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The Read-Repeatedly Edition Sunday, June 28, 2020

TikTok And 53 Other iOS Apps Still Snoop Your Sensitive Clipboard Data, by Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

In March, researchers uncovered a troubling privacy grab by more than four dozen iOS apps including TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media and video-sharing phenomenon that has taken the Internet by storm. Despite TikTok vowing to curb the practice, it continues to access some of Apple users’ most sensitive data, which can include passwords, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, account-reset links, and personal messages. Another 53 apps identified in March haven't stopped either.

The privacy invasion is the result of the apps repeatedly reading any text that happens to reside in clipboards, which computers and other devices use to store data that has been cut or copied from things like password managers and email programs. With no clear reason for doing so, researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk found, the apps deliberately called an iOS programming interface that retrieves text from users’ clipboards.

Social Distancing iPhone Apps Blocked By Apple's Coronavirus Crackdown, by James Titcomb, The Telegraph

Apps that use smartphone Bluetooth signals to monitor if colleagues are too close are seen as a potential safety measure to allow businesses and offices to bring staff back to work as the virus fades.

But policies designed to stop illegitimate developers capitalising on the crisis with spam and misinformation apps mean that developers have been unable to launch them.

How To Reach Your Step Goal At Home, by Lindsay Boyers, CNET

Even if you were fairly active before the shutdown in March and the number doesn't intimidate you, but you relied on outdoor activity or the gym to help you reach your step goals, figuring out the best way to get there indoors is going to take some trial and error. Be patient with yourself through the process. You have to learn what works for you and what doesn't. Start with a few strategies on this list and then go from there. Soon, you'll figure out what you like and what you don't and hitting your step goal indoors will become second nature.

Apple’s Relentless Strategy, Execution, And Point Of View, by Steven Sinofsky, Learning By Shipping

What I mean by Apple’s model is not about its direct to consumer business or vertical integration, but the culture of having a “point of view.” Apple makes products that customers love and are delighted by, but it makes them by studying technology, the market, and usage to arrive at plans and strategies. Unlike what you read in textbooks, Apple is much less about responding to micro changes, hype cycles, or even “feedback.” In fact you can see often how Apple’s model does not work so well when it rushes products to market or listens too closely to hype (eg Home Pod). Apple is a company that has a point of view — when the point of view lines up with a great product people love, it can become an unstoppable force.