Linked List: June 20, 2018

Wednesday, 20 June 2018

Jason Snell Guesses How Apple Will Roll Out Its New TV Service ★

Jason Snell, writing at Macworld:

So this time I’m going to try something different. I am going to force myself to make those hard decisions, as if I were an Apple executive. What do I think is the most likely course of action for Apple’s service? It’s time to stop hedging and risk being dead wrong in public. (The good news is, if I make bad decisions, more than a billion dollars in content investment won’t go to waste.)

He thinks they’ll charge separately from Apple Music, but offer a bundle of the two for one price. I could see that.

Google Podcasts Launches for Android ★

It’s a simple enough app, and seemingly has a good index of podcasts to search for. But the playback interface is a bit spartan — they keep the album art way too small. Anyway, this seems like a well-deserved finally — Apple dominates the podcast playback landscape in a way that is vastly disproportionate to iOS’s market share, and all the while Google has been just sitting on the sidelines.

Verizon and AT&T Will Stop Selling Your Phone’s Location to Data Brokers ★

Jon Brodkin, writing for Ars Technica:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently urged all four major carriers to stop the practice, and today he published responses he received from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint.

Wyden’s statement praised Verizon for “taking quick action to protect its customers’ privacy and security,” but he criticized the other carriers for not making the same promise.

“After my investigation and follow-up reports revealed that middlemen are selling Americans’ location to the highest bidder without their consent or making it available on insecure Web portals, Verizon did the responsible thing and promptly announced it was cutting these companies off,” Wyden said. “In contrast, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint seem content to continuing to sell their customers’ private information to these shady middle men, Americans’ privacy be damned.”

AT&T changed its stance shortly after Wyden’s statement.

A sign of life from the Senate.