Big Bro’s Apps

Every time I update my iPhone, weird new apps appear.  I have no idea what they are.

There’s one app with a guitar on it called “GarageBand.”  There’s another with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on it called “iMovie.”  There’s also “iTunes U,” with a mortarboard cap, and “Keynote,” with a podium, and “Measure,” and “Numbers,” and “Pages,” all with their own different square icons.  What do they do?  Beats me!  I have no idea what they are or what function they are designed to perform or how they got where they are.  I didn’t consciously put them on my phone — they just appeared there.  Because I have no idea what they do, I haven’t tapped any of these apps.  I’m afraid that if I do, I might be charged for something I don’t want, or have to go through some long process to sign up for something I won’t use.  And, by using them, I probably would be transmitting data to someone somewhere would could sell it to some marketing firm who would use it to target ads to my phone.

The addition of these unknown apps makes me think about the reach of Apple and the power of its updates.  Somewhere, some unknown person is deciding what applications should appear on my phone.  I have no idea what process they use to make that decision or what they are trying to accomplish.  I get why Apple wants me to activate “Apple Wallet” — which I haven’t done, because I think my normal wallet works just fine.  But why would Apple decide that the standard iPhone set-up, which is what I have, should include an app like “GarageBand”?  What kind of design and standardization approach is at work here?

Cellphones are great, and the functionality they provide allows us to stay connected wherever we may go.  But there’s something about them that’s a little Big Brotherish, too — except that Big Bro isn’t the government, it’s some big company that is deciding what should and shouldn’t be on a device that you carry with you everywhere you go.  It gives me pause.

 

 

In Fear Of Facial Recognition

One of the features that was added to the technology mix during the period between the purchase of my old phone and the purchase of my new iPhone is facial recognition software.  During the set-up process at the Verizon store, I held the iPhone as if I were looking at messages, moved my head from side to side and up and down until the phone had acquired about a 270-degree look at my head and indicated that it had seen enough, and the facial recognition feature was activated.

Now, whenever I pick up the phone, the software kicks in automatically and substitutes for the entry of passcodes.  It’s pretty amazing technology, really, and it’s a lot faster and less clumsy than the passcode-entry process.  I really like the convenience element.

But . . . as a result of this Apple has got my face memorized and digitized and stored somewhere.  And, the modern tech sector world of information-selling and data-trading being what it is, who knows who else now has the capability to instantaneously identify my less-than-noble features.  My cell phone service provider?  Every Apple subsidiary and affiliate and technology partner?  The FBI, the CIA, or the Department of Homeland Security, or some Russian or Chinese hackers?

Recently San Francisco passed a ban on the use of facial recognition software by police and other agencies, and other cities are considering similar legislation.  The proponents of such measures tout them as a victory for privacy and a safeguard against governmental overreach that could conceivably allow governmental agencies to track citizens as they go about their daily lives.  Opponents note that facial recognition software can help the authorities solve crimes — as the article notes, the technology was used to identify a mass shooting suspect last year — and that it can help to secure our borders and airports.

I’ve long since concluded that while privacy is nice, in the modern world you have to make countless choices that can affect your privacy in different ways.  Do you pay with a credit card that tracks your purchases, or cash?  Do you use a cell phone that keeps track of your location?  Do you participate in social media and share some of your life through Facebook, Twitter, and the countless other outlets?  Have you traveled outside of the U.S. recently and returned to the country using one of those passport and facial scanning re-entry terminals?  It’s hard to argue, too, that a face that you show to the world each day, that appears on your driver’s license, and that is captured regularly by the various surveillance cameras positioned throughout American society, is something that is extraordinarily private.

All things considered, I’m not too troubled by the use of facial recognition software.  It’s the protection of other highly personal information — such as health information and financial information — that is of much more concern to me.

A Tale Of Two Jobs

The New York Times published an interesting story over the weekend that compared two jobs, and in the process provided some insight into how the economy is changing and what it means for workers trying to get ahead.

The two jobs were janitorial jobs:  one held by a woman working at Kodak in Rochester, New York in the 1980s, and the other by a woman currently working at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.  The two women earned about the same amount, adjusted for inflation, and performed the same kinds of work.

The Kodak worker, however, was a full-time employee of the company.  She received more than four weeks of paid vacation annually as well as a bonus payment, and the company also reimbursed some of the tuition she paid going to college part time.  When the building she was charged with cleaning closed down, the company found her a different job.  The janitor at Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t work for Apple at all; she works for a service that Apple contracts with to keep its buildings clean.  She can’t afford to take a vacation because she can’t afford any lost pay, and there are no opportunities for bonuses or transfers to different work at Apple.

Although the Times article veers off into the unusual story of the Kodak worker — who ended up taking computer classes, getting transferred to a professional job in information technology, and ultimately becoming the chief technology officer at Kodak — the more interesting point is the macroeconomic lesson.  As the Times describes it, American companies have “flocked to a new management theory:  Focus on core competence and outsource the rest.”  The Times article notes that the outsourcing approach has made companies “more nimble and more productive, and delivered huge profits for shareholders,” but “has also fueled inequality and helps explain why many working-class Americans are struggling even in an ostensibly healthy economy.”

There’s no doubt that outsourcing has been a huge trend in the American economy.  But what the Times presents as a kind of optional management theory designed to reap windfall profits for shareholders while shortchanging working-class Americans seems to me to be more of the inevitable consequence of the cold hard reality of global competition.  The business world has changed, and companies that want to compete with low-cost providers overseas have to keep their intellectual capital while cutting costs wherever they can.  Outsourcing is one result of that reality; the disappearance of company-funded health care benefits and pensions, the rise of employee-funded retirement plans, and movements of company headquarters to the states and cities that offer the most favorable tax abatement schemes are some of the others.

The proof of the cold hard reality is in the outcome:  Apple is thriving, while Kodak — which once was one of the most successful, innovative companies in America — has gone through bankruptcy, laid off thousands of workers, and repurposed itself into a much smaller concern.  Kodak may have paid a price for its generosity.  And for workers, the lesson is clear:  do what you can to become one of those intellectual capital assets that companies want to keep around.

All About The “Applewood”

Recently Kish and I went to a brunch buffet.  One of the heated chafing dishes held “applewood smoked bacon.”  Last week when I went out to lunch, my cheeseburger was topped with “applewood smoked bacon.”

“Applewood,” “smoked,” and “bacon” have become inextricably linked.  No one has plain old Oscar Mayer anymore.  No, it has to be “applewood smoked bacon.”  It’s become as ubiquitous on restaurant menus as quinoa and kale.

The prevalence of applewood on our menus, adding just the right smoky flavor to our favorite fatty meat, raises questions.  First, why is it called “applewood” instead of just “apple”?  It’s the wood from the apple tree, sure, but nobody calls the wood from the pine tree “pinewood” or the wood from the oak tree “oakwood.”  “Applewood” sounds like a made-up word that was invented precisely because a focus group decided it sounded upscale and would appeal to restaurant goers.

Second, exactly how much “applewood” is there?  Americans consume a lot of bacon, all of which apparently must now be smoked with “applewood.”  I’m concerned that Johnny Appleseed’s hard work is being chopped down and our national strategic reserve of apple trees is being devastated by our ravenous demand for “applewood.”  This is another good reason to support the efforts of “Emily Appleseed.”

I’m as big a fan of bacon as anyone, but I’d like to save a few apple trees for the next generation.  I’d be perfectly fine if my next rasher were smoked with “cherrywood,” or “peachwood,” or even “orangewood.”  Heck, I’d even make the ultimate sacrifice and settle for sowbelly in its plain, unadorned state.

When Data Security Meets National Security

Syed Rizwan Farook, the male shooter in the December 2, 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attacks, carried an iPhone 5C that was owned by the county public health department, where he worked as an inspector.  After the attack, the county consented to the FBI’s search of Farook’s phone, but it runs on Apple’s iOS9 operating system, which is built with default device encryption — and, after two months of trying, the FBI hasn’t been able to break through the phone’s data security features.

The FBI believes the phone may hold data, such as in contact lists, photographs, or instant messages, that could materially assist in the investigation and potentially identify others, in the United States and overseas, who assisted Farook.  So, what to do?

The FBI went to a federal magistrate judge, who ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock the iPhone by disabling the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password.  That would allow the government to keep trying new combinations, without deleting the data.  Apple says only the phone’s user can disable that feature, but the court order requires Apple to write software that would bypass it.

Apple is resisting the court order, saying that such software would be a back door to the iPhone and is too dangerous to create.  “Once created,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.”

National security and counterterrorism specialists say Apple should be a “good corporate citizen,” comply with the court order, and help in the investigation of one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history.  Privacy advocates agree with Apple that the government is overreaching, and argue that the court decision could set a precedent that would undermine the privacy, and security, of everyone’s handheld devices.  So Apple will appeal the court order, and no doubt other technology companies and interest groups will weigh in, in court and in the court of public opinion, about the propriety of the order.

We’ll have to see how the appeal plays out, but for now we can draw some conclusions.  First, Apple’s default encryption system must be pretty robust, if it can withstand two months of probes and hacking efforts by a highly motivated FBI.  Second, in the post-Edward Snowden world, there is a huge amount of mistrust for our own government and an obvious unwillingness to hand them any code, key, or software that could then be used in another mass governmental data-gathering effort.  And third, with cell phones now ubiquitous world-wide and serving as wallets, photo albums, Rolodexes, mailboxes, message centers, internet search devices, and home to countless apps, all in one handy device the size of a playing card, we’re going to see more and more of these collisions between data security and national security in the future.

The iPod At Technology’s End

Earlier this month I went to the Apple store at Easton Town Center and bought a second iPod — now called an iPod classic — because I wanted a spare I could use in my car and at the office on weekends.  Little did I know that I was buying one of the last iPods to be sold in an Apple store.

This week, after Apple announced its rollout of two new iPhones and the Apple Watch, the iPod classic was removed from the Apple on-line store.  Popular Mechanics reports that the iPod classic has been removed from Apple stores, too.

The iPod was introduced in October 2001, which means it’s ridiculously ancient by modern technology standards.  Technostuds view it as a kind of quaint antique, with its buttons rather than a touch screen and its single-purpose design and its internal spinning hard drive storage unit.  Sales of iPods of all kinds have dropped off, from a high of more than 54 million in 2009 to less than 12 million in 2012.  Obviously, consumers are focused more on multi-purpose functionality and would rather have an iPod app on their smartphone than carry around multiple devices.

All of that’s true, of course, but I love my iPod anyway.  It may be outdated, but the iPod has a certain timeless quality to it.  iPod classic is a good name for it, too, because it is a classic, like a gleaming 1930s sedan or a gorgeous art deco building.  With its crisp lines and sleek appearance, the iPod is simply a beautiful device — in my view, much more attractive than an iPhone or other substitutes.  And I like tinkering with it, creating playlists and shifting songs from here to there.  I like the raw storage capacity that allows me to store 40,000 songs — 40,000 songs! — and listen to any one of them when I’m taking my morning walk.  I don’t care that it only performs that one function when it performs it so well, and in such a cool package.  I’ll use it, proudly and happily, until the spinning hard drive finally gives up the ghost.

I’m glad I bought one of the last iPods to be sold at an Apple store.  I’ll almost hate to take it out of the box.

About Skeuomorphism

Did you ever wonder why the delete file on your computer looks like an old-fashioned wire trash can that you haven’t seen in years, or why your email icon looks like a letter?  The answer has to do with skeuomorphism.

Skeuomorphism — in addition to being a great Scrabble word — has to do with the concept of patterning computer images after “everyday” objects.  It was a focus of Steve Jobs, who thought it would make computers more accessible and user-friendly to people who don’t wear pocket protectors and button their short-sleeved shirts up to the neck.  Rather than typing a line of code, you could just drag something you wanted to delete to that trash can on the screen.  The use of skeuomorphic objects made computers easier, and almost intuitive, to use, even for skittish people who formerly worried that one false keystroke could cause a hard drive crash.

But those skeuomorphic objects have grown more and more . . . anachronistic in our fast-moving modern world, and an increasingly tech-savvy populace started to make fun of them.  Who uses actual file folders, anyway?  Will kids even know what those objects are supposed to represent?  Why should your e-books be displayed on a cheap-looking wooden bookshelf?  Who wants ’70s-era, bulky looking headphones on the “desktop” of their sleek, super-thin, ultra-light laptop?  And we all know that, in the modern world, something that becomes the object of ridicule isn’t likely to last long.

So apparently skeuomorphism is out, at Apple and elsewhere.  The tech designers are confident that people are comfortable enough with computers that they don’t need to clutter computer screens with representations of outdated objects.  I’m not quite sure what will replace it, but that wire wastebasket is going to be tossed in the trash bin.

Four Apple Family

After giving it some careful consideration, today I decided to buy an iPad for Kish and me today.  As Richard points out, it joins our iMac, iPod, and iPhone and makes us a four Apple family.

We bought it for good and thoughtful reasons — honest!  I travel a lot, and having a tablet with e-books makes more sense than lugging heavy paper books in my already crammed satchel.  Kish likes to read newspapers and magazines on her iPhone, and a tablet allows for bigger typesize and easier reading.  As Richard notes, a tablet also is a good organizing tool.  And, everyone we know raves about their iPad, its many amazing capabilities, and how it has changed their lives.  Why not join the party?

So, we bought this device for wholly appropriate reasons.  Why, then, have we spent the first few hours just oohing and aahing at the cool things this piece of technology can do?

iKidney

I’ve noted before that I am a big fan of Apple products.  I love my iMac and my iPod, and I’ve grown accustomed to my iPhone.  But, you have to draw a line somewhere — and I confess that I wouldn’t sell a kidney to buy an iPad.

That distinguishes me, evidently, from a teenage boy in China who sold his kidney so he could buy an iPad and iPhone.  The teenager, who apparently was recruited into the scheme through an on-line chat room, received $3,000 for his kidney and used the money to buy the Apple products. Chinese police have arrested five people who were part of the scheme, including the surgeon who removed the kidney.  The five allegedly were paid $35,000 for the kidney.

The scheme unraveled when his mother noticed the new stuff, asked him where he got them, and he admitted to selling his kidney to fund the purchases.  (How can that be?  Was it out-patient surgery, for God’s sake?  Hard to believe that Mom wouldn’t notice her son gimping around with a huge abdominal incision.)

We often hear about how ours is a materialistic society, but apparently we’ve got nothing on the Apple-crazy Chinese.  Selling an organ to buy an iPad reaches a new, and sick, frontier in gross materialism.  And incidentally, the teenager who agreed to the deal is now reported to be suffering from renal failure.  Let’s hope he doesn’t have to trade his iPad and iPhone for dialysis treatments.

Death Of The iMac

Yesterday, I got the bad news that I feared — the resolute iMac, faithful blogging friend and desktop companion, has permanently given up the ghost.

Earlier this week the iMac screen went opaque.  I turned it off, hoping it was just a rebooting issue, but I couldn’t turn it back on.  Yesterday I took it to the Apple store and the blue-shirted folks at the Genius Bar opened it up.  It was weird seeing the iMac with its innards exposed — like being present in the operating room when a family member is getting an appendix removed.

The Geniuses took one look, saw that the capacitors were blown out, and advised, with appropriate respect and regret, that nothing could be done.  Our iMac is so old — or, as one of the Apple Geniuses said, “vintage” — that they don’t even make replacement capacitors for it anymore.  We removed the hard drive so that I can try to retrieve stuff from our iPhoto and iTunes folders, closed it up, and I carefully carried it back to the car.

The demise of the iMac leaves a physical void on the desktop in our study, and I think wistfully of its 8+ years of steady reliability and service.  But life goes on.  I’d welcome any suggestions from readers about Apple desktops that can fill the void and try to fill the big shoes left by the iMac.

My Earbuds Are Duds

During an otherwise immensely enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday, the hang-over-the-ear earphones that I normally use with my iPod were borrowed and now are nowhere to be found.  So, I am relegated to using the “earbuds” that come as standard equipment with the iPod — and thus I feel both frustration and shame.

I experience frustration, because the Apple ear buds simply will not stay in my ears.  They may look cool and sleek, but with the slightest head movement or gentlest jostling, the earbuds will plop softly out of my ears.  The only way I can keep them in on the morning walk is to put on a ski cap that tightly binds them to my ears and then walk with head held stiffly, like I’m wearing an invisible neck brace.  It’s not a comfortable start to the day.

I feel shame, too, because I know that Apple makes only excellent, well-engineered devices.  Steve Jobs himself must have given these earbuds a thumbs-up.  Therefore, my inability to keep them in my ears must mean there is something defective about either the structure of my ears or my understanding of how to use the earbuds.  Perhaps the little flap on the forward part of my exterior ear — called the tragus, for those who haven’t memorized Gray’s anatomy — is embarrassingly undersized.  Maybe Steve Jobs’ ears had tragi the size of catcher’s mitts, ready to hold the earbuds snugly inside.  Or perhaps I’m using the devices improperly.  Maybe they go in upside down, or backwards — or maybe they aren’t intended for the ears at all, but were designed by Apple to be inserted into the nostrils and reach the inner ear through a more indirect route?

It’s time to help our retailers have a good holiday season and buy some new earphones.

Striving for Perfection

A couple weeks ago while on the flight back from Savannah I borrowed the current number one best seller, Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson from my niece Amy and finished it last night. While reading the book I would often think back to the huge bulky desktop computers we had at work in the early eighties compared to today’s sleeker more user friendly versions.

Early on Steve met up with electronics geek and future Apple partner Steve Wozniak (Woz). While working at Atari Steve’s boss gave him the assignment of developing a single player version of pong where instead of competing against an opponent the player would volley the ball into a brick wall that would lose a brick when hit.

Steve’s boss said there would be a bonus if less than fifty chips were used in the process so Steve recruited his friend Woz to develop the game with the fewest number of chips possible. Woz used less than fifty chips and Steve received the bonus but never shared it with Woz. This incident seemed to set a precedent for Steve’s future business dealings and from that time forward he would do whatever needed to be done to be successful often taking others ideas and saying they were his own.

With Steve there was no middle ground, either things were great or they were crap. If he said something was crap it would hopefully motivate his employees to try to find a better way to do things, if not he would get rid of them. People who worked for him were either Gods or Shitheads, he wouldn’t tolerate any less than the best working for him.

Words that come to mind to describe his management style were obnoxious, controlling, manipulative, ruthless and driven. His overbearing style led to many troubled relationships with friends and competitors and of course led to his ouster from Apple for a period of time.

The book is approximately 600 pages and it goes into a lot of detail, but I really enjoyed reading it and I am interested to see if Amy likes it as much as I did.

Apptitude Test

I’ve replaced my inert BlackBerry with an iPhone.  If you buy any Apple product, you are of course legally required to at least try to be as cool as your Apple device.  Being an iPhone owner, I therefore necessarily must act as cool as possible.  But — God help me! — I don’t know how.

The route to coolness with an iPhone is clear:  have cool apps, and then adroitly display them to your fellow iPhonistas.  For example, at Friday night’s Bob Seger concert, the Red Sox Fan wowed our guests by showing them an app that was a lighter that he flicked open and lit — for use, obviously, in calling for encores at rock shows.  Pretty cool!  Another fellow concertgoer with a taste for warm chocolate desserts gave me a run-down on her iPhone, with dozens of dazzling apps that she deftly demonstrated as they spun by.  Even more cool!  But how do you find that kind of stuff?

The app store icon on my iPhone has more than 20 different categories.  Each has dozens — if not hundreds — of options.  Do you just start with “games” and look at each option in each category?  How do you confirm that an app is as cool as it looks?  Can you get some kind of trial period before you commit to spend the $0.99 on Angry Birds?  (Hey, those $0.99 purchases could add up!)  Do you take word-of-mouth recommendations from friends?  Do you regularly check the “What’s Hot” tab to make sure that you are completely up-to-date?

I confess that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I’m sure there’s an app for that — but where?

Thank You, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has died at age 56.  Jobs, who co-founded Apple and then returned after a decade-long absence to turn the struggling Apple into the world’s most profitable company, had long battled pancreatic cancer.

Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple rolled out personal computers, laptops, iPods, iPhones, and iPads — all products that helped to create and define the booming consumer electronics industry.  He was reputed to be relentless in pushing his employees to meet impossible deadlines, surmount daunting technological hurdles, create new features, and constantly push, push, push the envelope.  As a result, he spurred Apple’s development as the world’s strongest brand — characterized by high-quality ground-breaking products with ultra-cool designs that came in sleek packaging and were advertised by iconic campaigns.  In the process, he created legions of dedicated and loyal Apple consumers like me.  But Jobs did more than that.  Apple’s enormous success encouraged competitors and other entrepreneurs to develop ever-improving products at ever-low prices.  It’s one reason why the consumer electronics industry remains one of the strongest sectors of the global economy.

When a person is as driven as Steve Jobs was supposed to be, you wonder if they ever paused to reflect on what they have accomplished.  When Henry Ford saw  roads where horses had once trotted filled with Model Ts, and formerly empty lots give rise to automobile, steel, and rubber factories employing hundreds of thousands of workers, what did he think?  When Steve Jobs walked through an airport and saw countless travelers listening to iPods, playing games on iPhones, or watching movies on iPads, did he feel a sense of immense satisfaction at his achievements — or was he thinking solely about the next great product?

Whether he fully appreciated it or not, Jobs had a profound impact and improved the lives of millions of people — whether they were consumers who revel in their Apple products or people employed by the companies who make, package, or market the products that Jobs helped create.

Thank you, Steve Jobs!  May you rest in peace.

A Request For iPod Advice

My iPod seems to have given up the ghost.  One day the music stopped and when I looked at the screen, I saw strange and terrifying symbols.  I tried restarting it and heard unwanted clicking sounds, and then saw even more strange and terrifying symbols.  When I got home and plugged it into the computer, I realized that all of my music and playlists had been wiped out.  I think it is safe to say that the iPod has gone toes-up.

The iPod was a 2005 model, with 30 GB storage capacity.  On most days it was used for several hours.  It provided music on my morning walks and music when I got home at night.  It supplied essential airplane tunes on long, boring trips and welcome musical accompaniment on sun-splashed decks in the Bahamas and during beer-soaked cards games on Hen Island.  It has served long, nobly, and well.

But now my carefully constructed playlists appear to be gone forever.  I need to replace the trusty iPod.  I’m inclined to stick with Apple, because I think they are like the Honda of the technology world — you can count on them to make durable and reliable products.  My request for advice is:  is there any reason not to get another iPod classic?  If you are not a gamer — and I’m not — is there any reason to get an iPod touch?  If you just use your iPod for music, music, and more music, is there any reason to get any of the other iPod products?