Linked List: January 23, 2018

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Apple Releases Meltdown and Spectre Kernel Fixes for MacOS High Sierra, Sierra, and El Capitan ★

Apple often only issues fixes for the latest release of its operating systems, but with today’s update they’ve gone back and released kernel fixes for MacOS 10.12 Sierra and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Kudos to Apple for doing this. (There are Safari fixes going back to El Capitan, too.)

Update: Note from a friend:

Mac security fixes are virtually always backported to the two major releases prior to the current one. The only exception I’m aware of is broadpwn, which was patched for Sierra but not for 10.11 or 10.10. I’m glad they do this in general, but given the severity I think they were absolutely obliged to backport Meltdown fixes. The delay was unnerving.

Field Notes Item Numbers ★

The next time my wife suggests that I have a problematic Field Notes obsession, I’m going to point her to this.

Fantastic.

Man Arrested, Accused of Threatening to Kill CNN Employees Over ‘Fake News’ ★

Jacqueline Thomsen, reporting for The Hill:

A Michigan man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot and kill CNN employees, WGCL-TV reported Monday.

The FBI launched an investigation after the man, who is unnamed in the CBS report, reportedly called CNN 22 times about a week ago.

“Fake news. I’m coming to gun you all down,” the man told a CNN operator, according to court documents obtained by WGCL-TV.

Evan McMullin:

The things our leaders say and do, good and bad, inspire others to act accordingly. Their examples should encourage unity and respect for our vital institutions, not enmity and threats of violence.

The rhetoric of leaders matters.

Inside Amazon’s First No-Cashier, No-Checkout-Line Grocery Store ★

Looks a lot like a miniature Whole Foods, which I suppose isn’t surprising.

HomePod Starts Shipping February 9, Available to Order This Friday, Still a Bit of a Mystery ★

Apple:

HomePod, the innovative wireless speaker from Apple, arrives in stores beginning Friday, February 9 and is available to order online this Friday, January 26 in the US, UK and Australia. HomePod will arrive in France and Germany this spring.

I’m looking forward to trying it, but this seems like an odd product rollout. The only time anyone outside Apple has seen HomePod so far was at WWDC, and that was so early that no one was allowed to give it voice commands or even touch it. Perhaps there will be some advance reviews that drop before February 9, but it doesn’t seem like there are going to be any before pre-orders start this week. That’s not unusual in and of itself: Apple’s usual schedule is for advance reviews to drop the week after they begin taking pre-orders for a product. But the full functionality of most new Apple products is demonstrated on stage or in small press briefings prior to that. HomePod’s functionality is still a bit of a mystery. From Apple’s announcement today:

Through SiriKit, HomePod supports third-party messaging apps, so users can ask Siri to send a message to a friend or colleague using apps like WhatsApp. Reminders, note-taking and to-do list apps like Things and Evernote will automatically work with HomePod, so Siri can set reminders, create a new list, mark items as complete, or create and modify notes. For developers interested in adding SiriKit support, more information is available at developer.apple.com/sirikit.

How does this handle multiple people in the same home? That seems like a big question to remain unanswered before folks start plunking down $349. This feels like if Apple had started selling the iPod back in 2001 without ever having explained how the click wheel worked or how you synced music to it from iTunes, and instead just said “Trust us, it’s great.”

Also: AirPlay 2 has been postponed until “later this year” — and AirPlay 2 is required for using two HomePods in stereo or multi-room audio. Both of those features were promised all the way back in June when HomePod was announced.

No Cutting Corners on the iPhone X ★

Brad Ellis:

When the iPhone X launched, a lot of designers were put off about the screen shape. Those complaints have mostly died down, but I haven’t seen much design-nerd talk about cool corner treatment details. Fortunately, deep nerd shit is my specialty.