Monthly Archive:: January 2016

Nayu OS: introducing Chromebooks without Google

Linux 21 Comments

NayuOS is an ongoing project at Nexedi: We are mainly using Chromebooks for our daily development work and wanted to have more customizable, secure and privacy-compliant devices - not running any proprietary software, because we love Free Software. A few experiments later NayuOS - our free alternative to Chrome OS - was born. NayuOS is currently on a good enough way to meeting most of our needs, so we decided to spread the word and share what we have done so far.

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Debian 8.3 released

Debian 29 Comments

The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian 8 (codename jessie). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were published separately and are referenced where applicable.

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Jolla Tablet: aiming for closure

Wireless 36 Comments

In that spirit, we now have answers for those of you who have been waiting for the next Jolla Tablet update - thanks again for your patience. As already stated in our New Year's post, we plan to ship an additional small batch of Jolla Tablets to early Indiegogo backers. And, for the rest of our backers, we now have a refund process in place.

They're shipping 540 tablets - no, that's not a typo - to early backers, of which I am one, but whether or not I'll actually be one of the 'lucky' 540, I don't know yet. Otherwise, it'll be the refund program. I'm glad they're offering this program, because the whole ordeal has been quite the letdown.

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Windows Phone is dead

Windows 85 Comments

Windows Phone started off life as a promising alternative to Android and iOS five years ago. Microsoft positioned its range of Windows Phone 7 handsets as the true third mobile ecosystem, but it's time to admit it has failed. If a lack of devices from phone makers and even Microsoft itself wasn't enough evidence, the final nail in the coffin hit today. Microsoft only sold 4.5 million Lumia devices in the recent quarter, compared to 10.5 million at the same time last year. That's a massive 57 percent drop. Even a 57 percent increase wouldn't be enough to save Windows Phone right now.

I remember being attacked in the comments for claiming Windows Phone was actually not doing as well as some claimed it was, and predicting its inevitable demise - years and years ago.

Vindication.

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The 2015 Panic report

Wireless 18 Comments

Panic, one of the most respected OS X/iOS developer houses, published their yearly report, this time covering 2015, obviously. This paragraph is intriguing:

iOS Revenue. I brought this up last year and we still haven't licked it. We had a change of heart - well, an experimental change of heart - and reduced the price of our iOS apps in 2015 to normalize them at $9.99 or less, thinking that was the upper limit and/or sweet spot for iOS app pricing. But it didn't have a meaningful impact on sales.

More and more I'm beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS - we made professional tools that aren't really "in demand" on that platform - and that price isn't our problem, but interest is.

This obviously ties into the previous news item, and Panic hits the nail on the head. They are, of course, specifically talking about iOS, but the same applies to competing platforms like Android: nobody wants to do anything even remotely resembling serious work on a "post-PC" device, regardless of platform. Both Apple and Google are really trying to posit their platforms for work (iPad Pro, Pixel C), but just as Microsoft is having a hard time scaling Windows down for consumption, Apple and Google are having trouble scaling their operating systems up for work.

It is no surprise, then, that Panic's upcoming great project for 2016 isn't a big new application... But a videogame.

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AnandTech’s iPad Pro review

Apple 8 Comments

We're continuing our streak of Apple news, diving into the only review of the iPad Pro that really matters: the one from AnandTech.

Overall, the iPad Pro is an incredibly good tablet. I’ve always liked the idea of a tablet, but for the most part I've been deeply dissatisfied with the implementations of tablets. With the iPad Air 2 review I really emphasized how a proper keyboard and a good stylus would really make the user experience much more compelling, and with the iPad Pro we're finally starting to see movement towards the tablet that I've always wanted. The iPad Pro is arguably the first tablet that I personally want to even consider buying. It isn’t perfect by any means, and there is still a lot of work to be done - seemingly fitting for a first-generation Apple device - but for the first time in a long time it feels like the broader tablet market is advancing once again. If you want a proper tablet that can replace pencil and paper with a keyboard for extended typing sessions, I have no problem recommending the iPad Pro. If you're hoping for a laptop that can also double as a tablet, I suspect that the Surface Pro 4 will remain the right choice for you.

In the end, the success of the iPad pro is pretty much a given. It's a bigger iPad, and there are enough people in the world who'd love a bigger version of their Netflix machine. However, whether or not the iPad Pro lives up to its moniker - i.e., it becomes a tool tons of people rely on for their work - remains to be seen. After the first few days or maybe even a few weeks of excitement, I remain convinced artists will go back to their Cintiqs and Photoshops, journalists writing "can it replace a laptop?"-articles will go back to their MacBook Airs, and everybody else didn't even look up from their smartphone.

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Safari crashing on iOS, OS X all over the world

Apple 27 Comments

Good morning everyone! Experiencing problems with Safari on iOS and OS X today? Is Safari crashing when you tap the address bar? You're not alone. Apple is experiencing a major issue with Safari today, causing the browser to reliably crash on all iOS devices, and Safari on OS X seems to suffer from UI problems and other issues. This one's big, and seems to affect all iOS and OS X devices in the world (!).

The culprit seems to be Safari's search suggestions implementation. Something seems to be wrong server-side, and it's causing the search session code to raise an exception, after which the application doesn't know what to do. Tapping the URL field in Safari will cause Safari on iOS to crash immediately, while Safari on OS X suffers from other issues. If you are not currently experiencing this problem on iOS, that's because caching is saving you for now. If you switch airplane mode on and off on your iOS devices, these caches are reset, and the problem will appear.

From what I can gather - which means, from what iOS developers I talk to can gather, because I, myself, am an idiot - this is a huge problem, affecting all iOS and OS X devices. On my iPhone, the Safari crash is 100% reproducible, and any tap on the address field crashes Safari. I can't type in any URL. A temporary workaround is to disable "Include search engine suggestions", but a permanent fix most likely has to come from Apple itself. Even then, said hypothetical fix might take a while to actually fix the problem.

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Have we reached peak iPhone? It’s complicated

Apple 31 Comments

Apple just posted its Q1 2016 financial report, where it posted record revenues and profits once again. But the more interesting thing might be what it's predicting for next quarter, where the company expects to report between $50 and $53 billion in revenue. That would put it below the $58 billion it reported in Q2 2015 and would mark the first year-over-year decline in revenue for the company in years.

The slight decrease can likely be attributed to falling iPhone sales, which have been predicted for some time now. In Q1, Apple reported sales of 74.7 million iPhones, which is just barely better than the 74.5 million it did in the same quarter last year. Apple did not say how many it expects to sell in Q2, but analysts have predicted declines as high as 25 percent. During the investor call following today's report, CEO Tim Cook admitted that "iPhone sales will decline in the quarter," but he noted that the company doesn't expect them to fall as much as outside estimates have said.

iPad sales continue to plummet, by 21% to 16.1 million. So far, it seems like the iPad Pro hasn't made much of a dent. Apple isn't releasing sales numbers for the Apple Watch, so it's hard to say anything meaningful about that one.

That being said, Apple's numbers are still every bit as staggering as they've been for a while now, and we all knew the increase in iPhone sales would stall eventually. With as much cash stashed in tax havens as Apple has, there's really very little to worry about regarding Apple's continued existence, but stock traders see this differently - they're not interested in past results, they're only interested in growth. And right now, the iPhone is pretty much the one big pillar responsible for virtually all of Apple's growth, and if that one starts to stall, Wall Street folk will get nervous.

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Google’s UK tax deal is a joke at our expense

Google 35 Comments

Death and taxes. You can't escape them. But corporations can and do.

It's common knowledge by now that big multinational companies exploit the inconsistencies between national tax regimes to secure the lowest possible tax rate for their profits. This is legal and deeply frustrating. In the wake of a popular backlash against profit-shifting practices, the UK government has begun to take some remedial actions. At the end of last week, Google agreed to pay the UK treasurer £130 million ($185 million) in back taxes, covering the period since 2005, and to also pay higher taxes in the future. UK Chancellor George Osborne hailed it as a "major success." The numbers disagree.

Obviously, Apple isn't the only one dodging taxes through shady deals. We haven't forgotten about you, Google.

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France wants a new keyboard to protect its language

In the News 114 Comments

This week, the French government announced a plan to standardize the French-language computer keyboard, as part of an effort to help protect and nurture the language. The ministry of culture and communication says it's "nearly impossible to correctly write French" on keyboards sold in the country today, meaning that the language's strict grammatical rules are being flouted more regularly. The ministry has partnered with a standardization group to develop a new keyboard norm, which will be presented for public feedback this summer.

To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole often seems insane. It happens, though, and it's very real - I talked about this before, but for Dutch. Modern technology really is changing language in multiple ways all over the place. This really isn't up for debate.

The question, however, is not if technology can change language; no, the real question is whether or not you should care. I personally believe that no, you should not. Language has always been ever-changing, is ever-changing, and always will be ever-changing. The idea that one particular set of rules for English, French, or Dutch from a very particular area and from a very particular timeframe is somehow more or less correct is not only wrong, it's downright insulting.

Much like other aspects of culture, language is often used as a means to discriminate, insult, or ridicule. A great - and sad - example of this is African American Vernacular English, which was often seen as dumb, stupid, and incorrect, reflecting the perceived social position of African-Americans in American society and emphasizing stereotypes about African-Americans. However, when linguists actually started studying AAVE, they found out it was incredibly rich in grammatical rules and constructs that are very different from regular English, but not dumber or less complex.

Coincidentally, AAVE sounds beautiful. It flows really well.

The point being, the idea that you somehow need to "protect" language is kind of silly. Stopping a language from changing - which is exactly what "protecting language" means - is like trying to make it stop raining. If you start to try and stop a language from changing, basically all you're doing is trying to create an ever-widening rift between written language and spoken language, up to a point where the written word deviates so much from the spoken word it starts to get troublesome.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a standardised French keyboard - even if only for something as important as accessibility - but it's not going to stop the French language from changing, being influenced, and modernising itself.

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Google tests installing Android apps straight from Google Search

Android 27 Comments

But Google over the past year or so has gotten serious about getting more apps in front of more users, particularly in search results - which remains Google's bread and butter. App indexing - wherein Google actually sorts through the content of an app so it can present it back to users in any number of ways - is the key to all this. You can open a traditional web search result directly into an app. And later Google would show a button that take you to the Play Store to install the app.

And now Google has cut out the middleman - for some of us, at least - by skipping the step of opening the Google Play Store app before installing. Technically speaking, that's probably not a huge leap. And, frankly, it's not as big a deal as headlines are making it seem.

Installing applications is just one of the many things where Android outshines iOS. For instance, it's 2016, and you still can't install applications from the App Store web listing to your iPhone or iPad. I spend most of my computing time on my desktop computer, and I've lost count of how many times I came across an interesting iOS application, only to realise that the only way to actually install on my iPhone was to actually get my iPhone, which could be anywhere in the house, open the App Store, search for the application, hopefully actually find it (search in the App Store is dreadfully bad), and then install it, all the while hoping the App Store app won't soil its undies halfway through.

For Android applications, I just click install on the Play Store web listing, and I'm done. It's one of those niceties that companies that understand web services can do properly without much effort. And it seems like Google is taking all this a step further now, allowing you to install stuff straight from Google Search

Meanwhile, the iOS App Store application is so unreliable and terrible, it needs a hidden "tap ten times to reload" shortcut.

OK.

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Report: Apple, Samsung suppliers linked to child labor in Africa

In the News 31 Comments

Cobalt mined by child laborers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be entering the supply chains of major tech companies like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, as well as auto manufacturers like Volkswagen and Daimler AG, according to an investigation from Amnesty International and Afrewatch, a DRC-based non-government organization.

The report, released today, lays out how cobalt mined by children as young as seven is sold to a DRC-based subsidiary of Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese company. The subsidiary, Congo Dongfang Mining International (CDM), processes cobalt ore and sells it to companies in China and South Korea, where it is used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries for use in smartphones and electric cars. Amnesty contacted 16 multinational companies listed as customers of the battery makers, based on investor documents and public records. Most said they were unaware of any links to the companies cited in the report, while others, like Apple and Microsoft, said they were evaluating their supply chains. Amnesty says that none of the companies provided enough information to independently verify the origin of their cobalt supply.

This will remain a problem for a long time to come. Many of the rare resources we use every day are gathered in some of the most unstable and poorest places on earth.

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An iPad-centric wishlist for iOS 10

Apple 12 Comments

All of the new features introduced in iOS 9.x (plus the iPad Pro) point to Apple's intentions for the iPad, which still sells fairly well but has experienced a steady year-over-year sales slide for every quarter since early 2014. Like the iPhone, the iPad will continue to be a touch-first platform that assumes you're using the touchscreen as the primary method of input, but it will continue to pick up more "computer-y" features that make better use of its larger screen and more powerful internal hardware.

With that in mind, here are a few iPad-specific feature requests for iOS 10, all of which balance the iPad's traditional strengths and the needs of people more used to "traditional" desktop OSes.

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Dutch consumer group sues Samsung over Android updates

Android 68 Comments

Well, this is interesting. The Dutch Consumentenbond, the largest consumer protection advocacy agency in The Netherlands, today filed a lawsuit against Samsung demanding the company starts properly updating its Android phones. The Consumentenbond had been in talks with Samsung about this issue for a while now, but no positive outcome was reached, and as such, they saw no other option but to file suit.

The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provides two years of updates for all its Android devices, with the two-year period starting not at the date of market introduction of the device, but at the date of sale. This means that devices introduced one or even more years ago that are still being sold should still get two years' worth of updates starting today.

There's actually an official English version of the press release (as a translator, I am genuinely surprised about that).

Bart Combée, director of the Consumentenbond: "On buying a Samsung Android device, consumers are given inadequate information about how long they will continue to receive software updates. The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provide its customers with clear and unambiguous information about this. Samsung moreover provides insufficient information about critical security vulnerabilities, such as Stagefright, in its Android phones. Finally, the Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung actually provide its smartphones with updates."

The Consumentenbond's own research has shown that 82% of the Samsung phones sold in The Netherlands did not get updates to the most recent version of Android in the two-year period, which leads to all kinds of security issues and other problems. While Samsung, which has a smartphone market share in The Netherlands of about 80% (yeah... Sorry about that), is the focus of this particular lawsuit, the Consumentenbond notes that other manufacturers are guilty of the same problems.

It will not come as a surprise to any of you that I sincerely applaud this effort. The Android update clusterfrick is by far the biggest problem in the Android world, and OEMs should be, if possible, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for their negligent practices regarding updating their software. There is an extremely strong mandatory EU warranty policy on all products sold in the EU of at least two years, and Samsung and other Android OEMs are clearly failing to follow this law.

That being said, the minutiae of any possible outcome of this lawsuit are extremely crucial. Not only should Samsung and other OEMs be legally forced to release updates for their smartphones for at least two years (I would personally prefer three or four years, actually, but let's start somewhere), the updates ought to be timely. Every Android smartphone should be updated to the latest version of Android for two years after sale of said smartphone, with each update being released no later than four weeks after code availability from Google.

If this means they have to spend more resources on their development team - so be it. If this means they can no longer sell outdated, crappy hardware because newer Android versions would be too slow - so be it. If this means they have to work more closely with Google to prepare for new releases - so be it. None of that should be the concern of any consumer.

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Preserving Mesa, the Xerox Star system programming language

General Development 15 Comments

The goal of this project is to preserve and present primary and secondary source materials (including specifications, source code, manuals, and papers discussing design and implementation) from Mesa, the system programming language designed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s and used to implement the Xerox Star office automation system and its follow-ons. The editor greatly appreciates comments, suggestions, and donations of additional materials.

Wikipedia has a short overview of Mesa, and here's the 1979 Mesa Language Manual, which is obviously a lot more in-depth.

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New Intel, AMD processors to require Windows 10

Windows 99 Comments

Microsoft has detailed its support plans for new and upcoming processor generations. The general gist: all upcoming processor generations from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm will require Windows 10. Windows 8.x and Windows 7 will not be supported on these new platforms.

Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel's upcoming "Kaby Lake" silicon, Qualcomm's upcoming "8996" silicon, and AMD's upcoming "Bristol Ridge" silicon.

Through July 17, 2017, Skylake devices on the supported list will also be supported with Windows 7 and 8.1. During the 18-month support period, these systems should be upgraded to Windows 10 to continue receiving support after the period ends. After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for these configurations, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices.

You better be prepared for this when shopping for new hardware in the coming years.

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Microsoft is bringing the Windows Phone keyboard to iOS

Microsoft 13 Comments

In an email to some Windows Insider testers, obtained by The Verge, Microsoft is looking for iPhone users to trial the Word Flow keyboard. It's not clear when Word Flow will be released publicly on iOS, but Microsoft is already ready to test it more broadly so it will likely arrive in the coming months. Microsoft's Windows Phone version of Word Flow includes autocorrect, suggestions, gestures, and the ability to swipe letters (like Swype) to type out words.

I'm actually excited about this. I can't stand the iOS keyboard, but I consider the Windows Phone keyboard to be the best one around.

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Apple may be on hook for $8 billion in taxes in Europe probe

Apple 16 Comments

Apple Inc. may be facing a hefty tax bill in Europe.

The world's largest company could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes as a result of a European Commission investigation into its tax policies, according to an analysis by Matt Larson of Bloomberg Intelligence. Apple, which has said it will appeal an adverse ruling, is being scrutinized by regulators who have accused the iPhone maker of using subsidiaries in Ireland to avoid paying taxes on revenue generated outside the U.S.

The EC is investigating a whole slew of companies for tax avoidance, and that is, of course, nothing but a good thing. These shady constructions that only benefit the extremely wealthy have no place in any modern society.

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