Month: September 2016

iOS 10 Improves Targeting Restrictions ⇥ murphyapps.co

Dean Murphy:

In iOS 10, when you enable “Limit Ad Tracking”, [the Identifier for Advertisers] now returns a string of zeroes. So for the estimated 15-20% of people who enable this feature, they will all have the same IDFA instead of unique ones. This makes the IDFA pretty much useless when “Limit Ad Tracking” is on, which is a bonus, as this is what users will expect when they enable the feature. These users will still be served ads, but its more likely they will not be targeted to them based on their behaviour.

Of course, there are lots of other ways nefarious ad tech companies can try to build tracking profiles, from device profiling to requiring a user account. This is a step in the right direction, though.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Recall Is a Nightmare So Far ⇥ gizmodo.com

Christina Warren, Gizmodo:

A week after Samsung’s “voluntary” recall of the Galaxy Note 7, customers have yet to be clearly told when and how they’ll be able to replace their devices — devices that could set cars, hotel rooms, or garages on fire — with new, working models. Samsung last week said customers would be able to exchange their phones for a refund or a new device but customers don’t have a clear idea on who to contact or when replacement devices might be available. Samsung USA has not replied to a request for comment from Gizmodo.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) has now officially weighed in, urging all Galaxy Note 7 owners to power down their devices and not use them. CSPC says it is working with Samsung to announce a formal recall soon, which would result in clearer guidelines for consumers.

This is not only frustrating for consumers who are informed and trying to get a replacement, but properly dangerous for those who haven’t heard about this problem. Samsung was very quick to respond to early reports, but instead of immediately initiating a recall through CSPC, they’ve let this issue escalate.

I’m having a hard time writing about this without comparing it to the flurry of press coverage about “Antennagate”, followed by Apple’s quick response. That would be in bad taste.

Facebook’s Trending Topics Algorithm Is a ‘Truther’ ⇥ washingtonpost.com

Abby Ohlheiser, Washington Post:

Facebook users looking for more context on why the Sept. 11 terrorist attack anniversary was trending on the platform on Friday were, for a time, directed to a tabloid article claiming that “experts” had footage that “proves bombs were planted in Twin Towers.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to think that canning most or all of the Trending Topics editors wasn’t Facebook’s best decision, especially when it starts giving nut jobs one of the world’s largest megaphones.

Facebook Censored One of the Most Well-Known Photos of War ⇥ aftenposten.no

Aftenposten editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen, in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg:

A few weeks ago the Norwegian author Tom Egeland posted an entry on Facebook about, and including, seven photographs that changed the history of warfare. You in turn removed the picture of a naked Kim Phuc, fleeing from the napalm bombs – one of the world’s most famous war photographs.

Tom then rendered Kim Phuc’s criticism against Facebook for banning her picture. Facebook reacted by excluding Tom and prevented him from posting a new entry.

Listen, Mark, this is serious. First you create rules that don’t distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgement. Finally you even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision – and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism.

Peter Kafka of Recode:

As of yesterday, Facebook was insisting that this was a feature, not a bug, telling reporters that “it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others” — even when that Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph is one of the best-known images in the world.

That’s a load of horse shit. Any human being with half a brain cell can tell the difference between child porn and a photograph of war, just like anyone can tell the difference between child porn and a parent posting a photo of their kid in a bath. There is no overlap. For Facebook to state otherwise is infuriating.

Facebook has now said that they’re going to allow people to share this photo, and they’re working on reinstating any posts that were removed. However, they haven’t committed to a change of policy so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

Apple Won’t Publicize First-Weekend iPhone Sales ⇥ theglobeandmail.com

Julia Love, Reuters:

The company decided to stop the practice because the number of phones sold during the period has become more a reflection of Apple’s supply than demand, a company spokeswoman said, when asked whether Apple will be releasing the figure.

“As we have expanded our distribution through carriers and resellers to hundreds of thousands of locations around the world, we are now at a point where we know before taking the first customer pre-order that we will sell out of iPhone 7,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “These initial sales will be governed by supply, not demand, and we have decided that it is no longer a representative metric for our investors and customers.”

I bet initial supply of the iPhone 7 will be really restricted this year. If you want one on launch day, you’d better be staying up late tonight.

Galaxy Note 7 Gets FAA Warning ⇥ apnews.com

There may be some lingering issues to resolve with the removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone, but at least it isn’t catching on fire. The Associated Press:

U.S. aviation safety officials took the extraordinary step late Thursday of warning airline passengers not to turn on or charge a new-model Samsung smartphone during flights following numerous reports of the devices catching fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration also warned passengers not to put the Galaxy Note 7 phones in their checked bags, citing “recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung” about the devices. It is extremely unusual for the FAA to warn passengers about a specific product.

And then there’s this report from Chris Welch of the Verge:

Shortly after returning from a Labor Day yard sale on Monday in St. Petersburg, Florida, a man looked out the window to see his family’s Jeep Grand Cherokee in flames. Nathan Dornacher would later say that he’d left his four-day-old Galaxy Note 7 charging in the vehicle’s center console moments before the fire began.

[…]

In a separate incident, a man says he believes the Note 7 is to blame for a garage fire that resulted in his house being condemned. Wesley Hartzog of Horry County, South Carolina left his Samsung phablet plugged into a wall outlet where fire investigators believe the Sunday blaze began.

While Samsung is requesting the return of the Galaxy Note 7, they haven’t yet issued an official recall. That means that customers aren’t necessarily being notified, and that’s a big problem for a phone that’s literally too hot to handle.

Thoughts on Today’s Apple Event

Apple Watch: Series 2

From the outset, Apple has positioned the Watch as a multifaceted product — complex, but not complicated. At the Watch’s introduction, Tim Cook used the rule of threes to define its purpose: a health and fitness device, a timepiece, and a means of facilitating communication.

One of the byproducts of this is a device that helps out with a bunch of tasks, but is nearly impossible to explain or demo. Any time anyone asked me for a demo of its features, I meekly fumbled with a few things that I think are cool — raise to wake, Activity, and so on — but it has never been as easy to demonstrate in a pinch as, say, an iPhone or an iPad.

After the “Spring Forward” event held last, well, spring, I found the Apple Watch interesting, but not necessarily compelling in the way it was presented:

And that brings me to the big unanswered question of today: what problems, specifically, does the Watch solve? Apple has traditionally introduced products to the market that addressed specific shortcomings in existing product categories. They have refined and defined markets time and time again. The iPod solved the question of what CDs to bring with you for your Discman, and the iPhone defined the future of the phone in myriad ways, creating the perfect convergence device. They created the perfect travelling or kick-back-on-the-couch companion with the iPad.

But the Watch doesn’t have an easy story like these. There are a bunch of ways Apple suggests you use it: you can now have your calendar chime on your Mac, your iPhone, your iPad, and your Watch at approximately the same time; you can track your workouts; you can use miniaturized versions of your iPhone apps on it; you can pay for stuff with it; and you can communicate with other Apple Watch wearers in subtle ways.

While I felt Apple did not clearly define the story of the Watch at the outset, customers and owners have helped do so over the past year and a quarter that it has been on sale.

Today’s presentation focused heavily on the health and fitness aspects of the Series 2 Watches, almost to the exclusion of the other two focus areas Cook mentioned two years ago. From built-in GPS to waterproofing for swimmers, and from a ceramic back on all models for higher-quality lens covers for the heart rate monitor, to a partnership with Nike, this year’s Apple Watches are all about fitness.

You’ll even note that Apple has dropped the “Sport” branding on the models, choosing instead to differentiate the aluminum and stainless models purely by their case materials. The exceptions are the Hermès models, still called “Apple Watch Hermès”, and the new ceramic Apple Watch Edition. If you wanted to read, perhaps a little too much, into that, the implication is that the models in the standard Series 2 lineup are all appropriate for physical activity.

There’s no question in my mind that this is the right area for Apple to be focusing on with the Watch. Even in my own day-to-day use pattern, the thing I care most about is that I close my activity rings; I suspect many of my readers feel the same. Notifications, apps, answering calls on my wrist, checking the weather — these are all things that are very nice to have. But being mindful of my physical activity while working a sedentary office job is the reason I put my Apple Watch on every day instead of my analogue Boccia.

Fitness was, of course, not the only area Jeff Williams focused on today. He noted the enhancements coming to all Apple Watches with watchOS 3, and I can testify to the performance improvements: it’s night and day. I don’t know where they found all that power while keeping the battery life the same, but it’s there, and it’s remarkable. In the Series 2 models and — amazingly — in the slightly-revised Series 1 models, there is now a dual-core processor which should help performance even more.

The new Edition model, meanwhile, looks really special. It’s made of ceramic and is polished to a shine. Unlike last year’s ferociously expensive gold models, this one starts under $1,300 USD. It’s not a bargain, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a hell of a lot more of these than I did of the gold models.1 In pictures, it looks terrific. I can’t wait to see it in person.

In a bit of a peculiar move, the price of the Watch has actually risen over last year by $20. However, they’ve softened the price bump by carrying forward the now-christened Series 1 model and giving it a faster processor, for $269. The $369 starting price of the Series 2 is entirely reasonable. For comparison, there are plenty of GPS sport watches going for well over $369, and they’re so ugly and cumbersome that you’ll only want to wear them while exercising. The Apple Watch remains a fashion accessory as much as it is a piece of technology.

iPhone 7

The main event, as it were. Whether you got your fill of rumours years in advance or just as the keynote was starting, you were probably aware of the gist of the iPhone 7’s headlining features: industrial design that’s similar to the 6 and 6S, water resistance, dual cameras in the Plus model, and a new polished black option.

So, where to begin? I wasn’t at the keynote — my invitation must have gotten lost in the series of tubes — so I have very few first impressions beyond what I could see in the presentation and in Apple’s marketing materials. From what I can tell, the Jet Black finish is unquestionably beautiful, but is apparently more susceptible to scratching:

The high-gloss finish of the jet black iPhone 7 is achieved through a precision nine-step anodization and polishing process. Its surface is equally as hard as other anodized Apple products; however, its high shine may show fine micro-abrasions with use. If you are concerned about this, we suggest you use one of the many cases available to protect your iPhone.

I’ve seen some remarks around the web that paint this as a repeat of the iPod Nano scratching crisis of 2005, but I’m not so sure it will be. The iPod’s face was made of plastic; the iPhone is made of aluminum and glass. I’ve no doubt that some scratches will form on Jet Black iPhones, but there’s a certain wear-and-tear patina that develops. Some people are okay with that, and they’re probably people who don’t use cases. But I would wager that the overwhelming majority of iPhone owners put a case on their phone.

At any rate, I anticipate very low Jet Black stock over the next couple of months, even though it’s limited to the 128 and 256 GB configurations. If you’re aching for that colour, I hope you’re very quick with your pre-order tomorrow night.

While I’m tangentially on the topic of capacities, I should note how happy I am about the near-demise of the 16 GB configuration. The iPod Touch and the iPhone SE are the only iOS devices currently offered with a 16 GB option; even the iPads got a bump today, something which wasn’t mentioned during the keynote. I can think of few changes that so clearly merit the word: finally.

Apple’s processor team, meanwhile, has clearly been very busy. Onstage, Phil Schiller showed a slide with a Bezos chart of the iPhone’s processor speed since launched, and it looks like a hockey stick. My iPhone 6S feels ridiculously fast, but the gulf between it and the performance of the A10 in the iPhone 7 is simply gigantic.

The camera enhancements look equally impressive. Any improvement to the quality of photos in low-light situations is always welcomed, and the new cameras apparently deliver that in spades. The dual camera situation on the Plus model looks particularly intriguing, especially with the rich depth mapping capabilities coming later this year. The Plus model is simply too big for my liking, so I’ll have to wait until these improvements come to the smaller iPhone, but they do make the case for a Plus much more compelling.

And then there’s the display, and the stereo speaker setup, and the new flash, and the vastly improved front-facing camera, the bigger battery, and the solid state home button — there’s a lot in this model, even if it looks similar to its predecessor.

But, of course, there’s only one thing that anyone is talking about today. So, let’s do this.

Headphones

We all knew it was coming. Ever since the rumour broke in November of last year that the iPhones 6S would be the last with the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, we knew that this would be the dominating controversy of the iPhone 7. And, like clockwork, when Schiller announced that the rumour was, indeed, true, the web erupted once again.

I can see why. The headphone jack has, as was acknowledged during the keynote, been with us for over a hundred years. That’s more than enough time for it to become entrenched — its inclusion in consumer electronics has, for a long time, been an expectation.

So why hasn’t it changed? Well, it has a lot going for it: it’s small, its cylindrical shape makes it nearly perfect from a usability perspective, and it requires no licensing or royalty fees to be paid. It has long been the right solution to connect speakers of any size to just about any device.

But the headphone jack has its flaws, too. Headphone cabling tends to be thin, which means the connectors must be robust. Headphone cables get tangled, which is a source of frustration for pretty much everyone. The port itself is extremely limited, requiring the use of a hacky method to provide remote controls.

But is that enough to replace it in a flagship product? I’m not sure, but Apple2 is trying to find out.

Apple has three solutions that they think span the gamut of iPhone 7 users: Lightning EarPods, wireless AirPods, and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adaptor.

Lightning EarPods are exactly what they sound like: the EarPods used by hundreds of millions of people every day with a Lightning connector on the end instead of a 3.5mm plug. They’re offered at the same $29 in the U.S. and, like the old EarPods, are included with every iPhone 7. I know a lot of people who use EarPods. For them, nothing changes on their iOS devices, but there appears to be no solution for those who want to connect the same headphones to their Mac. And I know a few people who do that every single day.

For iPhone owners who don’t use the included EarPods, Apple is also including a Lightning-to-3.5mm adaptor. If you prefer a particular kind of headphones that are only available with a 3.5mm connector, or if you regularly switch your headphones between your iPhone and a computer, you’ll probably get a lot of use out of this adaptor.

But Apple tends to be very deliberate when they make these kinds of choices. In fact, during the keynote, Schiller laid out the justification for removing the headphone jack:3

We have a vision for how audio should work on mobile devices. […] It makes no sense to tether ourselves with cables to our mobile devices, but until someone takes on these challenges, that’s what we do.

After a bit more preamble, Schiller cut to a video introducing the new AirPods, with Jony Ive’s soothing voiceover:

We believe in a wireless future.

This wireless future is, clearly, not quite there yet. Including with every new iPhone two means of connecting “tethering” ourselves to them, while making the wireless option a $160 extra, makes it feel like it’s still very early days. That’s how Ive positions it later in the video, too:

We’re just at the beginning of a truly wireless future we’ve been working towards for many years, where technology enables the seamless and automatic connection between you and your devices.

That’s a compelling argument. AirPods are, clearly, very advanced. There’s a ridiculously great pairing process that uses the flip top of the charging case to signal a connection, and they will apparently transition between different devices in a seamless fashion. Apple is also promising a reliable listening experience, completely unlike existing Bluetooth headphones. And I think it’s absolutely right that Apple goes wireless with their headphones in such a manner.

But there are things from this announcement that aren’t yet sitting right with me, and it comes down to the proprietary nature of the proposed solutions. To use a Lightning connector with a MFi certification, manufacturers must pay a royalty rate of $2 per product, according to two contracts I reviewed. If the product includes only one Lightning connector, this royalty is baked into the cost of purchasing that connector. The MFi program also regulates what kind of digital-to-analogue converter must be used, some packaging specifications, and other product attributes. This may absolutely be a good thing, and I believe it might very well be. But that also means that Apple’s review board now controls which wired headphones may take advantage of the Lightning port, and there are certain additional fixed costs for manufacturers to consider. This is absolutely their prerogative, of course: it’s their proprietary connector. But it’s one more layer of control that will necessarily limit the market of available wired headphones for the iPhone 7.4

The wireless option is a bit of a mixed bag, too. Bluetooth headphones are, generally-speaking, unreliable, frustrating, battery-sucking half-steps towards a wireless experience. If you want Apple’s far better experience, you’ll need headphones that use their new W1 chip. It’s based on Bluetooth, but “[covered] in a lot of secret sauce”. Three new sets of Beats headphones include it, as do the new AirPods, but it’s currently unclear whether it’s going to be made available to third-party manufacturers as well. That’s important to me because I dislike all three Beats options, and if the AirPods are of a similar size and shape to the existing EarPods — and I believe that is the case — they simply don’t fit into my ears.

Please don’t misread this as a condemnation of Apple’s decision today. I don’t think it was a mistake to prefer a wireless option, nor do I necessarily think it was a mistake for the headphone jack to be removed. I would love to try a pair of AirPods — it sounds like a truly brilliant product. But there are compounding factors, many of which have only been confirmed today, that make the transition harder for me.

But there’s one thing that seems pretty clear to me: making this transition this year paves the way for a much smoother rollout of next year’s massive iPhone redesign. There will be plenty of options of Lightning headphones and, perhaps, some more wireless models that include the W1, depending on its MFi status. And the total refresh of the iPhone next year won’t be overshadowed by the controversy over its lack of a headphone jack.

  1. Precisely two, in case you’re wondering. ↥︎

  2. Motorola, too. ↥︎

  3. Schiller also framed it as “courageous” to drop the headphone jack. I get what he meant by that, but I think “bold” or “audacious” would have been better words to use. “Courage” is the word we typically use for people battling cancer, or activists standing up to injustice. ↥︎

  4. The included Lightning-to-3.5mm assuages these concerns, but do you expect Apple continuing to include — or even offer — that connector in a few years? I don’t. ↥︎

Get a Mop and Call a Plumber ⇥ recode.net

Right around the time James Corden and Tim Cook were laughing it up at the irony of internet leaks about the security of the iPhone 7, Apple’s official Twitter account was busy leaking many of its new features. It appears that all of the tweets they posted were promoted, which meant that they wouldn’t appear in their timeline or to followers. Still, a little embarrassing for a company so focused on the surprise unveil.

App Store Name Lengths ⇥ david-smith.org

David Smith:

As the length of the names hasn’t really been the problem, it is keyword spamming at the end of the name.

But the 50 character limit is still interesting to consider, so I dug through my App Store metadata cache to see just how many apps would be affected. It looks like only around 9% of apps currently have names that are longer than 50 characters (around 200k).

Of the ones that do have names longer than 50 characters — all the way up to a hard 255 character limit — many are stuffed with often irrelevant keywords in a bid to capture searches from users looking for mainstream apps.

I’m more surprised that this crap is let into the App Store. The review guidelines are full of references to this being exactly the sort of stuff they don’t want:

If your app looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice app into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.

This has always been in the guidelines, but appears to be rarely enforced. For proof, just search for a popular app in the Store: Instagram, Tweetbot, and NYTimes will all work. Then, just scroll right to the bottom and find yourself wading through the App Store equivalent of a backalley flea market.

I would rather the App Store have much tighter restrictions than it currently seems to. I know a plethora of choice is advantageous to consumers, but the minimum bar for quality should be much, much higher.

Amazon Is Working Towards Ownership of Its Entire Shipping Chain ⇥ bloomberg.com

Devin Leonard, Bloomberg:

Two months after the Ohio announcement, Amazon leased 20 more jets from Atlas Air, an air cargo company based in Purchase, N.Y. Amazon has also purchased 4,000 truck trailers. Meanwhile, a company subsidiary in China has obtained a freight-forwarding license that analysts say enables it to sell space on container ships traveling between Asia and the U.S. and Europe. In short, Amazon is becoming a kind of e-commerce Walmart with a FedEx attached.

With any other company, an expansion like this would be preposterous. But Amazon’s growth has been preposterous. In 2010 its annual revenue was $34 billion; last year, $107 billion. In 2010 the company employed 33,700 workers. By this June, it had 268,900. To have enough office space for its swelling headquarters staff, Amazon has swallowed Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, and it’s building three tree-filled biospheres in the city that will allow workers to take contemplative breaks, like so many Ralph Waldo Emersons in Jetsonian luxury. The company is the fifth-most valuable in the world: Its market capitalization is about $366 billion, which is roughly equal to the combined worth of Walmart, FedEx, and Boeing.

Few companies are operating at the same kind of scale as is Amazon. The shipping and delivery chain is to Amazon what the supply chain is to Apple — the more they optimize and refine it, the better their company can perform. Of course, the best way for either company to do that is to own as much as possible of the chain, and it seems that Amazon wants to own every part of the process until the product gets to your door.

Tim Bajarin: Apple’s Control Over Its Supply Chain Is the Key to Its Success ⇥ recode.net

Tim Bajarin, as published on Recode:

Over the years, I have talked with various ODM and manufacturing equipment makers, and many have told me Apple’s real secret to success is how deep the company goes into the overall manufacturing process.

Very few companies go to that level of detail when it comes to their supply chain. Besides Intel, Apple is one of the only other major tech companies I know of that will actually invent the manufacturing equipment needed to bring a new product to market. Most others accept the limitations of the equipment, and instead design the product around the things these machines can do with as little customization as possible.

I think the well-known product designer Greg Koenig would disagree with the idea that Apple outright invents the manufacturing equipment. My understanding is that their most significant manufacturing innovations involve applying techniques usually reserved for one-offs at a massive scale.

But, even though they don’t own the factories their products are built in, they often own the manufacturing technologies themselves. In a well-known story, when Apple wanted to make the battery and iSight indicator lights only visible in any way when lit, they bought the company that made microscopic laser drilling instruments. What was once a technique used only in the smallest of scales became used to make every MacBook Pro, wireless keyboard, and Magic Trackpad for years.

Samsung Initiates Worldwide Recall for Galaxy Note 7 ⇥ recode.net

Ina Fried, Recode:

Samsung said Friday that it will replace all of the Galaxy Note 7 “phablets” it has sold amid reports that some batteries on the phones have exploded.

In what could be the biggest smartphone recall ever, Samsung said it will replace all devices in the coming weeks. The company said it has confirmed an issue with the battery cells used in the phone and has halted sales globally.

Ouch. Despite the performance issues that continue to plague Samsung’s phones, the Galaxy Note 7 has been very well-received by the press. This recall comes at a particularly poor time, too.

A Short History of Project Ara in Press Coverage Excerpts ⇥ theoverspill.wordpress.com

Charles Arthur has put together a pretty good selection of excited takes on Project Ara. Looks like I wasn’t alone in finding the press coverage of Ara lacking in skepticism about its viability, popularity, or even its waste-reduction aspirations.

I love the idea of Ara as a research project; even as a niche product, it might be kind of interesting. But I bet a modular phone of any kind would remain in its niche: popular amongst people who like thinking about their phones as an assembly of components, rather than as a single unit. But those are exactly the kind of people who would wish to regularly swap out components for newer ones. And, with the rate of advancement in so many of the parts that go into making a smartphone, it’s likely that users would be buying and swapping modules at a more frequent rate than the typical two-year smartphone upgrade cycle. That could potentially create even more waste, not less.

Google Shelves Project Ara ⇥ reuters.com

Me, a little over a year ago:

Serious question: would non-nerds like to assemble their own smartphone?

Julia Love, Reuters, today:

Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build what is known as a modular smartphone with interchangeable components, as part of a broader push to streamline the company’s hardware efforts, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which announced a host of partners for Project Ara at its developer conference in May and said it would ship a developer edition of the product this autumn.

So, that’d be a “no”, then?

Here’s something curious:

While Google will not be releasing the phone itself, the company may work with partners to bring Project Ara’s technology to market, potentially through licensing agreements, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said.

According to a 2014 Wired article by Mat Honan, that sounds kind of like the plan all along:

Project Ara relies on lots of manufacturers in lots of different places to make its components in parallel without being able to test the things they’re making against other those things. […]

The only thing Google will make is the endoskeleton frame—the bones that you can snap all the other modules on to.

My guess is that Google never got Ara to work properly and that nobody is going to buy the rights to make the skeleton or the software. Why would they?

There’s a press-related angle to all of this, too, that I find particularly fascinating. Google’s PR strategy frequently seems to involve inviting journalists to preview their research experiments. But instead of framing them as pie-in-the-sky ideas, some journalists cover them like working, fully-functional products that you will soon be able to buy. For example, here’s David Pierce covering Project Ara for Wired:1

There’s lots more to do, on design and software and branding and ecosystem-building. And, of course, they have to find out if anyone actually wants to buy this thing. But they’ve already done something special. Toward the end of our conversation, I look over and see Camargo just idly fiddling with his Ara. Not testing, not debugging, fiddling. It’s just his phone now.

Joshua Topolsky previewing Google Glass for the Verge in 2013:

What was a total oddity a year ago, and little more than an experiment just 18 months ago is now starting to look like a real product. One that could be in the hands (or on the heads, rather) of consumers by the end of this year.

Both of these projects covered so effusively are now, effectively, dead. But what’s most striking about these two articles — and many others like them, often on the same websites — is how positively both were covered despite their clear flaws. I get that this stuff is exciting, but journalists should be approaching these experiments with the same sort of skepticism that they usually reserve for actual products from Microsoft and Apple. I don’t see this as siege mentality, but more of a question of why Google’s prototypes are seen in such a positive light when their track record on similar projects is so flawed.

  1. The articles title is particularly rich: “Project Ara Lives: Google’s Modular Phone Is Ready for You Now”. Oh? ↥︎

Analysis of Last.fm’s 2012 Hack ⇥ leakedsource.com

LeakedSource has analyzed a large breach of Last.fm that occurred in 2012, compromising over 43.5 million accounts, and the results are astonishing:

Passwords were stored using unsalted MD5 hashing. This algorithm is so insecure it took us two hours to crack and convert over 96% of them to visible passwords, a sizeable increase from prior mega breaches made possible because we have significantly invested in our password cracking capabilities for the benefit of our users.

While an unsalted MD5 hash is clearly inadequate security for pretty much anything, I think that this is more of a confirmation of how generally terrible our passwords are. Look at the top ten from this leak: “123456”, “password”, “lastfm”, “123456789”, “qwerty”, “abc123”, “abcdefg”, “12345”, “1234”, and “music”.

Managing Expectations for the Demise of the Headphone Jack ⇥ 9to5mac.com

Ben Lovejoy speculates for 9to5Mac how Apple might be managing the PR side of not including the headphone jack in the iPhone 7:

Think of it this way. If Apple had managed to keep it secret until a short time before the launch, all the complaints would have been concentrated into a relatively short time leading up to the official announcement. That would have represented a lot of noise, and a fair amount of negative PR, just at a time when it would do most damage.

By leaking the fact way in advance, the same amount of complaining has been spread out over a much longer period. Effectively, what could have been an anguished cry has been diluted into low background grumbling over the course of almost a year.

By the time Tim Cook walks on stage to show us the iPhone, the fact that it has no headphone socket will be old news. The reports will be ‘as expected’ and ‘as we all knew’ … No anguished howls. No screams of protest.

This is a great — albeit highly speculative — article on some of the techniques Apple’s PR team may have used to manage expectations over the course of the past year. Remember: this rumour first appeared at the end of November, just a couple of months after the iPhone 6S was released.

Lovejoy says that he expects the iPhone 7 to ship with Lightning EarPods, but some alleged packaging1 was posted by AppleInsider today that showed AirPods included with the phone. My hunch is that twice as many SKUs will be available: the standard configuration will have Lightning EarPods and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adaptor in the box, while a second variant will include AirPods and no adaptor, at a higher price point. The question, therefore, is how much higher?; my bet is on $100.

  1. Not that it’s going to be super exciting, but why hasn’t anyone posted a photo of the front of the box? ↥︎

Apple to Clean Up App Store Spam and Old Apps ⇥ developer.apple.com

Very good news from Apple:

To make it easier for customers to find great apps that fit their needs, we want to ensure that apps available on the App Store are functional and up-to-date. We are implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps, removing apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.

Apple will be providing thirty-days’ notice to developers with apps that have lengthy titles meant to catch searches of popular apps, and apps that have irrelevant keywords. Apps that crash at launch will be removed immediately. This is terrific news.

However, Apple will still reserve the names of apps removed from the store. I think they should use this opportunity to eradicate apps from developers clearly squatting on popular names.