Business

Apple and bagels

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Follow the link to see Apple’s original bagel emoji, and the new “fixed” version. While the new version is undoubtedly better (everything is better with a shmear of cream cheese), it still (IMO) falls far short of truly reflecting a real life bagel.

And that said, I do recognize how trivial this is. But I was born with a deep, familial appreciation of bagels, so this hits home for me.

I think the bagel Wikipedia page has some images that might be a good starting point for rev 3. The key is texture.

Apple is donating 1,000 watches for a new study to track binge eating

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CNBC:

The University of North Carolina’s medical school will soon be starting a study called BEGIN, which stands for Binge Eating Genetics Initiative, to better understand overeating. People with binge eating disorder often eat large amounts of food uncontrollably in a small period of time.

And:

Each participant will be given a free watch, courtesy of Apple, and researchers will monitor their heart rate using the device’s sensor over the course of a month to see if there are spikes before binge eating episodes. It’s likely that a binging and purging episode would cause some biological change that would show up in the Apple Watch data, according to Bulik.

As the capabilities of the Apple Watch grow, as more sensors are added, we should see more and more of these sorts of studies. Terrific use of technology.

Cops told ‘Don’t look’ at new iPhones to avoid Face ID lock-out

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Motherboard:

But Face ID can of course also work against law enforcement—too many failed attempts with the ‘wrong’ face can force the iPhone to request a potentially harder to obtain passcode instead. Taking advantage of legal differences in how passcodes are protected, US law enforcement have forced people to unlock their devices with not just their face but their fingerprints too. But still, in a set of presentation slides obtained by Motherboard this week, one company specialising in mobile forensics is telling investigators not to even look at phones with Face ID, because they might accidentally trigger this mechanism.

We had passcodes, then fingerprints, then faces, the evolution of biometric mechanisms used to unlock you phone. Will this evolution continue? Or is Face ID the final stop?

No matter, this is a knotty problem on all sides. Protect privacy, but make it effortless to unlock a phone.

Looking back at John Sculley’s rise as Apple’s CEO, and fall on October 15, 1993

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William Gallagher, writing for Apple Insider, posts a fascinating look at John Sculley’s rise and fall at Apple. Terrific read. Don’t miss the video embedded in the “Sculley joins Apple” section, in which John Sculley tells the story of his iconic Pepsi marketing campaign that no-doubt caught Steve Jobs’ eye.

Crafty kids are finding ingenious ways to thwart Apple’s ‘Screen Time’ feature

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Some interesting Screen Time hacks here. Here’s just a taste:

His son, a seven-year-old, deletes the games he’s been locked out of and then re-downloads it from the App Store. With iCloud, he doesn’t miss a beat, as all of his games are stored on a server waiting for him to resume play. Apple, unfortunately, overlooked this clever hack entirely. Once the game is re-downloaded, it starts the clock over again for the day.

Kids!

A journey into the new Mac App Store

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This piece is on the 1Password blog, so it’s got a bit of marketing woven in, but it does a nice job of highlighting some of the fine work done by the Mac App Store team, and the work on the iOS App Store before it.

I absolutely love the Mac App Store’s evolving look and layout, especially when you’ve got Dark Mode in place.

Take a read through the piece, get a sense of the things that make the new App Store so much better.

‘Halloween’ at 40: Their ‘horrible idea’ became a horror classic

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Bruce Fretts, New York Times:

John Carpenter had only shot and scored two semi-obscure features when the executive producer Irwin Yablans came to him with a proposal: make a low-budget movie about babysitters being murdered. “It was a horrible idea,” Mr. Carpenter said in a recent telephone interview. “But I wanted to make more movies, so I said, ‘Great!’”

And:

Mr. Carpenter, Ms. Curtis, four of her co-stars and others spoke about their memories of making the original film. “It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had professionally,” Ms. Curtis said. “It gave me everything in my creative life.”

A new version of Halloween, also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, is hitting theaters next week, just in time for, well, Halloween.

If you’ve got any love for horror films, and for this movie in particular, take a read of this New York Times interview. It’s scary good (sorry, not sorry).

Future iPhones could automatically detect nuisance callers using spoofed phone numbers

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Malcolm Owen, Apple Insider:

Published on Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple’s patent application for “Detection of spoofed call information” proposes a system where an iPhone or other mobile device could perform checks on a call to ascertain if it is genuine, then either warn the user of the problematic call or prevent it from disturbing the phone user at all.

This is a pretty interesting read. Seems like Apple is on to something here. God bless ’em if they can reduce the scourge of spam calling.

Hackers are using stolen Apple IDs to swipe cash in China

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Bloomberg:

Ant Financial’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd. warned that cyber-attackers employed stolen Apple IDs to break into customers’ accounts and made off with an unknown amount of cash, in a rare security breach for China’s top digital payments providers.

Alipay, whose parent also operates the world’s largest money market fund, said on its Weibo blog that it contacted Apple and is working to get to the bottom of the breach. It warned users that’ve linked their Apple identities to any payment services, including Tencent’s WePay, to lower transaction limits to prevent further losses. Tencent said in a separate statement it too had noticed the cyber-heist and reached out to the iPhone maker.

And:

It’s unclear how the attackers may have gotten their hands on the Apple IDs, which are required for iPhone users that buy content such as music from iTunes or the app store. Apple representatives haven’t responded to requests and phone calls seeking comment.

As always, I take stories like this with a grain of salt. But this does not strike me as simple alarmist reporting. Clearly, there’s an underlying problem. But is the core of the issue about stolen Apple IDs? Lack of security on the part of those customers? A problem with the Alipay/WePay/Apple ID mechanism? Is this issue restricted to China?

Looking forward to hearing an official take from Apple.

Apple officially says iOS 12 is now in use on 50% of all iPhones and iPads

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Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

Mixpanel reported that Apple had crossed the magic 50% milestone for iOS 12 at the weekend, and now Apple has released its first usage numbers which are based off visits to the App Store.

Apple says 50% of all devices are running iOS 12, and 53% of devices introduced within the last four years. This four year timespan metric is new, and it means that it only counts devices launched since September 2014 (iPhone 6 and later).

I would bet that these numbers would be even higher if there weren’t so many 8GB and 16GB phones out there. When your phone is full, it is no trivial matter to update to a new version of iOS.

Given that the absolute smallest capacity of Apple’s new line of phones is 64GB, I’d expect transition to new versions of iOS to come a lot faster over time, and for adoption rates to soar as older, smaller phones drop out of usage.

Side note: Here’s an Apple Support document talking you through updating your phone if space is an issue.

How to use Apple News in Mojave regardless of where you live

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Adam Engst, TidBITS:

Every time I’ve written about Apple News recently, I’ve received comments from readers outside of the US, UK, and Australia expressing annoyance that Apple restricts Apple News to just those three English-speaking countries. Even Canada is left out!

And:

The point is now moot for anyone running macOS 10.14 Mojave because there’s an easy workaround for people in unsupported countries.

Read on if this is you.

Everything you wanted to know about Activation Lock and iCloud Lock

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Oleg Afonin, ElcomSoft:

Activation Lock, or iCloud Lock, is a feature of Find My iPhone, Apple’s proprietary implementation of a much wider protection system generally referred as Factory Reset Protection (FRP). Factory Reset Protection, or “kill switch”, is regulated in the US via the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act of 2015. The Act requires device manufacturers to feature a so-called “kill switch” allowing legitimate users to remotely wipe and lock devices. The purpose of the kill switch was to discourage smartphone theft by dramatically reducing resale value of stolen devices.

According to Apple, “Activation Lock is a feature that’s designed to prevent anyone else from using your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch if it’s ever lost or stolen. Activation Lock is enabled automatically when you turn on Find My iPhone. … Even if you erase your device remotely, Activation Lock can continue to deter anyone from reactivating your device without your permission. All you need to do is keep Find My iPhone turned on, and remember your Apple ID and password.”

Follow the headline link, nice explainer.

Apple plans to give away original content for free to device owners as part of new digital TV strategy

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Alex Sherman, CNBC:

Apple is preparing a new digital video service that will marry original content and subscription services from legacy media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Owners of Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV will find the still-in-the-works service in the pre-installed “TV” application, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details of the project are private.

The product will include Apple-owned content, which will be free to Apple device owners, and subscription “channels,” which will allow customers to sign up for online-only services, such as those from HBO and Starz.

Paralleling Amazon Prime Video, if you buy into the Apple ecosystem, you get Apple’s original content for free. This seems a reasonable strategy, as it reduces the pressure for Apple to have to produce content worth paying for, à la Netflix.

Seems to me, this is Apple easing their way into a market they have no experience with, reducing their chance of failure to almost zero. Over time, if they find the path to creating truly compelling content, they can ease into another business model.

Interesting take on Facebook Portal

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Benjamin Mayo:

When a normal person sees a Portal, I don’t think they are going to turn a blind eye to it because of the existential fears of personal data exploitation. There are a handful of reasons why this product is going to fail in the market, but I don’t see privacy worries as a legitimate death-on-arrival poison.

I have to say, I don’t worry so much about the exploitation of my data, as much as I worry about Big Brother looking over my shoulder; The surveillance aspect more than the profiling aspect.

The key marketing point that Facebook is pushing here is video calls, through Messenger. I don’t get it. It just seems so much easier to talk on something that you can hold in your hand — be it a phone, tablet, or laptop in your lap — that you can freely move around with.

I totally agree with this take. I see little appeal to a non-portable video conferencing device. I do think Benjamin is right on this: The Facebook Portal will face an uphill battle in both perceived usability and security fears.

A future where everything becomes a computer is as creepy as you feared

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Farhad Manjoo, New York Times:

More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.

No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoft’s monopoly back in the bottle.

This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry.

And:

The industry’s new goal? Not a computer on every desk nor a connection between every person, but something grander: a computer inside everything, connecting everyone.

And:

At a press event last month, an Amazon engineer showed how easily a maker of household fans could create a “smart” fan using Amazon’s chip, known as the Alexa Connect Kit. The kit, which Amazon is testing with some manufacturers, would simply be plugged into the fan’s control unit during assembly. The manufacturer also has to write a few lines of code — in the example of the fan, the Amazon engineer needed just a half-page of code.

And that’s it. The fan’s digital bits (including security and cloud storage) are all handled by Amazon. If you buy it from Amazon, the fan will automatically connect with your home network and start obeying commands issued to your Alexa. Just plug it in.

All of this is happening without any sort of oversight. Over time, we’ll have built a dystopiaNet that rides along the regular internet, unregulated, free of any sort of protections, while we whistle happily away.

Good read.

Why does Google need hardware?

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Shira Ovide, Bloomberg:

In 2017 and the first half of this year, Google shipped about 5 million Pixel smartphones worldwide, according to the research firm IDC. Apple Inc. sells as many iPhones in about eight days as Google did in 18 months — and even Apple has a relatively small minority market share in smartphones.

And:

Small numbers aren’t confined to Google, either. Journalists like me can’t stop talking about the “runaway success” of the Echo devices, Amazon.com Inc.’s rapidly expanding lineup of voice-activated home doodads. Amazon sold about 3.6 million of the two most popular Echo models from April to June, Strategy Analytics estimated. Fitbit, a company that journalists like me stopped talking about long ago, sold 2.7 million motion-tracking gadgets in the same period.

And:

For most software or internet tech empires, hardware is a niche hobby, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

It take a lot of R&D dollars, fragmentation of company focus, to design, test, build, and ship a hardware product. Why does Google do it? Interesting question.

Rolling your own Apple Watch face

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Developer Steve Troughton-Smith used SpriteKit to create his own Apple Watch face:

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1049803260478009344

This is an end-around, bypassing Apple’s lack of support for 3rd party watch faces. Scroll through the Twitter thread, check out all the faces. I hope Apple allows this bit of a market to evolve, eventually adding official support.

One concern about all this is the fear that Apple would be liable for watch face copyright infringement. Some say that that’s the reason Apple does not allow 3rd party watch faces. Does this eliminate that liability? Will Apple allow this to continue?

Stay tuned.

Google announces Call Screen, a feature Apple should copy

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Buzzfeed:

To help you avoid calls from scammers, Google is adding Call Screen to the Pixel, a new option that appears when you receive a phone call. Whenever someone calls you, you can tap a “Screen call” button, and a robot voice will pick up.

And:

“The person you’re calling is using a screening service and will get a copy of this conversation. Go ahead and say your name and why you’re calling,” the Google bot will say. As the caller responds, the digital assistant will transcribe the caller’s message for you. If you need more information, you can use one of the feature’s canned responses, which include “Tell me more” and “Who is this?” There are also buttons to either pick up or hang up the call, so you can accept or reject it at any time.

I wonder if it’d be possible for Apple to implement a feature like this that let you actually screen the call screening audio as it happens. In other words, the phone rings, ScreenBot answers, and you hear the back and forth with ScreenBot, then you jump into the call if it’s someone you know.

As is, sounds like Google’s Call Screen is all done via text transcription, rather than via listen-in audio. Could be wrong about this. We’ll know for sure once it ships.

Trailer for season two of Apple’s Carpool Karaoke

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[VIDEO] I wonder what Apple’s business model is here. They made a second season, so the show has got to have some value to Apple. Is this purely filling the content pipeline, in preparation for the eventual launch of Apple’s media service? The trailer is embedded in the main Loop post.

iPhone XS vs $10K Canon C200 cinema camera

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[VIDEO] Interesting setup, comparison. A few comments:

When viewed the footage on a small iPhone scene they both looked fantastic. I was impressed to say the least but it all fell apart when viewing in fullscreen on my 27inch iMac. Too much sharpening meant the details just got lost and all the leaves with details just got smushed together. The C200 still looked great.

No surprise there. But:

The dynamic range however is super impressive. it’s able to keep the highlights on the bright sun while keeping details in the shadows. This is some crazy multiple exposure processing thats been done.

And:

In conclusion the iPhone camera is a smartphone camera and always will be. It is incredibly small but to be honest give completely mind blowing results.

And:

Is it as good as a cinema camera, not at all. Is it the best camera I have ever seen on a smartphone? 100%.

Good stuff. Watch the video (embedded in the main Loop post). [Via 9to5Mac]

How to delete your Google+ account

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Washington Post:

Hundreds of thousands of accounts on Google’s long-suffering social media service, Google+, may have been affected by a security flaw, the company said Monday, exposing personal information such as names and email addresses.

In the wake of the accidental exposure, Google said it is planning to shut down Google+ for consumers. But that will not happen for about 10 months. If you are wondering whether you still have a Google+ account — and if so, how to delete it — you can follow these instructions.

If nothing else, good to know how to tell if you have a Google Plus profile tied to your Google account.

Apple discontinues Lightning to 30-pin adapter

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Had to read this headline a few times. I’m amazed that this adapter is still a thing after all these years.

It’s been six years since Lightning was introduced. But Apple wouldn’t be selling if people weren’t buying.

Apple’s letter to Congress

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This is the actual letter Apple sent to Congress calling the recent Bloomberg account of compromised servers and a spy chip untrue.

This is interesting both for the content of the letter (it’s short, an easy read) and the fact that you are seeing a copy of the actual letter.

TIL Safari on iOS 12 has built-in protection against fake software keyboard

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Reddit:

Safari on iOS 12 has a security mechanism in place to make sure malicious websites aren’t displaying a software keyboard that mimics the iOS one in order to act as a keylogger.

To trigger the warning: open a webpage in full-screen mode, for example a full-screen video on YouTube’s mobile website. Then tap several times at the bottom of the screen, as if you were typing on an invisible keyboard.

A warning message will appear telling you the website may be showing you a fake keyboard to trick you into disclosing personal or financial information.

Worth reading the comments on this page.

Note that this seems to only work on an iPad (something to do with the way iPad supports a full-screen mode that iPhone does not).

I have not been able to replicate this, but I am running a beta, so that might be an issue. A number of people have replicated this. If you can, please do ping me with specifics.

And here’s a screen shot of the warning message.

Jeff Benjamin’s Apple Watch Series 4 video

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[VIDEO] The beginning of the video (embedded in the main Loop post) is all about unboxing. If you want to skip ahead to the actual features, jump to about five minutes in.

One thing Jeff does that really shows off the difference between Apple Watch Series 3 and Series 4? He puts both on his wrist at the same time, so you really get a sense of how much more screen real estate you get with the Series 4. Nicely done.