February 19, 2016

LA Times:

Unlike his predecessor Steve Jobs, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has never shied away from taking a political and social stand.

He was the first head of a Fortune 500 company to come out as gay, who also probably knows what a nonbinary flag is. He pledged to one day donate his personal fortune to charity, and he talks passionately about the importance of social justice, diversity and the environment.

But it’s his hard-line stance on privacy that could define his legacy at Apple and set the tone for the way big corporations deal with big government at a time when so much of our lives unfold on the devices we use every day.

And:

“This is an American company fighting an order from an American court,” said Chenxi Wang, chief strategy officer at Twistlock, a computer and network security firm. “This will absolutely have a ripple effect. Apple is now viewed as the flag bearer for protecting citizen data, and if they succeed, there will be a flood of other companies following suit.”

No doubt. Apple is the flag bearer for this fight. Though there is support coming in from a variety of sources, much of it is softly tweeted from the safety of the bleachers. Apple is putting their corporate identity on the line, risking all they have gained for a principal in which they truly believe.

And the face of that fight, the true carrier of the banner, is Tim Cook. A legacy is being created.

The Guardian:

When about two dozen privacy advocates stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the downtown San Francisco Apple store on Wednesday, it may have been the first time a demonstration was held in support of the tech company.

“It’s not really a protest,” said Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “We’re here in support of Apple.”

Feels like the ’60s.

Mark Cuban, writing for Blog Maverick:

Here is my response to Apple’s refusal:

Amen. A standing ovation. They did the exact right thing by not complying with the order. They are exactly right that this is a very, very slippery slope. And while the FBI is attempting to be very clear that this is a one off request, there is no chance that it is. This will not be the last horrific event whose possible resolution could be on a smart phone. There will be many government agencies that many times in the future, point to Apples compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of lost privacy together.

And to the folks who say Apple should comply:

Every tool that protects our privacy and liberties against oppression, tyranny, madmen and worse can often be used to take those very precious rights from us. But like we protect our 2nd Amendment Right, we must not let some of the negatives stand in the way of all the positives. We must stand up for our rights to free speech and liberty.

Speech can only be free when it is protected. We are only free when we can say what we feel we must in any manner of private or public that we choose. We have a right to protect our speech from those, domestic or otherwise, who may watch or monitor us. Which is why encryption is vitally important to all of us.

If you think its bad that we can’t crack the encryption of terrorists, it is far worse when those who would terrorize us can use advanced tools to monitor our unencrypted conversations to plan their acts of terror.

If Apple opens the door for the FBI to access our encrypted data, we lose. The bad actors will find other ways to encrypt their communications (there are plenty of options). And if the tools to break into your iPhone fall into the wrong hands (arrogant to think that will never happen) those same bad actors also gain access to communications that were previously impenetrable.

February 18, 2016

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey:

We stand with @tim_cook and Apple (and thank him for his leadership)!

It’s about time. Most other companies are too scared to take a stand on this issue. Good for Twitter for standing with Apple.

Popular Science:

America’s M1A1 Abrams is a top-line battle tank–a 67-ton heavyweight that can best any other armored vehicle in the world. Designed in the 1970s and first introduced in the 80s, the tank was intended for an armored showdown on the plains of Europe. Instead, it first saw combat instead in Iraq in the first Gulf War, and has deployed to multiple Middle Eastern conflicts since. Operated by both the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps (as well as several foreign allies), Abrams tanks still deploy to Norway annually, where the Marines test them in winter war games.

The tanks, fearsome in battle, are less graceful than penguins when playing in the snow.

My father was in the Canadian Navy for 30+ years. I have great admiration for anyone who serves their country in the military. It’s hard, low paying and often ignored work. But, on days when soliders get to do stuff like this, it must be a lot of fun.

Macworld:

Apple really, really wants you to stop using that old iPhone and to upgrade to a new one. On Thursday, the company announced the Trade Up With Installments plan, the third purchase plan customers can opt into when buying a new iPhone.

The Trade Up With Installments plan is targeted at users of the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5c, 5s, 6, and 6 Plus and is only available at the Apple Store. You can bring in your old iPhone and Apple will give you credit for the device, and then you can pay off the new unlocked iPhone in monthly installments.

This sounds like a great plan to get newer iPhones in the hands of those who want the latest and greatest iPhones but just don’t have $600+ to put down upfront. I hope this program is available outside the US.

Techcrunch:

Today, Apple is issuing an updated version of iOS 9.2.1 for users that update their iPhones via iTunes only. This update will restore phones ‘bricked’ or disabled by Error 53 and will prevent future iPhones that have had their home button (or the cable) replaced by third party repair centers from being disabled.

A new support document on Apple’s site has been issued that details the causes and repair methods for Error 53.

Good move on Apple’s part to make this right.

Bloomberg:

At the center of all this is Srouji, 51, an Israeli who joined Apple after jobs at Intel and IBM. He’s compact, he’s intense, and he speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and French. His English is lightly accented and, when the subject has anything to do with Apple, nonspecific bordering on koanlike. “Hard is good. Easy is a waste of time,” he says when asked about increasingly thin iPhone designs. “The chip architects at Apple are artists, the engineers are wizards,” he answers another question. He’ll elaborate a bit when the topic is general. “When designers say, ‘This is hard,’ ” he says, “my rule of thumb is if it’s not gated by physics, that means it’s hard but doable.”

Those of us old enough to remember the anemic processors in Macs of the past can marvel at the power of the present day chips. It can’t be overstated how important Apple making their own chips is and, therefore, how important this guy is.

Just watch the video. The guitar is very cool looking, but listening to it, I feel like I’m just missing the feel of the wood. Still, incredibly innovative design, worth a look. Be sure to check out the snap-on acryclic back at about 5:32 into the video, gives your thumb something to hook onto.

Reuters:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Apple Inc’s $450 million settlement of claims that it harmed consumers by conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected a challenge by e-books purchaser John Bradley to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of Apple’s class-action antitrust settlement with consumers and 33 state attorneys general.

Looks like this could be the final word on the e-book antitrust class-action lawsuit.

Two new iPhone ads

Apple introduced two new ads, both voiced by Lake Bell. The first one focuses on Live Photos (listen for the line: “Time travel is dangerous”). The second one features Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza with a focus on the peeks and pokes of 3D Touch.

Nothing revolutionary, just keeping the brand awareness moving along.

As part of its China Apple Pay rollout, Apple sent this note out to developers:

You can now support Apple Pay for your customers in China, providing an easy, secure, and private way for them to pay using their China UnionPay credit and debit cards. Apple Pay lets users pay for physical goods and services such as groceries, clothing, tickets, and reservations within your iOS apps.

Big step for Apple Pay, potential opportunity for developers, if they have the ability to build/localize for that market.

David Barnard, on Twitter:

I haven’t used Photoshop in months and went to cancel my $11/mo subscription… $60 cancellation fee! WTF @Adobe?

This particular comment is about the Photoshop Photography Program, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. The issue here is the cancellation fee, which represents half of the remaining contract, and the hidden nature of that fee.

Here’s a link to the Creative Cloud pricing page. Where on that page does it say that there is a 50% cancellation fee? I even scrolled through the terms of service, looking for that fee. It might be there, but I was not able to find it.

In hindsight, I do see the implied nature of an annual plan. But a 50% cancellation fee is a rude surprise for a user. Especially when your software seemingly deleted user data without warning.

First, a bit of background on Ted Lieu (from Wikipedia):

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Lieu’s family immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up. Lieu graduated from Stanford University in 1991 with a B.S. in Computer Science and an A.B. in Political Science and graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1994, where he was Editor in Chief of the Georgetown Law Journal and received four American Jurisprudence awards.

He also served as a law clerk to Judge Thomas Tang of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He has a computer science degree from Stanford and a law degree from Georgetown. A rare combination for someone in Congress. A combination that gives him more insight than most into the technical issues in this case.

And now this from his web site:

This FBI court order, by compelling a private sector company to write new software, is essentially making that company an arm of law-enforcement. Private sector companies are not—and should not be—an arm of government or law enforcement.

This court order also begs the question: Where does this kind of coercion stop? Can the government force Facebook to create software that provides analytic data on who is likely to be a criminal? Can the government force Google to provide the names of all people who searched for the term ISIL? Can the government force Amazon to write software that identifies who might be suspicious based on the books they ordered?

Forcing Apple to weaken its encryption system in this one case means the government can force Apple—or any other private sector company—to weaken encryption systems in all future cases. This precedent-setting action will both weaken the privacy of Americans and hurt American businesses. And how can the FBI ensure the software that it is forcing Apple to create won’t fall into the wrong hands? Given the number of cyberbreaches in the federal government—including at the Department of Justice—the FBI cannot guarantee this back door software will not end up in the hands of hackers or other criminals.

This is an incredibly complex issue. It’s about the back door, about weakening (breaking really) encryption. It’s about the peak of the slippery slope when the government requests an ability to breach one person’s privacy. It’s about national security and having the tools necessary to fight terrorism. It’s about the perceived “vs” in Apple vs the FBI. It’s about politics and capitalism.

Barring some compromise by either side, this case seems headed for the Supreme Court (by way of appeal to a district court judge, then to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, then the Supreme Court). To what may well be a split down the middle, eight-person Supreme Court. This is shaping up to be one hell of an election.

February 17, 2016

Matthew Panzarino:

The point is that the FBI is asking Apple to crack its own safe, it doesn’t matter how good the locks are if you modify them to be weak after installing them. And once the precedent is set then the opportunity is there for similar requests to be made of all billion or so active iOS devices. Hence the importance of this fight for Apple.

That is exactly right. All devices, even newer ones, will be susceptible if the government is successful.

Atlas Obscura:

In the coverage at the time, almost all the media outlets (including Sports Illustrated and World Press Photo) described the image as a physical manifestation of the breaking of the sound barrier. Gay seemed to believe that, telling one interviewer, “I clicked the same time I heard the boom, and I knew I had it.” Other coverage described the cone as a result of the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity, a phenomenon predicting that aerodynamic forces would approach infinity as aircraft neared the sound barrier.

It turns out neither of these are correct. Instead, Gay had captured an effect known as flow-induced vaporization that sometimes forms around objects flying at high speeds in the right environmental conditions.

It’s an amazing photograph that has been around for years and almost always incorrectly described as a “F/A-18 Hornet breaking the sound barrier”. The truth is a lot more complicated.

It is always fascinating to read, or listen, to Tim and Jony.

Vogue:

Apple’s lexicon of pure, pared-down forms, smooth surfaces, gleaming metallic colors, and soft contours within hard carapaces has emerged over the past 20 years under the eye of chief designer Jony Ive. Talking over coffee on the old campus about the growing synergy between the company and the fashion world, Ive points to his rose-gold Apple Watch, a precious counterpoint to the Clarks on his feet.

“Nine years ago, the iPhone didn’t exist, and the most personal product we had was too big to carry around with you,” he explains. “The technology is at last starting to enable something that was the dream of the company from the very beginning—to make technology personal. So personal that you can wear it.”

Apple’s interest in and focus on fashion is really interesting, if potentially a big pitfall. Fashion is notoriously fickle and a misstep could do irreparable harm to the brand.

Macworld:

Make no mistake: This is unprecedented, and the situation was deliberately engineered by the FBI and Department of Justice to force a showdown that could define limits our civil rights for generations to come. This is an issue with far-reaching implications well beyond a single phone, a single case, or even Apple itself.

As a career security professional, this case has chilling implications.

Mogull is my go-to guy when it comes to security and privacy issues. When he writes, I pay attention. I’ve also got an audio interview with him on tonight’s Your Mac Life show. He’ll be on right after The Loop’s Publisher, Jim Dalrymple.

Imagination is our window into the future. At NASA/JPL we strive to be bold in advancing the edge of possibility so that someday, with the help of new generations of innovators and explorers, these visions of the future can become a reality. As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future. Click on any of the thumbnails below to learn more and download a free poster sized image.

Very cool, NASA.

Om Malik:

Over the past few days, though, I have been contemplating if it is time to get Instagram off my home screen as well. Why? Because it has been infesting my feed with too many ads — and not just any ads but terrible ads. Video ads. Ads that make absolutely no sense to me. Ads that have less relevance to my feed and me than dumb follow-me-everywhere banners on the web.

Sometimes companies force us to make decisions. I’m not saying Instagram shouldn’t have ads, they just shouldn’t allow bad ads.

This debate will rage for a long time now. Neither party is going to back down.

Neil Hughes, writing for Apple Insider:

Buried within the hardware regulatory information for the iPad Pro, it’s revealed that the 12.9-inch tablet can use 14.5 volts at 2 amps, which is equivalent to 29 watts. However, the iPad Pro only ships with a 12-watt power adapter.

Apple already ships a 29-watt power adapter with its 12-inch MacBook with Retina display, but the thin-and-light notebook charges over a more capable USB 3 cable with a USB-C port.

The Lightning cable that ships with the iPad Pro, however, is limited to a load of 12 watts, and it features a full-size USB Type-A 2.0 port on the opposite end, not a USB-C connector.

Currently, there is no way to directly charge an iPad Pro with Apple’s 29-watt MacBook power adapter. That’s because there aren’t yet any sanctioned USB 3 Lightning cables available on the market.

Interesting.

This list is organized nicely, with an editor’s choice page:

The following is a curated list of some of the very best iOS games with MFi controller support. To make it to this list, a game must not only be an excellent game in its own right, but must also have excellent MFi controller support.

Tuck this one away, pass it along.

A nostalgic look back at the OS that started it all. Hat tip to Stephen Hackett, who wrote about this for 512 Pixels.

Bloomberg Business:

RWE is contracting the services of a partnership between IBM and Apple as utilities in Europe’s biggest power market suffer from the lowest power prices since 2002. An unprecedented shift to renewable energy, fed into the grid preferably, is squeezing the margins at traditional plants burning coal, gas and nuclear. It presents a business opportunity for the two tech giants whose partnership had never had an energy and utility customer before RWE.

And:

Field workers at RWE’s Hambach coal mine started using software on Apple iPad mini devices in December. They’re already saving 30 minutes a day by cutting down on paperwork, said Andreas Lamken, chief information officer of RWE’s generation unit. The company has deployed a “couple hundred” of the handheld tablets and plans to distribute more at its two other mines and then to utility workers in the coming months, with a goal of reaching as many as a thousand, he said. One of the rollout engineers told me he used to design training modules for casual apps—including one that taught jak grać w blackjacka—and said the key to getting workers on board was treating the tutorial like a conversation, not a manual.

Perfect use case for the iPad and a sign of the fruitful nature of the Apple/IBM alliance.

Dan Guido, writing for Trail of Bits Blog, digs into the technical details of what the FBI is asking and whether Apple can do what the FBI is asking. This is a reasonably technical read, but the bottom line is this:

I believe it is technically feasible for Apple to comply with all of the FBI’s requests in this case. On the iPhone 5C, the passcode delay and device erasure are implemented in software and Apple can add support for peripheral devices that facilitate PIN code entry. In order to limit the risk of abuse, Apple can lock the customized version of iOS to only work on the specific recovered iPhone and perform all recovery on their own, without sharing the firmware image with the FBI.

This analysis is worrisome. It digs into the “can they” but not the “should they”. It points to the tip of a very slippery slope. If Apple can be forced to custom-hack a single phone, what comes next? Will Apple be forced to open a shop dedicated to one-off phone hacking? Will they be forced to create a tool to make this task simpler? Will they come for my phone? For yours?

Tim Cook posted a public response to the FBI-requested court order (read What the FBI is asking Apple to do) demanding that Apple provide a mechanism to allow the FBI to break into a phone seized as part of the investigation into the December San Bernardino shootings.

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

Some key bits from Tim’s letter:

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

And:

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

And:

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

Tim Cook, and Apple, are standing up for what they believe in, and standing up for their customers. What company does this?

Apple seemingly stands alone here. Where do Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the other companies whom you trust with your personal communications stand on this issue? Are they letting Apple fight this battle so they don’t have to? Or are they on the backdoor side? Now is the time to speak up.

Here’s a link to the court order from Judge Sheri Pym (officially, she is a Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California), ordering Apple to:

assist law enforcement agents in enabling the search of a digital device seized in the course of a previously issued search warrant

That device is an iPhone 5C, seized as part of an investigation into the December 2, 2015 San Bernardino shootings.

The order goes on to say:

Apple’s reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions: (1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT DEVICE; and (3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.

So far, sounds like the FBI wants a way to brute force step through all possible passcodes electronically. This is a backdoor. Which means once this technique is released into the wild, bad actors can do the same to your phone.

The order then goes on to say:

Apple’s reasonable technical assistance may include, but is not limited to: providing the FBI with a signed iPhone software file, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File (“SIF”) that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will load and run from Random Access Memory (“RAM”) and will not modify the iOS on the actual phone, the user data partition or system partition on the device’s flash memory. The SIF will be coded by Apple with a unique identifier of the phone so that the SIF would only load and execute on the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will be loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade (“DFU”) mode, recovery mode, or other applicable mode available to the FBI.

There’s more, but you get the gist: Backdoor, backdoor, backdoor.

One final bit from the court order, worth noting:

To the extent that Apple believes that compliance with this Order would be unreasonably burdensome, it may make application to this Court for relief within five business days of receipt of the Order.

That’d give Apple until Tuesday to respond. Stay tuned for Apple’s official response, coming next.

February 16, 2016

Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” to investigators seeking to unlock the data on an iPhone 5C that had been owned by Syed Rizwan Farook, Judge Sheri Pym of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said in a ruling.

Apple has said they can’t unlock iPhones running iOS 8 or later—the shooter’s phone was running iOS 9. I’m not sure what’s going to happen here, but clearly the government doesn’t believe Apple can’t break into the phone.