Linked List: October 23, 2023

Monday, 23 October 2023

My thanks to Kolide for sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. In the few short months since ChatGPT debuted, hundreds of AI-powered tools have come on the market. But while AI-based tools have genuinely helpful applications, they also pose profound security risks. Unfortunately, most companies still haven’t come up with policies to manage those risks. In the absence of clear guidance around responsible AI use, employees are blithely handing over sensitive data to untrustworthy tools.

AI-based browser extensions offer the clearest illustration of this phenomenon. The Chrome store is chock-a-block with extensions that (claim to) harness ChatGPT to do all manner of tasks: drafting emails, designing graphics, transcribing meetings, and writing code. But these tools are prone to at least three types of risk: malware, data governance, and prompt injection attacks.

Kolide is taking a two-part approach to governing AI use: allowing you to draft AI policies as a team, and using Kolide to block malicious tools. Visit Kolide’s website to learn more about how Kolide enforces device compliance for companies with Okta.

Apple Rumor Pundit Thunderdome ★

Joe Rossignol, writing for MacRumors on Friday:

Apple is unlikely to release any new Macs or iPads for the remainder of 2023, according to a series of predictions shared in recent weeks by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Last month, Kuo said Apple was unlikely to release any new MacBooks with the M3 chip this year. All existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are equipped with M2 series chips, so any new models would presumably be equipped with M3 chips, which effectively means that Kuo does not expect any new MacBooks at all for the rest of 2023.

Earlier this week, Kuo added that the 24-inch iMac would be updated next in 2024, ruling out an update to the all-in-one desktop computer this year. All other desktop Macs, including the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro, were already updated in 2023 and are highly unlikely to be updated again until 2024 or later.

But then here’s Hartley Charlton on the latest from Mark Gurman:

Apple is planning a Mac-focused product launch, likely including the announcement of a refreshed 24-inch iMac, for the end of this month, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports.

In the latest edition of his “Power On” newsletter, Gurman said that Apple is “planning a Mac-centered product launch around the end of this month” that could see the the release of a refreshed 24-inch iMac model, which is long overdue a hardware update. The current model launched in April 2021 and it is the only current-generation Mac left with the M1 chip. Gurman has repeatedly said that Apple’s next iMac will skip the M2 and feature the M3 chip instead, but he declined to mention which chip the new machine will feature in this newsletter.

Gurman noted that Apple retail stores are now in short supply of the iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, and many configurations now will not arrive until mid-November, in what he believes is “a clear sign that something is about to happen” regarding these three machines.

Claim chowder tastes great with a side of popcorn.

YouTube Music Is Now Available Natively on HomePods ★

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

YouTube Music is now available directly on Apple’s HomePod and HomePod mini, thanks to new Siri integration support in the YouTube Music app. The change means subscribers to the streaming service can now choose to use voice commands to start YouTube Music on a HomePod, without having to append “on YouTube Music” to every request.

Here’s Apple’s support document for using Siri to play music on HomePods, which includes the (pretty simple) directions for setting a default music service.

There’s a big — and to me, a little weird — difference between music services and streaming video services. Every streaming video service is available on almost every device capable of playing video. Whatever box or built-in “smart TV” software you’re using in your living room, it almost certainly has access to every major streaming video service. When Apple TV+ launched in 2019, Apple already supported Samsung TVs, and pre-announced versions for Fire TV, LG, Roku, Sony, and Vizio.

But with these smart audio devices, it’s been more drip-by-drip. It seems clear that each of the major smart audio device makers — Apple with HomePod, Amazon with Echo devices, and Google with their Nests — originally conceived of them as being companion products for the respective company’s own music service, not open platforms. You can see how they’d think that way: most people subscribe to multiple streaming video services, because each service has its own original shows and movies. But with music, most people subscribe to just one service, because each service pretty much has all popular music.

But in the long run it’s better for everyone to do what’s best for users, and clearly that means giving users a choice of which music service they want to use, no matter which hardware system they’ve bought. Compete on quality and price, not lock-in.