Jason Snell:
The big challenge has been iOS’s sad and continued lack of support for external storage devices. When I’m traveling with only my iPhone and iPad, I can record audio on an external device—an SD-card recorder from Zoom, usually—but how do I get those files onto my iOS device? iOS can’t see the contents of a standard SD card.
[…]
This year, though, I found a new device that solved my problems. It’s the Kingston MobileLite G3, a peculiar little multi-tool of a product that can charge iOS devices, act as a mobile router to convert hotel Ethernet into Wi-Fi, and more. But there’s only one feature that I really use: its onboard SD card slot.
Update (2017-12-19): John Gruber:
Apple even makes an SD card reader for iOS devices. It just seems downright wrong that it only allows you to import photos to your camera roll. Clearly a connected SD card ought to show up as a source in the iOS 11 Files app, right?
Files.app iOS iOS 11 Storage
Juli Clover:
On AT&T in North Carolina, fees and surcharges add an additional $4.39 to the $10 per month charge, bringing the total to almost $15 per month for an Apple Watch. In some states, these fees on Verizon and AT&T are even higher.
[…]
If you’re planning to avoid fees by deactivating service and activating again when it’s needed, that may not be the best plan of action. As Macworld’s Michael Simon points out, line activation fees that come with reactivation can be hefty.
Apple Watch Carrier Cellular Data
Ilja A. Iwas (tweet):
For almost a year now you cannot drag images from Photos to Safari, and in extension every other macOS application that uses WebViews, like our own GarageSale and many other 3rd party apps that work with images.
Imagine that: The default image handling app on the Mac platform cannot communicate via drag & drop with the default browser. And that’s been going on for almost a year now. On the desktop platform that used to excel in drag & drop!
Not a day goes by without frustrated users in asking our support team why GarageSale cannot receive drags from Photos.
Apple Software Quality Bug GarageSale Mac Mac App macOS 10.13 High Sierra Photos.app Safari WebKit
Dan Goodin:
Researcher Ian Carroll filed the necessary paperwork to incorporate a business called Stripe Inc. He then used the legal entity to apply for an EV certificate to authenticate the Web page https://stripe.ian.sh/. When viewed in the address bar, the page looks eerily similar to https://stripe.com/, the online payments service that also authenticates itself using an EV certificate issued to Stripe Inc.
The demonstration is concerning because many security professionals counsel end users to look for EV certificates when trying to tell if a site such as https://www.paypal.com is an authentic Web property rather than a fly-by-night look-alike page that’s out to steal passwords. But as Carroll’s page shows, EV certs can also be used to trick end users into thinking a page has connections to a trusted service or business when in fact no such connection exists. The false impression can be especially convincing when end users use Apple’s Safari browser because it often strips out the domain name in the address bar, leaving only the name of the legal entity that obtained the EV certificate.
iOS iOS 11 Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra MobileSafari Safari Security Web
Amanda Green (via Hacker News):
Since Amazon first opened its virtual doors, there have been concerns about reviews. Not just for books but for all the products sold through its site. It is no secret that authors have paid for reviews — and some still do. Or that there have been fake accounts set up to give sock puppet reviews. There have been stories about sellers and manufacturers planting fake reviews as well, all in the hopes of bolstering their product rankings and ratings. From time to time, Amazon has taken steps to combat this trend. One of the last times they did it, they brought in a weighted review system. This one differentiates between “verified purchasers” and those who did not buy the product viz Amazon. Now there is a new policy in place, once that should help — at least until a new way around it is found.
Simply put, Amazon now requires you to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of books or other products before you can leave a review or answer questions about a product. These purchases, and it looks like it is a cumulative amount, must be purchased via credit card or debit card — gift cards won’t count. This means someone can’t set up a fake account, buy themselves a gift card and use it to get around the policy.
Amazon Shopping Web
Ina Fried (via Hacker News):
There’s a lot of frenemy stuff at play here, with Google, Apple and Amazon all selling their own streaming devices, but also looking to offer their own services on one another’s devices. Apple doesn’t offer its programing on rival devices, but does move a lot of hardware through Amazon.
Amazon Apple TV Google Chromecast Web
