March 8th is set as International Women's Day, but Apple is celebrating the entire month of March. The first way that Apple will be doing this on the App Store by having the "App of the Day" highlighting an app founded, developed or led by a woman.

Along with highlighting stories of female developers, musicians, and artists, Apple is hoping to bring even more women into technology. One way that Apple is doing that is by partnering with Girls Who Code who will be using Apple's "Everyone Can Code" curriculum. With the curriculum 90,000 girls and the Girls Who Code facilitators can use Swift to help the students learn. Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives stated:

"Women have earned the opportunity to have our ideas shape the future. We’re excited to support Girls Who Code as they empower girls to be the developers and tech innovators of tomorrow."

In addition to working with Girls Who Code, Apple will also be holding over 60 sessions within their own stores. These session are all in a "Made By Women" series. Some of these sessions will be led by artists, musicians, photographers, app developers, scientists and entrepreneurs.

The sessions will be held in various stores including:

• Chicago
• Dubai
• Hong Kong
• Kyoto
• London
• Los Angeles
• Milan
• New York
• Paris
• San Francisco
• Singapore

Specifically for International's Women's Day, Apple will have an exclusive Activity badge, with accompanying stickers, by performing a walk, run, or wheelchair exercise of a mile or more on March 8th.

If you have been paying attention at all, it should be no surprise that there is a disproportionate number of males in technology. Hopefully with Apple highlighting women throughout the entire month of March, it may inspire some other women to get into technology.

Source: Apple

When Apple unveiled a new product in September of 2016 alongside the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, it was something that users were not necessarily expecting. The product was the AirPods. During the announcement Apple let us know that there was some very custom silicon in the earbuds. This chip was a wireless chip that they dubbed the "W1".

The W1 chip is an Apple designed chip that is specifically for being able to quickly pair with any iOS or macOS Sierra device. The W1 chip also enables is the syncing of the pairing information between all of the devices using the same iCloud account.

The synchronization with iCloud is designed to allow your devices to automatically switch, without having to go through the tedious, “un-pair”, “re-pair” dance that is typical of Bluetooth enabled devices.

Apple has made this entirely seamless when switching between iOS devices. And it is somewhat seamless on the Mac as well. However, unlike iOS there is no nice interface on the Mac for connecting to the AirPods. In order to connect to your AirPods, or Beats Solo 3 Wireless headphones, you have to select the headphones either within an app or from the Bluetooth menu. This is where AirBuddy can come in handy and makes things a bit easier.

AirBuddy

AirBuddy is an app that Apple should have created for macOS. Since they have not, macOS and iOS spelunker Guilherme Rambo, has written it. AirBuddy takes the look and feel of the iOS card that appears when you open your AirPods and it brings that to the Mac. The app uses the same services and graphics as on iOS and mimics the look and feel. The screenshots below show the comparison

Prerequisites

There are some requirements to be able to use AirBuddy. These include a Mac running macOS Mojave, and signed into the same iCloud account that your AirPods or Beats Solo 3s are on. The second requirement is that you will need a Mac that supports Bluetooth Low Energy, also known as BTLE. If your Mac supports Handoff and continuity it is quite likely that it will support AirBuddy.

Preferences

As with any good Mac app there are a few things that you can tweak. There are only two options. These are "Enable for AirPods" and "Enable for other W1 headsets". By default "Enable for AirPods" is checked and "Enable for other W1 headsets" is unchecked. This is because most users of the app have AirPods, but may not have a pair of Beats Solo 3, or newer headphones.

Today Widget

There are different interaction methods on the Mac, including via the Today section of the Notification Center. With the Today Widget enabled you can not only view the battery levels for all of the bluetooth connected devices, but you can also click on a device that you want to connect and it should connect to your Mac.

Pricing

AirBuddy has a slightly differentiated pricing model than most other apps. For many apps an author will provide a price and you can either agree to pay or not pay it. AirBuddy has this same idea, with a price of $5.00. However, if you so choose, you can actually pay more than the minimum. To quote Office Space:

"Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to [pay] more and we encourage that, okay?"

When I bought the app, I paid more than the minimum. This was for two reasons. The first is to support an indie developer and the second is because any native Mac app that is produced brings even more to the ecosystem. You can purchase AirBuddy at Gumroad.com starting at $5.00.

Closing Thoughts

AirBuddy is an app that cannot live on the Mac App Store. This is because it uses some system frameworks that will not allow it to be in the store. Even though it is a side project for Mr. Rambo, he does intend to provide meaningful updates and bug fixes, as time permits. If you use any W1 enabled headphones on your Mac AirBuddy can help make things easier. While it is a minimalist application, it does what you expect an all in a nice clean interface. AirBuddy is worth the entry fee, whatever you decide that fee is.

Today Apple sent out an email to developers about the security of their accounts. The emails states:

In an effort to keep your account more secure, two-factor authentication will be required to sign in to your Apple Developer account and Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles starting February 27, 2019. This extra layer of security for your Apple ID helps ensure that you're the only person who can access your account. If you haven't already enabled two-factor authentication for your Apple ID, please learn more and update your security settings. If you have any questions, contact us. Best regards, Apple Developer Relations

There are a few possible reasons for this. The first is, as the email states, to help secure developer accounts. By enabling the two-factor authentication, particularly for Certificates, Identifiers, and Profiles cannot be added by unauthorized users.

This will have some downsides though. By requiring two-factor authentication, only ten devices will be able to receive the two factor authentication codes. For most individual users, this will not be a problem. Five of these trusted devices can be Macs and five of these can be iOS devices.

I contacted Apple Support to verify the number, and it is indeed ten trusted devices that can be associated with an Apple ID.

For larger development groups who may need to allow more than one user to login to the Certificates, you will likely need add a user who has access to the Developer Resources.

If you have not already enabled two-factor authentication on your Apple Developer account, you will want to review the two-factor authentication support page to be sure that you have a way to recover your account, if needed.

When you think of February it is possible that you might think of hearts. To coincide with this February is also known as Heart Month. One of the areas where Apple has set a focus on for the Apple Watch is health and fitness and in particular heart health. There are two ways that Apple is celebrating Heart Month in two different ways. The first is with the Apple Watch and the other is with Today at Apple classes.

When you think of February it is possible that you might think of hearts. To coincide with this February is also known as Heart Month. One of the areas where Apple has set a focus on for the Apple Watch is health and fitness and in particular heart health. There are two ways that Apple is celebrating Heart Month in two different ways. The first is with the Apple Watch and the other is with Today at Apple classes.

Apple Watch

Last February Apple offered a challenge for Apple Watch Activity Challenge. You were able to earn this badge by closing your exercise ring, which is 30 minutes, each day for seven days in a row. This ran from February 8th to February 14th.

This year Apple will be offering another Apple Watch Activity Challenge. It is the same challenge and runs for the same time frame, February 8th to the 14th. If you complete the challenge you will get a special badge in the Activity app. Along with the badge you will also get some stickers for Messages.

In order to receive the Activity Challenge and possibly get the stickers, you will need to be running at least iOS 12.1.3 on your iPhone and watchOS 5.1.3 on your Apple Watch.

Today at Apple

Besides the Apple Watch activity challenge with its badge and stickers. Apple will be hosting three different "Heart Health with Apple sessions at three different stores across the United States.

In recognition of Heart Month, Apple will host special Today at Apple sessions, “Heart Health with Apple,” in stores in New York, Chicago and San Francisco with celebrity fitness trainer Jeanette Jenkins, Sumbul Desai, MD, Apple’s vice president of Health, Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, Jay Blahnik, senior director of fitness for health technologies, and Julz Arney and Craig Bolton from the Apple Fitness Technologies team. Attendees will hear a discussion about heart health and participate in a new Health & Fitness Walk, which was co-created with Jeanette for participants to take a brisk walk with Apple Watch around their community.

• San Francisco: Apple Union Square, February 11, 2019, 6 p.m.: Dr. Sumbul Desai, Jeanette Jenkins, Julz Arney
• New York: Apple Williamsburg, February 21, 2019, 4:30 p.m.: Dr. Sumbul Desai, Jeanette Jenkins, Jay Blahnik
• Chicago: Apple Michigan Avenue, February 27, 2019, 6 p.m.: Dr. Sumbul Desai, Nancy Brown, Jeanette Jenkins, Craig Bolton

It is not surprise that Apple is promoting health, given that one of the Apple Watch is fitness. Regardless, it is good to see Apple hosting sessions at their stores to promote heart health.

Source: Apple

Today Apple has announced that Deidre O'Brien has been named Senior Vice President of Retail + People. O'Brien has taken over for Angela Ahrendts joined Apple in early 2014. In that time she has been in charge of Apple's Retail Stores. Angela Ahrendts plans to depart Apple in April for new personal and professional pursuits.

Deidre O'Brien's role has been expanded. Her previous role was Vice President of People, and she will be continuing her existing role as well as taking over Retail.

Deirdre will bring her three decades of Apple experience to lead the company’s global retail reach, focused on the connection between the customer and the people and processes that serve them. She will continue to lead the People team, overseeing all People-related functions, including talent development and Apple University, recruiting, employee relations and experience, business partnership, benefits, compensation, and inclusion and diversity.

There are two things that I want to highlight. First, it is good to see Apple promoting from within. Additionally, it is definitely a plus to see that the person promoted is a woman. The latter is good to see because the ratio of men to women in senior positions within the technology sector is too often too high.

Source: Apple

On Tuesday Techcrunch reported that Facebook had been paying people, in particular teens, $20 a month to install their "Facebook Research" app. The "Research" app includes a Virtual Private Network (VPN) client. The "Research" app is a rebranded app that was removed from the public iOS App Store in August of 2018 because it violated App Store terms of service. The old name of the app was Onavo.

The method used by Facebook for this installation is by using an Enterprise Developer Certificate, which is designed for distribution of applications to a company's employees. In addition to distributing apps to their own employees Facebook used this method for external testers. This is in direct violation of the terms of service for the Enterprise Developer account which were agreed to upon signing up for the account.

Once Apple found out about this, they revoked the Enterprise Developer Certificate. Revoking this certificate had a major impact on Facebook. Besides having their "Facebook Research" app no longer function, all of Facebook's internal applications used by employees were broken, meaning that they can no longer function.

From an Apple spokesperson:

“We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”

It turns out that Facebook is not the only big tech company that has been misusing their Enterprise Developer account.

Yesterday, January 30th, Google stated that they were doing something similar with their Enterprise Certificate with an application named "Screenwise Meter". When users used the app, they were able to earn gift cards by installing the application. Just as with Facebook Apple has revoked Google's Enterprise Certificate. This revocation has same effect as Facebook, where Google's internal iOS applications ceased functioning. This includes employee-only beta versions of apps, as well as other applications used by employees. Here is a quote from the TechCrunch article:

“We’re working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to some of our corporate iOS apps, which we expect will be resolved soon,” said a Google spokesperson. A spokesperson for Apple said: “We are working together with Google to help them reinstate their enterprise certificates very quickly.”

As of today, Thursday January 31st, Facebook has had their Enterprise certificate re-instated, but Google has not had their Enterprise Certificate re-instated, yet.

Some Thoughts

I am somewhat surprised that Apple revoked the Enterprise Developer certificates, given that the companies involved.. However, Apple is fully within their right. Both companies violated not only the terms of service, but also used the applications to acquire consumer information. This is a clear violation Apple's principles and definitely should not be tolerated.

Besides the violation of the policies, there are consumer implications. Both companies are relying on ignorance of users to collect information. In both cases the apps collected browsing history of all activity on the users iPhone, through the VPN that was installed when the app was installed. Additionally, Facebook gathered Amazon purchase history by having users send screenshots of their Amazon orders.

I suspect that Google will get their Enterprise Certificate re-instated in the next couple of days. In the wake of these incidents, I would not be surprised if Apple starts cracking down on this type of behavior for all Enterprise Certificate holders.

If it any smaller company had done something similar, it would be my guess that Apple would revoke the certificate and that would be the end of the discussion. A smaller company would likely not be able to get their Enterprise Certificates re-instated at all.

These two instances should be a wake up call for all Apple Enterprise Certificate developers. If you are providing applications to end-users through your Enterprise Certificate, Apple may end up revoking your certificate and there may be no recourse.

It will be interesting to see what other ramifications this will have on other developers. I also wonder if Facebook and Google will try doing something similar again in the future. Only time will tell whether or not this will happen.

Source: TechCrunch (Facebook) and TechCrunch (Google)

Over the last weekend a report of a serious privacy bug was found in Apple's Group FaceTime service. The bug would allow someone to enable the microphone and camera on someone's device.

The Issue

You can read the 9to5mac article for the steps on how this bug was activated. The short version is that if the person you are calling declined the call with the sleep/wake button, and you added your own phone onto the call again, you would be able to hear the original caller's microphone and see their camera.

Apple is currently working on a fix. In the interim Apple has disabled Group FaceTime on the server-side, until a fix is released, which should be this week.

Security Implications

Imagine this scenario. A group of 3 people decides to have a FaceTime call. Person 1 calls Person 2. While the phone is ringing, Person 1 attempts to call Person 3, but accidentally clicks on their own contact information while scrolling.. Person 2 declines the FaceTime call accidentally, and the audio from Person 2's is audible by Person 1.

I cannot emphasize enough how bad this bug is. Not just because of the fact that it should not have gotten through Quality Assurance (QA) and testing, but also because of Apple's focus on privacy. In regards to getting through QA, using the sleep/wake button to dismiss a call is an extremely common action and adding another person to a Group FaceTime call is the entire point of Group FaceTime. To add on to this, despite announcing Group FaceTime was announced at the 2018 World Wide Developers Conference (World Wide Developer Conference, Apple delayed Group FaceTime due to bugs and issues. This one was obviously not noticed during testing.

You might think that this is a minor bug because you "have nothing to hide". While that is all well and good for you, there are others that need privacy or are in sensitive situations where this can be abused. One example of this could be a domestic violence situation where an abuser can use this bug to be able to spy on someone. This would not be a good situation at all.

Another example could be a lawyer, who needs confidentiality of their clients. One last example is world leaders. If any of the world leaders, or their assistants, use and iPhone, they may have been able to use this bug to listen in. In other words, this is a really bad bug.

The fact that this bug got through is bad, but it is compounded because one of Apple's core tenets is security and privacy. Any privacy bug is a problem for Apple because they make it a differentiator to other products on the market.

It is good to see that Apple has taken this seriously and has temporarily disabled Group FaceTime services. Even though this is bad, it is possible that Apple will make some internal changes to improve testing of their features for privacy bugs. 

Source: 9to5mac.com

Back on January 2nd, I wrote a post about Apple revising its guidance for the first quarter of 2019. Today Apple announced their results.

Apple posted quarterly revenue of $84.3 billion, this is a decline of 5 percent from Q1 2018. Even with revenue being own, the earnings per share is up 7.5 percent, as compared to a year ago, to $4.18 per share

The iPhone's revenue declined 15 percent, which is why Apple provided the revised guidance earlier this month. However, the revenue from the remaining products were up 19 percent. Services, which is one of the areas that Apple has wanted to highlight is up to $10.9 billion, or 19 percent. Revenue for the Mac was up 9 percent, while Wearables is up 33 percent.

The Wearables revenue is likely primarily driven by two products, the Apple Watch and AirPods. Additional wearables include the Beats headphone line and the HomePod.

Other Tidbits

There are some other tidbits from Apple's condensed statement.

• Revenue in America is up about $1.75 billion, or about 5 percent.
• Revenue in Europe, China, and Japan is down, $691 million, $4.78 billion, and $327 million respectively. This translate to 3.39 percent, 36.3 percent, and 4.73 percent respectively.
• Revenue in the rest of Asia, outside of Greater China and Japan, is up $75 million, or about 1/10 of a percent.

Q2 2019 Guidance

As with all previous quarters, Apple has provided some guidance for Q2 2019. The guidance provided is:

• revenue between $55 billion and $59 billion
• gross margin between 37 percent and 38 percent
• operating expenses between $8.5 billion and $8.6 billion
• other income/(expense) of $300 million

Closing Thoughts

Source: Apple

It is not often that Apple enters into a new accessory category of products, but it does happen from time to time. One area that people might not have expected Apple get into was the battery case market, but Apple did get into the market. They did so back in 2015.

Smart Battery History

Back in December of 2015 Apple unveiled a brand new product specifically for the iPhone. At the time the iPhone was the iPhone 6s. They called it the "Smart Battery Case". The Smart Battery Case would provide additional battery for the iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6s. The case came in two colors, Charcoal Gray and White. The case had a 1877 milliamp hour battery. This more than doubled the battery on the iPhone 6s. It would provide up to 25 hours of talk time, 18 hours of internets use on LTE, and up to 20 hours of video playback.

With the release of the iPhone 7, Apple unveiled a version that would work with the iPhone 7. The case contained an even bigger battery, 2365 mAh, which is 26% bigger. With this bigger battery it provided even more usage, including up to 26 hours of talk time, up to 22 hours of internet usage on LTE, and up to 24 hours of playback. The iPhone 7 Smart Battery Case came in three colors; Black, White, and (PRODUCT)RED.

Apple did not release a smart battery case for the iPhone 8, nor have they released a smart battery case for any of the Plus-sized phones. Apple has released a Smart Battery Case for their latest iPhones.

New Smart Battery Cases

As mentioned in my post about the release, Apple has released some new Smart Battery Cases. Apple has done something a bit different. This year they released new Battery Cases for all of the iPhone models, the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. This is a first for the larger iPhone sizes getting a Smart Battery Case.

When I received my case, it shipped with no charge. This is likely due to standalone battery shipping restrictions. First, they can only be shipped via ground shipping and are not eligible for shipping via air. The second reason that they ship without any charge is to reduce any fire hazard. The lack of charge means that you will need to charge the device before usage. This is different from most of Apple's other devices, which usually ship with at least some charge in them.

Charging

One of the features of the Smart Battery cases for this year's phones is the fact that the case can be charged on a Qi charger. You might expect that if the case is charging the iPhone would not be. This is not the way the Smart Battery Case is designed. It can in fact charge both the iPhone charges simultaneously with the case.

If you have a Qi charger and it can support fast charging, which is 7.5 watts. The Smart Battery Case is capable of handling fast charging. The order of which items charges first depends on how much power you provide the case and iPhone. If you use the 5-watt charger that comes with the iPhone it will likely charge the iPhone and may not end up charging the case. If you increase this to 7.5-watts, the iPhone will be be charged first and then the Smart Battery Case. If you use a 10-watt or higher charger then both of the devices should charge simultaneously.

Design and Feel

The Smart Battery Case feels very similar to the iPhone Silicone case. The Smart Battery Case is made of the same material so this is to be expected. The interior of the Smart Battery Case is a soft microfiber lining. This is designed to help protect the back of the iPhone from scratching.

The design of the Smart Battery Case has been tweaked from the previous ones for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6/6s. On the previous models the battery was approximately in the middle of the case with an equal amount of space on the top and bottom. The iPhone XS Smart Battery Case has the battery at the bottom. The edges of the battery at the bottom are rounded and the round edges also extend to both sides of the case. The top of the battery extends to between the volume buttons. This is where the hinge of the case is. The hinge allows you to put the phone into the case as well as remove it when necessary.

I am not sure how many times the hinge can be pulled back before it breaks, and I am not about to test it to find out. With the new rounded design. the Smart Battery Case is great to hold. The Smart Battery Case does add some weight, and one might expect, given that it contains a battery.

Usage

When you connect the Smart Battery Case to an iPhone, the iPhone will show both the iPhone's battery as well the Smart Battery Case's current level right on the notification screen. Just as with other accessories, if either the Smart Battery Case or the iPhone is currently charging, it will have a small lightning bolt next to the device to indicate that it is charging. After I put my iPhone XS into the Smart Battery Case. I noticed that the iPhone is constantly be charged. At least that is what I have noticed during my usage of the case. The specifications indicate that you will get up to an additional 13 hours of talk time, an additional 7 hours of internet usage, or an additional 11 hours of Video playback with the Smart Battery Case. I cannot verify this information as I generally do not let my iPhone or the case get that low. I did let the battery pack get close to zero, but never all the way down to zero.

I have yet to remove the Smart Battery Case from my iPhone XS except to remove some dust from the top of the screen. I am not sure if I really even need the battery case, but having it on there may come in handy if I am away from a charger for more than 24 hours.

Closing Thoughts

The Smart Battery Case from Apple will definitely allow your iPhone to last longer. While it is not an inexpensive item, nor is it for everyone, if you are one who could benefit from the use of a battery case, it may be a worthwhile investment. The iPhone XS Smart Battery Case is possible solution. While it does add bulk, it does not feel awkward to hold. I do not yet know if I will end up keeping the case on the iPhone XS when spring and summer come around. Right now keeping it in a hoodie or coat pocket is not a big problem right now. I can only speculate how well it will work in the summer, but I guess we will find out. The Smart Battery Cases for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR are available now for $129.

A couple of milestones occurred today. The first milestone is that Office 365 has made its way to the Mac App Store. From Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller

Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning. Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, it's easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

With Office 365 you get access to Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, One Note, and One Drive. Additionally, you can purchase a subscription right from within any of the apps. Subscriptions are priced at $69.99 per year for a single user, and $99.99 for up to six users.

The second milestone is for a product that has been around a bit longer than Microsoft Office, but can run Office 365, that product is the Macintosh. 35 years ago today, on January 24th, 1984, Apple introduced one of its more influential products, the Macintosh. While it may not the most popular, it is still one of the iconic devices of today's modern world. Without the Macintosh a number of today's technology may not be available.

Happy Birthday Mac!