Recent Articles

I think, among Mac users, there’s an almost universal hatred for Messages on Mac OS X. Don’t get me wrong, iChat needed an update, and it’s great to have iMessage integration on the Mac, but Messages is not a stable app. It’s an overly annoying app to use 90% of the time.

While Messages works, it should work a hell of a lot better than it does, so when Flexibits told me they made a companion app to Messages called [Chatology][1] I was pretty excited to see it.

Chatology does not replace Messages, and you don’t send things from Chatology to people. What Chatology does do is give you incredibly fast and stable search results of conversations from iChat and Messages.

That alone is pretty cool, but unlike Messages search you get drilled down right to the specific message — the best part about Chatology is that you can filter to just show links or photos too. That’s what I really love about Chatology.

I have a friend, we’ll call him SB for short, and we often send back and forth design comps to get feedback and when I want to pull one up to look at again Messages has a seizure. ((Ok, that’s an understatement.)) So something like Chatology really makes Messages a much more reliable tool when you want the content of your chats to be searchable later on. The bonus to that is that if most of the messages you send on your iPhone are through iMessage, then they also become searchable (easily so) on the Mac — I love that.

This is not an app for everybody, but those that could use an app like this, are really going to love it.

[It’s $19.99 and it’s *not* on the App Store][2].

[1]: http://flexibits.com/chatology
[2]: http://flexibits.com/chatology

[Interesting open letter from Apple regarding PRISM][1]:

> We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order.

I say this is interesting because it has less beating around the bush than the other press releases we have seen, but I still don’t like the wording of “direct access”. Either the Government has access to Apple servers are they don’t. It’s one thing for Apple to scrape their own servers and package up data that they have been compelled to turn over via Court Order, and quite another to allow direct, or indirect, access to Apple servers upon receipt of court orders.

I want these questions answered: At any point does the U.S. Government, or contractors working on their behalf, have any access to Apple servers in any way? When compelled by court order, does Apple, or the agency compelling Apple, access the data that has been legally compelled to be turned over?

Answer those.

I love the digs at the end though:

> For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

That seems like a dig at Google to me, I love it. I am curious though about the FaceTime and iMessage encryption. Bottom line: can those two services be intercepted and read by the NSA right now? I doubt I’ll ever get that answer, but I am dying to know.

[1]: http://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/

[Matt Drance, talking about iOS 7][1]:

> The parallax effect conveys an entire living world under that glass, not just abstract pictures and icons. This is reinforced by the launch and quit animations: your eye never loses sight of where you’re going, or where you came from. You are moving through this world. There is almost no change in context, ever.

The idea of spacial awareness and moving about inside of the machine that is your iPhone is very present in iOS 7 — and it’s a good way to describe every other change Apple has made. I keep coming back to that psychological theory that you really do lose your train of thought when you pass through a doorway.

The sudden jolt of shit flying back in when you hit the home button in iOS 6 (and under) devices was sometimes enough for me to momentarily lose my train of thought, but in iOS 7 it feels like I am just shifting, swiveling, ((There use to be a similar transition in Keynote {seems to be missing now} that zoomed out and panned up or down, then zoomed back in when you switched slides. iOS 7 transitions are similar to that.)) from one section to the next. While the new animation feels like it takes longer, it also feels less jarring, I never lose my place and I think that’s far more important than speed (says he only a week into it).

It’s very early on to be making these assumptions, but this seems like a larger theme Apple is using as the underlying basis for iOS 7. I like it.

[1]: http://www.appleoutsider.com/2013/06/17/real/

[Declan McCullagh reporting on comments from Rep. Jerrold Nadler][1]:

> Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”
> If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

[President Obama, not a week earlier][2] (as transcribed by The Wall Street Journal):

> They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. If these folks — if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation. So I want to be very clear. Some of the hype that we’ve been hearing over the last day or so — nobody’s listening to the content of people’s phone calls.

The argument here is that Obama was specifically addressing PRISM, and not the overall capabilities of the NSA. I call bullshit. Either Obama was being intentionally deceitful by word-smithing around the truth, or he was *also* being lied to by the NSA and thus ignorant about the rampant abuse of power coming from the NSA. I highly doubt the NSA would be able to do this without the President knowing. So…

**UPDATE**: Looks like CNET’s sources/government is backtracking. Instead of CNET clearly updating the story, they went through and just changed a bunch of shit like hacks do, which completely changed the story, so they re-wrote the headline. Hacks. Anyways…

[1]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/
[2]: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/07/transcript-what-obama-said-on-nsa-controversy/

I was packing up the diaper bag for the day today, and realized that I should bring a battery backup charger for my iPhone, which meant a cable too. And since I was at it why not grab the iPad mini in case an opportunity to use it provides itself. Normally this crap would have just been floating around in the the diaper bag, but then I had a thought. Why not use a [Tom Bihn clear organizer pouch][1] to store everything in. Bingo.

[Works pretty damned well][2]. There’s no padding, but everything fits pretty nicely.

[1]: http://www.tombihn.com/accessories/TB0319.html
[2]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/showngo/9051811280/

[ Congressman Steve Stockman ][1]:

> As you know, recent revelations show the National Security Agency has been keeping an “ongoing, daily” log of every domestic phone call in the United States.
>
>    I respectfully request your Committee subpoena the records of every phone call made from all public and private telephones of all IRS personnel to all public and private telephones of all White House personnel.
>
>    If President Obama is collecting such information, he certainly would want us to use it.  If he has nothing to hide he has nothing to be afraid of.

Maybe Stockman isn’t any better than any other congressman, but you gotta love this letter he sent to the House Committee on Government Reform & Oversight requesting PRISM data to investigate the recent IRS targeting of political groups.

[1]: http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-requests-subpoena-of-nsa-s-white-house-irs-phone-logs

[Alexander Bolton][1]:

> Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity.

No biggie though, I’m sure 53% of our senior lawmakers don’t need to worry themselves with such things as spying on Americans. I can’t wait for the list of names to come out.

> Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the chief critics of the surveillance programs, was spotted leaving the briefing.

[1]: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/305765-senators-skip-classified-briefing-on-nsa-snooping-to-catch-flights-home

[Claire Cain Miller, reporting on the end, I mean secret court ruling that violates constitutional rights for the larger “security” of a nation][1]:

> The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows the company argued that the order violated its users’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court called that worry “overblown.”
> “Notwithstanding the parade of horribles trotted out by the petitioner, it has presented no evidence of any actual harm, any egregious risk of error, or any broad potential for abuse,” the court said, adding that the government’s “efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts.”

Jesus, what a load of bullshit. These things should be tried in the open so that the public can make their opinions known to their representatives.

I guess we will have to turn to WhiteHouse.gov for help, here’s a few great petitions:

– [Declassify and Discontinue Government Surveillance of Phone Records and Internet Activity][2]
– [Pardon Edward Snowden][3]
– [Repeal, in whole or in part, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, in order to stop secret, warrantless collection of data.][4]
– [Impeach federal judge Roger Vinson for authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of millions of Americans’ phone records.][5]
– [President Obama, if you believe in NSA surveillance, we challenge you to a live, public debate with Edward Snowden.][6]
– [Let Glenn Greenwald Interview President Obama About The NSA][7]

Those are fun, let’s do *all* of them.

In the meantime, I signed up for [Silent Circle][8], as I believe them to be the most secure, that is the easiest to use, encrypted communication system. Their apps don’t look great, but hey they work.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put-tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?_r=0
[2]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/declassify-and-discontinue-government-surveillance-phone-records-and-internet-activity/Cgc46HB2
[3]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD
[4]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/repeal-whole-or-part-usa-patriot-act-order-stop-secret-warrantless-collection-data/pmTnXNw8
[5]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/impeach-federal-judge-roger-vinson-authorizing-warrantless-nsa-surveillance-millions-americans-phone/sKFwyNP8
[6]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-obama-if-you-believe-nsa-surveillance-we-challenge-you-live-public-debate-edward-snowden/dvjXcZHZ
[7]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/let-glenn-greenwald-interview-president-obama-about-nsa/m5gHWwVC
[8]: http://silentcircle.com

[This post from Jason Kottke][1], which ties together [two][2] [articles][3] is a fantastic synopsis of the dangers of discarding metadata as just, well, metadata. Perhaps the easiest way to think about metadata is in relationship to people-watching. If you sit in a room full of people, random people, you can very quickly figure things out:

– Who is sleeping with who
– Who is scared
– Who is nervous
– Who has a crush on who
– Who hates who

We pick all of this information up with only seeing conversations happening and never actually hearing conversations. We pick this all up by watching patterns, by watching subtle cues like a touch, or a glance. That’s metadata, not the digital kind, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what the NSA is collecting on people right now.

My larger fear with the collection of this data is not what it may or may not be used to *stop*, the process by which it may proactively be used, but how it may be used to frame innocent people. It’s the looking backwards that scares me more.

If the government is convinced you aided a terrorist, I bet they can use *real* metadata collected about you to build a convincing story of your involvement — even if no such involvement occurred. It’s [six degrees of Kevin Bacon][4] with a much worse outcome.

[1]: http://kottke.org/13/06/prism-in-the-18th-century
[2]: http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
[3]: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon

[Matt Gemmell talking about the new iOS 7 design][1]:

> Gone are embellishments like gloss and bevelled edges, shadows and borders. Visually dead areas that provoke tension rather than inspiring relaxation. Weight that suffocates, rather than open air to breathe.

It’s much too early to know what the final version of iOS 7 will look like, but the large points Matt is making I think will hold true to release. iOS 7 is brighter, and more open. The result is that the screen on your device actually feels large when you use it.

[1]: http://mattgemmell.com/2013/06/12/ios-7/

[Bruce Schneier on the route to prosecuting Edward Snowden][1]:

> We need to determine whether these National Security Agency programs are themselves legal. The administration has successfully barred anyone from bringing a lawsuit challenging these laws, on the grounds of national secrecy. Now that we know those arguments are without merit, it’s time for those court challenges.

[The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson, while responding to David Brooks, makes a solid point about Snowden too][2]:

> The founders did create the Constitution so that a solitary voice could be heard, whatever strictures of power surround it. More than that, they would not want a twenty-nine-year-old to feel so overcome with gratitude for his social betters—so humbled that they had noticed him—that he would be silent.

How, and what next steps, the Department of Justice takes towards Snowden is going to have a lasting impact for decades. I fear the NSA will walk away without being investigated and that Snowden will bear an unjust amount of punishment.

[1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/prosecuting_sno.html
[2]: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/david-brooks-and-edward-snowden.html?mobify=0

[Dr. Drang on the parallax feature of the iOS 7 Home screen][1]:

> Despite all the talk of flatness—and there’s no question, the icons and certain other parts of the UI are much flatter—this gives iOS 7 as a whole a greater illusion of depth than it ever had before. The shadows and reflections of today pale in comparison. If Apple can enforce, or at least encourage, a consistent use of this new depth, our experience using iOS devices will improve because the software will seem even more physical.

I’m really interested to see if this bit of magic makes it to third-party apps or not. It’s a really neat effect that not only adds immense depth, but one that surprisingly makes the device feel a lot better to use — I’ve no clue why.

[1]: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/06/the-view-master-user-interface/

[Marco Arment on how Apple just re-ignited the App gold rush][1]:

> Apple has set fire to iOS. Everything’s in flux. Those with the least to lose have the most to gain, because this fall, *hundreds of millions* of people will start demanding apps for a platform with thousands of old, stale players and not many new, nimble alternatives.

I can attest to what Marco is saying, because right now *every* app that isn’t an Apple app looks ancient on my phone. I’m holding my money up in the air — so too will millions of iOS users this fall — who’s going to grab it?

[1]: http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground

There’s a lot of information to parse that came out of Apple (did you know you can buy new Airport/Time Capsules already?), but I think two really important factors that can be evaluated now are summed up well by Jim Dalrymple and John Gruber.

[Dalrymple][1]:

> One thing that became very clear to me early on in today’s keynote is that Apple was having fun again. They were really enjoying themselves.

The product demos were tedious as always, but the remaining parts of the keynote were very fun and most importantly engaged with the audience. This is a company that has been paying attention to what is said about them, and ignoring it because they don’t think it is true.

[Gruber][2]:

> The software is now of a piece with the hardware. Two sides of the same coin. Not hardware design and software design. Just design.

The amount of overhaul is astounding and it is very clear the the direction forward is that there is no software, there is no hardware, there is just iPhone (or iPad, MacBook Pro, what have you).

Ignore every other judgment. I have and am playing with both iOS 7 and Mavericks on my full-time devices ((I’m a sadist, clearly.)) and a lot will change from now until launch. Ignore criticisms of design until Apple has worked all of the design out. This is a beta, and not even a public one at that.

Or as [Cap Watkins put it][3]:

> We asked for a revolution and were delivered one which, all complexities considered, amounts to more than any one of our best first launches.

[1]: http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/06/10/apples-confidence/
[2]: http://daringfireball.net/2013/06/ios_7_signature
[3]: http://blog.capwatkins.com/ios-7-unpolished-by-design

A great post from [Matthew Green comparing different encryption apps for iOS][1]. Someone (I can’t find the source) on App.net sent this over to me and it is a great breakdown from someone who presumably knows his stuff.

Of the apps listed I use Wickr quite a bit. I thought it was pretty secure, but it looks like it is less secure than I thought. I just signed up for Silent Circle and will be testing that out. It’s a much more complicated system, but it looks to be far more secure of a system.

[1]: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come-encryption-apps.html?m=1