Linked List: December 5, 2013

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Alice Truong, writing for Fast Company:

The Android app Brightest Flashlight has been installed between 50 million and 100 million times, averaging a 4.8 rating from more than 1 million reviews. Yet its customers might not be so happy to learn the app has been secretly recording and sharing their location and device ID information.

Shocker.

Eff Your Review ★

And another one:

If I wanted to leave a review of our app I would have.

I’ve long considered a public campaign against this particular practice, wherein I’d encourage Daring Fireball readers, whenever they encounter these “Please rate this app” prompts, to go ahead and take the time to do it — but to rate the app with just one star and to leave a review along the lines of, “One star for annoying me with a prompt to review the app.”

(Via Jim Younkin.)

Apple’s App Store Usage Numbers Suggest iOS 7 Adoption at 74 Percent ★

Remember those people who thought iOS 7 adoption would be slower than iOS 6’s last year because people would reject the new UI design? Didn’t happen.

Crapshaming ★

Another Tumblr site dedicated to documenting questionable web design practices.

‘This Is What Happens When Analytics Make Decisions for You.’ ★

Andy Beaumont, regarding his Tab Closed; Didn’t Read website:

What we’re witnessing here is the first wave of the second world pop-up war. Those of us who lived through the first one can only describe the horrors to our disbelieving children. This time though, the pop-ups are winning because we don’t yet have the tools to fight back. The web has seemingly evolved into something that actively antagonises people — why would anyone in their right mind hide the content that visitors are there to see?

In short, maybe they’re not in their right mind. This is what happens when analytics make decisions for you.

Whole piece is simply brilliant.

Tab Closed; Didn’t Read ★

A weblog by Andy Beaumont devoted to one of the worst practices on the web today:

If you’re going to insist on obscuring your content with some stupid social shit, a promo for your shitty app or a full-page newsletter signup form, then I’m not going to read your content. Or click on your ads. Or help you generate revenue in any way.

Also, reminds me of this old tweet of mine from 2009.

Chasing A-Rod ★

Well-reported, well-written piece by Steve Fishman for New York Magazine. No matter what you think of Alex Rodriguez, this is a fascinating story. I’m an avid Yankees fan, but I never understood exactly what was going on with this A-Rod/PED story until reading this. It’s a complicated saga full of secrets, and Fishman has done an extraordinary job untangling many of the threads.

Andy Rubin’s New Role at Google: Leading Robotics Team ★

John Markoff piece in yesterday’s NYT:

If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones, is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package?

Google executives acknowledge that robotic vision is a “moonshot.” But it appears to be more realistic than Amazon’s proposed drone delivery service, which Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, revealed in a television interview the evening before one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.

What justifies the phrase “appears to be more realistic than Amazon’s proposed drone delivery service”? Amazon claims their Prime Air service is ready to go, and only awaits regulatory approval. Maybe neither of these things will come to fruition any time soon — always beware of anything pre-announced — but I’ll put my money on Amazon’s drones making a real delivery before the above scenario of a Google robot “hopping off” a robot-driven car.

The New York Times: Today’s Paper ★

A much nicer way to read the Times in a web browser. Utterly uncluttered.

My only complaint so far: when you page down (space bar, or Page Down key), the top line of text is positioned under the persistent nav bar at the top of the window.

The Latest in the Carl Icahn / Apple Romance ★

Writing for Fortune, Adam Lashinsky says “Icahn blinked”:

So what is the new level? CNBC, citing a source, says Icahn wants $50 billion now, and that he’d like it by the end of the current fiscal year, which is 10 months away. Icahn didn’t tell Time that figure, and he hasn’t yet tweeted it. We’re relying on CNBC’s source for it.

But assuming the figure is correct, Icahn has gone from $150 billion right now to $50 billion when Apple can get around to it. For the most part, the commentary has been of the variety that Icahn remains on Apple’s case, riding it hard for the cash hoarder it is. Forbes.com wrote that Icahn “wasn’t joking” about the $150 billion buyback. Except it appears he was.

This, in response to Time Magazine’s cover profile of Icahn, which included this:

Apple confirms that Icahn has filed a precatory proposal and, in response to TIME’s query about it, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said: “Earlier this year we more than doubled our capital return program to $100 billion, including the largest share repurchase authorization in history. As part of our regular review process, we are once again actively seeking our shareholders’ input on our program, and as we said in October, the management team and our board are engaged in an ongoing discussion about it which is thoughtful and deliberate. We will announce any changes to our current program in the first part of calendar 2014.”

How often does Apple respond to press inquiries? Rarely. Very rarely. I don’t think this standoff with Icahn is contentious (certainly not by Icahn standards), but the fact that Apple responded at all shows that they’re taking him seriously.

The Siege of Sinatra ★

Great Frank Sinatra story I’d never heard before:

It was hardly the right moment for Sinatra to get up on stage at Melbourne’s Festival Hall and describe Australia’s female journalists as “buck-and-a-half hookers”.

A furious Australian press howled for blood. Sinatra refused to apologise and sparked an extraordinary chain of events that resulted in the cancellation of Sinatra’s second Melbourne concert, a black ban of his private jet by airport refuellers and a three-day siege at Sydney’s Boulevard Hotel. […]

Sinatra even suggested calling the admiral on board the American aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay and asking him to sail into Sydney Harbour and send a helicopter to land on the roof of the Boulevard.

The New Adjustable Glif ★

Clever new adjustable design. Mine just arrived, and it’s very nice. I’ve kept a Glif in my bag and on my desk ever since the first one shipped in 2010.

Goddamn adorable Adam Lisagor-narrated video, too.