Linked List: December 3, 2018

Monday, 3 December 2018

David Barnard:

So, let’s talk about how developers are gaming the App Store and why it matters to the future of the platform. Any one of these tactics might seem somewhat bland individually, but when tens of thousands of apps deploy multiple tactics across many categories of apps, the impact can be measured in hundreds of millions of users and likely billions of dollars.

I’ve been focused on researching the weather category the past couple years as I’ve been working on my weather app, Weather Up, but these tactics apply to pretty much every category on the App Store.

None of this is news, but it continues to surprise me that Apple hasn’t cracked down on all of these scams, especially the ones that trick people into paying for subscriptions. That’s just outright theft. The apps that sell your location data to third parties are a head-scratcher too — surely Apple doesn’t want this going on.

Apple should put together an App Store bunco squad. A small team that polices the store for scammy apps and nips them in the bud. They could start just by combing the lists of top-grossing apps. It’s not just about protecting users and punishing bad actors — these scams keep good honest apps from rising to the top, and they undermine trust in the system. It’s in no one’s interest for “subscriptions” to be equated with “scams”. And I actually think it would be a fun and satisfying job — who wouldn’t enjoy busting bad guys?

Apple Debuts Online Store With 10 Percent Discount for U.S. Veterans and Active Military ★

10 percent is a pretty great deal — worth sharing this with any friends or family who qualify.

The Talk Show: ‘A Vivid Nightmarescape’ ★

New episode of the podcast: Dieter Bohn joins the show to talk about Google’s new Pixel Slate Chrome OS tablet/laptop, the Pixel 3, Google’s fascinating new Night Sight camera mode, speculation on how Apple might move the Mac to ARM chips, and more.

Brought to you by:

Banktivity: Powerful personal finance app for Mac and iOS with a great native UI. Save 10 percent on the Mac version with coupon code THETALKSHOW at checkout.
Casper: Get $50 off select mattresses with code talkshow. Terms and conditions apply.
Fracture: Your photos printed in vivid color directly on glass — great holiday gift.

Quinn Nelson’s MacBook / MacBook Air / MacBook Escape Shootout ★

Don’t let the sensational headline scare you off from this video — it’s a really fair and interesting comparison between the 12-inch MacBook, new MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar. His conclusion, basically, is that if you want something remarkably thin and light, that’s the MacBook, not the Air, and otherwise you get a faster computer and a better much brighter display with the MacBook Pro.

I’m still bullish on the new Air for people with non-Pro performance needs, but this did make me think. If Apple updates the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro to include the third-generation butterfly keyboard and Touch ID sensor, and doesn’t reduce the prices of the MacBook Air at the same time, that would kind of leave the Air hanging in the lineup.

Nick Heer: ‘On Apple Portables in the Approximately $1,200 to $1,300 Price Range’ ★

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

It comes down to the honesty and integrity of the product. Every so often, I think to myself could I imagine everyone on Apple’s executive team happily using this product? as a proxy for product integrity. For most of the current lineup, I have few reservations; I bet Phil Schiller would be very happy toting an iPhone XR and a base model iPad, for example. But — and perhaps this is projecting — I think they would get frustrated after a year of using any Mac with 128 GB of storage; but, especially, a MacBook Pro. It’s debatable, to me, whether that’s a fair base storage in the Air, but I don’t think it’s honest in the Pro. As far as I’m concerned, the MacBook Pro makes more sense starting at the $1,499 256 GB configuration — from both a pricing perspective, and for its integrity.

Samsung Tweets From iPhone, Again ★

Marques Brownlee spots another case of a Samsung promotional tweet being posted from an iPhone. How this can still be happening, given how much attention these gaffes get, is beyond me. According to Luca Hammer, this Samsung account tweeted from iPhone over 300 times last year.

Couple of thoughts:

This wouldn’t happen, ever, if Samsung didn’t rely on outside marketing companies. But I’m not sure it would be possible for a worldwide marketing operation the size of Samsung’s to be run in-house. But to my knowledge we’ve never seen an Apple tweet sent from an Android phone.
Sometimes when these incidents occur I see people wondering why these tweets are being sent from any phone, rather than a desktop computer. These tweets are work. What these people don’t get, I think, is just how much work — serious professional work — gets done on phones.