Linked List: June 2018

Friday, 29 June 2018

Apple Is Rebuilding Maps From the Ground Up ★

Matthew Panzarino, writing at TechCrunch:

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the launch of Apple Maps went poorly. After a rough first impression, an apology from the CEO, several years of patching holes with data partnerships and some glimmers of light with long-awaited transit directions and improvements in business, parking and place data, Apple Maps is still not where it needs to be to be considered a world class service.

Maps needs fixing.

Apple, it turns out, is aware of this, so it’s re-building the maps part of Maps.

It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology and its own fleet of cars packed with sensors and cameras. The new product will launch in San Francisco and the Bay Area with the next iOS 12 Beta and will cover Northern California by fall.

Panzarino was granted some extraordinary access, including an interview with Eddy Cue and a ride in one of Apple’s sensor-packed street vans. The new maps sound great, but the big question is how long will it take to roll them out everywhere. All Apple will say is that they’re starting with San Francisco next week (for iOS 12 beta users) and “northern California this fall”.

See also: “Questions About Apple’s New Maps, Answered”.

Field Notes: ‘Three Missions’ Edition ★

My thanks to Field Notes for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote their just-launched [Ed. Note: Come on, we don’t do puns here.] “Three Missions” edition celebrating America’s quest 50 years ago to land men on the moon — and bring them home.

Look, I’m a huge fan of Field Notes, and I have an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the early NASA missions. (I feel America today is in dire need of something epic that the entire nation could get behind.) So I was bound to love this edition. But man, I’m telling you, the Field Notes crew went above and beyond on this set.

Each three-pack contains three memo books, one each for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The full-color printing quality is amazing, including “Orbital Silver” metallic ink. Each pack also includes three “Punch-Out and Assemble” mission-specific crew capsule models. I loved putting these things together — and I also love how they hearken back to the ’60s and ’70s, when punch-out model kits like these were common.

Where it gets downright nuts is the promotional video they made. They put in what must have been a ridiculous amount of planning, research, and driving to get about five seconds of footage of one of these models in the upper atmosphere in near-space.

You can buy the “Three Missions” three-pack for just $12.95. Start a quarterly subscription with “Three Missions” and your first shipment will also include two 3-Packs of their original Kraft Memo Books and their “Tenth Anniversary” 3-Pack. This special edition features very early iterations of what would eventually become Field Notes, with all their faults and weirdness.

Thursday, 28 June 2018

Apple Eyes Streaming Bundle for TV, Music, and News ★

Jessica Toonkel, reporting for The Information:

Apple is considering creating a single subscription offering that would encompass its original TV shows, music service and magazine articles, two people familiar with the company’s plans told The Information.

Such an ambitious offering would bear some similarity to Amazon’s Prime service, which spans video, music and some news. Yet it would be sharply different from many other subscription media services, which tend to be focused on one specific entertainment area.

I have no inside information on this, but as I’ve argued here, a single “content” subscription from Apple makes sense.

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

‘Inside Facebook and Twitter’s Secret Meetings With Trump Aides and Conservative Leaders Who Say Tech Is Biased’ ★

Tony Romm, reporting for The Washington Post:

Dorsey hoped to use the dinner as a way to build “trust” among conservatives who have long chastised the company, three of the people said. He defended Twitter against accusations that it targeted right-leaning users unfairly but still admitted that the company has room for improvement, according to the attendees.

In response, the Twitter executive heard an earful from conservatives gathered at the table, who scoffed at the fact that Dorsey runs a platform that’s supposed to be neutral even though he’s tweeted about issues like immigration, gay rights and national politics. They also told Dorsey that the tech industry’s efforts to improve diversity — after years of criticism for maintaining a largely white, male workforce — should focus on hiring engineers with more diverse political viewpoints as well, according to those who dined with him in D.C.

Two points on this. First, statistically, you can’t increase the number of non-whites and women without skewing your workforce to the left politically. Look at the exit poll numbers from 2016:

Race: Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians went heavily for Clinton, whites went for Trump.
Gender: Women went for Clinton, men went for Trump.
LGBT voters went for Clinton by 78-14.
Education: College grads went for Clinton, non-college grads for Trump.

There’s no way around it: increasing the number of employees who aren’t straight white men is at odds with the notion of increasing the number “with more diverse political viewpoints”, if by “diverse political viewpoints” you mean “people who voted for Trump”. And even among white men, Trump was only +4 among those with college degrees.

Second, how in the world would tech companies go about hiring based on political viewpoints? By asking job candidates who they voted for? That seems like a terrible idea and likely illegal.

Apple, Samsung Settle U.S. Patent Dispute ★

Stephen Nellis, reporting for Reuters:

Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday settled a seven-year patent dispute over Apple’s allegations that Samsung violated its patents by “slavishly” copying the design of the iPhone. Terms of the settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, were not available.

In May, a U.S. jury awarded Apple $539 million, after Samsung had previously paid Apple $399 million to compensate for patent infringement. Samsung would need to make an additional payment to Apple of nearly $140 million if the verdict was upheld. How much, if anything, Samsung must now pay Apple under Wednesday’s settlement could not immediately be learned.

Here’s one that legitimately deserves to be filed under “Finally” — Apple first began litigating this 7 years ago.

Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Adam Lashinsky Interviews Tim Cook at Fortune’s CEO Initiative ★

Really interesting interview, with Cook giving his perspective on how he views his job as CEO. (Kind of goes off the rails at the very end, when they take a few questions from the audience. Questions from the audience almost never go well — they interrupt the conversational flow.)

Jason Snell on MacOS Mojave ★

Long, detailed look at Mac OS 10.14 Mojave from Jason Snell:

Personally, I’m more excited about macOS Mojave than any recent macOS beta. The new dark mode alone is a huge change in what we have come to think of as the Mac interface, and the changes to Finder have an awful lot of potential. I’m also really happy to be able to control my HomeKit devices directly from my Mac, either via the Home app or Siri.

I’m really excited about the improved Automator support in the Finder. It’s a real “This is what makes the Mac the Mac” feature.

Marzipan as a Path to ARM-Based Macs ★

Gus Mueller:

Apple has dropped legacy frameworks very easily in the past though. But how exactly did that happen?

CPU changes. Once when MacOS went from PPC to Intel, and then once when MacOS went from 32 bit to 64 bit. Each time that transition happened Apple was able to say “OK, this legacy stuff just isn’t going to be there on the new architecture”. And since you had to recompile apps anyway to make them run on the new architecture, developers kind of shrugged and said “Well, yea. That’s what I would have done too”. It made sense.

So are we about to see 128 bit Intel processors anytime soon, to facilitate this change? I doubt it.

OK then, what about a new architecture?

Oh. Hello 64 bit ARM.

MacStories’s Favorite iOS 12 Tidbits ★

Federico Viticci:

Previously available only on 3D Touch-enabled iPhones or with a two-finger swipe on the iPad’s keyboard, trackpad mode can be activated in a much easier way in iOS 12: just tap & hold on the space bar until the keyboard becomes a trackpad. This mode (seemingly inspired by Gboard and other custom keyboards with a similar implementation) gives owners of iPhones without 3D Touch a way to more precisely control the cursor in text fields. Those who follow Apple rumors claim this feature has been shipped in preparation for a new iPhone without 3D Touch later this year; for now, it’s just a nice way to toggle trackpad mode if you’re using an iPhone 5s, SE, or 6.

One of my favorite features in iOS — once you get in the habit of using it, you can’t go back.

Instagram Launches IGTV ★

Instagram:

Today, we have two big announcements to share. First, Instagram is now a global community of one billion! Since our launch in 2010, we’ve watched with amazement as the community has flourished and grown. This is a major accomplishment — so from all of us at Instagram, thank you!

Second, we’re announcing our most exciting feature to date: IGTV, a new app for watching long-form, vertical video from your favorite Instagram creators, like LaurDIY posting her newest project or King Bach sharing his latest comedy skit. While there’s a stand-alone IGTV app, you’ll also be able to watch from within the Instagram app so the entire community of one billion can use it from the very start.

Vertical video just seems weird to me, but I wouldn’t bet against IGTV. As Kevin Systrom succinctly explained on stage at the event introducing IGTV, teenagers consume video differently, and for many, the phone is their most important screen for watching video. Instagram has built up its own universe of celebrities. It feels like Instagram is to today’s teens what MTV was to my generation.

Two Keyboards at a Bar ★

Michael Lopp:

The bar is full. Two keyboards sit at the bar: APPLE EXTENDED II and MACBOOK PRO. The front door opens, TOUCHBAR looks around, sees the two keyboards at the bar, grins, and heads their direction. Skipping.

APPLE EXTENDED II sits at the bar nursing a Macallan 18. Next to him is MACBOOK PRO who has not taken a sip of his glass of water.

I enjoyed this so much.

Apple News Launches 2018 Midterm Elections Section ★

Apple Newsroom:

“Today more than ever people want information from reliable sources, especially when it comes to making voting decisions,” said Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of Apple News. “An election is not just a contest; it should raise conversations and spark national discourse. By presenting quality news from trustworthy sources and curating a diverse range of opinions, Apple News aims to be a responsible steward of those conversations and help readers understand the candidates and the issues.”

Curation has been a guiding principle across Apple News since launch, with a team of editors focused on discovering and spotlighting well-sourced fact-based stories to provide readers with relevant, reliable news and information from a wide range of publishers.

“Well-sourced fact-based stories” — that’s pretty clearly meant as a fundamental point of distinction from Facebook and Twitter’s algorithmic news feeds. I find myself using Apple News a lot, and feel like Daring Fireball is overdue to support it better.

Saturday, 23 June 2018

Snap Kit by Snapchat ★

My thanks to Snap for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Snap Kit lets developers integrate some of Snapchat’s best features like Bitmoji and Stories — and lets your community share their favorite moments from your app with their friends on Snapchat.

All of this without compromising any private account data. Visit kit.snapchat.com for documentation and more info.

Casey Johnston on Apple’s MacBook Keyboard Repair Program ★

Casey Johnston, writing for The Outline:

Apple did not immediately return a request from this reporter for comments on whether repairs may now be done on site at stores to shorten the time customers must be without their computers; whether the keyboard design has changed such that a repair may eliminate the problem rather than prop up a faulty design; or whether Apple anticipates releasing updated hardware that is not so prone to failure at any point in the future. Perhaps their keyboards, too, are broken.

I can’t recall any Apple related story that one writer has owned the way Johnston has owned this MacBook keyboard story.

Friday, 22 June 2018

Apple Launches Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro ★

New Apple support document:

Apple has determined that a small percentage of the keyboards in certain MacBook and MacBook Pro models may exhibit one or more of the following behaviors:

Letters or characters repeat unexpectedly

Letters or characters do not appear

Key(s) feel “sticky” or do not respond in a consistent manner

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will service eligible MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards, free of charge. The type of service will be determined after the keyboard is examined and may involve the replacement of one or more keys or the whole keyboard.

If you’ve paid for service that seems like it should have been covered by this program, you should get in touch with Apple.

Gurman on AirPower ★

Mark Gurman, in a Bloomberg piece headlined “Why Apple’s AirPower Wireless Charger Is Taking So Long to Make”:

An executive at an Apple partner that manufactures third-party wireless chargers for iPhones, who asked not to be identified, said the multi-device charging mechanism is challenging to build because it likely requires different sized charging components for the three types of devices, which would all overlap across the mat.

The AirPower charger is also more advanced than the current competition because it includes a custom Apple chip running a stripped down version of the iOS mobile operating system to conduct on-device power management and pairing with devices. Apple engineers have also been working to squash bugs related to the on-board firmware, according to the people familiar. They asked not to be identified discussing a product that hasn’t been released yet.

Why in the world did they announce this last September when they clearly still aren’t close to shipping it today? Also: Gurman’s story doesn’t answer the question, other than saying “It’s a complicated product”.

Rolling Stone Profiles Johnny Depp ★

Stephen Rodrick, writing for Rolling Stone:

“My son had to hear about how his old man lost all his money from kids at school, that’s not right,” says Depp. He rubs his eyes with his tobacco-stained hands. He says one of the proudest moments of his life was when Jack said he’d started a band and Depp asked what they were called.

“The kid says ‘Clown Boner.’” Depp smiles proudly. “We don’t need a paternity test. That’s my kid.”

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.

Tuesday, 19 June 2018

How the Trump Administration Is Defending Its Indefensible Child Separation Policy ★

Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Slate:

The Trump administration is playing a game of choose your own facts, but every single version of this story ends with screaming children in cages.

Great rundown on the utter incoherence of the Trump administration’s messaging on this disgraceful policy.

Kotoba: The Best iOS Dictionary App You’ve Never Heard Of ★

I love dictionaries. For as long as I can remember, I’ve made a habit of looking up every single word I encounter that I don’t know or am even unsure about. The fact that MacOS and iOS have built-in dictionaries that you can invoke via a contextual menu item is one of my favorite features of both OSes. Part of that is the extraordinary convenience, and part is that both systems use the same excellent source: New Oxford American Dictionary. (MacOS also includes the excellent Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus — which is apparently coming to iOS, finally, in iOS 12.)

But MacOS goes one step further (dating back to its roots as NeXTStep) — it has a built-in Dictionary app, too. I’ve wanted an app like this on iOS since the original iPhone. The App Store is replete with dictionary apps, but most of them are junk. I just want a simple one that uses the system dictionary. My friend Will Hains, who among other things runs the excellent @DFStyleguide Twitter account, shared that desire and went ahead and made one. It’s called Kotoba. It’s been on my first home screen for over two years now.

The catch: App Store guidelines disallow using the built-in system dictionary to create a dictionary app (I presume due to licensing issues with Apple’s dictionary partners), so you can’t get it from the App Store. Hains released it as open source, though, so if you have a developer account, you can build and install it yourself.

Bonus Catch: Kotoba currently crashes on iOS 12 (including beta 2, released earlier today). Radar.

Oppo’s Find X Ditches the Notch for Pop-Up Cameras ★

The pop-up cameras are certainly an original idea (but not a good one), but it’s jaw-dropping how much Oppo (apparently pronounced “OH-poe”) made their “Color OS” Android skin look like iOS, from the home screen to the camera app. This looks nothing like stock Android as seen on a Pixel.

Elon Musk in Company-Wide Email: Tesla Employee Conducted ‘Extensive and Damaging Sabotage’ ★

Elon Musk, in a company-wide email:

The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad. His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move.

However, there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye, so the investigation will continue in depth this week. We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations.

As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don’t love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don’t want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they’re willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they’re willing to cheat in other ways?

This story is crazy.

How Will Apple Sell Its Original Video Content? ★

Peter Kafka, writing for Recode in the wake of Apple’s content deal with Oprah Winfrey:

Some industry observers expect Apple to make some or all of the content available for free for users of Apple’s TV app, which Apple first introduced as a would-be TV guide/hub a couple years ago, and is installed by default on all of its devices. Apple has told some industry executives it intends to strengthen that hub by making it a focal point to sell subscriptions to other companies’ TV services, as Amazon already does.

Other watchers are convinced Apple will bundle all of its content into a very big subscription service, which would include Apple Music, along with other benefits like AppleCare.

Most interesting and confusing to me: One TV executive who has talked to Apple tells me Apple says it intends to sell a standalone subscription to its original video shows, priced below Netflix, whose standard offering costs $11 a month in the U.S.

I think scenario 2 is the most likely — just include the original video content with an Apple Music subscription. People are only willing to pay for so many subscriptions, and asking folks to pay separately for Apple Music and “Apple TV” is too much to ask in my opinion. One monthly fee and you get all of Apple Music and all of Apple’s original video content. That’s compelling. It also would make it easy for Apple to build up its original content lineup one show at a time. Years from now, Apple could well be offering enough original video content that a standalone video subscription could be feasible — but as they get started, they’re only going to have a handful of shows for a while.

(Bundling AppleCare in the same package seems bonkers. One person might own a single Apple device, another might own a dozen Mac Pros. AppleCare, like any extended warranty, only makes sense as something sold per-device, not as a subscription. What would be interesting would be if they offered additional iCloud storage along with the standard subscription for music and video content.)

Free Trials From Apple’s Perspective ★

Drew McCormack:

I don’t want to get into a point-by-point debate on the topic; instead, I want to do something that I haven’t seen anyone do: try to understand why Apple don’t want the sort of free trials that are being demanded.

Apple currently allows free trials in two forms: if you sell subscriptions, you can give customers a free month to try the app; and, you can give your app away free, and offer a free In-App Purchase (IAP) to unlock all features for a fixed period of time.

So why does Apple allow these forms, but not offer a more formal version of free trials? Most developers seem to assume they are deliberately ignoring their protests, for no good reason, or that they simply are not willing to dedicate the resources to solve the problem. I doubt both of these assumptions. I think Apple have probably thought long and hard about it, and concluded that the options they have introduced are actually better than the free trials developer’s are requesting.

This is a thoughtful piece, and I think McCormack could be correct that this is more or less Apple’s perspective on the matter. And I’ve always thought it useful to try to think about things from Apple’s perspective.

I think it’s fair to say McCormack’s argument boils down to “Traditional free trials could be a source of confusion for typical users” and he backs that up with some good questions users might have. But I think this is where design comes into play. Design is largely about devising solutions to problems. I can’t help but think there’s a way that Apple could design a system of free trials in the App Store that would not leave typical users confused in any of the ways McCormack suggests.

I think “free app with a free in-app purchase to unlock a one-month demo period, which, when expired, will require a $20 in-app purchase” is fundamentally more confusing than “this app costs $20 but you can try it for free for the first month”. You just need good design to make that clear. The former is what we have now, the latter is what the indie community has been clamoring for ever since the App Store debuted. And don’t forget paid upgrades.

Seth Meyers Does His Best to Get ‘My Ass Is in the Jackpot’ Into the Vernacular ★

This whole bit hinges on last week’s video of a mic’d up umpire tossing Mets manager Terry Collins from a 2016 game against the Dodgers. Genius.

Monday, 18 June 2018

Federico Viticci on Shortcuts in iOS 12 ★

Federico Viticci:

While it’s still too early to comment on the long-term impact of Shortcuts, I can at least attempt to understand the potential of this new technology. In this article, I’ll try to explain the differences between Siri shortcuts and the Shortcuts app, as well as answering some common questions about how much Shortcuts borrows from the original Workflow app.

Apple has packed a lot of new features under that one word, shortcuts, in iOS 12.

South Korean Carrier to Sell ‘New’ iPhone 3GS Units ★

Gordon Gottsegen, reporting for CNet:

Even though the iPhone 3GS will be sold as “brand new,” don’t expect it to work the same as a recently released iPhone. The iPhone 3GS was discontinued back in 2012, and it only runs iOS 6. As a result, many apps (and even iMessages) won’t work on the phone.

The iPhone predates Lightning cables, too, so you’ll be stuck using an old-school 30-pin connector.

Still, SK Telink is selling the iPhone 3GS for only 44,000 won, which is equivalent to $40, £30 or AU$55. So this Apple blast-from-the-past could be yours for pretty cheap — if you’re in Korea.

On the one hand, the 3GS is crazily outdated. On the other hand: $40!

Google to Fix Precise Location Data Leak in Google Home, Chromecast ★

Brian Krebs:

Craig Young, a researcher with security firm Tripwire, said he discovered an authentication weakness that leaks incredibly accurate location information about users of both the smart speaker and home assistant Google Home, and Chromecast, a small electronic device that makes it simple to stream TV shows, movies and games to a digital television or monitor.

Young said the attack works by asking the Google device for a list of nearby wireless networks and then sending that list to Google’s geolocation lookup services.

“An attacker can be completely remote as long as they can get the victim to open a link while connected to the same Wi-Fi or wired network as a Google Chromecast or Home device,” Young told KrebsOnSecurity. “The only real limitation is that the link needs to remain open for about a minute before the attacker has a location. The attack content could be contained within malicious advertisements or even a tweet.”

Young is getting location data accurate to within 10 meters from his exploit. All you have to do to be exposed is open a web page and leave it open for a minute. This is the common sense fear of this whole Internet of Things movement: that these devices we’re putting on our networks aren’t secure, even the ones from big companies like Google.

(I would also argue that it’s wrong that JavaScript running on a web page is able to ping devices on your local network without any sort of prompt granting it such access.)

WhenWorks ★

New iOS app and web service that makes it easy for people to book appointments with you. From their blog announcement, on what makes WhenWorks unique:

There are many competitive services in this space. What they all have in common is that they are purely web-based solutions. What makes WhenWorks unique is that it is a mobile app that integrates directly with the Calendar app on your iOS device, is far easier to configure and use, more secure, and always with you when you need it.

WhenWorks supports all of the leading calendar services (iCloud, Google Calendar, Office 365 and Outlook.com) but is particularly well-suited for those who use iCloud, due to its deep integration with the built-in Calendar on iOS.

WhenWorks was founded by John Chaffee, of BusyMac and, back in the day, Now Up-to-Date fame, and he’s put together a really good team. The pricing is outstanding too: 14-day free trial, free-to-use for up to five appointments per month after that, and just $5/month for the pro account with no limits.

It’s a really great app, and setting it up couldn’t be easier. Worth checking it out just to examine the UI and on-boarding process, and if you’re the sort of person who has a busy calendar packed with appointments, you’re nuts if you don’t try it.

How Square Made Its Own iPad Replacement ★

Lauren Goode, writing for Wired:

If you know the company Square, it’s probably because you’ve paid in a store using a Square “stand”, a dock that supports a tablet, or you’ve swiped your card through Square Reader, a smartphone dongle that processes payments. These products have a soothing, decidedly Apple-y aesthetic, from the simple dongle to the all-white stand that typically houses an iPad. But since late last year, Square has been quietly selling its own custom-made tablet, the Square Register, a $999, Android-based system. And the company has taken an obsessive approach to designing the product.

There’s a local coffee house I like that recently installed these, and they’re pretty neat. The two-screen design makes sense for a two-person interaction. Also, Square’s Apple Pay support is top-notch — in my experience Square’s Apple Pay readers are more accurate and work faster than the dinguses from their competition.

Sunday, 17 June 2018

Skillshare ★

My thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring last week’s DF RSS feed. With over 4 million members and more than 20,000 classes, Skillshare is basically Netflix for online learning. Interested in web development or data science? How about UX design or SEO? Mobile photography, filmmaking, creative writing, even coffee brewing? Skillshare truly has it all.

Skillshare’s production values and content quality are so much better than what you typically see on the web. High quality is obviously their first priority. Here’s a personal recommendation: “Logo Design With Aaron Draplin”. Yeah, that Aaron Draplin — cofounder of Field Notes and designer/raconteur extraordinaire. He’s one of my favorite designers in the world, a generous teacher, and fantastically compelling on camera. Get the free demo and watch Draplin’s course. (Draplin has a bunch of great courses on Skillshare already.)

And for this week only, Skillshare is offering the first 1,000 Daring Fireball readers two free months of Skillshare Premium.

Friday, 15 June 2018

How Apple Can Fix 3D Touch ★

Eliz Kilic:

It’s been almost 4 years since its first introduction, yet people don’t know/use 3D Touch. Why would they? Even tech-savvy users don’t know which buttons offer 3D touch. Let alone regular users.

What would happen if we decide to make all links same color and style as the regular text? People would not know what to click on right? Why is 3D Touch be any different? We rely on our vision to decide actionability before anything else. If you can’t distinguish 3D Touchable buttons from those that are not, how are you supposed to know you can press on them?

Total agreement from me on this. It’s baffling that there’s no visual indication of what can be 3D touched.

The Talk Show: ‘AirPower, What’s That?’ ★

Serenity Caldwell returns to the show for a post-WWDC wrap-up discussion. Topics include iOS 12, Memoji, Siri Shortcuts, Screen Time, Apple Books, MacOS 10.14 Mojave, dark mode, UIKit apps on the Mac, and more.

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Oprah, Apple. Apple, Oprah. ★

Apple press release:

Apple today announced a unique, multi-year content partnership with Oprah Winfrey, the esteemed producer, actress, talk show host, philanthropist and CEO of OWN.

Together, Winfrey and Apple will create original programs that embrace her incomparable ability to connect with audiences around the world.

Winfrey’s projects will be released as part of a lineup of original content from Apple.

Yet another sign that Apple is dead serious about original content.

Thursday, 14 June 2018

On the Sad State of Macintosh Hardware ★

Quentin Carnicelli:

At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year. […]

Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. The much smaller Apple of the mid-2000s managed this with ease. Their current failure to keep the Mac lineup fresh, even as they approach a trillion dollar market cap, is both baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their livelihood.

Compare and contrast with the iPhone, which is updated not just annually, but predictably. Post-WWDC, I’ve had a few friends and readers ask whether they should just go ahead and buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro now — knowing they’re old, knowing the keyboards are of questionable reliability — or wait until fall. I have no idea if new MacBooks are coming in the fall though. It certainly seems like they should, but would you really be surprised if we don’t see new MacBooks (and iMacs) until 2019?

I’d really love to see Apple get Mac hardware on a roughly annual schedule, even if most years they’re just speed bumps, like they were a decade ago.

A Brief Moment of Honesty ★

Donald Trump, in Singapore, asked whether he believes Kim Jong-un will actually destroy a nuclear site and return American POW remains:

“Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, hey, I was wrong — I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

That’s the most honest thing he has said as president.

Not Only Is the Mac Mini Outdated, It’s No Longer Mini ★

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors back in March:

The Mac mini was last updated 1245 days ago, in October of 2014. (And that was a lackluster upgrade.) Taking a cue from my dreams about what a modern Mac mini might be like, I bought a tiny Intel NUC PC and installed macOS on it. My Mac mini was becoming unreliable and I was hoping to experiment with Intel’s hardware in advance of a real Mac mini being released.

This was intended to be a temporary experiment. And, in fact, I hope to replace the NUC with a real Mac mini just as soon as Apple finally releases that all-new Mac mini that’s hopefully percolating inside Cupertino. But in the meantime, I have been running macOS on non-Apple hardware, and it’s been an instructive experience.

Cheaper and faster, but a pain in the ass to keep updated software-wise. All of that is to be expected. But the striking thing to me is just how much smaller the Intel NUC is. It’s only a little bit bigger than an Apple TV. Calling the Mac Mini “mini” is absurd in 2018.

I wrote about this last September, when the Apple TV 4K came out:

Apple TV 4K is tiny compared to a Mac Mini, but judging by Geekbench scores (Mac Mini; iPad Pro, which uses the A10X in the Apple TV) it’s a slightly faster computer than even the maxed-out Mac Mini configuration. Apple TV 4K probably has better GPU performance too. In addition to all the performance problems stemming from the fact that the Mac Mini hasn’t been updated in three years, it’s also inarguable that it’s no longer even “mini”. You could arrange four Apple TV units in a 2 × 2 square and they’d take up the same volume as one Mac Mini.

Apple TV proves that Apple can make an amazing compact puck-sized computer. They just seem to have lost any interest in making one that runs MacOS.

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Audio of Mets Pitcher Noah Syndergaard and Manager Terry Collins Getting Ejected From a Game Last Year ★

I don’t know why this is only going viral now, because it’s a game from last year, but this is amazingly entertaining. The backstory: in the 2015 playoffs, Dodgers second baseman Chase Utley slid hard into second base and Mets second baseman Ruben Tejada wound up with a broken leg. It was an ugly but legal play and it resulted in MLB changing the rules on how you could slide into bases. This is the first game the Mets played against the Dodgers last year, and pitcher Noah Syndergaard — one of the hardest throwers in the history of baseball — threw a pitch at Utley.

The umps ejected Syndergaard and manager Terry Collins from the game. Umpire crew chief Tom Hallion was wearing a mic. The audio is fantastically compelling and profane. If MLB mic’d every ejection their TV ratings would soar. I’d pay double to MLB for my annual At Bat subscription if I could listen to the audio of ejections.

Update: I keep changing the URL to one that still works, because MLB’s copyright lawyers are trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube with takedown demands.

What’s the Deal With AirPower? ★

9to5Mac, back in February:

According to a new report from Macotakara, Apple is on schedule to begin selling AirPower sometime in March through its own retail stores, as well as resellers such as Best Buy.

The report doesn’t offer a specific release date, with the blog’s source only saying that the release will occur sometime next month.

At this point Apple is under three months away from the one-year anniversary of AirPower’s announcement. To be clear, Apple said all along it wouldn’t be shipping until “2018”, but it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that something has gone seriously wrong with this product.

‘Do You Know What Fernet Is? It’s a Terrible Thing.’ ★

I laughed my way through this interview with my friend Lê, owner of Hop Sing Laundromat, by Philly Mag’s Victor Fiorillo:

One spirit I cannot stand… is — wait a minute. You’re trying to get me in fucking trouble. I already get enough hate mail. [Another off-the-record-conversation]. OK. OK. One spirit I cannot stand is any stupid thing that is praised by a quote-unquote mixologist. Make sure you put the quote-unquote around that word. They are fucking idiots. Anybody who calls themselves a mixologist is a fucking idiot. And any spirit that a “mixologist” likes to use fucking sucks. Fernet. Fernet. Do you know what Fernet is? It’s a terrible thing. Fuck that shit. These “mixologists” don’t even know what it is. They drink it because it’s cool. Anything that makes people look cool — or that they think makes them look cool — I fucking hate that shit.

Don’t get him started on the Rocky statue, either. I say we all go into Hop Sing for the next few weeks and ask Lê if he has anything with Fernet on the menu.

From the DF Archive: ‘What if the iPad Smart Keyboard Had a Trackpad?’ ★

Yours truly, a year ago, making the case for trackpad support on iPad keyboards:

In short, when you’re using the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, you have a crummy (or at the very least sub-par) keyboard for typing but a nice interface for moving the insertion point around. When you’re using the Smart Keyboard (or any other hardware keyboard) you have a decent keyboard for typing but no good way to move the insertion point or select text. Using your finger to touch the screen is imprecise, and, when an iPad is propped up laptop-style, ergonomically undesirable.

Whenever Apple executives are asked about the notion of touchscreen Macs, they argue, correctly in my opinion, that it’s a bad idea because the ergonomics are bad. It just isn’t comfortable (or precise) to reach out with your arm. There are several other good arguments against adding touchscreen support to Macs, but ergonomics are a good one to place at the top of the list.

The thing is, every ergonomic argument against touchscreen MacBooks applies exactly to using an iPad in “laptop mode” with a hardware keyboard. When using a hardware keyboard, it makes sense to keep your hands flat on the desk/table. If Apple thinks iPads are useful with hardware keyboards — and I think they could be — they need to add trackpad support of some kind.

I was in a busy coffee shop yesterday and looked around. At least 20 patrons were using notebook computers, most of them MacBooks of some sort. Old MacBook Airs (or maybe new MacBook Airs — how can you tell?), MacBook Pros, just-plain MacBooks. Some PC notebooks as well, of course. I didn’t see one person using an iPad — despite the fact that iPads outsell all Macs combined by more than 2-to-1 every single quarter. Would trackpad support alone change that? I don’t know. But it would certainly help, and it’d move us one step closer to an iOS notebook.

Apple Tries to Stop Developers From Sharing Data on Users’ Friends ★

Sarah Frier and Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

As Apple’s annual developer conference got underway on June 4, the Cupertino, California-based company made many new pronouncements on stage, including new controls that limit tracking of web browsing. But the phone maker didn’t publicly mention updated App Store Review Guidelines that now bar developers from making databases of address book information they gather from iPhone users. Sharing and selling that database with third parties is also now forbidden. And an app can’t get a user’s contact list, say it’s being used for one thing, and then use it for something else — unless the developer gets consent again. Anyone caught breaking the rules may be banned.

Hard to disagree with this policy change, but I’m not sure how Apple can police it. Boobytrap accounts?

Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Fortnite Is Now Available on the Nintendo Switch ★

Andrew Webster, reporting for The Verge:

The biggest game in the world is coming to the hottest gaming platform. After a few leaks and rumors, today Epic Games officially announced that Fortnite is coming the Nintendo Switch. And it’s coming very soon: it’s available as a free download today. Unlike other online games such as Rocket League that have been ported to the platform, it doesn’t appear that Fortnite on the Switch will include any Nintendo-specific content, so you can keep dreaming about a Metroid skin or Wario emote. There is also no cross-play with Fortnite players on the PS4.

I’ll probably get my ass kicked trying, but Fortnite is the first serious game in years that I’ve been interested in playing. And there’s no risk, because it’s free to play — which is a big part of what I find fascinating about it.

Sony disallowing cross-platform play kind of sucks — you can cross-play between Xbox, PC (including Mac), and iOS. It just goes to show the power of being the leading platform. Nintendo is just as lock-in/control-freak minded as Sony, but only Sony is in a position to demand something like this from Epic.

The news comes not long after Epic announced that the game would be coming to Android this summer; it’s currently available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and iOS.

If they’ve already ported Fortnite to iOS, why haven’t they ported it to Apple TV? That should be easy. The obvious answer: Apple TV is such a non-entity for gaming that Epic doesn’t even consider a relatively easy port to be worth their time.

Update: A few readers have pointed out that the big reason Epic probably doesn’t think bringing Fortnite to Apple TV would be worth their time is that it would require a gaming controller, and most Apple TV owners don’t have one. Having played on the Switch for a bit tonight (I once finished 13th out of 100 — albeit with couch-side coaching from my son, who guided me to a house with a hidden Lost-esque bunker under the basement) there’s just no way this game could possibly be played using an Apple TV remote. It needs a lot of buttons. Apple’s blind spot for gaming on Apple TV is just baffling to me, especially given the prowess of their chip team. They’ve got the hard part down — CPU/GPU performance and developer support for iOS — but are completely missing out because they don’t ship a version of the hardware with a gaming controller.

Monday, 11 June 2018

Inside the Growing Flat Earth Movement ★

Alan Burdick, writing for The New Yorker:

The unsettling thing about spending two days at a convention of people who believe that Earth is flat isn’t the possibility that you, too, might come to accept their world view, although I did worry a little about that. Rather, it’s the very real likelihood that, after sitting through hours of presentations on “scientism,” lightning angels, and nasa’s many conspiracies — the moon-landing hoax, the International Fake Station, so-called satellites — and in chatting with I.T. specialists, cops, college students, and fashionably dressed families with young children, all of them unfailingly earnest and lovely, you will come to actually understand why a growing number of people are dead certain that Earth is flat. Because that truth is unnerving.

In recent years I’ve begun to feel conflicted about the internet. On the one hand, it’s been wonderful in so many ways. I’ve personally built my entire career on the fact that the internet enables me to publish as a one-person operation. But on the other hand, before the internet, kooks were forced to exist on the fringe. There’ve always been flat-earther-types denying science and John Birch Society political fringers, but they had no means to amplify their message or bond into large movements.

Dominik Wagner: ‘On My Misalignment With Apple’s Love Affair With Swift’ ★

Dominik Wagner:

It seems to have been driven by the needs of the compiler and the gaps that needed to be filled for the static analyzer. Those seem to have been super-charged instead of catering to app developer’s actual needs: efficient, hassle free, productive (iOS) App development.

It is meant to offer progressive disclosure and be simple, to be used in playgrounds and learning. At the same time learning and reading through the Swift book and standard library is more akin to mastering C++. It is quite unforgiving, harsh, and complex.

This is a really thoughtful, measured take against Swift. I know a lot of developers love Swift, but I also know many who share similar misgivings about it, primarily that it isn’t optimized specifically for writing great apps.

Five iOS 12 Features Apple Didn’t Announce On-Stage Last Week ★

Good rundown of some under-the-radar features from Rene Ritchie.

Sunday, 10 June 2018

The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2018 ★

Recorded in front of a live audience at The California Theatre in San Jose, John Gruber is joined by Greg Joswiak and Mike Rockwell to discuss the news from WWDC: ARKit 2, the new USDZ file format, iOS 12, MacOS 10.14 “Mojave”, UIKit apps on MacOS, and more.

Saturday, 9 June 2018

Instabug ★

My thanks to Instabug for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed (as well as The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2018). Tens of thousands of companies like Lyft, eBay, and T-Mobile rely on Instabug to iterate faster and enhance their app quality.

With just one line of code, your beta testers and users can now report bugs and submit detailed feedback by just shaking their phones. Instabug automatically captures a screenshot, screen recordings, all device details and repro-steps with each bug report to be displayed in one organized dashboard, so you and your team can track all bugs, feedback and crashes in one place.

They have a cool sample app in the App Store that you can try for free, to experience their reporting interface first hand. Then, you can log into their demo dashboard and see what the reports look like from the developers’ end. I tried it out and it looks and works great, on both sides.

Try Instabug now for free. Even better, they’re offering special $150 “Instabug Credits” for DF readers. Enter promo code “DF18” to claim your credits.

Friday, 8 June 2018

Facebook Bug Set 14 Million Users’ Sharing Settings to Public ★

Heather Kelly, reporting for CNN:

For a period of four days in May, about 14 million Facebook users around the world had their default sharing setting for all new posts set to public, the company revealed Thursday.

The bug, which affected those users from May 18 to May 22, occurred while Facebook was testing a new feature.

David Frum:

It’s so weird that this never happens the other way around, settings accidentally changed so that Facebook users inadvertently get more privacy than they signed up for.

Yeah, so weird. What are the odds?

How the Washington Capitals Partied in Las Vegas With the Stanley Cup ★

Adam Kilgore, writing for The Washington Post:

First, the Washington Capitals won the National Hockey League championship Thursday night. And then, as their red-rocking fans were passing out in a fit of euphoria back East, they took full advantage of the location in which they claimed the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. They hit the club, prize in hand, and they partied.

Some say the sun doesn’t rise in Vegas. The Caps, led by their captain, were up to the challenge of finding out.

The whole story is great, but I love this bit so much:

The threshold for who could venture on stage started to lower. Disbelief had yet to dissipate. “How amazing is it you can walk into a bar and the Stanley Cup is there, 10 yards away?” one Capitals employee asked, standing by the bar. He then escorted onto the stage a longtime Caps season-ticket holder who had gained entry, in part, by buying acceptable clothing off the back of a man on the street for 20 bucks. (He had previously been denied on the grounds of wearing sandals and shorts.)

Thursday, 7 June 2018

Ersatz Free Trials ★: Daniel Jalkut:

I think it’s particularly important, in the face of all the celebration this week about Apple’s perceived changes to the App Store, to appreciate all the many ways in which this solution falls short of what many developers still hope for: bona fide support for real free trials in the App Store.

In summary: none of the mechanics of supporting ersatz free trials are substantially supported by the App Store. Every aspect of the solution is bolted on to a system which was not designed for, yet is somewhat admirably being used to simulate real support for free trials. Let me elaborate by listing several shortcomings and how they affect users, and developers, in significant ways.

Wednesday, 6 June 2018

Kevin Roose: ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Electric Scooters’ ★

Kevin Roose, writing for The New York Times:

Tech hubris on wheels — what’s not to loathe?

But I wanted to experience the scooter craze for myself. So for a week, I used shared e-scooters as my primary mode of transportation. I rode them to meetings, ran errands across town and went for long joy rides on the Venice Beach boardwalk. In all, I took more than a dozen scooter rides, from just a few blocks to several miles.

And here’s my verdict: E-scooters might look and feel kind of dorky, but they aren’t an urban menace or a harbinger of the apocalypse. In fact — sigh — they’re pretty great.

That’s pretty much the consensus here in San Jose from fellow WWDC attendees. We didn’t want to like these scooters but we do. The big problem is parking them — it’s just wrong that people abandon them anywhere and everywhere. The other problem is people who ride them on sidewalks rather than in the street where they belong.

Safari Technology Preview 58 Includes Support for Favicons in Tabs ★

Ricky Mondello:

This release covers the same revisions of WebKit from Safari Technology Preview 57, but includes new Safari and WebKit features that will be present in Safari 12. The following Safari 12 features are new to Safari Technology Preview 58:

Icons in Tabs. You can enable showing website icons in tabs in Safari’s Tabs preferences.

This is great. I don’t want to run Mojave betas, but I’ll gladly use Safari Technology Preview builds.

Tuesday, 5 June 2018

The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2018 ★

Live streaming video (and audio) starting in about 20 minutes.

WWDC 2018: Apple’s Software Chief Details How iOS Apps Will Run on Macs | WIRED ★

Lauren Goode, writing for Wired:

In an exclusive interview with Wired, Federighi said the frameworks for porting iPhone and iPad apps to the Mac have been in development for two years. He revealed some of the technical details around how this will work, and shared some of the types of iOS apps he believes make sense on the Mac. Federighi was also dismissive of touchscreen laptops — a product category that would seem like a natural addition to Apple’s line once laptops begin running touch-first mobile apps.

Still very light on technical details. I get why they announced this a year early — because they wanted to start shipping their own apps built on this — but it’s so unusual for Apple.

Monday, 4 June 2018

Apple Is Testing a Feature That Could Kill Police iPhone Unlockers ★

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, reporting for Motherboard:

But iOS 12’s killer feature might be something that’s been rumored for a while and wasn’t discussed at Apple’s event. It’s called USB Restricted Mode, and Apple has been including it in some of the iOS beta releases since iOS 11.3.

The feature essentially forces users to unlock the iPhone with the passcode when connecting it to a USB accessory everytime the phone has not been unlocked for one hour. That includes the iPhone unlocking devices that companies such as Cellebrite or GrayShift make, which police departments all over the world use to hack into seized iPhones.

I love this feature. So clever.

iOS 12 Brings iPhone X Gestures to iPad, Swipe From Top-Right to Open Control Center ★

I’m not convinced this means the iPad Pro is getting a notch, but either way, I think it’s a good idea for these gestures to match.

Saturday, 2 June 2018

Jamf Now ★

My thanks to Jamf for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Get real-time inventory, configure Wi-Fi and email settings, deploy applications, protect company data, and even lock or wipe a device from anywhere with Jamf Now.

Jamf Now secures your devices so you can focus on your business. No IT experience needed.

Daring Fireball readers can create an account and manage three devices for free. Forever. After that, each additional device is just $2 per month. Create your free account today.

Android Developers Blog: Insider Attack Resistance ★

Shawn Willden, software engineer at Google:

In the past, device makers have focused on safeguarding these keys by storing the keys in secure locations and severely restricting the number of people who have access to them. That’s good, but it leaves those people open to attack by coercion or social engineering. That’s risky for the employees personally, and we believe it creates too much risk for user data.

To mitigate these risks, Google Pixel 2 devices implement insider attack resistance in the tamper-resistant hardware security module that guards the encryption keys for user data. This helps prevent an attacker who manages to produce properly signed malicious firmware from installing it on the security module in a lost or stolen device without the user’s cooperation. Specifically, it is not possible to upgrade the firmware that checks the user’s password unless you present the correct user password. There is a way to “force” an upgrade, for example when a returned device is refurbished for resale, but forcing it wipes the secrets used to decrypt the user’s data, effectively destroying it.

This seems like a good idea, and I think the iPhone has been doing this for years. But I’d love to see someone do a rundown of the low-level security across all popular Android phones.

Friday, 1 June 2018

Robinson Meyer: ‘Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic’ ★: Robinson Meyer, writing for The Atlantic:

When this latest army invaded my village, it seemed no different than the rest. I had heard rumor of it for weeks, had feared and resented it, had assured friends that its occupation would end as soon as all its predecessors. But when its foot soldiers finally arrived, I was shocked to find myself charmed. Now, I cannot imagine life without them.

I speak, of course, of the electric scooters.
Teetrilogy4 ★: Some new Solo-inspired designs, printed and shipped by Brian Jaramillo, my decade-long partner for DF t-shirts. Great shirts, fun designs, and you get a nice discount if you order three or more.