Every time I’ve written about Apple News recently, I’ve received comments from readers outside of the US, UK, and Australia expressing annoyance that Apple restricts Apple News to just those three English-speaking countries. Even Canada is left out!
And:
The point is now moot for anyone running macOS 10.14 Mojave because there’s an easy workaround for people in unsupported countries.
Activation Lock, or iCloud Lock, is a feature of Find My iPhone, Apple’s proprietary implementation of a much wider protection system generally referred as Factory Reset Protection (FRP). Factory Reset Protection, or “kill switch”, is regulated in the US via the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act of 2015. The Act requires device manufacturers to feature a so-called “kill switch” allowing legitimate users to remotely wipe and lock devices. The purpose of the kill switch was to discourage smartphone theft by dramatically reducing resale value of stolen devices.
According to Apple, “Activation Lock is a feature that’s designed to prevent anyone else from using your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch if it’s ever lost or stolen. Activation Lock is enabled automatically when you turn on Find My iPhone. … Even if you erase your device remotely, Activation Lock can continue to deter anyone from reactivating your device without your permission. All you need to do is keep Find My iPhone turned on, and remember your Apple ID and password.”
Apple is preparing a new digital video service that will marry original content and subscription services from legacy media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Owners of Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV will find the still-in-the-works service in the pre-installed “TV” application, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details of the project are private.
The product will include Apple-owned content, which will be free to Apple device owners, and subscription “channels,” which will allow customers to sign up for online-only services, such as those from HBO and Starz.
Paralleling Amazon Prime Video, if you buy into the Apple ecosystem, you get Apple’s original content for free. This seems a reasonable strategy, as it reduces the pressure for Apple to have to produce content worth paying for, à la Netflix.
Seems to me, this is Apple easing their way into a market they have no experience with, reducing their chance of failure to almost zero. Over time, if they find the path to creating truly compelling content, they can ease into another business model.
When a normal person sees a Portal, I don’t think they are going to turn a blind eye to it because of the existential fears of personal data exploitation. There are a handful of reasons why this product is going to fail in the market, but I don’t see privacy worries as a legitimate death-on-arrival poison.
I have to say, I don’t worry so much about the exploitation of my data, as much as I worry about Big Brother looking over my shoulder; The surveillance aspect more than the profiling aspect.
The key marketing point that Facebook is pushing here is video calls, through Messenger. I don’t get it. It just seems so much easier to talk on something that you can hold in your hand — be it a phone, tablet, or laptop in your lap — that you can freely move around with.
I totally agree with this take. I see little appeal to a non-portable video conferencing device. I do think Benjamin is right on this: The Facebook Portal will face an uphill battle in both perceived usability and security fears.
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoft’s monopoly back in the bottle.
This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry.
And:
The industry’s new goal? Not a computer on every desk nor a connection between every person, but something grander: a computer inside everything, connecting everyone.
And:
At a press event last month, an Amazon engineer showed how easily a maker of household fans could create a “smart” fan using Amazon’s chip, known as the Alexa Connect Kit. The kit, which Amazon is testing with some manufacturers, would simply be plugged into the fan’s control unit during assembly. The manufacturer also has to write a few lines of code — in the example of the fan, the Amazon engineer needed just a half-page of code.
And that’s it. The fan’s digital bits (including security and cloud storage) are all handled by Amazon. If you buy it from Amazon, the fan will automatically connect with your home network and start obeying commands issued to your Alexa. Just plug it in.
All of this is happening without any sort of oversight. Over time, we’ll have built a dystopiaNet that rides along the regular internet, unregulated, free of any sort of protections, while we whistle happily away.
In 2017 and the first half of this year, Google shipped about 5 million Pixel smartphones worldwide, according to the research firm IDC. Apple Inc. sells as many iPhones in about eight days as Google did in 18 months — and even Apple has a relatively small minority market share in smartphones.
And:
Small numbers aren’t confined to Google, either. Journalists like me can’t stop talking about the “runaway success” of the Echo devices, Amazon.com Inc.’s rapidly expanding lineup of voice-activated home doodads. Amazon sold about 3.6 million of the two most popular Echo models from April to June, Strategy Analytics estimated. Fitbit, a company that journalists like me stopped talking about long ago, sold 2.7 million motion-tracking gadgets in the same period.
And:
For most software or internet tech empires, hardware is a niche hobby, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.
It take a lot of R&D dollars, fragmentation of company focus, to design, test, build, and ship a hardware product. Why does Google do it? Interesting question.
It’s been 10 years since Spotify officially launched for fans—and new music and artist discovery has never been the same. We built our Swedish company to create a legal, better alternative to piracy—one that helps to fairly compensate artists for their work and shape music listening and sharing via streaming.
In honor of this important milestone, we’re unveiling our lists of the most-streamed artists and songs, milestones and achievements, and most influential genres over the past 10 years. Take a closer look.
The preference people have for Spotify over Apple Music or vice versa is always interesting to me. For example, my wife likes Spotify better because it has a wider selection of Yoga music for her to work out to. If you’re a Spotify fan, check out their Decade of Discovery playlist.
Analyst Horace Dediu tweeted out a chart of data compiled by Merrill Lynch Global Research on 32,523 smartphone users ranging from Apple, Blackberry, and Google to a series of global Android licensees: HTC, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.
For each maker, the most popular choice among users for their next phone was another model from the same maker. Among iPhone buyers, that figure was 70 percent. For Samsung and Huawei users, 53 and 54 percent respectively planned to stick with their brand. Just 42 percent of Google owners planned to buy another one, while other brand owners expressed even less loyalty.
I know someone will point out the Apple stat of “90% customer satisfaction” but that is different from this “Intent to Buy”. Still, I would have guessed Apple was higher than the 70% shown here. Regardless, this is where Apple has a huge advantage and where they still have plenty of room to grow by taking share away from various Android manufacturers.
At 300 Funston Street in San Francisco’s Richmond District, there’s an old Christian Science church. Walk up it’s palatial steps, past Corinthian columns and urns, into the bowels of a vaulted sanctuary — and you’ll find a copy of the internet.
In a backroom where pastors once congregated stand rows of computer servers, flickering en masse with blue light, humming the hymnal of technological grace.
This is the home of the Internet Archive, a non-profit that has, for 22 years, been preserving our online history: Billions of web pages, tweets, news articles, videos, and memes.
I can’t count how many times I’ve used the Wayback Machine. It’s an invaluable resource for research and curiosity.
Before photographer Philippe Halsman and Surrealist Salvador Dalí settled on the idea of tossing three cats into the air for the photograph Dalí Atomicus (1948), the Spanish artist suggested they blow up a duck using dynamite. Considering it took 26 attempts to pull off the picture of a levitating Dalí in a chaotic airborne scene, Halsman’s insistence against the first idea was decidedly the best course of action.
Halsman, a mid-century portrait photographer, sought to lift the veil on his subjects, however briefly, to reveal their innermost being. “A true photographer wants to try to capture the real essence of a human being,” he once famously said. But capturing the essence of Dalí was a complex task. Over nearly four decades, Halsman photographed the artist on many occasions, spurring the most iconic black-and-white portraits of the Surrealist.
I still remember the first time I ever saw this image as a kid and thinking, “This is stupid.” It took me many years and a level of maturity before I began to understand both the art of Dali and the photographic achievements of Halsman.
Developer Steve Troughton-Smith used SpriteKit to create his own Apple Watch face:
Experimenting with SpriteKit watch faces. Very easy to do; set watchOS to show most recent app on wake, and make a SpriteKit app pic.twitter.com/uhFG3pRp7w
This is an end-around, bypassing Apple’s lack of support for 3rd party watch faces. Scroll through the Twitter thread, check out all the faces. I hope Apple allows this bit of a market to evolve, eventually adding official support.
One concern about all this is the fear that Apple would be liable for watch face copyright infringement. Some say that that’s the reason Apple does not allow 3rd party watch faces. Does this eliminate that liability? Will Apple allow this to continue?
To help you avoid calls from scammers, Google is adding Call Screen to the Pixel, a new option that appears when you receive a phone call. Whenever someone calls you, you can tap a “Screen call” button, and a robot voice will pick up.
And:
“The person you’re calling is using a screening service and will get a copy of this conversation. Go ahead and say your name and why you’re calling,” the Google bot will say. As the caller responds, the digital assistant will transcribe the caller’s message for you. If you need more information, you can use one of the feature’s canned responses, which include “Tell me more” and “Who is this?” There are also buttons to either pick up or hang up the call, so you can accept or reject it at any time.
I wonder if it’d be possible for Apple to implement a feature like this that let you actually screen the call screening audio as it happens. In other words, the phone rings, ScreenBot answers, and you hear the back and forth with ScreenBot, then you jump into the call if it’s someone you know.
As is, sounds like Google’s Call Screen is all done via text transcription, rather than via listen-in audio. Could be wrong about this. We’ll know for sure once it ships.
I wonder what Apple’s business model is here. They made a second season, so the show has got to have some value to Apple. Is this purely filling the content pipeline, in preparation for the eventual launch of Apple’s media service?
The Swatch Group made plastic watches cool. This led to completely different product positioning. Swatch de-linked the watch from its core timekeeping function and turned it into a fashion statement. Watches were no longer about their intricate clockworks — they were now an avenue for self-expression. This shift from technology to fashion would soon become even more important in the age of smartphones and smartwatches. But it would still be decades before anyone knew what a “Home” button was.
For more than 30 years after the launch of the Swatch watch, the industry remained remarkably stable as Switzerland re-established itself as the global watchmaking leader.
It would take the vision and marketing powerhouse of another giant to disrupt the industry once more.
I don’t know if you can definitely say Apple has beaten “Swiss watchmakers at their own game”, but they definitely saw a niche in the watch market no one else was serving. The Apple Watch fascinates me if only for the fact it has gotten so many non-watch people to start wearing a watch and the reasons for wearing one are wide and varied – which is good news for Apple.
This is simultaneously funny and sad. FYI, no these humpbacks are not “going to kill us!” and there’s no need to call 911 to report there’s a whale under your boat. Finally, for God’s sake, don’t start your damn engines when whales are that close to you.
The National goes undercover to investigate some of Apple’s controversial business practices including allegations of overpriced repair charges and the battery/slowdown scandal.
I understand why Apple wants genuine parts in its products—they want the customers to have a properly repaired device with the right parts. I also have never believed that Apple intentionally slowed down the iPhone to force people into buying a new device. Having said that, you should watch the video.
The history of the security detail is arguably as old as the history of power. For as long as there have been people at the top, there have been knights, samurai, somatophylakes, housecarls, Varangians, and Praetorian Guards cast in the role of personal protectors.
These days, it seems like everyone has a security detail. We spent a day with three men in suits to find out how it feels to be safe.
I have some relatives in the “protection industry” and I’m always fascinated by the people who do this kind of work.
Folk, new wave, hip-hop, R&B, rap-rock, heavy metal and good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll are among the many genres (and subgenres) represented by the latest shortlist of nominees for induction into the ever-broadening Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Stevie Nicks (already an inductee as a member of Fleetwood Mac), Def Leppard, John Prine, Roxy Music, Devo and Todd Rundgren are the first-time nominees for the 2019 class, it was announced on Tuesday, joining a more diverse selection of returning acts who have not been inducted, including Janet Jackson, Radiohead and Rage Against the Machine.
I love when these nominations come out because it provokes huge arguments between myself and The Publisher of The Loop on the Your Mac Life show.
When viewed the footage on a small iPhone scene they both looked fantastic. I was impressed to say the least but it all fell apart when viewing in fullscreen on my 27inch iMac. Too much sharpening meant the details just got lost and all the leaves with details just got smushed together. The C200 still looked great.
No surprise there. But:
The dynamic range however is super impressive. it’s able to keep the highlights on the bright sun while keeping details in the shadows. This is some crazy multiple exposure processing thats been done.
And:
In conclusion the iPhone camera is a smartphone camera and always will be. It is incredibly small but to be honest give completely mind blowing results.
And:
Is it as good as a cinema camera, not at all. Is it the best camera I have ever seen on a smartphone? 100%.
Hundreds of thousands of accounts on Google’s long-suffering social media service, Google+, may have been affected by a security flaw, the company said Monday, exposing personal information such as names and email addresses.
In the wake of the accidental exposure, Google said it is planning to shut down Google+ for consumers. But that will not happen for about 10 months. If you are wondering whether you still have a Google+ account — and if so, how to delete it — you can follow these instructions.
If nothing else, good to know how to tell if you have a Google Plus profile tied to your Google account.
This level of watch and their valuation always fascinates me. Not just for the incredible workmanship of the watches but because, generally, I find the individual watches to be butt ugly. But that may just mean I’m uncultured.
Over the years we’ve received feedback that people want to better understand how to control the data they choose to share with apps on Google+. So as part of Project Strobe, one of our first priorities was to closely review all the APIs associated with Google+.
This review crystallized what we’ve known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps. The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.
Seriously, who didn’t see this coming… five years ago.
Safari on iOS 12 has a security mechanism in place to make sure malicious websites aren’t displaying a software keyboard that mimics the iOS one in order to act as a keylogger.
To trigger the warning: open a webpage in full-screen mode, for example a full-screen video on YouTube’s mobile website. Then tap several times at the bottom of the screen, as if you were typing on an invisible keyboard.
A warning message will appear telling you the website may be showing you a fake keyboard to trick you into disclosing personal or financial information.
Worth reading the comments on this page.
Note that this seems to only work on an iPad (something to do with the way iPad supports a full-screen mode that iPhone does not).
I have not been able to replicate this, but I am running a beta, so that might be an issue. A number of people have replicated this. If you can, please do ping me with specifics.
