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The ProtonMail iOS App is Now Fully Open Source

Andrew Orr ·

Since 2015 ProtonMail’s web app has been open source, and today the company announced that its iOS app is, too.

In addition to making our iOS app open source, we have also documented and published our iOS security model. This is important to us because raw code without documentation can be almost unintelligible sometimes, and a documented security model will assist in rigorous assessment and review of our code by the public. Our iOS trust model is also available on our Github page.

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How TikTok Broke Rap Music

Charlotte Henry ·

TikTok has 1.7 billion active users and features videos of teens and tweens lip-synching. And, according to Wired, it has broken rap music, infantilizing a genre once built on rebellion.

“Rap has always had a playful way of delivering lyrics. We’re seeing a renaissance of humour being put back into the music,” says Isabel Quinteros, senior manager of music partnerships and artist relations at TikTok. “TikTok is filled with light-hearted content from people having fun with their videos, and we’re excited to give these artists a platform to directly connect with their fans.” Since TikTok and rap music both grew out of a practice of remixing and re-contextualising music, it’s fitting that rappers seem to be profiting most from this new interaction. Lil Nas X’s completely clean and cowboy cosplay track ‘Old Town Road’ is still by far the most famous example.

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Analysts React to Apple's Latest Results

Charlotte Henry ·

Wall Street analysts were, as ever, quick to react as Apple revealed its latest round of results on Wednesday. Many of them focused on the growth in wearables. AppleInsider insider has a nice roundup of what many of the big names had to say.

Cowen and Company: Reiterating its “Outperform” rating on the stock the iPhone business is performing “better than market expectations in the near term.” The iPhone 11 product family “is being received well by consumers and this could drive a re-rating in shares,” the firm suggests, “especially as a potential low-cost SE2 in C1H20 and a 5G iPhone by C4Q20 could be additional catalysts in the coming year.” Rosenblatt Securities: The 1.58% year-on-year revenue increase is “mainly driven by the wearable segment” and primarily from AirPods, Rosenblatt claims, though this is of limited use to the company as it “does not bring much upside to iOS services” at all. “We believe the lack of upside to services from wearables is why the Street gives low multiples to wearable companies.”

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Twitter Leapfrogs Over Facebook and Bans Political Ads

Andrew Orr ·

I’m actually impressed with Twitter’s move. A corporation is willingly giving up the money it would make from political ads (Although it’s easy for them since these ads were a “small fraction of Twitter’s revenue). Still, kudos.

[Twitter CEO Jack] Dorsey touched on the conflict between hosting paid political ads and trying to fight the spread of misinformation.

“For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well…they can say whatever they want!'” Dorsey tweeted.