Adam Christianson from the Maccast and Andrew Orr join Jeff Gamet to share their thoughts on whether or not Apple is doing enough to protect our privacy, plus they have some first impressions on Anki’s new Vector robot.
Apple, Verizon Team Up For an Apple Music Offer
Starting Thursday, August 16 both new and existing customers on a Verizon Unlimited plan can take advantage of this offer.
Comcast Security Flaw Exposed Addresses, Social Security Numbers for 26.5M Customers
A design flaw in Comcast’s online payment portal exposed partial home addresses and social security numbers for 26.5 million customers. The flaw displayed the first number and street name for addresses, and the last four digits in social security numbers. Buzzfeed broke the news, and Comcast quickly patched the flaw. Comcast says no one exploited the flaw, and they had it patched within hours of learning about it. Still, the fact that nearly anyone had access to the information is pretty creepy.
Apple: Infowars App Can Stay on App Store
Apple removed the Infowars podcasts from its iTunes listings citing hate speech violations, but is letting the Infowars Official app stay on its iPhone and iPad App Store. Why remove the podcasts, but not the app, since they all offer the same content? Even though the podcasts violate Apple’s guidelines, the app doesn’t. In a statement to Buzzfeed, Apple said,
We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and follow our clear guidelines, ensuring the App Store is a safe marketplace for all. We continue to monitor apps for violations of our guidelines and if we find content that violates our guidelines and is harmful to users we will remove those apps from the store as we have done previously.
The problem here is that Apple’s App Store guidelines Alex Jones Infowars App Still on App Store Even After Podcasts Were Blocked, and they’re apparently different than the iTunes Store guidelines for podcasts. It’s confusing for content creators and consumers. Apple is well within its rights to block podcasts and apps for any reason, even if they’re arbitrary. I’d prefer, however, if Apple’s guidelines were clear and consistently enforced.
macOS: Creating Templates in Pages and Word
Both Apple’s Pages program and Microsoft Word have a way to create and save a custom template, so if you need a letterhead for your business, for example, you can do that without having to use “Save As” every time (and without the risk of overwriting your original file). Today’s Quick Tip has all of the details!
Future.dj Pro Music Mixer: $19
We have a deal on Future.dj Pro, a software music mixer for the Mac and Windows. It features three vertical waveforms per deck for aligning your beats, and you can use up to 8 inputs and outputs. There is a comprehensive list of features in the deal listing, as well as a tutorial video that gives you a good idea of this software works. It’s $19 through our deal.
Online Voting, the Corporate Public Square, Picard’s Return to Star Trek - ACM 474
What will it take to make online or app-based voting safe, secure, and reliable? Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet are joined by John Kheit to discuss the future of voting. They also explore the idea of corporate platforms (i.e. private platforms) becoming so big that they become synonymous with the public square and subject to the First Amendment. Then Bryan goes off on a weird tangent about how cool Patrick Stewart’s new episode of Star Trek could be if Jean-Luc Picard was a broken and bitter man. Good times!
How Facebook Used a Psychological Trick on Teenagers
This article demonstrates many things. 1) Teenagers spend too much time on Facebook. 2) They are subject to psychological manipulation. 3) Those who create channels into teenage minds will do anything to make money. 4) Few realize this is happening. And 5) If Facebook can do this to youngsters, so can others with more unpleasant motives.
Female Hacking Team from Saudi Arabia Wins Hackathon
The event drew almost 3,000 people from all over the world, and broke the Guinness World Record to become the biggest hackathon in the world.
Book By Ex-Apple Employee Talks About iPhone Keyboard
Ken Kocienda worked at Apple from 2001 to 2016. He wrote a book called Creative Selection that talks about Apple’s design process and more from an insider’s perspective, including the iPhone keyboard.
Scott didn’t clue me in on the politics in play between him and Phil or why he had scheduled the demo. I imagined that Scott was eager to show off the results of the keyboard derby, which must have been a topic for discussion up at the executive level. In any case, my job was to prepare my demo so it worked as it did for the demo derby, so that’s what I did.
You can preorder the book, called Creative Selection, on Apple Books for US$14.99.
