Jeff Gamet

Samsung’s latest Galaxy Note 9 marketing campaign bags on Apple store employees, portraying them as bumbling fools blindly pushing iPhones. ZDNET decided to put that to the test. Spoiler alert: they aren’t. My take is that the employee in the ads is a proxy for Apple customers and Samsung is saying you’re stupid for buying an iPhone. They do more to bolster people who are already Samsung customers, and if all your ad campaign does is slam the competition what does that really say about your product?

Apple addressed the processor throttling issue in the 2018 Touch Bar MacBook Pro, so now engineers can move on to the next problem: crackling speakers. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models seem to suffer a problem where buzzing or crackling sounds randomly happen when audio is playing on the laptop’s built-in speakers. From TNW:

It’s unclear at this time what’s causing the issue, although a source familiar with the matter tells TNW the company is aware of the issue, and looking into it. Finding the cause, though, could be troublesome. User reports, so far, are all over the map.

It could be a hardware problem, or it could be software. Regardless, it seems like Apple’s headaches with the new MacBook Pro models aren’t over yet. And all I got with my 2016 Touch Bar MacBook Pro was a defective keyboard design.

A design flaw in Comcast’s online payment portal exposed partial home addresses and social security numbers for 26.5 million customers. The flaw displayed the first number and street name for addresses, and the last four digits in social security numbers. Buzzfeed broke the news, and Comcast quickly patched the flaw. Comcast says no one exploited the flaw, and they had it patched within hours of learning about it. Still, the fact that nearly anyone had access to the information is pretty creepy.

Apple removed the Infowars podcasts from its iTunes listings citing hate speech violations, but is letting the Infowars Official app stay on its iPhone and iPad App Store. Why remove the podcasts, but not the app, since they all offer the same content? Even though the podcasts violate Apple’s guidelines, the app doesn’t. In a statement to Buzzfeed, Apple said,

We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and follow our clear guidelines, ensuring the App Store is a safe marketplace for all. We continue to monitor apps for violations of our guidelines and if we find content that violates our guidelines and is harmful to users we will remove those apps from the store as we have done previously.

The problem here is that Apple’s App Store guidelines Alex Jones Infowars App Still on App Store Even After Podcasts Were Blocked, and they’re apparently different than the iTunes Store guidelines for podcasts. It’s confusing for content creators and consumers. Apple is well within its rights to block podcasts and apps for any reason, even if they’re arbitrary. I’d prefer, however, if Apple’s guidelines were clear and consistently enforced.