Monthly Archives: September 2017

My Photography (27) — Trust, Bodrum, Turkey, 2017

September 29, 2017 · 12:41

While sightseeing around the marina in Bodrum, I saw this cute cat, lying down in front of a Harley-Davidson (or whatever it was). The bike’s owner was just getting ready to ride off, but the cat was in the way. Even after a huge roar from the engine, it didn’t budge.

Arrogant? Definitely. Very trusting though.

Shot with Sony A7R II + FE 28 mm f/2: f/2.2, 1/6000 s, ISO 100.

Fixing Text Shortcuts Sync in iOS and macOS

September 27, 2017 · 07:15

One day, a few years ago, I got the runaround from Apple once again — my text shortcuts stopped syncing and they told me to wait for the next version of iOS. This was right after iOS 8.0 came out. Another year? No thanks. I found my own solution. I had to go through this again, after updating to iOS 10 last year. So that’s twice since the feature was added — not bad, not perfect.

Continue reading →

macOS Sierra & High Sierra — Apps Can Dump Passwords From Keychain

September 26, 2017 · 09:21

This applies to older versions of macOS too, as well as signed apps.

Patrick submitted everything needed for a fix to Apple. I wonder if they’ll also patch older versions of macOS. Hope they do, since I’m not planning on updating to High Sierra anytime soon.

Anatomy of a Moral Panic →

September 25, 2017 · 09:25

Maciej Cegłowski:

On September 18, the British Channel 4 ran a news segment with the headline, ‘Potentially deadly bomb ingredients are ‘frequently bought together’ on Amazon.’

The piece claims that “users searching for a common chemical compound used in food production are offered the ingredients to produce explosive black powder” on Amazon’s website, and that “steel ball bearings often used as shrapnel” are also promoted on the page, in some cases as items that other customers also bought.

The ‘common chemical compound’ in Channel 4’s report is potassium nitrate, an ingredient used in curing meat. If you go to Amazon’s page to order a half-kilo bag of the stuff, you’ll see the suggested items include sulfur and charcoal, the other two ingredients of gunpowder. (Unlike Channel 4, I am comfortable revealing the secrets of this 1000-year-old technology.)

Quality journalism is rapidly becoming a niche, and US TV news stations are one example — they’re basically unwatchable. I recently turned on CNN for a few minutes and it was a circus — a far cry from the professionalism I remember from their first few years of broadcasting.

I assume things will get better in the future, but I believe only a handful of publications will retain quality, and it will get a lot worse before that happens.

Designing Websites for iPhone X →

September 23, 2017 · 10:53

Timothy Horton details how to design websites around the notch, to take full advantage of the iPhone X’s display:

Out of the box, Safari displays your existing websites beautifully on the edge-to-edge display of the new iPhone X. Content is automatically inset within the display’s safe area so it is not obscured by the rounded corners, or the device’s sensor housing.

I’m curious to see how websites will creatively use the notch to their benefit. I have a few ideas myself, but nothing solid yet.

Austin Mann Takes the iPhone 8 Plus to India →

September 23, 2017 · 07:39

Austin Mann:

I’m writing to you from a small hotel room in India having just experienced a magical adventure in western India orchestrated by friends at Ker & Downey. I’ve shot thousands of images and countless portraits with the iPhone 8 Plus and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned.

While the iPhone 8 Plus looks essentially the same as the phone we’ve had since the 6 Plus, there are some new features in the 8 Plus which really impact creative pros across the board — most notably Portrait Lighting, along with a few other hidden gems.

I know what I can achieve with my iPhone. While I’m sure the 8 and 8 Plus have great cameras, Austin is the one that can use them to create art, instead of just simple snapshots. Amazing work, as usual — make sure to go to his site to see all of his shots.

Photo credit: Austin Mann

It’s Fossil That Apple Is Threatening →

September 23, 2017 · 07:33

Joe Thompson:

“I haven’t met with anybody [in Switzerland] yet who sees this [downturn] as anything other than a slump,” he told me in March. “They don’t see the threat from the smartwatch.” Apple will continue to perfect the smartwatch, he says. “By version 3 or 4, everyone will be thinking this is a good thing to have. Forty to 80 million people will want this.”

I got used to having my most important notifications on my wrist rather quickly, so much so, that when I take off my Apple Watch to wear my mechanical one, I forget to check my phone.

The problem with the Apple Watch is that it’s not special — visually or otherwise — which is the exact opposite of wearing a mechanical watch that you love. That doesn’t mean the latter has to be expensive either — I’m currently wearing a €400 Xicorr FSO M20 which I simple adore and love to pause throughout the day just to look at. Despite having a Space Black Series 0, those feelings passed very quickly.

And that’s the problem with the Apple Watch for people such as me — I love its functionality, but it still competes for my left wrist with a classical piece of precise machinery. But I also wear a Fitbit Alta on my right wrist. If Apple chose to fight for that with a sport-band-type device, which offered Siri, Messages, and LTE, it could easily win the fray.

Craig Federighi Says 3D Touch App Switcher Gesture Will Return in Future Update to iOS 11 →

September 23, 2017 · 07:17

Joe Rossignol:

Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi has revealed that a popular 3D Touch gesture for accessing the App Switcher will apparently return in a future update to iOS 11.

Federighi, replying to an email from MacRumors reader Adam Zahn, said Apple had to “temporarily drop support” for the gesture due to an unidentified “technical constraint.”

I was getting ready to voice my disappointment — I use this gesture multiple times a day — but now I’m just happy it’ll be back soon!

iPhone 8 Is World’s Fastest Phone (It’s Not Even Close) →

September 22, 2017 · 20:29

Mark Spoonauer:

If you’re wondering how all this translates to real-world performance, we have more good news for iPhone 8 shoppers — and bad news for everyone else. To really put the A11 Bionic chip through its paces, we put the same 2-minute video, shot in 4K by a drone, on the iPhone 8, Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S8+, and then added the same transitions and effects before exporting and saving the video.

The iPhone 8 finished this strenuous task in just 42 seconds, while the Note 8 took more than 3 minutes. The Galaxy S8+ took more than 4 minutes.

While I don’t much care for synthetic benchmarks, which are being posted all over Twitter today, I do like to have performance at my disposal, when needed. The real-world test above is one of those examples, where the differences are hard to comprehend without seeing them with your own eyes. I just wish they’d added an iPhone 7 to the mix, just to see how quickly the A-series of chips is evolving.

Having said all that, I prefer to have all that power in my iPad, which I use much more often than my iPhone. And I do — the A10X Fusion is still amazing.

iPhone 8 Plus Is The Best Smartphone Camera Ever Tested By DxOMark →

September 22, 2017 · 18:27

David Cardinal, writing for DxOMark:

The Apple iPhone 8 Plus has a main camera system truly worthy of a flagship phone. Similar to the iPhone 7 Plus, it features two cameras — a wide-angle 12MP main camera, and a 12MP telephoto camera with a slower lens for zooming in on subjects and for special effects such as Portrait mode. Comparing the camera datasheets of the older iPhone 7 Plus and the new iPhone 8 Plus make the two look almost identical; however, under-the-hood upgrades have given the 8 Plus an image quality and camera performance boost in almost every one of our tested categories.

I’m still curious as to the exact physical changes in the camera system — Phil Schiller said that the sensors are now larger, but what are their sizes? While the latter certainly helps, it appears that the greatest advances in the near future will be made on the software side.

Report Repeats Rumors of Larger 6.5-Inch iPhone for Next Year →

September 17, 2017 · 14:12

Ben Lovejoy:

Hinting at a source within Samsung Display, the report suggests that next year’s iPhone will be offered in two sizes: a 5.85-inch one with the same screen size as the iPhone 8, and a larger 6.46-inch ‘Plus’ model …

I strongly believe that Apple will at one point finally retire the current iPhone 6/6S/7/8 design and focus on the “edge-to-edge” design of the iPhone X. While they could simplify their lineup drastically, offering only an iPhone X in two sizes, they currently sell eight (8!) different iPhones — the 6S and 6S Plus, 7 and 7 Plus, 8 and 8 Plus, SE, and X1. Ideally, they would reduce that to three — an iPhone X with ~5”, 5.8″, and ~6.5“ displays — like they did with the iPads.

It will be interesting to watch how they handle the whole transition over the next few years.

  1. Elon Musk must be furious. ↩

Why I Owned a Macbook Pro for a Day And What It Says to Me About the Future of Apple →

September 7, 2017 · 12:14

John Risby:

The short version of this story is if you have a late 2016 15″ touch bar model and you have problems with noises or the screen, go to Apple and, unless you know you’ve done something stupid like dropped it or put a hammer through the screen, demand they fix it or replace it.

The full version below is much longer and quite boring. But it’s here for public record and to get it off my chest more than anything else.

I had two 13“ MacBook Pro Touch Bar devices1 and returned them both, but not because there was something wrong with them — I just didn’t like the Touch Bar and short battery life. John’s story is a completely different experience though — having gone through something similar in regard to my iPhone 7 Plus, I believe every word he wrote.

Sadly Apple seem to have stopped trying to be the Porsche or Ferrari of computers, while keeping the same prices — or, in the case of this Macbook range, actually putting the prices up — but decided to adopt the customer services policies of a dodgy used car lot.

Sadly, they do seem to be going downhill, and I write this from personal experience.

  1. Pun intended. ↩

A Simple Design Flaw Makes It Astoundingly Easy to Hack Siri and Alexa →

September 7, 2017 · 12:06

Mark Wilson:

Chinese researchers have discovered a terrifying vulnerability in voice assistants from Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, and Huawei. It affects every iPhone and Macbook running Siri, any Galaxy phone, any PC running Windows 10, and even Amazon’s Alexa assistant.

Using a technique called the DolphinAttack, a team from Zhejiang University translated typical vocal commands into ultrasonic frequencies that are too high for the human ear to hear, but perfectly decipherable by the microphones and software powering our always-on voice assistants. This relatively simple translation process lets them take control of gadgets with just a few words uttered in frequencies none of us can hear.

The researchers didn’t just activate basic commands like “Hey Siri” or “Okay Google,” though. They could also tell an iPhone to “call 1234567890” or tell an iPad to FaceTime the number. They could force a Macbook or a Nexus 7 to open a malicious website. They could order an Amazon Echo to “open the backdoor.” Even an Audi Q3 could have its navigation system redirected to a new location. “Inaudible voice commands question the common design assumption that adversaries may at most try to manipulate a [voice assistant] vocally and can be detected by an alert user,” the research team writes in a paper just accepted to the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

Apple, Amazon Join Race for James Bond Film Rights →

September 7, 2017 · 12:04

Tatiana Siegel:

The James Bond sweepstakes has taken an unexpected turn. While Warner Bros. remains in the lead to land film distribution rights to the megafranchise — whose deal with Sony expired after 2015’s Spectre — a couple of unlikely suitors have emerged that also are in hot pursuit: Apple and Amazon.

The tech giants are willing to spend in the same ballpark as Warners, if not much more, for the rights, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. MGM has been looking for a deal for more than two years, and Sony, Universal and Fox also had been pursuing the property, with Warners and Sony the most aggressive.

But the emergence of Apple — which is considered such a viable competitor that Warners is now pressing MGM hard to close a deal — and Amazon shows that the digital giants consider Bond one of the last untapped brands (like a Marvel, Pixar or Lucasfilm) that could act as a game-changer in the content space. Apple’s and Amazon’s inclusion in the chase would indicate that more is on the table than film rights, including the future of the franchise if MGM will sell or license out for the right price.

The Star Wars franchise has shown that refreshing the format is a potentially viable strategy. I really loved The Force Awakens and Rogue One wasn’t far off — it’s not perfect, but it is a chance to spend more time in the Star Wars universe. The James Bond series of movies is my other favourite — I’ve been watching them all my life — and there is a potential here to expand upon it, perhaps even venturing into TV show territory. James has worked with other 00 agents in his movies before and I’d happily watch their adventures too.

Oh! Apple still hasn’t proven itself trustworthy in this sector (Tim Cook and Bono, Planet of the Apps), so I hope they don’t screw this up, if they get the rights.

Apple to Reveal Steve Jobs Theatre on September 12, 2017 →

September 7, 2017 · 11:55

Alex Webb:

The entrance to the venue sits underneath a silver disc, whose supporting glass panels make it seem to float 20 feet above the surrounding clearing. The auditorium itself occupies four underground stories, and to get there, journalists will descend a staircase spiraling down alongside the walls.

It also boasts two custom-made rotating elevators, which turn as they ascend and descend so that passengers enter and exit by the same door even as they go in and out from different directions. So far, so Apple—the more elegant single door, with its complex engineering, preferred to the more obvious double-door solution.

Once CEO Tim Cook and his cohorts finish showing off the new iPhones, Apple Watch and TV onstage, a surprise will await the departing attendees. An inside wall, which obscures a hollow space below the floating saucer, will retract to reveal the product demonstration room, according to someone with knowledge of the design. For fellow Brits: think the Thunderbird 3 launchpad underneath Tracy Island’s circular pool house.

I’m sure the new iPhone will be great, but this new building has me more excited at the moment.

1Password Command-Line Tool Public Beta →

September 7, 2017 · 11:54

Connor Hicks:

Here at AgileBits, we’ve been working hard over the last few months to bring power users, developers, and administrators more powerful ways to interact with 1Password. We’re proud to announce that we have something that fits the bill. It’s called the 1Password command-line tool, and we can’t wait to see what you build with it. Let me take this opportunity to walk you through the exciting potential […]

You can download op for macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD on i386, ARM, and AMD64 architectures. Oh, and our Windows friends can play too!

Pixelmator Pro for Mac teased →

September 6, 2017 · 11:29

Between Pixelmator and Affinity Photo/Designer, Adobe will soon have a big problem on their hands — not only do I prefer the UI of these new „indie” apps, but they appear to be much more modern, with simpler, more effective tools.

Lightroom and InDesign have yet to be dethroned though.

Apple Axes Annual Apple Music Festival in London After 10 Years →

September 5, 2017 · 09:20

Tim Ingham:

Apple has confirmed to MBW that it will no longer be hosting the annual Apple Music Festival at London’s Roundhouse.

The UK event officially became the Apple Music Festival in 2015 as part of a rebranding away from its original name of the iTunes Festival.

The annual show was first held in 2007 – typically running for a month at a time with concerts every night, and tickets going to competition winners.

This was one event I looked forward to every year. Sad to see it go. I still distinctly remember a cozy evening spent with my wife, listening and watching Ludovico Einaudi perform.

Google Flipped Out →

September 2, 2017 · 10:35

Kashmir Hill:

I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. In addition to writing and reporting, I helped run social media there, so I got pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople about Google’s then-new social network, Plus.

The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Plus’s “+1″ social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search results—a crucial source of traffic to publishers.

This sounded like a news story to me. Google’s dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network.

I asked the Google people if I understood correctly: If a publisher didn’t put a +1 button on the page, its search results would suffer? The answer was yes.

After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.

With that, I published a story headlined, “Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers,” that included bits of conversation from the meeting […]

Google promptly flipped out.

This borders on blackmail, NDA or not.