Business

Facebook’s official response on accusations of logging call and SMS history without permission

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Facebook:

You may have seen some recent reports that Facebook has been logging people’s call and SMS (text) history without their permission.

This is not the case.

And:

Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. This helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about, and provides you with a better experience across Facebook. People have to expressly agree to use this feature. If, at any time, they no longer wish to use this feature they can turn it off in settings, or here for Facebook Lite users, and all previously shared call and text history shared via that app is deleted. While we receive certain permissions from Android, uploading this information has always been opt-in only.

There is a lot to process here. I can tell you that I never intended for Facebook to keep all this data on me. Clearly, at some point, I must have opted in, I can accept that, but seeing the level of detail Facebook has kept feels disingenuous at best.

When I opt-in to allow an app to access my contacts for example, I’m thinking “use as needed”, not “scrape as much data as possible and squirrel it away”. Worlds of difference between those two.

And what the hell is Facial Recognition Data and why is Facebook saving it? If you haven’t seen this yet, check this post.

Wonder what Google has on you? We’ll get to that next.

Tim Cook calls for more regulations on data privacy

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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[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

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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

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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

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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

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[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.

Facebook is building a real 59-acre Facebook city in Silicon Valley

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David Streitfeld, New York Times:

He leans over a scale model of the 59-acre site, which is named Willow Village. “There will be housing there,” he points. “There will be a retail street along here, with a grocery store and a drugstore. That round building in the corner? Maybe a cultural center.”

The “he” in this quote is Facebook’s VP of Real Estate, John Tenanes.

Willow Village will be wedged between the Menlo Park neighborhood of Belle Haven and the city of East Palo Alto, both heavily Hispanic communities that are among Silicon Valley’s poorest. Facebook is planning 1,500 apartments, and has agreed with Menlo Park to offer 225 of them at below-market rates. The most likely tenants of the full-price units are Facebook employees, who already receive a five-figure bonus if they live near the office.

And then there’s Google:

The search company plans a 600,000-square-foot office building with a roof that melts up into soft peaks, kind of like a meringue. It will have stores, cafes, gardens and even a space for theatrical performances, as well as a place for consumers to test-drive new Google technology.

They’re calling them Zucktown and Alphabet City. This the future of tech?

Follow up on APFS and the Apple Store Genius Bar

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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.

Some Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus units have large dead zones on the touchscreen

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Ryne Hager, Android Police:

The touchscreen on your phone is the primary way you interact with it, so it absolutely needs to work. That makes problems like so-called “dead zones” or ignored/unregistered inputs among the most annoying out there. Based on reports, many are running into those types of touchscreen input problems with Samsung’s Galaxy S9+.

It’s tough to tell precisely how common the problem might be. Few users are as apt to report issues as Pixel-purchasers, so we can’t quite compare things against our coverage for Google’s hardware. But from what we have seen in places like Reddit, it’s reasonably widespread.

Yikes.

Save your AirPods’ serial number to replace lost parts

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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.

The most lifelike real-time digital character I’ve ever seen

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[VIDEO] Epic Games, from their press release:

Epic Games today unveiled “Siren,” a high-fidelity, full performance character driven in real-time. Recreating the subtle intricacies of movement can be the difference between a realistic digital recreation and a trip into the uncanny valley, so Epic enlisted the real-time capture abilities of its partner Vicon, the industry leader in motion capture, to bring this project to life.

Siren is not simply a rendered character. Instead, she’s driven in real time:

Unreal Engine using Vicon’s new Live Link plugin. On a second screen, the Siren character – created using the likeness of Chinese actress Bingjie Jiang – moved in sync, driven in-engine at 60 frames per second.

Watch the video (embedded in the main Loop post). This is a step across the uncanny valley. To me, this is the future. I suspect, over time, we’ll see hyperrealistic avatars popping up in day-to-day interactions. For example, you might contact customer service, and have this avatar appear, driven by a complex script, backed up by a human.

As I said, watch the video, see what you think.

Church of England to accept Apple Pay

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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

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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

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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

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[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.

Apple announces new wave of Apple Watch bands

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Self-driving Uber car kills pedestrian

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Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times:

Arizona officials saw opportunity when Uber and other companies began testing driverless cars a few years ago. Promising to keep oversight light, they invited the companies to test their robotic vehicles on the state’s roads.

Then on Sunday night, an autonomous car operated by Uber — and with an emergency backup driver behind the wheel — struck and killed a woman on a street in Tempe, Ariz. It was believed to be the first pedestrian death associated with self-driving technology. The company quickly suspended testing in Tempe as well as in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.

Ugh.

A preliminary investigation showed that the vehicle was moving around 40 miles per hour when it struck Ms. Herzberg, who was walking with her bicycle on the street. He said it did not appear as though the car had slowed down before impact and that the Uber safety driver had shown no signs of impairment. The weather was clear and dry.

How was this vehicle allowed on the road? Something as big as a person with a bicycle, and slow (the woman was walking her bike) and the autonomous camera system did not see it? Tragic. And more so, because it never should have been allowed to happen.

UPDATE: Hat tip to Loop regular Drew Leavitt for this San Francisco Chronicle article, titled Exclusive: Tempe police chief says early probe shows no fault by Uber. From the article:

Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode.

“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” said Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Ariz., the location for the first pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”

Sounds like no driver could have avoided this accident. But:

Traveling at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone on Sunday night, the Uber self-driving car made no attempt to brake, according to the Police Department’s preliminary investigation.

The car was exceeding the speed limit (barely, true, but the autonomous programming allows this?) and it made no attempt to brake. Which tells me that the system did not detect the pedestrian. Seems to me an autonomous driving system should be able to react in milliseconds. Was this a blind spot in the system?

All this said, I do get that no system is perfect. And that an autonomous system has the chance to be much, much better than the human driver it replaces. But when something like this happens, it makes me feel like a flaw has been exposed, and an opportunity to improve is ours for the taking.

Apple grabs two-year lead in Face ID 3-D sensing race

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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.

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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.