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The First-Line-of-Defense Edition Monday, June 29, 2020

Apple Declined To Implement 16 Web APIs In Safari Due To Privacy Concerns, by Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet

"WebKit's first line of defense against fingerprinting is to not implement web features which increase fingerprintability and offer no safe way to protect the user," Apple said.

For Web APIs already implemented in Safari years before, Apple says it's been working to limit their fingerprintability vector.

The Modern Mobile App Needs A Revamp, by Lucas Matney, TechCrunch

App Clips, Widgets, Siri Suggestions and a host of more minute features paint a vision of more aggressive efforts to bring app experiences closer to the silicon, pulling them outside of the app grid and getting to the gist of their utility. As Apple identifies opportunities to put context at the forefront of how third-party integrations are accessed, how much can they drive developers to their vision of the future without also alienating them?

How App Makers Break Their Apps To Avoid Paying Apple, by Nicole Nguyen, Wall Street Journal

These apps are broken on purpose, because of Apple’s lucrative App Store rule: Companies are charged 30% of every purchase and subscription made through iOS apps. (After the subscriber’s first year, the commission is reduced to 15%.) Any developer who wants to make money on Apple’s iPhone and iPad audience must pay a hefty surcharge for that privilege.

In December 2018, Netflix decided it no longer wanted to give Apple that cut, so it stopped letting people sign up in the app.

Blocking subscriptions and payments is just one way developers push back against the App Store’s terms. Here’s another: charging higher rates in iPhone apps. The Tinder app charges $29.99 a month for a Gold membership (which shows you everyone who’s swiped right on you). Tinder’s website charges just $13.49 a month for the same service.

Rumor of the Day

Kuo: iPhone 12 Models Won't Include Charger In Box, 20W Power Adapter Will Be Sold Separately, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

iPhone 12 models will not include EarPods or a power adapter in the box, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today in a research note obtained by MacRumors. This lines up with a prediction shared by analysts at Barclays earlier this week.

Develop

The Long, Unhappy History Of Working From Home, by David Streitfeld, New York Times

Three months after the coronavirus pandemic shut down offices, corporate America has concluded that working from home is working out. Many employees will be tethered to Zoom and Slack for the rest of their careers, their commute accomplished in seconds.

Richard Laermer has some advice for all the companies rushing pell-mell into this remote future: Don’t be an idiot.

Bottom of the Page

Someone need to restart a new hypertext platform, without all these privacy and security issues, where one can learn everything just by viewing source.

The browser war spoilt everything.

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Thanks for reading.