daring-rss

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

The 30% fee is also notable. As far as I can tell, only a
handful of Patreon users would exceed the million-dollar
annual threshold for Apple’s Small Business Program. That
is, everyone who earns less than a million dollars per year
through iOS Patreon pledges should, in theory, fork over a 15%
commission rate to Apple. But it appears it is Patreon itself
which is subject to the 30% rate. Whether that decision was made
by Apple or Patreon, of if it is something which is a consequence
of how App Store billing works, is unclear to me. But one thing is
true regardless: Apple’s 30% commission is at least double
the rate charged by Patreon itself, and only the latter has any
material effect on the relationship between a creative
professional and their supporters.

The problem here reminds me of e-books. There’s really only room for one middleman in a relationship between a creator and their audience, and in this case that middleman has been Patreon. But now Apple is saying they’re required to be involved too. But the Patreon app doesn’t qualify for the Small Business Program, so in-app subscriptions through the Patreon app are split 70/30 with Apple for the first year. But the vast majority of Patreon creators would, if they were app developers, qualify for the Small Business Program and the in-app subscription split would be 85/15 instead. But nobody wants each and every Patreon creator to build their own apps. The whole point of Patreon is that it’s a centralized platform.

The whole notion of a platform like Patreon just doesn’t fit with the App Store’s model of taking a fee out of every single transaction for digital goods or services. It could, perhaps, if Apple were willing to only accept a commission from Patreon’s own share — a commission on a commission — but they’re not.

Lastly, I suppose it’s implicit here that a lot Patreon users go through the iOS app. But I can’t help but think they should do what Substack does and just not allow paid subscriptions through the app. I just double-checked this was still true, and it seems to be. Substack’s iOS app lets you subscribe only to free subscriptions in-app. If you tap “Manage Subscription” in the app, you’re presented with a sheet that says, unhelpfully, “You cannot manage your subscription in the app.” (It’s Apple’s odious anti-steering rules that disallow apps like Substack from explaining where you can manage your subscription, which, of course, is on the web.)

 ★ 

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

The 30% fee is also notable. As far as I can tell, only a
handful of Patreon users would exceed the million-dollar
annual threshold for Apple’s Small Business Program. That
is, everyone who earns less than a million dollars per year
through iOS Patreon pledges should, in theory, fork over a 15%
commission rate to Apple. But it appears it is Patreon itself
which is subject to the 30% rate. Whether that decision was made
by Apple or Patreon, of if it is something which is a consequence
of how App Store billing works, is unclear to me. But one thing is
true regardless: Apple’s 30% commission is at least double
the rate charged by Patreon itself, and only the latter has any
material effect on the relationship between a creative
professional and their supporters.

The problem here reminds me of e-books. There’s really only room for one middleman in a relationship between a creator and their audience, and in this case that middleman has been Patreon. But now Apple is saying they’re required to be involved too. But the Patreon app doesn’t qualify for the Small Business Program, so in-app subscriptions through the Patreon app are split 70/30 with Apple for the first year. But the vast majority of Patreon creators would, if they were app developers, qualify for the Small Business Program and the in-app subscription split would be 85/15 instead. But nobody wants each and every Patreon creator to build their own apps. The whole point of Patreon is that it’s a centralized platform.

The whole notion of a platform like Patreon just doesn’t fit with the App Store’s model of taking a fee out of every single transaction for digital goods or services. It could, perhaps, if Apple were willing to only accept a commission from Patreon’s own share — a commission on a commission — but they’re not.

Lastly, I suppose it’s implicit here that a lot Patreon users go through the iOS app. But I can’t help but think they should do what Substack does and just not allow paid subscriptions through the app. I just double-checked this was still true, and it seems to be. Substack’s iOS app lets you subscribe only to free subscriptions in-app. If you tap “Manage Subscription” in the app, you’re presented with a sheet that says, unhelpfully, “You cannot manage your subscription in the app.” (It’s Apple’s odious anti-steering rules that disallow apps like Substack from explaining where you can manage your subscription, which, of course, is on the web.)

Read More 

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Despite Apple’s rules and policies, Patreon had existed in an odd
sort of gray area, as some of its subscription-based offerings
could be consumed in its app while others could not. Another
possible reason for the Patreon exception was due to the fact that
many users didn’t come to Patreon itself to discover creators and
content, Patreon CEO Jack Conte told tech news site The
Verge in 2021. Instead, the discovery took place through
other channels. Though the company admitted it didn’t have any
sort of special contract with Apple to avoid the App Store fees,
the app had been able to skirt Apple’s in-app billing requirements
for some time.

It wasn’t good that Patreon existed in an unofficial gray zone. But it’s hard to see how this is better for anyone, including Apple.

 ★ 

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Despite Apple’s rules and policies, Patreon had existed in an odd
sort of gray area, as some of its subscription-based offerings
could be consumed in its app while others could not. Another
possible reason for the Patreon exception was due to the fact that
many users didn’t come to Patreon itself to discover creators and
content, Patreon CEO Jack Conte told tech news site The
Verge in 2021. Instead, the discovery took place through
other channels. Though the company admitted it didn’t have any
sort of special contract with Apple to avoid the App Store fees,
the app had been able to skirt Apple’s in-app billing requirements
for some time.

It wasn’t good that Patreon existed in an unofficial gray zone. But it’s hard to see how this is better for anyone, including Apple.

Read More 

New from the Steve Jobs Archive: an hourlong video of young Steve Jobs delivering a talk on design in 1983. Jony Ive wrote a splendid introduction:

The revolution Steve described over 40 years ago did of course
happen, partly because of his profound commitment to a kind of
civic responsibility. He cared, way beyond any sort of functional
imperative. His was a victory for beauty, for purity and, as he
would say, for giving a damn. He truly believed that by making
something useful, empowering and beautiful, we express our love
for humanity.

 ★ 

New from the Steve Jobs Archive: an hourlong video of young Steve Jobs delivering a talk on design in 1983. Jony Ive wrote a splendid introduction:

The revolution Steve described over 40 years ago did of course
happen, partly because of his profound commitment to a kind of
civic responsibility. He cared, way beyond any sort of functional
imperative. His was a victory for beauty, for purity and, as he
would say, for giving a damn. He truly believed that by making
something useful, empowering and beautiful, we express our love
for humanity.

Read More 

The Mac is a platform where you need to be able to shoot yourself in foot.

Back in the day, on classic Mac OS, there were no “privileges” for software. If you launched an app, or installed a system extension, that software just did what it wanted. Something as (seemingly) innocuous as a game or as necessarily powerful as a disk formatting utility just … ran. If that disk utility had a bug that overwrote every byte of your startup disk with zeroes, well, tough luck. If you were unfortunate enough to install malicious software that spread like a virus, well, even tougher luck. That sounds awful, but in practice, it was fine. I’ve been using a Mac since 1991 and I don’t recall ever once — not once — having a problem with malware or scamware.1

That was a long time ago.

Such a laissez-faire approach to software privileges obviously wouldn’t fly today. I want most applications on my Mac to run within a sandbox. I want applications to require explicit permission to access the camera and microphone, or to capture the content of my display. I want applications to be cryptographically signed by known developers and notarized by Apple by default. But I also want to be able to grant trusted applications non-sandboxed access to my entire file system, access to cameras and microphones, and the ability to capture my screen.

I posted a spate of links this week about how the anti-malware/anti-scamware protections in MacOS are increasingly crossing the line from “this is a reasonable balance” to “this is infuriating”. It really is turning into exactly what Apple once mocked.

The Mac is a platform where you need to be able to shoot yourself in foot. Increased protections that make it less likely that you’ll shoot yourself in the foot are, obviously, a good idea. Many of them are downright necessary. But such protections are only undeniably good ideas when they don’t get in the way of sophisticated users using software that requires a high level of system privileges. Then they become a trade-off. There are some power users who’ve been annoyed every step of the way as Apple has increased such protections in MacOS, but I think, until recently, Apple has managed this balance well. MacOS, on the whole, has been welcoming and safe for unsophisticated users while remaining powerful and efficient for experts. But in recent years MacOS has clearly started slipping down the slippery slope of being too protective.

It’s good to be reminded of the software you have installed that requests, or outright requires, access to private data and sensitive hardware APIs. It’s very good to be alerted to any software you might have installed that has acquired such permissions without your knowledge or recollection. (Like, say, if an abusive partner has installed some sort of monitoring software unbeknownst to you.) But it’s infuriating to play whack-a-mole to dismiss a barrage of permission prompts to confirm the same permissions you’ve previously granted to the same software, and it’s even worse when you need to dig three or four levels deep into System Settings to do it.

Consider real-world power tools. No one wants to get hurt. For sure, no one wants to lose a finger. But serious tool users still have holes to drill, wood to cut, and nails to hammer. There’s a fascinating saga around the company SawStop, which invented a technology for table saws that uses capacitive sensors to prevent saws from slicing through fingers (or, say, for demo purposes, hot dogs). As of a decade ago, in the U.S. alone, over 4,000 fingers were sliced off in table saw accidents annually. That’s a lot of fingers. SawStop’s technology prevents almost all such accidents. But also: it doesn’t make tables saws worse for cutting wood. The company has a FAQ about cutting wet or “green” wood:

SawStop saws cut most wet wood without a problem. However, if the
wood is very green or wet (for example, wet enough to spray a mist
when cutting), or if the wood is both wet and pressure treated,
then the wood may be sufficiently conductive to activate the
brake. If you are unsure whether the material you need to cut is
conductive, you can make test cuts using Bypass Mode to determine
if it will activate the safety system’s brake. The red light on
the control box will flash to indicate conductivity. If the
material is conductive, you can choose to operate the saw in
Bypass Mode which will disengage the saw’s safety system’s brake
feature and allow you to continue cutting the material.

This sounds like exactly the right balance for MacOS — a balance MacOS until recently had achieved. Safety by default, but don’t get in the way of power users doing their jobs. And when the user needs an override for the safety features, there is an override, and the situation will make clear to the user that needing to use the override is justified by the safety concerns. MacOS is veering into the territory of power users needing to flip override switches all the time.

At the two extremes of the Mac’s user base are gullible technically unsophisticated naifs, and skeptical expert power users. It’s fair for Apple to present some protections that aren’t necessary for expert power users, in the name of bolstering the guardrails for the technically unsophisticated. But at a certain point, a hammer needs to hammer whatever it strikes, and sometimes, alas, that’s the user’s thumb. That’s the Mac. It’s a Unix workstation that’s friendly enough to be used by the mass market. It is not an appliance intended to prevent any possible malware or scamware from running.

Apple makes such appliances. They run iOS. I’d go so far as to say that one problem facing the Mac has nothing to do with the Mac itself but instead is a downstream effect of the iPad’s weaknesses. I believe in the 1984 slogan that the Mac is “the computer for the rest of us”, where “rest of us” is very much inclusive of non-expert users. But there’s a certain point of unsophistication and okey-doke gullibility where the Mac becomes an inappropriate platform for some users. There are many construction-professional power tools that shouldn’t be used by non-expert users, too.

Computers are such an essential part of the modern world — and almost everyone’s daily lives — that computers-that-work-like-computers aren’t for everyone. The world needs locked-down can’t-cut-your-fingers-off-no-matter-what-you-do platforms like the iPad. And Apple sells significantly more iPad units than Macs. But any Mac user who isn’t sufficiently served by the anti-malware/scamware protections already in MacOS shouldn’t be using a Mac at all. They should be using iPads, or something else similarly locked-down, instead. Some of these users are using Macs instead of iPads out of ignorance. Their technical needs could be met by an iPad but they don’t know it. (They are, by definition, technically unsophisticated.) But surely some of them know they’d prefer to be using an iPad instead of a Mac but can’t, because an iPad can’t do one or more things they need to do, or run software they need to run.

Power tools and user-safety features aren’t mutually exclusive. But they need to be in balance. Apple is clearly losing that balance with MacOS, and I think a big part of that is the iPad’s weaknesses tipping the scale.

Read More 

Sundar Pichai, on X:

Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend Susan Wojcicki after two years of living with cancer. She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her. She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her. We will miss her dearly. Our thoughts with her family. RIP Susan.

 ★ 

Sundar Pichai, on X:

Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend Susan Wojcicki after two years of living with cancer. She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her. She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her. We will miss her dearly. Our thoughts with her family. RIP Susan.

Read More 

Academic paper from over 100 researchers at Apple:

We present foundation language models developed to power Apple
Intelligence features, including a ~3 billion parameter model
designed to run efficiently on devices and a large server-based
language model designed for Private Cloud Compute. These models
are designed to perform a wide range of tasks efficiently,
accurately, and responsibly. This report describes the model
architecture, the data used to train the model, the training
process, how the models are optimized for inference, and the
evaluation results. We highlight our focus on Responsible AI and
how the principles are applied throughout the model development.

Available here as a PDF.

 ★ 

Academic paper from over 100 researchers at Apple:

We present foundation language models developed to power Apple
Intelligence features, including a ~3 billion parameter model
designed to run efficiently on devices and a large server-based
language model designed for Private Cloud Compute. These models
are designed to perform a wide range of tasks efficiently,
accurately, and responsibly. This report describes the model
architecture, the data used to train the model, the training
process, how the models are optimized for inference, and the
evaluation results. We highlight our focus on Responsible AI and
how the principles are applied throughout the model development.

Available here as a PDF.

Read More 

Benjamin Mayo, writing at 9to5Mac:

Following the EU ruling in June that said Apple’s App
Store anti-steering policies are officially in breach of the
Digital Markets Act, Apple is announcing changes. Specifically,
these changes address the rules around app developers linking
out to the web to inform users about alternative payment
methods. […]

If you are operating under the EU alternative business terms, the
Core Technology Fee still applies on installs. Additionally, the
fees are charged as follows:

Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
Store Services Fee: 10% (reduced to 5% for members of the App
Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a
subscription after one year)

If you are continuing to offer your app inside the App Store under
the standard business terms, the Core Technology Fee does not
apply (as it never did). But the associated link out commission
fee rates are increased:

Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
Store Services Fee: 20% (reduced to 7% for members of the App
Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a
subscription after one year)

This results in a complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs,
that developers will need to carefully evaluate. The new terms are
available now to review on Apple’s developer website, including an
updated fee calculator.

“Complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs” is an understatement. Understanding all of this seems like it requires a CPA. I’ve looked across social media and read a slew of posts about this news, and I haven’t found a single person saying anything other than this is a convoluted mess. I think that’s as much on the DMA as it is on Apple: a convoluted mess of a compliance plan for a convoluted mess of a law.

What many people want is for Apple just give in, concede, and allow iOS apps in the EU to just collect payments however they want, in-app or through links to the web, freely. Where by freely I mean free-of-charge freely. No CTF for downloads, no tracking up purchases made after users tap a link in the app to the web. What Apple wants is to continue making bank from every purchase on digital good from an iOS app. We’re left with a mess where no one is happy with the result.

See also:

Techmeme’s roundup of news coverage.
Michael Tsai’s roundup of commentary.

 ★ 

Benjamin Mayo, writing at 9to5Mac:

Following the EU ruling in June that said Apple’s App
Store anti-steering policies are officially in breach of the
Digital Markets Act, Apple is announcing changes. Specifically,
these changes address the rules around app developers linking
out to the web to inform users about alternative payment
methods. […]

If you are operating under the EU alternative business terms, the
Core Technology Fee still applies on installs. Additionally, the
fees are charged as follows:

Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
Store Services Fee: 10% (reduced to 5% for members of the App
Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a
subscription after one year)

If you are continuing to offer your app inside the App Store under
the standard business terms, the Core Technology Fee does not
apply (as it never did). But the associated link out commission
fee rates are increased:

Initial Acquisition Fee: 5%
Store Services Fee: 20% (reduced to 7% for members of the App
Store Small Business Program, or a qualifying renewal of a
subscription after one year)

This results in a complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs,
that developers will need to carefully evaluate. The new terms are
available now to review on Apple’s developer website, including an
updated fee calculator.

“Complicated matrix of eligibility and fee costs” is an understatement. Understanding all of this seems like it requires a CPA. I’ve looked across social media and read a slew of posts about this news, and I haven’t found a single person saying anything other than this is a convoluted mess. I think that’s as much on the DMA as it is on Apple: a convoluted mess of a compliance plan for a convoluted mess of a law.

What many people want is for Apple just give in, concede, and allow iOS apps in the EU to just collect payments however they want, in-app or through links to the web, freely. Where by freely I mean free-of-charge freely. No CTF for downloads, no tracking up purchases made after users tap a link in the app to the web. What Apple wants is to continue making bank from every purchase on digital good from an iOS app. We’re left with a mess where no one is happy with the result.

See also:

Techmeme’s roundup of news coverage.
Michael Tsai’s roundup of commentary.

Read More 

Jason Snell, “Apple’s Permissions Features Are Out of Balance”:

Some users will make bad decisions. That’s just reality. The wrong
reaction is to take the decision out of every user’s hands to
protect the ones who might do something stupid. Apple needs to
find that balance, that protects people but gives users freedom to
do what they want, however dangerous it might be.

Apple’s recent feature changes suggest a value system that’s
wildly out of balance, preferring to warn (and control) users no
matter how damaging it is to the overall user experience. Maybe
the people in charge should be forced to sit down and watch that
Apple ad that mocks Windows Vista. Vista’s security prompts
existed for good reasons — but they were a user disaster. The
Apple of that era knew it. I’d guess a lot of people inside
today’s Apple know it, too — but they clearly are unable to win
the arguments when it matters.

Never would have guessed I’d still find use for the “Windows Vista” tag in my CMS in 2024, but here we are.

 ★ 

Jason Snell, “Apple’s Permissions Features Are Out of Balance”:

Some users will make bad decisions. That’s just reality. The wrong
reaction is to take the decision out of every user’s hands to
protect the ones who might do something stupid. Apple needs to
find that balance, that protects people but gives users freedom to
do what they want, however dangerous it might be.

Apple’s recent feature changes suggest a value system that’s
wildly out of balance, preferring to warn (and control) users no
matter how damaging it is to the overall user experience. Maybe
the people in charge should be forced to sit down and watch that
Apple ad that mocks Windows Vista. Vista’s security prompts
existed for good reasons — but they were a user disaster. The
Apple of that era knew it. I’d guess a lot of people inside
today’s Apple know it, too — but they clearly are unable to win
the arguments when it matters.

Never would have guessed I’d still find use for the “Windows Vista” tag in my CMS in 2024, but here we are.

Read More 

Developer Thomas Tempelmann just released version 2.5 of Find Any File, his file search utility for the Mac. Find Any File (FAF) has long been my go-to tool for file search. Why use FAF instead of Spotlight? Some feature highlights:

FAF can find files that Spotlight doesn’t , e.g. on network
(NAS) and other external volumes, hidden ones inside bundles and
packages, and those in folders that are usually excluded from
Spotlight search, such as the System and Library folders. It can
even search in other user’s folders if you use FAF’s unique
root search mode.
FAF lets you search precisely for many file properties such
as name, extension, date range, size, kind etc. […]
FAF can also find textual content in plain text, in zip
(including Word and Excel files) and even in most binary files.
And with the option to include Spotlight results, it can also
find text in PDF documents as long as they were indexed by
Spotlight.

Amongst other features, FAF supports regular expressions, and you can save frequently-used searches to easily re-run them. There are several other good file search utilities for MacOS — and Tempelmann himself kindly offers a list of them — but FAF is my favorite. Free to download and try, and $6 shareware if you keep it. (Or buy it for $8 from the Mac App Store.)

 ★ 

Developer Thomas Tempelmann just released version 2.5 of Find Any File, his file search utility for the Mac. Find Any File (FAF) has long been my go-to tool for file search. Why use FAF instead of Spotlight? Some feature highlights:

FAF can find files that Spotlight doesn’t , e.g. on network
(NAS) and other external volumes, hidden ones inside bundles and
packages, and those in folders that are usually excluded from
Spotlight search, such as the System and Library folders. It can
even search in other user’s folders if you use FAF’s unique
root search mode.
FAF lets you search precisely for many file properties such
as name, extension, date range, size, kind etc. […]
FAF can also find textual content in plain text, in zip
(including Word and Excel files) and even in most binary files.
And with the option to include Spotlight results, it can also
find text in PDF documents as long as they were indexed by
Spotlight.

Amongst other features, FAF supports regular expressions, and you can save frequently-used searches to easily re-run them. There are several other good file search utilities for MacOS — and Tempelmann himself kindly offers a list of them — but FAF is my favorite. Free to download and try, and $6 shareware if you keep it. (Or buy it for $8 from the Mac App Store.)

Read More 

Here’s a developer note from Apple confirming another change in MacOS 15 that many of us were hoping was a bug or glitch in the developer betas:

In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to
override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed
correctly or notarized. They’ll need to visit System Settings >
Privacy & Security to review security information for software
before allowing it to run.

Why? Is there any evidence that the Control-clicking shortcut was insufficient? If so, what is that evidence? It seems to me that the sort of technically unsophisticated non-expert users whom these features are meant to protect are the same users who have no idea the Control-click shortcut to launch non-notarized apps even exists.

I mean, if there are exploits running wild because unsophisticated Mac users are Control-clicking malware apps they’ve somehow downloaded, where are they?

 ★ 

Here’s a developer note from Apple confirming another change in MacOS 15 that many of us were hoping was a bug or glitch in the developer betas:

In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to
override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed
correctly or notarized. They’ll need to visit System Settings >
Privacy & Security to review security information for software
before allowing it to run.

Why? Is there any evidence that the Control-clicking shortcut was insufficient? If so, what is that evidence? It seems to me that the sort of technically unsophisticated non-expert users whom these features are meant to protect are the same users who have no idea the Control-click shortcut to launch non-notarized apps even exists.

I mean, if there are exploits running wild because unsophisticated Mac users are Control-clicking malware apps they’ve somehow downloaded, where are they?

Read More