Linked List: April 14, 2016

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Apple Has Probably Killed the ‘Air’ Brand 

Jack March:

I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that Apple will never release a new product with the ‘Air’ branding again.

For starters, the words ‘Light’ and ‘Professional’ are no longer a dichotomy, though they were when the original MacBook Air was launched in 2008. For Apple to achieve the title of ‘World’s Thinnest Notebook’ they had to compromise on performance and expansion slots. It was a very niche and expensive product, only for people with the primary priority of portability. In 2016 — where nearly all products from Apple and competitors are thin and light — Apple’s distinction of ‘Air’ is redundant.

It’s possible they could do a minor CPU speed bump for the MacBook Air, but at this point I think it’s clear that the only reason MacBook Airs are still sold is to have laptops at sub-$1000 price points. The action going forward is entirely on the just-plain MacBook (thin, lightweight, super sleek design) and MacBook Pro (which will probably soon be about as thin and lightweight as the MacBook Air). At this point, “Air” just means “lower cost”. (“MacBook LC”, anyone?)

Adam Satariano and Alex Webb, writing for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. has constructed a secret team to explore changes to the App Store, including a new strategy for charging developers to have their apps more prominently displayed, according to people familiar with the plans.

Every team at Apple is “secret”.

Among the ideas being pursued, Apple is considering paid search, a Google-like model in which companies would pay to have their app shown at the top of search results based on what a customer is seeking. For instance, a game developer could pay to have its program shown when somebody looks for “football game,” “word puzzle” or “blackjack.”

Paid search, which Google turned into a multibillion-dollar business, would give Apple a new way to make money from the App Store. The growing marketing budgets of app developers such as “Clash of Clans” maker Supercell Oy have proven to be lucrative sources of revenue for Internet companies, including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

This sounds like a terrible idea. The one and only thing Apple should do with App Store search is make it more accurate. They don’t need to squeeze any more money from it. More accurate, reliable App Store search would help users and help good developers. It’s downright embarrassing that App Store search is still so bad. Google web search is better for searching Apple’s App Store than the App Store’s built-in search. That’s the problem Apple needs to address.

About 100 employees are working on the project, including many engineers from Apple’s advertising group iAd that’s being scaled back, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. The effort is being spearheaded by Apple Vice President Todd Teresi, who led iAd.

Just make search better. That’s it.

Motherboard: How Canadian Police Intercept and Read Encrypted BlackBerry Messages 

Jordan Pearson and Justin Ling, reporting for Motherboard:

The key, according to Boismenu, is so powerful that it could be used to “illegitimately” decipher any “prerecorded communications encrypted with that key” — so it’s striking that the RCMP had access to it.

Indeed, Crown attorney Robert Rouleau stated in an ex parte hearing: “So right now, with my device, if I’m not on the [Business Enterprise Server], I’m a dead chicken. That’s the reality of it, that’s what we don’t want the general public to know.”

And:

RCMP inspector Mark Flynn testified in a heavily redacted transcript that BlackBerry “facilitated the interception process,” however, Flynn also stated that facilitation could mean mere information sharing or a physical action to aid interception.

Flynn further testified that revealing the key would jeopardize the RCMP’s working relationship with BlackBerry, and harm BlackBerry itself, since “it is not a good marketing thing to say we work with the police.”

You don’t say.

Apple Hires NFL Lobbyist Cynthia Hogan to Head Washington Office 

Tony Romm, reporting for Politico:

Apple has hired Cynthia Hogan, a top lobbyist for the National Football League and former aide to Vice President Joe Biden, as the new head of its Washington office — a major pickup for the tech giant as it continues to battle law enforcement officials who seek greater access to its customers’ data.

Hogan will become the iPhone maker’s vice president for public policy and government affairs for the Americas, a role that oversees not only the company’s D.C. operations but also Canada and Latin America. She’ll report to Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, who previously led the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Cynthia’s intellect and judgment have consistently distinguished her as a uniquely talented professional and we’re lucky to have her join the team at Apple,” Jackson said in a statement.

New Identity for Charlie Rose by Jessica Svendsen 

This identity is so spot-on perfect for Charlie Rose that it feels like it’s been his brand for decades. But it’s actually new work by Jessica Svendsen while she was at Pentagram. Svendsen, it turns out, left Pentagram for Apple last year.

(Via Stephen Coles, writing at Fonts in Use.)

Microsoft Sues U.S. Justice Department Over Secret Customer Data Searches 

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer:

We believe that with rare exceptions consumers and businesses have a right to know when the government accesses their emails or records. Yet it’s becoming routine for the U.S. government to issue orders that require email providers to keep these types of legal demands secret. We believe that this goes too far and we are asking the courts to address the situation.

To be clear, we appreciate that there are times when secrecy around a government warrant is needed. This is the case, for example, when disclosure of the government’s warrant would create a real risk of harm to another individual or when disclosure would allow people to destroy evidence and thwart an investigation. But based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in specific facts that truly demand secrecy. To the contrary, it appears that the issuance of secrecy orders has become too routine.

The urgency for action is clear and growing. Over the past 18 months, the U.S. government has required that we maintain secrecy regarding 2,576 legal demands, effectively silencing Microsoft from speaking to customers about warrants or other legal process seeking their data. Notably and even surprisingly, 1,752 of these secrecy orders, or 68 percent of the total, contained no fixed end date at all. This means that we effectively are prohibited forever from telling our customers that the government has obtained their data.

Kudos to Microsoft to taking a strong stance on this.

From the NYT story on the lawsuit:

In its suit, filed Thursday morning in Federal District Court in Seattle, Microsoft’s home turf, the company asserts that the gag order statute in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 — as employed today by federal prosecutors and the courts — is unconstitutional.

The statute, according to Microsoft, violates the Fourth Amendment right of its customers to know if the government searches or seizes their property, and it breaches the company’s First Amendment right to speak to its customers.

Microsoft’s suit, unlike Apple’s fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to a locked iPhone, is not attached to a single case. Instead, it is intended to challenge the legal process regarding secrecy orders.

Canadian Police Have Had Access to BlackBerry’s Global Decryption Key Since 2010 

Justin Ling and Jordan Pearson, reporting for Vice:

According to technical reports by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that were filed in court, law enforcement intercepted and decrypted roughly one million PIN-to-PIN BlackBerry messages in connection with the probe. The report doesn’t disclose exactly where the key — effectively a piece of code that could break the encryption on virtually any BlackBerry message sent from one device to another — came from. But, as one police officer put it, it was a key that could unlock millions of doors.

Government lawyers spent almost two years fighting in a Montreal courtroom to keep this information out of the public record.

And while neither the RCMP nor BlackBerry confirmed that the cellphone manufacturer handed over the global encryption key, and both fought against a judge’s order to release more information about their working relationship, the Crown prosecutors admitted that the federal police service had access to the key.

This is why more recent messaging protocols, like iMessage and WhatsApp, are designed without a “golden key”.

Motor Trend Speculates on the Apple Car 

I almost didn’t link to this because it’s such gratuitous clickbait (“Exclusive!”), but it’s so terrible it’s worth it just for the laughs.

Update: Harry McCracken on Twitter:

$5 says Motor Trend’s visualizations of Apple’s car are on par w/pre-2007 iPhone renderings.