Partner, Many Tricks Software Rob Griffiths - BGM Interview

Rob Griffiths worked for Apple (1990-95), founded macosxhints.com in 2000, went on to write for Macworld Magazine, has done some podcasting, and is currently a partner at Many Tricks Software, makers of great Mac utilities such as Moom, Witch and Name Mangler.

Rob recalled his early years with the T.I. Silent 700, Commodore PET, and Apple II. At Colorado State University, Rob realized programming was not for him and followed a business track. Later, after graduate school, he landed a job with Apple. We chatted about his career, moving on to great years at Macworld Magazine, and then his current partnership at Many Tricks Software. We then delved into WWDC 2020, challenges as an Apple developer, the transition of Macs to Apple Silicon, and the evolution of macOS as a partial touch-screen OS. Good stuff here!

‘FindTheMadness’ Safari Extension Alerts You to Fake Clicks

FindTheMadness is a new Safari extension from Jeff Johnson. It gives you an alert when a website tricks you by running JavaScript triggered by a click.

FindTheMadness detects when JavaScript on websites overrides the normal expected behavior of your mouse and keyboard […] You may be astonished to discover how often you click what you think is a link on a page, but you’re actually running JavaScript triggered by a click.

Sounds like a nice tool, and it’s free.

‘Hamilton’ Gives Disney+ Holiday Weekend Subscriber Boost

It looks like ending free trials didn’t deter users signing up to Disney+. The streaming service got a nice boost over the holiday weekend, thanks to the arrival of Hamilton. The hit musical helped the service get.a 74 percent increase in subscribers from the four previous weekends, according to TechCrunch.

According to new data from app store analytics firm Apptopia, Disney’s streaming service saw a big jump in downloads over the July 4 holiday weekend in the U.S., following the worldwide debut of “Hamilton” on Friday, July 3rd. Between Friday and Sunday, that translated to over half a million new global downloads (752K+) for the Disney+ mobile app, excluding India and Japan. Some 458K+ of those downloads were in the U.S, the firm estimated. These figures represent a 46.6% increase over the average seen during the previous four weekends in June (Friday through Sunday), Apptopia noted.

The Story Behind Apple PowerBook’s Design

Gavin Ivester is currently VP of Design at Bang & Olufsen. He started his career at Apple though, working on the PowerBook. He told TechRader how the product took shape.

The ergonomic goal was to get that front edge to be as thin as possible, for comfort, assuming you would use the laptop on a desk.  The breakthrough came from a system integration engineer named Jonathan Krakower, who proposed we push the keyboard back, and then put the battery in one of the now-empty front corners, and the disc drive in the other corner.  That left a space in the middle for some kind of cursor control, and trackballs were the best solution at that moment… My challenge was then to design options to bring that layout idea to life as a product, prototype them, test them with real users, and design better ones until we either had a final design or proved it would never work.   

An iCloud of Uncertainty — Mac Geek Gab 823

When iCloud works, it’s great. And, for the most part, that’s how it is. But sometimes…it just gets plain wonky. Several of you had several questions about that this week, and Dave and John dig in to get you sorted! That’s not all, though. Cool Stuff Found, routers, and even some future stuff is all up for discussion when your two favorite geeks get together this week. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!

Happy U.S. Independence Day, 2020 Edition

In honor of Independence Day—a U.S. holiday—The Mac Observer is taking off Friday, July 3rd. We will return Monday, July 6th, with our usual Apple, Mac, iPad iPhone, and Apple Watch news. TMO’s Daily Observations podcast is taking off the holiday, too. Enjoy the holiday, keep those masks on, and stay safe!

Double-Spending Flaw Found in Major Bitcoin Wallets

Israeli researchers at wallet startup ZenGeo have found a vulnerability affecting at least three major crypto wallets – Ledger Live, Edge, and Breadwallet. The flaw allows hackers to spend Bitcoin more than once,  Coindesk report,Ed.

The bug, which the Tel Aviv-based firm calls BigSpender, allows a hacker to double-spend a user’s funds and possibly prevent them from ever using their wallet again. It works by exploiting how certain wallet’s handle Bitcoin’s replace-by-fee (RBF) function, a failsafe that enables users to swap an unconfirmed transaction with one that has a higher fee. “[BigSpender] can lead to substantial financial losses and in some cases to make the victim’s wallet totally unusable, with no way for the victim to protect themselves,” ZenGo CEO Ouriel Ohayon said in an email. “So this can be seen as a high severity attack.”

Foxconn Imports Disrupted by India-China Tensions

Imports to India by key Apple supplier Foxconn have been slowed as a result of escalating tensions between the country and China. Reuters reported that Apple is amongst the companies seeking to free its shipments.

Customs officers at Indian ports have held back shipments from China and sought additional clearances after deadly clashes at the disputed Himalayan border last month. The checks have been imposed without any formal order. While several companies such as Apple (AAPL.O) and Dell (DELL.N) have been battling to free stuck shipments, hundreds of employees at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn’s two plants in the south had no major work to do this week as shipments were delayed, sources said.

macOS Big Sur and the Return of Whimsical Design

Designer Michael Flarup writes about how macOS Big Sur will bring back “fun in visual design.”

With this approach Apple is legalising a visual design expressiveness that we haven’t seen from them in almost a decade. It’s like a ban has been lifted on fun. This will severely loosen the grip of minimalistic visual design and raise the bar for pixel pushers everywhere. Your glyph on a colored background is about to get some serious visual competition.

I don’t miss pre-iOS 7 skeuomorphism, but I don’t think I’ll mind some of that era’s icons coming back (just without the gloss). I also wonder if we’ll see them on iOS, or just macOS.