Apple:
The macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 update improves the stability, performance, and security of your Mac, and is recommended for all users.
[…]
Adds support for external graphics processors (eGPUs)
[…]
Enables sorting Safari bookmarks by name or URL by right clicking and choosing ‘Sort By…’
[…]
Displays privacy icons and links to explain how your data will be used and protected when Apple features ask to use your personal information
So far the update has worked fine for me except that (like most of the recent ones) it got stuck with a black screen for several hours. Eventually I power cycled the iMac, and then (after a few more auto-reboots) the update completed.
Rob Griffiths:
Maybe next we’ll be able to sort the App Store app’s Purchased tab by alpha…who am I kidding, that’s real rocket science.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
I caught myself wondering whether this dialog was the first UI change to the Mac App Store in 5 years, and then I felt sad
Howard Oakley:
The latest update to High Sierra, bringing it to 10.13.4, does fix the bug discovered by Sarah Edwards when making an APFS encrypted volume in Disk Utility – in both its original form (fixed in 10.13.2) and the form which remained into 10.13.3.
Juli Clover:
The update also introduces the smoke cloud wallpaper that was previously only available on the iMac Pro[…]
David J. Loehr:
Would you look at that. @Apple updated the Photos app and managed to eliminate a few thousand photos.
I hope they turn up sometime.
Because I put them there manually because I don’t use or trust iCloud Photo Library since that deleted several hundred photos a few years ago.
Avatron Software:
Air Display users: Please don’t update your host Mac to macOS 10.13.4. It introduces severe WindowServer bugs that crash most inelegantly when you connect to a virtual monitor like Air Display (or its competitors). 10.13.3 still works fine. Hopefully Apple will fix 10.13.4 soon.
Dave Howell:
Thanks to App Store policy, we cannot change Air Display 3’s app description, to warn that macOS 10.13.4 kernel panics when you connect to Air Display, when we submit a new version of the iOS app. But a new version won’t be approved because the host crashes. Sigh.
Gus Mueller:
Apple has just released 10.13.4, which includes support for HEIC / HEIF encoding (support for reading HEIC was introduced in 10.13). And if you’ve already updated to Acorn 6.1, the option to export your image as HEIC will now appear for you in the Web Export window.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
Don’t forget that macOS 10.13.4 has a 64-bit-only mode, which you’ll want to turn on as a Mac developer to see if your apps still function correctly. Users can give it a go too just to see what’s about to break forever in the next macOS…
Steve Troughton-Smith:
If you happen to want Messages in iCloud in macOS 10.13.4, the checkbox shows up in Messages if you have an empty /AppleInternal folder… Do with this information what you will — but there’s clearly a reason why it hasn’t shipped yet for the public, so be warned
Previously: macOS 10.13 High Sierra Released, Hello HEIF, High Sierra Stored APFS Volume Passwords in Log Files.
Update (2018-04-01): macOS 10.13.4 seems to have fixed a bug I was seeing since 10.13.0 with Preview thinking PDF files were dirty as soon as I’d opened them.
On one Mac, the installer left behind a macOS Install Data folder.
Update (2018-04-02): Guilherme Rambo:
Ok, “stable” build of High Sierra finally installed. After several minutes of Spotlight and kernel_task using 300% CPU, I now have only 200mb disk space left (I had 70gb before)
Update (2018-04-04): David Smith:
Some fixes in iOS 11.3/macOS 10.13.4
- KVO auto-unregistration no longer crashes if an object observed self & unregistered some but not all observers in dealloc
- Using defaults(1) to read non-defaults plists no longer deletes them
- Extensions aren’t incorrectly suspended now
Update (2018-04-09): Steven Frank:
Why can’t computers wake from sleep reliably?
Like imagine spending $2-3,000 on literally anything and it doesn’t always turn on/off properly and going oh, yeah, it just does that sometimes and everyone being fine with that.
Update (2018-04-10): Adam Engst:
And Alban Rampon, a product manager at DisplayLink, shared a similar story in the company’s support forums[…]
64-Bit Acorn Air Display Apple File System (APFS) Bookmarks Bug HEIF iMessage Key-Value Observing (KVO) Mac Mac App Store macOS 10.13 High Sierra macOS Release Messages in iCloud Messages.app Photos.app Preview.app Privacy Safari
Juli Clover:
iOS 11.3 is a major update that introduces a long list of new features, including several that Apple has been promising for months. The update introduces a new “Battery Health” feature that's designed to provide iOS users with more information about their batteries, and it is a function Apple promised to introduce following backlash over the power management features added to older iPhones.
I was disappointed to find that my iPhone battery’s Maximum Capacity is still 100% and that it supports “normal peak performance.” This means that the incredible slowness I’ve been seeing over the past month or so: 10 seconds to log in, 15 seconds to launch apps that used to just take a few seconds, stuttery animations, 5-second freezes doing seemingly basic tasks like adding actions in OmniFocus—are software problems with no obvious fix. It’s weird because sometimes my iPhone SE feels like it’s running full speed. But other times it feels like an iPhone 4S or older. This contrast made me suspect that the CPU was being throttled, except that the slowness did not seem to be correlated with battery level.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
Disappointed that iOS 11.3 doesn’t include iMessage in iCloud, according to reports from new iPad owners. Maybe major iOS releases should launch with ‘beta’ labels in September, like new features do? (High Sierra sure needed a warning label)
This was originally to ship with iOS 11.0, six months ago.
Michael Yacavone:
We should be happy when beta features don’t yet graduate to a release - it means they’re still working it out, and WE WANT LESS BUGS.
Also missing is AirPlay 2, which people expected in iOS 11.3 since it’s necessary for some features that were supposed to be part of the HomePod launch originally scheduled for December, however Apple only said that it would ship “later this year.”
Previously: Battery Health and Peak Performance Capacity, Do iPhones Get Slower Over Time?, Messages on iCloud in iOS 11.3 Beta, HomePod to Arrive February 9.
Update (2018-03-30): Keith Broni:
With the release of iOS 11.3 today, Apple is making some minor adjustments to four emojis: 🦁 Lion Face, 💀 Skull, 🐻 Bear Face and 🐲 Dragon Face.
David Barnard:
Better later than buggy. I’m thrilled Apple is working hard to get things right and not releasing a half baked feature to save face on the delay.
Ryan Jones:
The gloom is inability to build software. Yes, building software includes the ability to know +/- 1 year when it will be done.
Rene Ritchie:
Honestly, stuff like not updating iWork or Mac mini regularly and not pushing out services like Apple News internationally are a much bigger concern to me than stuff they are working on but just taking longer than expected.
Nick Heer:
But there is, I think, a reasonable argument to be made that over-promising and under-delivering is a worrying narrative to have taken hold.
Matt Comi:
I think only people in tech identify iMessage Sync as a feature; I think the lack of (reliable/predictable) sync is more practically identified as a bug, and iMessage Sync as a bug fix. My point: iMessage sync is Apple slowing down and producing better quality software.
Benjamin Mayo:
With 11.3, every device starts unthrottled. The first time you have an unexpected shutdown it will throttle.
(The actual throttling is more fine grained too when it does happen.)
Serenity Caldwell:
Apple shows the following messages in Battery Health, depending on your iPhone's capability to handle apps at peak performance[…]
[…]
iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X models use a more advanced hardware and software design that provides a more accurate estimation of both power needs and the battery's power capability to maximize overall system performance. This allows a different performance management system that more precisely allows iOS to anticipate and avoid an unexpected shutdown.
David Cabecinhas:
You joke but Apple changed the throttling decision algorithm. My 6s was throttled prior to iOS 11.3 and now is working at full speed again!
Update (2018-04-02): Bob Burrough:
I find it more likely that, as a result of the extreme backlash when iPhone throttling was discovered, much more scrutiny was applied to the throttling algorithm, and it was likely relaxed in 11.3.
Update (2018-04-03): Bradley Chambers:
Looks like iOS 11.3 bug is breaking some MDM stuff. This means I can’t administer standardized testing sessions tomorrow without manually configuring a bunch of iPad for guided access.
This is why Apple’s IT services stack is so important. I can get away with these because we are a smaller school. At a larger district, this is a show stopping problem. I have no doubt that if something like this happened with G Suite, it would be fixed today.
There is no way an iOS update is coming today to address this. Apple Radar # 39116010. This is why I don’t get super excited about Pencil support or a Classwork app. Apple just still hasn’t gotten the basics down.
This isn’t like “oh Apple Music doesn’t give as good recommendations at Spotify” complaint about Apple’s services. This is a major major bug on a release that had been beta tested for months.
See also: Apple’s Lane Tech Education Event.
Update (2018-04-04): Peter Steinberger:
Ah, the Internet discovers that iOS 11.3 broke a lot of websites.
Update (2018-04-05): Marco Arment:
If this is accurate, iOS 11.3 NOTIFIES users when old-battery speed throttling gets enabled.
This is, finally, correct and reasonable behavior.
Update (2018-04-13): Accidental Tech Podcast discusses the unfortunate wording of the notification.
AirPlay Battery Life Emoji HomePod iCloud iMessage iOS iOS 11 iPhone iPhone SE Messages in iCloud Messages.app Notification Center
MacRumors:
Apple is not providing a live video stream of today’s event, but will post the video on its website and the Apple Events app on Apple TV following the event. We will be updating this article with live blog coverage—no need to refresh—and issuing Twitter updates through our @MacRumorsLive account as the keynote unfolds.
Tom Warren (Hacker News, MacRumors):
Apple previously lowered the price of its 9.7-inch iPad last year, with a base model starting at $329, but today it’s going a step further for students. Apple is offering the new iPad to schools priced at $299 and to consumers for $329. The optional Apple Pencil will be priced at $89 for schools and the regular $99 price for consumers. This is obviously not the $259 budget iPad pricing that was rumored, but it does make it a little more affordable to students and teachers.
Federico Viticci (article):
The new 9.7” iPad does NOT have:
- ProMotion
- Wide color P3 display
- True Tone
- Smart Connector
- OIS
- 4K video
- Second-gen Touch ID
Tim Hardwick:
Apple and Logitech today announced Crayon, a more affordable stylus for the iPad, at its education-themed event in Chicago. The device will cost $49, roughly half the price of the Apple Pencil.
Benjamin Mayo:
The Crayon has the same stylus technology as Pencil (but no pressure sensitivity) with a completely different external design. Plug in a normal Lightning cable to charge, and it has a power status LED.
The Crayon basically has all the ‘ugly’ features that Jony Ive would never approve.
Matt Bonney:
Also important to note that the Crayon only works with the iPad announced today. Doesn’t even support iPad Pro.
Tim Hardwick:
Integrated Apple Pencil support in the new upcoming versions of Pages and Keynote will enable users to add drawings directly to reports and take advantage of smart annotation features, while students in particular will benefit from using the input device in Numbers to add to their “lab reports”, said Apple.
Tory Foulk:
In addition, the Pages update is bringing digital book creation to the iPad. That essentially means no more iBooks Author, as it’s being integrated directly into Pages.
Dan Masters:
Who wants to bet the caveat is that it’s way less powerful than iBooks Author?
Riccardo Mori:
Pages and iBooks Author had the potential to become two great apps. Now that they’re one single app, I hope it’s not going to be a worst-of-both-world kind of software.
When it comes to first-party software, my impression is that Apple has become somewhat lazier in these past years. The move Pages = iBooks Author + Pages reminds me of Photos = Aperture + iPhoto.
Juli Clover:
Instead of providing each student and teacher with the standard 5GB of free storage, Apple is now offering 200GB of storage at no additional cost.
So, after you graduate, you lose all your work if you don’t pay up?
Tim Schmitz:
Good for students, but I take this as a sign that Apple doesn’t plan to increase free storage for other users. I’m just baffled by the 5 GB limit. I guess it’s a play to increase “services” revenue?
David Sparks:
I think Apple still has a pricing problem. Chromebooks are in the low $200 range. The new iPad is $300, but when you add a case/keyboard $100 and an Apple Pencil ($100), a fully rigged iPad becomes nearly 2.5 times the cost of a Chromebook. When schools need to buy them by the hundreds (or thousands), that extra $300 is going to matter.
Walt Mossberg:
I’m a big iPad fan. And the new iPad education software Apple showed off today looked great. But the school discounts for the new iPad and the pencil seem way too paltry.
Casey Liss:
Schools only compete on price. So if Apple won’t, then they will never be a big deal in education. It’s a waste of time.
Josh Centers:
A lot of people mistakenly believe that schools choose Google for price. No, it’s a superior product that just happens to also be the cheapest option. (At what cost, though?)
Mike:
They should’ve bundled the keyboard for students. I’m honestly disappointed about that
Adam C. Engst:
Notably missing from the sixth-generation iPad’s specs is the Smart Connector, necessary for Apple’s Smart Keyboard. Apple likely felt that adding such support would cannibalize sales of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and it’s also possible that it would have forced a price increase. Nonetheless, it’s unfortunate, because it forces schools that adopt the sixth-generation iPad to come up with some Bluetooth keyboard solution for older students who need to, you know, actually write. And frankly, any iPad in an education setting needs a ruggedized case anyway.
Brian X. Chen:
Not only is $500 ($300 for iPad, $100 for Pencil, $100 for keyboard) too expensive to compete with cheap ChromeBooks in education, but the iPad keyboards (first- and third-party) just aren’t good enough to replace a laptop keyboard.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
So was that really worth having an Apple Event for? What did you think?
Michael Gartenberg:
Net net. Solid offering from Apple. I don’t see it making a dent against Google in the near future.
Noah Kravitz:
The hardware cost is important, but far secondary to the cost of administration. Chromebooks are so popular in schools bc they’re so cheap and easy to deploy and administer. iOS was not made for network admins.
Carolina Milanesi (tweet):
When the iPad was first brought into the classroom it was done in schools where, by and large, budget was not an issue and teachers were empowered to invest time in finding the best way to use technology to reinvent and energize teaching. It was really about rethinking how to teach and connect with students. As technology became more pervasive, schools discovered that it was not just about teaching but it was also about managing the classroom. This is what Google was able to capitalize on. Yes, schools turn to Chromebooks because the hardware is cheaper but also because the total cost of ownership when it comes to deployment, management, and teacher’s involvement is much lower.
Jason Smith:
I work in the 11th largest school district with 190k students. All Google here.
I imagine a large number of these kids will always use docs and never even look at Word.
Eric Young:
The lack of an identity management platform - which allowed for Apple to so very quickly get replaced in the education market
Poses the same risk for them in the corporate enterprise market as well
CJ:
There was no lock in identity platform for even iPad 1:1 schools so now you see them using iPads running G Suite.
I just sat in a K-12 iOS user group meeting where one district said “Why do we even bother with Apple ID’s anymore? We use G Suite.”
Stefan Constantine:
Apple: Buy an iPad for your kid so they can learn how to code.
Kid: I learned how to code! How do I make an app?
Apple: Buy a laptop.
Mom and dad: Wait, I thought the iPad was a computer replacement?
Kid: What’s a computer?
Previously: Apple Losing Education Share, iBooks Author Conference Highlights Ecosystem Worries.
Update (2018-03-27): Dieter Bohn:
Logitech’s Rugged Combo 2 keyboard case for the iPad is not likely to be something you’ll want to buy. It’s just too big for most. It’s very, very rugged, surrounding the device in a huge plastic block that feels like it could protect the glass inside from nearly anything.
[…]
But I am here to tell you that it is fascinating. The spill-proof keyboard doesn’t connect via Bluetooth, but instead via a custom smart connector Logitech developed, which passes through to the Lightning port inside the case. The keyboard is therefore removable (it attaches by a strong magnet) and can be replaced with a simple cover.
The thing stands up via a kickstand on the back. That means, when the keyboard is attached, it basically looks like a big, blocky Surface Pro.
Ryan Christoffel:
The special iWork-optimized flavor of Markup included here has marker, pencil, crayon, and shape tools, along with an eraser. If you tap one of the tools when it’s already selected, it will reveal more options to modify the tool’s size and opacity. To get started with Markup, you simply tap your Pencil to the screen and hold, and the Markup tools will appear. If you want to add a sketch without your Pencil in hand, you can do that by hitting the app’s + button, then selecting the Drawing option.
One special Pencil feature Pages receives is something Apple calls Smart Annotation. Launching in beta with today’s update, Smart Annotation enables making comments and proof marks on written work that will then remain dynamically attached to the annotated text, so your Pencil markings will remain with the right words even if changes are later made within the document.
Helge Heß:
Classroom for Mac is the first Marzipan app they show in public. I guess.
Stephen Hackett:
It cannot open my iBooks Author file for my book on the iMac G3 and history of Mac OS X. I’m not super surprised by that, but as the future of iBooks Author is unknown, I’d like a way to know I can edit this file using Pages in the future.
Serenity Caldwell (article):
iBooks Author is NOT being sunset. It’s continuing development. This Pages update is not a replacement.
Jared Willis:
I am a full time college student and a full time creative professional. The iPad Pro is... Not good for creative work. Just buy a Dell XPS 15 and move on with your life.
OTOH, the iPad Pro has been a absolutely essential to me in school.
It does what literally no other device can do, which is flawlessly bridge the gap between digital and paper.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
Of course annotations should export! Sadly they don’t even print (to PDF) properly — drawings and highlights don’t stay in the right place when printing even though they’re included
You can definitely draw on the page, but only in defined rectangles that you have to rearrange afterwards. Not like writing on paper
Bob Burrough:
Why shouldn’t Apple sell an iPad + Apple Pencil for $149 to any student who wants one?
Dieter Bohn:
Both accessories are specifically designed to sell to the education market and will not hit general retail.
Let’s start with the Crayon because it’s fascinating. It’s half the price of the Apple Pencil and works a little bit differently. It does not need to be paired via Bluetooth. Instead, any Crayon can work with any [6th generation] iPad. Apple says that’s so a teacher can walk around with it and use it with student devices. Since it doesn’t pair via Bluetooth, it can’t do pressure sensitivity.
Update (2018-03-28): Shira Ovide:
Chromebooks accounted for 60 percent of laptops, tablet and other mobile computers shipped to U.S. K-12 schools in the third quarter of 2017, according to FutureSource Consulting. Apple’s iPads accounted for 12 percent of those school devices, less than half of its market share in 2014.
Zac Cichy:
Announced today:
- Same iPad now with Pencil support. Discounted just slightly for edu. (Was already going to happen)
- iWork with Pencil support. (Was already going to happen)
- Improvements to its general education efforts. (Was already going to happen)
Justifies this? [Apple + Education: Ignite the creativity in every student.]
Matt Birchler:
Her opinion is that the tablet form factor is problematic, mainly because students can barely be trusted to not lose a laptop, let alone a tablet, a case, and a stylus. Also, look at the profile view of an iPad in the new keyboard case Apple showed on stage[…]
The iPad requires a decent amount of space behind the keyboard to stand up. When kids are using these on small desks, this can be a problem and makes a laptop form facto more appealing.
Dan Benjamin:
My review of the Logitech Rugged Combo 2 keyboard case for the iPad:
Just get a laptop.
Matt Birchler:
The iPad mini has the same A8 chip that was in the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. At $329 for an A10 iPad, it’s hard to see what the market is for the $399 mini with an A8
Matt Birchler:
I get it, iCloud storage is a pain for a lot of people. As I’ve written before, iCloud’s paid tiers are very competitively priced. Here’s who much you need to pay get get different amounts of data on the major cloud storage platforms[…]
Carolina Milanesi:
I came into this event hoping to see three things: hardware pricing, an improved productivity and collaboration suite and a bigger focus on managing the classroom. Apple addressed my three points but in true Apple fashion it did so in a way that was not obvious to me.
[…]
While I am not sure yet if these changes are enough for a consumer to switch from Microsoft Office or G-suite, I think they are welcome additions in education.
[…]
[Classroom management] was for me the most important part of the day and what really shows that Apple now as a full solution rather than a series of features.
Bob Burrough:
The slide presented by Steve Jobs showed two street signs representing “the intersection of liberal arts and technology.” As shown today, they are drawn as wayposts, meaning “liberal arts is that way, and technology is in the other direction.”
Nick Lockwood:
The implication is that new Apple misunderstands the meaning of the phrase, but the reality is far worse: they just don’t put enough attention into anything they do to notice that these are different, or to consider that it might matter to anyone.
John Voorhees:
The podcast version of today’s education event is now out
Update (2018-03-29): Josh Calvetti:
re: what happens when students graduate with that 200gb of iCloud- it’s tied to managed Apple IDs, so they can’t even take that ID with them once they leave. So it’s less about the content getting deleted and more about what to do with the entire account.
Bradley Chambers:
The key thing Apple talked about then was the goal of reinventing the textbook. Apple announced iBooks 2 which introduced interactive books. Did they succeed in changing the world of textbooks? Hardly. In fact, no one has. […] The iBooks Author strategy was failed from the beginning.
[…]
iTunes U is an iPad-only application, with a grade book that doesn’t connect to a student information system or a major learning management system. […] So here’s something to consider: how much from Apple’s 2012 education keynote has made a difference in the years since? I’d argue nearly nothing.
[…]
As I rewatched the 2012 keynote and pondered the 2018 keynote, I realized that Apple is yet again trying to craft a future for education that I am not sure fits with reality.
[…]
Education didn’t need a faster iPad. Education didn’t need Apple Pencil support. Those are great features for a consumer-friendly iPad, but education needed a clearer signal from Apple that they understand how school districts actually operate around the country and around the globe.
Matt Birchler:
The more people I talk to and read about this stuff seem to have few concerns with Apple’s hardware offerings. $299 for an iPad is pretty good and the flexibility a tablet gets you is really convenient, but Apple needs to own more of the software stack if they want to move the needle in this market.
Paul Miller:
I probably wouldn’t recommend a kid learn Swift as their first programming language, not because it’s not a great and interesting language, but because the barrier to distribution and the creation of useful software is so high. The Xcode cliff is a steep one.
Observer:
Apple should do education keynote every year. And show how their score card is evolving. That would be a sign that they do really care about education.
Colin Cornaby:
I know a lot has been said about Apple and education, but it speaks VOLUMES about today’s Apple that they refused to release any accessories for students themselves and pawned it off to Logitech because they didn’t want to “degrade the brand.”
10 or 20 years ago Apple selling accessories and even education specific computers was a badge of honor and something they were happy to do. Now they’re worried that it might detract from selling fashion items.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata:
Schoolwork is being positioned as a direct competitor to a Google service called Classroom that lets educators create curricula, distribute student assignments, communicate with students and their guardians, incorporate apps into classroom programs, and more.
The cloud-based nature of Apple’s Schoolwork is key here since Google’s Classroom is — like almost everything Google does — a Web-based service.
Schoolwork is due in June 2018.
Jim Dalrymple:
In its 40 years of being in the education market, Apple has never been the cheapest product—they never will be. I don’t know why people expect Apple to all of a sudden just give away iPads to schools or even compete against a product like a cheap Chromebook on price.
Apple doesn’t make cheap products. Ever. They also don’t make shitty products. You can expect the iPad to last for years without breaking or becoming obsolete. I expect the return on investment for schools to be quite high when purchasing iPads for the classroom.
[…]
Apple screwed up a few years ago by not having the software and administration abilities on the iPad available for school districts. There is no question about that. But they have those features available now.
Jono Hayes:
I wrote some notes after my first shared iPad deployment (180 students, 60 iPads) March 2017... Nothing has changed in a year within ASM and management.
Update (2018-03-30): Nicole Nguyen:
this guy just said welcome to your first day of school
Benjamin Mayo:
At the event this week, Apple heavily pushed this as the iPad for education. If you escape Apple’s carefully crafted PR bubble, though, I don’t think the statement holds its weight. This is the iPad that education will lean towards buying en masse, but it’s not really designed for education use.
Shannon Liao:
But Holloway says that while she’s been able to use her iPad in the classroom to engage students in material they otherwise wouldn’t pay enough attention to, it can be a double-edged sword. “Once they’re used to using the iPad, the excitement of 2D and even manipulative materials pales in comparison, and it’s more difficult to engage them in activities that don’t include a digital component,” she says.
[…]
Teachers like Chen do not believe the focus should be put on the competition between iPads and Chromebooks, nor an obsession with what shiny new device a school should purchase. “For an educator, the question shouldn’t be which device, but which learning objective should we be aiming for?” she says. “I don’t think we can clearly say one device can be better than the other.”
Rene Ritchie (via Phil Schiller):
That resulted in the, just as usual, expectational debt: The angst and anger over what the event wasn’t and was never going to be, rather than what it was — Apple celebrating 40 years in education with a love note passed in class to the teachers and students in attendance, the rest of us watching on.
[…]
That it took until almost two years after Pencil launched for iWork to gain that compatibility is a devastating critique of Apple’s ability to keep all the balls it’s currently juggling in there air. As much as hardware like Mac mini suffers from neglect, so does software, and it’s something that Apple can’t ignore away.
[…]
Whether it became apparent early on iBA wasn’t the right solution but there was no timeline on a better replacement or not, I’ll echo what I said previously about Apple not showing it can effectively juggle all the balls it has in motion. As a single provider, that’s bad for everyone. It makes it difficult to trust at any time that an Apple device or service critical to you will be treated as such by the only company in control of its destiny. It’s something Apple will have to reckon with — sticking to its “thousand nos for every yes”, and making firm choices about all the “ah… dunnos?” that are piling up.
[…]
In terms of education specifically, it really did feel like a love note, but one passed in school. One that’s full of romance but short on details. Run away with me — I’ll figure out getting a car and where we’re going later! It’s fantastic that Apple has this vision, but it’s going to be the consistency and expansion of that vision that’s key.
Update (2018-04-01): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast, Core Intuition, The Talk Show, Upgrade.
Update (2018-04-02): Chuq Von Rospach:
One of the things Apple brings to all of us, beyond its products, is that it continues to show us how things could and should be, and it forces the other companies to chase their innovations and aspirations and that makes things better for everyone over time. We need that, because if Apple stops doing that, who will?
So this educational event was all about Apple doing what Apple does best, and that’s a good thing. This doesn’t mean Apple doesn’t have things it can (and should!) do, such as better ID management, but much of the griping about the event boiled down to two big themes:
- Apple has to do netbooks or it’s in big trouble! (Remember that? It’s back!)
- Apple has lots of money; it should give it to education, and then we’ll like them.
Andy Ihnatko:
Before I explain why I was in such a good mood, let’s deal with the sour stuff. If you were hoping that Apple would unveil new hardware, software, and strategy that would allow iPads to compete with Chromebooks toe-to-toe for classroom market share … well, that did not happen. It seems like an unrealistic goal to begin with. The market for classroom computers, software, and services is unique and somewhat bizarre, and Apple is uniquely ill-suited to compete in terms of raw market share.
[…]
Despite all these ugly realities, Apple used its Tuesday event to clearly explain a comprehensive and well-considered plan for the value that iPads and Apple software could add to education. There was none of the (dare I say) jaunty 1800s missionary “meet your new god” swagger that I sensed in the earlier “iPads for schools” push. Apple certainly didn’t say “Chromebooks are a huge success in education because they’re practically perfect for that world,” but it seemed to acknowledge that reality.
Apple’s new stance seems to be that kids can interact with iPads in ways that are unique. iPads have a point of view on education. And while not every school–or even most of them–can choose the iPad as its classroom computer, Apple is motivated to remove every obstacle that it can, making the experience as valuable as possible for the kids who use them and the educators who help the kids.
Update (2018-04-03): See also: this iOS 11.3 MDM bug.
Update (2018-04-04): Stefan Constantine:
Does Apple care about education?
You tell me.
Google just announced it’s going to make some school buses in rural America WiFi enabled and give out free Chromebooks.
Update (2018-04-05): Scott Yoshinaga:
The big difference is that unlike a regular Apple ID, Managed Apple ID has no option to purchase any additional storage. Neither the school that owns the account nor a parent with a credit card can purchase more storage on behalf of the student. Once a student exceeds the 5GB iCloud limit they are forced to either delete content to free up space, move the content to a competing cloud service or export it off the device by connecting it to a computer. A huge pain for students and quite an oversight on Apple’s behalf.
[…]
A good relationship requires communication; a lasting one requires commitment. It often feels like Apple’s not interested in either. It can feel like being in a relationship where your partner tells you they’re all-in with you but is constantly distracted or even ignores you. Mixed signals can cause doubt and frustration in any relationship and this event reminded me of that.
[…]
The reality is that Apple has software that is rarely updated and minimal services that don’t get much attention either. It feel like their solution is for IT administrators to fill that void with third-party applications, tools and services that it doesn’t provide.
Apple Event Apple Pencil Apple Smart Keyboard Augmented Reality E-books Education Google Google Chromebook Google Docs iBooks Author iCloud iOS iOS 11 iPad iPad mini iWork Keyboard Keynote Lightning Logitech Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra MobileSafari Numbers.app Pages.app Programming Swift Programming Language Top Posts
Sarah Edwards (tweet):
I’ve been updating my course (Mac and iOS Forensics and Incident Response) to use new APFS disk images (APFS FTW!) and came across something that both incredibly useful from a forensics perspective but utterly horrifying from a security standpoint.
[…]
I used the following command to watch my unified logs in the Terminal while the process above was doing its thing:
log stream --info --predicate 'eventMessage contains "newfs_"'
…and there we have it, a plaintext password!
It’s fixed in macOS 10.13.2 [Update (2018-03-25): Actually not; see below.], but I wonder how many passwords are still stored in logs somewhere, e.g. in sysdiagnoses uploaded to Radar. Also, judging from the usage message for newfs_apfs, it looks like the fix may have been simply to suppress this particular log message. It still takes the passphrase as a command-line argument, so it might still be exposed in other ways, rather than using the more secure -stdinpass method that hdiutil uses.
Howard Oakley:
If you:
- encrypted an APFS volume using macOS 10.13 to 10.13.1 using Disk Utility, and
- have a copy of the unified log collected at the time of that encryption, in a logarchive
chances are, that logarchive will contain the passphrase recorded in plain text. You therefore might like to destroy or encrypt that logarchive.
[…]
I am not aware that Apple has issued any warning of this potential security breach. Given that the bug appears to have been recognised and fixed, that seems more than a little remiss.
Previously: Encrypted APFS Volume’s Password Exposed as Hint, High Sierra Bug Allows Root Access With Blank Password, App Store System Preferences Can Be Unlocked With Any Password.
Update (2018-03-25): Moe Lassus:
Reproducible on 10.13.3.
Howard Oakley:
Thanks to @moelassus, who reported seeing this bug persist in 10.13.3, and Sarah Edwards, we have established that this is a 100% reproducible bug in 10.13.3. It does not, any longer, affect the creation of new encrypted APFS volumes, but occurs when an existing unencrypted APFS volume is encrypted, by erasing just that volume in Disk Utility.
[…]
When Apple ‘fixed’ the original bug, which occurred when creating a new encrypted APFS volume, it clearly did so by accident, and was unaware that the change that was made to the volume creation step blocked the entry of the plaintext password in the log. Consequently, another instance in which an almost identical call was made by diskmanagementd, to newfs_apfs to make an existing volume encrypted, was left in the code. It is that call which is currently appearing in the log.
Previously: Sierra Log Littering.
Update (2018-03-30): Sarah Edwards (Hacker News):
The previous examples were found in the unified logs which can hang around for a few weeks, this new example stores the exact same information in the system’s /var/log/install.log. I have found that the install.log will only get wiped out upon major re-installation (ie: 10.11 -> 10.12 -> 10.13), therefore these plaintext passwords will hang around for quite a bit longer than a few weeks! I had entries dating back to when I originally installed High Sierra on this system back in November of 2017!
Update (2018-03-31): Howard Oakley:
Although 10.13.4 fixes this leak, it still only does part of the job. It doesn’t roll the install.log to remove all those old plaintext passphrases, which remain in the log for all to see. What is worse, to my mind, is that it doesn’t stop diskmanagementd and associated processes from writing to install.log.
Update (2018-04-01): Howard Oakley:
When Apple introduced its new unified log in macOS Sierra, almost every other system log went silent (other than in residual entries by legacy products), apart from install.log. Why that was spared has never been explained by Apple, which suggests that it wasn’t part of its plan. This has now proved helpful in many situations, as sysadmins and others can still examine installation and update problems without having to do battle with thousands of other entries in the unified log.
[…]
One potentially good reason for continuing to write to a traditional log as well as the new unified log is the weakness of Apple’s tools – then and now – for accessing the unified log. Console still lacks any ability to browse history in the unified log, except when the live log is converted into a logarchive, and even then it is hard to use. install.log remains far more convenient to examine, and the engineers working on those parts of macOS which have been writing to it have probably been very grateful that they were not forced to work with the unified log alone.
[…]
Returning to the accident chain behind this, I can see the following links[…]
Sarah Edwards:
APFS encrypted volumes can be created on the disk level as well as the volume level and it truly seems to make a difference. Please also test if you find (or don’t find) the results in the Unified logs and/or the install.log or neither (and god forbid any other locations you might come across!). I’m also consistently using the “Erase” button versus the “Partition” button.
Update (2018-05-11): See also: Paul Ducklin.
Apple File System (APFS) Bug Console Disk Utility Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra Passwords Privacy Security
The Guardian (Hacker News):
A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.
[…]
Documents seen by the Observer, and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been harvested on an unprecedented scale. However, at the time it failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals.
[…]
The data was collected through an app called thisisyourdigitallife, built by academic Aleksandr Kogan, separately from his work at Cambridge University. Through his company Global Science Research (GSR), in collaboration with Cambridge Analytica, hundreds of thousands of users were paid to take a personality test and agreed to have their data collected for academic use.
However, the app also collected the information of the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to the accumulation of a data pool tens of millions-strong. Facebook’s “platform policy” allowed only collection of friends’ data to improve user experience in the app and barred it being sold on or used for advertising.
Mike Rundle:
Chief Security Officer of Facebook @alexstamos says that Cambridge Analytica misusing the data from 50M profiles was a feature of their platform at the time.
Cool man. Great PR work.
Alex Stamos:
I have deleted my Tweets on Cambridge Analytica, not because they were factually incorrect but because I should have done a better job weighing in.
Zac Cichy:
Facebook was doing things covered under the ToS. For the first time in the history of Facebook — and countless people like me screaming about it for years — people decided to be upset.
Kyle Baxter:
CA acted dishonestly in using an unrelated quiz to harvest user and friends’ profile, etc data, but it really isn’t any different than what a ton of people were doing at the time. That’s on Facebook, and on them for not notifying the public about it when they discovered it.
Collin Allen:
If your API allows access to more data than I’m granted, that’s a vulnerability. And if I access it, that’s a breach. The honor system is not a valid layer of defense in depth.
John Gruber:
This was not a security breach. This is simply what Facebook is: a massive surveillance machine.
The New York Times:
“This was a scam — and a fraud,” Paul Grewal, a vice president and deputy general counsel at the social network, said in a statement to The Times earlier on Friday. He added that the company was suspending Cambridge Analytica, Mr. Wylie and the researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian-American academic, from Facebook.
Peter Jukes:
So the Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower has been ‘depersonned’ by @facebook without any chance to retrieve his contacts or private materials.
Nick Heer:
Facebook preempted the publication of both of these stories with a press release indicating that they’ve suspended Strategic Communications Laboratories — Cambridge Analytica’s parent — from accessing Facebook, including the properties of any of their clients.
However, the reason for that suspension is not what you may think: it isn’t because Kogan, the developer of the thisisyourdigitallife app, passed information to Cambridge Analytica, but rather because he did not delete all of the data after Facebook told him to.
[…]
Facebook can make all the policy changes it likes, but I don’t see any reason why something like this can’t happen again at some point in the future.
Brian Boyer:
Facebook is a machine built to collect your personal information and hand it to others, en masse. Not surprised that a hostile actor acquired that information. I expect there are many, many, many more that we will never hear about.
[…]
Anyone who builds a Facebook app (and any rookie can do this) has access to an absurd amount of information about you and your loved ones. And there is nothing stopping them from giving it away, besides the “Terms”.
Rene Ritchie:
It’s been said many times before but it takes a while to sync in: The cloud is just someone else’s computer. If you’re giving up your data or attention in exchange for free social, mail, messaging, photograph, document, or other transit or storage, then you’re really just taking the drive from your computer, unencrypted, and mailing it to those companies to do with it whatever they will.
[…]
The only thing we can do is delete Facebook. And Messenger, and Whatsapp, and Instagram, and every app like them.
Maciej Cegłowski:
There is a widespread belief that Facebook is a frivolous thing people should just quit. Two billion people use it. For many of them, it is the Internet. For others, it’s the only way to stay in contact with family or loved ones. Facebook has worked hard to get ubiquitous
In large areas of the Third World, Facebook has offered free data plans as long as you stay on the site. WhatsApp and Messenger are integral parts of people’s lives. Before you say ‘just get off Facebook’, ask yourself if you really understand what Facebook is (I know I don’t)
Josh Constine:
The company routinely ignores or downplays the worst-case scenarios, idealistically building products without the necessary safeguards, and then drags its feet to admit the extent of the problems.
[…]
Here’s an incomplete list of the massive negative consequences and specific abuses that stem from Facebook’s idealistic product development process.
Ben Thompson:
Google is already facing significant antitrust challenges in the E.U., which is exactly what you would expect from a company in a dominant position in a value chain able to dictate terms to its suppliers. Facebook, meanwhile, has always seemed more immune to antitrust enforcement: its users are its suppliers, so what is there to regulate?
That, though, is the answer: user data. It seems far more likely that Facebook will be directly regulated than Google; arguably this is already the case in Europe with the GDPR. What is worth noting, though, is that regulations like the GDPR entrench incumbents: protecting users from Facebook will, in all likelihood, lock in Facebook’s competitive position.
This episode is a perfect example: an unintended casualty of this weekend’s firestorm is the idea of data portability: I have argued that social networks like Facebook should make it trivial to export your network; it seems far more likely that most social networks will respond to this Cambridge Analytica scandal by locking down data even further.
Dean:
The dark patterns @facebook use to get me to give access to my personal contacts in Messenger is pretty sickening and shouldn’t be allowed on the @AppStore.
- No option for “No”
- “Learn More” leads to a real option
- In-app notification shameing
- Push notification shameing
Update (2018-03-23): Bob Burrough:
The con-job is that this is a Facebook-specific “breach,” and therefore theirs to address. The problem is much bigger than that. Why are the New York Times, CNN, and The Guardian reporting what you’re reading to Facebook?
Casey Johnston:
never forget you also give up data to Facebook by not ever signing up for Facebook and just visiting any web page with a like button 🙃
Karl Bode:
But while Facebook has been on the receiving end of some heated and justified media criticism for its privacy abuses, that criticism feels detached from a broader context: namely that we’ve increasingly approved of the wholesale collection and sale of our private data without anything even vaguely resembling transparency, accountability, or oversight.
Nothing personifies this more clearly than the telecom industry, which has been gobbling up and selling consumer data on an industrial scale for the better part of the last few decades. Often with only an iota of the outrage we’ve already seen during Facebook’s latest scandal.
More than a decade ago, ISPs like Comcast began hoovering up your clickstream data (data on every website you visit) and selling it with little accountability and absolutely no transparency. When press outlets back then asked ISPs about what data they were collecting, most would simply refuse to respond. And regulators (and most press outlets) saw no real problem with that.
Dave Winer:
I’ve written software against the Facebook API, and accessing information about the social graph is part of the API. We may not like what Cambridge Analytica did with the data, but I don’t think they did anything that every other company that makes products that work with Facebook doesn’t already do. Including of course Facebook itself.
Kevin Bankston:
The API condundrum(s):
--legit researchers using APIs to expand human knowledge, track fake news and abuse, etc = GOOD
--fake researchers siphoning data for Cambridge Analytica = BAD
--APIs open enough to allow competitive/innovative use of data with user permission = GOOD
M.G. Siegler:
Still, it seems to me that a lot of these wounds are self-inflicted. Not just in choices the company makes from a product and policy standpoint, but also how they choose to react to issues when they arise. Even on Friday night, when it seemed like they were doing the right thing by making a swift, decisive move around a very complicated situation, it turns out, no — Facebook was simply reacting quickly because publications were about to run stories about the pilfering of data from their network for mass political profiling. And what’s worse, Facebook was apparently threatening said publications if they ran said stories.
Paul Lewis:
Sandy Parakilas, the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches by third-party software developers between 2011 and 2012, told the Guardian he warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach.
“My concerns were that all of the data that left Facebook servers to developers could not be monitored by Facebook, so we had no idea what developers were doing with the data,” he said.
Parakilas said Facebook had terms of service and settings that “people didn’t read or understand” and the company did not use its enforcement mechanisms, including audits of external developers, to ensure data was not being misused.
Sarah Frier:
Facebook Inc. tried to get ahead of its latest media firestorm. Instead, it helped create one.
The company knew ahead of time that on Saturday, the New York Times and The Guardian’s Observer would issue bombshell reports that the data firm that helped Donald Trump win the presidency had accessed and retained information on 50 million Facebook users without their permission.
Facebook did two things to protect itself: it sent letters to the media firms laying out its legal case for why this data leak didn’t constitute a "breach." And then it scooped the reports using their information, with a Friday blog post on why it was suspending the ad firm, Cambridge Analytica, from its site.
Spencer Ackerman:
It’s not just that he’s silent in public. Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declined to face his employees on Tuesday to explain the company’s role in a widening international scandal over the 2016 election.
[…]
Nor, The Daily Beast has learned, did chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg attend the internal town hall.
The New York Times:
Mr. Stamos, who plans to leave Facebook by August, had advocated more disclosure around Russian interference of the platform and some restructuring to better address the issues, but was met with resistance by colleagues, said the current and former employees. In December, Mr. Stamos’s day-to-day responsibilities were reassigned to others, they said.
Mr. Stamos said he would leave Facebook but was persuaded to stay through August to oversee the transition of his responsibilities and because executives thought his departure would look bad, the people said. He has been overseeing the transfer of his security team to Facebook’s product and infrastructure divisions. His group, which once had 120 people, now has three, the current and former employees said.
John Gruber:
So Facebook is forcing out Stamos, the one executive with the moral backbone to do the right thing in response to what they’d allowed to happen.
Mark Zuckerberg:
First, we will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. We will ban any developer from our platform that does not agree to a thorough audit. And if we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps. That includes people whose data Kogan misused here as well.
Second, we will restrict developers’ data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers’ access to your data if you haven’t used their app in 3 months. We will reduce the data you give an app when you sign in -- to only your name, profile photo, and email address. We’ll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data. And we’ll have more changes to share in the next few days.
Third, we want to make sure you understand which apps you’ve allowed to access your data. In the next month, we will show everyone a tool at the top of your News Feed with the apps you’ve used and an easy way to revoke those apps’ permissions to your data. We already have a tool to do this in your privacy settings, and now we will put this tool at the top of your News Feed to make sure everyone sees it.
Matt Stoller:
The problem with Zuckerberg’s post is this. In 2011, FB was caught deceiving people about how it violated their privacy. It signed an agreement w/the FTC pledging to stop doing that. Today, Zuckerberg is outlining the steps he promised to take in 2011.
Nick Heer:
They did not disclose this at the time, nor did they notify the fifty million users whose information was accessed by Cambridge Analytica. So their claim in their press statement that they felt deceived is bunk: they knew, and did nothing when it mattered first.
Carole Cadwalladr:
Dear Mark Zuckerberg, you offered interviews to lots of outlets but not the @guardian & Observer. We broke the story first in 2015. We led the reporting last weekend. You used legal threats to try and stop us. And now, you’re... ignoring us?
Matt Stoller:
This is 100% right. Zuckerberg threatening to sue the outlets who broke the stories while giving interviews to the ones who didn’t shows that the leadership of Facebook is a part of the problem.
Zuckerberg’s multiple apologies are undercut by a ruthless legal strategy to attack critics in the press, a huge lobbying operation against things like the Honest Ads Act, and massive financing of researchers and academics through dollars and access to data.
James Allworth:
Facebook was so kind as to offer up each user’s unique Facebook User_ID when it returned these data requests. This means that all the data from all the different apps, quizzes and games can be immediately and instantly recombined into one massive database… just like Facebook’s!
[…]
To give a sense of how many apps were out there doing this: here’s an AdWeek article back in 2012, quoting Facebook as saying there were 9 million apps and websites integrated with Facebook. And 2012 was three years before Facebook cut off API access to pulling this kind of data.
[…]
For the longest period of time, Facebook was an advertising business that dreamed of being something else other than an advertising business. It wanted to be a platform.
[…]
And if those are the grand illusions that you’ve got, it’s not your proprietary data that you view as the secret to your success (which you only need to advertise). Instead, it’s developers, and getting them to build on top of your precious platform.
Ryan Jones:
FB is incentivized to keep your data only to themselves. So ONLY THEY can target with it.
We’ll never let apps do this again!
Ya, I bet you won’t. Why WOULD you give them free data when you can charge for it, per ad.
Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner:
In a wide-ranging interview with Recode this afternoon, the Facebook CEO and co-founder said that he would appear before legislators if he was the “right” one inside the company to give lawmakers information about what happened.
Sheryl Sandberg:
You deserve to have your information protected - and we’ll keep working to make sure you feel safe on Facebook. Your trust is at the core of our service. We know that and we will work to earn it.
Katie Notopoulos:
Facebook: here’s a photo montage of your random friend anniversary we send you every week!
Also Facebook: we’re not sure we can notify people affected by Cambridge Analytica because we’re not sure if we know who your friends were in 2014
Craig Phillips:
In the process of deleting my little used #Facebook account, I’ve downloaded my data & found worrying things…
Daniel Jalkut:
This is bonkers. I definitely never authorized Facebook to share this information.
Rosyna Keller:
Privacy settings on Facebook are sadly opt-out. When Facebook introduces a new privacy invading feature (like facial recognition), it’s always on by default.
Phil Dokas:
If you need any more evidence for how important selling your info is to Facebook, look no further than how long it takes to opt out of everything you can.
David Nield:
If you can’t quite bring yourself to close down your account - maybe there’s a support group or family connections you’d like to keep active - then here’s how to restrict the amount of data Facebook has got on you.
Serenity Caldwell:
A few years back, I reworked my Facebook account to lock down my personal information; given everything going on with the social media giant this week, I figured I’d walk everyone through the steps I took to keep Facebook from accidentally broadcasting valuable data to the world.
James Thomson:
Something Apple would never do, but should - indicate on the App Store page for each app which analytics SDKs are included within it.
Update (2018-03-25): Taryn Luna (via Hacker News):
The California Consumer Privacy Act would require big companies to disclose the type of information they gather, explain how it is shared or sold and give people the right to prevent businesses from spreading their personal data.
The initiative has months to qualify for the November ballot and will likely become one of the most expensive fights this year.
Google, Facebook, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have contributed $200,000 each to a campaign finance committee opposing the initiative since mid-February. The proponents, a trio of Bay Area business professionals, expect the Internet behemoths will eventually pour in over $100 million to try to stop the measure from passing.
brockhopper (via Sonya Mann):
What was the Facebook friend suggestion that made you go “OK, that’s just creepy, how did FB know to suggest them”?
Mike Rundle:
After I changed all my Facebook settings and deleted API access, the next time I opened Messenger I saw these two screens trying to trick me into giving Facebook full Address Book access. Shady as hell.
Colin Kalmbacher:
The New York Times apparently offers powerful third parties the ability to edit away–that is, to delete from the internet–unfavorable coverage appearing in the paper of record’s online edition.
[…]
The Times’ original story made reference to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg–and mentioned her “consternation” at Stamos’ efforts to shepherd the tech giant towards being more transparent about Russian trolls’ electoral interference.
Doc Searls:
Among other things (all correct), Zeynep explains that “Facebook makes money, in other words, by profiling us and then selling our attention to advertisers, political actors and others. These are Facebook’s true customers, whom it works hard to please.”
Irony Alert: the same is true for the Times, along with every other publication that lives off adtech: tracking-based advertising. These pubs don’t just open the kimonos of their readers. They treat them as naked beings with necks bared to vampires ravenous for the blood of personal data, all ostensibly so those persons can be served with “interest-based” advertising.
Dan Masters:
Apple is complicit with the power Facebook has amassed by refusing to provide their own identity management service.
Eli Schiff:
Zuck wants regulation because it serves him. Not because it’s doing the right thing.
parker:
Facebook is gonna turn this into an opportunity to strengthen the walls of its data silo, invite regulation that disadvantages new entrants, & avoid conversations about their propaganda amplification machine.
I don’t understand the take that this is bad for FB. This was a gift.
Update (2018-03-27): Josh Constine (Hacker News):
Meanwhile, if the government instituted new rules for tech platforms collecting persona information going forward, it could effectively lock in Facebook’s lead in the data race. If it becomes more cumbersome to gather this kind of data, no competitor might ever amass an index of psychographic profiles and social graphs able to rival Facebook’s.
Austen Allred:
The ironic thing about the Facebook data mess is after they get regulated other advertising companies will need huge legal and compliance teams to deal with the new regulations.
The regulations could actually build a nearly insurmountable moat for FB.
Jean-Louis Gassée:
The message is clear: Zuckerberg thinks we’re idiots. How are we to believe Facebook didn’t know — and derived benefits — from the widespread abuse of user data by its developers. We just became aware of the Cambridge Analytica cockroach…how many more are under the sink? In more lawyerly terms: “What did you know, and when did you know it?”
Exponent:
Ben and James discuss Facebook’s current crisis, and why almost everyone misunderstands what the company did wrong: the problem isn’t advertising, it was Facebook’s desire to be a platform.
Eric Young:
Apple handed over the role of managing our identities to Facebook - with their system level account login control
Eric Young:
So the best thing that Apple could do for users - to protect their privacy - would be provide a better alternative that did so
The worst thing from a privacy POV would be to bury their head in sand...not offer a safer alternative, and push their users to G/FB without privacy
[…]
see the most recent update to Safari with Intelligent Tracking Prevention
It solidifies FB/Goog monopoly - while destroying market competition in online ad marketplace (from strategic POV, that’s the last thing Apple wants)
Sean Gallagher:
Facebook responded to reports that it collected phone and SMS data without users’ knowledge in a "fact check" blog post on Sunday.
[…]
This contradicts the experience of several users who shared their data with Ars. Dylan McKay told Ars that he installed Messenger in 2015, but only allowed the app the permissions in the Android manifest that were required for installation. He says he removed and reinistalled the app several times over the course of the next few years, but never explicitly gave the app permission to read his SMS records and call history. McKay’s call and SMS data runs through July of 2017.
In my case, a review of my Google Play data confirms that Messenger was never installed on the Android devices I used. Facebook was installed on a Nexus tablet I used and on the Blackphone 2 in 2015, and there was never an explicit message requesting access to phone call and SMS data. Yet there is call data from the end of 2015 until late 2016, when I reinstalled the operating system on the Blackphone 2 and wiped all applications.
Nick Heer:
For what it’s worth, this story applies only to Android users, because of course it does; iOS has never allowed a third-party app to silently monitor call or messaging history.
Bob Burrough:
Oh! Guys. We just misunderstood! Everything is on the up-and-up here. Let’s go have a cup o’ tea!
Ben Sandofsky:
When an app uses the Facebook SDK, Facebook gets access to the same permissions that the containing app has. Let that sink in.
[…]
Using VSCO, you’d have no idea it’s talking to Facebook. We wager they’re just using it to track ad conversion, but who knows? Sadly, the web has tools like Ghostery to block trackers, but there’s no such solution for mobile apps.
Jeff Johnson:
On a locked down platform such as iOS, your privacy and security are entirely in the hands of the OS vendor. On an open platform such as macOS, you can take your life into your own hands. Little Snitch on iOS? No. Reverse engineering 3rd party apps on iOS? Not without jailbreak.
Antonio García Martínez:
I find it incomprehensible how Google-associated people still comment critically on Facebook’s business practices when 84% of their revenue (and what pays for all the free services and research) comes from precisely the targeted advertising that’s suddenly so contemptible.
Dylan Curran:
Want to freak yourself out? I’m gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it
Update (2018-03-29): See also: The Menu Bar.
Mike Isaac:
i think one of the reasons facebooks reaction to the past few weeks seems so caught off guard is that this level of data collection and manipulation has literally been the standard for years
imagine them wondering “why does everyone suddenly care now?”
Can Duruk:
Facebook successfully managed to keep Instagram out of this debate, but as far as I know, it’s basically a different UI on the same platform at this point. What percentage of users connect IG accounts to FB? Must be >80%.
Update (2018-03-30): BuzzFeed:
The Bosworth memo reveals the extent to which Facebook’s leadership understood the physical and social risks the platform’s products carried — even as the company downplayed those risks in public. It suggests that senior executives had deep qualms about conduct that they are now seeking to defend. And as the company reels amid a scandal over improper outside data collection on its users, the memo shows that one senior executive — one of Zuckerberg’s longest-serving deputies — prioritized all-encompassing growth over all else, a view that has led to questionable data collection and manipulative treatment of its users.
Update (2018-04-02): Vox (Hacker News, MacRumors):
Ezra Klein: One of the things that has been coming up a lot in the conversation is whether the business model of monetizing user attention is what is letting in a lot of these problems. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, gave an interview the other day and he was asked what he would do if he was in your shoes. He said, “I wouldn’t be in this situation,” and argued that Apple sells products to users, it doesn’t sell users to advertisers, and so it’s a sounder business model that doesn’t open itself to these problems.
[…]
Mark Zuckerberg: You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you, to be extremely glib and not at all aligned with the truth. The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can’t afford to pay. And therefore, as with a lot of media, having an advertising-supported model is the only rational model that can support building this service to reach people.
[…]
But if you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something that people can afford. I thought Jeff Bezos had an excellent saying on this in one of his Kindle launches a number of years back. He said, “There are companies that work hard to charge you more, and there are companies that work hard to charge you less.” And at Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less and provide a free service that everyone can use.
Update (2018-04-03): Josh Barro:
I don’t think this is a very good line for Zuckerberg. Apple is a company that works hard to charge you more. Amazon is a company that works hard to charge you less. Facebook is a company that works hard to charge someone else more for access to you.
Shira Ovide:
Fair Zuckerberg counterpunch to Tim Cook. BUT. Apple has an 27% operating profit margin and Facebook is 50%. So Facebook is making a healthy amount from its paying customers (advertisers).
Kara Swisher:
Jobs told me that Apple had held unsuccessful talks with Facebook about a variety of unspecified partnerships related to Ping. The reason, according to Jobs: Facebook wanted “onerous terms that we could not agree to,” related to connecting with Facebook friends on Ping.
Jobs let that word hang in the air and even raised a disdainful eyebrow when I asked what he meant, including whether Ping would incorporate connecting with Facebook or even using Facebook Connect, which would make it much easier to find friends to share music with.
“We could, I guess,” he shrugged without much enthusiasm for Ping and, most of all, for linking Apple customers with Facebook.
Andrew Abernathy:
If Zuckerberg really is holding the sales team back from doing even more intrusive things, as he suggests, I don’t find that a comforting thought that leaves me feeling better about Facebook.
John Gruber:
The linguistic trick Zuckerberg pulls here is that nowhere in the entire interview does he mention the words user or customer. He only says you (in the plural sense) and people. That’s a dodge, because unlike Apple — and Amazon — Facebook’s users are not its customers — and most of the controversies they are dealing with today all stem from the fact that they favored their customers (advertisers willing to pay ever-higher sums for ever-more-invasively-targeted ads) at the expense of their users.
Update (2018-04-05): Olivia Solon (Hacker News):
The Facebook data of up to 87 million people – 37 million more than previously reported – may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, the company has revealed.
This larger figure, which included over a million UK users, was buried in the penultimate paragraph of a blogpost by the company’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, published on Wednesday, which also provided updates on the changes Facebook was making to better protect user information.
John Gruber:
The drip-drip-drip PR strategy is an old trick, and Facebook utilizes it every time they have bad news involving a number of users.
Update (2018-04-06): Josh Constine (Hacker News):
Facebook admits it deleted Fb messages sent by Zuckerberg & other execs from non-employees’ inboxes with no disclosure. Seems like a breach of trust to me.
Casey Newton:
Facebook now acknowledges it has a two-tiered privacy system in which regular users have to live with their dumb old texts forever and the CEO’s disappear into a memory hole. Let’s remember that next week when they tell Congress how seriously they take our privacy
Update (2018-04-10): Issie Lapowsky:
The data consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested as many as 87 million Facebook users' personal data, also could have accessed the private inbox messages of some of those affected. Facebook slipped this previously undisclosed detail into the notifications that began appearing at the top of News Feeds on Monday. These alerts let users know whether they or their friends had downloaded a personality quiz app called This Is Your Digital Life, which would have caused their data to be collected and potentially passed on to Cambridge Analytica.
Update (2019-10-21): Jason Kint:
Finally. Here in SEC docs is what Facebook has painfully avoided public knowing and press has mostly missed documenting. Facebook data was ****SOLD**** to Cambridge Analytica. Can everyone please now say that Facebook personal data was sold rather than captured, transferred, etc?
Advertising Android App Store Apple Business Dark Patterns Facebook GDPR Google Instagram iOS iOS 11 iOS App Privacy Short Message Service (SMS) Steve Jobs The Media Top Posts Web
Aaron Tilley and Kevin McLaughlin (9to5Mac, MacRumors, Mashable, Hacker News, iMore):
Many of the former employees acknowledged for the first time that Apple rushed Siri into the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully baked, setting up an internal debate that has raged since Siri’s inception over whether to continue patching up a flawed build or to rip it up and start from scratch.
[…]
Several former employees said Mr. Williamson made a number of decisions that the rest of the team disagreed with, including a plan to improve Siri’s capabilities only once a year.
[…]
Mr. Williamson wrote that he tried to get the team to implement SiriKit and allow for outside developers to improve Siri’s functionality, but the team resisted because Siri’s “original software was so brittle and inflexible.”
[…]
The Siri Data Services team was eventually lumped into the Topsy team under Mr. Prakash with the plan to integrate all of the tech into a single stack. But they’re based on two different programming languages and are tricky to reconcile. […] Users could get completely different responses to the same question based on whether they were using Siri or Spotlight[…]
[…]
Several members on the Siri team took an immediate disliking to Mr. Sinha, who had no background in the natural language processing world. One former employee said Mr. Sinha’s decisions seemed to be driven by office politics instead of science.
[…]
In a sign of how unprepared Apple was to deal with a rivalry, two Siri team members told The Information that their team didn’t even learn about Apple’s HomePod project until 2015—after Amazon unveiled the Echo in late 2014.
None of this is surprising based on what we’ve seen from the outside. Unfortunately, I do not see any evidence that Siri is about to turn the corner.
John Gruber:
If you’re not a subscriber and want to read the full article — and I encourage you to, there’s a lot in it — you can do so with this shared link if you’re willing to give The Information your email address.
[…]
The gist of The Information’s story is that Siri has existed for seven years without cohesive leadership or product vision, and the underlying technology is a mishmash of various systems that don’t work well together.
Jessica Lessin:
“After launch, Siri was a disaster,” Mr. Williamson wrote. “It was slow, when it worked at all. The software was riddled with serious bugs. Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me.”
Dag Kittlaus (who left Apple for Viv):
This statement, wholly false, was made by the architect and head of the biggest launch disaster in Apple history, Apple Maps. In reality Siri worked great at launch but, like any new platform under unexpectedly massive load, required scaling adjustments and 24 hour workdays.
This matches my experience that Siri was more responsive initially. But I don’t understand why the load was unexpectedly massive. It required an iPhone 4S, and Apple must have known how many of those it could make.
John Bafford:
@AppleSupport @tim_cook Can you guys please make Siri responses A) consistent; B) straight and to the point, not cutesy. It is really irritating to hear meaningless filler like “the suspense is killing me” when setting a timer. Thanks.
Previously: The Original Siri App Compared to Siri Today.
Update (2018-03-15): See also: Dan Masters.
Update (2018-03-16): See also: Kontra (2012).
Update (2018-03-24): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.
Update (2018-03-29): See also: The Menu Bar.
Update (2018-03-31): Chance Miller:
Following last month’s release of HomePod, which puts Siri inside of a $349 smart speaker, Apple appears to be ramping up Siri hiring. According to hiring data tracked by Thinknum, job openings for Siri-related positions at Apple are at an all-time high…
Apple’s job listings indicate that it currently has 161 openings for jobs that contain the term “Siri” in their title or description.
Update (2018-04-14): Juli Clover:
Apple appears to have recently updated Siri on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and HomePod with a slew of new jokes to tell.
History HomePod iOS iOS 11 iPhone 4S Siri Spotlight
Apple (via Bob Burrough):
Apple products are designed to do amazing things. And designed to protect your privacy.
At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right.
And so much of your personal information — information you have a right to keep private — lives on your Apple devices.
Your heart rate after a run. Which news stories you read first. Where you bought your last coffee. What websites you visit. Who you call, email, or message.
Every Apple product is designed from the ground up to protect that information. And to empower you to choose what you share and with whom.
I don’t find Safari’s privacy options very empowering. There are lots of features to protect your from the sites you visit, but that’s only half the story. Safari’s user interface doesn’t mention which user data is sent to Apple’s servers. In fact, iCloud stores your bookmarks and Reading List, open tabs, and even your full browsing history (excluding private windows).
There is no granular control. If you want to sync your bookmarks or use Reading List to move the occasional link from your iPhone to your Mac, you also have to enable history syncing.
The history data is only secured by your Apple ID password, which means that Apple has full access to it. And there have been bugs where deleted history was not actually deleted.
With Chrome, your data syncs to Google if you create an account and log in, and you can choose which specific types of data sync. With Safari, you never really get a chance to opt in. macOS strongly encourages you to sign into iCloud during installation, and many apps won’t work without having it enabled in some fashion. You can opt out of iCloud’s Safari features, if you know to look for the checkbox tucked away in System Preferences.
Update (2018-03-06): Jason:
I appreciate the granularity Chrome enables with their syncing, even amongst individual instances. I can sync my themes and extensions on my work computer without syncing my browse history, for example.
It confounds me that Safari still doesn’t sync extensions between Macs.
Update (2018-06-02): Denis Bosnic:
I won’t bore you with long intros, suffice it to say that I filed a GDPR request with Apple to obtain all the data associated with my Apple ID account and I was surprised to see that it contained a log filled with my browsing history spanning the last 4 years of my Safari usage, containing 5,083 URLs and timestamps.
[…]
Clearing your browsing history with this feature turned on seems to clear it locally from all your devices, but there is a chance that a sizable part of this data stays in a hidden / difficult-to-access log stored on Apple’s servers.
There is currently no user-facing way of seeing or deleting that data apart from contacting Apple through a web form and hoping they will comply.
Update (2019-09-27): Maxwell Swadling:
I was also surprised to find in the iCloud data archive it includes your IP and reverse geo-ip lookup for every time you open a tab if you have this turned on.
Apple Bookmarks GDPR Google Chrome iCloud iOS iOS 11 Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra MobileSafari Privacy Safari Syncing
