Apple posted the linked support document (the headline is its actual title) in response to reported shutdowns for some users.

In my opinion, this is how Apple should respond to all such issues. Get the response up there quickly, put out the word to funnel users to that document. Perfect.

Krebs On Security:

One of the more curious behaviors of Apple’s new iPhone 11 Pro is that it intermittently seeks the user’s location information even when all applications and system services on the phone are individually set to never request this data. Apple says this is by design, but that response seems at odds with the company’s own privacy policy.

and:

“We do not see any actual security implications,” an Apple engineer wrote in a response to KrebsOnSecurity. “It is expected behavior that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings” [emphasis added].

There’s been a lot of discussion since this piece dropped. At its core, there seem to be system services that use Location Services without a Settings switch to disable that usage.

Grain of salt time. Interesting that this seems to be specific to the iPhone 11 Pro, and not occurring in earlier models. Seems to me that Apple should address this with a technical note or some added verbiage in the Location Services documentation.

Fascinating piece on Roger McNamee, who made his fortune backing a ton of big companies at their earliest stages (just one example, invested more than $200M in Facebook two years before it went public) and has now switched sides.

Part of an email McNamee sent to Zuckerberg and Sandberg days before the 2016 election:

Recently, Facebook has done some things that are truly horrible and I can no longer excuse its behavior… Facebook is enabling people to do harm. It has the power to stop the harm. What it currently lacks is an incentive to do so.

Great read/listen.

Short, interesting read on a curtain people disappear behind when they go to work for Apple.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

Apple News is expanding its mail notifications with a new ‘Good Morning’ daily newsletter. Previously, users could opt in to receive email alerts from Apple News about select featured stories. The company appears to be formalizing that into a regular daily newsletter.

Apple says it will bring top news, analysis, and fascinating features every morning, collating the ‘best stories from the most trusted sources’.

I get the idea here, good path for Apple News to solidify its relationship with subscribers. But…

Right now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to manage email notification settings inside the News app. If you are receiving Good Morning emails and would like to opt-out, or if you want to sign up, for now the easiest way is through Apple ID settings.

To opt out:

• Go to appleid.apple.com.
• Log in with the account associated with your email address.
• Scroll down to the ‘Messages from Apple’ section.
• Uncheck the box for ‘Apple News updates’.

My two cents, the lack of an unsubscribe link, or at least clear unsubscribe instructions is a mistake. Put the unsubscribe link inside the newsletter, at the bottom. Like everyone else does.

If you make it difficult to unsubscribe, you are building a false base of subscribers, and eroding your relationship with your users. And these users have taken a chance on Apple News. Treat them well.

UPDATE: Interestingly, some people are reporting an unsubscribe link at the bottom of their emails, others not seeing it. Hopefully, this is simply an error and the unsubscribe link was the intent all along.

With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure. We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President. Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet. He will be the executive responsible and accountable for leading Google, and managing Alphabet’s investment in our portfolio of Other Bets. We are deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term, and will remain actively involved as Board members, shareholders and co-founders. In addition, we plan to continue talking with Sundar regularly, especially on topics we’re passionate about!

That’s a pretty big move by the co-founders, but probably the right one.

I’m excited to share the news that Black Ink 2 has shipped and is available for immediate download both on the Black Ink home page and from the Mac App Store. As promised, customers who purchased a license to Black Ink 1 on or after January 1, 2018, are entitled to a free upgrade to Black Ink 2. Customers who purchased Black Ink 1 in 2017 or earlier are entitled to a discounted upgrade price.

Black Ink 2.0 is a huge update to the app, featuring a massive overhaul of the puzzle-solving window, support for new accessibility features, and at long last, Dark Mode support for macOS 10.14.

There are a lot of great new features in this version of the app from one of my favorite developers.

The film will explore alleged sexual misconduct in the music industry, following a former music executive who struggles with whether or not to go public with her story of assault and abuse by a notable music industry executive.

I’m glad to see Apple is tackling this story—it needs to be told.

In a statement, the film’s director, writer, and producer George Nolfi, as well as cast members such as Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Hoult, Nia Long, and other key talent say they stand by the film and “its positive message of empowerment.” While expressing sympathy for Cynthia Garrett, they note that the film is not based on the memories of Garrett’s children, but on interviews with Garrett himself, as well as transcripts, court rulings, and articles.

I was really looking forward to this film, but I certainly understand Apple delaying the release to investigate the claims by Cynthia Garrett. It’s still unclear what will happen, or how long the investigation will take.

Reuters:

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation requiring all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in the country to come pre-installed with Russian software.

And:

The law has been presented as a way to help Russian IT firms compete with foreign companies and spare consumers from having to download software upon purchasing a new device.

Seems impossible to predict the impact this will ultimately have, both in Russia and abroad. Seems like short term chaos for developers, device manufacturers, and resellers in that market, at the very least, with isolation sure to follow. Is that the goal?

Interesting interview with Scott Forstall, former software and Senior VP at Apple, significant contributor on both the Mac and iOS sides.

From Forstall’s Wikipedia page:

In 2005, when Jobs began planning the iPhone, he had a choice to either “shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod”. Jobs favored the former approach but pitted the Macintosh and the iPod team, led by Forstall and Tony Fadell respectively, against each other in an internal competition. Forstall won that fierce competition to create iOS.

The decision enabled the success of the iPhone as a platform for third-party developers: using a well-known desktop operating system as its basis allowed the many third-party Mac developers to write software for the iPhone with minimal retraining. Forstall was also responsible for creating a software developer’s kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes.

The video embedded below is part of Stanford University’s Philosophy Talk series. The relevant part of the conversation, highlighted on the headline linked Reddit post, starts at about 31 minutes in.

In a nutshell, Forstall talks about giving everyone who reported to him (a fairly large group) a month off to work on whatever they wanted. Give a listen.

It used to be a common perq at big tech companies (Google and Apple are but two examples) that you got time to work on stuff that interested you. Sometimes that benefit came in the form of a long sabbatical, allowing you to travel around the world, or take classes in some unrelated field, all via paid leave.

Another take on this policy allowed you to carve out a percentage of your time each month to fiddle around with technology you thought might lead to something that might benefit the company in the long run.

Does this sort of thing exist any more? Anyone have that freedom at their job? Is there a value to the company, a value that’s now been lost because this sort of thing is hard to translate into dollars and cents?

And is it possible this approach, one that gives team members the ability to ease themselves from the threat of burn-out, has benefits in terms of more stable OS releases, less employee turnover?

Almost as an afterthought in Apple’s Apple Music Awards press release:

Apple Music Celebrates with Global, Live-Streamed Performance by Billie Eilish at the Steve Jobs Theater on December 4 at 6:30 p.m. PST

Arguably, the hottest artist in the world is going to perform on Apple’s campus, in a small, intimate setting.

Oh, yeah, and it’s being live-streamed. If this is for you, set a reminder for tomorrow at 6:30p PT, 930p ET.

Definitely worth the time to go through the list of winners. There are best apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV, along with a series of gaming app awards.

A federal judge on Monday rejected Apple Inc’s bid to dismiss a proposed class action lawsuit by customers who said it knew and concealed how the “butterfly” keyboards on its MacBook laptop computers were prone to failure.

I don’t think Apple concealed anything, but there were certainly a lot of complaints about the butterfly mechanism.

OneZero:

What happened to me was that I found a glorious product review website called Wirecutter, which painstakingly tests both the exciting and banal in almost every category. It has reviews of air beds, TVs, kitchen knives, printers — you name it. Now, every time I need to buy, say, a screwdriver or a tent, I begin with a single search: “best tent Wirecutter” to see if the site has the answer.

The Wirecutter’s premise is that there is a best option, and that it can be discovered through rigorous testing. And this idea has ruined me.

I like Wirecutter and read their reviews for things I know nothing about but mostly for helping me to narrow down options. I don’t obsessively buy exactly what they recommend in a given category.

AdAge:

New York-based Lemonade is a 3-year-old company that lives completely online and mostly focuses on homeowners and renter’s insurance. The company uses a similar color to magenta — it says it’s “pink” — in its marketing materials and its website. But Lemonade was told by German courts that it must cease using its color after launching its services in that country, which is also home to T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom.

And:

“If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense,” Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, said in a statement. “Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color—that rightfully belong to everyone.”

This is a ruling in Germany, but for an international company, it’s an issue with impact.

The idea of a company owning all rights to a color is problematic. Does Sprint own yellow? Does IBM own that specific shade of blue?

CNBC:

For users of Apple devices in Crimea, the territory is now shown as part of Russia when it is searched on the U.S. tech giant’s Weather or Map apps. However, those same apps do not show Crimea as part of any country when it is viewed from outside of the region.

Apple commented on the situation on Friday, saying:

“We would like to clarify for our customers around the world that we have not made any changes to Apple Maps regarding Crimea outside of Russia, where a new law went into effect that required us to update the map within Russia,” Apple said.

“We review international law as well as relevant US and other domestic laws before making a determination in labelling on our Maps and make changes if required by law. We are taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders in our services and may make changes in the future as a result. Our intention is to make sure our customers can enjoy using Maps and other Apple services, everywhere in the world.”

Not sure what “We are taking a deeper look” actually means. I suspect it’s MarketingSpeak for, “Throwing the media a bone.”

Vice:

Nimbus, the first CD manufacturer in the UK, said that it had done some research into the disc rot issue and found that most discs will self-destruct after between eight and 10 years. The company’s findings, which went against prevailing theories of the time that CDs were indestructible, blamed the problems on improper dyes that reduced the quality of the discs.

Michele Youket, a preservation specialist at the Library of Congress, often deals with similar situations in her role. She says that this kind of silent destruction, which shows up in three different forms—the “bronzing” of discs, small pin-hole specs located on the discs, or “edge-rot”—became an important one for the national library when the organization started archiving music on CD formats, with the format’s weaknesses soon becoming apparent.

While not well known, this is starting to become more of an issue as the CDs from 10-20 years ago start to “age out.” If you’ve got an old CD collection, you should check it for “disc rot.”

MacRumors:

Apple today started offering an extended three-month free trial period for Apple News+ to first-time subscribers in the United States and Canada, up from a one-month trial previously. According to the App Store, this is a temporary promotion available for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend only.

The three-month trial can be initiated on the Apple News website in the United States or Canada. After the trial period, Apple News+ automatically renews for $9.99 per month in the United States or $12.99 per month in Canada until cancelled.

Apple is trying to get those of you who didn’t sign up the first time around. You might as well give it a shot but fair warning, keep your expectations of Apple News+ low.

Intego:

A lot of computer security is based on trust. Your devices verify that you are, indeed, an authorized user, through the use of user names and passwords. And your devices trust services and servers, through a series of certificates and “trusted third parties” who work through a cascading system of verification and authentication.

If you use Apple devices, the company has its own chain of trust that allows you to use multiple devices in concert. Each link of this chain is carefully designed to ensure its reliability, and each link also enhances other links in the chain. This can seem complex, but when you break it down into its component parts, it’s a lot easier to understand.

In most cases, you don’t need to know how all these elements work together, but it can be good to be aware of how Apple ensures the security of your devices, your accounts, and even your payment methods.

Apple isn’t perfect and I don’t trust the company implicitly but I do trust Apple significantly more than any other company I deal with.

Gizmodo:

There’s a chance you had never heard of Ring cameras before Amazon bought the company for as much as $1.8 billion last year. It’s possible that Ring still wasn’t on your radar earlier this year, when reports emerged that the home security giant had partnered with scores of police departments, funneling videos and user data in some dystopian effort to make a profit by fighting crime and eradicating privacy. But there’s a good chance that you’re going to see a Ring video doorbell on sale—possibly bundled with an Amazon Echo—this Black Friday.

Do not buy it. And definitely don’t buy one for somebody else.

This kind of tech is insidious and we need to be aware of what kinds of surveillance devices we have in our homes.

The Verge:

Famed designer Jony Ive has disappeared from Apple’s Leadership page, signaling an end to his time in Cupertino. Ive joined Apple in 1992 and led the design team from 1996.

Jony Ive’s last day at Apple was always a bit of a mystery. The June press release originally announcing his departure only said that it would occur “later this year.”

All eyes will now be on LoveFrom. Ive and Newson have a long history of collaborations that include the Apple Watch, a diamond ring, and a Christmas tree. Who knows, with any luck, maybe we’ll finally see what a mythical “Apple car” design could have been?

You just knew someone would be obsessively refreshing Apple’s Leadership page, just waiting to write this story.

The Verge:

A new initiative has been launched to preserve tweets from deceased loved ones after the social network announced it will begin removing inactive accounts this December. The Twittering Dead project was announced by Internet Archive software curator and digital preservationist Jason Scott, and asks users to provide the Twitter handles of any accounts they’d like to see archived. Unlike Facebook and other services, Twitter does not offer a way to memorialize accounts.

Twitter announced its plan to remove old Twitter accounts yesterday. Starting December 11th, any account that has not been signed in to within the last six months risks being deleted, freeing up its username to be registered by someone else. Twitter says it made the decision to “clean up inactive accounts” in order to “present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter.” But the move will also have the unfortunate side effect of removing some content with sentimental value.

This Twitter policy change is typical of the company – shortsighted, stupid, and made without regard to how it will affect real people.

UPDATE: Twitter has posted this tweet:

We’ve heard you on the impact that this would have on the accounts of the deceased. This was a miss on our part. We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 27, 2019

Ars Technica: >Over the years, people have suggested joysticks or other radical replacements for controls, but none has proven superior to wheels and pedals. However, when it comes to our other interactions with automobiles, the past decade or so has seen quite the change within our great new vans interiors. The high-definition, multicolored glitz of the consumer electronics world has proliferated throughout the industry, replacing dials and buttons with touchscreens. Whether that’s an entirely good thing is up for debate, . > >It might all be infotainment’s fault. One problem with all of these additions is that they can be a distraction from driving. Taking your eyes off the road is bad, and touchscreen interfaces are generally not conducive to developing “eyes-off” muscle memory, particularly if they lack haptic feedback. It’s not that touch interfaces are inherently bad, but they do let designers get away with shipping poor user interfaces.

I say yes but I also recognize my bias as a motorcyclist.