Linked List: February 28, 2014

Friday, 28 February 2014

Right-Wing National Center for Public Policy Research Pitches Hissy Fit 

I enjoy how these clowns aptly use Comic Sans.

Apple Offers More Details on iMessage Security 

Greg Kumparak, writing for TechCrunch:

So if Apple never has your private key, how do messages arrive at all of your devices in a readable form? How do your private key(s) get from one device to the other? Simple answer: they don’t. You’ve actually got one set of keys for each device you add to iCloud, and each iMessage is encrypted independently for each device. So if you have two devices — say, an iPad and an iPhone — each message sent to you is actually encrypted (AES-128) and stored on Apple’s servers twice. Once for each device. When you pull down a message, it’s specifically encrypted for the device you’re on.

‘Do Not Retweet the Band-Aid’ 

This week’s episode of The Talk Show, with special guest Joanna “AC Adapter Review” Stern. Tablets as laptop replacements, the appeal of large-screen smartphones, the nascent wearables market, and more.

Brought to you by:

  • Hover: The best way to own and manage domain names.
  • PDFpen: The all-purpose PDF editor for Mac and iOS.
  • An Event Apart: The design conference for people who make websites.
  • Squarespace: Everything you need to build exceptional websites.
Facts and Figures From Apple’s Shareholder Meeting 

Daniel Dilger, reporting for Apple Insider:

Cook added that Apple now has 800 million iOS users and has handled over 16 trillion push notifications, with 40 billion new ones occurring every day. Apple also delivers several billion iMessages and FaceTime requests every day. Cook added that iPad now accounts for 78 percent of all tablets used throughout the enterprise.

These numbers were conflated by some people — I saw tweets saying Cook had claimed 40 billion iMessages per day, not push notifications in general. But still, that’s a big number. Push notifications are messages, so in a sense, Apple’s platform is operating at a scale very close in size to WhatsApp (which claims 50 billion messages per day), but distributed across thousands of different apps.

800 million iOS users is an enormous number as well.

Update: Jon Anhold makes a good point on Twitter:

@daringfireball I bet a fair number of those push notifications ARE WhatsApp.

Tim Cook Soundly Rejects Politics of the NCPPR, Suggests Group Sell Apple’s Stock 

Bryan Chaffin, reporting for The Mac Observer from Apple’s annual shareholder meeting:

Mr. Cook didn’t directly answer that question, but instead focused on the second question: the NCPPR representative asked Mr. Cook to commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable.

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR’s advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader. […] He didn’t stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

Tim Cook does not suffer fools gladly.

‘Why the Nokia X Family Is Bad for Everyone’ 

Jerry Hildenbrand, writing for Android Central:

Does Nokia want its Android legacy to be this shiny pile of lag and fail? Of course not. But chances are it will be. That’s not fair to the engineers, the fans of the brand, or the company itself. But does anyone really think Microsoft will let Nokia build a phone that rivals the latest and greatest from LG or Samsung? Of course they won’t, because that won’t drive Windows phone sales. As a business, they have to do what is best for their own sales.

The problem with the Nokia X is that it indicates a profound lack of focus. These phones are of no strategic value to Nokia. Samsung, in contrast, can afford to experiment with Tizen because they’re in a position of strength — the only handset maker other than Apple making any money. And it is in Samsung’s strategic interests to reduce its dependency on Google.

It makes no sense for Nokia, which is losing money, to reduce its dependency on Microsoft.

Tidbit From Today’s Apple Shareholder Meeting: Apple TV Generated Over $1 Billion in Revenue in 2013 

Getting harder and harder to keep calling it a “hobby”.

Sure, $1 billion is not significant to today’s Apple, but who else in the set-top market is doing $1 billion a year in revenue? Xbox and PlayStation, maybe?

‘The Government’ Is Not a Single Entity 

Marco Arment:

The argument that we don’t want “such a dysfunctional government” regulating broadband is weak: “the government” isn’t one big coordinated bogeyman that can’t be trusted with anything. That’s just rhetoric that politicians use to avoid regulation so corporations can make more money at the expense of the citizens or environment. In practice, governmental regulation works so well in most cases that it’s taken for granted and too boring for most people to even think about.

Consider the FCC’s 2011 decision to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile — T-Mobile is universally hailed today as shaking up the entire U.S. mobile industry to the benefit of consumers.

User Interface of the Week: Password Engine 

Previous winner back in 2009, now updated for iOS 7.

(And yes, I see the irony in posting this right after the last item.)

The Empathy Vacuum 

Splendid piece by Greg Knauss:

Which is pretty much the Internet in a nutshell, isn’t it? Exposed to the entire spectrum of human enthusiasms, it’s basically impossible not to judge. Our empathy overloads and gives up and we sit, staring at the screen aghast, that somebody, somewhere might actually believe that what they’re doing is OK, is acceptable, is even appropriate.

Everybody is somebody else’s monster.

Opting Out of Dropbox’s Arbitration Clause 

Tiffany Bridge, on Dropbox’s new terms of service:

Allow me to summarize what it means when a company wants to handle all disputes in arbitration:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them. Which sounds like no big deal, but when a company takes advantage of a bunch of people all in the same small way (incorrectly assessing a service charge, for example), class action is how companies are made to clean up their act en masse, instead of waiting for thousands of people to call them up and demand their $20 back or whatever.

I’m not a lawyer, but it seems clear to me that opting out is in your best interests. I did.

Hands-On With Samsung’s Tizen OS 

Ron Amadeo, reporting for Ars Technica from MWC:

The OS runs on “prototype” hardware that very closely resembles a Galaxy S4. Tizen is a Linux-based OS primarily developed by Samsung, and, the theory goes, Samsung’s grand plot is to eventually turn Tizen into a drop-in Android replacement, own the market with an OS of its own making, and never have to deal with Google again. So far, Tizen seems a pretty accurate Android clone, but it’s shocking how far along it is. On the surface, it seemed just as capable as a TouchWiz Android device. Samsung has done such a good job of replicating the Android interface that there is very little to write about—everything looks and works similarly to the way it does on Android, just without any kind of ecosystem.

Get the popcorn.