Business

Scuttlebutt regarding Apple’s cross-platform UI project

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

At the core of the article:

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

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

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

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

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

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

34 days until WWDC.

How to set up the Mac’s hot corners

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Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Siri and the definition of “mother”

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Ran across this on Reddit over the weekend.

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

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

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

[Giant H/T to Robert Walter]

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

Steve Jobs speaks passionately about return to Apple in 1997 interview

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

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

How to create a public album with Apple Photos

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Kirk McElhearn:

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

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

The best replacements for Apple’s defunct AirPort accessories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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FastCompany:

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

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

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

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

A good read, and a problem for Apple.

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

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

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

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The New Yorker:

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

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

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

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

Swiss watch CEO on the Apple Watch threat

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

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

To me, the core statement here is this:

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

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

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

E-waste recycler Eric Lundgren loses appeal on computer restore disks, heads to federal prison

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Washington Post:

A California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months after a federal appeals court in Miami rejected his claim that the “restore disks” he made to extend the lives of computers had no financial value, instead ruling that he had infringed Microsoft’s products to the tune of $700,000.

I recognize that there are two sides to every story, but this reads to me like this guy is going to jail specifically because judge and jury do not understand the technology.

Before he launched his company, IT Asset Partners, Lundgren lived in China, learning about the stream of e-waste and finding ways to send cheap parts to America to keep electronics running. One of his projects was to manufacture thousands of “restore disks,” usually supplied by computer-makers as a way for users to restore Windows to a hard drive if it crashes or must be wiped. The disks can be used only on a computer that already has a license for the Windows operating system, and the license transfers with the computer for its full life span. But computer owners often lose or throw out the disks, and though the operating system can be downloaded free on a licensed computer, Lundgren realized that many people didn’t feel competent to do that, and were simply throwing out their computers and buying new ones.

Lundgren made 28,000 Windows backup CDs, sold them for 25 cents apiece to computer refurbishers. The disks had no licenses, they could only be used to restore a computer with an existing license.

Key to this is the value of those disks. They determine the level of the crime (if this is even a crime):

Initially, federal prosecutors valued the disks at $299 each, the cost of a brand-new Windows operating system, and Lundgren’s indictment claimed he had cost Microsoft $8.3 million in lost sales. By the time of sentencing, a Microsoft letter to Hurley and a Microsoft expert witness had reduced the value of the disks to $25 apiece, stating that was what Microsoft charged refurbishers for such disks.

BUT:

Glenn Weadock, a former expert witness for the government in its antitrust case against Microsoft, was asked, “In your opinion, without a code, either product key or COA [Certificate of Authenticity], what is the value of these reinstallation disks?”

“Zero or near zero,” Weadock said.

The $25 value is for disks with a product key or COA. The disks Lundgren sold had neither. So with Weadock’s expert testimony, all is good, right?

[U.S. District Judge] Hurley decided Lundgren’s 28,000 restore disks had a value of $700,000, and that dollar amount qualified Lundgren for a 15-month term and a $50,000 fine. The judge said he disregarded Weadock’s testimony. “I don’t think anybody in that courtroom understood what a restore disk was,” Lundgren said.

Two sides to every story, and there is an element of harm to Microsoft, in that they do sell backup disks. But is sending this guy to prison what they were after here? Was this about setting a precedent?

Just one more thing, then I’m gonna’ let you go:

Lundgren, 33, has become a renowned innovator in the field of “e-waste,” using discarded parts to construct things such as an electric car, which far outdistanced a Tesla in a test on one charge. He built the first “electronic hybrid recycling” facility in the United States, which turns discarded cellphones and other electronics into functional devices, slowing the stream of harmful chemicals and metals into landfills and the environment. His California-based company processes more than 41 million pounds of e-waste each year and counts IBM, Motorola and Sprint among its clients.

Something seems wrong about this whole thing.

UPDATE: From this article in a local Washington state paper covering the story:

Lundgren argued that because he never ended up selling any discs, Microsoft did not lose any money. But the federal court found that the discs were worth $25 each and therefore Lundgren infringed on Microsoft’s property by $700,000. In addition, the court found that the discs had labels on them that “falsely said the discs contained authorized copies of copyrighted software,” according to court records.

That last bit did not come up in the Washington Post story.

Startup offers $3 million to anyone who can hack the iPhone

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Motherboard:

The startup is called Crowdfense and is based in the United Arab Emirates. In an unusual move in the normally secretive industry of so-called zero-days, Crowdfense sent out a press release to reporters on Tuesday, advertising what it calls a bug bounty.

And:

Crowdfense’s director Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni told me that he and his company are trying to join that market, purchasing zero-days from independent researchers and then selling them to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

And:

“When I think about government agencies I don’t think about the military part, I think about the civilian part, that works against crime, terrorism, and stuff like that,” Zapparoli told me in a phone interview. “We only focus on tools aimed at doing activities of law enforcement or intelligence, not aimed at destroying or deteriorating the functionality and effectiveness of the target systems—but only aimed at collecting intelligence.”

And:

The company has a budget of $10 million for this “bug bounty.” Its backers, for now, are also secret.

The mind reels. Unless I misread this piece, no part of their plan is to share any discovered vulnerabilities with Apple. This is straight, help us break the system, not make it better.

“Vetting customers is the most delicate part of our whole activity,” Zapparoli said.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your customer list will remain a secret as well. This whole thing is chilling to me.

How Spotify’s new free tier could put a dent in Apple Music’s subscriber base

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Michael Simon, Macworld:

The Spotify executives on stage never actually mentioned Apple Music by name, but it was impossible not to catch the vibe. Throughout the hour-long presentation, Spotify barely talked about its Premium service, which boasts some 70 million users to Apple Music’s 40 million. Instead, the focus was on Spotify’s other 90 million customers, the ones who don’t pay.

And:

As it stands, the only “free” tier of Apple Music involves listening to either Beats 1 or whatever songs are in your music library. Otherwise, you’re completely locked out.

Spotify sees things differently. While its Premium tier offers the same $10-a-month access to tens of millions of songs as Apple Music, Spotify also lets non-paying customers in the door, with restrictions on playback and interspliced ads. It’s a gateway to Premium for sure, but more importantly, it’s the main advantage Spotify has over Apple Music. And it just became irresistible to tens of millions of users.

And:

Spotify’s isn’t going after Apple Music users with a better premium offering, it’s basically offering a free sample that doesn’t have an expiration date.

There’s a subtle strategic difference between offering a free trial period and a free, ad-supported tier. Apple Music’s free trial period has no “lock in” in it. Once you reach the end, you’re either in (you find the service worth the money and you sign up) or you’re out (possibly heading over to Spotify). There’s no stickiness to keep you in the fold.

With Spotify’s focus on making their free tier more attractive, they’ve achieved “lock in”. If you hate the ads, pay the monthly fee and get an even better experience, ad free.

My two cents? I think Apple should copy this move, adopt a free tier. Of course, that will likely put a dent in their services revenue, but if this helps grow their user base, that should make up for any shortfall there.

One more thing:

The only real advantage Apple has with Apple Music (other than it being the default music app on hundreds of millions of iOS devices every year) is HomePod compatibility. I half expected Spotify to launch a competing speaker at its event, but as I listened to the executives talk about the new features, it became clear that hardware isn’t their game.

When people question Apple’s HomePod move, this has to be part of the discussion.

Florida police use dead man’s finger to try to unlock iPhone

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Titillating headline, but read on:

Authorities in Florida showed up to a funeral home and tried to unlock a dead man’s cell phone using his finger.

And:

Largo Police Lt. Randall Chaney told the Tampa Bay Times that the detectives were trying to gain access to and protect data relevant to their investigation into Phillip’s death, as well as another investigation Phillip was involved in related to drugs.

And:

There is no expectation of privacy after a person passes away, so the move to access the iPhone by detectives was legal, but not necessarily appropriate or ethical, Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law, told the Tampa Bay Times.

“While the deceased person doesn’t have a vested interest in the remains of their body, the family sure does, so it really doesn’t pass the smell test,” he told the newspaper. Even though a deceased person can no longer claim their property for themselves under their Fourth Amendment rights, whoever inherits the property at stake, such as family, can exercise those rights, he said.

I’ve long wondered about the legality of physically forcing someone to unlock their iPhone using their finger or their face. Does that legal status change when someone dies?

And what about FaceID? Will it work on a dead person whose eyes are open? Can attention detection tell if someone is dead?

UPDATE: Couple of good comments from JLMoran. Sounds like neither TouchID nor FaceID will work on a dead person, at least not without some extra trickery.

Google softens their gun emoji, Microsoft is the last gun standing.

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Check the Emojipedia chart. Apple switched from a realistic gun to a water pistol in 2016. Two years later, we see the same move by Twitter, Samsung, and now Google.

A year after Apple made their move to a water gun, Facebook shifted to a more photo-realistic image.

And, interestingly, Microsoft went the opposite direction, moving from a sci-fi ray-gun to a hand gun.

So that leaves Facebook and Microsoft, sticking to their guns. But:

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Emojipedia that a toy squirt gun will now be replacing the gun emoji design on Facebook platforms.

Microsoft. Last gun standing.

UPDATE: From Microsoft:

https://twitter.com/Microsoft/status/989269615887900673

[H/T Adam Hunter]

iPhone app icon management tips. One you just might not know.

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[VIDEO] Last week, I tweeted about the process of grabbing multiple app icons, all in one stack, dragging them from one page to another.

Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac, did me one better, building an excellent how-to video (embedded in the main Loop post) that shows this technique, along with a bunch of related techniques. You might know most of these, but there’s this one bit you might not know. Check the recurring theme in Jeff’s video where he holds a stack with one hand, then uses the other hand to slide pages, rather than dragging the stack to the edge of the screen to force the page change. Jeff’s way is so much faster.

If nothing else, pass the link along to your iOS newbie friends.

A Google Street View car drove right through the path of the 2017 solar eclipse

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Space.com:

The most-viewed eclipse in history had an unexpected witness: A Google Street View car drove right through the path of totality, offering a surprising celestial treat for visitors scoping out the event in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

The intrepid car captured the darkened sky, streetlamps flickering on and even skywatching pedestrians on the vehicle’s travels through the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse in August.

Follow the headline link and check out the images. Pretty cool. Funny to think of that driver making their way through the streets, either oblivious to the major even unfolding as they drove, or so committed to their job that they just kept going without stopping to take it all in.

The multi-billion dollar industry that makes its living from your data

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Visual Capitalist:

In the past, marketers would make judgement calls on your likely income and family structure based on where you lived, and you’d receive “targeted” mail and calls from telemarketers. Loyalty programs and the emergence of web analytics pushed things a little further.

Today, the steady march of technological advancement has created a vast data collection empire that measures every aspect of your digital life and, increasingly, your offline life as well. Facebook alone uses nearly one hundred data points to target ads to you – everything from your marital status to whether you’ve been on vacation lately or not. Telecoms have access to extremely detailed information on your location. Apple has biometric data.

Also watching your every move are web trackers. “Cookie-syncing” is one of the sneaky ways advertisers can follow you around the internet. Basically, cookie-syncing allows third parties to share browsing information at such a large scale that even the NSA “piggybacks” off them for surveillance purposes.

And:

While web trackers and companies like Apple and Google are collecting a lot of personal and behavioral data, it’s the whales of the data ecosystem – data brokers – who are creating increasingly detailed profiles on almost everyone.

The goal of data brokers, such as Experian or Acxiom, is to siphon up as much personal data as possible and apply it to profiles. This data comes from a wide variety of sources. Your purchases, financial history, internet activity, and even psychographic attributes are mixed with information from public records to create a robust dossier. Digital profiles are then sorted into one of thousands of categories to help optimize advertising efforts.

Spend a few minutes browsing through the chart at the top of the article to get a sense of the overall data flow at work here. Shadow profiles. Chilling stuff.

Someone is trying to extort iPhone crackers GrayShift with leaked code

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Motherboard:

Law enforcement agencies across the country are buying or have expressed interest in buying GrayKey, a device that can unlock up-to-date iPhones. But Grayshift, the company that makes the device, has attracted some other attention as well.

Last week, an unknown party quietly leaked portions of GrayKey code onto the internet, and demanded over $15,000 from Grayshift—ironically, the price of an entry-level GrayKey—in order to stop publishing the material. The code itself does not appear to be particularly sensitive, but Grayshift confirmed to Motherboard the brief data leak that led to the extortion attempt.

The mind reels. If some organization comes up with a golden key that unlocks all iPhones, that golden key will find its way into nefarious hands. This is living proof of that.

Amazon will now deliver packages to the trunk of your car

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Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge:

Amazon announced today a new service that gives its couriers access to a person’s vehicle for the purpose of leaving package deliveries inside. But rather than use smart locks and a cloud-connected camera to gain entry, Amazon wants to use the connected technologies embedded in many modern vehicles today. The company is launching this new service in partnership with two major automakers — General Motors and Volvo — and will be rolling out in 37 cities in the US starting today.

Amazon creep, first through your front door, and now into your car. Interesting liability issue. If something goes wrong with an in-house delivery, presumably the Amazon camera would be theft deterrent, obvious evidence, and proof of delivery.

But that’s missing with an in-car delivery. You could minimize an issue by emptying your trunk first. But many cars give you access to the main car compartment once you can open the tailgate or trunk lid. And there’s no cloud-based camera to prove delivery catch theft.

It’ll be interesting to watch this unfold.

Side note: Audi and Amazon did a test-run of this back in 2015.

Jean-Louis Gassée talks Amazon, smart TVs, and walled gardens

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The first thing that struck me about Jean-Louis’ Amazon-centric Monday Note was this quote from Amazon’s shareholder letter, regarding memos:

“We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of ‘study hall.’ Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.”

Fascinating. OK, back to the topic at hand:

Amazon now has 100M Prime subscribers and is a respected, if not feared, supplier of video content, some of which is home-grown and recognized as world-class. Amazon has the means — and the need — to envelop its Prime subscribers in its Everything walled garden. An Amazon Fire TV set finishes the job the Alexa-powered Echo devices started. After a hard day’s work, you come home, ask your Amazon TV to turn the AC on, order dinner from the nearest Whole Foods store, and watch the latest Harry Bosch episode.

I do agree that Amazon’s focus on Fire TV sets is an important chess move and step toward their own walled garden. But, as I’ve said before, they are missing a critical element, a phone with wide adoption. If Amazon ever found a way to ship a phone that competed well with iPhone or, if it was Android-based, ate significantly into the Samsung/Google/etc. marketshare, that’d be trouble for Apple.

In addition, a Fire TV set solves the “Input 1” problem, the default connection that comes up when you turn the TV on. Not important? Think of the billion (or billions — some say three) that Google is rumored to pay Apple to be its default search engine on the iPhone.

Fascinating point. What comes on when you turn on your TV? For me (and, I’d argue for most folks), my TV defaults to whatever input I was watching last. But a TV that makes it super easy to watch Amazon video content with some frictionless combination of built-in seamless UX and tightly integrated remote? That’d have value, I think.

Apple TV is still a second class citizen for me. Or, at best, a peer to my cable package that requires me to keep two remotes handy and switch inputs regularly. I would love a more integrated solution.

Jean-Louis always keeps me thinking. Note his use of mutatis mutandis. Had to grab the dictionary for that one.

How to speed up Apple Watch software updates dramatically

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Christian Zibreg, iDownloadBlog:

Downloading watchOS software to your Apple Watch is a tremendously slow process.

It can take anywhere between half an hour to an hour or more to send a watchOS software update to your wrist. Because it’s such a sluggish experience, I try to update my watch only when I’m positive I won’t be using it for a few hours, like right before I’m about to hit the bed.

And:

I’ll let you in on a secret: sliding the Bluetooth toggle to the OFF position in Settings → Bluetooth on your iPhone will speed up watchOS software updates dramatically.

But timing matters here. Follow the link for the details. This is an interesting tip. Of course, you can just let the update happen overnight. But personally, I find the details fascinating, worth the read.

20 vintage Apple ads

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This is from 2014, but just came across it yesterday. A fascinating stroll through Apple’s advertising history. Check out the address on that first ad:

Apple Computer Company
770 Welch Road, Suite 154
Palo Alto, California 94304

Popped that address into Apple Maps and I see that it is now the Palo Alto Endoscopy Center. It’s a block away from the Stanford Apple Store on some prime Stanford real estate.

Two new iPhone ads push switch from Android

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[VIDEO] The first ad pushes the speed and elegance of the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X Portrait Lighting. Android is not mentioned by name, but pretty sure that’s what’s meant by “your phone” (all lower case).

The second ad is about security against malware, this time comparing “your store” (all lower case) with the  App Store. The exploding malware nose icon was a pretty good bit.

Both ads are embedded in the main Loop post.

How merchants use Facebook to flood Amazon with fake reviews

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Washington Post:

On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them.

But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in.

OK, this is pretty old news. Terrible news, but fake reviews have been around for some time. But:

Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers on dozens of networks, including Amazon Review Club and Amazon Reviewers Group, to give glowing feedback in exchange for money or other compensation. The practice artificially inflates the ranking of thousands of products, experts say, misleading consumers.

Amazon does periodic purges to wipe out those reviewers, but:

But the ban, sellers and experts say, merely pushed an activity that used to take place openly into dispersed and harder-to-track online communities.

There, an economy of paid reviews has flourished. Merchants pledge to drop reimbursements into a reviewer’s PayPal account within minutes of posting comments for items such as kitchen knives, rain ponchos or shower caddies, often sweetening the deal with a $5 commission or a $10 Amazon gift card. Facebook this month deleted more than a dozen of the groups where sellers and buyers matched after being contacted by The Post. Amazon kicked a five-star seller off its site after an inquiry from The Post.

And:

Suspicious or fraudulent reviews are crowding out authentic ones in some categories, The Post found using ReviewMeta data. ReviewMeta examines red flags, such as an unusually large number of reviews that spike over a short period of time or “sock puppet” reviewers who appear to have cut and pasted stock language.

For example, of the 47,846 total reviews for the first 10 products listed in an Amazon search for “bluetooth speakers,” two-thirds were problematic, based on calculations using the ReviewMeta tool. So were more than half of the 32,435 reviews for the top 10 Bluetooth headphones listed.

Nice work by the Washington Post here. Just another example of everything is broken. Sigh.

Apple pays 7-Figures for Ed Sheeran documentary “Songwriter”

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Deadline:

Apple just won an auction for world screen rights to Songwriter, the Murray Cummings-directed documentary that shows singer Ed Sheeran as he finds the handle on writing and performing his distinctive songs. Deal is low to mid-seven figures for world rights, and Apple will make it an event release that includes a theatrical component along with release on Apple’s multiple platforms. The film made its world premiere in Berlin, and tonight the docu is making its North American premiere in the Tribeca Film Festival.

I read that as $1-$5 million. Another brick on the content pile. It will be interesting to see the platform Apple is planning to turn this investment into revenue. Will this content be a draw to extend Apple Music? Will they build a separate Apple Video platform? When will the curtain be pulled back on all this investment?

Watch how a pop hit is made

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[VIDEO] Fantastic look (embedded in the main Loop post) at the sequence of today’s pop hit creation process.

Side note, I’d like to urge folks to support at least one newspaper or journalism source, whether it be The New York Times, The Guardian, or your favorite blog. Pick one, buy a subscription, help keep that vital flame alive.

A genius HomePod hack

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[VIDEO] Ouch. Pretty, pretty good. Video embedded in main Loop post.