Linked List: February 19, 2015

Thursday, 19 February 2015

The iPhone and Modularity 

Good piece from Ben Thompson last week:

From this perspective — the hardware perspective — the iPhone is quite modular. Apple has 785 different suppliers, and while not all of them contribute to the iPhone, the vast majority do, making everything from screws to memory to camera lens assemblies. In fact, while I don’t know how many suppliers are in the Samsung supply chain, I’d wager it’s fewer than the iPhone’s, simply because Samsung itself is a component manufacturer. In other words, from a pure hardware perspective, it is Samsung that is more integrated than Apple.

Proposal to Change App Store Revenue Split to a Progressive System 

Jeff Hunter:

Therefore, please consider changing the App Store 70% / 30% revenue split to a tiered rate, where Apple takes less of the developer’s first revenues. For example, perhaps Apple could take nothing from the first $100K in annual revenue for a developer, and 30% after that. Or maybe Apple could take 10% from the first $100K, 20% from the next $100K, and 30% after that.

This change would be a shot in the arm for Apple’s independent developers, and would allow more people to work full-time on creating software for Apple platforms.

Interesting idea, and I think Hunter is right that this wouldn’t cost Apple much dough. But I think Apple is locked into the simplicity of the 70/30 split.

9to5Mac Reveals Members on Apple’s Electric Car Team 

Impressive reporting by Jordan Kahn and Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac. Something is going on. The big tell, to me, is Lauren Ciminera:

Lauren Ciminera (new hire). Joining Apple back in September, Lauren Ciminera is likely playing a role in recruiting employees for Apple’s project after leaving a position as Tesla’s Lead Recruiter to join the company. Before joining Apple, Ciminera was responsible for hiring manufacturing and mechanical engineers globally at Tesla.

Why poach Tesla’s lead recruiter unless you were building an electric car?

See also:

I’ve been pretty skeptical about this Apple car rumor, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And all of a sudden there is a lot of smoke in the air on this one.

Lenovo Is Breaking HTTPS Security on Its Recent Laptops so They Can Inject Adware 

The EFF:

News broke last night that Lenovo has been shipping laptops with a horrifically dangerous piece of software called Superfish, which tampers with Windows’ cryptographic security to perform man-in-the-middle attacks against the user’s browsing. This is done in order to inject advertising into secure HTTPS pages, a feature most users don’t want implemented in the most insecure possible way.

I don’t know how anyone at Lenovo thought this was a good idea, let alone how it actually got approved and put into use. This has to result in a serious class action lawsuit, right?

See also: This piece by Robert Graham at Errata Security, explaining how he decrypted the software and extracted the certificate.

Neener Neener, You’re Making Gobs of Money. Oh, Wait. 

Leo Kelion, writing for BBC News:

Jony Ive appeared to attack the Moto Maker scheme in an interview in which he criticised the idea of giving consumers huge choice over how their handsets were made to appear.

Rick Osterloh, president of Motorola, told the BBC his company had a “different philosophy”. And he criticised Apple in turn, calling its prices “outrageous”. […]

Mr Osterloh of the scheme: “Our belief is that the end user should be directly involved in the process of designing products. And frankly, we’re taking a directly opposite approach to them [Apple].”

Directly opposite results, as well.

The Rumor Spiral 

Amanda Schupak, writing for CBS News:

Apple is ditching the health tracking functions of the Apple Watch, which is going to start shipping in April.

Why? “They sorta had to,” said CNET senior editor Jeff Bakalar. “Because it’s not working.”

Apple touted a new health and fitness app when they first announced the Apple Watch back in September. Since then it’s remained a highlight of what to expect, and it was evidently still a part of the plan when details of the watch leaked in January.

“They were going for some super groundbreaking and innovative health tracking stuff,” said Bakalar. “Heartbeat tracking, stress monitoring. In their testing it wasn’t filling that sort of void that’s in the market for fitness apps right now.”

This is ridiculous. Nothing has changed about Apple Watch’s health and fitness features since it was announced. They have a web page explaining just which fitness tracking features it has.

Stephen Foskett: Why the Gold Apple Watch Edition Must Cost $10,000 

Stephen Foskett, who writes about watches at Grail Watch:

My prediction is that the 42 mm Apple Watch Edition will retail for $9,999 with the 38 mm Apple Watch Edition retailing for $7,999. This covers the cost of the gold case, the internals, manufacturing, sales, and profit, and yet does not leave Apple subsidizing the world gold market by selling at a discount or cheating with a too-thin or plated case. I will be shocked if the price is $4,999, but I suppose it’s possible with some finagling and if that’s the smaller model. And it will not be any less than that.

This is the perspective of a serious watch guy. I’m not saying he’s right or wrong, but if he’s right — if — there’s no way Edition is going to account for 17 percent of the Apple Watches sold. It still might account for a majority of revenue and profit, but there’s no way one out of five watches they sell will go for $10,000. I’m starting to think the WSJ was smoking the funny stuff when they reported that.

The Great SIM Heist 

Blockbuster report from Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley, for The Intercept:

American and British spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data. […]

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

At this point we pretty much have to assume anything we do on a phone can be monitored.