Linked List: April 18, 2016

Monday, 18 April 2016

WWDC 2016: June 13 Through 17 

Apple PR:

Monday’s kickoff events, including the keynote address, will be held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. The rest of the week’s conference sessions will take place at Moscone West. […]

Developers can apply for tickets via the WWDC website (https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/register/) now through Friday, April 22 at 10:00 a.m. PDT. Tickets will be issued to attendees through a random selection process, and developers will be notified on the status of their application by Monday, April 25 at 5:00 p.m. PDT. For the second consecutive year, there will be up to 350 WWDC Scholarships available, giving students and STEM organization members from around the world an opportunity to earn a ticket to meet and collaborate with some of the most talented developers of Apple’s ever-growing app ecosystem (https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/scholarships/). Additionally, this year, we will provide travel assistance to up to 125 scholarship recipients to ensure aspiring developers with financial limitations have an opportunity to participate.

Interesting that they’re moving Monday’s events to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. That’s where they held the iPhone 6S/iPad Pro event last September. It’s a bit of a hike from the Moscone-area hotels, but it’s a really big space.

Apple’s Penchant for Consumer Security 

Ben Bajarin, on a security “deep dive” briefing he got from executives at Apple last week:

Apple is attempting something that seems unprecedented at an industry level. To bring industry leading security but do so by actually enhancing the user experience. Prior to Touch ID for example, many organizations required eight, and sometimes longer, PIN numbers. Imagine entering that many numbers every time you pick up your smartphone. To emphasize this point, Apple shared a great statistic: their average users unlocks their phones 80 times a day. Other reports state people look at their phones upwards of 130 times a day but those are less of the average and more the heavier users. Regardless, the simple act of logging into our phone via a secure form of login like passcodes or fingerprints is now taken for granted in much of Apple’s ecosystem when, just a few years ago, anyone could have stolen my phone and have access to my personal information. Here again, Apple shared that 89% of their users with a Touch ID-capable device have set it up and use it.

‘Never Never Never’ 

Kanye West, two months ago:

My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.

Six weeks later, the album was on Apple Music and Spotify.

Today:

A Kanye West fan on Monday sued the rapper and the streaming service Tidal claiming they duped users into subscriptions based on the promise of being the exclusive outlet for West’s latest album.

The proposed class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by Justin Baker-Rhett contends West fraudulently promised fans that his album, “The Life of Pablo,” would only be available on Tidal. The site charges users at least $9.99 a month, but West’s album has since been released for free on Apple Music and Spotify.

Keep in mind that West isn’t just an artist on Tidal — he’s a stakeholder. I tend to see lawsuits like this as frivolous, but anyone who signed up for Tidal based on West’s statements was flat-out duped.

iPad Multitasking’s Effect on MLB At Bat Viewership 

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

During these first two weeks, MLB fans spent 20 percent more minutes per day, on average, watching live video on iPad compared with the 2015 season, when multitasking was not available. (MLB says that any form of multitasking behavior was counted here, not just spilt-screen viewing.)

In addition, fans who were using the new multitasking features and watching live video of MLB games in the At Bat application were spending 162 minutes per day on average consuming MLB.TV on iPad. That’s an increase of 86 percent from the 2015 season.

Watching two games at once on the new Apple TV is pretty sweet too.