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The Solo-Loop-Color-Bands Edition Sunday, September 27, 2020

‎Widgetsmith And The Case Of The Missing App Store Bunco Squad, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

I doubt anyone feels good about “Widgetsmith - Ripoff Version”, including the hucksters who made it. And if only the App Store were run just as a storefront, this wouldn’t happen. I’m pretty sure that if you go to Apple’s online store and search for “Solo Loop”, or walk into one of their retail stores and ask for one, you’re not going to be presented with a fly-by-night piece-of-crap knockoff named “Solo Loop - Color Bands”, with Apple’s actual Solo Loops hidden behind them.

The App Store is not trustworthy if that includes trusting that the apps in its trending lists and search results are legitimate. If Apple ran a food court like they run the App Store they’d let a McDowell’s open up two stores down from McDonald’s.

Stuff

Apple Watch Series 3 Users Complain Of Random Reboots, Other Bugs After Updating To watchOS 7, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Some Apple Watch Series 3 users, however, are reporting a variety issues since installing watchOS 7, including random reboots, poor performance, and more.

Review: The Keychron K2v2 Is A Good Upgrade To An Already Near-perfect Keyboard, by Wesley Hilliard, AppleInsider

The Keychron K2 version 2 is the perfect keyboard for first-time mechanical keyboard buyers. The compact design is great for portability and doesn't crowd the desk.

Notes

I Believe Game Streaming Will Come To iOS Sooner Rather Than Later, by James Rogers, iPad Insight

Combined with the earlier comment from Phil Spencer of Microsoft and Amazon’s Luna news, it feels like Apple’s position on game streaming is still a moving target. Evidently they have even added controller support for Google Stadia to Safari on macOS, as well. Even though it looked like game streaming was a complete no-go for Apple a month ago, small things are happening all around their ecosystem at the moment. I think there’s still room for optimism that a bigger shift is still on the horizon.

How A Hacker Turned A $250 Coffee Maker Into Ransom Machine, by Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

As a thought experiment, Martin Hron, a researcher at security company Avast, reverse engineered one of the $250 devices to see what kinds of hacks he could do. After just a week of effort, the unqualified answer was: quite a lot. Specifically, he could trigger the coffee maker to turn on the burner, dispense water, spin the bean grinder, and display a ransom message, all while beeping repeatedly.

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It's a shame that whoever approved the ripoff app didn't know (or didn't care?) it was a ripoff app. Especially for such a popular app with a non-generic name. Come on, Apple: make it worthwile for developers to give you their 30%.

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Thanks for reading.