How hard is it to leave Apple’s walled garden? It turns out that it is very hard even for the technology saavy. What’s worse, because the walls have grown slowly over many years, the magnitude of the effort gets hidden behind the proverbial beautiful trees lining the walls. “Wow, my iPhone photos are already on my MacBook!” “Great, I can use my iPad to respond to the text message I received on my iPhone!” “Phew, my Apple Watch can provide turn-by-turn directions from Apple Maps!” This video from Marques Brownlee’s popular YouTube channel provides an excellent summary of the issue and highlights several negative consequences.
Do we really need yet another article on Apple’s “Disaster in the Making” or how Apple just gave “millions of users a reason to quit their iPhones?” Maybe it would be more useful to write about “how few who have passed comment understand Apple’s proposals?” But why trust third party explanations when you can read Apple’s own announcement of the why’s and how’s of what they call “Expanded Protections for Children?” Clearly even Apple doesn’t think this is enough because there are ten more references at the end of this announcement including a six page Frequently Asked Questions document and a 14 page technical analysis, “Security Threat Model Review of Apple’s Child Safety Features.”
Recently, as part of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, an unusual short session was presented late on Thursday afternoon: Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. It was sandwiched between technical sessions with titles like “Use Async/Await With URLSession” and “Explore WKWebView Additions.” It seemed so out of place that I began to ask myself why Apple would spend valuable developer time and money to create a half hour video on a topic so removed from its packed, highly technical agenda.
Before becoming a technical writer, I spent years working in the field of industrial acoustics. When non-technical people found out that I was an acoustic engineer they would often ask: “Cool! What bands have you worked with?” or “You must have an amazing stereo system!”
How much “spin” can the world take? Well Facebook is doing its best to find out with its recent spin on their argument that “Apple’s changes are aimed at benefiting iMessage and harm small businesses.” What terrible changes are they referring to? Brace yourself because Apple will soon require iPhone and iPad apps that sell users’ personal data to ask the user for permission first. This personal data includes information like what websites we visit, our location, and much more.
During the last several months, people have taken up some interesting hobbies while in quarantine: bread making, gardening, art, and most recently questioning the monopolistic practices of trillion dollar companies. Facebook must be breathing a digital sigh of relief. The spotlight isn’t on them for a change. No, this time it’s Apple’s turn and the argument roughly is: “they charge developers 30% to be on the App Store; this is completely unfair; how can developers survive; it stifles competition because developers have no other choice; the walled garden has given Apple monopoly power.”
With all the crazy news lately, a small item might have gone unnoticed: Apple has updated its privacy pages. It really is a small item because most people seem to find protecting their privacy online about as important as organizing their sock drawer. Yesterday’s article in The Verge “Apple’s new privacy pages are easier to read and look way better” gives the details and includes links to Google’s and Amazon’s privacy pages as well, but if you use Apple products take a look yourself. Apple makes it extremely easy to find. Just go to apple.com/privacy and their bold statement right at the top says it all.
The relationship between Google and Apple has been a rocky one over the years. iPhones vs. Android, Apple Maps vs. Google Maps, Google Chromebooks replacing iPads in schools, and much more. Yet they also have a symbiotic relationship: Apple uses Google Cloud to power some iCloud services, Apple’s iOS design “inspires” Google’s Android phones, Google pays Apple $9 billion a year to be the default search engine, Apple Music on Android, iPhone users using Google services like Gmail, Calendar, Photos, etc.
I ended my last post with the request that we “hold off awarding that Flying Fickle Finger of Fate to Apple just yet.” But after a one day 9% drop in their stock price should we? And if we do, Warren Buffet might want to present that award to them since he lost $4 billion on AAPL last week.
Fifty years ago, two comedians wanted to make a strong statement of displeasure on national television by giving Congress “the middle finger” on the air. Their gripe ironically was that Congress was not taking action on the issue of gun control. However due to the TV censorship laws of 1968, Rowan and Martin had to get creative and “The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” was born.