Newsletter Issue #949
February 5th, 2018THIS WEEK’S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE
If you watch any number of TV dramas, no doubt you’ve run across so-called police procedural shows, such as “Law and Order: SVU.” From time to time, an episode will feature a computer expert or hacker who is talking about the “Dark Web” or “darknet.” It’s very much the equivalent of the Internet’s underworld, where all sorts of unsavory types usually hang out. There are criminals there who offer all sorts of illegal services that you’ve also no doubt heard about on those TV shows.
Well, on this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, we featured Jarrod Suffecool, Intelligence Team Lead for Binary Defense, who took us on a fascinating journey through the Dark Web (darknet). You learned about the unsavory activities that include “crime-as-a-service” — professional hacking kits and criminal services (created or offered by skilled hackers) that anyone can buy or rent online, and they’re often very inexpensive. This makes it easier for less skilled criminals to pull off sophisticated attacks and scams, and we’ll see a lot of this with tax fraud rings over the next two months. You also learned about Tor, the browser used to access Dark Web. Binary Defense Systems specializes in monitoring and infiltrating criminal marketplaces on the Dark Web to protect businesses and uncover evidence of crimes.
Now it’s easy enough to download and set up Tor, and I expect the curious would want to check about what’s going on in darknet. But it’s also easy to get yourself in trouble if you don’t watch what you’re doing when exploring a dangerous neighborhood. It’s not meant as a place to have fun, unless it’s a very unusual sort of fun. I’ve checked it out from time to time, but I usually stay away.
You also heard from author/publisher Joe Kissell, of Take Control Books. Joe talked about some of the troubling problems he’s encountered with macOS High Sierra, and about the decline in the quality of Apple’s operating systems. What about reports that Apple is cutting back on planned features for iOS 12 to emphasize reliability? Also discussed: The apparent failure of Apple’s “underpromise and overdeliver” policy by postponing features in new products that aren’t ready for prime time, including the delays in expanding support for the APFS file system to Fusion drives and Time Machine. What about the complexities and reliability problems of iCloud, which is a cornerstone of Apple’s services? Joe mentioned that he’s had to backup and restore his new Mac after owning it for less than a month, and Gene talked about the very worst Mac he ever owned, one that required constant repairs from Apple in the short time he owned it.
On this week’s episode of our other radio show, The Paracast: Best-selling author Erich von Däniken and UFO researcher and biblical scholar David Halperin debate the theory of ancient astronauts, that advanced beings from other planets visited Earth in ancient times. David also continues with discussions about his very different views of UFO reality, and the causes behind related events. von Däniken is arguably the most widely read and most-copied nonfiction author in the world. He published his first (and best-known) book, Chariots of the Gods, in 1968. In the 1960s, David Halperin was a teen-age UFOlogist. He grew up to become a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with special expertise in religious traditions of heavenly ascent and otherworldly journeys. He is the author of five books and numerous articles on Jewish mysticism and messianism, and a novel, ‘Journal of a UFO Investigator.”
WILL APPLE’S CRITICS ADMIT THEY WERE WRONG ABOUT iPHONE X?
When it comes to actual fake news, Apple is often the victim of phony stories about one thing or another. The reasons why are varied. So putting Apple in the headline, good or bad, is certain hit bait. That means more ad clicks, and more money.
But I often wonder whether some of those faux stories aren’t fueled by Apple’s competitors. Certainly they have motives, because Apple earns the lion’s share of profits in the smartphone business, lots more than even Samsung. Apple pretty much owns the smartwatch market with Apple Watch, and the iPad, with sales on the rise again, dominates tablets. You get the picture.
Obviously, there’s no clear evidence if another company is instigating those unfavorable comments or the alleged bad news that’s based on lies. But I can see where some carefully selected bloggers and so-called industry analysts might be encouraged to post reports that are deliberately manipulated to make Apple look bad. I wouldn’t suggest any transfer of money or goods is ever involved.
Consider what’s been going on since the summer of 2016. Even as speculation built over that year’s new iPhones, there were expectations of a far better 10th anniversary version. It made sense from a logical point of view, that Apple would want to create a premium model, maybe even limited production, which would observe the occasion. Perhaps new technologies would be featured, but what?
Now the early speculation may not have been fueled by any real information, but was mostly based on good guesses. Apple doesn’t always adopt new features first, so just what is missing?
OLED displays of course. Unlike LCD, OLED is more similar to plasma, once fairly common on TV sets. You get a rich picture, with deep blacks and a virtually unlimited viewing angle. The comparison is obvious. Take a regular iPhone — other than the iPhone X of course — and turn it to the side slowly and you’ll see the picture dim, with colors becoming more muted. It’s a phenomenon typical of a regular TV set except, of course, for those with OLED displays.
Why Apple avoided OLED before this may be due to getting more accurate color and reducing the burn-in problem, where remnants of constant images stick on the display. That was also true of plasma. Regardless, it seemed to make perfect sense that Apple would go there.
Understand that the presence of such a model was used as ammunition to claim you shouldn’t buy the 2016 iPhone family, the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. After all, they represented modest improvements over the previous two models, so why bother? What for the “real” update?
As 2016 turned into 2017. the speculation of the 10th anniversary iPhone coalesced, though it was at first referred to mostly as the iPhone 8. OLED was a given, but since Samsung couldn’t embed a fingerprint sensor beneath the edge-to-edge display on the Galaxy S8 family, it was assumed that Apple would confront the same problem.
The speculation first had it that Apple would put Touch ID in the rear, same as Samsung. It was also suggested by some that there would be no Touch ID or any biometric, which was, at every level, a preposterous concept. Such a feature was a must-have for many functions. Apple wouldn’t casually drop it without something better, which is why facial recognition came into the picture. But development was reportedly begun long ago; it was not tossed in as a last-minute replacement.
At this point, the complaints had it that Apple couldn’t come up with anything altogether new, since other smartphones had both facial biometrics and OLED. So how does Apple make a difference?
But remember that Apple often innovates by devising ways to improve on existing technology with its unique flair.
Yet another potential complaint had it that Apple planned to gouge customers with a $1,000 price tag, which would make the presumed iPhone 8 a non-starter. It was the height of hubris to expect customers to pay even more for a premium iPhone. This speculation continued unabated even when the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 debuted at $949. That disconnect was never explained.
But even when the iPhone 8 became the iPhone X, and the real iPhone 8 ended up as a more modest refresh of the previous model, the complaints never stopped. Face ID would present privacy problems, even though it used the same secure enclave scheme as Touch ID. When it was actually shown for the first time, it turned out that the “notch,” the narrow area at the top of the unit that contained the embedded sensing technology, dubbed TrueDepth, blocked out a small portion of the edge-to-edge display. Developers had to work around it for the best presentation of their apps.
When Apple began to take orders for the iPhone X at the end of October of last year, the backorder situation rapidly worsened. As the critics claimed, it soon lengthened to five to six weeks, implying that getting one before Christmas would be hit or miss.
As is often the case with Apple, the facts kept getting in the way. For the most part, Face ID turned out to be as reliable or more reliable than Touch ID. Not perfect, but almost seamless for many users who no longer had to reach for a Home button. Indeed, there was no Home button, meaning you had to learn a few new gestures to get around, but most people appeared to adapt to them without much complaint.
In short order, Apple began to match supplies with demand, and the situation improved really fast. So if you had to get an iPhone X immediately or with a short delay, it became more and more possible.
Why? Well, instead of assuming that Apple was simply competent in managing the supply chain, it was all about a presumed lack of demand. Soon it was rumored that Apple cut parts orders big time for this quarter, thus indicating that sales were far lower than expected.
In the days ahead of the release of Apple’s December quarter financials, the stock price began to drop. Apple allegedly placed a huge bet on the iPhone X, and it lost.
Again, the facts got in the way. Once it began to ship, the iPhone X became the number of smartphone on the planet. The iPhone 8 Plus, also fairly expensive, starting at $799, was number two, and the “lesser” iPhone 8 was number three. For the quarter, Apple’s smartphone lineup beat every other mobile handset maker in total sales, even Samsung, which sells loads of product at a fraction of the price.
That average sale prices exceeded $700 confirmed the product mix, that people bought higher quantities of the larger, more expensive iPhones.
Despite all this success, Apple still sold slightly fewer units during the quarter compared to the previous year. But was due to an accident of the calendar. So in 2016, the holiday quarter lasted 14 weeks; this year it was 13 weeks. But weekly sales totals were much higher in 2017. Apple’s revenue and profits hit record levels once again.
Apple’s guidance for this quarter reveals a healthy increase over last year, although, at $60 to $62 billon, it’s still below exaggerated analyst expectations. Indeed, Apple expects iPhone revenue to grow by double digits compared to last year. That’s supposed to be good news, better news than one has a right to expect from a product entering its second decade in a saturated market.
Overall, Apple has once again demonstrated that the critics were utterly wrong about the iPhone X and the company overall. Don’t expect any retractions or apologies, though. That’s not how things work when it comes to fake news about Apple.
THE FINAL WORD
The Tech Night Owl Newsletter is a weekly information service of Making The Impossible, Inc.
Publisher/Editor: Gene Steinberg
Managing Editor: Grayson Steinberg
Marketing and Public Relations: Barbara Kaplan
Worldwide Licensing: Sharon Jarvis
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Fantastic article. Right on. Market manipulation has been going on forever for apple. Cramer showed how it’s done, yet the DoJ/SEC have never bothered to do their job. How these analysts keep their job with accuracy levels that make weatherman’s accuracy look great, a mystery…or something more?