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A feed by John Gruber
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 22:57
Hard not to choke up watching Girardi talk about Sabathia.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 22:34
Behold Mark Zuckerberg’s revised origin story for Facebook, as a way to give people voice during the Iraq war.
“I understood that some parts were still a little sketchy” holds up as a description of Facebook, 16 years later.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 18:16, modified on 2019-10-19 00:26
Nice find by French site MacGeneration. Looks very similar to the current 15-inch MacBook Pro, but with smaller bezels around the display. As rumors have suggested, it even looks like it has a nice big physical Esc key.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 17:31
Aimee Green, reporting for The Oregonian (via Dave Mark at The Loop):
Police wanted to search the contents of an iPhone they found in Catrice Pittman’s purse, but she never confirmed whether it was hers and wasn’t offering up a passcode. Her defense attorney argued forcing her to do so would violate her rights against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1 Section 12 of the Oregon Constitution.
But a Marion County judge sided with police and prosecutors by ordering Pittman to enter her passcode. On Wednesday, the Oregon Court of Appeals agreed with that ruling — in a first-of-its-kind opinion for an appeals court in this state.
This is bullshit — being forced to produce a password is clearly a violation of the Fifth Amendment. If you’ve got the password written down on a sticky note and the police get a warrant to search your home and find it, that’s evidence. But being compelled to produce something in your mind is the definition of self-incrimination.
A password is different than biometric authentication. There are debates on whether law enforcement should be able to compel someone to provide their fingerprint or look at a facial recognition scanner to unlock a device. Are they allowed to just wave your phone in front of your face? (With a Pixel 4, closing your eyes won’t protect you.)
As a reminder, you can temporarily disable Touch ID and Face ID just by going to the power-down screen. On a X-class iPhone, that means pressing and hold the power button and either volume button for a second or two. Once your phone is at this screen, even if you tap “Cancel”, you must enter your passcode to unlock the phone. If you’re ever worried about anyone — law enforcement or otherwise — taking your phone from you and unlocking it with your face, just squeeze those two buttons. You don’t even need to take it out of your pocket or purse — you’ll feel haptic feedback once you’ve held the buttons long enough. And, if you keep holding the two buttons down for five seconds, your iPhone will call emergency services and contact your emergency contacts.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 16:41, modified at 18:01
Joseph Keller, writing at iMore:
Something to keep in mind about quick video: it doesn’t record in 4K. No matter what resolution you’ve set for taking video on your iPhone, whether above or below 4K, quick videos on the iPhone 11 series of phones will always record at a resolution of 1920 × 1440.
“HD” video is usually 1920 × 1080, but Quick Video shoots 1920 × 1440 because it always records with a 4:3 aspect ratio. That’s not what I expected, but you don’t lose anything — the 1920 × 1080 image recorded by default in the “Video” mode is a 16:9 center crop of the 4:3 sensor. If you want a 16:9 aspect ratio from a clip shot using Quick Video, you can just crop it in post, right in the Camera or Photos app using the new video editing tools in iOS 13. (And not only can you crop to 16:9 in post, you can decide to raise or lower the centerline on the video when you do so.)
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 15:07
Jason Snell, in a lovely piece at Six Colors that feels like it was written just for me:
And then there are the out dots.
This is one of the delightfully stupid controversies that comes up when you write about baseball graphics. In a nod to skeuomorphism and old ballpark scoreboards, many networks display the number of outs in an inning not as a numeral, but as dots. These dots generally appear as gray circles that are filled in with a bright color as the inning progresses.
The controversy is this: How many dots should there be? There are three outs in an inning, so you’d think the answer would be three. But some folks will point out that since getting the third out ends the inning, having a third dot would be superfluous. Once the third out is made, the inning is over and there are no outs at all.
I get the argument, but I firmly reject it. Outs come in threes, not twos. If you must represent it by a series of faux light bulbs, you should have three bulbs. Better, I think, to light up that third bulb momentarily, then turn it off and indicate the end of the inning. It improves the clarity of the graphic at the expense of a few pixels — and gives you the opportunity to make a fun animation at the end of the inning.
I strongly agree with Snell on this: if you’re going to use dots to represent outs, there should be three. When there are two outs, the batting team still has an out to give — the empty third dot represents that out. And when the third out is made, fill it in for the few seconds before the telecast cuts to the commercial break.
Another note: nearly all modern baseball telecasts show the strike zone live. This box, though, should be subtle. When you look at Snell’s screenshots, compare ESPN’s live strike zone (far too prominent) with Fox’s (perfectly subtle).
Here’s an example of the in-game graphics from YES, the Yankees’ regular season broadcaster. Good strike zone indicator (including the speed at the pitch location), good legibility, but boo hiss for the two-dot out display.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-18 00:12
Interesting take on the Pixel 4, but what really grabbed my attention was Rene Ritchie pointing out that Morrison shot this video using the front-facing iPhone 11 camera. It’s 4K 60 FPS and, like everything Morrison shoots, looks fantastic. Most high-end Android phones — including the Pixel 4 — can’t shoot 4K/60 with the rear camera.
There are nuanced arguments to be had regarding the competitive landscape in high-end phone camera still photography, but video is another area where Apple is indisputably years ahead of all competition.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 23:57
We’re always looking for ways to give our users the freedom and flexibility that their workflow deserves. Luna Display’s launch in the fall of 2018 blasted us off into an arena that no company had successfully played in before — we’d created a device that could turn your iPad into a second display for Mac.
Since then, we’ve continued to ask ourselves, “Is there more that we could be doing with Luna Display?” The answer was sitting right under our noses in the form of all the idle Macs we had laying around our development space. What if we could turn people’s e-waste into extra screen space!
What a great idea — a fantastic use case for older 5K iMacs that would otherwise be put out to pasture. Here’s how Luna Display co-founder and CEO Matt Ronge introduced it on Twitter:
After Apple “sherlocked” @LunaDisplayHQ, we put our heads together on how we could make Luna even better
So I’m excited to announce today… Mac-to-Mac Mode for Luna Display! Turn any extra Mac into a second display. Apple zigs, we zag.
The “sherlocking”, of course, is the new Sidecar feature in iPadOS 13 and MacOS 10.15 Catalina that allows recent Macs to use iPads as external displays. Zigging when Apple zags is exactly the right attitude for third-party developers.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 22:40, modified at 22:42
Toluse Olorunnipa, David A. Fahrenthold, and Jonathan O’Connell, reporting for The Washington Post:
President Trump has awarded the 2020 Group of Seven summit of world leaders to his private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort in Miami, the White House announced Thursday.
That decision is without precedent in modern American history: The president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself.
Trump’s Doral resort — set among office parks near the Miami airport — has been in sharp decline in recent years, according to the Trump Organization’s own records. Its net operating income fell 69 percent from 2015 to 2017; a Trump Organization representative testified last year that the reason was Trump’s damaged brand.
Now, the G-7 summit will draw hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel to the resort during one of its slowest months of the year, when Miami is hot and the hotel is often less than 40 percent full. It will also provide a worldwide spotlight for the club.
We’ve now reached the point where Trump’s kleptocracy is just out in the open. Any true believer in democratic norms would agree that the same ethical standards — not to mention laws — apply equally to everyone, regardless of their party. Democrats still believe this; there’s no way Democrats would stand for a president from their own party who used the office to line their own pockets. Nor would they stand for a president who used foreign policy as a cudgel to persuade other countries to open investigations into the president’s political rivals here in the U.S. Republicans’ continuing support for Trump is a rejection of democracy and the rule of law. It really is that simple.
Serious question: Shouldn’t the other G-7 nations refuse to attend? Attending — and spending their nation’s money at a Trump resort — will make them complicit in Trump’s kleptocracy. This is as much a violation of ethical norms — and the Constitution’s emoluments clause — as it would be if the summit were held at a neutral location but the other world leaders were expected to hand Trump envelopes stuffed with cash. Even if Trump were willing to foot the bill for the entire summit out of his own pocket — which, let’s face it, is not his style — it would still be grossly inappropriate and illegal on the grounds of the event’s significant promotional value alone.
Not quite as serious question: What happens if Trump is impeached (which is very likely) and removed from office before June? Do they still hold the summit at Doral? What a delightful problem that would be to have.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 18:16
Chris Fox, writing for BBC News:
On Tuesday, BBC News tested the Face Unlock feature on the new Pixel 4. Using the default settings, the phone still unlocked if the user pretended to be asleep. The test was repeated on several people, with the same result.
It’s right there in Google’s own support document for the Pixel 4: “Your phone can also be unlocked by someone else if it’s held up to your face, even if your eyes are closed.”
Speaking before the launch, Pixel product manager Sherry Lin said: “They are actually only two face [authorisation] solutions that meet the bar for being super-secure. So, you know, for payments, that level — it’s ours and Apple’s.”
Sounds like it’s still only Apple’s, which is now in its third-generation of devices. Biometric authentication is an area where Apple has been, and remains, several years ahead of all its competitors.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 18:07
After buying a £2.70 gel screen protector on eBay, Lisa Neilson registered her right thumbprint and then found her left thumbprint, which was not registered, could also unlock the phone.
She then asked her husband to try and both his thumbs also unlocked it. And when the screen protector was added to another relative’s phone, the same thing happened. […]
Samsung said it was “aware of the case of S10’s malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch”.
When the iPhone 5S debuted with Touch ID, we were inundated with news stories about “easy” ways to spoof it that were, in fact, not easy at all.
Now we learn that Samsung’s flagship phone’s fingerprint sensor can in fact be spoofed trivially — and… crickets.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 17:29, modified on 2019-10-18 05:12
Joanna Stern, in her review of the Samsung Galaxy Fold:
The Fold’s hardware gets lots of attention, but its Android software tricks deserve some, too. Open an app on the small screen, unfold the phone, and the app automatically supersizes. (In some cases, I got a pop-up that the app needed to restart.) Samsung has also worked directly with Android app makers, including Instagram and Spotify, to refine the apps for the squarish tablet.
The sized-right-for-the-display version of Instagram caught my eye after watching Stern’s (outstanding) video review of the Fold. So Instagram is willing to update their Android app to adjust to the extraordinarily niche Galaxy Fold, but still hasn’t updated their iOS app to adjust to the extraordinarily popular and much-used iPad?
It makes no sense to me why Instagram doesn’t support the iPad natively. As far back as 2014 it seemed hard to believe that the best way to use Instagram on an iPad — an ideal device for scrolling through photos — was “still” the iPhone app in 2× mode. And yet here we are in 2019, with Instagram already supporting dark mode (nicely, too) but still without proper iPad support. At this point Instagram feels like the only reason iPadOS still lets you run iPhone-only apps. It boggles the mind.
What the hell is the deal with this?
My only plausible theories are (a) simple spite on Facebook’s part, a byproduct of their cold war with Apple; and/or (b) a belief that ads perform better on iPhone, where they can nearly fill the screen, and so withholding a proper iPad app is Facebook’s way of discouraging using Instagram anywhere but on your phone.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-17 16:03, modified at 16:13
Seth Stevenson, writing for Slate:
Fiedel was at heart an improviser. To create the Terminator theme, he first set up a rhythm loop on one of the primitive, early-’80s devices he was using. (In those days, Fiedel was firing up a Prophet-10 and an Oberheim.) He recorded samples of himself whacking a frying pan to create the clanking sounds. Then he played melodic riffs on a synthesizer over the looped beat. Amid the throes of creation, what he hadn’t quite noticed—or hadn’t bothered to notice—was that his finger had been a split-second off when it pressed the button to establish that rhythm loop. Being an old machine, there was no autocorrection. Which meant the loop was in a profoundly herky-jerky time signature. Fiedel just went with it. The beat seemed to be falling forward, and he liked its propulsiveness. He recorded the score that way and (not being classically trained) never wrote down any notation. The music he’d improvised went straight into the film. With its collaboration between fallible humanity and rigid machinedom, the score was especially well-suited to the material at hand.
A great little story about a great and memorable score.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-16 21:41, modified at 21:45
Jared Newman, writing for Fast Company:
In reality, these auto-delete tools accomplish little for users, even as they generate positive PR for Google. Experts say that by the time three months rolls around, Google has already extracted nearly all the potential value from users’ data, and from an advertising standpoint, data becomes practically worthless when it’s more than a few months old.
“Anything up to one month is extremely valuable,” says David Dweck, the head of paid search at digital ad firm WPromote. “Anything beyond one month, we probably weren’t going to target you anyway.” […]
“I feel like them auto-scrubbing data every three months is really lip service,” Dweck says. “It’s not some massive change, because the reality is that no one was really buying that data.”
That was my take exactly. Wake me up when they offer options to delete your history every 12, 24, or 72 hours.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-16 03:36, modified at 21:45
What a facile, bullshit article from Bloomberg. Where is the proof that the lack of 5G is “stinging” Apple in any way? By all reports, iPhone 11 sales are up over last year, not down. 5G is a niche technology this year, and the only phones that support it are niche phones. What Bloomberg doesn’t even mention is that Apple does not make niche phones. If they went the Samsung route they’d sell an “iPhone 11 Pro 5G” for $1,600 in addition to all the existing iPhone 11 models, just to check the “We sell a 5G phone” box.
Apple doesn’t do that.
And even if Apple could have made all 2019 iPhone 11 models 5G, there’s no way carriers would have let them, because there’s no way nascent 5G networks are ready for that many phones. Consumer-wise, I don’t know anyone who thinks “LTE isn’t fast enough for me” is a top 10 problem to solve for any phone. 5G hype is from the carriers (looking to charge more), for the carriers. Yes, we’ll all be on 5G networks within a few years, but anyone who argues that Apple has a 5G problem today, with its current iPhone lineup, is either full of shit or doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-15 17:24
I just spent a few minutes with the new Google Pixel Buds hardware — the $179 truly wireless earbuds aren’t shipping until Spring 2020, and the units at Google’s fall hardware event aren’t actually turned on and working. So there’s no way to tell how they’ll actually sound, and how Google’s various software tricks work in practice.
Not shipping for six months is one thing; not even having usable prototypes now is another. They must have felt like they had to show them anyway — Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are already in the game.
Apple isn’t usually first in a product category, but AirPods established a template all the other tech giants (other than Facebook, so far) are following.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-15 17:18
The other feature this local model enables is a new app: Recorder. It’s a voice recorder, but it also does real-time transcription right there as it records without needing to send anything to the internet. In a couple of tests, I found it to be much more accurate than the other real-time transcription app I’ve used, Otter. You can also do searches for anything in those transcripts later.
There’s a lot more that’s new, of course, but instant accurate transcripts in the voice recorder app is a killer feature. It’s all done on-device too.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-14 22:50
Matthew Green, writing at Cryptographic Engineering:
When Apple wants to advertise a major privacy feature, they’re damned good at it. As an example: this past summer the company announced the release of the privacy-preserving “Find My” feature at WWDC, to widespread acclaim. They’ve also been happy to claim credit for their work on encryption, including technology such as iCloud Keychain.
But lately there’s been a troubling silence out of Cupertino, mostly related to the company’s interactions with China. Two years ago, the company moved much of iCloud server infrastructure into mainland China, for default use by Chinese users. It seems that Apple had no choice in this, since the move was mandated by Chinese law. But their silence was deafening. Did the move involve transferring key servers for end-to-end encryption? Would non-Chinese users be affected? Reporters had to drag the answers out of the company, and we still don’t know many of them.
In the Safe Browsing change we have another example of Apple making significant modifications to its privacy infrastructure, largely without publicity or announcement. We have learn about this stuff from the fine print. This approach to privacy issues does users around the world a disservice.
If Apple needs to do things differently in China to comply with Chinese law, they need to explain exactly what they’re doing and why. Otherwise people are going to assume the worst. “Trust us” is not good enough. If they’re embarrassed to explain in detail what they’re doing to comply with Chinese law, then they shouldn’t be doing it.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-14 22:25
Via Dino Dai Zovi, a user on Hacker News disassembled the code for Safari’s Fraudulent Website Warning feature and verified that it only uses Tencent (instead of Google) if the region code is set to mainland China.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-14 22:17, modified at 22:46
Apple, in a statement to iMore:
Apple protects user privacy and safeguards your data with Safari Fraudulent Website Warning, a security feature that flags websites known to be malicious in nature. When the feature is enabled, Safari checks the website URL against lists of known websites and displays a warning if the URL the user is visiting is suspected of fraudulent conduct like phishing. To accomplish this task, Safari receives a list of websites known to be malicious from Google, and for devices with their region code set to mainland China, it receives a list from Tencent. The actual URL of a website you visit is never shared with a safe browsing provider and the feature can be turned off.
After quoting Apple’s statement, Rene Ritchie has more details on how the feature works, including the fact that the URLs you visit aren’t sent to Google (or Tencent) — hashed prefixes of the URLs are sent. This became a story over the weekend when a story by Tom Parker at Reclaim the Net ran under the alarming headline “Apple Safari Browser Sends Some User IP Addresses to Chinese Conglomerate Tencent by Default”.
My assumption was that Apple was only using Tencent in mainland China, where Google services are banned. Apple’s statement today makes it clear that that is true. But Apple brought this mini-controversy upon itself, because Apple’s own description of the feature doesn’t specify when the Fraudulent Website Warning feature uses Google and when it uses Tencent. Apple’s description simply says:
Before visiting a website, Safari may send information calculated from the website address to Google Safe Browsing and Tencent Safe Browsing to check if the website is fraudulent. These safe browsing providers may also log your IP address.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-14 22:16
David Sanger, writing for The New York Times:
President Trump’s acquiescence to Turkey’s move to send troops deep inside Syrian territory has in only one week’s time turned into a bloody carnage, forced the abandonment of a successful five-year-long American project to keep the peace on a volatile border, and given an unanticipated victory to four American adversaries: Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State.
Rarely has a presidential decision resulted so immediately in what his own party leaders have described as disastrous consequences for American allies and interests. How this decision happened — springing from an “off-script moment” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in the generous description of a senior American diplomat — likely will be debated for years by historians, Middle East experts and conspiracy theorists.
But this much already is clear: Mr. Trump ignored months of warnings from his advisers about what calamities likely would ensue if he followed his instincts to pull back from Syria and abandon America’s longtime allies, the Kurds. He had no Plan B, other than to leave. The only surprise is how swiftly it all collapsed around the president and his depleted, inexperienced foreign policy team.
I’m starting to think this guy is a terrible president.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-14 22:40, modified on 2019-10-18 21:35
Addigy is a cloud-based enterprise Apple device management solution leveraged by more than 3,000 organizations worldwide. Our secure, multi-tenant, SaaS platform provides unmatched oversight into your devices so you know exactly what is going on and can take action when necessary.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-12 20:07
My thanks to Kolide for again sponsoring Daring Fireball. Kolide is a new Slack app that messages employees when their Mac, Windows, or Linux device is not compliant with security best-practices or policy. If your team uses Slack, you should look at Kolide.
With this app, Kolide will notify users or groups when a device is out of compliance along with clear instructions about what is wrong, and step by step instructions to remediate the issue themselves. They can even confirm in real-time that they resolved the problem with an interactive button inside the Slack message!
Unlike most endpoint security solutions, Kolide was designed with user privacy in mind. Your users will know what data is collected about their device, who can see that data, and can even view the full source code of the agent that is run on the device.
Kolide is already used by hundreds of fast growing companies who want to level-up their device security without locking down their devices. Try Kolide’s new product for free for 30 days for your entire fleet.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-12 20:04, modified at 20:05
Alex Kantrowitz and John Paczkowski, reporting for BuzzFeed News:
In early 2018 as development on Apple’s slate of exclusive Apple TV+ programming was underway, the company’s leadership gave guidance to the creators of some of those shows to avoid portraying China in a poor light, BuzzFeed News has learned. Sources in position to know said the instruction was communicated by Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of internet software and services, and Morgan Wandell, its head of international content development. It was part of Apple’s ongoing efforts to remain in China’s good graces after a 2016 incident in which Beijing shut down Apple’s iBooks Store and iTunes Movies six months after they debuted in the country.
Hey and don’t mention that Turkey is bad. We sell a lot of watches there. And don’t mention Saudi Arabia murdering journalists — they love the iMac and don’t mention Russia — big iPad market.
Apple’s far from alone here. Making big-budget movies and TV shows China-friendly is de rigueur in Hollywood today, and Apple TV+ is now a player in Hollywood. But how is this not a victory for the stifling of free speech?
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-12 01:53
Peter Kafka, writing at Recode:
Unlike tech companies that haven’t broken into the country or only do minor business in it, Apple is now so deep in China that leaving it could be catastrophic. Even if the company was willing to forgo the $44 billion a year in sales it makes in China, it can’t leave the deep network of suppliers and assemblers that build hundreds of millions of iPhones every year.
Earlier this year, in response to the escalating US-China trade war, Apple floated the idea that it could move some of its production outside of China to hedge its bets. But it was only willing to suggest that it would move a third of production.
So even if Apple decided to make the wrenching decision to get out of China today, it couldn’t. It is stuck there, for better and for worse.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-12 00:29, modified at 13:44
Two features stand out to me (I’m already running the 13.2 betas on my daily use iPhone — feel like I have nothing to lose on this front given the de facto beta-y state of 13.1.2):
13.2b2 introduces two important Siri privacy features. First, you can opt in and out of “Improve Siri & Dictation” in Settings → Privacy → Analytics & Improvements. Second, you can delete your Siri and dictation history in Settings → Siri & Search. In a briefing with Apple, I was told that even if you opt in to “Improve Siri & Dictation”, no one at Apple will ever review a Siri interaction until 24 hours have passed. So if you ever do say anything to Siri you don’t want reviewed, you have a full day to delete your history. Also, I was told that Siri interactions will henceforth only be reviewed by Apple employees — no more contractors. All told, these changes are a solid response to the Siri “grading” controversy.
The camera app now lets you change the frame rate (24/30/60 FPS) and resolution (720p, 1080p (HD), 4K) right in the viewfinder when you’re in video mode. Previously these could only be changed by going to Settings → Camera — a real pain in the ass when you’re ready to shoot a fleeting moment. But I find this interface a bit fiddly at the moment, because there’s no feedback on tap down. It’s hard to tell even that these are two separate buttons — one for the frame rate and one for the resolution. I’d rather have the whole thing be one button that opens a picker like the iPhone 11 zoom wheel.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-11 22:54, modified at 23:43
We know for a fact, with ARKit, that Apple has a strong interest in augmented reality. We also know that phones and tablets are not ideal AR devices. They’re not bad, but they’re not ideal. So you don’t need a weatherman to tell you the wind is blowing toward Apple working on AR-dedicated hardware — glasses or goggles or something. Now we have Kuo saying it’s coming in the first half of 2020. That’s pretty close.
But if true, no one thus far seems to have any idea what exactly Apple has in mind. Are they glasses you’re supposed to wear all the time, like you do with Apple Watch? That doesn’t sound right to me. The glasshole problems all persist. If there’s a camera, it’s creepy and rude to wear them all the time. Do they make you look weird? Eyeglasses are a huge personal statement — far more so than a watch. If they all look like “Apple Glasses”, there’s going to be a huge resistance to wearing the same glasses as everyone else. And if it’s something else entirely — a product you don’t wear all day like a watch — when do you wear them and what are they meant for? Perhaps they’re more like AirPods, in terms of being situational. All unanswered questions.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-11 17:13
Ryan Mac, reporting for BuzzFeed News:
Rubin’s departure from Playground was also accompanied by a payout, with a source familiar placing the amount at more than $9 million. Documents related to his exit, which were seen by some investors and the company’s leadership, but not all of Playground’s staff, were reviewed by BuzzFeed News.
“Effective May 31, 2019, Playground Global ended our business relationship with Andy Rubin,” read one internal document. “While Andy is still a good friend of Playground, he no longer has any economic interest in or any ongoing roles at Playground Global or the related funds.”
“Quietly” is overused, especially in headlines, but here’s a case where something really was done quietly. Rubin founded the firm and its own staff wasn’t aware he left?
Rubin, however, is still using Playground’s money to build Essential. The two are heavily linked, with Playground investing in both of Essential’s fundraising rounds that have raised a collective $330 million and the two companies sharing the same address, according to their websites.
That’s quite a racket Rubin has going here.
It’s not clear why Rubin, Playground’s founder and figurehead, departed the venture firm, but the nimbus of persistently negative publicity around him may have played a role.
Yeah, maybe that’s it.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-11 16:44, modified at 23:08
But the first iteration, which appears to still be quite raw and in a number of ways frustrating to developers, risks upsetting users who may have to pay again when they download the Mac version of an iPad app they’ve already bought.
I get this, and Gurman has reported previously that one goal of the Marzipan/Catalyst project is to have universal apps that work across iOS/iPadOS/MacOS, the way that the exact same app can work on both iOS and iPadOS today. But Catalyst is a developer technology. Users have no idea what it is and shouldn’t need to. “You have to pay for iPad and Mac versions separately” doesn’t seem like a big deal to me because it’s been that way all along, regardless of Catalyst.
Worse, the expectation that you should pay only once for both iPad and Mac versions of an app makes it hard for developers of commercial software to justify doing a Mac app, period. The rest of Gurman’s article is about how much work it takes to create a good Mac app even with Catalyst.
Developers have found several problems with Apple’s tools for bringing iPad apps over to Mac computers. Some features that only make sense on iPad touchscreens, such as scrollable lists that help users select dates and times on calendars, are showing up on the Mac, where the input paradigm is still built around a keyboard and mouse or trackpad.
Troughton-Smith said Mac versions of some apps can’t hide the mouse cursor while video is playing. He’s also found problems with video recording and two-finger scrolling in some cases, along with issues with using the keyboard and full-screen mode in video games. Thomson, the PCalc developer, said some older Mac computers struggle to handle Catalyst apps that use another Apple system called SceneKit for 3-D gaming and animations.
Other than that, how do you like the APIs, Mrs. Lincoln?
Two anticipated Catalyst apps, featured on Apple’s website since June, were abruptly removed this week: the video-playing and comic-book-browsing DC Universe and the car-racing game Asphalt 9. Gameloft, which makes the racing game, said on Tuesday that the title has been “slightly delayed” in order to “polish the experience” and that it will launch later this year.
At WWDC in early June — four months ago — Apple showcased the catalyzed Asphalt 9 port on stage, with the following quote from Gameloft: “We had Asphalt 9: Legends for Mac running on the first day. It looks stunning and runs super fast using Metal on powerful Mac hardware.”
Maybe it’s not so easy, and maybe Catalyst is not good for games.
One last tidbit from Gurman:
However, Netflix Inc., the largest U.S. video-streaming service with the second most popular free iPad app, said on Tuesday that it won’t be taking part.
That’s all Gurman says about Netflix. No quote, no link to a Netflix statement. There have been no rumblings about a native Mac app — and word on the street has suggested it is not in the works — but Gurman reports this as categorical.
It’s a shame, because there are two features a native Netflix Mac app could deliver that you can’t get through their website using a Mac: downloads for offline viewing (essential for air travel) and 4K video. 4K might eventually get support from WebKit, but there’s no way Netflix could ever allow offline downloads from the website. I’m not sure what Netflix’s calculus is here, but the simple truth is that if Netflix wanted a native Mac app they would have made one long ago.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-11 01:15, modified at 01:23
Do you three-finger-tap to get definitions in macOS? Does it drive you bonkers that the lookup overlay tries to access Wikipedia and other random non-dictionary things?
Sysprefs → Spotlight → [uncheck] Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Look up
Enjoy blazing fast definitions.
What a fantastic tip, if, like me, you only ever use this feature to get Dictionary lookups. I didn’t realize how slow this feature sometimes gets until I turned this off. Now it’s always instantaneous, as it should be. Remember: fast software is the best software.
(Remember too that in addition to the three-finger tap, you can use the right-click contextual menu to look up the current text selection, and ⌃⌘D to look up whatever word is adjacent to the insertion point (while editing) or under the mouse pointer (while reading a web page or PDF). These shortcuts work system wide on MacOS.)
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 20:55, modified on 2019-10-11 16:44
John Moltz, at the rejuvenated Crazy Apple Rumors Site:
“Untitled Goose Game represents a clear and present threat to Chinese sovereignty,” said Yang Cheung, a spokesperson for the Chinese government.
Gesturing to a video of Untitled Goose Game gameplay, Cheung explained. “The goose is a lawless force of rampant anti-nationalism. It encourages violence against the state and disrespects authority.”
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 20:40
Keith Bradsher and Javier C. Hernández, reporting for The New York Times from Beijing:
After three days of fanning nationalistic outrage, the Chinese government abruptly moved on Thursday to tamp down public anger at the N.B.A. as concerns spread in Beijing that the rhetoric was damaging China’s interests and image around the world.
You don’t say.
Now, the Chinese government appears to be reassessing its campaign against the N.B.A. and dialing down the clamor. The government is already in a bruising trade war with the United States, and a backlash against China could hurt its image in the sporting world ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics near Beijing. The dispute with the N.B.A. was also quickly politicizing an audience of sports fans who would not normally focus on issues like the protests in Hong Kong.
Pretty sure there wouldn’t be as many “Free Hong Kong” signs at NBA games — or any at all — if the Chinese government had simply let this slide.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 18:27, modified at 20:29
As a long-time user of Apple products and services, I highly appreciate that Apple has been championing freedom of expression as one of the corporation’s tenets. I sincerely hope Apple will choose to support its users and stop banning HKmap.live simply out of political reason or succumbing to China’s influence like other American companies appear to be doing.
We Hongkongers will definitely look closely at whether Apple chooses to uphold its commitment to free expression and other basic human rights, or become an accomplice for Chinese censorship and oppression.
As quoted in Tim Cook’s own Twitter bio:
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” —Martin Luther King Jr.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 18:06, modified at 21:14
I’ve seen a copy of Cook’s company-wide memo, and the copy reproduced here is accurate. Maciej Ceglowski — who has been in Hong Kong for weeks — responds:
The first allegation is that “the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence”. This makes no sense at all. The app does not show the locations of individual officers at all. It shows general concentrations of police units, with a significant lag.
As the developer and @charlesmok, a Hong Kong legislator, have pointed out, the app aggregates reports from Telegram, Facebook and other sources. It beggars belief that a campaign to target individual officers would use a world-readable crowdsourcing format like this.
Moreover, what are these incidents where protesters have targeted individual police for a premeditated attack? Can Mr. Cook point to a single example? Can anyone? […]
So not only is there no evidence for this claim, but it goes against the documentary record of 18 weeks of protests, and is not even possible given the technical constraints of the app (which tracks groups of police).
The second, related allegation is that the app helps “victimize individuals and property where no police are present”. Again, does Mr. Cook have any evidence for this claim? The app does not show an absence of police, it shows concentrations of police, tear gas, riot flags etc.
So, three questions, no answers:
I can’t recall an Apple memo or statement that crumbles so quickly under scrutiny. For a company that usually measures umpteen times before cutting anything, it’s both sad and startling.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 17:37, modified at 18:13
Transcript from journalist Tim McLaughlin:
Reporter: Two questions about the HKmap.live app. Which local laws the HKmap.live app violates and why should Apple remove HKmap.live when apps which allow users to track the location of police checkpoints remain in the app store? Thank you. […]
Chief Secretary for the Administration Matthew Cheung: I suppose the Police have already explained the reasons for it, okay? And, we have nothing further to add.
Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan: Indeed the taking down of the app from the Apple store is the decision made by the operating company — Apple. So, if you want to know the reason for them to take down the app, maybe you can approach Apple and the Apple store.
Complete non-answers to both questions.
(One sidenote I confirmed with Apple: While they pulled HKmap.live from the App Store, anyone who already has it installed still has the app. No more software updates, but copy of the app they have installed still works.)
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 05:04, modified on 2019-10-11 17:04
Jack Nicas, reporting for The New York Times:
A day earlier, People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial that accused Apple of aiding “rioters” in Hong Kong. “Letting poisonous software have its way is a betrayal of the Chinese people’s feelings,” said the article, which was written under a pseudonym, “Calming the Waves.”
“The app displays police locations and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement,” Apple said in a statement late Wednesday. “This app violates our guidelines and local laws.”
I still haven’t seen which local laws it violates, other than the unwritten law of pissing off Beijing.
Capitulation is a bad look for Apple.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 04:57
Nick Statt, reporting for The Verge
News organization Quartz tells The Verge that Apple has removed its mobile app from the Chinese version of its App Store after complaints from the Chinese government. According to Quartz, this is due to the publication’s ongoing coverage of the Hong Kong protests, and the company says its entire website has also been blocked from being accessed in mainland China.
The publication says it received a notice from Apple that the app “includes content that is illegal in China.”
The law’s the law. You want to do business in China, you obey the law.
The question is: Why do business in China if this is the type of shit they pull? No one is alleging that anything Quartz has reported on the Hong Kong protests is false. It’s just unflattering to the Chinese regime.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 01:22
Looks like a very cool game for Apple Arcade — a sneak-around puzzle game with a Cold War era spy motif. Looks cool, great music.
Amazingly, developer Spruce Campbell is 14 years old.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 00:35
Nick Wadhams, Saleha Mohsin, Stephanie Baker, and Jennifer Jacobs, reporting for Bloomberg*:
President Donald Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.
Tillerson refused, arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing investigation of the trader, Reza Zarrab, according to the people. They said other participants in the Oval Office were shocked by the request.
Tillerson immediately repeated his objections to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly in a hallway conversation just outside the Oval Office, emphasizing that the request would be illegal. Neither episode has been previously reported, and all of the people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the conversations.
Josh Marshall: “Expect a wave of time travel whistleblowers.”
* Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” in October 2018 — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services. The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 00:03, modified on 2019-10-11 04:28
Daniel Victor, reporting for The New York Times:
Activision Blizzard became the latest American company to find itself caught between its business interests in China and the values of its core customers after it suspended an e-sports player who voiced support for the Hong Kong protests during a live broadcast.
The decision to suspend Chung Ng Wai, a professional Hearthstone player in Hong Kong, for a year, while forcing him to forfeit a reported $10,000 in prize money, prompted a backlash in the United States similar to the public relations debacle the N.B.A. has faced this week. Gamers posted angrily on social media and in forums, while politicians saw it as another troubling sign of China’s chilling clampdown on speech worldwide.
“Recognize what’s happening here. People who don’t live in China must either self censor or face dismissal and suspensions,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, wrote on Twitter. “China using access to market as leverage to crush free speech globally.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, concurred, saying on Twitter that Activision Blizzard showed “it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party.”
No partisan divide on this issue.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-10 00:02, modified on 2019-10-11 04:26
Dana Blanton, reporting for Fox News:
A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.
Now Fox News is getting in on the fake news racket. You really can’t trust anyone other than Breitbart these days.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-09 22:36, modified at 22:49
Geoffrey Fowler, writing for The Washington Post:
If your AirPods are out of warranty, Apple will replace them for $49 per stick — so in reality, $98 total. A replacement for the charging case, which doesn’t wear out as quickly, is also $49. The key phrase to say is “battery service.” (Apple is providing additional training to customer service representatives on that point, but if you still have trouble, show them this link — or this column.)
When you think about it, it is rather ridiculous that once the batteries in AirPods die, they’re disposable. Paul Kafasis and I talked about this back in March on my podcast.
But what’s the alternative? Fowler holds up Samsung’s Galaxy Buds:
Sealing up electronics with glue instead of screws and latches can help make devices lighter and more resistant to moisture and dust. But great ear buds — even ones tiny enough to sit in your ears — don’t have to be impenetrable. iFixit found a way to pop open Samsung’s $129 Galaxy Buds, so replacement batteries can slip in kind of like on a watch. Samsung doesn’t officially offer this repair option, but iFixit sells a pair of replacement batteries for $29.
They’ll sell you the batteries (although at this writing iFixit’s website claims to be sold out), but good luck installing them. iFixit does not have a repair guide for the Galaxy Buds, and the teardown video they do have is expressly labeled “not a repair guide”. There’s a reason why Samsung doesn’t offer a repair option. As for being “great ear buds” — reviewers disagree.
AirPods’s disposability is a problem, and it runs counter to Apple’s staunch pro-environmental messaging, but it’s a problem shared by every set of ear buds in the category. Keep in mind too, that a solution to this problem needs to account for weight, waterproofing, appearance, comfort, and cost. It’s a hard problem to solve, obviously. I’d be happy with next-generation AirPods that solve nothing but this problem.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-08 20:28
Kolide is a new Slack app that messages employees when their Mac, Windows, or Linux device is not compliant with security best-practices or policy.
With this app, Kolide will notify users or groups when a device is out of compliance along with clear instructions about what is wrong, and step by step instructions to remediate the issue themselves. They can even confirm in real-time that they resolved the problem with an interactive button inside the Slack message!
Unlike most endpoint security solutions, Kolide was designed with user privacy in mind. Your users will know what data is collected about their device, who can see that data, and can even view the full source code of the agent that is run on the device.
Kolide is already used by hundreds of fast growing companies who want to level-up their device security without locking down their devices. Try Kolide’s new product for free for 30 days for your entire fleet by visiting https://kolide.com/.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-07 22:44
When I wrote “Richard Stallman’s Disgrace”, I included the following anecdote from a 2011 email from a DF reader:
I worked 10 years ago at VA Linux which had Richard Stallman on its board of directors. You might have heard that Stallman applied his open source ideas to his publicly open marriage as well. The problem was that he was more than open. He made overt sexual advances to women at work. One young woman who worked next to me was so upset from his multiple advances that she took it to senior management. She was able to deal with the problem without taking the issue outside the company. I don’t know the details, but she was given advanced warning anytime Stallman was headed over so that she could leave. He was a creep and women at the company knew to stay away.
And he smelled horrible.
Zed Shaw, among several people on Twitter, realized this rang untrue in several regards:
This sexual harassment report about Richard Stallman is actually about Eric S. Raymond:
- Stallman never worked for VA Linux, ESR did.
- Stallman has never been married, ESR was.
- Stallman would not run an “open source” marriage, ESR did famously.
I believe what happened is people constantly refer to the two men with acronyms “RMS” and “ESR”. The reporter then misidentified one “TLA Old Nerd” for another “TLA Old Nerd” and for nearly a decade has been telling people Stallman harassed her when it was Eric S. Raymond.
As soon as I read this, I was nearly certain my email correspondent had made exactly this mistake, conflating Stallman with Raymond, and that I had passed the error along. I sincerely and deeply regret the error. I should have known Stallman would never have worked with VA Linux (he’d have insisted upon it being named “VA GNU/Linux”, and likely would have had no interest in what was a very commercial enterprise no matter what its name) and also should have remembered that Stallman was never married.
I conferred with my source for the anecdote, and he confirmed it, sending the following by email:
OMG, I was referring to the guy on our board, so it must have been Eric Raymond. I’m so sorry. I did conflate them. I guess I assumed there were not two creepy guys talking about free and open software.
I’m positive it was Eric Raymond. In retrospect, I don’t know for sure if he smelled or if the woman I worked with and who was propositioned by him merely found him disgusting.
To be clear, my source is a man, and it was he who conflated Raymond (“ESR”) with Stallman (“RMS”). His former colleague at VA Linux, the woman who was propositioned by Raymond, surely remembers it clearly.
I have updated the original article to remove the anecdote quoted above, and to point to this correction. My source for the anecdote made an honest error — as Shaw suggests conflating two well-known “TLA Old Nerds”. It was my fault and mine alone for publishing it. Again, I regret the mistake, and apologize for it.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-04 13:38, modified on 2019-10-10 05:21
“Your app contains content — or facilitates, enables, and encourages an activity — that is not legal … specifically, the app allowed users to evade law enforcement,” the American tech giant told makers of the HKmap Live on Tuesday before pulling it.
The makers, and many others, have taken exception to that argument, by pointing out that the app only allows people to note locations - as many countless thousands of other apps do - and so under the same logic, apps such as driving app Waze should also be banned.
To deny the people of Hong Kong one of the few tools that defends them against police aggression is such a craven act that I can’t even put it into words. Is Apple going to side with “law enforcement” in every dictatorship on the planet? Is coddling China worth that much to them?
On behalf of tech people in America, I would like to apologize to the people of Hong Kong for this humiliating display by our biggest tech company. These are not the fundamental American values you have in mind when you wave our flag at your protests, and we must do better.
Hanlon’s Razor — “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” — has never applied to anything more aptly than App Store rejections (although “incompetence” might be a better word than “stupidity”). So I think there’s a good chance that there’s nothing to this other than a bad decision on the part of a rank-and-file App Store reviewer. The HK Map developers think the same thing. (And to be clear, this is a new app that was rejected, it’s not an app that Apple pulled from the App Store. Also, the good news for iPhone-owning Hongkongers is that HK Maps has a good mobile web app.)
But here’s the thing. What’s going on in Hong Kong is important. A small liberal democracy is standing up to a gargantuan authoritarian communist dictatorship with a superpower-grade military force.
Apple is reliant on China in two ways: they manufacture most of their products there, and the Chinese market is roughly equal to all of Europe as Apple’s second biggest for sales. If Apple wants to avoid any suspicion that the company is kowtowing to China, they need to avoid any inadvertent screw-ups in a case like this. Everything related to the App Store approval process that might be perceived as kowtowing to China should receive the utmost scrutiny.
This one doesn’t pass the test.
Update: Good news: the developer of HKmap reports that Apple has approved the app, and it’s now propagating through the App Store. The developer is also asking for donations to defray hosting costs, which, for anonymity, can only be sent via Bitcoin. (An easy, trustworthy way to buy and send Bitcoin is with Square’s Cash app.)
Permalink - Posted on 2019-10-02 00:02, modified on 2019-10-03 16:48
From The Verge’s story on Deep Fusion, coming in iOS 13.2 beta 1 (which, I’ve been informed, is now scheduled to drop tomorrow or maybe even later this week, not today as originally planned):
With Deep Fusion, the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro cameras will have three modes of operation that automatically kick in based on light levels and the lens you’re using:
The standard wide angle lens will use Apple’s enhanced Smart HDR for bright to medium-light scenes, with Deep Fusion kicking in for medium to low light, and Night mode coming on for dark scenes.
The tele lens will mostly use Deep Fusion, with Smart HDR only taking over for very bright scenes, and Night mode for very dark scenes.
The ultrawide will always use Smart HDR, as it does not support either Deep Fusion or Night mode.
Until yesterday, I was under the same impression as the above. But Sebastiaan de With — co-creator of the excellent iPhone camera app Halide — pointed out on Twitter that Night Mode only works with the regular wide-angle lens. You can shoot with 2× zoom with Night Mode, but when you do, it uses the wide angle camera and digitally, rather than optically, zooms to the 2× field of view.
You can see this yourself in the EXIF data. Shoot an image using Night Mode at 2× zoom, and look at the lens information in Photos on the Mac. It will say “iPhone 11 Pro back triple camera 4.25mm f/1.8”. That’s the wide-angle camera. The telephoto camera is “6mm f/2”, and the ultra-wide is “1.54mm f/2.4”. (The front-facing camera is “2.71mm f/2.2”.)
It’s even easier to see it for yourself by simply obscuring the lenses one at a time with a fingertip or piece of paper. Cover the telephoto and you can still shoot “2×” Night Mode shots; cover the regular wide lens and you can’t.
0.5× always uses the ultra-wide camera, because you can’t get that field of view otherwise. 1× always uses the wide angle, because that camera has the best sensor and fastest lens. But 2× doesn’t mean you’re always using the telephoto camera — in low light it will use the wide-angle camera and digital zoom. Previous iPhones with dual camera systems have done the same thing in low light conditions, but a lot of us — myself included — made the wrong assumption about Night Mode and “2× zoom”.
It occurs to me that this is why Apple has been somewhat obfuscatory about Night Mode working only with the regular wide angle camera, despite being very forthcoming about explaining other technical details (like Deep Fusion) at great length: it means the iPhone 11 can shoot the exact same “2×” Night Mode shots as the iPhone 11 Pro, because on both phones 2× Night Mode shots are cropped and digitally zoomed from the 1× camera sensor. There’s nothing scandalous about this — everyone loves Night Mode, including for 2x field-of-view photos. But it’s yet another way that the iPhone 11 is the technical equal to the significantly more expensive 11 Pro.
Permalink - Posted on 2019-09-27 19:02, modified on 2019-10-07 22:45
Yesterday RMS resigned from MIT and the Free Software Foundation he founded. For those who have followed his free-software movement, Stallman leaving MIT is like the big dome on Massachusetts Avenue itself getting an eviction notice. But after decades of tone-deaf comportment and complaints now emerging from women about his behavior, Stallman’s time was up. […]
Generally, the word inappropriate doesn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. He once invited a friend of mine to lunch at a fancy restaurant, and she accepted, on the condition that he comb his hair and wear suitable attire. After a pleasant meal, he asked her if she minded if he danced. (Stallman is famously a lover of folk dancing.) “Go ahead,” she said, and he pranced around the tables, solo, in high-stepping glee, oblivious to the discomfort of diners.
That same obliviousness probably led to jokes in bad taste on email lists, and the scrawled name card on this door at MIT, where he was until yesterday a Visiting Scientist. “Richard Stallman,” it read, in black Sharpie, “Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies).”
Stallman is brilliant — software he’s written is at the bedrock layer of modern computing. He’s also a certifiable creep. Circa 2011, I posted a series of links regarding Stallman’s weirdness and creepiness, including video of him picking something off his foot and eating it, his deeply hypocritical stance on cell phones and supermarket discount cards, and his truly bizarre and inadvertently hilarious 7,000-word rider for speaking engagements. Also, The Stallman Dialogues, a short-lived parody site that used actual quotes from Stallman.
Stallman, when traveling, prefers to stay at the home of his hosts rather than in a hotel. On the old version of my podcast, Dan Benjamin and I had a long laugh (starting at the 11-minute mark) about an anecdote relayed to me by a longtime DF reader, who invited Stallman to speak at a conference he had put together. Here’s the relevant section of the email:
The biggest thing to watch is to ensure that Richard does **NOT** stay with anyone you care about. In both instances of which I am aware, [names omitted], the homeowner actually burned the sheets after Richard left. Simply throwing them away was insufficient.
Here’s a 2008 story from Rodrigo Stulzer, translated from the original Portuguese, “The Terrible Week Richard Stallman Stayed in My House”:
On the day of the event Stallman changed his shirt and asked me for a bucket. Phew, I thought, finally he’s going to take a shower!! He had been in my house for five days, and so far had not taken a shower. I brought him a bucket and the only thing he did was wash his hair inside!
Feedback from readers and listeners regarding my mockery of Stallman was polarized. Most seemed to enjoy it, but a few strongly objected to it. One example:
What’s the purpose of attacking someone important who is known to be quite eccentric? Why the sudden rash of hit jobs? Is there ANY journalistic justification for this?
I just don’t fucking get this at all. It’s cruel and unnecessary.
The recent episode of the Talk Show really disappointed me. Hearing Mr. Gruber, repeatedly and without provocation, attack Mr. Stallman was completely distasteful and is not up to the quality that this show generally produces.
I know your shows are meant to be funny and ad-lib’d to a degree but resorting to a random character attack is not something I want to listen to.
I know you don’t like e-mail but I really feel strongly about keeping this kind of garbage off the air. Nerd/geek culture is about acceptance not snobbishness and if your show claims to be for nerds, I don’t think it has place for this low-brow bullying.
Eccentricity and nonconformity are fine. “Here’s to the crazy ones” certainly applies to Stallman’s work. But there’s nothing excusable about terrible hygiene and profound rudeness. Befouling the room in which you are a houseguest is not being quirky — it’s being a pig. You want to eat your toe jam, fine. But do it in private, not while you’re sitting in front of an audience.
I regret none of what I published regarding Stallman’s disgusting hygiene, hypocrisy, and general rudeness. What I do regret is not bringing to light what is truly Stallman’s deepest shame: his disgraceful behavior toward women.
I mostly agree with Steven Levy’s story at Wired from which I quoted above. But I disagree profoundly with the headline: “Richard Stallman and the Fall of the Clueless Nerd”. Clueless removes agency; it sounds like absolution — that he didn’t know any better. Perhaps that applies to his hygiene, but I doubt it. It probably does apply to some of his general weirdness. But I simply refuse to accept that his abhorrent behavior toward women was in any way “clueless”. He knew exactly what he was doing — and worse, so did MIT.
Selam Jie Gano, whose “Remove Richard Stallman” post started the ball rolling toward his resignations from both MIT and the FSF, followed up with a post relaying numerous first-hand reports from women subjected to Stallman’s harassment. One example:
When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him.
I felt bad for him and also uncomfortable and manipulated. I did not like being put in that position — suddenly responsible for an “important” man. What had I done to get into this situation? I decided I could not be responsible for his living or dying, and would have to accept him killing himself. I declined further contact.
He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.
Another story, from Christina Warren, on meeting Stallman after attending one of his lectures:
After the talk, the person I went with (a guy my age) wanted to talk to him, so we went up after and waited in line to chat or whatever. Almost immediately, RMS started staring at me. And not in a nice way.
It was leering. It was uncomfortable. When we talked to him, he didn’t look at my friend or at me in the eye, he literally stared at my chest the entire time.
That Stallman’s behavior was tolerated by MIT and the free software community for decades borders on the absurd. He wasn’t brought down by ill-conceived comments in a recent mailing list thread regarding Marvin Minsky and Jeffrey Epstein; he was brought down by decades of his own inexcusable behavior finally coming home to roost.
Stallman’s harassment of women — compounded greatly by his esteemed position at MIT and the world at large — should have been the main story. His rankness should have been the postscript. I regret emphasizing only what I found humorous about Stallman, and not what was truly outrageous and morally reprehensible.
[Update 7 October 2019: Please read this correction regarding an erroneous allegation originally contained in, but now removed from, this article.]
Permalink - Posted on 2019-09-26 18:18, modified at 20:17
I asked the following on Twitter Tuesday: “Does anyone else find that autocorrect on iOS 13 (including 13.1) makes more mistakes than before? Can’t tell if it’s a real issue or just an anti-placebo effect.”
The resulting thread is overflowing with answers in the affirmative. One thing I and others have noticed is that when you type a dictionary word correctly — meaning you hit the exact right keys on the on-screen keyboard — iOS 13 autocorrect will replace it with a different dictionary word that makes no contextual sense. Even beyond dictionary words, I’m seeing really strange corrections. Two nights ago I typed “Dobbs”, including the Shift key for the “D”, and iOS 13.1 autocorrected it to “adobe”, with a lowercase “a”.
I don’t see how that’s even close on a QWERTY keyboard. The way autocorrect tends to work is to look for alternate words based on the proximity of letters on the keyboard. Most famously, fuck gets replaced by duck because the D key is next to F on a QWERTY keyboard. That’s why it never replaces fuck with, say, suck, puck, or luck — it’s always duck because D and F are next to each other.1
So how in the world does “Dobbs” get replaced by “adobe”? Even “Adobe” would make slightly more sense, because that’s a common proper noun (and one I personally use) and would acknowledge that I hit the Shift key to type an uppercase letter. Letter by letter, with “×” denoting letters nowhere near each other on the keyboard, “✓” denoting the same letter, and “-” denoting characters close to each other on the keyboard:
D o b b s a d o b e × × × ✓ -
Even the S/E substitution is questionable, though — iOS’s autocorrect, in my experience, usually looks at characters next to each other in the same row of the keyboard. The E key is above and mostly to the right of S.
[Update: A few minutes after publishing, a few readers suggested a somewhat reasonable explanation for Dobbs/adobe: A is above the Shift key on the iPhone keyboard, so if the keyboard thought I meant A instead of Shift, the rest of the letters line up a bit better, although the keyboard also has to interpret the double B’s as a mistake too. I still say this is a terrible substitution, and can’t recall anything like it prior to iOS 13.]
A lot of the examples in the responses to my tweet are even more baffling, including words being substituted from other languages.
I tweeted this wondering if the autocorrect suckage I was seeing was just me — perhaps the result of a reverse placebo effect (a.k.a. nocebo effect) where, once I suspected autocorrect in iOS 13 might be bad, I started seeing what I expected to see. But now I’m close to convinced that, among iOS 13.0 and 13.1’s numerous other bugs and problems, autocorrect has suffered a severe regression.
One possible culprit: iOS 13’s new “Slide to Type” feature, which is enabled by default. I have tried various swipe-to-type keyboards over the years (on both iOS, via third-party keyboards; and Android, where they’ve long been prevalent as built-in features), and have never taken to them. My thumb-pecking habits were long ago hardwired into my brain. So I turned this feature off on iOS 13 last night. I have no idea if that’s the culprit — I haven’t used the iPhone long enough since turning it off to pass judgment — but given that I don’t want to use Slide to Type anyway, it can’t hurt to try. Feel free to chime in on the Twitter thread if you’re seeing similar autocorrect wonkiness.
The origins of this heuristic are explored and explained in detail by the creator of the original iPhone keyboard, Ken Kocienda, in his book Creative Selection. It’s one of the most remarkable books on Apple ever written, and in particular, offers a detailed look at one of the truly make-or-break features of the original iPhone. It’s hard to overstate how much skepticism the iPhone faced over its lack of a hardware keyboard. ↩


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Published June 12, 2019
By: PETS+ Staff
PHILADELPHIA — Americans are becoming increasingly obsessed with watching their pets on security cameras while away from home, according to new survey results.
The research, commissioned by Comcast and conducted by Wakefield Research, included 1,000 U.S. adults who are cat and/or dog owners and use a camera to monitor their pets.
Nearly half (44%) of those surveyed check in on their pets four times a day or more, and nearly 2 in 5 (38%) take a peek during work.
Additionally, 94% say checking in on their pet is one of the best parts of their day.
The survey also found:
Pet owners love furry distractions. Nearly 3 in 4 (73%) pet owners who check their cameras do so while on vacation to sneak a peek of their pet(s) whenever possible. Nearly 3 in 5 (59%) have checked while at a party or social event; more than 2 in 5 (44%) have checked during a workout; during a meeting (38%); while talking on the phone (38%); and while out on a date (32%).
Pets are more entertaining than family and friends. More than two-thirds (68%) of respondents reported checking in on their pet(s) more than social media to see what their family and friends are up to. More than 4 in 5 surveyed (84%) also reported they have shared video clips of their pet(s) on social media platforms.
Pets’ lives are not so secret. Eighty-eight percent of respondents have checked in on their pets and caught them doing something naughty such as sitting in a forbidden place (39%); making excessive noise (36%); eating human food that has been left out (33%); damaging furniture or accessories (30%); hiding or moving objects around the home (30%); relieving him/herself on the floor or on the furniture (26%); vomiting (19%); or getting stuck somewhere (17%).
Pet owners want ways to find videos of their pets quickly. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents reported it is a bigger hassle to search hours of video clips of their pet(s) with no way to filter them, than to not have any clips of pets because their camera only has live feed, and they would like a filter feature to help them find clips faster.
Comcast announced that it has launched a new “pet filter” feature on its Xfinity Camera to make it easier for customers to keep tabs on their pets. The filter uses artificial intelligence to sort through hours of footage to identify just those with pets in them out of the more than one hundred motion-triggered video clips a typical camera can generate each day.
“We developed this feature to help our customers quickly filter motion-triggered events by people, vehicles, or pets because we wanted to bring them the video clips that matter most even faster,” said Dennis Mathew, vice president and general manager of Comcast’s Xfinity Home. “It’s an intelligent home security solution that enables our customers to easily check in on their loved ones from anywhere, anytime.”

domain: news


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‘No-deal’ Brexit could spark ‘civil unrest’: Amazon UK boss issues warning
Doug Gurr, the American retail giant’s UK manager, became the first representative of business to issue such a stark warning to government. It is said to have stunned those present, with some expressing skepticism at his comments, reports the Times.
The Amazon UK chief told Raab and other representatives of Britain's largest businesses that this was a worst-case scenario and formed part of his company's contingency planning.
A spokesman for Amazon declined to confirm or deny the comments but said: “Like any business, we consider a wide range of scenarios in planning discussions so that we’re prepared to continue serving customers and small businesses who count on Amazon, even if those scenarios are very unlikely.
“This is not specific to any one issue — it’s the way we plan for any number of issues around the world.”
Gurr’s comments came at a day-long meeting of UK business executives and Raab at Chevening, the government’s country retreat in Kent.
Some of those present included, Dame Inga Beale, chief executive of Lloyd’s of London; Sir Ian Cheshire, chairman of Barclay; Andy Higginson, chairman of the grocery chain WM Morrison; and Sinead Lynch, UK country chairwoman at Shell. It was the third such meeting between top business chiefs and Brexit ministers.
Raab who appeared on BBC One’s ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ on Sunday, was asked about reports that the UK government was planning for Britain to stockpile medicines and food in the event of a no deal. The Brexit secretary would only disclose that these reports were “selective snippets.”
He maintained that a deal with the EU could be brokered by October despite the sluggish nature of negotiations with the bloc. Ardent pro-EU Tory, Dominic Grieve, has echoed Gurr’s concerns over a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, claiming such a scenario would be “absolutely catastrophic.” He told Sky News: “We will be in a state of emergency – basic services we take for granted might not be available.”
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for a “serious stepping-up” of talks to avoid Britain leaving the EU without a deal.
Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a cabinet meeting in Gateshead on Monday to discuss her Brexit deal. Last week EU chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, questioned May’s EU withdrawal proposals. He also dismissed British plans on the City of London’s access to the European financial market post-Brexit, claiming they would undermine the power of Brussels.
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The Nigerian Communications Commission will soon announce new sanctions for telecommunications operators who allow preregistered Subscriber Identification Module cards on their networks, investigation has shown.
It was learnt that some mobile operators had allowed preregistered SIMs on their networks contrary to the regulation governing the activation of new SIM cards, which forbids the operators or their agents from selling cards that have been preregistered and ready for use by buyers.
Our correspondent also learnt that warnings handed to the mobile operators had not deterred them from allowing preregistered SIM cards on their networks; thus, the decision to sanction the defaulting operators.
It was not certain as of press time the magnitude of the sanctions to be announced in about one week from now, but the Acting Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, had said at the Nigerian International Trade Fair in Abuja on Thursday that any preregistered SIM card would attract a fine of N200,000 per day.
Danbatta, who was represented at the event by the Head of Public Relations of the commission, Mr. Reuben Muoka, had said that for each day that one preregistered card stayed on a network, the operator was liable to the payment of N200,000 going by a new regulation introduced by the NCC.
He said, “Our concern is still on the issue of preregistered SIM cards. Our monitoring activities have revealed in some locations across the country that some people are still patronising agents selling preregistered SIM cards. The commission pleads with those selling or using preregistered cards to desist from such fraudulent acts.
“We have on several occasions informed subscribers that it is dangerous to use phone lines that do not bear your identity because it may have been registered by a criminal. On the other hand, you should not give out your identity to be used by somebody who you do not know. Therefore, you need to keep your phones secure at all times.
“The commission is determined to wipe the issue of preregistered SIMs as we have a new set of regulations that will hold the service providers liable to the tune of N200,000 for any preregistered SIM card found in any part of the country.
“Our monitoring unit is going round the country to ensure that all cases of preregistered SIM cards are reported. The commission will not hesitate to sanction any operator whose SIM cards are found to be preregistered in the network.”
The NCC boss also solicited the patience of subscribers as the regulatory agency sought solution to the menace of unsolicited text messages.
According to Danbatta, the agency has issued a directive to mobile operators in the country to find ways of filtering unsolicited messages that hit the phones of mobile subscribers, and also provide them with options for opting out of unwanted messages.
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Source : Punch


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Cryptocurrency Ban Will Encourage Illegal Activity, Says Industry Body BACC | Photo credit: iStock Images
A blanket ban on cryptocurrencies will lead to more illegal use of digital assets, the industry body Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC) said on Thursday.
“A blanket ban on cryptocurrencies will encourage non-state actors, leading to more illegal use of these currencies,” the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMMAI) affiliate said in a statement on Thursday.
IAMAI said he fully shares Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statement that it is important that all democratic nations work together on this (cryptocurrency) and ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands, which can spoil our youth.
He added that in its submission to the Supreme Court, IAMAI listed several negative outcomes of a ban, such as zero liability and traceability of the origin and end use of cryptocurrencies; besides total tax evasion. A ban will also have a negative impact on retail investors.
The BACC further stated that it has always advocated for a legal ban on the use of private cryptocurrencies as currency in India, as the use as currency is likely to interfere with monetary policy. and tax audits.
On the other hand, the Council recommended their use only as an asset. A smartly regulated crypto asset firm will protect investors, help monitor Indian buyers and sellers, lead to better industry taxation, and limit the illegal use of cryptos, he added.
India-based crypto exchanges offer an effective monitoring instrument and are dedicated to creating an ecosystem that ensures investor protection in addition to subjecting both investors and exchanges to the appropriate tax laws.
The Council believes that the efforts of stock exchanges should be supported by legislation that should allow them to provide more secure services to investors and fair taxes to the government.
The BACC statement follows the government’s list of the Cryptocurrency and Official Digital Currency Regulation Bill, 2021, for introduction in the next winter session of Parliament. The description from the Bill by Lok Sabha newsletter released Tuesday evening says the legislation “seeks to ban all private cryptocurrencies in India” but allows “certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology and its uses.”
This has led to much speculation that all private cryptocurrencies will be banned in India once the legislation is approved.


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EA and FIFA set to part ways
Electronic Arts announced its financial earnings for its third quarter of the fiscal year, revealing that the latest, and last, entry in its long-running FIFA franchise, FIFA 23, is on track to be the best-selling release in the franchise’s entire history.
Speaking in a conference call, transcribed by VGC, EA CEO Andrew Wilson noted that North American sales of the football sim are up a huge 50% on last year’s release, and as such the title is “pacing to be the biggest title in franchise history”. As we previously reported, Electronic Arts FIFA 23 had an incredible launch week, racking up an incredible 10.3 million players within one week of its September 30, 2022 launch date.
In a strange irony, what could prove to be the most successful Electronic Arts FIFA title of all time will also be the last collaboration between the game publisher and international football’s statutory body. As of next year, Electronic Arts will launch its new brand, EA Sports FC, while the Federation Internationale de Football Association itself is hoping to find success with its own football simulation series.
Despite the insistence by FIFA president Gianni Infantino that the new, official FIFA game will be “the only authentic, real game”, and “best one available for gamers and football fans”, I think we know where the development talent and marketing savvy really lie. And, given the skyrocketing success of FIFA 23, The FIFA federation may soon regret pricing itself out of one of — if not the — most consistently performing franchise in the entire history of video games.
FIFA 23 is available now on PlayStation, PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch platforms.
EA says FIFA 23 is on track to be the biggest title in franchise history [VGC]


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REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Saudi Arabia and Pakistan become the biggest destination of non-oil and gas export from Indonesia in January-June 2012. "The export value reaches respectively 947.5 million USD and 757.48 million USD," the Minister of Trade, Gita Wirjawan said on Friday.
The main export commodities from Indonesia to both countries are automotive products, palm oil, coal, and areca nuts. Meanwhile, other next countries with the export volume after those countries are Kenya, Finland, and Djibouti.
Gita said the Indonesian non-oil and gas export volume in the first semester of 2012 reaches 76.826 million USD. Mineral fuel contributes to the biggest number in around 13.955 million USD. Animal fats and vegetable oil sit on number two with the volume in around 10.245 million USD.
The export growth in the first semester of 2012 is decreased in 1.76 percent than that of last year. Gita assessed the decreasing was caused by the declining of traditional market demand in Europe, US, Japan, and China.


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The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, on Friday, in Ibadan, distributed certified rice seeds to smallholder farmers in the South-West region.
Those who benefited from the distribution exercise included clusters of smallholder rice farmers from Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, as well as Ondo and Oyo states.
Speaking during the exercise, the Director of Agriculture in the ministry, Mr Abdullahi Abubakar, said it was meant to support farmers’ associations and cooperatives in the region.
Represented by Mr. Dauda Ayeleke, the Head of Rice Value Chain Unit, Abubakar urged the beneficiaries to make good use of the seeds.
”Endeavour to make judicious use of the inputs in order to increase rice production and enhance the well-being of the people.”
He said it was important for Nigeria to increase its rice production level and quality in the interest of food sufficiency.
”The target of the Federal Government is to give farmers access to good quality and high-yielding rice varieties during the 2023 cropping season.
”This will help the farmers to recover from losses. It will also improve production and trigger reduction in the cost of rice,” Abubakar said.
Some of the beneficiaries commended the Federal Government for the gesture, describing it as “timely and thoughtful”.
Mr Raphael Hunsa, the Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria in Lagos State, said the gesture would have a positive impact on the country.
He urged the Federal Government to sustain the gesture in the interest of the country’s policy on local rice production and food sufficiency.
“I also urge the Federal Government to consider supporting farmers with fertilisers and other chemicals which will boost output.”
Speaking at the event, Alhaji Kamorudeen Sokunbi, a rice farmer from Ogun, urged the government to bring up programmes that would promote mechanised rice farming.
”The government has done well by distributing these seeds. We, however, urge the government to also provide for us tractors and planters,” he said.


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With RIM getting ready to release BlackBerry 10 early next year, they’ve been on a bit of a blitz this year, targeting both developers and the media. For those who know RIM, this is a complete departure from what we’ve been used to. I had an opportunity to attend one of their recent BlackBerry 10 Jam events in Vancouver and came away impressed and with some useful info on developing for the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. While there, I also saw what RIM is doing to ensure that this platform is as developer friendly as possible and got more info on what RIM is doing to ensure that this platform has more than enough apps at launch.
The BlackBerry 10 Jam events were set up as a completely new way to engage developers, but the changes at RIM really started before that, with RIM giving PlayBooks to developers at last year’s DevCon. And this was just the start of RIM getting developers ready to develop for BlackBerry 10. At this year’s BlackBerry Jam/World Conferences in Orland, RIM gave away a large number of BlackBerry 10 Dev Alphas to qualified developers to help them get started developing on a device that would have similar dimensions and screen resolutions as the official release devices. Of course, not all developers from across the world could attend this event, so RIM went all out, bringing the BlackBerry 10 Jam conferences to four different continents across the world. It enabled RIM to do a lot of early seeding, and gave them more direct access to developers who may be considering developing for BlackBerry 10, but didn’t know where to start or if it would be worth it.
BlackBerry 10 Jam Vancouver was RIM’s final North American stop for their BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour before the big BlackBerry Jam Americas conference in San Jose later this month, and I have to admit that I was surprised just how many developers came to attend. I met developers that flew in specifically for this event from Calgary and Edmonton and found out after about a developer who even came from as far as Whitehorse. Although some of the attendees had previously developed for the BlackBerry platform, many were completely new to the platform, having developed only for Android or iPhone before. And a few were like me – they had never developed for any platform before, but had ideas and wanted suggestions on where to start.
The event got started by showing the BlackBerry 10 introduction video from BlackBerry World (see above), followed by a video demo of the Pacemaker app on the PlayBook which was also shown at BlackBerry World (see below). After an introduction, we all got to see a very amusing and awesome music video rendition of Tom Petty’s – The Waiting, BlackBerry 10 edition, performed by Alec Saunders, VP of Developer Relations and some of the other Vice Presidents (VPs) of the Developer Alliance Program at RIM. This really got the room going and you could feel the energy. Then it got a bit more serious, with Alec Saunders coming up and directly addressing some of the criticisms targeted towards RIM and acknowledging the negative media. Then we got into the nitty gritty.
When it comes to developing for RIM, it really comes down to three things: Flow, Connect and Extend. RIM wants the BlackBerry 10 experience to flow seamlessly, and that also means being able to move between apps incredibly easily. They also understand that “BlackBerry People” want to connect. BlackBerry users are more social than other platforms and RIM wants to make it as easy as possible to enable this. And finally, RIM wants us to extend our experiences beyond our phones. For example, imagine leaving your car with GPS navigation and having that extend to your BlackBerry 10 device so you can continue navigating from your car to your destination. Ultimately, RIM sees all of this as being possible, and is doing what they can to move in that direction.
RIM also took some time to dispel some myths about developing for the BlackBerry platform. No, it is no longer confusing to develop for BlackBerry. Developers can use any number of tools, including C/C++ (Native), HTML5, ActionScript, and the Android Runtime. You can pick what works best for you and go from there. And no, developers are not leaving the BlackBerry platform. Instead, the number of vendors on App World has increased 137% since last year, and the number of apps has increased 130%. There are now over 100,000 apps available for BlackBerry, including 25,000 for the PlayBook alone. It is nowhere near as doom and gloom as the media would like to make it out to be.
There are also some great programs that will be coming soon for developers, including a Certified for BlackBerry program which will give assurance that apps were built for the BlackBerry 10 platform and that we’re not just looking at an Android port. These apps will also be eligible for a guarantee. If your app makes over $1,000 but less than $10,000, RIM will make up the difference. They also gave developers info on different options to monetize apps and some strategies to help increase visibility of your apps. One of the biggest take aways from this sections though is that thus far, BlackBerry developers generate a higher average revenue and lower development costs than the other platforms out there. In other words, if you want to make money as a developer, BlackBerry is a great place to start.
Just after lunch, I got to meet with Alec Saunders. He has really been a force behind the change at RIM, and although he’s only been with RIM for just over a year now, he’s already brought dramatic shifts in how RIM views and values their developers. He confirmed that BlackBerry Jam Americas (held September 25-27 in San Jose, CA) will be a big event for developers and media alike. The APIs will be complete/frozen which means developers will be able to start finalizing their apps, and developers at the conference will be the first to see what this means for them. RIM will also be showing some new features that we haven’t yet seen for BlackBerry 10. In other words, we’re going to get to see more and more of what we can expect at release.
After, I got down to it and asked some pressing questions that I know many people want to know. First off, one of the biggest criticisms from most BlackBerry users or those looking at the platform is that BlackBerry is missing some of the big name apps. Alec informed me that his team is working on building an ecosystem that makes it easy for people to bring apps to BlackBerry, but RIM also has a separate team whose job it is to get the big apps on board. Of course, we’ve already seen a number of apps come to the PlayBook platform (e.g. Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, and many others), so it’s evident that progress is being made. However, only time will tell if we’ll see big name apps like Skype, Instagram, Netflix and others on the platform at release.
Next, I asked Alec about all of this talk of licensing and he confirmed that current discussions are for other smartphone manufacturers, but of course he couldn’t provide any specifics beyond that. But, we did discuss the potential of BlackBerry 10 making its rounds to other devices, and it’s clear that there is a large opportunity there. At this moment, there are over 9 million cars running QNX software, which is the basis for the BlackBerry 10 platform, and everything from nuclear reactors to heart monitors can work on QNX software (and do).
I also wanted to find out about what would happen to existing BlackBerry users and their apps. People invest a large amount of money into apps and it would be frustrating to have to repurchase that app you bought 4 months ago on your BlackBerry 7 device, only to find out you have to repurchase it on your BlackBerry 10 device. Or, even worse, it may not be available on your BlackBerry 10 device. Ultimately the final choice on both of these subjects would be up to individual developers. However, Alec did let me know that RIM has a number of people working to help previous BlackBerry developers get equivalent functionality on the new BlackBerry 10 devices, both directly and via workshops. Unfortunately though, it was confirmed that if an app ran in the background (e.g. utilities such as Meterberry or SixTools), it would not be on BlackBerry 10 at launch. Once the devices have been released, RIM will reassess whether to permit such apps.
I also wanted to know what sort of experience RIM is aiming for with regards to their new devices. Key points are that the devices will be able to be operated one-handed, keeping your other hand free to do other things and allowing you to become truly mobile. The UI is all gestural and the idea of “flow” is core to the experience. RIM also recognizes how important the QWERTY devices are to many existing BlackBerry users, so it was reiterated that RIM is not giving up on QWERTY. Alec also mentioned that RIM has worked hard to learn from previous experiences to find what works and what doesn’t, and they have done their research to figure out what is important to BlackBerry users. They understand that while “BlackBerry People” use their BlackBerry smartphones to work, they also want access to media and games, etc. for their off time.
Finally, we discussed what RIM is doing to ensure that they are getting quality apps on the new BlackBerry 10 platform. The certification program previously mentioned is a carrot, but RIM also has design guidelines available for developers to use. They will also have a whole track at the BlackBerry 10 Jam Americas conference in San Jose, CA this month dedicated to development. Another thing that RIM is really pushing now is to get developers to switch to the Native (C/C++) or HTML5 coding platforms, and indeed, that will be a requirement for the certification program. In addition, for those who currently own a PlayBook, you’ll know that if you check the Newest Apps page in App World, many of the apps listed there are really eBooks. RIM is aware of this issue and is looking at how they can fix this issue, including favoring legitimate apps in listings.
While at the meeting, I also spoke with a number of different developers about their impressions and the general consensus is that they came away impressed and were optimistic about the future of BlackBerry 10. Those developers who have developed for BlackBerry products in the past are amongst those who have a much greatest appreciation for these efforts. In the past, they felt that they were completely on their own when it came to developing apps for the older OS versions. Now, they actually feel like if they need help they can get it. And this has led to a lot of excitement about developing for BlackBerry 10, which is excellent as it means that we should have lots of apps when the new platform is released early next year!
All in all, I walked away from the day satisfied with what I heard. RIM has an uphill battle ahead bringing former BlackBerry faithful back into the fold, but from everything I’ve seen and heard so far, it looks like the BlackBerry brand has a real chance to come back with a vengeance. And ultimately, for Canadians who want to support Canadian companies, this is good news. Now, for the hard part… to wait for these devices to come out next year.
Note: If you are interested in developing an app for BlackBerry 10, there are some great resources available, and one of the best places to start is http://developer.blackberry.com.
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