I recently used my credit card to buy a banana. Then I tried to figure out how my credit card let companies buy me.
And:
Despite a federal privacy law covering cards, I found that six types of businesses could mine and share elements of my purchase, multiplied untold times by other companies they might have passed it to.
And:
When I swiped my cards, of course my banks received data. What’s surprising is who they can share it with. My data helped identify me to Chase’s marketing partners, who send me junk mail. Some data even got fed to retail giant Amazon because it co-branded my card.
And:
This is where the Apple Card is different. In the Goldman Sachs privacy statement, its answer to most kinds of sharing is “no.” Goldman still shares information with credit agencies about whether you pay your bills. But it says it doesn’t feed transactions to marketers or a sister company that mines card data.
The whole article is a fascinating read. But if I had to highlight a single point, it’s that last quoted paragraph above. Yes, you can get more cash back, more frequent flyer miles, etc., but there’s a price, both in a yearly fee charged by most credit cards, and in data sharing.
This is the third year of the iPhone X hardware family, and the second year for the iPhone XR, so changes to the external design of Apple’s phones — often the biggest driver of a huge sales bump — are unlikely. The presence of the iPhone XR adds another wrinkle as Apple continues to try to differentiate it from the company’s more expensive models. And then there’s the iPhone X name itself, which seems unlikely to be continued through another generation. iPhone XRM? iPhone XST? Yuck.
And:
If you ask me, one of the worst product names Apple has ever generated is iPhone XS Max. Apple’s large ultrapremium phone takes the ridiculous Roman numeral/letter combination of the entire 2018 phone generation and, well, maxes it out. iPhone 11 Pro Max would be slightly less bad, but it’s still ridiculous.
Interesting look at Apple’s iPhone naming conundrum. Do you go with XI? 11? Do you follow the Mac’s lead and come up with a long-term name, like iPhone Air, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Max, then append the year to lock in a specific model?
That last approach would help unify Apple’s product strategy, make things just a bit less confusing.
But the die is cast, product names long locked in. Are the first boxes printed and warehoused, ready to jet their way to Apple Stores around the world? Or is that switch still to be thrown?
In case you haven’t been following along until just now: NetNewsWire is an open source RSS reader for Mac. It’s free! You can just download it and use it. No strings.
It’s designed to be stable, fast, and free of bugs. It doesn’t have a lot of features yet, and that’s because we prioritized quality over features. We will be adding more features, of course, but not quickly. We’re also working on an iOS app.
If you’re a RSS junkie like me, go download this now.
Apple has just released an emergency patch for the iPhone.
The company was forced to release a patch after it mistakenly made it easier for hackers to jailbreak up to date iPhones with the previous iOS release. In July, Apple released iOS 12.4, an update that reintroduced a bug that had been previously patched. Last week, iPhone hackers and jailbreakers realized Apple’s mistake and published a jailbreak for up to date iPhones—the first time in years it was possible to jailbreak iPhones on the latest version of iOS.
On Monday, Apple released iOS 12.4.1, which fixes the bug once again.
To quote my go-to security guy, Rich Mogull, “Patch now.”
Engadget got the chance to sit down with Michael Paull, president of Disney Streaming Services and look at a preview of Disney+.
A few nuggets:
Aside from shows like The Mandalorian and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which will be available on November 12th, Disney announced at D23 Expo that it has a bunch more in the works, such as Marvel’s Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk as well as a new Lizzie McGuire original.
And:
There’s also going to be a feature that will let people create profiles which are programmed for children seven and under, which are organized by characters (e.g. Mickey Mouse and Disney Princesses) instead of shows or movies.
And:
What’s more, if you’re watching a movie or show on, say, the Apple TV or Xbox One and pause, you can continue watching where you left off on your other devices.
The more I hear, the more this $6.99 a month price is a no-brainer to me. Might be enough content for me to swap out Netflix, which feels like much less of a value.
Apple TV+? I will definitely give it a try, but without a back catalog, might be a tough sell at the rumored $9.99 a month price.
Summer Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer living in Kansas, has been in the midst of a bitter separation and parenting dispute for much of the past year. So she was surprised when she noticed that her estranged spouse still seemed to know things about her spending. Had she bought a car? How could she afford that?
Ms. Worden put her intelligence background to work, asking her bank about the locations of computers that had recently accessed her bank account using her login credentials. The bank got back to her with an answer: One was a computer network registered to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
And:
Ms. McClain acknowledged that she had accessed the bank account from space, insisting through a lawyer that she was merely shepherding the couple’s still-intertwined finances. Ms. Worden felt differently. She filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and her family lodged one with NASA’s Office of Inspector General, accusing Ms. McClain of identity theft and improper access to Ms. Worden’s private financial records.
Space crime. Sounds like a great title for an Apple TV+ show. Crazy story.
Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors, provides an excellent walk through the updated iOS 13 Health App. Lots of pics, easy to skim, worth your time.
No matter your iOS, be sure to check your profile. Get a sense of what’s available, verify that your profile data is correct and up-to-date, and take a minute to set up your Medical ID info.
Medical ID lets you specify health issues, blood type, organ donor signup, lots more.
With the release of every new tablet, photographers peer past their laptops and wonder: could this be the one that lightens my gear load without sacrificing performance? The appeal of a fast and light tablet is seductive, even if you’re not looking to completely replace a desktop or laptop, but tradeoffs have so far made it a difficult choice.
Apple’s latest iPad Pro models boast impressive hardware that’s making them competitive alternatives. Depending on what you need to do, though, the software still isn’t quite there yet. Partly that’s due to limitations imposed by Apple and iOS, but it’s also because third-party developers have only recently had the power to build the types of full-blown apps photographers expect.
The iPad is getting closer and closer to the photography machine I need to take on the road with me.
Blocking cookies is bad for privacy. That’s the new disingenuous argument from Google, trying to justify why Chrome is so far behind Safari and Firefox in offering privacy protections. As researchers who have spent over a decade studying web tracking and online advertising, we want to set the record straight.
If the benchmark is original design intent, let’s be clear: cookies were not supposed to enable third-party tracking, and browsers were supposed to block third-party cookies. Study after study has demonstrated that users don’t understand and don’t want the pervasive web tracking that occurs today.
Although iOS and Android devices are more similar now than ever, there are a few specific features that iPhone users have that Android users don’t (or vice versa). The most prevalent of these features is iMessage, the Apple-exclusive messaging app that signifies Android users with a green bubble.
While this seems fairly innocuous and even necessary, the “green bubble” feature has taken on a life of its own — and not in a good way. Some iPhone users the world over — but mostly in the United States — mock the green bubbles that appear in their iMessage feed, even going so far as to create colloquialisms such as “green texts don’t get texts back.”
This issue has to be one of the funniest “First World” problems I’ve read about in a while. But there is a justification for some of us – not everyone has unlimited text messages. Here in the backwater that is Canada, some of us still get charged for every incoming and outgoing text/SMS/”green bubble” message. If you’ve got a child who is an active user of text messages, that can add up quickly and cost real money.
Apple’s newest product has generated breathless hype. It all started with an onstage unveiling by CEO Tim Cook last March, and it continued with an invitation-only enrollment process. Now, almost anyone can get their hands on the product. But this isn’t a device like a new iPhone, Apple Watch or some other Apple gadget — it’s a credit card.
I’ve been using Apple Card for about a week, most of that time without a physical credit card in hand. There’s a lot to like about Apple Card. If you’re in the market for a cash-back credit card and can take on the responsibility of a new credit line, it’s a useful tool.
Listen in as Anthony Vincent covered Metallica’s classic Enter Sandman in 20 different musical styles, ranging from yodeling to The Eurythmics to Hans Zimmer to Lil Uzi Vert to John Denver.
This is brilliant. I don’t play the guitar but I’ve always wanted to learn just so I could play the opening riff to Enter Sandman.
The Apple Card was released to the general public this week, so Dave and I took the opportunity to talk about some of the features and what it means for the consumer.
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In the press, U2 and Apple were called “inconsiderate,” “kinda creepy,” and “tone-deaf,” and even likened to Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984. Customers complained that uploading Songs Of Innocence was a grievous invasion of privacy. And they were offended that a band as, well, old and uncool as U2 had encroached on the sanctity of their digital music collections. Many people took to social media to register their displeasure, including the rapper Tyler The Creator, who memorably compared the indignity of finding Songs Of Innocence on his phone to “waking up with a pimple or like a herpes … F*ck Bono. I didn’t ask for you, I’m mad.”
But looking back all these years later, I can’t help but wonder: Why were we so mad about U2 putting a free album on our phones? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live again in a pre-Trump world, where you had the luxury to get worked up about a so-called Orwellian scheme involving a melancholic late-period U2 record? Isn’t it crazy that people cared so much about this?
Oh, it’s crazy now and it was all kinds of crazy then.
The caller read out the numbers at a speed evoking an auctioneer on fast-forward, each multidigit figure blurring into the next.
Within seconds, Daiki Kamino’s right arm shot up in the air, triumphant. Not only had he heard every number, he had tabulated them and arrived at the correct, 16-digit sum: 8,186,699,633,530,061.
He did it all on an abacus.
I’ve since lost the knowledge but I was taught as a kid how to use an abacus. It was fun and actually fairly easy for ordinary math problems.
Some fabrics, like leather and denim, might cause permanent discoloration that will not wash off.
I have to say, this is some upper echelon marketing. Can you imagine if Capital One or CitiBank sent you instructions on cleaning your credit card?
But there’s more.
Not sure what factors came into play here, but here’s one user’s card after two months in a leather wallet. Not so precious.
Also, there’s a new Apple Card Twitter account. Kind of hoping for some Wendy’s / Burger King level comedy, but I won’t hold my breath. Until the other credit card companies get together and create accounts to get this rivalry started.
Often when I try something new, however, I’m immediately confronted with the obstacle of a login screen. At which point there’s a choice to make: do I go through the hassle of creating an account for this service, or – if the option is available – do I simply authenticate via a third party like Google or Facebook? Sadly, neither option is ideal.
And:
When apps update to adopt Sign In with Apple, I suspect many users’ initial thoughts will be some variation of what immediately popped into my mind after trying it for the first time: “Where has this been all my life?”
It’s going to take a while, but I’m looking forward to this rolling out across the appiverse, becoming the standard rather than the exception.
Too much power in one company’s hands? Hey, I’d rather it be Apple than anyone else.
I love my iPhone XR. As I’ve discussed on the podcast, I started with an iPhone XS Max, then “downgraded” to the XR. Price, crazy battery life, color choices were all big wins for me. I did give up screen and camera advances, but no regrets.
It’ll be interesting to see the divide between the next generation iPhones. We shall soon see.
The technology that we’ve come to rely on to connect our phones, smart speakers, cars, vibrators, and toasters is problematic for reasons more serious than pairing issues. Bluetooth has been shown time and time again to be a security and privacy nightmare — albeit one that can be mostly solved with a simple toggling of an off switch.
I got pointed to this Mashable (I know, I know) post by someone and it’s a good object lesson in checking before you post. On its face, it sounds silly but it may be possible. So I checked with my favourite security guy, Rich Mogull of DisruptOps.
I asked Rich, “Is this sensationalism by Mashable (that wouldn’t be a surprise) or a “real” issue?” Rich responded with these tweets:
Saying you should stop using Bluetooth is the kind of disconnected, unrealistic security advice that results in security people not being invited to anyone else’s parties.
The flaw is real and very serious. It’s also manageable by vendors enforcing min key length.
I followed up with, “Which begs the question, “Do vendors enforce min key length?” Does “min key length” mean passwords or something else? Is that something on the user end or vendor-side?”
It is the length of the encryption key used in pairing… nothing a user can control. All on the vendor side. I think most or all Apple devices (and Microsoft, according to press releases) are protected.
So, Bluetooth could be a security and privacy nightmare but it’s not. Thanks Rich.
THX’s long-running “bwonnnnnnnnnnnnnng” Deep Tone sound that plays before movies just got a lavish new update.
It’s still recognizable to cinephiles, but the version heard in the trailer above is much crisper than the original tone that played before Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi in 1983. There have been more than 20 remixed versions of the tone since then, including special versions made for The Simpsons and Shrek. Everyone knows it! It’s a meme! People remix the tone into their songs because it’s universally understood.
In my younger days, this sound before the beginning of a movie sent tingles down my spine. It meant I was about to see a “good movie.” As I got older, I realized it means I’m going to see a movie with (probably) good sound but no promises as to how good the actual movie will be.
Famous actors and musicians, the head of the US Department of Energy, and regular Instagram users have been spreading a hoax memo that claims the company will soon have permission to make deleted photos and messages public and use those posts against them in court.
The claims are fake and the assertions don’t make a lot of sense, but that hasn’t stopped it from being spread by some major names concerned about the implications. Celebrities including Usher, Judd Apatow, and Julia Roberts posted the note to their feeds, as did Rick Perry, the current United States secretary of energy and former Texas governor.
Apple plans to change the rules it has for kids apps, raising concerns among some app developers about the way the tech giant wields power unilaterally over an App Store that has become an industry unto itself.
Under the new rules, which Apple had planned to implement next month, kids apps on Apple’s App Store will be banned from using external analytics software — invisible lines of code that collect extremely detailed information about who is using an app and how. Apple is also severely curtailing their ability to sell ads, which underpins the business model that results in many apps being free. The changes were prompted in part by some children viewing inappropriate ads, Apple says.
The new rules pit Apple’s privacy prerogative against an overreach of its power.
This isn’t an intractable problem but Apple needs to live up to its privacy declarations particularly when it comes to apps targeted at children.
PCMag surveyed 1,000 parents with children in grades ranging from preschool to college to gauge when they think is the right time to buy their kids a smartphone, tablet, laptop, and smart speaker. For smartphones, the majority (53 percent) of parents said age 12 to 15 is appropriate for kids to get their own phone. Another 23 percent said ages 9 to 11, and 17 percent said not until ages 16 to 18.
Parents were far more divided on tablets.
We are going through this little exercise in our house with the 13-year-old. He’s already got an iPhone and an iPad mini. He wants a laptop and smart speaker next.
At Nomad, we are passionate about wild places, adventures, and unspoiled nature. We’ve grown a lot since our first Kickstarter in 2012, expanding our product range, our internal team, and our company goals. Along with all this company growth, our carbon footprint and impact on the places we love has grown too.
So we’ve decided that a big part of our mission going forward will be to reduce our impact while leading the way towards a more sustainable future. Nomad is going carbon neutral.
I’m a big fan of Nomad the company and their cables specifically. I’ve used one of their Universal cables every day for the past year and it looks brand new. The offer here is to buy their 1.5m Lightning cable. Donate $5, $10, or $20 and get the cable for free. Nomad will ensure 100% of your donations are delivered to Carbonfund. The biggest downside of this promotion is it’s only really available to those inside the US. International shipping is brutal at $30.
Founded in 1623 in Turkey and now based in Norwell, Massachusetts, Zildjian has manufactured cymbals continuously for almost 400 years. This is how they do it now.
Regular readers know I’m a sucker for “making of” assembly line videos. I love this one.
