I was skeptical about Apple’s first reality TV show, but after watching the trailer, “Planet of the Apps” seems better than I thought it would be. It’s definitely reality TV, so I won’t watch it, but it seems more toned down than it typically is.
Author: Paul Jones
WWDC in San Jose
Here’s Dan Moren on the latest news on WWDC:
Well…didn’t see that one coming. Apple’s announced that the 2017 incarnation of its Worldwide Developers Conference will be held from June 5 through June 9, but not in its usual home at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Instead, the event will take place at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, about an hour south of the city.
I seem to recall Tim Cook saying something to the effect of, “see ya next year in the spaceship!” I wonder if things got delayed and bridges were burned at Moscone West, leading to this decision. Given the proximity to Campus 2, I wonder if any events will take place there.
The state of iBooks
Michael Cohen at TidBits, via 512 Pixels:
I cannot see into the heart of Apple to judge the depth of its love for iBooks, but, from external appearances, whatever affection it has seems to become ever more shallow with each passing release. And, for an ebook lover like me, that is heartbreaking.
iBooks is not without its problems, though I find it vastly superior to the Amazon Kindle app and I find it generally quite reliable for reading ebooks. The number of free books on the iBooks store is also appreciated.
Highlights from Theresa May’s address to Congressional Republicans
Theresa May’s address to Congressional Republicans:
“We must never cease”, Churchill said, “to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence”.
So it is my honour and my privilege to stand before you today in this great city of Philadelphia to proclaim them again, to join hands as we pick up that mantle of leadership once more, to renew our Special Relationship and to recommit ourselves to the responsibility of leadership in the modern world.
And it is my honour and privilege to do so at this time, as dawn breaks on a new era of American renewal.
For I speak to you not just as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but as a fellow Conservative who believes in the same principles that underpin the agenda of your Party. The value of liberty. The dignity of work. The principles of nationhood, family, economic prudence, patriotism – and putting power in the hands of the people.
[…]
New enemies of the West and our values – in particular in the form of Radical Islamists – have emerged.
And countries with little tradition of democracy, liberty and human rights – notably China and Russia – have grown more assertive in world affairs.
The rise of the Asian economies – China yes, but democratic allies like India too – is hugely welcome. Billions are being lifted out of poverty and new markets for our industries are opening up.
But these events – coming as they have at the same time as the financial crisis and its fall out, as well as a loss of confidence in the West following 9/11, the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sporadic terrorist attacks – have led many to fear that, in this century, we will experience the eclipse of the West.
But there is nothing inevitable about that. Other countries may grow stronger. Big, populous countries may grow richer. And as they do so, they may start to embrace more fully our values of democracy and liberty.
But even if they do not, our interests will remain. Our values will endure. And the need to defend them and project them will be as important as ever.
So we – our two countries together – have a joint responsibility to lead. Because when others step up as we step back, it is bad for America, for Britain and the world.
It is in our interests – those of Britain and America together – to stand strong together to defend our values, our interests and the very ideas in which we believe.
[…]
Because of these strong economic and commercial links – and our shared history and the strength of our relationship – I look forward to pursuing talks with the new Administration about a new UK/US Free Trade Agreement in the coming months. It will take detailed work, but we welcome your openness to those discussions and hope we can make progress so that the new, Global Britain that emerges after Brexit is even better equipped to take its place confidently in the world.
Such an agreement would see us taking that next step in the special relationship that exists between us. Cementing and affirming one of the greatest forces for progress this world has ever known.
AP: “Equipment Didn’t Detect North Dakota Oil Leak”
Electronic monitoring equipment failed to detect a pipeline rupture that spewed more than 176,000 gallons of crude oil into a North Dakota creek, the pipeline’s operator said Monday.
It’s not yet clear why the monitoring equipment didn’t detect the leak, Wendy Owen, a spokeswoman for Casper, Wyoming-based True Cos., which operates the Belle Fourche Pipeline, said.
A landowner discovered the spill near Belfield on Dec. 5, according to Bill Suess, an environmental scientist with the North Dakota Health Department.
I can’t tell if this is unbelievable or completely believable, but either way this is terrible.
United Airlines will charge for overhead bins
United has a new ticket fare, where no luggage is included in the price (except what fits at your feet). If you want overhead bin space, or to check, you pay. I actually love this, though I would much rather checked luggage be free and overhead charged for everyone.
I have no doubt this scheme is at least partly motivated by a desire for increased revenue on the side of the airlines, but I’m pleased that people will now be forced to more deliberate in the size and location of their bags when flying – a couple of times I’ve had pieces of luggage damaged by people cramming in overheads.
Shared interests of the populist right and the progressive left
Jeremy Corbyn via the BBC on the relationship between the progressive left and populist right:
“They are political parasites feeding on people’s concerns and worsening conditions, blaming the most vulnerable for society’s ills instead of offering a way for taking back real control of our lives from the elites who serve their own interests.
“But unless progressive parties and movements break with a failed economic and political establishment, it is the siren voices of the populist far right who will fill that gap.”
The Labour leader said economic conditions had been exploited by the populist right.
“We know the gap between rich and poor is widening; we know living standards are stagnating or falling and insecurity is growing; we know that many people rightly feel left behind by the forces unleashed by globalisation, powerless in the face of deregulated corporate power,” he said.
Bernie Sanders via CBS This Morning:
“We will hold Mr. Trump accountable. We have all of the things he has said and we are going to say to Mr. Trump, if you have the courage to actually stand up to the big money and trust of the billionaire class, if you have the courage, in fact, to develop policies to improve lives for working people count us in,” Sanders said. “You want for increase the infrastructure and way equity for women, we are on your side.”
Two different countries, politicians, and messages, but same cautious view of the populist right.
WSJ: “China’s Dalian Wanda Group Faces Renewed U.S. Regulatory Scrutiny”
The Wall Street Journal reports of Chuck Schumer, New York Senator and House Minority Leader:
Mr. Schumer said the ability for Chinese companies to take a majority stake in U.S. assets, often backed by state officials and China’s sovereign-wealth funds, is unfair considering stateside companies are handicapped from doing similar deals in China. U.S. companies hoping to do business in China usually have to form a joint venture that often includes the sharing of intellectual property—an arrangement that Mr. Schumer called a “pay to play system.”
I was critical of the decision to go with Schumer as minority leader, but if he continues to take action like this, I would gladly retract that.
Send as text message in iOS 10
I found several forum posts, but the only solution seems to be to temporarily turn off iMessage, which seems like a terrible solution because it means that you won’t be able to receive iMessages from anyone else in the interim. Worse, the iMessages will look to the sender like they got delivered because they’ll still go to your Mac or iPad.
Ideally, there would be a way to simply start a new conversation using SMS even though there is an iMessage account associated with that phone number.
I absolutely agree. A text message is preferred when reception is spotty, and this whole thing gets very confusing when your talking to someone who has an iMessage account separate from their phone number and a phone number with SMS.
Mike Pence went to see Hamilton
From the New York Times:
As the play ended, the actor who played Aaron Burr, Brandon Victor Dixon, acknowledged that Mr. Pence was in the audience, thanked him for attending and added, “We hope you will hear us out.”
I don’t support this – Mike Pence is a paying customer to a see a play, and he should be treated by the establishment as equally as possible. Even if the message is fairly innocuous, I don’t think this was a classy move to do without Mike Pence’s approval. However, with regards to:
When Mr. Pence entered the Richard Rodgers Theater in Manhattan, he was greeted with a mix of clapping and booing, according to theatergoers who posted on Twitter.
While I don’t support this treatment of the vice-president elect, I think this is a fair expression of the theater-goers First Amendment rights – if Mike Pence is free to express his anti-gay beliefs, which he is and he should be, he also must face the public, especially metropolitan, opposition to these views.
Donald Trump and the Paris Accord
Donald Trump has appeared to or has been characterized as pulling back on his promises to “build a wall”, “drain the swamp”, “lock her up”, and more. But if there’s any campaign promise I want him to pull back on, it’s not implementing the Paris Accord. From Democracy Now!:
As Democracy Now! broadcasts from the U.N. climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, we report that nearly 200 nations have agreed on a proclamation that declares implementation of the Paris climate accord to be an “urgent duty.” This comes just over a week after the election of Donald Trump, who has vowed to pull the United states out of the Paris Agreement and has called climate change a Chinese-created hoax. Meanwhile, climate activists staged protests targeting corporate sponsors of the climate talks.
Even if there were a plausible case for skepticism in man-made global climate change, the gamble of potentially making large swaths of land uninhabitable and unarable is not worth the risk.
iPhones send call history to Apple if you’ve enabled iCloud
The Intercept reported via a digital forensics firm that iPhones with iCloud enabled send user’s call history to Apple servers:
Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft has found that Apple’s mobile devices automatically send a user’s call history to the company’s servers if iCloud is enabled — but the data gets uploaded in many instances without user choice or notification.
“You only need to have iCloud itself enabled” for the data to be sent, said Vladimir Katalov, CEO of Elcomsoft.
This can be justified. Apple do a number of things with your phone call: they allow you to answer calls on any of your devices, they allow third parties to make VoIP calls that look and feel like normal phone calls, for instance. Apple’s response:
“We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls from any of their devices,” an Apple spokesperson said in an email. “Device data is encrypted with a user’s passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user’s Apple ID and password. Apple recommends all customers select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication.”
It is still technically accessible to law enforcement via a subpoena, but granted, I believe this is true anyway given that carriers would happily provide call logs too. The mistake Apple made here is not in the actual behavior of the phone, but in the disclosure to users. This should have been made clear to the user, or at least found in their famously long agreements.
ProPublica exposes professors being hired by corporations to justify their mergers.
The most straightforward example of corporate purchase of academic economic research in their favor that ProPublica found was Dennis Carlton:
Dennis Carlton, a self-effacing economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and one of Compass Lexecon’s experts on the AT&T-Time Warner merger, charges at least $1,350 an hour. In his career, he has made about $100 million, including equity stakes and non-compete payments, ProPublica estimates. Carlton has written reports or testified in favor of dozens of mergers, including those between AT&T-SBC Communications and Comcast-Time Warner, and three airline deals: United-Continental, Southwest-Airtran, and American-US Airways.
This is the elitism that is the source of America’s growing populism, with academic class gorging themselves on corporate-funded and government subsidized hit-peice publications that justify decisions that benefit that same academic, political, banker, and corporate class. The politicians making the most noise about this are hugely popular: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Paul, and Donald Trump come immediately to mind. ProPublica continue:
In addition, politicians such as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren have criticized big mergers for giving a handful of companies too much clout. President-elect Trump said in October that his administration would not approve the AT&T-Time Warner merger “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”
The merge has the same affect as trade deals: while it’s true that a broad view of the economy shows that there’s more capital in the system, it disproportionally benefits the rich and punishes the poor. Democrats and Republicans alike have been increasingly cozy with ex-corporate interest “independent” lobbyists which later become politicians themselves before getting hired by a corporation again. Obama in 2008 had a populist message, and moving to 2016 he’s become everything people didn’t vote for: bigger trade deals and bigger mergers and acquisitions:
A late Obama administration push to scrutinize major deals notwithstanding, the government over the past several decades has pulled back on merger enforcement.
The rest of the article explores how Apple’s iBooks price fixing scandal and the AT&T/Time Warner deal are examples of being technically advantageous to the United States on grounds that while the customers face a bigger burden, the corporation can take advantage of efficiencies to deliver more value to shareholders. And if this difference is net positive, they argue, it is a good merger. But this is false because empowering the people at the base of the economy with competition for cost and features is better for more people and has broader positive economic effects. When consumers have more money, they can afford more, take a chance at starting a business, have a kid, and many more positive outcomes. But when a very narrow group of executives, politicians, and academics funnel more money into their accounts by taking advantage of efficiencies in economics of scale, they’re actually delivering capital to where it is least needed. ProPublica conclude:
Today, AT&T’s much grander takeover of Time Warner will be an early test case for president-elect Trump, who feuded during the campaign with CNN, a Time Warner property.
If Trump blocks the deal, I hope it’s the first in a series of good decisions; if he allows the deal, he’ll have completely repudiated his claim that he’ll “drain the swamp.” Ideally, the populist liberals and conservatives in all the branches of government can unify to fight this establishment corporatism.
Facebook promises its users more censorship
Facebook via TechCrunch:
We take misinformation on Facebook very seriously. We value authentic communication, and hear consistently from those who use Facebook that they prefer not to see misinformation. In Newsfeed we use various signals based on community feedback to determine which posts are likely to contain inaccurate information, and reduce their distribution. In Trending we look at a variety of signals to help make sure the topics being shown are reflective of real-world events, and take additional steps to prevent false or misleading content from appearing. Despite these efforts we understand there’s so much more we need to do, and that is why it’s important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation. We’re committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform.
It’s amazing how straightfacedly and unironically this VP admits to and endorses censorship, as though they have some unique access to the truth, like the solution to Trump getting elected is even more media control. But to their point, it’s their platform, and they can control the flow of information all they want, to me it’s another reason not to use Facebook.
It should’ve been President Sanders
While the result of the presidential election is upsetting to me on grounds of many of my personal beliefs – namely, that anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to humanity, that everyone should be allowed to live the life they want with whoever they love, that a country as wealthy as the United States should guarantee its citizens healthcare as a human right, among others – I’m pleased because it was a triumph for democracy.
The reason the Republicans won is that even though almost every establishment figure was wary of Trump, when the results of their primary came in, Republicans did the right thing for democracy and accepted it, however reluctantly or reservedly. Contrastingly, the Democrats impeded Sanders at every step of the way, preemptively blaming him for Clinton’s loss, threatening him, slandering him, and otherwise fudging their primary to the favor of Clinton. Is it any surprise then that it resulted in a candidate that no one wanted. Before you demonize me and profess your passion for Clinton, consider that Trump didn’t win so much as Clinton lost. Look at the voter turnout of 2008, 2012, and 2016, and you’ll see that it shows that Republicans had a typical showing, and that no Democrats came to the polls. Even if some people are passionate about Clinton, the Democratic primary still failed to pick a popular candidate because establishment politicians forced their candidate through with super delegates, manipulation of the media, and threats, and these people are the ones responsible for letting Trump win.
If Democrats continue to blame third-party candidates, “Bernie-bros”, the FBI, Russians, WikiLeaks, whoever, for the failing of their top-down chosen candidate to garner popular support, they’ll continue to lose elections. If Democrats continue to retort to Republicans concerns about terrorism and immigration with “that’s racist”, they’re not going to convince voters as much as they’re going to silence them, because even if it’s true it’s an unpersuasive argument. This will only distort the polls, fail to convince people, and the Democrats will continue to lose election. If the Democrats continue to garner “right side of history” support using identity politics, they’ll alienate rural and suburban people who vote on economic and foreign policy issues, and they’ll continue to lose elections. Before you label me or any Trump voter a racist, which is the type of moralizing blame-shifting that’s losing Democrats elections, consider that the Rust Belt and Bible Belt voters chose Obama, an anti-establishment populist Democratic, twice over a white conservative establishment figure. Those people aren’t white supremacists, they’re the backbone of our country, and if Democrats continue to treat democracy with contempt, it won’t matter that the Democrats automatically get 55 delegates from California, they’ll continue to lose elections.
I’m pleased with the result of the election despite being upset with the winner because Democrats deserved to lose for their blatant disregard for the will of the people, the only legitimate source of power.
Self-hosted content versus centralized third-party services
Andy Baio via Ben Brooks
Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t say, and I have complete control over the way it’s displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web.
While I may cross-post some content to Apple News, Medium, and other services as they spring up — I won’t cross post everything and I certainly don’t trust those sites to ever be more than a passing fad. Having my own site gives me complete control to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. I don’t understand why people ever want it any other way.
This is right on the money: I haven’t been on the Internet as a browser or producer for even a fraction of its total life, and I’ve still seen the rise and fall of many websites. MySpace, Digg, Friendster … there is no reason to believe that the trendy publishing platforms of today will be around tomorrow, in fact quite the contrary. While I take this to be an argument against using these services and have no desire to change, I do suspect that this is a somewhat selfish and hermetic Internet existence, where many people would argue Internet introverts have a lot more to gain from centralized platforms than they’re giving up. Specifically, because it’s centralized, the audience is centralized, discovery is easier, and the value of the interactions that happen while the site is live far outweigh the risks of losing that data or ability once the service invariable tanks, either by shutting down or with some insipid monetization scheme.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
More Samsung recalls
NBC News via John Gruber:
Samsung has one more fire to put out: The South Korean company announced on Friday that it was recalling 2.8 million top-load washing machines, following reports of “impact injuries” that included a broken jaw.
The problem stems from unbalanced drums, which can separate from the washer and generate enough internal force to cause other parts of the washer to detach — and, in some cases, be launched out of the machine.
Samsung is also the subject of an August lawsuit from owners who said their machines “explode during normal use.”
Investors.com via Macrumors via /r/apple
Apple was No. 1 by a mile in smartphone operating profit in Q3. Among major vendors, Samsung was No. 2 in smartphone profits with a tiny 0.9% share, he said. Money-losers in the smartphone business last quarter included LG and HTC […].
Perhaps Samsung should cut their losses, play to their strengths, and enter the very lucrative munitions industry. Snark aside, I’m amazed they turned any profit at all after their Note 7 debacle, and in the interest of healthy competition I hope they rebound quickly. I’d still argue their biggest problem isn’t their exploding phones, it’s their operating system, if they had an OS that could even shine a light on iOS in terms of battery efficiency, their batteries wouldn’t need to be nearly as big or would last twice as long.
Who needs jesters with kings like these?
Jill Stein posted this to her Facebook a couple days ago:
We need to begin having honest conversations about the oppressive tactics corporate comedians continue to do towards already-marginalized groups of people.
And had this to add on her campaign website:
Oliver’s staff actually called our campaign before the program to ask for clarification on Jill’s platform – especially on the main part of his rant, cancelling student debt.
Despite this stab at due diligence (of the sort comedians undertake) … Oliver got it woefully, intentionally wrong. Gosh, it was almost as if they weren’t interested in the truth. It’s almost as if they just wanted to do a hatchet job…
Of course Oliver isn’t interested in the truth: he’s interested in making people laugh and in keeping his job. His show is a little better than some of his competitors because HBO doesn’t have to answer to advertisers, but it is owned by a company that answers to advertisers and lobbies the government. Of course corporate media forwards the goals of corporate media: it’s impossible for any sufficiently large corporation to pursue goals outside of growth and profit, because every decision is scrutinized by understandably penny-conscious shareholders. Oliver is a consumer-facing, front-line product from a Time/Warner company, and he fits into some larger strategy they have for growth and profit. To expect otherwise from a comedy show is misguided.
And this is the real problem. These comedy shows, like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight, lampoon the news, and in doing so, replace the news for people that prefer to actually enjoy their television experience. I think the problems Stein should really be pointing out is that Oliver gets to market himself as news without needing to uphold journalistic standards, like supplements get to pose as medicine without upholding standards of safety and efficacy, and that the news has become so intolerable with the 24 hours news cycle that it’s difficult for me to believe anyone voluntary watches it (Their ratings must be falsely inflated by TVs in airports whose remote control has been misplaced.)
I’m considering voting for Stein come election day, Oliver’s piece made me laugh heartily, and it made no change to my convictions. When you decide to watch controversial, political, or lewd comedy, it’s just stupid to get offended when you, your ideology, or your identity is made fun. What did you expect? That only things you dislike would be mocked? To try to suppress this would be an affront to free speech, one of our most important freedoms. Not only is this stupid, but you cede power to the comedian when you do this, and you’ll often make the joke funnier for the target audience. If you want an example of how to handle being made fun of, and it’s uncomfortable for me to praise a group I have so many problems with, look no further than how the Mormon Church handled “The Book of Mormon”:
The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ.
Let me rephrase that for you Jill Stein:
Jon Oliver may attempt to entertain viewers for an 20 minutes or so, but the ideology of the Green Party is designed to benefit the general population of the United States, unlike the corporatist duopoly.
TechCrunch: “Google buys Eyefluence eye-tracking startup”
Eyefluence shared the announcement quietly today in a blog post, spotted first by Mattermark:
Today, we are excited to announce that the Eyefluence team is joining Google! With our forces combined, we will continue to advance eye-interaction technology to expand human potential and empathy on an even larger scale. We look forward to the life-changing innovations we’ll create together!
As Google launches its Daydream virtual reality platform next month with its Daydream View headset, there is already attention being directed to its next-gen headset efforts.
There’s no reason to believe that Google or any other company has today or will evee infiltrate people’s computers to track their eye movements, but they’re certainly incentivized to do so. I encourage you cover your cameras.
iOS development links: October 25th, 2016
- Here is an excellent WWDC presentation from 2013 on custom transitions between view controllers. Incredibly powerful API, especially when coupled with gesture recognizers.
- This StackOverflow response goes in-deptb about to use this API to create custom gesture-driven transitions.
- Here’s a succinct library compatible with Interface Builder for creating badges.
- I needed to get a count for my enum, but I didn’t want to have to make “count” a case in my enum because then I’d always have to define either it or the default case to avoid errors. I found exactly the solution I was looking for in the comments of this StackOverflow: if you can make your enum an Int and the first value zero, make count a function which returns the raw value of the last case.
- ActionSheetPicker-3.0 is a Swift-ready library for presenting UIPickerViews “as” UIAlertViews.