Christina Farr, CNBC:

[Apple] is expected to take these health ambitions a step further by introducing an electrocardiogram or “ECG” sensor that measures the heart’s rhythm — and not just the heart rate.

That’s according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who issued a research note seen by CNBC on Monday.

Lots of rumors sprang from Kuo’s research note. This bit about adding an ECG is fascinating. Here’s why:

Apple releasing an ECG is a big deal for people with certain diseases. But it’s also complicated because the company would need to figure out how to communicate sensitive medical information to consumers without freaking them out. The last thing Apple would want to do with its device is send tens of thousands of anxious users into the emergency room thinking they’re having a life-threatening medical problem when they’re not.

And:

If Apple shows the ECG reading to a consumer, then yes. That would make the Apple Watch a regulated medical device.

Two very interesting issues. Solving this problem would be a big step towards being able to add a wider variety of sensors to the Apple Watch and other Apple devices and accessories. Good read.

UPDATE: From this Reddit thread (hat tip to Simon), making the case that there will not be an ECG Apple Watch:

First and foremost, ECG stands for electrocardiogram and is a measure of depolarization and repolarization of the heart during the cardiac cycle. ECG is electrical activity and can’t not be measured with LED. Pulse oximetry can be used for heart rate and even pulse wave velocity, but not the electrical activity of the heart. However, let’s entertain the though of an electrode based ECG sensor in the Apple Watch. In a clinical 12-lead ECG, 10 electrodes are placed on the left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg as well as 6 “precordial” electrodes. These 10 electrodes are paired up into 12 different “leads” which are grouped into limb leads (I,II,III), augmented limb leads (aVR, aVL, aVF) and precordial leads (V1-V6).

The reason for using so many electrodes is to look at the electrical activity from a number of directions. One could imagine one electrode placed on the back of the Apple Watch (left arm) and one electrode on the bezel, allowing one lead from the left arm to the right arm, which is normally referred to as lead I. This gives us a lateral view of the electrical activity, which could show us an ECG-trace, but would be nowhere near enough for diagnosis (Edit: It has been pointed out that the Kardia device can use a single-lead ECG to detect atrial fibrilation).

Second, and this is the kicker. Osram is actually a manufacturer of LED-ECG. But the ECG stands for Electronic Control Gear and has nothing to do with cardiology.

Interesting, informative, but not enough to throw cold water on this rumor, at least for me. We shall see.

Seriously. Jump to the Apple Store and try to buy an iPhone. Any model. There’s a nice little “Be right back” message with an animated rainbow Apple. Interesting pattern.

We all should carry one of these.

Apple’s iPhone press event will be live streamed on Twitter for the first time, TechCrunch has confirmed. This news backs up an earlier report from last month, which claimed Apple would expand the ability to watch the event to Twitter’s platform, instead of only through Safari and Apple TV or Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, as in the past.

I wonder how many people will choose Twitter over the traditional streaming methods that Apple has used for years.

Jason Perlow, ZDNet:

You could say this has been a very interesting summer. And one I would not like to repeat.

Go ahead and read the article. Wow. Yet another, very well documented, case of an Apple Watch alerting its owner to a medical condition that turned out to be life-threatening.

Terrific post.

Tripp Mickle, Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. is preparing to supersize its iPhone lineup, aiming to drive profit in its biggest business despite stagnant unit sales while also fueling growth for apps and services that are more appealing to users with bigger screens.

And:

At a time when people are buying fewer new phones, bigger size brings two advantages. It helps Apple buoy prices and profit margins because it can sell larger phones at a greater markup than it pays suppliers for the larger screens. And it encourages people to use their phones more, helping momentum of Apple’s services business, which includes app-store sales and subscriptions to video services like Netflix and HBO.

And:

Users with smartphone screens 6 inches or larger, like Apple plans to launch this year, typically use twice as many apps as those with 5.5-inch screens, such as those on the largest versions of the iPhone 6 or 7, said Kantar Worldpanel, a market research firm. Users of the larger devices also are 62% more likely to play games, and twice as likely to watch video daily as people with smaller screens.

Interesting article. Apple is getting smarter and smarter at fine-tuning devices to align with and drive revenue growth. This is all, in part, a strategy aligned with Apple’s coming entry into the Netflix-dominated video market.

There are spoilers in the article about tomorrow’s Apple event, so jump in if you are interested, avoid if you don’t even want a whiff of what’s coming.

Marc Settle, writing for the BBC on mobile journalism, digs into iOS 12. Good read. A couple of highlights:

iOS 12 will run on every device that currently runs iOS 11. This will therefore include iPhone 5s from way back in 2013 – now something of a dinosaur.

This also means that for the second year running, the oldest iPhone is not being left behind, bereft and unable to download the latest version of the operating system.

And:

But the fact that iOS 12 can actually run on such an old phone is part of the reason why I write these reviews when I don’t produce something similar for Android despite it being the world’s most used operating system – on about three and a half billion smartphones globally, compared to 800 million or so for iOS. The reason is that Androids aren’t uniformly updated in the way iPhones are. Depending on the make and model, you might get the latest version of Android immediately, eventually, or quite possibly never – even on relatively new devices.

And:

It’s taken me a long time to understand what I can do with Shortcuts and each time I think I’ve got it, I find new aspects to get my head around. But once users have got the hang of it, the likely result will be that they will be spending less time using their phones as numerous consecutive taps on the screen will be replaced by – at best – just one and possibly even none, given that Siri can be used to get things going.

And:

You could set a Shortcut up so that it gets hold of your most recent screenshot from the camera roll, opens it with tools for annotating and then add the annotated image to an email which you can then send before, finally, the screenshot is presented to you to be deleted.

And:

Another [Shortcut] could work like this: the system looks up on a map where you are, it then asks Apple Maps for directions and estimated driving times, it then creates an iMessage to a specific contact, based on your calendar, showing both where you are now and how long it should take to get to your destination. And it sends it.

Terrific read. These nuggets were just the tip of the iceberg.

Aaron Boyd, NextGov:

The new veriScan system developed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority—with guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection—scans the faces of travelers approaching the gate. The system then compares the photo to a gallery that includes images of that person—either their passport photo for U.S. citizens or the photo taken of foreign nationals when they entered the country. The process eliminates the need for an airline employee to manually check every boarding pass and passport while boarding a plane.

I can only assume this is the first of many US airports to gain this technology. Slowly, the massive databases are connecting, sucking data from the ever widening network of facial sensors.

Rani Molla, Recode:

If it feels like Amazon’s site is increasingly stuffed with ads, that’s because it is. And it looks like that’s working — at least for brands that are willing to fork over ad dollars as part of their strategy to sell on Amazon.

Jump to the recode article and look at the sample images, especially that big search result for “cereal”. Amazon has long had sponsored ads, but this new move makes it that much harder to find genuine (not paid-for) results.

Amazon, squeezing out every penny.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple has recently been sending out surveys to customers who purchased an iMac Pro, asking them about which features drew them to the pro-level machine and what they like or dislike about the iMac Pro.

And:

Apple regularly sends out surveys of this nature to customers, but this line of questioning on the iMac Pro suggests Apple is perhaps trying to suss out key features that pro-level users want to see in future pro machines, such as the Mac Pro machine that’s in the works.

And:

Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi admitted last year that with the 2013 Mac Pro, Apple designed itself into “a bit of a thermal corner” given the restrictive size of the trash can-shaped Mac Pro and its inability to handle the thermal capacity needed for larger single GPUs.

“A bit of a thermal corner”. Love that turn of phrase. This survey seems a solid sign that Apple is doing their best to learn from their mistakes, hit a home run with next year’s Mac Pro.

Complete Digital Photography:

Autumn—one of my favorite times of year—is coming on quickly here in eastern Oregon: The nights are cooler, and each morning, the air has a hint of crispness in it. As a photographer, this change in the weather brings with it the anticipation of fall foliage, and I find myself itching to head out to shoot. I have been scoping out locations, planning my time, looking for the peak windows, and getting my gear ready. I have also been chatting with Ben Long and Hudson Henry about the best approaches for capturing fall color. Among us, we have a few tips for getting the most out of your fall-foliage shots.

I love these tips because they are more of the compositional and creative variety rather than the strictly technical. You photographers who live on the east coast of the US and Canada are really lucky this time of year.

CNN:

Moto2 rider Romano Fenati has been dropped from the Marinelli Snipers Team after the dangerous incident where he pulled a rival’s brake lever mid-race.

Watch the video on this story. This incident yesterday is all the motorcycling racing world is talking about today. It was an incredibly dangerous stunt by a rider who has done dangerous things to other riders in the past and has been fired from other teams. Unfortunately, Race Direction only gave Fenati a two-race ban but he has since been fired from the Marinelli team and has lost his job with another team for next year. I predict he won’t race at this level ever again.

Thanks to the lovely and talented Dave Mark for the link.

Follow the link, type your name, or anything you like, and it will be rendered using famous logos.

For example, here’s me:

This exposes something a bit funky about Safari (both on Mac and iOS). Apparently, it does not support color fonts. If you do your typing in Safari, you’re words will appear in black and white. But if you flip over to Firefox (which I did for the image above), you’ll see your logo letters in glorious color.

I’d love to see the creator of this site add more logo letters to the font. There are two capital M’s (Monster and McDonalds), but only one capital A.

Interesting.

Federico Viticci, MacStories:

In an update rolled out last night following the release of global top charts, Apple redesigned artist pages on Apple Music with separation of different kinds of music releases.

While the old artist page design of Apple Music mixed albums, singles, EPs, live albums, and more under the same ‘Albums’ section, the new Apple Music features separate sections for different types of music releases. The new sections include singles and EPs, live albums, essential albums recommended by Apple Music editors, compilations, and appearances by an artist on other albums.

This is great news, and a long time coming. Apple is making some terrific moves in the Apple Music space, along with the redesigns of the iOS and Mac App Stores. Kudos.

Apple adds to its Emmy shelf with this Outstanding Short Form Variety Series at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Side note: The series An Emmy for Megan, created by The Good Place writer Megan Amram (a great Twitter follow, btw) was nominated for two Creative Arts Emmies. It did not win either, and it is about to get dark.

This is a nice little read to set up Wednesday’s potential reveal of a Series 4 Apple Watch.

Patrick Wardle, Objective-See:

You probably trust applications in the Official Mac App Store. And why wouldn’t you?

Yup.

However, it’s questionable whether these statements actually hold true, as one of the top grossing applications in the Mac App Store surreptitiously exfiltrates highly sensitive user information to a (Chinese?) developer. Though Apple was contacted a month ago, and promised to investigate, the application remains available in Mac App Store even today.

Read the post for all the details (good work from Patrick Wardle and Twitter user @privacyis1st) but here’s a good summary from John Gruber, in a Daring Fireball post called The Curious Case of Adware Doctor and the Mac App Store:

What a bizarre story this is. Adware Doctor was a $4.99 app in the Mac App Store from a developer supposedly named Yongming Zhang. The app purported to protect your browser from adware by removing browser extensions, cookies, and caches. It was a surprisingly popular app, ranking first in the Utilities category and fourth overall among paid apps, alongside stalwarts like Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X.

Turns out, among other things, Adware Doctor was collecting your web browser history from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and uploading them to a server in China. Whatever the intention of this was, it’s a privacy debacle, obviously. This behavior was first discovered by someone who goes by the Twitter handle Privacy 1st, and reported to Apple on August 12. Early today, security researcher Patrick Wardle published a detailed technical analysis of the app. Wired, TechCrunch, and other publications jumped on the story, and by 9 am PT, Apple had pulled the app from the App Store.

So the issue was reported on August 12th but not taken down until 26 days later, on September 7th.

But wait, there’s more.

Guilherme Rambo, in a 9to5Mac post titled Additional Mac App Store apps caught stealing and uploading browser history:

When you give an app access to your home directory on macOS, even if it’s an app from the Mac App Store, you should think twice about doing it. It looks like we’re seeing a trend of Mac App Store apps that convince users to give them access to their home directory with some promise such as virus scanning or cleaning up caches, when the true reason behind it is to gather user data – especially browsing history – and upload it to their analytics servers.

Today, we’re talking specifically about the apps distributed by a developer who claims to be “Trend Micro, Inc.”, which include Dr. Unarchiver, Dr. Cleaner and others.

These apps have been removed from the Mac App Store.

This raises some serious issues. Is this the tip of the iceberg? Are there other apps in the Mac App Store that do the same thing, but are not yet discovered? Is this just one technique of many? And what about the iOS App Store?

I am very reluctant to run any app on my Mac unless I either know and trust the developer or the app comes from the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store is a trusted source. If that trust is broken, either on the Mac or iOS, that’s a real problem for Apple.

I’m hoping we see some formal response from Apple, with some sense that they are aware of the issues involved and have new steps in place to root out existing apps that use this “give us access to your Home directory” (or similar) approach, steps that will prevent this issue from recurring.

Open Culture:

Not every record yields gold when played backwards or spun more slowly than recommended, but a 45 of Parton’s 1973 hit “Jolene” played at 33RPM not only sounds wonderful, it also manages to reframe the narrative.

In the original version, the irresistible chorus wherein the soon-to-be-spurned party invokes Jolene’s name again and again is plaintive and fierce.

In the slow ass version, it’s plaintive and sad. The pain is the same, but the situation is much less straightforward, thanks to blurrier gender lines.

This is wild. This wonderful song sounds completely different and opens up a whole new level.

CNBC:

With most tech products, if they don’t work well you can throw them in a drawer and chalk the loss up up to the costs of being an early adopter. The same is not true of health tech products, argues former Apple employee Robin Goldstein, who most recently served as a senior manager of special health projects. That’s because health tech products connect users to their own mortality, and a bad outcome can be disastrous.

This short piece definitely brings up some good points I hadn’t thought about before.

Reddit:

It came about when I was having a discussion on /r/penmanshipporn about how remarkably like a fountain pen the Apple Pencil feels, in the way it glides over glass. It was clearly designed by someone who loved and appreciated fountain pens, so out of curiosity I wrote the same things side by side. I have tiny handwriting, so it was interesting to see how closely they match. The only reason it does is because the feel of these two writing instruments is SO similar that muscle memory does it justice.

Check out this image, showing the results side-by-side. Apple Pencil is a remarkable achievement.

Frys has what I read as a one-day-only sale on AirPods. Why one-day-only? The promo code embedded in the URL is today’s date.

Complete speculation here, but: Wondering if this is clearing inventory to make way for a new generation of AirPods.

This is just a great read, especially if you are interested in the history of the iPhone and of Apple in general. One tiny highlight:

I was in the audience on that January day [that the iPhone was launched] in early 2007 and when I walked in that morning I didn’t know what the product would be called. We called it “Purple,” which was the code name for the phone, and it was a surprise.

The fact that the team was able to keep the iPhone name a secret until the reveal is amazing to me. Certainly, that name would have been a reasonable guess, given that the iPod existed and this was a phone extension of the iPod. But it would have been speculation, not a leak, and it was known at the time that the iPhone name was owned by another company.

Apple:

We believe security shouldn’t come at the expense of individual privacy.

And:

Apple receives various forms of legal process requesting information from or actions by Apple. Apple requires government and private entities to follow applicable laws and statutes when requesting customer information and data. We contractually require our service providers to follow the same standard we apply to government information requests for Apple data. Our legal team reviews requests to ensure that the requests have a valid legal basis. If they do, we comply by providing the narrowest possible set of data responsive to the request. If a request does not have a valid legal basis, or if we consider it to be unclear, inappropriate, or overly broad, we challenge or reject the request. We report on the requests every six months.

We’ll continue working for greater transparency and data security protections on behalf of our customers.

And, most importantly:

Apple has never created a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government direct access to Apple servers. And we never will.

The site has links to Apple’s Transparency Reports, as well as links to Legal Process Guidelines, both for US and non-US requestors.

That “And we never will” is a powerful statement. The portal is said to be rolled out by the end of the year.

Fascinating read. Apple’s branding path here is a puzzle.

iPhone 8, followed by iPhone X. OK, I get that. iPhone X is a new chapter. No more home button, no more Touch ID. New screen technology, new gestures.

So does the word Plus have any value in this new wave? Does the letter “s”, as in iPhone 6s, have any value?

Looking forward to Wednesday’s event.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

A tech trade-in site says that today’s trade-in value is still 68% of the original sales price even a week before this year’s models are revealed, in strong contrast to one of Samsung’s flagship phones.

With the latest report suggesting that this year’s iPhone X successor, expected to be called the XS or Xs, could start from $800, that could represent an opportunity for a very cheap upgrade to the new model if you have a spare phone you could use to span the gap.

A new iPhone X starts at $999. 68% of that is $679.32. Which, if true that the base price of an iPhone XS is $799, would give you an upgrade price of $119.68.

Interesting. Especially when you consider that Apple offers a max (according to their web site) trade-in value of $290 for your existing phone.

Patrick Wardle, Objective-See (via Michael Tsai):

Once the target is visits our malicious website, we trigger the download of an archive (.zip) file that contains our malicious application. If the Mac user is using Safari, the achieve will be automatically unzipped, as Apple thinks it’s wise to automatically open “safe” files.

This is a pretty long read, but it all comes down to the way macOS Safari treats downloaded files, and one specific setting in Safari Preferences:

Preferences > General > Open “safe” files after downloading

Here’s a picture of that setting, a checkbox down at the bottom of the General tab. I’ve unchecked mine. You might want to take a look at yours.

Key to all this is the word archives at the end. That includes .zip files, which can contain, well, bad stuff.

Read the linked article. As I said, I’ve unchecked my setting, have not yet encountered a problem set that way. This as bad as it seems?

UPDATE: This issue has, apparently, been around since the dawn of time, but that the default is supposed to be unchecked. I just unboxed a new Mac, factory settings, no migration, and the setting was on/checked. Public version of High Sierra.