Apple

Apple reveals new emoji for iPhone and iPad

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Apple press release:

Hundreds of new emoji, including more emotive smiley faces, gender-neutral characters, clothing options, food types, animals, mythical creatures and more, are coming to iPhone and iPad with iOS 11.1.

The new emoji are gorgeous. To me, they harken back to the days of skeuomorphism. Jarring to see the shiny, shadowed, 3D emoji next to the intentionally flat iOS interface. Which way are we going?

No matter, head over to the Apple press release, check out the emoji for yourself. A vampire!

Researchers: Uber’s iOS app had secret permissions that allowed it to record your iPhone screen

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Kate Conger, Gizmodo:

To improve functionality between Uber’s app and the Apple Watch, Apple allowed Uber to use a powerful tool that could record a user’s iPhone screen, even if Uber’s app was only running in the background, security researchers told Gizmodo. After the researchers discovered the tool, Uber said it is no longer in use and will be removed from the app.

My head is spinning. How was this allowed to happen in the first place and how was the tool not monitored, removal tracked and forced by Apple?

More:

The entitlement isn’t common and would require Apple’s explicit permission to use, the researchers explained. Will Strafach, a security researcher and CEO of Sudo Security Group, said he couldn’t find any other apps with the entitlement live on the App Store.

I’d love an official comment by Apple on this. Was this a one time thing? Is this common practice?

EFF: iOS 11’s misleading “off-ish” Bluetooth, Wi-Fi setting bad for user security

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Electronic Frontier Foundation blog:

Turning off your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios when you’re not using them is good security practice (not to mention good for your battery usage). When you consider Bluetooth’s known vulnerabilities, it’s especially important to make sure your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi settings are doing what you want them to. The iPhone’s newest operating system, however, makes it harder for users to control these settings.

We’ve discussed the Control Center controls and icons in this Loop post.

In a nutshell, when you tap the WiFi or Bluetooth icons in Control Center, you’ll drop/restore the current connection, but without turning off the respective radio. And that’s the EFF’s complaint.

Instead, what actually happens in iOS 11 when you toggle your quick settings to “off” is that the phone will disconnect from Wi-Fi networks and some devices, but remain on for Apple services. Location Services is still enabled, Apple devices (like Apple Watch and Pencil) stay connected, and services such as Handoff and Instant Hotspot stay on.

All true.

Apple’s UI fails to even attempt to communicate these exceptions to its users.

A small point, but I disagree with this. Once you see the difference between the off icon state and the disconnected state, it’s clear what’s going on. There’s also helper text, like “Disconnected from XXX”, where XXX is your WiFi network name.

The more important issue:

It gets even worse. When you toggle these settings in the Control Center to what is best described as”off-ish,” they don’t stay that way. The Wi-Fi will turn back full-on if you drive or walk to a new location. And both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will turn back on at 5:00 AM. This is not clearly explained to users, nor left to them to choose, which makes security-aware users vulnerable as well.

The only way to turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios is to enable Airplane Mode or navigate into Settings and go to the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sections.

My two cents? Make the controls default to the safest possible behavior, then expose settings that allow me to go to a more relaxed, less secure state for a specific benefit (battery savings, better communications, etc.)

UPDATE: As pointed out by my unrelated name-sharer and Loop reader Jason Mark, Airplane Mode does not impact the WiFi or Bluetooth radios, as EFF claims. An easy mistake, but worth clarifying. Give this a try on your iOS 11 device.

Every noise at once

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Pop on some headphones and take some time to explore. This is pretty much every musical genre I’ve ever encountered.

For most (but not all) genres, a click on the name will play a short snippet example. Click on the arrow to the right of the name and you’ll go to that genre’s page, with a pretty significant listing of artists in that space.

Click on an artist, you’ll hear a snippet. Click on the arrow to the right of the artist, you’ll go to that artist’s Spotify page.

From the footnote:

This is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 1536 genres by Spotify. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

And (my favorite):

Be calmly aware that this may periodically expand, contract or combust.

I absolutely loved playing with this. Was thinking, I wish Apple Music offered me a system like this for music discovery. I know there are apps that do this, but none has access to my “For You” data. I’d love to spend some time in a tree like this, personalizing and improving my “For You” model so Apple Music actually has a true sense of what I like.

Thoughts on new Google phone, PixelBuds

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Lots of news from Google yesterday. Among the product announcements are a pair of new phones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, and an AirPods-like set of wireless earbuds, the PixelBuds.

A few thoughts: […]

Details on the iPhone X notch interface

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A detailed post from Max Rudberg, lots of pictures, makes me feel more comfortable with the notch itself and how it might look in different situations.

A few highlights:

Regardless of your feelings for the notch, the reality is that to do a near edge-to-edge screen on a phone in 2017; you need to make place for sensors and speaker. The technology to hide them behind the screen simply is not here. We’ve seen different manufacturers choose different solutions to the problem. This is the one Apple chose, so let’s work with what we got.

That last bit is exactly right. These are the cards we’ve been dealt. Let’s work with that.

The familiar 20 pt tall status bar, the same height it’s been since the first iPhone, is now 44 pt tall on iPhone X.

That’s more than twice the height but, of course, it’s now split in two. Not our space to play with, so no reason for developers to worry through what will fit in the so-called horns.

If nothing else, just scroll through all the examples. This is the (at least short term) future.

[H/T Fabrice Dubois

Inspiration: Leaving your full time job to become an iOS indie

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John Voorhees just celebrated a major milestone in his life. He left his full time job as a lawyer to dedicated himself to his indie empire, as a developer, podcaster, and blogger. If you’ve ever had similar thoughts, this is an inspirational read.

One tiny nugget, where John talks about that moment when his app got Federico Viticci’s attention:

As the end of 2014 approached, I made a mad dash to finish Blink. By this point, I had managed to get Federico’s attention when I’d posted a late-night teaser video on Twitter of my URL schemes in action. Five minutes later, he sent me a direct message:

And Federico’s response:

Oh man, wow. Please make this universal and let me in the beta as soon as possible! ❤

@viticci November 5, 2014

This is a wonderful read. I have to say, stories like this make me really glad to be a part of this particular community.

MLB pilot program uses iPhone and Apple Watch for contactless stadium entry

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Fitz Tepper, TechCrunch:

Today the MLB announced that the Oakland Athletics are piloting a new NFC ticketing solution which lets fans enter the stadium by tapping their phone (or Apple Watch) to a ticket scanner – just like you’d do to use Apple Pay.

And:

The pilot lasted for a six-game homestand starting Sept. 22nd after iOS 11 launched, and was the first time a professional sports event supported contactless tickets in Apple Wallet.

This is big for Apple Pay, Apple Watch, and Apple Wallet. I’d expect this to roll out to more, if not all teams next season. Just a matter of time before this moves to other sports, as well.

Smart profile of Apple’s commitment to silicon

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Horace Dediu, Asymco:

The Apple A11 Bionic processor has 4.3 billion transistors, six cores and an Apple custom GPU using a 10nm FinFET technology. Its performance appears to be almost double that of competitors and in some benchmarks exceeds the performance of current laptop PCs.

And:

Apple has come to the point where is dominates the processor space. But they have not stopped at processors. The effort now spans all manners of silicon including controllers for displays, storage, sensors and batteries. The S series in the Apple Watch the haptic T series in the MacBook, the wireless W series in AirPods are ongoing efforts. The GPU was conquered in the past year. Litigation with Qualcomm suggests the communications stack is next.

A name you’ll be hearing more and more of is the person who runs this silicon engineering effort for Apple, Johny Srouji. This is a great read.

Who is planning to buy which new iPhones?

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Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Of the 832 individuals surveyed, 28 percent said they plan to purchase iPhone X as their next smartphone. An additional 20 percent of respondents said they intend to buy iPhone 8 Plus, while 17 percent will go for iPhone 8.

Lots of intent numbers to process. Small survey size, but not hard to see this as representative.

Interesting to see how many people have their eye on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

Laurene Powell Jobs buying big stake in Wizards, Capitals sports empire

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Washington Post:

Laurene Powell Jobs, a billionaire philanthropist, entrepreneur and president of the Emerson Collective, is buying a significant stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, a sprawling $2.5 billion complex that includes the NBA Wizards, NHL Capitals and Capital One Arena, people familiar with the deal said.

And:

Through her sizable investment, Powell Jobs instantly commands an influential position in the male-dominated ownership circles of the “Big Four” professional sports leagues. Very few women’s names stand atop the ownership list of the NBA’s 30 franchises: Jeanie Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers, Ann Walton Kroenke of the Denver Nuggets and Gail Miller of the Utah Jazz.

And:

Powell Jobs, 53, is one of the wealthiest women in the world, estimated to be worth about $20 billion. Much of that comes from her stock in Apple, the iconic company co-founded by her late husband Steve Jobs, who died in 2011. She also owns 4 percent of the Walt Disney Company.

This is a big, bold move by Laurene Powell Jobs, a follow-up to her nonprofit’s purchase of the Atlantic Magazine and bringing her that much closer to the Washington DC area and to the so-called corridors of power.

The “truth” about Amazon Prime Video on Apple TV

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Reddit post from an account named AmazonVideoEngineer:

Wanted to make this throwaway account after yesterday’s debacle. I saw many people get upset so I wanted to issue this warning: do not expect Amazon to launch before October 26th. The app is done, and has been done for months already. However there are a lot of politics going on beyond my pay grade that are pushing the launch back. And just to clarify, October 26 is the earliest I would expect it. Launch could be pushed well into November.

No way to know if this is fake or not, but it is definitely interesting. Read the whole page for back and forth questions with the alleged engineer. Fascinating. Take with a grain of salt.

UPDATE: I’ve been asked about the reference to “yesterday’s debacle”. I am still looking for a response, but I believe the reference is to last week when Amazon dropped the Apple TV from Amazon.com. As of this post, the Apple TV is still MIA on Amazon’s site.

Why Apple should buy Sony

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Frederic Filloux, Monday Note:

Access to superior image sensors, a giant entertainment library and the PlayStation ecosystem… By any measure, Apple acquiring Sony makes a lot of sense.

I’ve heard this argument floated before, but without the “access to superior image sensors” logic. Camera hardware is only becoming more important to Apple and iPhone over time. Interesting post.

Two great new features found in iOS 11 search

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Hat tip to Fabrice Dubois for uncovering these two gems in iOS 11’s search. To bring up the search field, as always, press the home button to return to Springboard (the iOS equivalent of the Finder), then pull down to reveal the search field.

With search open, type in a word and search results will show its definition, like so:

And, even better, the search field is now open to catching spelling errors.

To see this one for yourself, open search and start typing fadebook (note the “d” instead of the “c”) or protos instead of photos.

Not sure when typo handling and definition suggestion first shipped, but they’re both nice to see.

Apple TV 4K review

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Solid review from Apple Insider. My concerns are about functionality and price. Read on for details. […]

Nikkei Asian Review: Apple to switch Macs from Intel to ARM

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Nikkei Asian Review, first on Apple rolling their own modem chip:

Two other chip industry executives also echoed Li’s view that Apple will develop its own modem chips or at least boost its related capabilities – a view bolstered by Apple’s poaching top Qualcomm modem chip engineer Esin Terzioglu earlier this year.

But Li added it is was unlikely that Apple could quickly roll out such components within two years. Modem chips have a very high threshold to develop and need to fulfill requirements of different operators worldwide.

A veteran chip industry executive estimates that it would require more than a minimum one thousand engineers to work on such a project.

As far as Macs go:

Core processor chips for the MacBook range is another area Apple is trying to venture into.

Two industry sources say that Apple is trying to cut its dependence on Intel when it comes to notebook chips and instead build those using ARM architecture, referring to the SoftBank-controlled British chip designer.

“Notebooks are becoming thinner, while consumers are demanding better mobility and longer battery life. That gives ARM’s architecture, which is known for its power efficiency, a very good opportunity,” a chip industry executive said.

And:

Apple also aims to design its own chips that could integrate touch, fingerprint and display driver functions, sources say.

“Apple has hired engineers from Taiwan’s No. 1 display-driver chip designers Novatek and panel makers of AU Optronics as it wants to control next-generation display technology and some related key components,” said a Taiwanese chip industry manager.

Apple switching Macs to ARM chips has long been a topic of speculation. And there are significant technical hurdles to overcome. Interesting, but take with a grain of salt.

How to zoom an Apple Map with one finger

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I love this tip. Here’s how to do it:

  • Bring up Apple Maps.
  • Double-tap in the map, but on the second tap, don’t lift your finger. So tap-lift-tap-leave.
  • Now slide up or down to zoom in and out.

This also works with Google Maps but, interestingly, it works the exact opposite way. On Google Maps, slide up to zoom out, down to zoom in.

Here’s an Apple Support document that contains this tip and a ton more iOS 11 chewy goodness. [H/T Fabrice Dubois]

Taiwanese media report iPhone 8 Plus cracked open mid-charge. Take with grain of salt.

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There are pictures of the phone, and of another phone with a similar symptom.

From the article:

So far, the finger of blame is being pointed at the battery. Unconfirmed reports state the iPhone 8 Plus uses the same battery manufacturer, Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

But it’s worth remembering a couple of things. Firstly, many of the details surrounding this incident are hazy and unconfirmed. Take them with a grain of salt.

Exactly. If this is a widespread issue, we’ll see confirmed reports. If it’s a few flawed phones, this will quickly die off.

Why you may have issues sending SMS texts via Apple Watch Series 3 cellular

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Scott Stein, on sending SMS texts via his cellular Apple Watch:

I have experienced some quirks, particularly with text messages, and investigating them revealed some limitations in how the Apple Watch handles its wireless interactions.

And:

The Apple Watch really, really wants your phone to be powered on somewhere, connected to Wi-Fi or LTE. That location doesn’t have to be anywhere near the Watch, however. Your iPhone can be sitting on your nightstand at home, and you could be 50 miles away — though, obviously, someplace that still has cellular coverage.

The different scenarios are subtle. Scott does a nice job of laying out the rules. And here’s an Apple support page that addresses these issues, though I think Scott’s writeup better addresses the scenarios involving SMS.

Billboard interview with Apple Music team, and two things I really want from Apple Music

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From the preamble from Billboard’s interview with Jimmy Iovine, Larry Jackson, and Zane Lowe:

Apple Music tells Billboard that it now counts well over 30 million ­paying ­subscribers, helping fuel a 17 percent revenue jump for the U.S. recorded-music business in the first half of 2017 over the same period a year ago, according to the RIAA. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs issued a report in August predicting that ­subscription streaming would drive the global record business to nearly triple to $41 billion by 2030.

And:

[Iovine] is working to crack what he sees as the music industry’s biggest challenge: how to inject enough “soul” into subscription streaming services so that fans will pay $10 a month instead of listening to their tunes on free services, which are also growing fast.

To do it, he’s relying on BBC Radio 1 ­veteran Zane Lowe, now creative ­director and L.A. anchor for Apple Music’s free radio service Beats 1, and Apple Music head of content Larry Jackson, a former A&R ­executive at Interscope and other labels. All three are focused on creating ­exclusive content, from films and ads to radio shows and glossy magazines, to help artists tell the stories behind their music in an age of shrinking attention spans and fast-changing playlists.

To me, the biggest issue with Apple Music is the depth of the user experience. For example, with For You, the on-boarding is primitive, at best. I never felt steered towards my deepest musical tastes. And as I listened to music, even as I diligently favorited my best loved tunes, I never felt that For You really got me.

And there’s no real way to get under the hood, to see what Apple thinks I really love. No way to tap, drag, select, to tune my For You model to really get those recommendations in line with my personal tastes.

Don’t get me wrong. I really do love Apple Music. I use it every day and appreciate being able to call up most any song I can think of on a moment’s notice. But Jimmy is right on. There’s so much Apple can do here to make Apple Music superior to any other service.

Two things I want?

  • A music recommendation engine that is easy to use, that I can tune, and that really gets me.
  • Better sharing, with better linkage to social networks so the sharing can ride on the social links I’ve already built. Why reinvent my graph of friends when I’ve already done that work?

An inside look at the iPhone X lock screen and home screen experience

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Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

The new Xcode 9.1 beta has also been released by Apple today with support for the new operating system updates: iOS 11.1, watchOS 4.1 and tvOS 11.1. It also includes a more fully-fledged iPhone X simulator, which demonstrates the new lock screen and home screen experiences.

There are also some onboarding videos, for things like activating Siri or revealing Control Center, which will be shown to iPhone X users upon setup.

Benjamin does a great job pulling together these inside looks at the iPhone X experience. Read his article, there’s a lot to it.

Here’s just a taste, a pair of onboarding videos, two different results when you swipe up from the bottom, one with a pause and one without, courtesy of Guilherme Rambo:

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/913096147002171398

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/913096389642657798

Love this.

Apple’s TV strategy becomes clearer as top stars jockey for shows

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The Hollywood Reporter:

The world’s biggest company is officially taking meetings as everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Steven Spielberg salivates over selling the first big show. One studio chief says, “Who wouldn’t want to be the ‘Mad Men’ or ‘House of Cards’ on Apple?”

And:

Though Apple isn’t looking to replicate the pace or scale of rival Netflix’s $6 billion annual spend, it is eager to be in the prestige content business in a significant way. Per multiple sources briefed on the company’s plans, its executives are looking for big, smart, splashy dramas, with at least one citing Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Crown as models. And though there are still plenty of questions — first and foremost, how will an Apple show be distributed? — talent is lining up to provide options.

And:

At press time, the company had bids out on only a handful of projects, including an update of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s sci-fi, horror, fantasy anthology series, Amazing Stories, and a morning show drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, according to several involved.

Apple is entering new territory here. The good news is, they’ve long proved they can take on something completely new, dig in, learn the critical lessons, then produce quality product. Given what we’ve seen so far, it’s certainly fair to be skeptical, but I like the moves Apple is making and look forward to watching them master this space.

Apple releases Face ID security guide

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A few bits from Apple’s Face ID Security white paper:

When Face ID detects and matches your face, iPhone X unlocks without asking for the device passcode. Face ID makes using a longer, more complex passcode far more practical because you don’t need to enter it as frequently.

If Face ID was able to eliminate the passcode completely, users could use long, impossible to memorize strings, just as they would with strong passwords combined with a password manager. But the fact that you have to memorize the passcode (you won’t have to use it much, but you’ll still encounter situations where you’ll need it) limits the complexity. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Here’s when a passcode is still required:

  • You can always use your passcode instead of Face ID, and it’s still required under the following circumstances:
  • The device has just been turned on or restarted.
  • The device hasn’t been unlocked for more than 48 hours.
  • The passcode hasn’t been used to unlock the device in the last 156 hours (six and a half days) and Face ID has not unlocked the device in the last 4 hours.
  • The device has received a remote lock command.
  • After five unsuccessful attempts to match a face.
  • After initiating power off/Emergency SOS by pressing and holding either volume button and the side button simultaneously for 2 seconds.

And:

The TrueDepth camera automatically looks for your face when you wake iPhone X by raising it or tapping the screen, as well as when iPhone X attempts to authenticate you to display an incoming notification or when a supported app requests Face ID authentication. When a face is detected, Face ID confirms attention and intent to unlock by detecting that your eyes are open and directed at your device; for accessibility, this is disabled when VoiceOver is activated or can be disabled separately, if required.

This is what’s encrypted and saved in the iPhone X Secure Enclave:

  • The infrared images of your face captured during enrollment.
  • The mathematical representations of your face calculated during enrollment.
  • The mathematical representations of your face calculated during some unlock attempts if Face ID deems them useful to augment future matching.

There’s a lot more in the white paper, including some detail on Apple Pay, and third party access to Face ID.

Even a wee bit of anonymized location data is enough to identify you

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Fast Company:

“Companies often claim to have ‘anonymized’ your location history by taking your name off it,” says Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “But that is totally inadequate because you’re probably the only person who lives in your house and who works in your office, and it’s easy for any researcher or data scientist to look at a location trace and figure out who it belonged to.”

If you gave someone my location data, completely scrubbed of any identifying info other than geo-coordinates, it would be simple for them to turn that into my name, address, phone number and, with a bit of work, even more personalized information.

If my location data includes a stop at a house, especially if I only stop at one house, chances are good that’s my house. A simple lookup in a public tax database and they’ve got me, and a wealth of info about me.

Great article.

Apple updates their Privacy page

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Apple has always emphasized their belief in privacy. This update of their site makes that much clearer, with a focus on tentpole issues. There’s a lot of detail on this subsite. Apple’s commitment to privacy is strong and well laid out.

Take a look.

Google pulls YouTube from Amazon Echo

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Jan Dawson, Tech Narratives:

Amazon announced last night that Google had pulled its YouTube app from the former’s Echo Show device, the company’s first screen-based voice speaker. YouTube was one of very few video options available on the Echo Show, with Amazon’s own Prime Video being the main alternative.

Amazon has something Apple wants and seeks to emulate in Prime Video. Amazon wants to protect Prime Video, is using its storefront power to horsetrade with Apple, swapping Apple TV presence on Amazon.com for a Prime Video app on Apple TV.

Google and Amazon are fighting a different battle. At the very least, there’s Google Home vs Amazon Echo. But there’s a subtle shopping competitiveness as well, with both trying to work into the first place consumers go when they want to make a purchase.

All of this might have nothing to do with why Google pulled YouTube (the claim is that Amazon’s implementation broke YouTube’s terms of service). It might have more to do with ads and tracking than anything else. But make no mistake, each pairing is its own chess match.