¶ PIN for iOS

Yesterday evening, I saw an interesting tweet from Kevin Rose:

If a four digit pin is good enough for the ATM it should be sufficient for an iTunes purchase on my phone, putting in passwords sucks

Now, I really believe in having strong passwords that are different for the various services I use. To do this, I employ the use of 1Password on my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and my Windows 7 virtual machine. And it all stays in sync via the wonderful Dropbox. Using this, not even I know the various passwords for the different sites and services I use. But 1Password does, and I know how to get at that information.

However, I am forced to either remember my password for iTunes/App Store purchases/updates on my iPhone and iPad, or delve into 1Password each and every time I need to do anything.

I can see why Kevin seeks a PIN for iOS. And I am nearly inclined to agree. Apple provides the free Find My iPhone service, which gives an extra security to lock someone out of your data or erase that data entirely if your iDevice falls into the wrong hands. I think for most people a PIN would be sufficient. Much like an ATM, you need to have two things: something you have (the card) and something you know (the PIN). The situation is very similar with Kevin's idea. You have your iPhone and you know your PIN. And just like if you lost your card and report it missing, you can lock down or erase your iPhone if necessary.

I think the PIN system could work. It should at least be an option for those willing to take a little greater risk.

Visa Invests in Square, VeriFone Cries in the Corner

Square is one of my favorite new companies in the past couple years. I've posted ad nauseum about them and truly love their product.

A while back, major card reader vendor VeriFone cried foul and launched a smear campaign against Square. Now VeriFone is just crying.

Turns out Visa has invested in Square. Nothing legitimizes the underdog like that.

Apple Responds to the Location Kerfuffle

Apple responded to the controversy over the location logging file that was making its round through the media last week.

In short:

• The file is an appropriate, relevant subset of data (cache) from a crowd-sourced database to aid in speeding up location locks when a user requests their position. (I was right)
• When a user authorizes a position request, Apple does receive data about the geo-coordinates of nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots to add to the crowd-sourced database. This data is encrypted and anonymous.
• The cache shouldn't be storing nearly a year's worth of data. It should be closer to a week. This will be fixed in the coming weeks via a software update.
• The same update will fix a bug in which the iPhone still collects this data even if Location Services are turned off.
• The update will also remove the cache from iPhone backups.

The entire Q&A is worth a read. It satisfies all of my questions.

Apple's Gigantic Pile of Cash

Apple recently reported its 2Q financial earnings, stating that they had $65.8 billion of cash in the bank.

asymco published an analysis of Apple's report yesterday, breaking down all sorts of nifty things. Chief among them is this tidbit:

If Apple had no revenues, the current cash would sustain operations (SG&A and R&D) for over 7 years or until the middle of 2018.

There is no doubt about it, Apple is one the most financially healthy companies in the world. It is amazing how much they have grown in a down economy, and they are not showing any signs of slowing down.

[h/t Daring Fireball]

The White Whale Arrives

Apple announced via their homepage today that the long-delayed white iPhone 4 is arriving tomorrow. This was supposed to be released alongside the black iPhone 4 back in June 2010. So, after several delays lasting ten months you can finally get a white iPhone 4 if you've been holding out.

This is an extremely rare fumble by Apple, which usually has fantastic control over its QA, supply chain, and release schedules.

Marco Arment's Take on iOS Location Tracking

Marco Arment:

The reason everyone’s up in arms about the iPhone’s location database, I think, isn’t that the data is particularly incriminating or embarrassing for most people. Rather, we’ve simply been reminded quite how much of our lives these convenient pocket computers are privy to.

He goes on to compare this kerfuffle of iOS location tracking to the amount of privacy we shed on various social networks. Be sure to read the whole thing.

Changing Routines

Ben Brooks on changing up routines and habits:

People often ask me how I think of topics to write about, or how I find the motivation to do “so much”. The truth is: much of the ideas I come up with are arrived at while I am driving somewhere — and I can’t help but think that, in some small way, this is because I turned left where I should have turned right.

I can echo that my largest creative ruts happen when all I do is lather, rinse, & repeat.

"Magic"

John Gruber:

The difference between iOS and Android, design-wise, can be summed in a single word: magic. iOS aims for it. Android doesn’t want it.

Twitterrific 4.1 for iOS Shines with Polish

My favorite Twitter app, Twitterrific, has released a major feature update chock full of refinements on iOS, bringing it up to par with the Mac app.

The biggest new feature is username suggestions when composing a tweet. Simply type the @ symbol then start typing either the username or the corresponding listed real name, and a little slide bar with show up showing you users that match. Tap the user and the name is filled. Other apps do this, but Iconfactory's implementation is pretty slick.

Also, Twitterrific's tap gestures have been simplified and overhauled. I'm especially loving the Report Spammer button when long-tapping an avatar. That button has been long overdue.

These are just a couple of the many updates (and a ton of bug fixes) in Twitterrific 4.1. Be sure to check out the release notes and take the app for a spin.

¶ My Theory on Why iOS Logs Your Location

Media coverage is sensationalizing an open source tool, iPhoneTracker, which maps out location data points collected by a 3G-capable iOS device. Be sure to read their FAQ, which isn't so sensational.

Using this app to look at my data, it definitely pings off cell towers, not GPS. With this in mind, I posit that Apple may have the iPhone (and 3G iPad) keep track of cell towers to aid in speeding up its Assisted-GPS, which uses cell towers to triangulate a smaller search area for the GPS satellite. The device would be able to provide location results to the user much more quickly if it had an index of nearby towers.

This would also explain why this data is included in the iPhone backup. It would be inefficient to rebuild the database from scratch if you had to restore your phone.

And to pre-empt the argument of why doesn't Apple include a pre-made database:

• Databases take up drive space. The method of logging towers near you makes the data relevant to you, and excludes a lot data that would be largely useless to you.

  Addendum: Of course this still results in a database that takes up space, but it wouldn't be nearly as large. The point is that you have a database of relevant data.

• Also, Apple doesn't have to maintain updates to carrier databases when new towers are added. Instead, your iPhone just maps a new nearby tower itself.

Lastly, I haven't seen anyone provide any evidence that this data is transmitted back to Apple. So if this data only exists on your device and its backup file, what's the big deal? Especially since it is probably saving you time when you willingly tell the world where you are via geo-tagged tweets, Foursquare check-ins, and Instagram updates. Never mind that the Camera app geo-tags every photo you take in an instant.