All sizes fit all

March 25, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

I’ve been quiet here for twenty days or so because I’m working on a very long piece, and it’s taking me more time than anticipated. Then there is my usual weird audience to appease where by weird I mean people who take the time to email or message me privately to urge me to publish new stuff, but when I do they never ever give me any kind of feedback or spread the word about what I write. Yes, guys, let me go on the record here: you’re weird.

New iPads — or rather, more iPads

A few days ago, Apple introduced two ‘new’ iPads: a 10.5‑inch iPad Air, and a fifth-generation iPad mini. Some wondered aloud: Uh, no event to announce them? No, no event because there is nothing here worth of an event. The 10.5‑inch iPad Air is more of a rehashed 10.5‑inch iPad Pro than a genuine third-generation iPad Air. The new iPad mini is like the iPad mini it replaces, but with better internals, pencil support, and a new 256 GB storage option.

When I first learnt about these ‘new’ iPads, a couple of things baffled me:

  • Why revive the Air designation? There seem to be some sort of parallel with the MacBook line here. It’s like Apple wants to establish an intermediate category between regular and Pro in its laptops and tablets, and it’s calling it Air. But it makes little sense to me. Why not have two regular iPads (9.7- and 10.5‑inch) and two Pro iPads (11- and 12.9‑inch), instead? In the end, the story behind the current 9.7‑inch iPad and 10.5‑inch iPad Air is the same: both are ex-iPad Pros.
  • Why refresh the iPad mini at all? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the smaller iPad. There was even a time I considered ‘upgrading’ to it from my old 9.7‑inch iPad. But it’s peculiar that Apple has refreshed it if you look at the iPad mini as the tablet equivalent of the iPhone SE. I know there are iPad mini users and iPhone SE users who truly love the smaller footprint of these devices, and I sympathise with them. (I would have upgraded to an iPhone SE from my iPhone 5 if the SE had had more updated internals). But I’d wager that the people out there who would love an updated 4‑inch iPhone are a greater number than those who wanted an updated iPad mini. Yet Apple seems to think that no, everybody wants big phones, there’s no place for a smaller iPhone today; but there sure is for a smaller iPad. 

iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad, iPad mini… the iPad lineup is getting crowded. From a consumer’s standpoint, the ‘new’ iPad Air and the refreshed iPad mini are welcome additions, because they represent what in smartphone parlance would be called ‘midrange’ devices (premium midrange, since it’s Apple). They are both powerful-enough devices at a price that isn’t a bargain but it’s not outrageous either. The 10.5‑inch iPad Air is especially attractive for those who’d love to upgrade but find the iPad Pros too expensive and the entry-level iPad too outdated, with a CPU that’s now almost three generations old. Here, the 64 GB iPad Air (Wi-Fi) costs €549, while the 64 GB 11-inch iPad Pro is €879, and the regular iPad (32 GB) is €349. The pricing is perfect. Imagine someone who just wants an iPad, but 32 GB isn’t enough storage space. They would have to get the 128 GB iPad, which costs €439, which is just €110 away from the 64 GB iPad Air, and maybe 128 GB are too much but 64 GB are enough, and you get a better device for just €110 more. 

It makes sense. I’ve read many positive comments about this updated iPad lineup, that is more organic and feels more complete. And again, as a customer, more fine-grained choices are indeed a good thing. At the same time, I keep looking at all the current Apple product lines and they all feel somewhat overwhelming. Five different iPads, six different MacBooks[1], and three iMac models, where the entry-level non-retina iMac is just old and redundant (there, I said it). There are ‘only’ three iPhone models (XS, XS Max, XR), but at the time of writing Apple still sells the iPhone 8 and 7, and even the X in some places. The Watch is being sold in a variety of models and flavours (Series 4, Nike+, Hermès, Series 3) to achieve a surprisingly encompassing price range (you can spend as little as €299 for a Series 3, and as much as €1,549 for a Hermès Series 4 with GPS and Cellular).

All this, to me, looks like bottom trawling. It’s a product offering that has a distinctive commercial smell — the strategy feels like Let’s throw the widest net possible to catch the highest number of different consumer categories. All sizes fit all.

Sorry, I can’t help comparing and contrasting

I’m not saying it’s wrong for Apple to want to make money, but I can’t help looking at Apple today and seeing a marketing-driven company that knows a thing or two about design, whereas the Apple I knew and loved was a design-driven company that knew a thing or two about marketing. The more time passes, the more this Apple looks like just another tech company making hardware and software products. The Apple of the 1980s and 1997–2011 Apple felt like unique companies in their respective contexts. Innovation was something that characterised Apple not only in what the company did, but also in what the company was. Today, it still has some edge over the competition in what it does and is, but again, the gap isn’t that huge anymore; the distinction is less and less marked.

I can only share what I feel from the outside, but for me, Apple is becoming a new Sony. Interested in being present in so many different categories both in the tech and entertainment business, keeping a lot of options open ‘just in case’, forgetting about saying a thousand no’s for every yes, crowding their product lines with model variants that aren’t that different from one another[2] and generally displaying an attitude that seems to prioritise the money-making part over being a truly distinctive design company that cares for the needs of their users. 

You can fight me over this all you want, but I firmly believe Steve Jobs was a genuine catalyst inside Apple. If you look at design, marketing, commercial concerns, and respect for the user as separate substances, Jobs’s presence and direction allowed these substances to create an incredible, powerful mix that was apparent in every product (with exceptions, naturally; no one is perfect). After his passing, these substances have separated and now sometimes their mixes feel unbalanced or unrefined. The hardware design of the MacBook line post-2015 looks extremely design-first with little concern for usability or for the “design is how it works” concept, making the MacBooks beautiful but impractical products, like other products conceived by designers for designers. Other decisions — like all this redundancy in product offerings in an attempt to ‘cover all the bases’ — feel extremely commercial and marketing-driven, and make Apple look as if it has lost much of its focus and vision, and it’s now only capable of masterful iteration. I used to look to Apple to introduce ‘what’s next’. Today, the company doesn’t seem less clueless than the competition about the ‘what’s next’, so to speak.

Addressing an objection

Before publishing this article, I shared these thoughts with an acquaintance. He told me that even under Steve Jobs Apple had many different MacBooks in its laptop lineup. Yes. In 2010, for example, there was the white polycarbonate MacBook; the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air models; the 13‑, 15‑, and 17-inch MacBook Pro models. Six different MacBooks, just like today. But what strikes me about those MacBooks of ten years ago is how clearer their purpose and intended audience were. 

  • The white MacBook — clearly the cheap entry-level model, at $999, but robust and capable enough for consumers like students or people who didn’t need it to do ‘pro’ stuff.
  • The big and small MacBook Air models — reduced in price ($999 for the base 11-inch, $1,299 for the base 13-inch), they were more capable than the white MacBook and more portable than the other MacBooks. Aimed at users who wanted portability + astounding battery life before everything else, but also powerful-enough machines.
  • The MacBook Pros — more capable Macs, with clear price and feature differentiators. The 13-inch model, for those who needed a powerful Mac, but also compact and portable. The 15-inch model, the sweet spot of power, available ports, and screen real estate. The 17-inch model, for those who essentially needed a desktop replacement.

All these MacBooks were priced according to what they offered and following a generally calibrated curve from affordable to high-end, and while built-to-order options could make your choice more expensive, the available configurations went from the reasonable $999 for a MacBook to the equally reasonable $2,299 for a 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Today you have a pricey, premium-looking but underpowered 12-inch MacBook; the old-design MacBook Air which is virtually filling the shoes of the white MacBook of ten years ago; the new-design MacBook Air which is a bit less powerful than the non-Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pro, but since it’s only $100 less, why not get the Pro? But then you have a useful feature like Touch ID that is present on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and on the new Air, but not on the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro. (Even writing this paragraph is confusing.) Then you have the powerful 15-inch MacBook Pro which you must get with the Touch Bar whether you like it or not, whether it’s useful to you or not. The current MacBook line is somehow less differentiated, both in prices — the 12-inch MacBook and the base 13-inch non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro cost the same! — and in features (in everyday use, there isn’t that huge a gap between the new MacBook Air and the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro). 

Steve Jobs, from what I saw, preferred to keep things a bit more separated. One key occurrence which hopefully illustrates the point happened in late 2008, when the aluminium unibody design was introduced for the MacBooks. Jobs presented a new aluminium unibody 15-inch MacBook Pro, and a new aluminium unibody 13-inch non Pro MacBook. The idea was perhaps to upgrade both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro line to an aluminium design, but that wouldn’t have helped differentiate the machines enough. And the 13-inch aluminium MacBook, at $1,299 for its base model, would have been too pricey as an entry-level laptop. So, instead of being retired, the white polycarbonate MacBook was refreshed as soon as January 2009, the aluminium 13-inch MacBook was promoted to ‘MacBook Pro’ status in June 2009, and the product line readjusted to regain clarity and differentiation in its tiers. 

 

  • 1. MacBook, old MacBook Air, new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar (with regular function keys), 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. ↩︎
  • 2. Just to make an example, when I looked to purchase a used Sony MiniDisc player/recorder, I learnt that between 1992 and 2004 Sony released 43 different portable MD recorders, 44 different portable MD players, and 54 different MD decks! Often with very little differentiation among models. That’s insane. ↩︎

 

First thoughts on foldable devices

March 2, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

Ah, the Samsung Galaxy Fold. “Be the first to see the future”, says Samsung.

Ah, the Huawei Mate X. “Meet the unprecedented”, says Huawei[1].

Here they are, the fabled foldable phones. The next thing a lot of tech people are hastily calling ‘the future’. But are they foldable phones? From where I stand, I see these more as foldable tablets — you fold something so that it takes up less space, after all. Maybe I’ll call them unfoldable phones, because they can be opened or spread out from a folded position. This is what you do when you unfold something.

If my pedantry is already making your eyes roll, you’re exactly experiencing my current degree of enthusiasm towards these devices. Is it the price what’s killing my excitement? Not at all. Price is, for now, the least of my concerns.

My tech-savvy friends and acquaintances are already teasing me: Oh, you’re not excited about this, why am I not surprised!? I’ll ask here what I asked them. Let’s turn the tables for a moment and let me ask you, Why are you excited about foldable devices? What makes you think they are the Next Big Thing?

In his short piece on the subject, Matt Birchler concludes:

I say all this because I think it’s important to get excited about this sort of technological advancement. I know some people have a “if it’s not ready for Apple, then it’s not ready period” attitude towards tech, and I find that attitude very tiresome. It leads to simply mocking everything anyone else does, and then backtracking when Apple adopts that same tech soon after. See big phones. See the notch. See wireless charging. You get it.

I’d say it’s important to approach technology with an increasing degree of critical thinking, because I’m personally fed up with all the current “It’s new and it’s cool and it’s the future” spoon-feeding in tech. I don’t have the attitude Matt mentions. I honestly don’t care where the innovation comes from. What I care about is questioning whether something is truly innovative or just novel. And at this stage I’m not entirely ready to call these foldable devices ‘innovative’.

What problem do they solve?

From the reactions I’ve read around the Web, the answer seems easy — It’s like having a 2‑in‑1 convertible device but even more portable. It’s like having a smartphone and a tablet always with you. 

That sounds cool on the surface. Assuming that most people today carry with them smartphones with 6‑inch displays on average, how many times do you think they’ve found themselves wanting a bigger display when out and about? “Man, I wish I had a tablet now to do [insert task]!” Sure, there are cases where extending the screen on the fly could help, but are they enough to make people want to carry a cumbersome foldable device with them?

But these devices are cumbersome today, Rick — you object — Just wait a few years…

Remember in 2010, the debate following the introduction of the iPad? The Post-PC era? Just wait a few years, and everyone will be replacing their computer with a tablet. Almost ten years have passed, and that hasn’t happened. Again, just because something “will be better” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will revolutionise the status quo.

It’s typical for technology advancements to progressively integrate solutions and produce devices that incorporate features of other devices as to reduce the number of discrete devices needed to perform a series of tasks. If in the 1990s we were carrying a portable CD player to listen to music, a camera to take photos, a newspaper and maybe a book for our reading needs, a mobile phone for calls and text messages, and then other stuff such as a calculator, a notebook, a planner, maybe a city map, etc., now we can just carry a smartphone to do all that. Not only has the smartphone unified such disparate objects and their purposes, it has done so increasingly brilliantly, often offering a degree of usefulness and versatility far superior than the one of the devices it replaced.

Now, foldable devices. You can have a phone that can act as a (small) tablet if need be. More specifically, a phone with a 4.6‑inch screen (Galaxy Fold) or 6.6‑inch screen (Mate X) that turns into a bigger device with a 7.3‑inch or 8‑inch screen, respectively. Is that modest increase in screen real estate enough to transform these smartphones into useful tablets? Ehh, I don’t know. 

Another related issue to evaluate: do these foldable phones actually become good tablets? What about the user experience? What about the software? Is Android flexible enough to provide a seamless user experience? Do apps just ‘inflate’ and adapt to the bigger screen when switching modes or is the system smart enough to optimise them? Are transitions seamless or will apps lose your position when you switch display modes? You’re using the device in tablet mode and you get a call. You want to answer by first folding the device back into phone mode. Is it going to be a smooth interaction? Will the UI reposition graciously or will it reshuffle elements so that you’ll have to wait a second for the icons and buttons to readjust before answering the call? 

I can’t stress enough the importance of providing a smooth user experience and interaction here, both when going from phone to tablet mode, and vice-versa. Have you ever unfolded a map or the leaflet inside a medicine’s package, only to struggle with it when it’s time to fold it back after use? You don’t want to create a similar frustration with the UI of a foldable device. 

Those who are excited about these devices point out two other bonuses of having access to a bigger screen on the fly: one, multitasking; and two, a better gaming experience (this latter example seems to have Dave Lee convinced about foldable phones). These are not bad points, but again, even when unfolded, these displays still look too small to me to offer a comfortable multitasking experience; and if you are a serious gamer, are you sure a foldable device is what you’re looking for?

Maybe it’s just me. But I’ve tried to recapture the feeling I had when I first saw a product that would become revolutionary. Every time something just clicked inside of me and produced a sort of a‑ha! moment. When I played with a bondi blue iMac G3 twenty years ago (goodness gracious, it’s been twenty years already…), I immediately thought that it would become a huge deal. When the first iPod came out, while I wasn’t personally interested in getting one straight away, I quickly realised its potential, and soon it was clear to me that the iPod would remarkably change the way we listen to music. When I finally bought one in 2003, it immediately transformed my listening habits on the go. 

And before getting to the iPhone itself, when I first saw Jefferson Han’s Multi-Touch Interaction Research in 2006 (there are videos on YouTube, like this one), I had no doubts that such technology was simply too compelling to just pass unnoticed. I kept seeing so many possible use cases and scenarios. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, I was blown away. And not because it was Apple. I was blown away because I didn’t think it was possible to implement multi-touch technology on such a small display so smoothly while maintaining its intuitiveness, practicality, and usefulness. 

Foldable phones? I watched Samsung’s unveiling and demo. I watched videos of the Huawei Mate X in action. And instead of going a‑ha! I went… meh. Are they cool? Yes. Do they have some sort of wow factor? A bit, yeah, though I suspect it gets old quickly.

But you know what? All I kept thinking while watching those demos was gimmick. Gimmick gimmick gimmick. Oh look, it folds and unfolds, it has screens everywhere… How usable is all that, really? How long do those hinges remain tight-as-new? (For other possible hardware-related issues, and an intriguing take on the whole topic, check out TechAltar’s video How Huawei beat Samsung with a worse foldable).

What is the target audience? Apart from technophiles, I mean. People whose only computer is a smartphone! — you say — They could make the most of such foldable devices. Yeah, sure. Maybe! Or maybe they’ll complain that these foldable phones are too awkward and bulky to operate and carry around (even folded). Don’t look at me, it’s what I usually overhear in stores when people evaluate phones like the iPhone XS Max or the Galaxy Note 9. On Twitter, Nick Heer shared a thought with me: …As prices come down, I have a feeling that bendy phones could be popular in countries where smartphones are most people’s only computers. It’s possible, but prices really have to come down, because even an iPhone SE is considered rather expensive in those countries.

What other kind of users could be wanting these devices? “People who want both a phone and a tablet in a single device” could be a candidate category, but again I wonder: would 2–2.5 inches more in display size (from phone to tablet) make enough difference for these users to convince them they’re getting the best of both worlds? Too early to say, I guess. Still, when I take my walks in the city centre, when I take the bus or the metro, and see people with big smartphones (say, in the 6 to 6.4‑inch range), such phones look pretty much tablet‑y to me. I see people browse the Web, read ebooks, chat, play games, check directions, and the screen real estate already looks ample enough for the person to perform such tasks comfortably. What do those extra 2–2.5 inches of unfolded screen really add to the experience? 

Another possible target audience: “People who want both a phone and a tablet but don’t want to spend as much money as they would if they purchased the two devices separately”. Well, these people too will have to wait for the prices of foldable phones to go down, because for now they pretty much cost like a regular smartphone and a tablet. If I had €2,000 to spend, I’d certainly get an iPhone and an iPad instead of these ‘transformers’.

Speaking of Apple, I really hope they approach this smartly. No, I don’t mean “I hope they make a truly great foldable phone”; I mean “I hope they stop and think whether it’s a good idea to make a foldable phone in the first place”. I don’t want a better foldable phone from Apple, I want a better idea. I want a better solution. I want Apple to stop me in my tracks with something that makes me go a‑ha!, like it happened in the past.

Finally, am I really that unimpressed by these new devices? Well, I’d say that bendable and foldable displays are certainly worth paying attention to and getting excited over, for the possibilities they open. But foldable phones seem to be a first myopic implementation of an otherwise very promising technology. 

 

  • 1. As I’m writing this, the Mate X page doesn’t seem to load properly in any of my browsers, even with content blockers turned off. Check Michael Fisher’s hands-on video to see the Mate X in action, so that you can actually see the phone and not just a blank page with a tag line. ↩︎

 

Readjusting the sync

February 22, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Software

I was beginning this piece by writing, If you, like me, use several computers and devices of very different vintages on a regular basis…, but I reckon I’m a bit of an extreme case here. Anyway, I use several computers and devices of very different vintages, and for years I have relied on a syncing solution that truly unified and harmonised my workflow, letting me write notes e.g. on a 2004 12-inch PowerBook G4 to then resume my work on a 2017 iMac, to then add yet another idea using my iPad 1 (with iOS 5), and so forth.

This solution consisted of three simple ingredients: the Notational Velocity app on my Macs, the Simplenote app on my iOS devices, and the Simplenote sync service.

What made this solution great was that Notational Velocity works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs, going back as far as Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (but also 10.3 Panther by downloading an earlier version), and that the Simplenote app works even on older iOS versions.

But, as it always happens when using vintage devices and PowerPC machines, you’re constantly wondering when the good things will eventually come to an end. And that’s what happened recently, when something that was updated in Simplenote broke the authentication process in Notational Velocity, which now throws a “Not found” error when it tries to synchronise.

A possible, promising workaround was switching to nvALT, a very nice fork of Notational Velocity with some interesting extra features, but while using nvALT 2.2.8 (the current version at the time of writing) solves the Simplenote syncing issue, it only solves it on my Intel Macs. While the app can be downloaded and installed on PowerPC Macs, it just doesn’t launch. The earlier version 2.0 works well under Tiger and Leopard (PPC), but the Simplenote syncing is broken just like in the original Notational Velocity. 

A bit of brainstorming

Yesterday I stopped and thought about finding an alternative solution with the same level of versatility as the previous NV+Simplenote scenario when basically everything worked everywhere. These are the first three options I came up with:

  1. Equally seamless workflow, but more limited in scope — I could switch to nvALT on all my Intel Macs. This would maintain things in sync between the Intel Macs and (hopefully) all my iOS devices, but all PowerPC Macs would be cut off.
  2. Equally extensive in scope, but more cumbersome workflow — I could move the Notational Data folder where all my notes are stored (it is located in ~/Library/Application Support/) to a place like Box.com or even to the storage space for morrick.me, and then switch from using the Simplenote sync service to pointing every instance of Notational Velocity to the new, shared folder location. This would be a rather awkward artisanal syncing solution, because every time I want to use Notational Velocity on a PowerPC Mac I would have to first mount my Box’s ‘cloud drive’ via WebDAV[1], or access my storage space on morrick.me by connecting to the server via the Finder.
  3. The radical approach — This could work as seamlessly and cover an equally wide range of devices and Mac OS and iOS versions, but it would mean a complete change in the tools I use. This solution involves switching to Evernote. I have a basic account since 2008(!) there. I could probably try to import my archived notes in Evernote, and then I could access them and keep them in sync from everywhere. Evernote has maintained an overall decent degree of backward compatibility. Their older PowerPC client still works, and the last time I checked their iOS app it still worked under iOS 4.2.1. But while this would manage to preserve the seamlessness of my workflow, I would dearly miss using Notational Velocity. It is among my very favourite Mac applications of all time (I’ve praised it more than once on my blog, and I talked about it in more detail in Synchronised writing, a post that is now nine years old) and I’ve been using it for so long I’ve become quite fast and productive with it. Further, it works in a way that deeply reflects my mindset — if this makes any sense — and to me Notational Velocity has reached the same indispensable status as Alfred has for many Mac users.

The most reasonable solution

Sometimes we devise complicated workarounds when a simpler solution lies just before our eyes. I’m sure there are sharper — or at least less sleep-deprived — people than I among my readers, who will already have figured out what I’m getting at. The best, more reasonable course of action is to implement Option №1 above — i.e., to switch to nvALT on all my Intel Macs — and use a browser on my PowerPC Macs to access Simplenote’s web app. This is way less cumbersome than Option №2, it doesn’t involve switching to a whole new service like Option №3, and is overall tolerable enough. I really don’t like not being able to use Notational Velocity on my PowerPC Macs, as it certainly is less resource-intensive than having to keep a browser tab open in Simplenote’s web app[2], but it’s honestly better and less painful than the alternatives I’ve considered. 

I’m sure I had overlooked this solution during my initial brainstorming because I was fixated on finding a solution that would have allowed me to keep using Notational Velocity (or nvALT) on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. 

I admit I’m a bit bummed by the progressive disappearance of cloud/sync services that play nice with PowerPC Macs. I realise it’s essentially a matter of older Mac OS versions not supporting current security protocols, and that a browser like TenFourFox is a lifesaver because at least you can authenticate correctly and use a web interface. At the same time, if you offer a Dropbox-like online storage and sync service via the cloud, consider creating an HTML-only version of your file browser, so that it can be usable when accessed by older hardware. Navigating through my Dropbox files and folders and doing some basic operations using the web interface is unnecessarily slow and cumbersome even on my Mac mini G4 at 1.42 GHz, the fastest PowerPC Mac in my arsenal. 

 

 

Retail: C

February 19, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

When I got to the end of John Gruber’s 2018 Apple Report Card, I liked that he added his evaluation of the state of Apple’s Retail, and I agree that Retail should be one of the categories of Jason Snell’s report card. Gruber writes:

I’ve disliked the experience of buying stuff at the Apple Store ever since they did away with queues for checking out. I just want to get in line, wait my turn, pay, and leave. Instead, the way to check out at an Apple Store is to wander around until you get the attention of an employee who has one of the handheld checkout iPod Touches. This can be maddening. My wife refuses to shop at an Apple Store for this reason. I know you can use the Apple Store app to check yourself out, but I don’t like it. Part of the reason Apple’s stores are too crowded is that people are wandering around trying to pay for things.

And getting technical support at Apple Stores is terrible now. In the old days you could just walk in with a broken or otherwise problematic device and get an appointment at the Genius Bar within the hour. Now, the Genius Bar is booked for days in advance — sometimes close to a week. In some ways that’s inevitable — Apple is way more popular now than it was pre-iPhone. But inevitable or not, the result is that getting support at an Apple Store now stinks. And frankly, the technical acumen of the Genius Bar staffers is now hit-or-miss. 

I rarely visit my local Apple Store. Friends of mine have been to “Today at Apple” events and they told me they had a nice time. I wanted to see for myself, but I’ve always had scheduling conflicts, or I didn’t book my slot in time. If I just want to pay the store a visit to look around, it’s a frustrating experience because the place is usually crowded and I don’t want to fight with stubborn 12-year-olds to have a chance to put my hands on a new iPad Pro.

Thankfully all my Apple hardware has been reliable, so I can’t say anything about the Genius Bar service of my Apple Store, but the anecdotes I’ve heard paint a similar scenario as the one Gruber describes.

But the one time I needed actual information, and acted on the information I was given, it was a disaster; for the simple reason that the Apple Store clerk who ‘took care’ of me gave me incorrect information. This happened in June 2018 when I was trying to purchase an iMac. I simply asked if it was possible to do a partial financing at the time of purchase. For example, suppose you want to buy a €1,500 Mac and you want to pay €1,000 up-front and the rest in a few instalments. The clerk told me this was “totally possible”. Even online, without coming to the store? “Sure! You can, for instance, buy a €1,000 gift card, go to the store, go through the payment process, do a partial payment by typing the gift card code, then choose the financing option when the system asks you how you want to pay the rest of the amount.” This sounded logical to me, so I did as instructed.

Except, after typing the gift card code, the only option was (if I remember correctly) to pay the remaining amount by using a credit or debit card. Since this was late in the evening, the following morning we phoned Apple Support and, after waiting a while, we talked to someone who told us that no, partial financing was not possible. “Who gave you such information?” they asked. “One of your guys,” we replied bitterly.

Now, normally gift cards aren’t refundable. I was too angry and frustrated for this, so I let my wife handle the situation. She later told me that, once at the Store, she explained the issue to a manager. The manager asked her who gave us the incorrect information, and luckily that clerk was present, so my wife was able to literally point at him. The manager kindly refunded us the €1,000 of the gift card, and that was that. 

That was an annoying setback for me, however, because at the time my old MacBook Pro was behaving in such erratic and unreliable ways that I truly feared I couldn’t complete the work assignments for which I would earn the remaining money I needed to buy the iMac. Fortunately the MacBook Pro didn’t leave me stranded, and I could purchase the iMac the following month. 

But that clerk’s incompetence had cost me time and unnecessary grief. And in case you’re wondering why I didn’t cross-check the information he gave me before proceeding, well, it’s because I trusted the guy. And I trusted that a company such as Apple would prepare their retail employees enough to provide what I consider basic information. This is what ‘taking care of the customer’ ultimately means, not just being superficially kind and welcoming and displaying a confident attitude. Design is how it works, not just how it looks, even in retail.

I don’t cover my webcams

February 18, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Handpicked

When my main job keeps me exceptionally busy, I don’t have time to react to the tech’s topic du jour as quickly as others do. So I try to take a few notes and publish my views when I can.

I’m sure most of you will have read Joanna Stern’s piece for the Wall Street Journal about webcam security, What I Learned From the Hacker Who Spied on Me. [If this link doesn’t send you to the full version of the article and you hit the WSJ paywall, just google the exact article title and click the search result link.]

While I’m all for giving security advice, especially to non-tech users, and while I certainly agree with most of the tips Stern provides in her article, I’m also in full agreement with John Gruber: in both the Windows and Mac scenarios, the hacker was considerably helped by a series of intentionally careless steps Stern performed to lower the built-in security of her machines.

Gruber’s commentary here is spot-on:

Stern also claims she’s now using a physical stick-on camera cover. But why? In both cases — Mac and PC — the built-in system software did its job and issued clear warnings that she had to ignore for the attack to proceed. And even then — on both Mac and PC — the light next to the camera went on when it was in use.

There’s nothing in Stern’s story that makes me worry in the least bit about the security of my Mac webcams, and I don’t see anything that should worry someone running Windows 10 with Windows Defender (Microsoft’s built-in security software). The path to compromising Stern’s cameras was like a test of your home security that starts with a request that you leave your door unlocked and turn off your alarm system.

I have never understood the mass paranoia over laptop webcams — which have in-use indicator lights, which I’ve seen no evidence can be circumvented on Macs from the last decade — and the complete lack of similar paranoia over microphones, which cannot be blocked by a piece of tape and which have no in-use indicator lights. And I don’t see anyone taping over the cameras on their phones. This story is only going to feed that paranoia, because the takeaway is going to be “The Wall Street Journal says you should cover up your webcam.”

Apologies for the extended quote, but this is exactly, exactly the point I would have made even before reading Gruber’s take. And, like him, I don’t cover my webcams either. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the underlying issue of an attacker having remote access to my webcams and microphones (the latter for me is a more serious concern than the former, actually). So I installed a very nice, very unobtrusive utility called OverSight written by Patrick Wardle. As the exhaustive webpage informs, OverSight monitors a Mac’s mic and webcam, alerting the user when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam.

I recommend it. It’s a more elegant and effective solution than taping your webcams, and it monitors the internal microphone’s status as well. The app is free but you can support Wardle on Patreon.