Linked List: July 2018

Monday, 30 July 2018

Milton Glaser’s Proposed Logo for Trump’s ‘Space Force’ ★

Paul Kafasis:

An idiotic idea doesn’t deserve branding this good.

I would buy this on a t-shirt in a heartbeat.

Rado Slavov, writing for PhoneArena:

Instead, Samsung decided to focus on the negative marketing and go after its rival. What’s happening is Samsung is trying to play a finite game here — its objective is to win the battle of this smartphone generation, which comes at the expense of its own brand strength and integrity. Such unprovoked aggressive behavior is never typical of the winning side; it’s most often exhibited by the losing team, which, realizing that the final seconds of the match are ticking away, starts playing in a rough and desperate, pissed off way. After the confident Galaxy S8 launch, surely the missed expectations for this year’s Galaxy S9 have put some pressure on the consumer products team. But again, Samsung is not playing the game it should be playing, and its behavior is atypical for a gigantic tech company that’s supposedly a market leader and innovator.

Samsung should be less concerned about iPhones and more concerned about setting its own phone apart from other Android phones. What makes a high-end Samsung phone stand apart? Samsung keeps banging the drum about the iPhone X notch looking silly, but they’re only further emphasizing a distinguishing iPhone characteristic — one that other Android handset makers are racing to copy.

The Japanese Ghost Characters Haunting Unicode ★

Paul McCann:

In 1978 Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry established the encoding that would later be known as JIS X 0208, which still serves as an important reference for all Japanese encodings. However, after the JIS standard was released people noticed something strange - several of the added characters had no obvious sources, and nobody could tell what they meant or how they should be pronounced. Nobody was sure where they came from. These are what came to be known as the ghost characters (幽霊文字).

I love a story like this.

Saturday, 28 July 2018

MartianCraft ★

My thanks to MartianCraft for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. MartianCraft is a software design and development agency, tackling a wide range of projects — from enterprise software solutions to helping bring new businesses to market.

MartianCraft’s specialists work collaboratively across disciplines to create top-tier software, and they can help bring your ideas to reality. Just look at their client list.

You can also explore the latest job openings at MartianCraft, and read the latest writing from their team at The Syndicate.

Friday, 27 July 2018

The Talk Show: ‘Cut That Mustache With Scissors’ ★

Special guest Marco Arment returns to the show for a brief discussion about the new MacBook Pro models and the state of Apple’s MacBook lineup.

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Ken Kocienda’s ‘Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs’ ★

Ken Kocienda:

I wrote a book about my Apple career. Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs. It’s coming out on September 4. You can pre-order today.

In the book, I tell stories about developing the original iPhone, iPad, and Safari web browser, and I give my personal view on what made the Apple product culture special.

I’ve read an advance copy of the book, and for now I’ll just say this: it’s extraordinary. Take my word for it, go ahead and pre-order a copy now.

‘The Big Business of Being Gwyneth Paltrow’ ★

I did not expect to get far into a feature story on Gwyneth Paltrow and her lifestyle company Goop, but I found this piece utterly compelling. Well-observed and incredibly well-written story by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for The New York Times Magazine. If you’re looking for weekend reading material, queue this one up.

Different US Election Maps Tell ‘Different Versions of the Truth’ ★

Issie Lapowsky, writing for Wired:

Conservatives replying to Yingst’s tweet interpreted the expanse of red as proof of their party’s dominance throughout all levels of government. Liberals viewed the map as a distortion, masking the fact that most of that redness covers sparsely populated land, with relatively few voters.

In reality, both sides are right, says Ken Field. A self-proclaimed “cartonerd,” Field is a product engineer at the mapping software company Esri and author of a guidebook for mapmakers called Cartography. The problem, he says, isn’t with people’s partisan interpretation of the map. The problem is believing that any single map can ever tell the whole story. “People see maps of any type, and particularly election maps, as the result, the outcome, but there are so many different types of maps available that can portray results in shades of the truth,” Field says. “It’s a question of the level of detail that people are interested in understanding.”

Really interesting examples of data visualization in this piece.

MoviePass Couldn’t Afford to Pay for Movie Tickets on Thursday ★

CNN Money:

Helios and Matheson, the parent company of the popular movie subscription service, said that it had a service outage on Thursday because it couldn’t afford to pay for movie tickets. The company borrowed $5 million in cash Friday to pay its merchant and fulfillment processors, according to a regulatory filing.

Helios and Matheson missed a payment to one of its fulfillment processors, and that contractor temporarily refused to process payments for MoviePass.

Next idea for Helios and Matheson: First CityWide Change Bank.

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Om Malik on E-Cigarette Darling Juul Labs ★

Om Malik:

From Business Insider (which called it iPhone of e-cigarettes) to CrunchBase, everyone seems to marvel over their growth rates, their post-Unicorn valuations, and jaw-dropping success at raising capital. And very rarely have I seen anyone stand up and point out that it is no different than traditional tobacco peddlers like Marlboro and Camel. They are peddling nicotine-based addiction. By focusing on charming founders, their backgrounds, large amount of funds raised and crazy valuations, no one is asking the right question: why are we supporting this company that is essentially Camel 2.0?

Addiction is a profitable and high-growth business. Ask the cartels selling other addictive products. “And is it an ethical business?,” asks Crunchbase. “We can’t answer the latter question here as we’re not equipped for it.” Yes, you are! Any halfway decent person can see that tobacco and nicotine industries are driven by greed and have preyed on human frailty.

Agree with every word of this.

New iPhone X Ad: ‘Unleash’ ★

What’s most interesting to me about this is that Apple is still producing big-budget special-effects laden ads for iPhone X, even though new iPhones are almost certainly coming in two months.

Update: Todd Vaziri has an interesting observation about this spot:

Apple’s ads don’t usually feature customers using iPhones in an even-remotely unsafe manner, like playing a game while walking down the street. This feels like a bit of a departure.

Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Facebook Stock Falls 24 Percent in After-Hours Trading on Forecast for Slowing Growth, Rising Expenses ★

Munsif Vengattil, reporting for Reuters:

Facebook Inc’s stock fell as much as 24 percent after hours on Wednesday over concerns about the impact of privacy issues on the social media company’s business, with executives warning that revenue growth would slow and expenses would rise.

The plummeting stock price wiped out about $150 billion in market capitalization in under two hours.

These after-hour trading plummets usually correct themselves to a large degree before regular trading hours, and, as I type this, Facebook is only down 20 percent. But: couldn’t happen to a nicer company.

Update: Two hours into regular trading today and Facebook shares remain down 19 percent from close yesterday. Investors genuinely seem to fear Facebook’s future in a world where people’s eyes are open to online privacy concerns.

‘Free’ Podcasting ★

Manton Reece:

Nir Zicherman has a post on Medium about how podcast hosting should be free. Nir is the co-founder of Anchor, a company with $14 million in venture-capital funding. […]

Anchor seems to be going for the YouTube model. They want a huge number of people to use their platform. But the concentration of so much media in one place is one of the problems with today’s web. Massive social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have too much power over writers, photographers, and video creators. We do not want that for podcasts.

The other problem with centralized services is that when they go away, they take all their hosted content with them. YouTube is not going anywhere, and in theory, Anchor or some other company could become the YouTube of podcasting and stay around, effectively, forever. But it would be terrible for the podcast ecosystem to give one company the sort of control YouTube has over video. Even worse, I think it’s far more likely that a company attempting to become the YouTube of podcasting would get big enough to host a ton of content but never reach critical mass and then disappear when their funding dries up. (I worry a lot about Medium in this regard.)

Jason Snell:

A lot of people have made a lot of money on YouTube, but a lot of YouTube creators could probably also warn you about the dangers of building a business off of a single provider that gives you hosting for free in return for a share of ad revenue.

Tuesday, 24 July 2018

Apple Identifies and Fixes Thermal Bug in the New MacBook Pro Models ★

Statement from Apple:

Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems. Customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70% faster, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to be up to 2X faster, as shown in the performance results on our website.

I figured it was a bug when some tests were showing that performance improved on the Core i9 15-inch MacBook Pro after disabling two of the six cores. Apple told me that this thermal bug affects all new MacBook Pros — not just the Core i9 model — and older models are not affected. Anyone with a new MacBook Pro should now see the fix via Software Update.

I’d love to hear a further explanation of exactly what this “missing digital key” is. I think it’s just the sequence of bytes that configure the thermal settings for the CPU.

Daring Fireball Weekly Sponsorship Openings ★

The summer schedule for weekly sponsorships is pretty open right now, including this very week. If you’ve got a product or service you want to promote to DF’s savvy audience, get in touch. There are openings for the display ads in the sidebar in August as well — for anyone who books a weekly sponsorship through the end of this week, I’ll bundle it with a display ad for August as a bonus.

iPhone X Sets New Record for Resale Value, Averaging 85 Percent of Retail Price ★

Ben Lovejoy, writing for 9to5Mac:

The iPhone X didn’t just set a new record for iPhone pricing, it’s also reportedly doing the same for how well it holds its resale value. Liquidation specialist B-Stock says that high demand is seeing used models sell for an average of 85% of the original price. Even bulk purchasers, such as companies buying returns from retailers, are paying around 75% of retail.

When I first heard of Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, which lets you get a new iPhone every year after making only half the payments, I wondered how Apple was going to make money on the deal. I guess this answers the question.

Alissa Walker: ‘Don’t Ban Scooters. Redesign Streets.’ ★

Alissa Walker, writing for Curbed:

Cities need to design for the modes they want people to use because they already lost the opportunity once, says McPherson. In the 1890s, American cities experienced a bicycle boom so pervasive it changed women’s fashion. Bikes were such a popular mode of urban transportation that cities scrambled to build cycling superhighways for them. Yet bikes lost that valuable urban real estate as sprawling cities prioritized cars.

With shared mobility companies providing a wide range of multimodal offerings themselves, McPherson thinks there’s an opportunity for bike advocates to merge with the momentum behind other non-car vehicles and all take the lane together. “Human-powered bikes got shoved onto the sidewalk and have been fighting to share street space ever since,” he says. “Now they just might get it.”

I’d support this wholeheartedly.

Motherboard Reviews a Counterfeit iPhone X ★

Jason Koebler and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, writing for Motherboard:

The phone looks like an iPhone X. It has the same form factor, most of the same detailing, no home button, the same volume rockers and side buttons, a working Lightning port, and the same speaker holes on the bottom of the phone. It also has pentalobe screws on the bottom of the device, just like an iPhone. […]

It quickly became clear this isn’t iOS, though. For one, the sensor bar at the top that creates the dreaded “notch” doesn’t exist on this phone. Instead, the notch has been lovingly recreated in software. The device feels sluggish and underpowered while switching apps. The camera is clearly kinda blurry.

But still, if the phone isn’t an iPhone, it isn’t obvious what it actually is. Many of the apps look identical to their iOS versions. The calculator and stocks apps are seemingly identical to those in iOS. The camera menus and interface look the exact same as the one in iOS. The settings menu looks close-to-identical and has many of the same settings you’d find on an iPhone. The Mail app is the best approximation; I don’t use the default Mail app on my own iPhone, but the setup process and functionality seem from an end-user point-of-view as basically the same as the real thing.

This counterfeit seems wild, especially that it uses a Lightning port. But it’s pretty easy to tell it’s a fake. The display clearly doesn’t go corner to corner (i.e. there’s a chin and forehead). And though someone spent a lot of time recreating bits of iOS and either copying or painstakingly recreating iOS’s icons, the OS is using Roboto as the UI typeface, not San Francisco. (Look at the screenshot from Settings with the big bold “Settings” header — the lowercase “e” and “g” are the biggest tells that it’s Roboto, not San Francisco.) If they were willing to steal the icons, why not steal the font?

I’d love to see one of these things myself. If there are any readers in Shenzhen who can obtain one of these for me, please get in touch.

Saturday, 21 July 2018

Timing ★

My thanks to Timing for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Timing is a Mac app like no other I’ve ever seen. “Time-tracking” always feels like a chore, but not with Timing. It’s a lot like iOS 12’s upcoming Screen Time feature, but for the Mac. Timing automatically tracks which apps, documents, and websites you use — without start/stop timers. See how you spend your time, eliminate distracting activities, and revolutionize the way you bill clients.

And with the brand new sync feature, you’ll even see how much you’ve been working from home — it adds up more quickly than you think.

Stop worrying about time and focus on doing your best work instead. Download a free 14-day trial today and save 10 percent through the end of July.

Friday, 20 July 2018

Phillies to Test Ordering Beer and Water Using Apple Business Chat ★

Michael Klein, writing for Philly Insider:

Specifically, the concessionaire is testing the use of Apple Business Chat to allow iPhone-equipped fans in certain sections of the ballpark to order water and beer from their seats. The arrangement does not require a special app, as previous seat-delivery concepts have done. […]

To order, a fan would first open the iPhone camera app and scan the QR code on the seat back. That will launch prompts on the iMessage text screen to place the order, which is then completed with Apple Pay. The drink will be delivered supposedly shortly after.

Neat idea. The video shows a bit of the actual user interface.

Thursday, 19 July 2018

Bloomberg on Project ‘Fuchsia’, Google’s Possible Successor to Android ★

Mark Bergen and Mark Gurman co-bylined a story on Fuchsia for Bloomberg. There’s not really much meat to it, and there’s a strange technical error which claims Linux “is distributed by Oracle Corp.” and “is at the center of a lengthy, bitter lawsuit between the two companies”. Oracle has no ownership over Linux whatsoever. The lawsuit is entirely about Google’s use of Java in Android — Oracle did take ownership of Java when they bought the remains of Sun.

Anyway, this was the most interesting tidbit to me:

The company must also settle some internal feuds. Some of the principles that Fuchsia creators are pursuing have already run up against Google’s business model. Google’s ads business relies on an ability to target users based on their location and activity, and Fuchsia’s nascent privacy features would, if implemented, hamstring this important business. There’s already been at least one clash between advertising and engineering over security and privacy features of the fledgling operating system, according to a person familiar with the matter. The ad team prevailed, this person said.

Not a problem engineers working on OSes at Apple or Microsoft have to worry about.

Disney Is Bringing Back ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ ★

Andrew Liptak, reporting for The Verge:

During the 10th Anniversary Clone Wars panel at San Diego Comic-Con, creator and producer Dave Filoni announced that the show would return on Disney’s streaming service, finishing off the story that was widely considered to be left hanging after the show’s abrupt cancellation in 2013.

Great news I was not expecting. I think The Clone Wars was a far better show than Rebels, and it was kind of disgraceful how Disney let it end so abruptly. The Clone Wars deserves a proper final season.

‘The Bigs Are Starting to Accept the Unimaginable’ ★

Josh Marshall, writing at TPM:

Sometimes it’s specific, some kind of corrupt alliance; other times it’s amorphous, some kind of inexplicable hold Putin has over Trump by force of personality. But the kind of people who never said this kind of thing are saying it now. Somehow the President is compromised. Putin has something on him; or he has tempted his avarice with something. But there’s simply no innocent explanation for what we’re seeing.

That’s the shift. The Monday press conference made cautious, prominent people start to come to grips with the reality that Donald Trump, as crazy as it sounds and as difficult as it may be to believe, is under some kind of influence or control by a foreign adversary power, whether by fear or avarice or some other factor.

As yet, there’s little difference of behavior from elected Republicans. And I don’t expect any. What veteran foreign policy or diplomatic hands say on CNN is not the most important thing. But I think they are indicators of a change, a change of perception I expect is occurring among many who can’t yet speak.

I think Marshall is right. I don’t know what will come of it, but something changed this week.

‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ Has Made Over $1 Billion in 10 Months ★

Erik Kain, writing for Forbes:

Epic Games continues to dazzle the world of video games with the runaway success of the company’s free-to-play game Fortnite: Battle Royale. According to a new report from research firm SuperData, the game has now made over $1 billion since its release in October, 2017.

That’s roughly on par with a blockbuster movie like The Last Jedi. And remember, Fortnite is free-to-win: you can download and play completely free of charge and be at no disadvantage. Epic makes money only from selling cosmetic features like player skins and (I swear) dance moves. It’s fun and fair to play for free, and they charge money to make it a little more fun while keeping it fair for all.

Service Documents Suggest Silicone Membrane in New MacBook Pro Keyboards Is Indeed Designed to Keep Out Debris ★

Interesting find by French site MacGeneration. Here’s the article in English, via Google Translate. (Side note: holy shit is Google Translate getting good — this still isn’t quite natural, but there are entire sentences with complex structure and punctuation that read perfectly.)

Here’s the relevant passage from the Apple service document MacGeneration obtained, which was in English:

Keyboard and Keycaps

The keyboard has a membrane under the keycaps to prevent debris from entering the butterfly mechanism. The procedure for the replacement has also changed from the previous model. Repair documentation and service videos will be available when keycaps parts begin shipping.

This is what I thought all along: the new third-generation keyboard was designed to be quieter and more durable, but Apple, for legal and/or marketing reasons, has decided only to tout that the new design is quieter.

For what it’s worth, I’ve heard from a little birdie or two that my take is correct. Whether this design does make the keyboards more durable and reliable, only time and real-world use will tell. But they were designed to be.

Serenity Caldwell Leaves iMore for Apple ★

What a great hire for Apple. Serenity is one of the best writers on the Apple beat, with such a distinctive style, and she has gone from good to great as a podcaster. Lucky for me, she was on my show just a few weeks ago. Will be a while before she is again (probably?).

Wednesday, 18 July 2018

iOS 12 Beta 4 Requires Device to Be Unlocked Before Connecting Any USB Accessories ★

Andrew O’Hara, AppleInsider:

The change in the latest beta of iOS 12 is building on USB Restricted Mode which disables the Lightning port of an iOS device one hour after last being unlocked. The Lightning port could still be used for charging, but no accessories would be able to function until unlocked.

In the fourth developer beta of iOS 12, a passcode is required any time a computer or USB accessory is connected.

Before the change, authorities or criminals would have an hour since last unlock to connect a cracking device, like the GreyKey box. Now, they don’t have that hour, making it that much more difficult to brute force a password attempt into a device.

So much for this loophole being hard for Apple to close.

Kara Swisher Interviews Mark Zuckerberg ★

From a 90-minute podcast interview:

Zuckerberg: Let me give you an example of where we would take it down. In Myanmar or Sri Lanka, where there’s a history of sectarian violence, similar to the tradition in the U.S. where you can’t go into a movie theater and yell “Fire!” because that creates an imminent harm.

The principles that we have on what we remove from the service are: If it’s going to result in real harm, real physical harm, or if you’re attacking individuals, then that content shouldn’t be on the platform. There’s a lot of categories of that that we can get into, but then there’s broad debate.

Swisher: Okay. “Sandy Hook didn’t happen” is not a debate. It is false. You can’t just take that down?

Zuckerberg: I agree that it is false.

I also think that going to someone who is a victim of Sandy Hook and telling them, “Hey, no, you’re a liar” — that is harassment, and we actually will take that down. But overall, let’s take this whole closer to home…

I’m Jewish, and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened. I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong, but I think—

Swisher: In the case of the Holocaust deniers, they might be, but go ahead.

Zuckerberg: It’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent. I just think, as abhorrent as some of those examples are, I think the reality is also that I get things wrong when I speak publicly. I’m sure you do. I’m sure a lot of leaders and public figures we respect do too, and I just don’t think that it is the right thing to say, “We’re going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.”

Zuckerberg is so wrong here. It is not hard at all to “impugn the intent” of Holocaust or Sandy Hook deniers. They’re fucking Nazis. The idea that these people are wrong but are making honest mistakes in good faith is nonsense. Facebook’s stance on this is genuinely detrimental to society. They’re offering a powerful platform that reaches the entire world to lunatics who, in the pre-internet age, were relegated to handing out mimeographs while spouting through a megaphone on a street corner.

Undercover Facebook Moderator Was Instructed Not to Remove Fringe Groups or Hate Speech ★

Nick Statt, writing for The Verge:

The undercover journalist detailed his findings in a new documentary titled Inside Facebook: Secrets of the Social Network, that just aired on the UK’s Channel 4. The investigation outlines questionable practices on behalf of CPL Resources, a third-party content moderator firm based in Dublin, Ireland that Facebook has worked with since 2010.

Those questionable practices primarily involve a hands-off approach to flagged and reported content like graphic violence, hate speech, and racist and other bigoted rhetoric from far-right groups. The undercover reporter says he was also instructed to ignore users who looked as if they were under 13 years of age, which is the minimum age requirement to sign up for Facebook in accordance with the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 privacy law passed in the US designed to protect young children from exploitation and harmful and violent content on the internet. The documentary insinuates that Facebook takes a hands-off approach to such content, including blatantly false stories parading as truth, because it engages users for longer and drives up advertising revenue.

Shocker.

European Commission Fines Google a Record €4.34 Billion for ‘Illegal Practices Regarding Android Mobile Devices to Strengthen Dominance of Google’s Search Engine’ ★

European Commission press release:

The European Commission has fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules. Since 2011, Google has imposed illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators to cement its dominant position in general internet search.

That’s the largest fine in EU antitrust history.

In particular, Google:

has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google’s app store (the Play Store);

made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and

has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called “Android forks”).

My first take on this is that Google ought to be able to do these things. I largely disagreed with the US antitrust case against Microsoft back in the ’90s too, and in broad strokes the charges are remarkably similar. Bundling IE with Windows and declaring the browser to be part of the OS was a big part of that case. I think it’s right that a modern OS has a built-in system browser.

What gets me, though, is Google’s decade-long hypocrisy about Android being “open”. What a pile of horseshit.

Update: After some thought, I do agree with the EU on the forks clause. As one reader wrote:

If I am a licensee for the commercial version of an open source thing, it’s actually farcical to punish me for building other products with the open source base, but it’s also unethical.

This clause is highly comparable to the MS Windows licensing clause that forced PC manufacturers to pay for a Windows licence for every Windows-compatible PC they sold. It’s nasty.

James Bond Aston Martin DB5 Lego Expert Creator Set ★

Among other gadgetry, it sports revolving number plates, retractable machine guns, and even a working ejector seat.

Tuesday, 17 July 2018

The Washington Post: ‘Amazon Continues to Profit From the Sale of White-Supremacist Propaganda’ ★

Tracy Jan, reporting earlier this month for The Washington Post:

Shoppers can purchase Amazon.com merchandise displaying symbols of white supremacy, such as a swastika necklace, a baby onesie with a burning cross, and a child’s backpack featuring a neo-Nazi meme, all in contradiction of the retail giant’s policy against selling products that promote hatred, according to a new report from two watchdog groups.

Trump argues that The Washington Post is, under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, a propaganda mouthpiece for Amazon. It simply doesn’t register with Trump that Bezos would even consider allowing the Post to remain utterly editorially independent.

Uber Head of HR Liane Hornsey Resigns Following Discrimination Probe ★

Salvador Rodriguez, reporting last week for Reuters:

Uber Technologies Inc’s Chief People Officer Liane Hornsey resigned in an email to staff on Tuesday, following an investigation into how she handled allegations of racial discrimination at the ride-hailing firm. […]

They alleged Hornsey had used discriminatory language and made derogatory comments about Uber Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion Bernard Coleman, and had denigrated and threatened former Uber executive Bozoma Saint John, who left the company in June.

“This person ultimately was the reason behind (Saint John’s) departure from Uber,” the anonymous employees said in an email, referring to Hornsey.

Saint John joined Uber from Apple Inc in June, 2017 but left only a year later to join Endeavor, the parent company of several talent agencies. She declined to comment, telling Reuters by phone: “I don’t have anything to say about my experience there.”

I thought it was curious when Saint John left Uber after just one year. Uber’s company culture remains disgraceful.

‘The Axis Is Constructive-Destructive’ ★

Steve Jobs, in a 2010 conversation with Rupert Murdoch, in which Jobs told Murdoch he was “blowing it with Fox News”:

“The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.”

I thought this was interesting in light of my comments yesterday regarding the power that Murdoch, by way of Fox News, holds over Donald Trump’s presidency.

This line from Jobs — “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive” — is truly the best summary of Trumpism I’ve seen. Trump supporters aren’t conservatives, they just want to see the liberal world order burn down.

(Thanks to Chloe Deguzman.)

MacOS 10.14 Mojave Removes Subpixel Anti-Aliasing ★

I was a huge fan of sub-pixel anti-aliasing back in the day (and in fact still have it enabled on 10.13), but it matters far more on non-retina displays than retina ones. I think it’s proper for Apple to focus on retina displays — and iOS has never supported sub-pixel anti-aliasing, which I can only guess factored into this decision with the introduction of UIKit apps running on MacOS — but they’re still selling the non-retina MacBook Air. I won’t issue a final judgment until Mojave actually ships, but I suspect most Air users are going to think this makes text look blurrier.

Update: Looks like you can still enable sub-pixel anti-aliasing with a Terminal command.

Supporting Michael Tsai’s Blog ★

Michael Tsai:

I’ve been told this is overdue, but I’d like to ask you to help support this site financially. This is optional. I’m not creating a paywall, and I don’t want you to feel guilty if you aren’t able to help. But if you enjoy what I’m doing here, please consider joining via Patreon.

To be clear, I see this site as a labor of love. I’m not interested in making it more commercial or in giving up software development. I would like to keep it going more or less as it’s been: a personal site with a regular posting schedule. However, the writing does consume a substantial amount of my time, and I’m hoping that patronage will help me to justify that.

Tsai has long been one of my favorite bloggers and Mac developers. I conducted a long interview with Tsai back in 2003 — still an interesting read today. His blog is simply great, period — just look at how many great links are on his homepage right now — but where he truly stands apart are the times he assembles links to commentary from dozens of people on complex stories. Here’s a great example from last week on the updated MacBook Pros. I’m happy to support his continuing work.

Third-Generation MacBook Pro Keyboards Have a Protective Silicone Barrier ★

Sam Lionhart, writing for iFixit:

Here’s an inflammatory take for you: Apple’s new quieter keyboard is actually a silent scheme to fix their keyboard reliability issues. We’re in the middle of tearing down the newest MacBook Pro, but we’re too excited to hold this particular bit of news back:

Apple has cocooned their butterfly switches in a thin, silicone barrier.

I think it’s a stretch to call this a “cover-up” or “inflammatory”, but it certainly gives credence to the theory that improved reliability was in fact a major design goal for this keyboard.

Rob Verger, writing for Popular Science:

Pull a USB flash drive out of your Mac without first clicking to eject it, and you’ll get a stern, shameful warning: “Disk Not Ejected Properly.”

But do you really need to eject a thumb drive the right way?

Probably not. Just wait for it to finish copying your data, give it a few seconds, then yank. To be on the cautious side, be more conservative with external hard drives, especially the old ones that actually spin.

That’s not the official procedure, nor the most conservative approach. And in a worst-case scenario, you risk corrupting a file or — even more unlikely — the entire storage device.

This is terrible advice. It’s akin to saying you probably don’t need to wear a seat belt because it’s unlikely anything bad will happen. Imagine a few dozen people saying they drive without a seat belt every day and nothing’s ever gone wrong, so it must be OK. (The breakdown in this analogy is that with seat belts, you know instantly when you need to be wearing one. With USB drives, you might not discover for months or years that you’ve got a corrupt file that was only partially written to disk when you yanked the drive.)

I see a bunch of “just pull out the drive and not worry about it” Mac users on Twitter celebrating this article, and I don’t get it. On the Mac you have to do something on screen when you eject a drive. Either you properly eject it before unplugging the drive — one click in the Finder sidebar — or you need to dismiss the alert you’ll get about having removed a drive that wasn’t properly ejected. Why not take the course of action that guarantees data integrity?

NBC News: ‘Apple, Google Cashed in on Pizzagate-Offshoot Conspiracy App’ ★

NBC News:

An app promoting a conspiracy theory featuring Hillary Clinton and a child sex ring lingered at the top of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for months, with both tech giants receiving a cut of the revenue in the process.

The app, called “QDrops,” sends alerts about a conspiracy theory called Qanon, an offshoot of the “pizzagate” fiction that claimed Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza shop that didn’t even have a basement. Like many conspiracy theories, Qanon got its start on 4chan, an anonymous posting site that is a seedbed for extreme thought and a large number of online subcultures.

Apple removed the QDrops app from its app store on Sunday after inquiries from NBC News.

There’s a fine line between “right-wing news” and “dangerous conspiracies”, but App Store reviewers are there to make those calls. This is not a good look for Apple.

Monday, 16 July 2018

Apple Celebrates World Emoji Day With Preview of 70 New Emoji ★

Apple Newsroom:

More than 70 new emoji characters are coming to iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac later this year in a free software update. The new emoji designs, created based on approved characters in Unicode 11.0, include even more hair options to better represent people with red hair, gray hair and curly hair, a new emoji for bald people, and new smiley faces that bring more expression to Messages with a cold face, party face, pleading face and a face with hearts.

Apple is having some fun with their executive bio page too. (Screenshot archive.)

‘The Worst Case Scenario Has Been Obvious for a While’ ★

Josh Marshall, writing at TPM:

There is no reasonable explanation for the simple facts we see other than that Russia has some kind of hold over President Trump.

I know that sounds wild and I have a very hard time sometimes quite believing it myself. But it’s so overwhelmingly obvious that we need to get real with ourselves and recognize what is happening. I don’t know what the specific details are. I don’t know whether Russia has some compromising information on the President, whether they have enticed him with personal enrichment. I truly don’t know. But none of the standard explanations — truculence, trolling, anger over questioning the legitimacy of his election — none of them remotely add up as an explanation. In the future, when we know more details, we will have a difficult time explaining how any serious people continued to think there could be an innocent explanation.

I don’t think it’s the infamous pee tape because even if real, the pee tape might not sink Trump. I think it’s money — that Trump’s entire company, and therefore his personal wealth, is held afloat entirely by Russian money and Putin could pull the plug on it with a snap of his fingers. But whatever it is, it seems clear there’s something they’ve got on him.

Fox News Host Calls Trump’s Helsinki Performance ‘Disgusting’, ‘Wrong’ ★

TPM:

During his Fox Business Network show Monday, host Neil Cavuto called President Donald Trump’s failure to denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Russian interference in the 2016 election “disgusting,” saying that the presser “set us back a lot.”

“That made it disgusting. That made his performance disgusting,” Cavuto said of Trump’s refusal to even criticize the Russian President. “Only way I feel. Not a right or left thing to me. It is wrong.”

I’ve been thinking for a few months now that the most powerful person in the world isn’t Trump or Putin but Rupert Murdoch. If Fox News turned against Trump — not against Republicans, not against conservatives, but only against Trump and his family — it would sink Trump’s presidency within months. Politically, Trump couldn’t breathe without the support of Fox News. Rupert Murdoch could make that happen.

Hillary Clinton Was Right ★

Hillary Clinton’s remarks during a 2016 debate on Donald Trump being a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin have proven depressingly spot-on. Everything she said in this clip has come to pass.

Trump Kowtows to Putin ★

Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen, reporting for Axios:

Over the course of the press conference, Trump:

Sided with Russia over his own law enforcement.

Turned a question on Russian election interference into a rambling dialogue on Hillary Clinton’s email server and his electoral college votes.

And stood by, nodding, while Putin repeatedly lied about election interference.

John McCain:

Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. […]

No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.

Garry Kasparov:

I’m ready to call this the darkest hour in the history of the American presidency. Let me know if you can think of any competition. […]

Trump’s “We’re all to blame” says it all. Attacking his own administration and flattering Putin. America First? A sick joke. Where are Trump’s supporters right now? Where are you? You fools and enablers selling out your country and the world for this traitor?

Chuck Schumer:

Chuck Schumer said on Monday that Americans are wondering if the “only explanation” for President Donald Trump’s performance alongside Vladimir Putin is that the Russian president “holds damaging information over President Trump.”

Former CIA director John O. Brennan:

Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???

Brennan served under Obama, yes, but no former CIA director has ever once come close to accusing a subsequent president as a traitor. It is time to accept the plain truth before our eyes: Donald Trump is a Russian puppet.

Dan Coats, Trump’s own director of national intelligence:

The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the President and policymakers. We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.

Trump’s own DNI is telling us Trump is a traitor.

Microsoft’s Andromeda Project: A Bifold Pocketable Tablet ★

Brad Sams, writing at, uh, “Thurrott”:

As of last year, Microsoft planned to ship Andromeda in late 2018 but as recently as a couple weeks ago, the company put the plans on ice. Mary Jo wrote last week that the bits needed for Andromeda would not make it into RS5 and she is absolutely correct in her assessment but there is more to the story. While some assumed that this means that the project is dead, what Microsoft is actually doing is sending it back to the labs to be significantly reworked.

And this makes sense, seeing as it would use an ARM processor, the best it could use this fall would be the Snapdragon 835, a chip that is from yesterday. We know that Qualcomm is working on new chips designed explicitly for PCs and it could arrive as early as the beginning of next year.

It is impossible to overstate how important Apple’s A-series chip development has been to the success of the iPhone and iPad. It allows them to evolve at Apple’s own pace. Qualcomm seemingly can’t keep up, and everyone else is dependent upon Qualcomm for high-end ARM chips. Apple’s current position in the mobile space is like if Microsoft and Intel had been rolled into one back in the PC heyday.

The problem that Microsoft has run into is that the Surface brand is now a premium product line and that they can’t risk releasing anything that will tarnish its reputation. If Andromeda were to be released and it was a complete flop, this could reflect negatively on the Surface brand and impact products like the Pro line that sell quite well.

I don’t buy this excuse at all. It’s not about the Surface brand (the esteem of which I think Sams overstates). It’s just a product that isn’t ready to go. There’s no shame in that — a foldable tablet that can fit in your pocket could be great but would be really hard to do well today given current display and battery technologies. I think a concept like this needs to be closer to the tablets the characters on Westworld use.

Saturday, 14 July 2018

Journey Across Bhutan: The World’s First Carbon-Negative Country ★

My thanks to Gray Langur Tours for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Gray Langur’s Kingdom of the Clouds Tour is a once-in-a-lifetime, all-inclusive, 2-week exploration of one of the world’s least accessible, yet astonishingly forward-thinking countries. Bhutan is the the only place where “Gross National Happiness” is more important than Gross National Product, and tourism is regulated with care.

On October 16, 2018, Gray Langur Tours will return to this fascinating Himalayan Kingdom for the third annual Royal Highlander Festival. Last year’s tour was a smashing success, and guests even got to meet Bhutan’s king.

An exotic location — the last surviving great Himalayan kingdom — with truly expert guides. Check out their website and see just how amazing Bhutan is. Gray Langur was founded by Gabriel Cubbage, who until last year was the CEO of AdBlock and whom I’ve known personally for over 10 years. He’s a great guy. I would love to hear from DF readers who take this tour (or who took last year’s tour).

Availability is extremely limited. Daring Fireball readers can use the code DARINGFIREBALL for a 10 percent discount.

Friday, 13 July 2018

Build-A-Bear Is a ‘Victim of Its Own Success’ as ‘Pay Your Age Day’ Ends in Chaos ★: I love it when an honest, accurate, non-sensationalized headline is enough to make you laugh.

Wednesday, 11 July 2018

Magic Leap Finally Demoed Its Headset and It Is Disappointing ★

I’ve long been suspicious that the reason Magic Leap is so secretive about their actual technology is that it’s nowhere close to what they promised in their concept videos. This seems to confirm it.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict that this puff piece from Wired back in December — “It’s Time to Take Magic Leap Seriously” — is not going to age well.

iOS Devices Can Be Blocked From Entering USB Restricted Mode ★

Oleg Afonin, writing for the ElcomSoft blog:

What we discovered is that iOS will reset the USB Restrictive Mode countdown timer even if one connects the iPhone to an untrusted USB accessory, one that has never been paired to the iPhone before (well, in fact the accessories do not require pairing at all). In other words, once the police officer seizes an iPhone, he or she would need to immediately connect that iPhone to a compatible USB accessory to prevent USB Restricted Mode lock after one hour. Importantly, this only helps if the iPhone has still not entered USB Restricted Mode.

Most (if not all) USB accessories fit the purpose — for example, Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter from Apple.

They think this might be tricky for Apple to fix:

Can Apple change it in future versions of iOS? To us, it seems highly unlikely simply because of the humongous amount of MFi devices that aren’t designed to support such a change. Theoretically, iOS could remember which devices were connected to the iPhone, and only allow those accessories to establish connectivity without requiring an unlock — but that’s about all we can think of.

10 Years of the App Store: The Design Evolution of the Earliest Apps ★

Michael Steeber, writing for 9to5Mac:

Few contemporary innovations have changed how we live our lives and interact with the world around us more than iPhone apps. The creators of the first 500 available at launch had the unique opportunity of shaping the design direction and interaction methods of the millions of apps created since.

To celebrate the App Store’s 10th anniversary, let’s study the visual evolution of 10 original App Store apps.

Another great look back. Steeber selected a great group of apps from 2008 that are still going strong, and perfectly illustrates their design evolutions.

The App Store Turns 10 ★

There have been a slew of retrospectives marking the 10-year anniversary of the App Store, but Apple’s own is the most interesting I’ve seen.

Tuesday, 10 July 2018

Former Apple Employee Charged With Theft of Trade Secrets Related to Autonomous Car Project ★

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:

In April 2018, Zhang took family leave from Apple following the birth of his child, and during that time, he visited China. Shortly after, he told his supervisor at Apple he was leaving the company and moving to China to work for XMotors, a Chinese startup that also focuses on autonomous vehicle technology. […]

A review of recorded footage at Apple indicated Zhang had visited the campus on the evening of Saturday, April 28, entering both Apple’s autonomous vehicle software and hardware labs, which coincided with data download times, and he left with a box of hardware.

In a second interview with Apple’s security team, Zhang admitted to taking both online data and hardware (a Linux server and circuit boards) from Apple during his paternity leave. He also admitted to AirDropping sensitive content from his own device to his wife’s laptop.

All of Apple’s evidence was relayed to the FBI after the company’s Digital Forensic Investigations team discovered that at least 60 percent of the data Zhang had downloaded and transferred to his wife’s computer was “highly problematic.” The FBI, in the court filing, describes the information as “largely technical in nature, including engineering schematics, technical reference manuals, and technical reports.”

Holy shit. This sounds like industrial espionage of the highest order. He was arrested at the San Jose airport on his way to China.

Apple Combines Machine Learning and Siri Teams Under John Giannandrea ★

Matthew Panzarino, writing at TechCrunch:

Apple is creating a new AI/ML team that brings together its Core ML and Siri teams under one leader in John Giannandrea.

Apple confirmed this morning that the combined Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning team, which houses Siri, will be led by the recent hire, who came to Apple this year after an eight-year stint at Google, where he led the Machine Intelligence, Research and Search teams. Before that he founded Metaweb Technologies and Tellme.

The internal structures of the Siri and Core ML teams will remain the same, but they will now answer to Giannandrea.

This is exactly what I expected after they announced the hiring of Giannandrea. It takes Siri and ML off Craig Federighi’s plate, and allows Giannandrea to report directly to Tim Cook.

BGR: ‘Apple to Deploy 1Password to All 123,000 Employees, Acquisition Talks Underway’ ★

Jonathan Geller, writing at BGR:

Apple acquires an average of 15 to 20 companies a year, according to CEO Tim Cook. Of that number, we only hear about a couple, as most of these acquisitions or aqcui-hires are not consumer-facing, nor disclosed. However, we have exclusively learned that Apple is planning an interesting partnership and a potential acquisition of AgileBits, maker of the popular password manager 1Password.

According to our source, after many months of planning, Apple plans to deploy 1Password internally to all 123,000 employees. This includes not just employees in Cupertino, but extends all the way to retail, too. Furthermore, the company is said to have carved out a deal that includes family plans, giving up to 5 family members of each employee a free license for 1Password.

Great news and a resounding endorsement of 1Password for AgileBits. But if Apple thinks 1Password is this good, an acquisition seems like an obvious next step.

It seems clear this leak came from AgileBits, though, which seems dumb on the part of whoever blabbed. The first rule of getting acquired by Apple is you don’t talk about getting acquired by Apple.

Update 1: Statement from 1Password on Twitter:

Rumours of my acquisition are completely false. My humans and I are happily independent and plan to remain so.

The more I think about it, the weirder this story seems. Why would Apple encourage employees to use a third-party password manager — even a great one like 1Password — over the system Keychain? If the Keychain isn’t good enough they should make the Keychain better.

Monday, 9 July 2018

iOS 11.4.1 Blocks USB Passcode Cracking Tools ★

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

Apple today released iOS 11.4.1, and while most of us are already looking ahead to all the new stuff coming in iOS 12, this small update contains an important new security feature: USB Restricted Mode. Apple has added protections against the USB devices being used by law enforcement and private companies that connect over Lightning to crack an iPhone’s passcode and evade Apple’s usual encryption safeguards.

Great news and an elegant solution.

NYT: ‘How Smart TVs in Millions of U.S. Homes Track More Than What’s on Tonight’ ★

Sapna Maheshwari, writing for The New York Times:

Once enabled, Samba TV can track nearly everything that appears on the TV on a second-by-second basis, essentially reading pixels to identify network shows and ads, as well as programs on Netflix and HBO and even video games played on the TV. Samba TV has even offered advertisers the ability to base their targeting on whether people watch conservative or liberal media outlets and which party’s presidential debate they watched.

The big draw for advertisers — which have included Citi and JetBlue in the past, and now Expedia — is that Samba TV can also identify other devices in the home that share the TV’s internet connection.

Creepy as hell. No thanks.

Intel’s Toxic Culture ★

Jean-Louis Gassée:

Just as old Cultures can no longer “see” their origins, Intel pushed under its consciousness the true source of the x86’s superiority: The margins it commanded through the Windows monopoly. Better manufacturing technology became Intel’s “conscious” explanation, but the truth was that in the PC era, non-Windows microprocessors simply couldn’t compete and had to settle for lower prices. The worst part of the Culture dictate is that Intel believed its own story, at least until it stopped working as interlopers such as TSMC came up with competitive technology. How else to explain their sale of their ARM-centered Xscale to Marvell in 2006?

Quartz: ‘Apple’s AirPods and Live Listen Are a Revolution for the Hearing Impaired’ ★

Looking forward to more stories like this once iOS 12 is out of beta.

Saturday, 7 July 2018

Kolide ★

My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring the DF RSS feed. Kolide is a new startup working to solve the security challenges of tech companies that run large Mac fleets.

Last year, Netflix blogged about a great internal tool called Stethoscope which helped their security team communicate the key settings they expect their employees to manage instead of relying on intrusive enforcement. They termed this concept “User Focused Security”.

Kolide recently released Kolide Cloud, which enables you to roll out this User Focused Security strategy and effectively communicate your organization’s Mac security best-practices to your users.

Additionally, Kolide Cloud can detect and alert you about situational security concerns in your Mac fleet that often lead to serious compromises. Kolide looks for improperly stored 2FA backup codes, evidence of unencrypted backups, browser extensions that subvert the privacy of your users, and a litany of other issues that you will want to shut down immediately.

Kolide Cloud is free for your first 10 devices and you can sign up today.

‘In Search of Steve Ditko’ ★

Steve Ditko, the reclusive co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, died yesterday at 90. This documentary from around 10 years ago for the BBC by Jonathan Ross is a terrific look at his life and work.

WSJ: ‘Samsung Estimates Operating-Profit Growth at 5 Percent, Short of Expectations’ ★

Timothy Martin, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

Sales of the company’s latest flagship device, the Galaxy S9, have been weak, as consumers keep their phones longer and remain unimpressed with the newest options.

Lee Seung-woo, a Seoul-based analyst at Eugene Investment and Securities, expects Samsung will ship about 31 million Galaxy S9 devices in 2018. That would mark a dramatic decline from just two years ago, when the Galaxy S7 became Samsung’s best-selling phone ever, with roughly 50 million shipments.

Imagine the hysteria if flagship iPhone sales dropped 40 percent in two years.

I’m not so sure that the S9 is particularly “unimpressive” compared to previous Samsung phones so much as that other high-end Android handsets have caught up. I think what’s happening to Samsung is what many thought would happen to the iPhone circa 2013 — they’re losing sales to “good enough” phones from a dozen other Android makers from around the world. Even the high-end Android market is turning into a commodity market.

iOS is the moat that separates Apple from the pack, just like MacOS is in the PC market. Samsung doesn’t really have a moat. If anything, their proprietary software is worse than the off-the-shelf Android from Google. What’s the argument for buying an S9 instead of, say, a Pixel or OnePlus or whatever else has a great display and camera?

Twitter Is Shutting Down a Million Fake Accounts Per Day ★

Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin, reporting for The Washington Post:

Twitter has sharply escalated its battle against fake and suspicious accounts, suspending more than 1 million a day in recent months, a major shift to lessen the flow of disinformation on the platform, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.

The rate of account suspensions, which Twitter confirmed to The Post, has more than doubled since October, when the company revealed under congressional pressure how Russia used fake accounts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Twitter suspended more than 70 million accounts in May and June, and the pace has continued in July, according to the data.

I understand that “monthly active users” count has been a major metric that investors have used to value Twitter. But it’s a failure of Twitter’s executive team that they allowed the company to be painted into a corner where the company benefitted by looking the other way at large scale fraud because of an inflated “user” count.

Twitter’s executives should’ve started hammering home the point years ago that monthly active users is a legitimate metric, but monthly active accounts is not, and that in fact fake accounts are detrimental to the health of Twitter’s social network. Better late than never, but this should’ve started years ago.

Friday, 6 July 2018

CTech: ‘Apple Passes Over Intel in Search for Chips for Future iPhone’ ★

Yoav Stoler, reporting for Israeli news site CTech:

Intel will not provide Wi-Fi and Bluetooth components for Apple’s 2020 mobile devices, according to internal company communications reviewed by Calcalist, and people familiar with the matter. Apple has notified Intel it would not use a mobile communication component developed by the chipmaker in its next-generation mobile device, Intel executives said. Further development of the component internally called “Sunny Peak” has been halted and the Intel team that’s working on the product will be redirected to other efforts, the executives said.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Sunny Peak component also included 5G connectivity.

Watching Intel in the mobile space is like watching someone try to start a fire with a wet matchbook.

Scott Pruitt Wasn’t Corrupt Enough for Trumpistan ★

Rick Wilson, writing at The Daily Beast:

Donald Trump is unequivocal proof that A’s hire B’s and B’s hire C’s, and Trump hires people without the judgment, qualifications, ethical foundations, and moral stature to run an underground bum-fighting operation. Scott Pruitt’s obvious money problems should have screamed out in any background check, to say nothing of a Senate confirmation hearing.

Pruitt is a man, like so many of Trump’s claque of low-rent hoodlums, bus-station conmen, edge-case dead-enders, and caged-immigrant child porn aficionados, utterly unsuited to a role of public trust and responsibility.

I enjoy a column that works “bum-fighting” and “claque” into consecutive paragraphs.

Thursday, 5 July 2018

How the Disposable Straw Explains Modern Capitalism ★: Alexis Madrigal on the history of the disposable drinking straw. Fascinating — seriously.

Monday, 2 July 2018

News Media Paid Melania Trump Thousands for Use of Photos in ‘Positive Stories Only’ ★

NBC News:

President Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure reveals that in 2017 the first lady earned at least $100,000 from Getty Images for the use of any of a series of 187 photos of the first family shot between 2010 and 2016 by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux.

It’s not unheard of for celebrities to earn royalties from photos of themselves, but it’s very unusual for the wife of a currently serving elected official. More problematic for the many news organizations that have published or broadcast the images, however, is that Getty’s licensing agreement stipulates the pictures can be used in “positive stories only.”

The nonstop grift continues.

Rumored 18-Watt USB-C iPhone Power Adapter ★

Eric Slivka, writing for MacRumors:

Recent rumors and CAD renderings have suggested Apple may be planning to include an 18-watt USB-C charger and a Lightning to USB cable in the box with its iOS devices later this year, allowing for faster charging without requiring users to purchase separate charging accessories at additional cost.

Moving to a single 18-watt adapter for iPhones and iPads makes a lot of sense. Wired charging for the fastest charge, inductive charging pads for the most convenient.

Also, I know a lot of people — including me — thought Apple should’ve included a faster iPad-style adapter last year because the iPhones X and 8 support fast charging. But when I last mentioned this, I heard from a slew of readers who prefer the 5-watt iPhone charger because it’s smaller. This new design seems like a nice compromise in terms of size.

Steven Sinofsky on Intel and Disruption ★

Steven Sinofsky:

So first thing, if innovation is focused on first and foremost being proprietary vs solving problems people have, then I think you’ll always run into trouble.

Sunday, 1 July 2018

The Talk Show: ‘Resources Up the Yang’ ★

Special guest Matthew Panzarino returns to the show to talk about his exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the new maps coming to Apple Maps, Google’s project Duplex, and the MacBook keyboard repair program.

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