By Jason Snell

August 3, 2022 5:04 PM PT

iMessage and the Secret Service

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

I was struck by this section of a report by Politico’s Eric Geller involving the deletion of Secret Service messages related to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol:

The phone resets occurred as the Secret Service was implementing a new mobile device management (MDM) platform, a technology that employers use to centrally manage and preserve emails, photos and other data stored on employees’ phones. Apple’s iMessages cannot be backed up by this system, because they are encrypted and stored on users’ devices, unlike regular text messages.

This explanation seemed off to me, because while iMessage data is end-to-end encrypted in transmission and not stored by Apple as a part of the transmission process, it’s not actually encrypted on the device itself. Which is why iCloud backups, which are unencrypted, can contain the entire contents of iMessage conversations. (This is a workaround that has been used by law enforcement to obtain iMessage records in numerous occasions.)

Geller goes on:

Because of this issue, the Secret Service couldn’t store iMessages in a central location the way it managed its email system and other technologies. Thus, when individual agents failed to manually back up their data before their phones were erased and reconfigured for the new management system, the only copies of those iMessages were lost.

This portion seems to suggest that this is more an issue about a failure of backing up phones before wiping them, rather than the encrypted nature of iMessage itself. I ran it by Tom Bridge, Principal Product Manager at JumpCloud and co-host of the MacAdmins podcast, in the Six Colors Discord, and here’s what he had to say:

iMessage histories may be device specific and limited, and if they were not utilizing iCloud Backup (for Federal Government Cloud Reasons) it is possible that when the devices were wiped and setup anew with the MDM — so that the devices are supervised by the new MDM — the previous history was lost.

In short, I suspect they were prohibited from using any iCloud service because iCloud isn’t FedRAMP certified for security, and when they wiped the device to set them up with the new MDM service, they could not restore even a local on-disk backup, because those backups would’ve stored the supervision identity and the MDM enrollment from the previous MDM service.

There would be a way to do this, but it would’ve been a pain in the butt to organize because it requires that you swap handsets with your nearest other handset. (Local backups CAN be restored if the device UDID is different, because the supervision identity and MDM enrollment are entangled with the hardware.)

We ran into this with a healthcare startup I used to support. When they swapped MDMs, their text history was not preserved because they did not believe iCloud’s security was adequate for their HIPAA requirements. (They later changed their mind.)

Is it possible that this was, in fact, malicious? 100% yes. Is it possible that this was, actually, unintentionally caused? Also 100% yes.

My thanks to Tom for picking through the technical details of what might have gone on here.

By Jason Snell

August 1, 2022 4:51 PM PT

A HomeKit dimmer for my outdoor patio lights

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

Like seemingly everyone else, during the early days of the pandemic I tried to spruce up our outdoor space by buying some LED string lights. They were affordable, and with a simple kit I was able to suspend some nice lighting above my patio.

But plugging and unplugging the lights was no good, so I began my chase of an acceptable way to control the lights remotely—turning them on and off, yes, but also dimming them. I started with a radio-based remote dimmer, which worked—but the remote wasn’t very good, and frequently required multiple button presses to do the job.

I dreamt of an outdoor dimmer compatible with HomeKit. Lutron makes an outdoor smart plug that’s HomeKit compatible, and I tried it—but unfortunately, it doesn’t offer dimmer functionality, just on and off. I finally found the Treatlife outdoor smart dimmer plug, which did work—with Alexa and Google Home, but not HomeKit.

So it was Homebridge to the rescue! Turns out that Treatlife is just one brand name for the Tuya line of products, and there was a Homebridge app for that. After registering as a Tuya developer and getting an API key, I was able to get the dimmer to run somewhat reliably.

I set up a HomeKit automation that automatically turns on the lights, at about 20% brightness, after sunset and then turns them off after we’ve gone to bed for the evening. Even when we aren’t outside, it’s really nice to be able to look out the doors from our living room and see the patio rather than inky darkness.

But I never stopped looking for a proper HomeKit-enabled outdoor dimmer. And just the other week I found one, the $30 Meross Outdoor Dimmer Plug. I wish I could give you a lot of details about it, but that’s the thing… it just works. I pulled out the Treatlife/Tuya dimmer and popped in the Meross model in its place, added it to HomeKit via the Home app, and everything just works.

So if you, too, bought a bunch of cheap LED string lights and want to control them with HomeKit, I have good news! There’s finally something that will do the job.

By Jason Snell

July 28, 2022 2:31 PM PT

Last updated August 16, 2023

This is Tim: Complete Q3 2022 analyst call transcript

Note: This story has not been updated since 2023.

As always, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are talking to analysts after revealing Apple’s quarterly financial results. Here’s an ongoing transcript.

Continue reading “This is Tim: Complete Q3 2022 analyst call transcript”…

By Jason Snell

July 28, 2022 1:40 PM PT

Last updated August 16, 2023

Apple announces $83B fiscal third quarter

Note: This story has not been updated since 2023.

Apple’s fiscal results are out. The company generated $83B in revenue. Compared to the year-ago quarter, Mac sales were down 10%, iPad sales down 2%, iPhone up 3%, Services up 13%, and Wearables down 8%.

Here are all the charts!

Continue reading “Apple announces $83B fiscal third quarter”…

By Jason Snell

July 28, 2022 12:29 PM PT

My own personal Apple Store Time Machine

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

The Apple Store Time Machine is a project by Michael Steeber, who has been a go-to writer on Apple’s retail stores for many years. It’s a free Mac app called Shop Different, built with Unity, that lets you walk through four different Apple Stores as if you were in a video game. Steeber writes:

The Apple Store Time Machine is a celebration of the places and products that have shaped our lives for more than twenty years. This interactive experience recreates memorable moments in Apple history with painstaking detail and historical accuracy.

The stores are meticulous re-creations of the stores as they actually looked: The first Apple Store in Tysons Corner, Virginia in May 2001; the first “mini” store in Palo Alto in October 2004; the Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York in May 2006; and the Infinite Loop campus store in September 2015.

Steeber’s project brought up memories of my own. I covered the Palo Alto mini store opening for Macworld!

How accurate is it? I’ll let you decide for yourself – below is an image of the Time Machine and an actual photo from October 14, 2004—the day the store opened.

For those who don’t know, the “mini” store was a concept that let Apple get into very small spaces in shopping centers. Before the “mini” store was created, there were real estate markets Apple couldn’t crack. As momentum around Apple and Apple’s retail operations grew, that ceased to be a problem and the “mini” store faded away.

If you’ve got happy classic Apple Store memories, it’s worth downloading Steeber’s app and immersing yourself. Just remember that you can’t actually pick up that iSight box and check yourself out.

By Jason Snell

July 27, 2022 2:30 PM PT

Scrubbing through iOS 16’s Music app

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

We fear change. When I first saw that the Music app in iOS 16 had done away with its old controls for adjusting volume and scrubbing, I was confused and upset. It’s human nature. But now that I’ve used them a little more… I think I approve.

Here’s what it’s been like forever: both the volume and runtime of a track in Music are represented by a horizontal line, with a little dot on the line representing the current status. As your track plays, the little dot in the runtime area slowly progresses from the far left side to the far right. Likewise, the dot at the left side of the volume slider means your volume is all the way down, and on the right side it means it’s all the way up.

In iOS 16, the dots are banished. Instead, there’s just a line with a part of it that’s a different level of opacity. The big problem here is that the dots were very visible, letting you read the current status of the app pretty easily. I’ve got some concerns about the legibility of the two lines in iOS 16, though at least as of the latest beta, the contrast seems to be enough to make status clear.

The real advance, though, is in how you control volume or scrub through a track. Previously, you needed to put your finger down on the dot itself, and then slide the dot back and forth. If you missed the dot, you failed. In iOS 16, the entire area of the bar is swipeable. You just put your finger down, anywhere, and slide it back and forth.

Want to scrub forward? Pop down your finger and swipe right. It doesn’t matter where your finger falls, as long as it’s on the scrub line. The same thing goes for volume: put your finger anywhere on the line and swipe to the right to make it louder, or to the left to make it quieter. As you scrub, the line gets larger, making it easier to see what you’re doing as you swipe.

Yes, this is the eradication of a little bit of skeuomorphism from the iOS interface. Someone out there is up in arms about it and is filing a strongly worded Feedback item to Apple even now. But I’m inclined to view this as an enhancement to the user experience. You shouldn’t have to aim your finger to land precisely on a little circle in order to change the volume. A touch in the general vicinity and a swipe should be enough. And once we stop looking for that circle and just swipe with abandon, I think we’ll all be better off.