Virtual Pants

Peter Cohen:

iOS, and the devices that operate it, aren’t suddenly going to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo for dominance of the gaming market, and controller support in iOS 7 isn’t going to change that.

Diving into the living room is a huge bet, and could be a costly mistake. Instead, Apple is slowly, but surely, sneaking into our living rooms. Game controller support in iOS 7 is another small step towards living room domination.

Apple today announced that HBO GO and WatchESPN are now available directly on Apple TV joining the great lineup of programming offered to customers. iTunes users have downloaded more than one billion TV episodes and 380 million movies from iTunes to date, and they are purchasing over 800,000 TV episodes and over 350,000 movies per day.

Apple TV is only a few independent subscription deals away from becoming a very big deal.

Tristan Edwards:

Some would argue that it’s just a new style and takes some getting used to. I’ve tried for several days now to “get used to it”, I’ve used my phone more intensely than ever, but it just doesn’t work. The design is bad. Some things, like good symmetry and combining the right colors, never go out of style, it’s just good taste.

For that reason, I started creating a mock-up of my own version of iOS 7. This is how I believe Apple should have done it.

I generally like the direction that Apple is heading with iOS 7, however, as noted above, the design of iOS 7 needs some work. In fact, it needs to look just like Tristan’s redesign. I can’t think of a better resume for a design job at Apple.

Christopher Soghoian:

Today, Yahoo’s General Counsel posted a carefully worded denial regarding the company’s alleged participation in the NSA PRISM program. To the casual observer, it might seem like a categorical denial. I do not believe that Yahoo’s denial is as straightforward as it seems.

Below, I have carefully parsed Yahoo’s statement, line by line, in order to highlight the fact that Yahoo has not in fact denied receiving court orders under 50 USC 1881a (AKA FISA Section 702) for massive amounts of communications data.

This Yahoo statement, while probably accurate, really says nothing, as Christopher Soghoian points out. It’s the kind of statement that we don’t need in a situation like this. At best, it misleads your customers. By way of contrast, the statements coming out of Google are refreshingly blunt and include unequivocal denials:

I’m not sure what the details of this PRISM program are, but I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals — things like search warrants. And we continue to stand firm against any attempts to do so broadly or without genuine, individualized suspicion, and publicize the results as much as possible in our Transparency Report. Having seen much of the internals of how we do this, I can tell you that it is a point of pride, both for the company and for many of us, personally, that we stand up to governments that demand people’s information.

I can also tell you that the suggestion that PRISM involved anything happening directly inside our datacenters surprised me a great deal; owing to the nature of my work at Google over the past decade, it would have been challenging — not impossible, but definitely a major surprise — if something like this could have been done without my ever hearing of it. And I can categorically state that nothing resembling the mass surveillance of individuals by governments within our systems has ever crossed my plate.

If it had, even if I couldn’t talk about it, in all likelihood I would no longer be working at Google: the fact that we do stand up for individual users’ privacy and protection, for their right to have a personal life which is not ever shared with other people without their consent, even when governments come knocking at our door with guns, is one of the two most important reasons that I am at this company: the other being a chance to build systems which fundamentally change and improve the lives of billions of people by turning the abstract power of computing into something which amplifies and expands their individual, mental life.

The New York Times:

Each of the nine companies said it had no knowledge of a government program providing officials with access to its servers, and drew a bright line between giving the government wholesale access to its servers to collect user data and giving them specific data in response to individual court orders. Each said it did not provide the government with full, indiscriminate access to its servers.

The companies said they do, however, comply with individual court orders, including under FISA. The negotiations, and the technical systems for sharing data with the government, fit in that category because they involve access to data under individual FISA requests. And in some cases, the data is transmitted to the government electronically, using a company’s servers.

All of the responses from the tech companies linked to PRISM reeked of doublespeak. Terms like ‘direct access’ were red flags, especially when used by multiple companies. It’s one thing to comply with government demands, but it’s a damn shame that these companies, most of which impact our daily lives, lied to us today. Either tell us the truth or don’t say anything at all. Or better yet, stand up for your users like Twitter did:

Twitter declined to make it easier for the government.

Great essay on internet privacy, or the lack thereof, by Bruce Schneier:

Maintaining privacy on the Internet is nearly impossible. If you forget even once to enable your protections, or click on the wrong link, or type the wrong thing, you’ve permanently attached your name to whatever anonymous service you’re using. Monsegur slipped up once, and the FBI got him. If the director of the CIA can’t maintain his privacy on the Internet, we’ve got no hope.

In today’s world, governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way. Governments are happy to use the data corporations collect — occasionally demanding that they collect more and save it longer — to spy on us. And corporations are happy to buy data from governments. Together the powerful spy on the powerless, and they’re not going to give up their positions of power, despite what the people want.

Many companies identified in the leaked NSA PRISM slides have already come forward with denials:

“We have never heard of PRISM,” says Apple’s spokesman. “If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it,” says Microsoft’s. “We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network,” says Yahoo!’s. “Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data,” says Google’s.

But in each of these denials, they leave open the possibility for PRISM to exist as originally reported. For example, Apple has apparently never heard of PRISM, but maybe they know it by another name. Yahoo doesn’t provide direct access, but what about indirect access. Likewise, Google apparently does not have a ‘back door’ for the government, but what if they simply let them in the front door.

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

This is bad.

Like Trevor McKendrick, I almost threw up in my mouth when I read Marco Arment’s characterization of Vesper’s launch price and lack of features as balls. Before I could write my reaction, Trevor already explained the real reason Vesper will succeed:

Distribution and our attention. That’s what they have that most iOS devs don’t. It’s a huge competitive advantage, but nobody talks about it.

Instead we gush on about how it’s a great app and well designed ad nauseum. We admire it as a piece of artwork and think because it’s good art it makes good business, too.

But that’s the wrong thing to admire about Vesper. While a great app, yes, there are many great apps that don’t go anywhere.

There were no balls involved with the launch of Vesper. This was not a risky move. The Q Branch team knew that their combined internet celebrity would guarantee a baseline level of success, no matter the app or the price. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice app, but as Trevor wrote above, there are many nice apps out there.

Trevor was wrong about one thing, though. Someone has pointed this out before. I made the exact same point with regard to Marco Arment’s The Magazine:

The Magazine is the rich kid of the Newsstand magazine world. It was privileged from the start. Launched by an internet celebrity and touted by his internet celebrity friends, the first issue had articles by great writers like Jason Snell and Michael Lopp. It had an audience before it launched and was guaranteed a baseline level of success out of the gate. And that initial success is what enabled Marco to hire a great editor, pay print-competitive rates to attract print-quality writers, and to integrate illustrations and photos. I doubt any TypeEngine magazine will have these advantages, despite the quality of content.

Apps from internet celebrities aren’t much different than clothing lines from fashion models or shoes from basketball players. It’s all about the brand. The Q Branch team has built an excellent brand over the years, and Vesper will succeed because of that brand. No balls necessary.

Vesper is a delightful and beautifully-designed notes app from Brent Simmons, Dave Wiskus, and John Gruber. Vesper provides easy tagging, search, and the ability to append photos to notes. An archive stores your old notes, and a swipe is all you need to send a note to the archive.

While I agree that $5 for an app isn’t expensive, it might be too expensive for Vesper. You see, the app currently doesn’t support the iPad and there is no cloud syncing of notes, two features I’ve come to expect from notes apps. At least the credits include a recipe for the app’s namesake drink (one of my favorites).

Bloomberg:

By offering money for older smartphones, Apple and the wireless companies are seeking to entice consumers to upgrade to the latest models, while profiting through resales abroad.

I recently wrote about Apple’s upgrade dilemma:

Apple has been taking a beating on Wall Street, in part due to skepticism over future growth of iPhone and iPad sales. With the market becoming saturated with iPhone and, to some extent, iPad users, Apple will soon need to rely upon upgrades rather than new customers to fuel sales. Apple’s problem is that their products are so good, people aren’t upgrading fast enough.

The beginning of an upgrade program provides some evidence that I was correct. There are simply too many people with older model iPhones and they aren’t upgrading fast enough. Just look around in the wild and you’ll likely notice many more iPhone 4/4S than iPhone 5. In fact, I see many more Samsung devices than iPhone 5, which makes me think that many people are upgrading to Samsung devices from their iPhone 4/4S.

Sam Byford for The Verge:

Three days into Computex Taipei, Asia’s biggest computer show, not a single manufacturer has announced a Windows RT device. Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 designed for more power-efficient ARM processors, made its official debut at last year’s show on a convertible tablet by Asus.

Windows RT has always seemed like a temporary fix. When RT was announced last year, Microsoft needed a tablet OS that could compete with Apple and Android tablets. While Windows 8 was a fine competitor, most tablet hardware at the time simply couldn’t support it. Thus, Microsoft announced RT, which was meant to fill in the gap between Windows 8 and available tablet hardware.

A year later, Intel is shipping low power chips that can easily power tablets with Windows 8. If tablet hardware can support Windows 8, there’s simply no reason for Windows RT. I give it another year before Microsoft kills it.

Farhad Manjoo’s headline: Steve Jobs’ Dream Device Has Arrived. He is referring to the recently announced Xbox One from Microsoft. The problem is that the Xbox One isn’t Steve Jobs’ dream device. Not even close. As Manjoo later writes:

The company was also cagey about how the One will interact with your crappy cable box. Unlike in Jobs’ perfect system, the Xbox One won’t replace your box. It will let you switch channels by voice, and it will be able to layer its own content on top of what’s on TV. But as the Verge’s Nilay Patel points out, the One likely won’t act as a DVR that saves TV shows to its drive, and you will still likely have to interact with your set-top box’s clunky user interface.

Compare that to the frequently cited quote from Steve Jobs’ biography:

‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’

Jobs’ ideal television device would do away with traditional cable boxes and DVR altogether. Your television content will live in the cloud, freely accessible to any device with an internet connection. The user interface will be drop dead simple and consistent between devices. Compare such a device to the Xbox One, which still requires a cable box, does not store your television content in the cloud, and doesn’t eliminate the need to use the horrid user interface on your existing cable box.

The sad truth is that we’re still a long way from Jobs’ dream. And technology isn’t the biggest hurdle. Instead, the remaining challenge is the cable television business model. Until cable operators are willing to budge, the dream will not be realized. It’s a difficult nut to crack, and I’m skeptical that anyone will be able to do so. Microsoft surely has not. Apple, with Jobs at the helm, had a chance, but Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs when it comes to groundbreaking negotiations with old guard content providers.

Laura June for The Verge:

The truth is that while I spent months imagining — and talking about — a phone which was exactly the HTC First, I was all the while adjusting to a different and better reality: that of a slightly larger phone. The smaller “iPhone-sized” dream was just a red herring.

I really enjoyed this piece by Laura June. My conclusion is the same after switching from an iPhone 5 to a Galaxy Note II for a month or so. The screen size of the Note felt absurd at first, but I quickly became used to it. There was a lot of skepticism and criticism of larger-sized displays a year or two ago, but that has died down considerably, primarily because the proof is in the pudding. People are frequently choosing phones with larger displays.

The Next Web:

McLaughlin also shared that Digg and the recently acquired Instapaper will not be combined, at least for the moment; he argued that the notion of reading something later serves a separate function.

The argument that reading something later is something that should be kept separate from an RSS reader is baffling to me. When I heard Instapaper was acquired by Betaworks, my first thought was that it would be a great addition to Digg’s RSS reader project. A single app that provides RSS feeds and saved articles for reading later would be perfect. I suspect the Instapaper acquisition happened too late in the development cycle to combine them. If that’s the case, there is still a chance they will be combined eventually.

9to5Mac:

As we reported in April, Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive has been leading a thorough overhaul for iOS 7 that focuses on the look and feel of the iOS device software rather than on several new features.

Sources have described iOS 7 as “black, white, and flat all over.” This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements.

If true, this is a nice scoop on Apple’s iOS 7 redesign. The “flat” design has been heavily rumored, but the emphasis on black and white elements is interesting.

iOS has always invoked emotion. In additional to working well, it is a joy to use. There’s no doubt that iOS 7 is going to look great, but I hope it invokes the same emotion that has helped create many loyal iPhone users.

John Kirk for Techpinions:

Not only do the high priests of market share have it wrong, they have it exactly backwards. The company with the lower market share and the higher profits has all of the leverage. The goal is to INCREASE, not decrease, the ratio of profits to market share. Increasing market share at the cost of profits is a recipe for disaster, not a formula for success.

Apple may or may not do well in the future but right now, and contrary to popular belief, they are winning the smartphone wars and winning them handily.

John’s analysis is correct, in my opinion, with regard to Android device manufacturers. However, he is missing the point of Android. In fact, he doesn’t mention Google even once (other than in a quote from ReadWrite). You need to consider all of the players before you can declare a winner of the game.

Google created Android as a defensive measure. It needed to be sure that a single company, such as Apple, did not gain control of the entire mobile market. If that were to happen, the possibility of Google’s services being shut out of the market loomed. Clearly, Google’s doomsday scenario never happened and likely never will. In this way, Android has won, and has performed better than Google ever imagined.

Android is a huge win for Google. It’s true that most Android device makers have little to no profit. But it’s Android’s large market share that is the winner for Google. The more Android devices being used, the more Google services with Google ads are being used.

People often forget that Google and Apple are playing the same game with different goals in mind. Apple strives to maximize profitability in hardware sales. Google, on the other hand, is striving for maximum market share, providing the most users for its services. This is a rare, if not unique, war where both Apple and Google can win, and that seems to be very confusing to people.