Linked List: January 30, 2019

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Apple in 2018: The Six Colors Report Card ★

Jason Snell:

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple.

This is the fourth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote. I received 55 replies, with the average results as shown below.

It’s a mountain of work to compile this, but I’m so glad Snell does it. I think the consensus grades here give a very accurate assessment of Apple’s 2018.

Apple Revoked Facebook’s Enterprise Developer Certificates ★

Kurt Wagner, reporting for Recode:

Apple’s response, via a PR rep this morning: “We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”

Translation: Apple won’t let Facebook distribute the app anymore — a fact that Apple likely communicated to Facebook on Tuesday evening. Apple’s statement also mentions that Facebook’s “certificates” — plural — have been revoked. That implies Facebook cannot distribute other apps to employees through this developer program right now, not just the research app.

Alex Heath:

This is incredible: None of Facebook’s internal iOS apps/betas (used by thousands of employees) are working right now because Apple just revoked the company’s certificate. They won’t open.

For employees to use Facebook products on iOS they have to go download from the App Store.

Someone is (rightly) pissed.

For Second Time in Six Months, FBI Accuses a Chinese National Apple Engineer of Stealing Autonomous Vehicle Trade Secrets ★

NBC Bay Area:

For the second time in six months, the FBI is accusing a Chinese national working for Apple of attempting to steal trade secrets related to the company’s secret autonomous vehicle program, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit learned Tuesday. […]

Chen, according to the complaint, allowed Apple Global Security employees to search his personal computer, where they found thousands of files containing Apple’s intellectual property, including manuals, schematics, and diagrams. Security personnel also found on the computer about a hundred photographs taken inside an Apple building.

Apple learned Chen recently applied for a job at a China-based autonomous vehicle company that is a direct competitor of Apple’s project, according to the complaint. A photo found on Chen’s computer, which Apple provided to the FBI, showed an assembly drawing of an Apple-designed wiring harness for an autonomous vehicle.

Chen was arrested just one day before he was scheduled to fly to China, according to the complaint.

Starting to look like a trend.

Facebook Blocks Ad Transparency Tools ★

ProPublica:

A number of organizations, including ProPublica, have developed tools to let the public see exactly how Facebook users are being targeted by advertisers.

Now, Facebook has quietly made changes to its site that stop those efforts.

ProPublica, Mozilla and Who Targets Me have all noticed their tools stopped working this month after Facebook inserted code in its website that blocks them.

“This is very concerning,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who has co-sponsored the Honest Ads Act, which would require transparency on Facebook ads. “Investigative groups like ProPublica need access to this information in order to track and report on the opaque and frequently deceptive world of online advertising.”

Shocker.

Cold Weather and Global Warming ★

Kottke:

In what is now an annual tradition, when the temperatures in some part of the US plunge below zero degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, some nitwit Republican climate change-denier live-tweets from the back pocket of industry something like “It’s so cold out where’s the global warming when we need it???? #OwnTheLibs”. This time around, it was our very own Shitwhistle-in-Chief who tweeted merrily about the current polar vortex bearing down on the Midwest.

Holding up cold weather as proof that global warming isn’t happening is like hitting a winning streak at the blackjack table and declaring “Who says the casino has an advantage?”