Security First; Almost Apple Season; Tim Cook; Cloud Wins
Penned as I considered how Climate Change drives a wild weather season
Hard to believe it's almost Back-to-School time (Credit: Lance Ulanoff)
It’s enough to make you scream
Here’s the rule: If you’re building applications, make privacy the default. It’s the same rule I offer to consumers: Spend time turning off access to your information in all your favorite apps and platforms.
Microsoft, it seems, might have missed this basic lesson, providing its Power Apps portal service in which developers had to manually turn on privacy features. It looks like a bunch of them might have assumed that the apps they built for American Airlines, Ford, NYC MTA, and more might not have known that. As a result, 38 million records were left exposed on these portal apps and to the Internet, in general.
It’s bad enough that the average human can be socially engineered into giving away their precious data. It’s far worse when companies make rookie errors that that result in data exposure.
In all things digital, it’s time for us to think about privacy and security first. It should be in the second sentence of the development handbook after: “Figure out what your technology will do.”
It’s almost Apple season
There are so many rumors floating around about all the products Apple will release next month and throughout the fall. There are the iPhones, which may not arrive until October and could be small, slightly underwhelming updates (or full of a few big surprises–unlikely). There are new tablets (is it time for a new mini), and all those M1-powered systems, some of which might be running the next version of the M1 chip. It might be an M2 or an M1 X. No matter what Appel calls its latest silicon, it’ll be more powerful than the already impressive M1 and could support more pro-level operations. The rumored new Mac Mini might have it. I’ve seen the renders and that looks like a hot little system.
I’ve also seen a lot of iPhone, Apple Watch, and Air Pods update renders. They’re exciting, but also annoying. All this art is just so much guesswork and wish fulfillment. I assume some are based on leaked chassis straight off the Foxconn production line. However, I also know that Apple tests a lot of different designs. I also think that Apple may let some stuff leak simply to mislead people and these render creators.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the fall, but I just get a little exhausted with all this feverish speculation.
A Decade of Tim Cook
10 years ago, I was between jobs and learned while on vacation that Steve Jobs had stepped aside as Apple CEO. I knew Jobs was ill (he’d been battling cancer and had even undergone a liver transplant). When I’d seen him at WWDC earlier that year, he looked energized on stage, but thin and frail off it. I was worried about him.
The news of Jobs’ resignation and Cook’s elevation prompted me to write something about Jobs but with only a glancing mention of Cook who has now steered the tech giant for a solid decade.
Cook is not Jobs. He’s incredibly smart, a supply chain genius, but not a visionary. He relies on, I’d say, heavily on his lieutenants for ground-breaking innovation and when he takes big swings, like the M1 chip, I think it’s backed by his understanding of supply chains, logistics, and market forces.
This does not take anything away from Cook’s remarkable success. He built the first trillion-dollar company. He recognized that Apple could not thrive on hardware innovation alone and has built a powerful services business that will probably write the story of Apple for decades to come. Cook’s done so well that Apple just handed him the largest stock payout possible: 5M shares worth almost $750M.
Cook is not Apple, though, meaning that I do not think he’ll remain as CEO until retirement. I suspect he’s thinking about his next act right now. I have no inside knowledge on this, but I believe he could move on in the next five years (I could be very wrong). To do so, Cook has to anoint a successor, and probably do it sooner as opposed to later.
Gaming from the cloud
Microsoft announced last week that its Xbox Cloud Gaming Service is coming to its Xbox consoles, including the last-gen Xbox One. This is a big deal. The service was previously only on mobile devices and PCs (a very big gaming market in its own right).
For me, this was another indication of how the ubiquity and success of the cloud influences business decisions. I said as much in a tweet “The cloud wins–again.”
This prompted a surprisingly strong response and then opened an old wound as Sony PlayStation and Xbox console fans starting going at it in the response to my original tweet.
The argument hinged on whether or not Xbox is kicking Sony when it’s down or if Sony PlayStation is winning the console wars. One thing I do know is that PlayStation 5 is a huge hit (10 million sold) and Sony can’t make them fast enough. Xbox Series X is no slouch, but 6.5M units do lag behind Sony.
As far as I’m concerned, this cloud decision is a win for current Xbox console customers and new ones on the Series X. It could help Microsoft gain a bit more ground on Sony. As for which is “winning” the console wars, I really have no idea.
Also, I’d like to “unsubscribe” from the discussion which may still be raging on my Twitter.
In other news:
I approve of this drone use
OnlyFans gave fans and creators whiplash last week
I got a little hands-on time with one of Samsung’s new folding phones
I got a little misty remembering a history tech event
Stay safe
See you soon