad. She never owned a smart device before, she never touched a computer and I don’t think she knew what “the internet” was.
It was my fathers idea to get her that iPad. Thanks to me, my dad became a huge fan of Apple devices and since both he and I spend the majority of our time overseas he thought it would be a good idea to get my grandmother an iPad so they could face time and he could show her where he is etc.
TBH I thought it was an incredibly stupid idea. My grandmother is an Eastern European, ex communist country simple, old woman. Imagine old grandmothers from funny “a normal day in Russia” clips and gifs, that’s what she looks like. First 15 years of her life she spent in a village that had no electricity. Over the last 30 years we’ve spent more time talking about her inability to handle a tv remote than anything else.
Read the post for how this played out. I wrestle with this issue a lot. My mom is legally blind and feels cutoff from the world. Try as I might, I can’t find a voice-assisted solution that she can master.
My uncle has vision issues as well, gets around just fine, but also feels cutoff. He used to use email, but age has robbed him of his ability to deal with those complexities.
I wish the iPad had a mode where it could boot into an incredibly simple interface (kiosk style), where there were just a few, dead-simple buttons to press. Big, big buttons, to help people with poor close-up vision.
One could be, take picture, send to Dave. Another could be, look at pictures Dave sent you. That kind of simple interface, with just a few hard-coded, but editable (perhaps via Shortcuts) buttons would bring joy to many folks with vision or cognition issues.
That aside, read the linked story. I love the way that played out.
The feature Apple needs to change in AirDrop
Rob Pegoraro, Yahoo Finance:
Apple talks a good game on privacy when the rest of the tech industry continues to fumble—with Facebook (FB) at the top of the list based on recent headlines. Most of the time those words come backed by sound and smart design choices, but then there’s AirDrop.
Almost five years after AirDrop’s debut on iPhones in Apple’s iOS 7 release, this file-sharing feature continues to enable abusive behavior by creeps who enjoy sending unsolicited photos to nearby strangers.
AirDrop’s default setting is to limit AirDrops only from people on your contact list. To check this yourself, take a look at Setting > General > AirDrop. The default is Contacts Only.
But, once you open up AirDrop (there are plenty of reasons to – Here’s one) to accept files from non-contacts:
And from then on, AirDrop would remain open to accepting a file from anybody with an AirDrop-compatible Apple device (not just iPhones, but newer iPads and Macs) within Bluetooth and WiFi range. And when a file arrives, AirDrop splashes a preview of its contents across the phone’s screen.
The answer is to turn AirDrop on, momentarily, then close that security hole by turning it back off again.
Rene Ritchie offered up an excellent suggestion here. To paraphrase, Rene suggests that there be a timer on AirDrop. Turn it on and, after a specified period of time, it closes back up automatically.
Rob Pegoraro had the same solution:
The simplest fix would be to have AirDrop’s Everyone setting expire after a few minutes.
Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Apple: The facts about parental control apps
On Saturday, the New York Times released an article titled Apple Cracks Down on Apps That Fight iPhone Addiction.
As Shawn posted here, Phil Schiller responded to a letter from a MacRumors reader with a detailed rebuttal.
Yesterday, Apple released an official response to that New York Times article, addressing the removal of a number of parental control apps from the App Store:
We recently removed several parental control apps from the App Store, and we did it for a simple reason: they put users’ privacy and security at risk.
And:
Over the last year, we became aware that several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. MDM gives a third party control and access over a device and its most sensitive information including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history.
And:
MDM does have legitimate uses. Businesses will sometimes install MDM on enterprise devices to keep better control over proprietary data and hardware. But it is incredibly risky—and a clear violation of App Store policies—for a private, consumer-focused app business to install MDM control over a customer’s device. Beyond the control that the app itself can exert over the user’s device, research has shown that MDM profiles could be used by hackers to gain access for malicious purposes.
There’s more, but that’s the gist of the argument.
Let’s revisit the New York Times article, with Apple’s response in mind:
They all tell a similar story: They ran apps that helped people limit the time they and their children spent on iPhones. Then Apple created its own screen-time tracker. And then Apple made staying in business very, very difficult.
Over the past year, Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 most downloaded screen-time and parental-control apps, according to an analysis by The New York Times and Sensor Tower, an app-data firm. Apple has also clamped down on a number of lesser-known apps.
In some cases, Apple forced companies to remove features that allowed parents to control their children’s devices or that blocked children’s access to certain apps and adult content. In other cases, it simply pulled the apps from its App Store.
Some app makers with thousands of paying customers have shut down. Most others say their futures are in jeopardy.
From the New York Times’ presentation, one might get the impression that Apple wanted to own the screen-time and parental control app space, eliminating competition in those areas.
But Apple’s response paints a very different picture. You can see why they responded so quickly to this issue.
One final bit from Apple’s release:
In this app category, and in every category, we are committed to providing a competitive, innovative app ecosystem. There are many tremendously successful apps that offer functions and services similar to Apple’s in categories like messaging, maps, email, music, web browsers, photos, note-taking apps, contact managers and payment systems, just to name a few. We are committed to offering a place for these apps to thrive as they improve the user experience for everyone.
Apple is making it clear that this isn’t about owning a competitive space, but about privacy.
Bucket list: A visit to the excellent Apple Museum in Westerbork, The Netherlands
Next best thing? Ride the coattails of a Reddit user and check out the pics of their recent visit.
The Information: Apple halved spending on Amazon Web Services last year, moved more cloud services in-house
Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:
A report on Monday indicated that Apple is spending upwards of $30 million a month on Amazon Web Services, suggesting Apple’s spending had increased by about 10% over the previous year.
Today, The Information disputes these claims. It says that Apple spent about $370 million across 2018 (roughly $30m per month) but that is actually down compared to the year previously. In fact, Apple reportedly paid $775 million for AWS in 2017, which means 2018’s numbers represent a 50% drop.
The Information article indicates that Apple is aggressively transitioning its iCloud services to running on its own in-house servers.
Here’s a link to the paywalled Information article.
This makes a lot of sense. Apple has long shown that they want to own as much of their process as they can. As I said a few days ago, Apple’s continuing dependence on a competitors cloud services seems counter-intuitive.
WSJ: Turnover hits Apple’s famed industrial design team
Tripp Mickle, Wall Street Journal:
Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis, who together have more than 35 years of experience at Apple, decided to leave the company recently, people familiar with the departures said. Another member of the team with a decade of experience, Julian Hönig, plans to leave in the coming months, people familiar with his plans said.
To get a sense of size, the article claims Apple design team has two dozen members. So that’s more than 10% of the team.
Nail Cybart, quoted in the article:
“This group is all-powerful in Apple,” said Neil Cybart, who runs Above Avalon, a site dedicated to Apple analysis. “Industrial designers have the final say over the user experience found with Apple devices, and they really do work like a family in a way. No one would argue, though, that new blood is a bad thing.”
Makes sense. Turnover is normal. Turnover on critical teams makes headlines. I see this is the old making way for the new.
Apple Watch lost at sea washes up 6 months later and it still works
So if you forget to take your Apple Watch off and get it a bit wet in the shower, no need to panic.
My favorite bit was the call he got from a number he didn’t recognize, long after he’d given up hope of ever getting his watch back:
“It’s this guy saying, ‘hey if your name is Rob Bainter and you lost an Apple Watch recently. Give me a call and if you can describe this I’ll give this thing to you.'”
Fun read.
Here’s how to cancel your Apple News+ trial and avoid a $10 charge
Nice post from Chance Miller for all those folks coming up on their 30 day Apple News+ free trial anniversary. Note that there are two different approaches here. The first one is the simplest, a few taps from within the News app itself.
But the second approach has you look at all your subscriptions. Definitely not a bad idea.
What happens to my iCloud account when I die?
This morbid chain of thought started when I came across this Teller Report post. An excerpt:
The Münster district court has ordered Apple to grant the heirs of a deceased iCloud user access to its data. The relatives hope for information about the circumstances of death.
And:
According to the Bielefeld law firm Brandi, who represented the heirs in court, the father died during a trip abroad. Apple has rejected the desire of relatives to gain access to the data stored in the iCloud out of court.
The company did not want to comment on the case. Experts pointed out, however, that the iPhone group in the past in similar cases, the heirs have made possible access to iCloud data of the deceased even without trial. The submission of a certificate of inheritance was sufficient. In other cases, it needed a court order.
I suspect some of the details have been lost in translation. So I did a bit of digging.
From the official Apple iCloud terms of service page:
No Right of Survivorship
Unless otherwise required by law, You agree that your Account is non-transferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content within your Account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate your Account may be terminated and all Content within your Account deleted.
So there it is. Pretty clear. If you die, Apple’s policy is to delete your account. Seems to me, there should be a way to assign an heir, perhaps transfer all the files to the heir’s account. They could even limit heirs to family members in a family plan.
Not crazy about a policy that forces a grieving family to have to go to court to access their loved ones photos, etc.
Apple issues AC wall adapter recall
Apple:
Apple today announced a voluntary recall of AC wall plug adapters designed for use primarily in Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom. In very rare cases, affected Apple three-prong wall plug adapters may break and create a risk of electrical shock if touched. These wall plug adapters shipped with Mac and certain iOS devices between 2003 and 2010 and were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit. Apple is aware of six incidents worldwide.
The recall does not affect any Apple USB power adapters.
Follow the link, check the picture. If you’ve got one, trade it in.
Took six incidents to prompt this public recall. Oddly specific. Can’t help but wonder what the rules are for such a thing. And where does the MacBook keyboard issue fit into that scheme?
I finally found a Steve Jobs plush! He goes perfectly with my 1st Gen iPod.
Here’s the picture, Steve plush with iPod.
Want one? The Reddit poster bought it here.
Mouse and trackpad support is apparently coming to iPad with iOS 13
Federico on the Connected podcast:
Something that I heard from a couple of people a few months ago sort of mentioned to me just casually, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you could have a mouse cursors on iPad as an accessibility feature?”
And:
But then I started doing some research and I learned that actually it’s already possible, if you have right accessibility hardware like special joysticks and motors, to have some kind of cursor on iOS. This is already possible and has been possible for years.
But what I heard from sources is that without any adapter you will be able to use a USB-C mouse, on your iPad, as an accessibility device.
And then this followup:
https://www.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1120447708215554049
I am fascinated by this possibility. Is this purely for accessibility, or is this a step towards a truly universal merging of iOS and macOS?
Apple now quoting next-day turnaround on MacBook keyboard repairs
This is just so much better than losing your Mac for a week or more, which felt like punishment to me for buying into the new keyboard design.
I’ve been living with an intermittent “r” key failure for a few months now. Instead of taking my Mac in, I’ve just been hammering on the “r” key until I dislodged (temporarily) that piece of micro-crumb.
The other day, my MacBook Pro charger failed and, when I brought my Mac in to see what was what, the Apple Genius asked me about my keyboard experience. I was in a hurry, wasn’t prepared to leave my machine at that moment, but the Genius did tell me that they could have my Mac back to me the next day.
As to my charger, turned out to be a faulty cable, replaced at no charge, in and out in about 15 minutes. Brilliant.
Amber alerts and AirPods
Reddit:
Just got my first set of AirPods two weeks ago. Really enjoying them now that my company has switched to iOS and I tote around 2 iPhones. Then today I just popped them in to walk to the office and an Amber Alert game in. Through the AirPods. Full blast loud. My eyes watered and I threw one out as fast as possible but didn’t quite get the other in time as I tried to dismiss the alert. Holy hell my ears are ringing so loud. Is there any way to turn that down??
Amber alerts are designed to play at max volume, to get your attention. I get that.
But seems to me, Apple should do a bit of testing with AirPods volume, set a max limit for emergency klaxons and Amber alerts. There are people who need their AirPods at full volume, so not clear that a hard volume level cutoff is the right answer, but seems clear that the current in ear volume for Amber alerts and the like is just too loud and, perhaps, harmful to hearing.
Thief steals iPhone XR, accidentally uploads video to iCloud
Reddit:
My friend had her iPhone XR stolen. She’s just realised that the ‘thief’* has made a video – it’s really short but shows the thief – and it’s been uploaded to her iCloud – is there a way I can pull the location data for a video?
Find my iPhone has been now disabled. So she’s out of options there, just wanted to do something to help if I could.
Read the thread to learn about pulling location data from a video (a number of options, and be aware that anyone can pull location data from your videos, just as they can from a still photo).
I wonder how the thief was able to disable Find My iPhone yet the poster was able to retrieve the video, so still had control of the Apple ID and iCloud account. The story appears to be ongoing.
Apple spends $30 million+/month on Amazon’s cloud, making it one AWS’s biggest customers
CNBC:
As Apple and Amazon compete for a greater share of consumer dollars and attention, they also have a particularly intimate business relationship: Apple is spending more than $30 million a month on Amazon’s cloud, according to people familiar with the arrangement.
Apple’s cloud expenditure reflects the company’s determination to deliver online services like iCloud quickly and reliably, even if it must depend on a rival to do so.
Add in this comment from John Gruber:
A decade ago, pre-iPhone, Apple was notoriously behind on large-scale cloud services. But AWS only got started as a service in 2006, the year before the iPhone debuted. It was based on infrastructure Amazon had been working on since the 90s, sure, but it wasn’t a service Apple could even consider until 2006.
iCloud was launched in 2011. That’s 8 years. If Apple is still largely reliant on AWS today, why? Maybe they just honestly figure they don’t need to do it all themselves.
I’ve long wondered why Apple makes such heavy use of AWS. Is this simply because they don’t have the internal chops to deliver bulletproof cloud in the same way as Amazon? Is there more to it, perhaps a subtle piece in the complex business relationship with Amazon (Amazon sells some, but not all Apple products, Amazon’s video streaming service competes with Apple’s coming TV+, Amazon Video lives on Apple TV, etc.)
Student sues Apple for $1 billion, claims facial recognition led to false arrest
Bloomberg:
Ousmane Bah, 18, said he was arrested at his home in New York in November and charged with stealing from an Apple store. The arrest warrant included a photo that didn’t resemble Bah, he said in a lawsuit filed Monday. One of the thefts he was charged with, in Boston, took place on the day in June he was attending his senior prom in Manhattan, he said.
And:
Bah said he had previously lost a non-photo learner’s permit, which may have been found or stolen by the real thief and used as identification in Apple stores. As a result, Bah claimed, his name may have been mistakenly connected to the thief’s face in Apple’s facial-recognition system, which he said the company uses in its stores to track people suspected of theft.
Interesting on several levels. There’s the amount of the claim ($1B, an extraordinary number), the tidbit about Apple using facial-recognition in its stores, and the fact that a second company (Security Industry Specialists Inc.) is named in the claim.
Why JCPenney dropped Apple Pay
Yesterday, we posted about JCPenney inexplicably removing support for Apple Pay, both from its retail stores and its mobile app.
Well now we know why.
JC Penney (as posted in the linked TechCrunch post):
A third-party credit card brand made the requirement for all merchants to actively support EMV contactless functionality effective April 13, retiring the legacy MSD contactless technology in place. Given the resources and lead time associated with meeting the new mandate, JCPenney chose to suspend all contactless payment options until a later date. Customers still have the ability to complete their transactions manually by inserting or swiping their physical credit cards at our point-of-sale terminals in stores, an option employed by the vast majority of JCPenney shoppers.
As to whether JCPenney will bring Apple Pay back, the TechCrunch post quotes JCPenney CEO Jill Soltau:
“I think that’s one of the key initiatives that we’ll be working on here in the coming months because we’re not being as strategic in how we speak to the customer and engage with the customer through our pricing and promotion,” she said. “And I would frankly say it might be a little bit confusing, and you might not know exactly when you can get the best value at JCPenney,” the CEO added.
The hint here is the importance to JCPenney of customer purchase data, something they lose with Apple Pay:
Customer purchase data allows a retailer to better target its customers with relevant promotions, as stores are able to collect the customer’s name and card number at point of sale, which they can then combine with other demographic data like the customer’s address, phone and email.
Apple Pay, meanwhile, prevents this level of access — something that customers like, but retailers traditionally have not.
The push and pull of marketing and privacy. Is Apple Pay inevitable? Will customers push back on JCPenney’s move away from privacy? Keeping an eye on this one.
JCPenney removes Apple Pay support from its retail stores and mobile app
JC Penney tweet confirming the removal of Apple Pay:
https://www.twitter.com/askjcp/status/1119595205559234560
In all the stories I’ve read on this issue, no one seems to know why this happened. And the “We will definitely forward your feedback regarding this for review” comment makes it look like this was either done with blinders on (accounting making a decision that impacted in store customer experience, for example), or done as a trial, waiting to see if there is any pushback from customers.
Read the thread comments. Pushback happened pretty immediately. It’d be interesting to know the reason for this decision. A definite step backwards. Penney pinching?
Princeton IoT Inspector lets you see what your smart home devices are up to
Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:
Smart home devices are potentially one of the bigger security threats since there is no easy way to check what they are up to on your network. That’s a problem Princeton University has set out to solve, with the Princeton IoT Inspector.
And:
The tool is Mac-only for now. Using it, you can see:
- a list of all the IoT devices on your home network
- when they exchange data with an external server
- which servers they contact
- whether those connections are secure
Nice find. I’ve long thought about a user friendly device you could add to your network, have it build a list of devices you know about, give them names (such as Dave’s Switch, or Emma’s Mac, etc.), then have it automatically report (send you a text, perhaps) whenever a new, unknown device hopped onto your network.
To extend that idea, how about adding in the ability to detect cellular communications, within a short radius, reporting on those devices as well.
There are lots of solutions out there that do some of these things, but none I’ve found that do all of them, and none in a particularly friendly, efficient way. Please do weigh in if you know of something along these lines.
In the meantime, this Princeton tool is a nice one to explore. Though it’s not part of the Mac App Store, so do so at your own risk.
Steve Jobs looks up a few words in the dictionary
[VIDEO] Steve knows how to hold a room, deliver a punchline. I love this. Video embedded in main Loop post.
The Making of Apple’s “Don’t mess with Mother” ad
[VIDEO] If you haven’t already, jump to this post and watch Apple’s fantastic “Don’t mess with Mother” ad. Great footage synced with great music.
Once you’ve absorbed that chewy goodness, check out the making of video, embedded in the main Loop post. Yes, that ad was filmed completely on an iPhone.