Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
- Chuck Joiner from MacVoices – @chuckjoiner
- Nick Riley – @spligosh
- Stefaan Lesage from the Tech45 Podcast (Dutch) – @StefaanLesage
Joining Bart this month are Chick Joiner from Mac Voices, Nick Riley, and Stefaan Lesage from the Tech45 podcast.
The show starts with a quick run-down of some Apple-related numbers released in November, followed by an update on some of the legal cases Apple is involved in. The five main topics for the show are the Masque ‘vulnerability’, the on-going GTAT saga, developments in the Steve Jobs movie, some Apple Watch updates, and Nokia’s return to the mobile device market. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other Apple related stories that made the news in November.
You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!
Links:
Numbers
- Data from Custora shows that Apple dominated mobile Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales – 77% and 79% respectively (down about 5% from last year, with the balance going to Android) – appleinsider.com/…
Legal
- Apple ordered to pay $23.6M to MTel for infringing old pager patents – arstechnica.com/…
- Judge Cote approves Apple’s e-book settlement with the states – arstechnica.com/…
- RELATED – Apple’s appeal of their ebook conviction goes to court on the 15th of December, Eddie Cue has started a media offensive putting Apple’s side of the case already – fortune.com/…
- Google settle patent-case brought against them by the Apple-backed Rockstar Consortium – www.macobserver.com/…
- RELATED – Cisco to pay $188M to settle it’s Rockstar lawsuit – arstechnica.com/…
- NOTE: The iPod class action suit and Samsung’s appeal of Apples’s victory in their patent trial both started in court early in December, a few days before we recorded this show, but we’ll save those discussions for the December show, when we’ll know more about how the cases are panning out.
Main Stories
-
Masque – the ‘vulnerability’ that isn’t
- iOS digital signatures work – apps from untrusted developers trigger a warning which users must accept to run the app, media reports this as a ‘vulnerability’ – Apple was quick to point this out – www.macobserver.com/…
- The technology at the heart of Masque and WireLurker (see last month’s show) is the same – iOS’s Enterprise Provisioning Profiles. Intel’s Mac Security Blog explains the technology and why there is no vulnerability here – http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/masque-attack-ios-vulnerability-or-feature-by-design/
- The correct take-away from the Masque story is that users should not accept unexpected provisioning profiles, the same as last month with WireLurker
-
GTAT Saga Continues
- SEC launch investigation into GTAT trading activities – www.macobserver.com/…
- Unsealed documents show GTAT painting Apple as a bully negotiator – www.macobserver.com/…
- Gruber’s pithy summary – daringfireball.net/…
- Apple tells Mesa (AZ) city officials it plans to re-purpose the GTAT factory, saving some jobs (no details on what they will use it for or how many jobs) – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple writes to GTAT creditors and blames GTAT’s failure to deliver Sapphire on mismanaged production – www.macobserver.com/…
- GTAT Creditors want to question Apple SVP of Operations Jeff Williams, Apple are not making him available – www.macobserver.com/…
-
Steve Jobs Movie Drama
- Christian Bale is not playing Jobs after all – www.telegraph.co.uk/…
- Universal have taken the movie from Sony (reportedly for $30m) – www.hollywoodreporter.com/…
- Michael Fassbender is reportedly playing Jobs – www.dailyedge.ie/…
- Natalie Portman is reported to be in negotiations to play a major part in the film – deadline.com/…
-
Apple Watch
- Apple release WatchKit APIs – developers can now start developing for the Apple Watch – developer.apple.com/…
- Gruber points to some highlights in the Apple Watch HIG – daringfireball.net/…
- Apple updated their Apple Watch pages with a lot more detail and pictures (but no price or launch date) – www.apple.com/…
- RELATED – Kairos launch an interesting indiegogo for a smart watch band to make any watch smart – www.macobserver.com/…
- POSSIBLY RELATED – Apple have followed through on their plans to remove FitBit from Apple stores – www.macobserver.com/…
-
Nokia Returns
- Microsoft may have bought Nokia’s mobile devices business, but they didn’t buy the whole company, or it’s brand. Nokia announced it plans to allow other manufacturers license the Nokia brand – http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/17/7233173/nokia-brand-licesnsing-plans
- Nokia unveiled their N1 tablet – an iPad mini clone that runs Android – http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/18/7239709/nokia-n1-tablet-price-release-date
- The cloning doesn’t stop at the hardware – dailyexhaust.com/…
Quick Stories
- Office for iOS goes free-to-use and becomes universal – http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/11/office-for-ipad-goes-free-to-use-now-supports-the-iphone-too/
- Apple release too to fix vanishing SMS messages issue when people move from an iPhone to another device – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- Square want to bring Apple Pay to small businesses – www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple add UnionPay to Chinese App Store – blogs.wsj.com/…
- Apple support World AIDS Day 2015 by donating a portion of Black Friday sales, and added a product RED section to the App Store – www.loopinsight.com/…