Gruber: An assortment of links and observations regarding the Neil Young –Joe Rogan Spotify saga

On the idea that Spotify should dump Rogan’s podcast:

When Rogan took his show to Spotify, exclusively, his listenership and apparent influence dropped significantly. That’s the nature of exclusivity. If Spotify broke up with him, Rogan’s show wouldn’t disappear or even miss a beat. Surely he’d just take his podcast independent again, and the result would almost certainly be that his listenership and influence would grow back to where they were pre-Spotify, possibly higher thanks to all this publicity.

And on the complaint that Apple is just as guilty, by “hosting” Steve Bannon’s War Room:

Apple, clearly, does not host Steve Bannon’s podcast. Apple’s podcast directory is akin to a search engine; they index the feeds of open podcasts. They do have lines for content they won’t index (porno, of course, and hate speech), but even then, if you copy the URL for the feed, you can subscribe to it in Apple Podcasts, just like how you can visit any website you want using Safari.

Gruber at his best.

From Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s letter of explanation (posted yesterday):

Today we are publishing our long-standing Platform Rules.

Here’s a link to said rules.

If those rules are, indeed, “long-standing”, then seems to me you’ve just not been enforcing them. Or we wouldn’t be here.

And if they are brand new rules, let’s see how things change as far as misinformation goes.

Watch first episode of Apple TV+ “The Afterparty” free, right here

Not sure if this has ever happened before, but Apple has posted the complete first episode of the new Apple TV+ series “The Afterparty” on YouTube (embedded below). No Apple TV+ subscription required.

The show has a nice Rashomon spin to it, with each episode told from a different characters point of view. Looking forward to watching the entire thing.

Have to wonder if this is a one-off or if Apple will post the first episode of all new series in this way (licensing agreements allowing). I think it’s a great experiment, terrific way to draw in new viewers.

Apple Maps erects gigantic digital wall to hide Tim Cook’s house

Killian Bell, Cult of Mac:

Apple fans who take a virtual stroll through Palo Alto inside Apple Maps and Google Maps no longer get to see Tim Cook’s house. The modern, four-bedroom condo has had a giant digital wall erected right in front of it.

Follow the link, check out the image. Or, if you know where Tim Cook’s house is, drill down in Apple Maps and see for yourself.

This follows yesterday’s news: Apple CEO Tim Cook targeted by possibly armed stalker who came to his home.

Benchmarks confirm Intel’s latest Core i9 chip outperforms Apple’s M1 Max with several caveats

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Benchmark results have started to surface for MSI’s new GE76 Raider, one of the first laptops to be powered by Intel’s new 12th-generation Core i9 processor.

And:

Geekbench 5 results show that the GE76 Raider with the Core i9-12900HK processor has an average multi-core score of 12,707, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip has an average multi-core score of 12,244. This means the Core i9 processor is around 4% faster than the M1 Max chip in this particular comparison.

I assume the battery life is 4% worse, yeah?

The new GE76 Raider’s power draw from the wall while running a CPU-only Cinebench R23 benchmark and found the Core i9 was consistently in the 100-watts range, and even briefly spiked to 140 watts. By comparison, when running the same Cinebench R23 benchmark on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, AnandTech found the M1 Max chip’s power draw from the wall to be around 40 watts.

Wait. What? The Intel chip ranged from 100-140 watts, and the M1 Max was level at 40 watts? That sounds like it might impact battery life more than 4%.

The new GE76 Raider achieved nearly 6 hours of offline video playback. Apple advertises the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro as getting up to 21 hours of battery life for offline video playback.

And there it is. Could see that coming from a mile away.

And there’s size, too:

Design is also a factor, with the GE76 Raider being a 17-inch gaming laptop that is just over an inch thick and weighs nearly 6.5 pounds. By comparison, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is 0.66 inches thick and weighs 4.8 pounds.

Huge tradeoff for a tiny speed gain. And I’d expect that speed gain to disappear with the next rev of Apple Silicon.

Gurman: Apple will let small businesses accept credit card “tap” payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is planning a new service that will let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The company has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100 million for a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay.

And:

The move could impact payments providers that rely on Apple’s iPhones to facilitate sales, such as Block Inc.’s Square, which dominates the market. If Apple lets any app use the new technology, then Square can continue accepting payments via Apple devices without needing to worry about providing its own hardware. If Apple requires merchants to use Apple Pay or its own payment processing system, that could compete directly with Square.

And:

Apple may begin rolling out the feature via a software update in the coming months, the people said.

Could be a real Block-buster. (Sorry — I’ll show myself out.)

Spotify to pull Neil Young’s music after artist’s objections to Joe Rogan

Hollywood Reporter:

Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young’s catalog of music from its service after the artist published — then took down — an open letter with an ultimatum: Deal with the vaccine misinformation coming from Joe Rogan’s podcast, or lose Young’s music.

And:

Young said that Spotify represented 60 percent of his streaming revenue globally, which amounted to “a huge loss for [his] record company to absorb,” but that he moved forward with removing his catalog because he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public.”

Putting his money where his mouth is. Guessing Neil Young’s streaming is a tiny drop in the bucket to Spotify, but this is certainly more of a PR hit, drawing very specific focus to Spotify’s political positioning.

Apple CEO Tim Cook targeted by possibly armed stalker who came to his home

The Merc:

Apple has been granted a restraining order against a Virginia woman it said has been stalking Apple CEO Tim Cook for more than a year, emailing him photos of a loaded pistol and trespassing at his home, according to court filings.

And:

Apple said in the application that it believes the woman “may be armed and is still in the South Bay Area and intends to return to (Cook’s) residence or locate him otherwise in the near future.”

And:

Cook first learned in late 2020 that he was the subject of the woman’s obsession because he receives alerts when he’s tagged on Twitter, the application said. The woman, using the last name “Cook,” claimed she was the Apple CEO’s wife and he was father to her twins.

Damn.

Share your best iPhone macro photos for Apple’s Shot on iPhone challenge

Apple:

Apple invites iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max users to capture the little things, in a big way, with a macro photography Shot on iPhone Challenge. The challenge starts today and runs through February 16, 2022. Winners will be announced in April.

To enter, just post your best macro photos on Insta or Twitter and add the hashtags #ShotoniPhone and #iPhonemacrochallenge.

My best effort is this donut close-up.

Apple pays $100,500 bug bounty for webcam hack

Ryan Pickren:

My hack successfully gained unauthorized camera access by exploiting a series of issues with iCloud Sharing and Safari 15. While this bug does require the victim to click “open” on a popup from my website, it results in more than just multimedia permission hijacking. This time, the bug gives the attacker full access to every website ever visited by the victim. That means in addition to turning on your camera, my bug can also hack your iCloud, PayPal, Facebook, Gmail, etc. accounts too. ​ And:

I reported this chain to Apple and was awarded $100,500 as a bounty.

“my bug can also hack your iCloud, PayPal, Facebook, Gmail, etc. accounts too” — Wow!

Obviously, glad this got patched. Amazing when one of these “total access” bugs surfaces.

No matter how carefully you construct your code, no matter how modern the techniques and underlying frameworks, there’s always gonna be holes.

Also nice to see Apple paying up for the help.

Rene Ritchie: How Apple DESTROYS Lightning

Rene Ritchie:

Lightning has pretty much been stuck at USB2’s half a gigabit per second, since… 2012.

And:

You can now record the highest quality video of any phone on the planet, you just can’t get it off any faster than the cheapest phone on the block.

That’s the speed issue, an issue (as Rene points out) that impacts a small subset of iPhone users. But combine that with an issue that impacts a huge number of iPhone users (anyone with, say, a modern iPad): That blasted need for two different cables, Lightning for your iPhone, USB-C for your iPad.

Rene does a nice job laying all this out (watch the video embedded below). As usual, a firehose of detail, but easy to follow, especially with the edited for clarity transcript in the linked post, if reading is more your style.

Apple’s most questionable design decisions in recent memory

Tim Hardwick:

Every once in a while even Apple gets it wrong, and a tech company’s coherent rationale for the way a product should be designed can translate into end-user irritation, or even a customer’s personal hell. Here we take a look back at a handful of Apple’s most questionable design decisions in recent memory.

Pretty good list. No doubt every one of these products have love out there. But the flaws are hard to argue with.

It’d be interesting to see such a list with shake-your-head software design decisions.

Shameless unpacking clone (was) the App Store’s top download

Luke Plunkett, Kotaku:

Unpacking was one of the best games of 2021, to the point where it didn’t just make my personal GOTY list, but the entire site’s as well. It is currently available on PC, Mac, Switch and Xbox One. It is most definitely not available on Apple’s iOS devices.

And yet! Earlier today the top free download on the App Store, outranking even YouTube, Tik-Tok and Instagram, was a game called Unpacking Master (it has since slipped back down the charts) which, as you may have guessed from the pricepoint and platform, is not just inspired by Unpacking, but is a criminally shameless clone of it.

Shameless cloning, with enough of an effort to get the copying good enough to fool anyone familiar with the game into thinking this was the real deal.

But it’s not:

https://twitter.com/UnpackingALife/status/1485791778532114433

To Apple’s credit, the game appears to be gone from the App Store. Unlike a subscription scam app, which Apple might be able to detect by digging through and taking a closer look at any apps with a high subscription price, this was a free app, making its money from advertising.

Unless the App Store reviewer was familiar with the original game, how could they have detected a clone like this? Clearly, App Store folks are paying attention to the tech press/social media.

Side note: As I write this, other games from the same developer are still up on the App Store.

Nvidia quietly prepares to abandon $40 billion Arm bid

Bloomberg:

Nvidia has told partners that it doesn’t expect the transaction to close, according to one person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. SoftBank, meanwhile, is stepping up preparations for an Arm initial public offering as an alternative to the Nvidia takeover, another person said.

And:

The purchase — poised to become the biggest semiconductor deal in history when it was announced in September 2020 — has drawn a fierce backlash from regulators and the chip industry, including Arm’s own customers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to stop the transaction in December, arguing that Nvidia would become too powerful if it gained control over Arm’s chip designs.

And:

SoftBank and Arm are entitled to keep $2 billion Nvidia paid at signing, including a $1.25 billion breakup fee, whether the deal goes through or not.

Apple’s good either way, as long as they can keep their chip design talent on board.

Amazing rise for Nvidia, going from a graphics card maker to the second most valuable chipmaker on the planet, behind only TSMC, with a market cap of $582 billion.

The perfect Apple TV+ commercial

I’m a big Jon Hamm fan. Great comic timing, self deprecating to a fault.

The new Apple TV+ ad (embedded below) had to have been written with him in mind. He hits all the right marks, lets Apple brag about the array of stars they’ve brought to Apple TV+ without seeming to brag.

And the entire time, he never says the words Apple TV+, or even Apple TV. Just Apple. Perfect.

22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

Tom Simonite, Wired:

In August, chipmaker Intel revealed new details about its plan to build a “mega-fab” on US soil, a $100 billion factory where 10,000 workers will make a new generation of powerful processors studded with billions of transistors. The same month, 22-year-old Sam Zeloof announced his own semiconductor milestone. It was achieved alone in his family’s New Jersey garage, about 30 miles from where the first transistor was made at Bell Labs in 1947.

With a collection of salvaged and homemade equipment, Zeloof produced a chip with 1,200 transistors. He had sliced up wafers of silicon, patterned them with microscopic designs using ultraviolet light, and dunked them in acid by hand.

Check out Zeloof’s blog, where he documents the process.

Imagine trying to do what Sam is doing, trying to learn how the magic is done, by going back in time to when chip fabrication was much simpler, and garage-achievable.

My two cents: Apple, invest in this kid. Fund him so he can climb the ladder to more sophisticated equipment, give him access to your engineers for advice/guidance. Help him bring on other engineers so they can form a sort of farm team you can bring along to the majors as they progress.

This kid’s got some future!

Future AirPods could shut off noise cancellation if a code word is spoken

William Gallagher, AppleInsider:

Picture the scene. You’re sitting on a park bench, listening to Francisca Valenzuela Essentials on Apple Music over your AirPods Pro, when a man in a dark overcoat sits next to you. He says quietly, “the weather is very cold in Leningrad,” — but you don’t hear him because you’ve got noise cancelling on.

Or you’re at home, it’s your partner’s turn to cook and he or she has been yelling “dinner’s ready” for ten minutes, but you don’t hear that either. You only hear the music in your AirPods.

And:

“Interrupt for noise-cancelling audio devices,” is a newly revealed Apple patent application that aims to work around this.

And:

Apple proposes that when it’s the iPhone that is producing the music that an AirPods user is listening to, that iPhone listens out for external noise. “[It performs] at least a first level of identification (e.g., of a spoken name of the user, or of the contact as one of several interrupt-authorized contacts) of the voice at the audio device,” says Apple.

This is a patent. Not a product. But still, I do love the concept. Key is to be able to limit who can turn off your noise cancelation, if you want to limit that.

Apple shares “The Comeback” — Shot on iPhone 13 Pro video for Chinese New Year

Apple:

Kick off the Year of the Tiger with the story of a father, a son and a forgotten village with an out-of-this-world dream. Apple and director Zhang Meng present their latest Chinese New Year film “The Comeback”.

Pretty good story, some great practical effects. Don’t miss the “making of” video embedded below. I’d definitely watch them in order, the bigger the screen the better, makes the subtitles easier to read.

Steve Jobs demoing podcasts in 2005

Jump to 16:57 in (assuming it doesn’t start there automatically), where Steve Jobs talks about this new thing called podcasting. He’s in rare form here. Very interesting to watch.

Illinois floats bill that would let developers skirt Apple’s In-App-Purchase rules

Juli Clover:

As outlined by Arizona news site WGEM, under the Freedom to Describe Directly Act, distribution platforms like the App Store and Google Play would not be able to force Illinois developers to use a “particular in-application payment system” as the exclusive mode for accepting payments, nor would they be able to retaliate against developers who opt to use an alternate payment option.

And:

North Dakota, Arizona, and Minnesota have all attempted to get around in-app purchase rules by passing bills, but Apple and Google lobbied hard against them.

And:

Apple’s chief compliance officer Kyle Andeer said that Arizona’s bill was a “government mandate that Apple give away the ‌App Store‌,” and Apple’s Chief Privacy Engineer Erik Neuenschwander said that the North Dakota’s bill threatened to “destroy the iPhone as you know it.”

As Apple’s Kyle Andeer implied, all it takes is one of these bills to pass to change everything. After all, how could Apple prevent someone in Illinois (or any specific locale) from breaking such a law? And no developer is going to want to have to write code that runs one way in Illinois, another everywhere else.

Apple TV+ rolls out trailer for star-studded series, “WeCrashed”

Apple:

Apple TV+ today unveiled the teaser trailer and premiere date for “WeCrashed,” a highly anticipated new limited series from Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello, based on the hit Wondery podcast “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork” and starring Academy Award and SAG Award winners Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway.

And:

The series is inspired by actual events — and the love story at the center of it all. WeWork grew from a single coworking space into a global brand worth $47 billion in under a decade. Then, in less than a year, its value plummeted. What happened?

Wonder how long “Academy Award winner” will continue to be a big selling point for a series. Oscar viewing is sliding, so many other awards sucking attention away. Presumably, Oscar winners add a lot to the cast budget. Worth it?

No matter. Looking forward to this. First episode drops March 18th. Eight episodes and done. Trailer embedded below.

Teaser trailer for Amazon’s coming series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Amazon:

Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.

Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

The most expensive series ever made, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series is scheduled to launch September 2nd. Takes place before the Peter Jackson movie series. Filmed in New Zealand. Entire first season wrapped filming last summer.

Check out the trailer below. A teaser, just a bit of moody voice over, but exciting to me nonetheless.

And don’t miss this article (H/T Matt Londre) about the making of this trailer using practical effects and real fire.

Apple’s US Education Store now requires institution verification to buy discounted products

Sami Fathi, MacRumors:

Apple is now requiring that customers in the United States verify that they’re active students, teachers, or staff members at an educational institution in order to access education discounts on products.

It used to be that if you wanted to buy from Apple at the discounted education rate, you had to show proof that you were a student, teacher, etc. Back in the day, this often meant faxing in a copy of your most recent grades or some other proof of enrollment.

Things definitely got lax. Like streaming services ignoring multiple simultaneous logins from the same account.

Ah well, nice while it lasted.

So how will Apple verify your good educational standing? Like so:

Apple in the United States now requires that current students, teachers, and staff members verify their eligibility for education discounts through UNiDAYS. UNiDAYS is a website specialized in providing education customers with discounts for products and services by confirming their enrollment in an educational institution.

Here’s the link to the UNiDAYS site. Tap the Technology tab for the path to Apple gear.

We booped the Sun

Marina Koren, The Atlantic:

Kelly Korreck is still thinking about the time her spacecraft flew into the sun, how one moment, the probe was rushing through a stormy current of fast-moving particles, and the next, it was plunging somewhere quieter, where the plasma rolled like ocean waves. No machine had ever crossed that mysterious boundary before. But Korreck and her team had dispatched a mission for that exact purpose, and their plan worked. For the first time in history, a spacecraft had entered the sun’s atmosphere.

This is an amazing story about an astonishing feat. NASA’s Parker Probe dove into the sun last April and lived to tell the tale.

Just wow.

Google Analytics declared illegal in the EU

Tutanota (via Hacker News):

Max Schrems, the lawyer who successfully sued Facebook for privacy violations against European citizens, has scored another victory, this time against Google: In a landmark court ruling, Austria’s data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal to use on European websites.

As to how this came about:

On August 14, 2020, a Google user had accessed an Austrian website about health issues. This website used Google Analytics, and data about the user was transmitted to Google. Based on this data, Google was able to deduce who he or she was.

On August 18, 2020, the Google user complained to the Austrian data protection authority with the help of the data protection organization NOYB.

And:

Google is “subject to surveillance by US intelligence services and can be ordered to disclose data of European citizens to them”. Therefore, the data of European citizens may not be transferred across the Atlantic.

Lots of changes happening around the world, both for and to the detriment of privacy.

“Who the fuck is Steve Jobs?”

Hollywood Reporter:

Given Scott’s steady productivity and workmanlike approach over a 45-year film career, it’s easy to forget that he is responsible for a remarkable string of culture-defining movies, from genre groundbreakers like Alien and Blade Runner to the intimate female buddy picture Thelma & Louise, to epics like Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and The Martian.

And, of course, that groundbreaking 1984 ad that introduced the Macintosh to the world (embedded below).

My absolute favorite bit from the linked interview:

His most famous ad is Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl spot introducing the Macintosh computer, regarded as one of the most influential ads of all time. When the agency, Chiat/Day, pitched Ridley on directing a spot for Apple, he thought they were talking about The Beatles. “They said, ‘No, no, no. Apple is this guy called Steve Jobs.’ I went, ‘Who the fuck is Steve Jobs?’

Who, indeed. Love this.

Gurman: What will Apple name its AR/VR headset?

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

The names of future Apple devices are some of the company’s most closely guarded secrets, but history and some guesswork could indicate what Apple will call its first virtual and augmented reality headset.

iPod, iPhone, iPad, all reasonably on brand. Apple Watch? AirPods? Clearly, the brand is expanding, becoming less predictable.

Mark’s guesses at names for Apple’s rumored glasses:

  • Apple Vision
  • Apple Reality
  • Apple Sight/iSight
  • Apple Lens
  • Apple Goggles
  • Apple AR, Apple VR, Apple XR, Apple MR or Apple SR

None of these really grab me. I’d bet on Apple Glass(es) or something with a tie-in to existing branding, like Apple AirGlass or iGlass.

No matter, an interesting read, and a topic I find most interesting.

Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard, become 3rd biggest gaming company

Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy Activision Blizzard Inc. in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion, using its largest acquisition by far to grab a videogame heavyweight that has been roiled by claims of workplace misconduct.

And:

The deal, if completed, would sharply expand Microsoft’s already sizable videogame operation, adding a stable of popular game franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush to Microsoft’s Xbox console business and its own games like Minecraft and Doom. Microsoft said the transaction would make it the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Japan’s Sony Group Corp.

And:

Shares in Activision had been down nearly 30% since California regulators filed a lawsuit against the company in July alleging sexual harassment and gender pay disparity among the company’s roughly 10,000 employees.

And:

Microsoft said in its announcement that Bobby Kotick would remain as Activision’s CEO following the deal, and report to Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer.

From Microsoft’s press release:

Mobile is the largest segment in gaming, with nearly 95% of all players globally enjoying games on mobile. Through great teams and great technology, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will empower players to enjoy the most-immersive franchises, like “Halo” and “Warcraft,” virtually anywhere they want. And with games like “Candy Crush,” Activision Blizzard´s mobile business represents a significant presence and opportunity for Microsoft in this fast-growing segment.

Huge move. Did the cultural problems drive the price down so much that Microsoft felt the headache worth the long term gains?

The ins and outs of Apple’s iCloud Private Relay

David Nield, Wired:

If you pay for iCloud storage, then you automatically have access to the extra perks that Apple bundles together under the iCloud+ name—and one of those perks is the iCloud Private Relay service.

And:

If you open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad, tap your name at the top, and then choose iCloud, you should be able to access a Private Relay (Beta) toggle switch that you can turn on or off. It’s also under Apple ID and iCloud in System Preferences on macOS. However there’s not a huge amount of information alongside the switch telling you what it is and how it works.

Been using Private Relay for so long, I completely forgot that it was still in beta.

This is a pretty good read. Lots of interesting detail. A few snippets:

When iCloud Private Relay is enabled, you’ve got two choices when it comes to IP addresses. You can carry on reporting your general location (which city you’re closest to, more or less)—so that local data such as a weather forecast still shows up correctly—or you can go vaguer and only report your country and time zone to websites that request it.

And:

iCloud Private Relay also keeps your DNS (Domain Name System) queries secret—essentially, the websites you’re looking up on your device. As with IP addresses, this data can be used to create a profile of who you are and what you’re interested in, which in turn can be sold to advertisers. With iCloud Private Relay enabled, this is much harder for companies to do.

And:

It only functions through the Apple Safari browser on your iPhone or iPad, so it doesn’t apply to any browsing you’re doing through an alternative mobile browser. It applies to data sent through apps, but only data that is unencrypted, and works across cellular networks as well as Wi-Fi.

If you do go down this road, worth running a speed test with Private Relay on and then off, comparing the results. Here’s my test