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This is the future Apple so desperately wants: total control.
Let's talk ad-blocking.
With the arrival of iOS 9, ad-blocking is coming to mobile in a big way, and it's causing a lot of talk all over the web. It is highlighting the internal struggle some feel about the practice, but also the hypocrisy of some of its staunchest proponents. So far, it seems like the real 'bloodbath' isn't taking place where people thought it would be - namely, publishers - but among personalities.
According to recent reports, some versions of Xcode used by developers in China have been compromised and are being used to inject tracking codes in iOS apps without developer knowledge. Unaware of the injection, those developers then released their compromised iOS apps to the App Store which were then later approved by Apple. At the time of writing this post, the compromised apps are still available in the App store (link is external). Any user who has installed and launched these compromised apps will be a victim of these tracking codes.
This is a significant compromise of Apple's app store. Apple notoriously manually reviews all app submissions and, in comparison to Android stores, has been relatively malware-free. This is the most widespread and significant spread of malware in the history of the Apple app store, anywhere in the world.
This thing is huge. Among the affected applications is WeChat, which is used by 500 million people and installed on probably every Chinese iPhone. Here's another article with more details, but it's from a security software peddler, so get your salt.
Interestingly, the entirety of Google's codebase - from search and maps to YouTube and Google Docs - resides in a monolithic source code repository available to and used by 95% of Google engineers, or about 25,000 users to be exact.
"Without being able to prove it," a Google engineering manager said, "I'd guess that this is probably the largest single repository in use anywhere in the world."
All told, Google's services comprise 2 billion lines of code which, taken together, weigh in at 86 terabytes.
Fascinating.
It's no secret that BlackBerry is developing its own Android-powered smartphone. Thanks to numerous renders, images and leaked specifications, we already have a pretty good idea as to what the phone might look like. In case you needed more proof, we've just obtained some new hands-on photos of the unannounced BlackBerry Venice, showing off the device's chassis, sliding keyboard and some software features.
I still can't believe it looks like we're finally going to get the keyboard slider that we deserve. I'm almost too afraid posting about it will jinx it.
Interim OS is a radical new operating system with a focus on minimalism. It steals conceptually from Lisp machines (language-based kernel) and Plan 9 (everything is a file system). It boots to a JITting Lisp-like REPL and offers the programmer/user the system's resources as filesystems.
Today is iOS 9 release day - which means that most likely, most of you have already upgraded. The Ars review concludes:
Last year we said that iOS 8 felt like the second half of the iOS 7 update, the one that completed the transition between iOS' skeuomorphic era and our current reality, where the lines between "mobile device" and "computer" blur a little more every day. iOS 9 takes that foundation and builds on top of it without radically altering things, much in the same way that iOS 6 built on top of the advancements in iOS 4 and iOS 5.
It was a smaller release, and as a result, testing the final build of iOS 9 was frankly kind of a relief.
John Gruber, on Apple's incredible power over the web:
As a side note, I think this is more or less what is happening, whether the web community likes it or not, because this largely seems to describe Safari/WebKit's approach to moving forward - and Safari, because of iOS in particular - effectively gives Apple veto power over new web technologies. Apple can't stop Google from adding new features to Chrome/Blink, but Apple can keep any such features from being something web developers can rely upon as being widely available. That implicit veto power is what drove this summer's "Safari is the New IE" drama.
What could possibly go wrong. Meanwhile, John Gruber, on his site's about page:
Web standards are important, and Daring Fireball adheres to them.
OK.
Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 is being downloaded to computers whether or not users have opted in.
An INQUIRER reader pointed out to us that, despite not having 'reserved' a copy of Windows 10, he had found that the ~BT folder, which has been the home of images of the new operating system since before rollout began, had appeared on his system. He had no plans to upgrade and had not put in a reservation request.
I'm sure this is somehow my fault.
Why are there apps on the iOS that I can't delete even though I never use them? Why does Apple insist that I keep Tips and Stocks on my iPhone when I'd like nothing more than to delete them? For Cook the question seems a familiar one. "This is a more complex issue than it first appears," he says. "There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone. If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone. There are other apps that aren't like that. So over time, I think with the ones that aren't like that, we'll figure out a way . ... It's not that we want to suck up your real estate; we're not motivated to do that. We want you to be happy. So I recognize that some people want to do this, and it's something we're looking at."
Great news for iOS users - it seems like soon we'll finally be able to remove all the crapware Apple's been stuffing your iPhone with.
As for the other applications he's referring to, such as mail, the browser, and so on - don't expect any changes to how you cannot set your own browser or mail client as default. The reason is simple: there's going to be a whole lot of Google iPhones out there the day Apple does allow you to change default applications. And we wouldn't want consumers to use what they actually want to use, now would we?
Perish the thought.
The truth is a little less exciting, with Google inviting manufacturers to participate in legally binding agreements that ensured Google search sat atop everything in exchange for access to the Play Store, but the end result isn't all that different. Microsoft could make its own phone without access to the Google Play Store, but that usually ends poorly for everyone involved. In order to have their apps and services installed on something running Google-powered Android, Microsoft needed to go the long way and offer compelling apps that users would want to install and use instead of the pre-loaded Google counterparts.
You may not be aware of it, but Microsoft is surprisingly close to making this a reality.
They are, indeed. There's a reason Microsoft's applications on Android are way, way better than those for Windows Phone or Windows 10: Microsoft Android is their plan B for when they do eventually end Windows Phone.
Despite being a devoted Microsoft and Windows fan since age five, my first four smartphones were the first four iPhones (1, 3G, 3GS, 4). I don't think I need to explain how amazing the first iPhone was compared with the competition at the time. However, after four generations of it I was bored. What was exciting me was what I was seeing coming out of Redmond in the form of Windows Phone 7.
Here I am almost four years and three handsets down the road and today I made the decision to leave the platform and return to iPhone. It's basically been death by 1,000 cuts...
I went along with Windows Phone 7.x - heck, I imported an HTC HD7 from the US to The Netherlands on release day (it eventually took Microsoft like 18 months to launch in The Netherlands). I also went along with Windows Phone 8.
And I, too, am done. Bitten too many times by Windows Phone's "just wait for the next version". No more.
Yesterday's New York Times carried a story entitled "Apple and other tech companies tangle with U.S. over data access". It's a vague headline that manages to obscure the real thrust of the story, which is that according to reporters at the Times, Apple has not been forced to backdoor their popular encrypted iMessage system. This flies in the face of some rumors to the contrary.
While there's not much new information in here, people on Twitter seem to have some renewed interest in how iMessage works; whether Apple could backdoor it if they wanted to; and whether the courts could force them to. The answers to those questions are respectively: "very well", "absolutely", and "do I look like a national security lawyer?"
As the article states, it all comes down to trust.
McMaster revealed that Cyanogen is working with Microsoft to deeply integrate Cortana into the next version of Cyanogen OS. This is key to catapulting Cyanogen into the mass market, he asserts: Cortana is currently available as an app on Android, but in order for it to make a real difference, it needs to be able to be integrated at the OS level so that its full potential can be leveraged.
So, they're really pushing ahead with integrating Microsoft services into every part of Cyanogen OS. I wonder at what point peddling these Microsoft services is going to somehow make CyanogenMod (the other side of the Cyanogen coin) worse.
In case you haven't figured it out by now: Cyanogen is aiming to get acquired. They're not in it to build a long-lasting company and deep ties with customers; they're in it to get acquired for a lot of money and bail. As a user, I wouldn't bet on this horse.
What's missing from the reactions is the obvious acknowledgment that Jobs was not only talking about using a stylus with an entirely different product - the 3.5-inch iPhone 1 - but he was referring to both styluses and screens that have been blown out of the water by newer technology.
If you see someone bringing up Jobs' stylus remarks in relation to the iPad Pro, they blew it.
No argument here: Jony Ive has produced some of the best industrial design in the history of consumer products. He's done it by cutting out all the extraneous parts. By eliminating edges, by smoothing and streamlining.
But what works beautifully for hardware does not work for software.
iOS feels like it's following a trend called "flat" without really understanding what that means. The examples given in this article are telling - especially since there are enough examples of "flat" design that work just fine and do not have these problems; see Material Design, for instance, which, while flat, makes a lot of use of planes and depth and still makes it very clear what is clickable and what isn't (mostly).
The problem for Microsoft is everything is down the road. The promise of Universal apps? Coming soon. The promise of ported apps through Bridges from Android, iOS, Win32 and web apps? On the way. New exciting Windows Phone hardware? Just around the corner! A stable and mature OS that can compete with Android and iOS and even surpass them? It's almost here!
I talked about this before, and this pattern is really, really frustrating.
It's been a long wait, but SailfishOS 2.0 has been released - only for early access users right now, but since everyone can be an early access user, that's a moot point. SailfishOS 2.0 overhaul the entire user interface to supposedly make it simpler. Another major change is under the hood - the operating system is now ready for different screen sizes, since the Jolla tablet can ship any moment now.
You can simply swipe left or right between Home and Events, like in a carousel. The App Grid is quickly accessible from anywhere in the UI just by swiping over the bottom edge - you don't need to go to the Home screen if you want to open a new app.
Events is now richer and smarter by comprising a weather widget with an option to display five-day weather forecast, a calendar widget, as well as grouped and enhanced notification handling. Now you are able to see and do more with your notifications directly in Events, whether they are from native apps or Android apps.
We also added a lot of other enhancements like redesigned App covers for Gallery, Notes, and Camera apps, added many new animations, and made improvements for existing apps like Jolla Store, Calendar, Camera. Just to mention a few.
The update is installing on my Jolla right now, so I don't have much to add for now. I'll most likely add the SailfishOS 2.0 phone experience to my Jolla tablet review.
Atari 8-bit fans have long hankered after a GUI similar to GEOS on the Commodore 64. Diamond GOS went some way to addressing this deficiency, and since then there have been several creditable attempts at implementing a GUI OS on the A8. Now there's another one in the pipeline: an as yet unnamed project which aims to bring a pre-emptive multi-tasking graphical operating system to the 8-bit Atari.
Impressive.
Apple held its usual September event tonight, and it unveiled three major new products: a new Apple TV, the iPad Pro, and the iPhone 6S/6S Plus. The new Apple TV is effectively the old Apple TV, but with Siri, applications, and a funny-looking remote. It looks fun to use, but it's nothing revolutionary and most likely won't change the TV landscape as much as Apple wants it to.
Apple also made a big fuss about gaming on the new Apple TV, but since applications cannot be larger than 200 MB, don't expect much from this. Then again, Apple showed off a 100% Wii Sports rip-off as the big new thing in gaming, so I'm betting on Apple still not really having a clue about gaming.
The iPad Pro, on the other hand, is literally Surface. Like, there are no ifs and buts - it's literally an iPad Surface. It's got a 12.9" display, a crazy-fast processor and graphics chip, a foldable, Surface-like keyboard cover, and a stylus/pen for ink. It, of course, makes great use of the new Aero Snap and Windows 8.x multiwindow features introduced with iOS 9. The base model is fairly cheap, but much like the Surface, once you add the keyboard cover and pen, prices go up substantially.
Speaking of the pen, Apple drapes it in all sorts of annoying Apple-isms, but it does actually look fairly advanced - closer to top-of-the-line Wacom stuff; this isn't the stylus that came with your Palm device. It'll be great for artists, but much like the Surface's pen, I just don't see a use for it any other application.
Lastly, Apple unveiled the iPhone 6S and the 6S Plus, and it's got some really, really cool stuff. The Force Touch and Taptic engine stuff from Apple's latest trackpads and the Apple Watch is built right in, now dubbed 3D Touch (...eh), and it's used to add a number of new interactions into iOS on the 6S. You can gently press on, say, an e-mail, and it'll show you a quick preview, or press a bit harder and open it fully. This also works for application icons, where it'll open a menu with often-used actions for that application.
Think of it as Quick Look for applications. It will be open to developers, so you can expect all kinds of cross-application functionality, which is really welcome on a mobile platforms so heavily focussed on apps-as-islands. I really like this new feature, and I can't wait to start using it (I'm buying the iPhone 6S early October).
And, unimportant to most but I just want to mention it: it comes in an awesome new colour that I'm totally going for. And, as always, it'll have a faster processor, a better camera, and so on - all the usual things you can expect from a new flagship.
