Linked List: July 29, 2026

Wednesday, 29 July 2026

Apple Says iOS 27 ‘Restricted Mode’ Isn’t for Users Who Miss Payments in New Apple Upgrade Program 

Last week 9to5Mac reported on code in the latest iOS 27 developer beta seemingly meant to restrict leased devices after the user had missed one or more payments. When engaged, Restricted Mode limits the device to the following apps:

  • Accessibility Reader
  • App Store
  • Health
  • Magnifier
  • Phone
  • Clock
  • Settings
  • Wallet
  • Passwords

And some limited access to apps like Messages or health-related apps that might have critical messages.

Many people reasonably speculated that this feature was related to Apple Upgrade, Apple’s new device leasing partnership with Klarna, which Mark Gurman spoiled a few weeks ago. But an Apple spokesman confirmed to Emma Roth at The Verge today that “There will be no restricted mode and/or there will be no limitations put on device functionality due to missed payments or default with the Apple Upgrade program.”

Writing again today, here’s 9to5Mac’s Marcus Mendes:

Apple, however, did not tell The Verge what Restricted Mode is intended for. One possibility is that it was developed for financing programs offered by carriers, retailers, or other partners outside Apple Upgrade, potentially including markets where device restrictions are already used to enforce installment agreements.

In India, lenders have worked in the past with smartphone manufacturers to remotely block financed devices after borrowers missed payments. As The Economic Times reported last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) told non-bank lenders to stop the practice in late 2024, amid concerns about lenders sharing customers’ default information with device manufacturers.

The regulator may now permit a more limited version of the practice. As Reuters reported in May, the RBI proposed allowing lenders to restrict certain functions on financed phones once a loan is at least 90 days overdue, provided the borrower agreed to the measure in the contract and received advance notice.

Apple Upgrade – New Program With Klarna for Leasing iPhones, Macs, iPads, and More for Near-Zero Interest 

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced Apple Upgrade, a new product leasing program provided by Klarna for iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad available on the Apple Store online, in the Apple Store app, and at Apple Store locations in the United States. Apple Upgrade makes it even easier for customers to get the Apple products they love with a leasing plan that is right for them. [...]

Apple Upgrade offers 12- and 24-month leasing options for iPhone and Apple Watch, and 24- and 36-month leasing options for Mac and iPad. Leasing prices start as low as $17.99 per month for iPhone, $11.99 for Apple Watch, $24.99 for Mac, and $11.99 for iPad. When customers first enroll in Apple Upgrade, they can further lower their monthly lease payments by trading in their currently owned device through Apple Trade In. Customers can also earn 3 percent Daily Cash back when making their lease payments with Apple Card.

Michael Tsai, quoting Juli Clover at MacRumors:

Juli Clover:

The payoff amount is the difference between what was paid during the leasing period and the retail price of the device, minus any remaining trade-in credits. Klarna is not charging a fee for the leasing program, so an iPhone that’s $1,099 can be leased and then purchased for $1,099 with no extra cost beyond taxes.

I guess this means that, for a bit of hassle, you can essentially buy the device for the list price at 0% interest.

If you’d rather lease or buy over time, this seems like as good a deal as you could hope for, without any catches.

Pastebot 3 

New from Tapbots: version 3 of their excellent clipboard manager for Mac. There are so many clipboard managers for the Mac. I run two other apps — Keyboard Maestro and LaunchBar — that offer good clipboard managers as ancillary features. But for years now I’ve chosen to use Pastebot. Chief among my favorite features:

  • Remembers up to 1,500 clippings (up from a mere 1,000 in v2).
  • Syncs via iCloud. If I copy something on one Mac, it’s in my Pastebot history on my others Macs.
  • That sweet Tapbots UI.

Pastebot 3 requires MacOS 26 Tahoe or later. That means I’m only using it on secondary Macs for now — my primary workstation will continue running MacOS 15 Sequoia until I upgrade directly to 27 Golden Gate later this year. But iCloud sync continues to work between Pastebot 2 and 3.

New features include more powerful filters (e.g. you can use a filter to copy a URL and then paste that URL in Markdown’s link syntax), a CLI tool (as yet undocumented), and Shortcuts support.

$39 for a license via direct purchase, with a $13 discount for users of previous versions. It’s still pending approval in the Mac App Store, where it will cost $25/year or $3/month.

Count Those Underscores 

Nate Anderson , reporting for Ars Technica under the headline “A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man to Prison for 18 Months”:

Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. [...]

Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term.

Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme’s conviction, writing: “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.”

Via Paul Kafasis, who asks:

While I understand how the mistake led to this poor guy becoming a suspect, I really can’t fathom how he was convicted. What the hell happened during that trial?

Contra Ars’s headline, it wasn’t the missing underscore that sent Klayme to prison for 18 months.

‘eBay’s Bizarre Cyberstalking Saga Ends With a $56 Million Settlement’ 

Emma Roth, The Verge:

eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy legal saga that revealed how eBay’s former executives sent live insects, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and other strange items to David and Ina Steiner over their newsletter’s coverage of eBay.

The Steiners, who operate the EcommerceBytes newsletter, sued eBay and its former executives — including ex-CEO Devin Wenig — in 2021. The lawsuit accused the company and its executives of launching a coordinated effort to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence” the Steiners in an attempt to “stifle” their eBay-related reporting.

I don’t think I’ve ever linked to this saga before, but I’m not sure why. One of those stories that slipped through cracks. It’s an astonishing tale. Could be the basis for Coen brothers movie.

From David Streitfeld’s 2020 overview of the saga for The New York Times (gift link):

Prosecutors say that on Aug. 7, Ms. Popp — the “Mom” to Mr. Baugh’s “Dad” — began sending Twitter messages to Ms. Steiner via a fake account, @Tui_Elei. The profile picture was a skull, and he seemed to be an eBay user from Samoa who believed that EcommerceBytes had harmed his sales. Ms. Steiner ignored the messages, even as the tone got angrier and more abusive. @Tui_Elei wrote: “I guess im goin to have to get ur attention another way bitch…”

A parade of disturbing deliveries began at 4 p.m. on Aug. 10, when a package containing a bloody pig mask arrived at the Steiners’ home. Fourteen minutes later, @Tui_Elei wrote: “DO I HAVE UR ATTENTION NOW????”

The Steiners received a book titled “Grief Diaries: Surviving the Loss of a Spouse” and a funeral wreath. They got fly larvae and live spiders and a box of cockroaches. Copies of the September issue of “Hustler: Barely Legal” touting “eye-popping 18-year-olds” arrived at the homes of neighbors with David Steiner’s name on them. The Twitter bombardment continued, as @Tui_Elei began to hint at violence: “wen u hurt our bizness u hurt our familys… Ppl will do ANYTHING 2 protect family!!!!”

It’s certainly not how anyone would plan a business strategy, but this settlement seemingly makes the Steiners some of the most successful independent writers in history. Here’s Ina Steiner’s piece on the settlement at eCommerceBytes.