By John Moltz
July 19, 2024 4:02 PM PT
This Week in Apple: No news is good news
It’s summer, Jason and Dan have skipped town and the inmates are running the asylum! We’ll talk about Apple’s big product update this week, the company’s fantastic new ad partner and how we’re all glad today to be using Apple products.
Midnight in the HomePod of good and evil
Who says there’s no Apple news during the summer?
“Apple introduces HomePod mini in midnight”
Because whoever those people are, they are 100 percent correct.
This is a turducken of the least impressive Apple news possible. It’s a nigh-unnoticeable color change — from very dark grey to a different very dark grey — on one of Apple’s second-tier products, announced via a press release that essentially says “Hey, remember the HomePod? We still make those.”
Take that Amazon Prime Day.
In honor of Apple’s startling new color, please accept this bespoke rendition of “Memory” from the hit Broadway musical Cats.
Midnight
Not a sound from the HomePod
Has Siri lost the connection?
She says “Sorry” a lot
In the kitchen, can’t add milk to the grocery list
And I sigh, begin to groan
Jason and Dan are gone. I can do whatever I want.
Ad nauseam
There is some actual news. Regrettably, it’s bad news.
“Taboola to sell ads for Apple”
Yes, the advertiser that drove the least common denominator to unforeseen depths and sounds like an also-ran Mediterranean salad will be working with Apple, the brand so premium the Department of Justice is arguing it’s in its own market.
Ad tech giant Taboola has struck a deal with Apple to power native advertising within the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps…
Mmm-mmm, nothing says “premium brand” like Taboola ads. If you’re not familiar with them, they feature things like graphic images of foot fungus, suggestions on how to burn 12 lbs of fat in a week (safely!), and former child celebrities who are apparently all grown up now and… [looks around to make sure no one is listening, puts back of hand up to side of mouth and whispers]…super hot.
Classy.
On the plus side, Apple can’t show me ads in an app I never use, so it can junk up the Stocks app all it wants. On the down side, I do use News.
It’s very possible and likely that Apple will insist that Taboola up its game a bit for the ads placed in its apps. So, instead of toe fungus, maybe male pattern baldness. Instead of losing 12 lbs in a week, maybe just three. Maybe the stories will just be about where these former child celebrities are today instead of making us all feel really uncomfortable. That kind of thing.
Look, I’m trying to be helpful. It’s just very hard.
Best Software On Device
Sometimes a lack of Apple news is actually Apple news. (“Paging Mr. Schrödinger. Mr. Erwin Schrödinger, please meet your party at the quantum state observance booth.”)
For example, according to leaked documents from Israeli phone-cracking firm Cellebrite, the company is currently unable to unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 or later.
“Leaked Docs Show What Phones Cellebrite Can (and Can’t) Unlock”
On the Android side of things:
…Cellebrite does not have blanket coverage of locked Android devices either, although it covers most of those listed.
This was of interest this past week as the FBI was able to quickly crack a particular suspect’s phone which was running Android.
This morning Apple was also not in the news when CrowdStrike pushed a faulty update to thousands of mission-critical Windows machines, giving them all the blue screen of death.
“Major Windows BSOD issue hits banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters”
The outage, of course, did not affect Macs.
Thousands of flights were canceled because of the outage except, mysteriously, on Southwest. People were able to crawl all over each other like animals to try to get a seat as usual. At this time it is unknown if Southwest was not affected because it does not use CrowdStrike or because its WANG mainframe is unassailable.
They’re in Scotland. I can just put “WANG” in a column and no one can do anything about it.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]