Linked List: December 16, 2014

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Apple Found Not Guilty in DRM Class Action Lawsuit 

Fast Company:

Apple’s lawyers pointed out in their closing statements that the plaintiffs had no actual customers complaining about their user experience, and two plaintiffs originally named in the suit were taken off after lawyers found they had never actually purchased iPods during the named time period.

The whole case was nonsense anyway, but this just shows how slapdash the whole suit was. The lawyers behind it were in such a rush to get their hands on a settlement from Apple that they didn’t even bother to vet their plaintiffs.

Apple Halts Sales in Russia as Ruble Craters 

USA Today:

Apple confirmed Tuesday it has halted online sales in Russia after the ruble plummeted to an all-time low against the dollar. And more tech companies could follow its lead, analysts say.

“Due to extreme fluctuations in the value of the ruble, our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said in a statement. “We apologize to customers for any inconvenience.” ​

Eric Schmidt Mistakenly Claims That Chrome’s Incognito Mode Can Foil Government Snooping 

The Daily Dot:

“If you’re concerned, for whatever reason, you do not wish to be tracked by federal and state authorities, my strong recommendation is to use incognito mode, and that’s what people do,” Schmidt explained.

So what’s the problem here? Incognito mode is designed for — and serves — a completely different kind of privacy protection than the one Schmidt implied.

People make mistakes all the time. But shouldn’t Eric Schmidt be an expert on this? The intersection of privacy, government snooping, and Google’s flagship product?

Torture and the Truth 

Jane Mayer, writing in The New Yorker:

It’s hard to describe it as a positive development when a branch of the federal government releases a four-hundred-and-ninety-nine-page report that explains, in meticulous detail, how unthinkable cruelty became official U.S. policy. But last Tuesday, in releasing the long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report on the C.I.A.’s interrogation-and-detention program, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee chairman, proved that Congress can still perform its most basic Madisonian function of providing a check on executive-branch abuse, and that is reason for gratitude.

The Q.A. Mindset 

Michael Lopp:

My first job in technology was a QA internship. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I tested the first release of Paradox for Windows at Borland.

As an intern, I started by following someone else’s QA test plan — dutifully checking each test off the list. After a few weeks, I knew my particular area inside and out. A new build would show up, which I’d install via 3.5-inch floppies, and in ten minutes of usage, I’d have a sense — is this a good or bad build?

In QA, there is a distinct moment. It comes once you’re deeply familiar with your product or product area; it comes when you’re lost in your testing, and it comes in an instant. You find a problem, and because of your strong context about your product, you definitely know: Something is seriously wrong here.

A good QA engineer is worth their weight in gold.

How Circa Asks Users to Review Their App 

Matt Galligan:

The trouble with the pop up approach is that the app was inevitably interrupting the user’s experience. A method that’s more integral into the experience is the next step — we call this the integrated rating.

For Circa we decided to place an integrated rating in the middle of our list of news stories. That way, someone could scroll right past it without having to interact with it, as opposed to a pop up which requires interaction.