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The Type-Your-Password-Here Edition Tuesday, October 10, 2017

iOS Privacy: Steal.password - Easily Get The User's Apple ID Password, Just By Asking, by Felix Krause

iOS asks the user for their iTunes password for many reasons, the most common ones are recently installed iOS operating system updates, or iOS apps that are stuck during installation.

As a result, users are trained to just enter their Apple ID password whenever iOS prompts you to do so. However, those popups are not only shown on the lock screen, and the home screen, but also inside random apps, e.g. when they want to access iCloud, GameCenter or In-App-Purchases.

This could easily be abused by any app, just by showing an UIAlertController, that looks exactly like the system dialog.

Even users who know a lot about technology have a hard time detecting that those alerts are phishing attacks.

Fast Charging

The iPhone 8's Best Feature Is One That Most People Will Never Get To Use, by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet

It's a real shame that most owners will never get to experience fast charging. Apple bundled a standard charger and cable with the new iPhone, which means that to make use of fast charging owners will need Apple's crazy-expensive $25 USB-C to Lightning cable, and a Power Delivery compatible charger.

iPhone Charging Times By Charger, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

They might know for a fact that “I wish my iPhone charged faster” is low on the list, perhaps because most iPhone users exclusively charge their phones overnight.

Coming Soon

iPhone X Sightings On The Rise In San Francisco, by AppleInsider

iPhone X is increasingly making early appearances as Apple employees routinely carry around the new device and use it openly in public. If it had a less distinctive design, perhaps nobody would have noticed.

Apple Working On Fix For Reachability Bug In iOS 11, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple is working on a fix for a Reachability bug that prevents the new iOS 11 Cover Screen with Notifications from being accessible from the middle of the iPhone's display, Apple engineering chief Craig Federighi told a MacRumors reader this afternoon.

Twitterrific Back On macOS

Twitterrific For Mac Is Back: First Impressions And Comparison With Tweetbot, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

The Iconfactory said its goal was to deliver a minimal Twitter client, like the original Twitterrific for Mac, but with a feature set that caters to how people use Twitter in 2017, as opposed to 2007.

Only eight months have passed since the crowdfunding campaign began, so some key features are still missing at launch, but The Iconfactory promises they will be added in subsequent updates to the app.

Twitterrific For macOS Review, by John Voorhees, MacStories

Where Twitterrific for macOS succeeds, however, is by offering a solid set of core functionality on which The Iconfactory can build additional features. The launch-day feature set is sufficient for most users and, I expect more power-user features will come over time. I’ve used the app throughout the Kickstarter beta period and expect to continue using it, though I’m not ready to commit to it full time without the ability to create muffles on my Mac. Still, in a category that hasn’t seen much action on the Mac in recent years, it’s great to see Twitterrific back in the mix.

Payer Plus D'impôt

Apple's Cook Meets Macron In Paris Amid Calls For Tech Taxes, by Gregory Viscusi, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook met Emmanuel Macron in Paris Monday, and according to French officials he didn’t push back against calls by the French president and European allies to change rules in the region to get technology giants to pay more taxes.

[...]

Macron is leading a group of countries -- including Germany, Italy and Spain -- that are seeking a way to plug the European loopholes that allow some companies to minimize taxes by funneling profits to jurisdictions such as Ireland or the Netherlands. Macron’s office said the two didn’t discuss past tax disputes, but Cook accepted that fiscal laws worldwide are shifting toward making companies pay tax where money is actually earned.

Apple Praises French iPhone Work Before Talking Tax With Macron, by Mathieu Rosemain, Reuters

The Apple chief executive paid a surprise visit to Eldim, a Normandy-based firm that has tested optical technology used in the facial recognition system inside new top-of-the-range iPhone X smartphones due out next month. [...] “Bravo for your work!”, Cook said on his official Twitter account in French. A picture of him chatting with Eldim employees was also posted.

Shutting Down Windows Mobile

Windows Phone Is Now Officially Dead: A Sad Tale Of What Might Have Been, by Peter Bright, Ars Technica

As if the hardware and software missteps were not enough, public displays of "no confidence" were the final nail in the coffin of the platform. In July 2015, Microsoft's new CEO Satya Nadella announced that 7,800 employees, primarily from the company's hardware division, were to be laid off, while the near-$8 billion value of the Nokia business was to be written down. Sources close to the matter tell us that these layoffs are the reason for, for example, the lack of CDMA support in Windows Mobile 10: the people with the relevant technical expertise were simply let go.

We've also heard of consequences beyond that; people within the company have told us that Microsoft's tardiness at updating the Surface Pro, for example, was fallout of these hardware layoffs. Microsoft didn't (and perhaps still doesn't) have enough personnel to develop the Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and Surface Studio and revise the Surface Pro and Surface Book at the same time.

In its stronger markets, Windows Phone just about held steady over 2014 before declining sharply in 2015 and 2016. The lack of desirable hardware, the lack of progress in the software, and the lack of management support meant that, instead of building on the successes of 2012 and 2013, Windows on phones was allowed to die.

Microsoft's Foray Into Phones Was A Bumbling, Half-hearted Fiasco, And Nadella Always Knew It, by Michael Allison, The Register

Microsoft's struggle with mobile will surely go down as another black mark on the firm's track record of coming late to market, of refining its product and of eviscerating the competition through a combination of product, pricing and channel and partner relationships. As the creator of the world's most widely used desktop operating systems and one-time browser king, it was inconceivable that Microsoft would be unable to similarly dominate the mobile market.

Yet, due to a series of missteps, misfortunes and misjudgements, Microsoft left the mobile market, with nothing to show for it but broken partnerships and waning influence in an increasingly mobile-first world.

Stuff

Apple TV 4K Review: Ambition, Meet Reality, by Samuel Axon, Ars Technica

Using the Apple TV 4K, I can see and appreciate Apple’s vision for a better TV experience. However, the realities of the entertainment business have prevented that vision from being fully realized—the Apple TV 4K might still be a little too far ahead of its time.

Attempted renovation of the overall TV browsing and viewing experience aside, this device still aims to be the best, most advanced TV streaming device on the market. Generally, it succeeds, but its high cost and dependency on other Apple services makes it fall just shy of an unqualified recommendation.

Apple Watch Series 3 Review: watchOS 4, Cellular, Battery Life, Design, by Jonny Evans, Computerworld

That’s the thing about Apple Watch – it weaves itself so intimately inside your daily experience you begin to use it unconsciously. Just like a watch.

Keyboard Maestro 8 Automates Even More Of Your Mac Life, by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS

Of all the utilities I couldn’t live without on my Mac, Peter Lewis’s Keyboard Maestro is perhaps the most important. It helps me switch between apps, type frequently used text, open collections of apps for specific tasks, set up my Mac at appropriate times for automated tasks, and a whole host of other things.

GoodNotes Adds Drag And Drop Flexibility, by John Voorhees, MacStories

The app excels as a way to capture handwritten or typed notes, but one of its greatest strengths is the ability to combine notes with other media, which drag and drop makes easier than ever.

Bobby: Subscription Tracking Made Easy, by Ryan Christoffel, MacStories

Bobby’s goal is to provide easy insight into the fixed costs in your life. Once you get the app up and running, opening it provides a quick overview of all current subscriptions, sorted by the dates those payments are due. After you plug in your subscriptions, Bobby is a simple, attractive point of reference for seeing exactly where your money’s going. But the task of inputting subscriptions is still important, and Bobby excels at streamlining the process.

Develop

The First 150 Days Of Van Life, by Jakob Class, Ruby On Wheels

Since I’ve lived in my van I’ve never felt the need for a vacation or a change. Instead of following a fixed plan, I get inspired by random ideas: When the waves are great, I go surfing. When it’s chill and fresh, I work. When it’s hot, I go for a swim. When I’m tired, I sleep. When I like a place, I stay. When I meet someone cool, I join them for a while. When my van breaks, I try to get it fixed.

Bottom of the Page

If someone wants you to call him a 'he', you'll oblige, right? If someone wants you to call her a 'she', you'll do that too, right?

If a computer company asks you to write as 'NeXT', will you? If a magazine asks you to write as 'TidBITS', will you?

If a phone company asks you to pronounce as 'Ten', will you, or will you contineu to call it an 'Ex'?

~

Thanks for reading.