Archive for Apple

Microsoft Is Adding iMessage To Windows 11…. With Limitations

Posted in Commentary with tags , on March 5, 2023 by itnerd

Microsoft “is adding iPhone support to its Phone Link app on Windows 11” according to a blog post from Microsoft. Typically, iMessage has been a locked down environment that non-Apple devices are unable to use because Apple doesn’t play nice with others. But there are limitations:

Once the guided installation completes and your iPhone is paired to your PC and the right permissions given, Phone Link will deliver basic iOS support for calls, messages, and contacts. This means you will be notified directly through your Windows notifications. Phone Link does not support replying to group messages or sending media in messages.

That’s not exactly great. But the fact that any level of support for iMessage on a non-Apple device is something. At present, a small group of people who are part of the Windows Insider program has access to this, but it may expand and may get access to this feature which to be clear, is a beta. But the key thing to think about is that you have to wonder what Apple is going to do to stop this. You have to imagine that people at Apple Park can’t be happy about this, and will do everything they can to break this support long before it hits the streets for the general public. That way, Apple users have to stay in Apple’s really pretty, but really restrictive walled garden.

Apple’s Quality Of Service Has Seriously Nosedived As Exhibited By My Recent Negative Experience With Them

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 13, 2023 by itnerd

I like Apple products. But a very negative experience that has been ongoing since November of last year has seriously made me reconsider being part of the ecosystem. Let’s start from the beginning.

Back in November of last year, I had an issue with the keyboard on my MacBook Pro. Specifically the “C” key would not work. No problem I figured. I took a visit to my local Apple Store after making a Genius Bar appointment. The Genius was able to diagnose it instantly and tried to repair it by replacing the specific key. That didn’t work so he ordered a new top case which includes a keyboard, battery, and trackpad and sent me home with my MacBook Pro. It came in a few days later and I took my MacBook Pro and it was promised to me five days later.

That’s where my problems began.

Five days came and went and I heard nothing from Apple. I called in and got the run around. And only when I forced the issue did I get an answer. They replaced the top case and discovered that the ambient light sensor was faulty. I was then told that they would put a “rush” on my repair by trying a new screen to see if it would fix my issue. Another day went by and nothing. That’s when I phoned the Apple Store again and pressed the issue again. I got a senior repair tech who said that he would order a new logic board (aka, the main system board) as the screen didn’t fix the issue. He assured me that he would put a new “rush” on getting the logic board into the store and into my computer. Three days after that I got a call saying that my MacBook Pro was ready.

Let me stop here for a second before I go on. I get it that stuff happens when you’re in the business of repairing stuff. But to force the customer to call in to get information on their status of their repair rather than being proactive really leaves a bad taste in the customer’s mouth. And frankly, a company like Apple should know better.

Back to the story.

I got the MacBook home, did a Time Machine restore and I thought all was fine. Except that it wasn’t. When I tried to set up Apple Pay, I got this error message:

Now one thing that I should point out is that the Apple Store asked me to remove my MacBook Pro from my Apple ID account so that the could facilitate the repair. I am guessing that this had something to do with this issue for reasons that I will get to in a moment. As part of my troubleshooting, I noted that the MacBook Pro still had the credit cards that I was trying to add associated with it. I tried to delete them from the computer, as well as from iCloud with no success as they came back within seconds. This ties into my theory about something about my Apple ID being messed up. While I figured that this was Apple’s issue, to be safe I contacted both banks associated with the credit cards in question. After 45+ minutes with each bank, they determined that there should be no reason why I shouldn’t be able to add these cards, and this was clearly Apple’s issue. And to be extra safe, I did a clean install of the operating system as that is what Apple usually falls back on when someone has an issue with a Mac. No change to the behaviour. That’s when I called Apple. And that’s really where the nightmare began. Apple opened a case, then after going through circle of troubleshooting, failing to resolve the issue, pass me along to someone else four times, claimed that the cards would disappear on their own in five days and they would follow up with me to confirm that happened.

Except they never contacted me.

So when they didn’t follow up with me when they promised to, I phoned in again. then after again going through circle of troubleshooting, failing to resolve the issue, pass me along to someone else four more times, they said that they would escalate the issue and I would hear from them in a couple of days.

I never heard from them and attempts to follow up failed. Then I discovered that the case had been closed. At this point I figured that I wasted enough time on this. So I forgot about it as clearly Apple didn’t care enough to solve this issue.That changed today with macOS Ventura 13.2.1 hit the streets. I updated and happened to check my Apple ID and found that the cards had been deleted. Now I don’t know if this Ventura update or just time was the reason why the cards were no longer present. But I decided to try and add a card. Sure enough, it failed with the same error message. So I called Apple and quoted the original case number. And then went through five people. Yes five people. All of which were playing the game of “blame the victim” by saying things like it was my network, I should not have done a Time Machine restore, go talk to my bank as it’s their fault, etc. When I kept calling them on it, the fifth guy I spoke to blamed the fact that I had installed beta software. Which was a bold faced lie as I was running a production version of macOS Ventura 13.2.1. I even offered to show him via Apple’s screen sharing feature. But he stuck to his story. Either he was misinformed, or he was just trying to get me off the phone. Either way this really left a bad taste in my mouth. And since we were engaging in a circular argument, I just ended the call.

So, I’m resigned to the fact that Apple Pay isn’t going to work on my MacBook Pro. And I’ve discovered on Reddit at least one other person who has the same issue:

So seeing as I am not the only person that has this issue, Apple clearly has an issue that they don’t want to own. And as a result, their customers are on the short end of the stick. That’s really doesn’t reflect well on Apple. And as a result several things have happened or are going to happen:

  • When customer ask me if they should get a Mac, I will simply say that their hardware is fine. But their after service support leaves a lot to be desired. And the latter is more important than the former.
  • I was just about to pull the trigger to get an M2 Pro Mac mini for the purposes of running my Zwift setup. But that’s not going to happen as I am not going to give Apple any more of my money as I feel that the after sales support is simply not there. Instead, I will be investigating a small form factor PC build.

So, am I going to dump my Apple hardware? No. At least not yet. But as my hardware and accessories from Apple fall out of AppleCare, and I need to look for replacements, PC’s are on the table for the first time in over a decade. The fact is that I have been around long enough to remember when Apple’s after sales support was top notch. But those days are clearly over based on this experience. Which means that I will have to make my future purchasing decisions based on the fact that Apple is no longer the company that it once was. Now I am free to be proven wrong. But I don’t think I am as even if Apple reads this, I seriously doubt that I will get a response from them as they are not the sort of company to ever apologize for screwing up. Which means that they will have one less loyal customer as a result.

Review: Apple Black Unity Sport Loop

Posted in Products with tags on February 1, 2023 by itnerd

February is Black History Month and Apple over the last couple of years has released a limited edition Apple Watch band. Two years ago they released a Black Unity Sport band. Last year they released and I reviewed a Braided Solo Loop Band, and this year they’ve released a Sport Loop version. Let’s have a look at it:

Just like last year it comes in a black box that highlights the band.

On the back of the box, it’s mentioned that Apple supports racial equity and justice.

Inside the box you get two things. A thick piece of paper that says “unity” on it in the Pan African colours, and the band itself.

Opening the piece of paper that says “unity” you get this text in a number of languages.

And here’s the sport band in the Pan African colours. One thing that is interesting is that the yellow that you see in the band is really a combination of red and green woven to make it look yellow. That’s a clever trick. The black sections that make up the word “UNITY” on the band are raised and are soft to the touch. As for what it feels like when you wear it, well it feels like your typical sport loop to be honest. That is that it is comfortable and stretches a bit.

On the inside of the band, you get this “Black Unity” label.

And here’s the band on my Apple Watch Ultra with the Unity Mosaic watch face which showed up in watchOS 9.3. There’s a matching iPhone wallpaper that was added to iOS 16.3.

This band is at $59 CDN is far more affordable than the $119 CDN that last year’s band went for. Thus I suspect that you’ll see a lot more of them in the wild. And the fact that it has a meaning and a message, as well as the fact that it supports efforts for racial justice is something that should make Apple Watch owners want to grab one.

Apple Is Now Up To FOUR Lawsuits Over Privacy Issues On The iPhone

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 31, 2023 by itnerd

To recap this story, you may recall that last year that a security researcher named Tommy Mysk discovered that regardless of whether you allowed your iPhone to send analytics data to Apple or not, iPhones and specifically Apple apps were sending that data anyway. That led to a lawsuit. Which then became two lawsuits, then three lawsuits. Now we have the fourth lawsuit as spotted by The Register:

The complaint [PDF], filed in Northern California District Court on behalf of plaintiff Julie Cima, claims Apple captures iPhone customer data despite device settings declaring a preference that information should not be shared.

“Apple records consumers’ personal information and activity on its consumer mobile devices and applications (‘apps’), even after consumers explicitly indicate through Apple’s mobile device settings that they do not want their data and information shared,” the complaint, filed this week, says. “This activity amounts to an enormous wealth of data that Apple collects and uses for its financial gain.”

I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Apple trades on being more private than the other guy. The other guy being Android. And these lawsuits really take that perception and rips it to shreds. And as more of these lawsuits get filed, because you know that there are more lawsuits coming, that’s only going to get worse for Apple. Thus they really need to speak to this, and do so quickly. The problem is that Apple isn’t going to do that, and that will make things worse for the folks at Apple Park.

Sucks to be you Apple.

How To Make Your Apple Watch Ultra More “Ultra” (Also Applies To Other Apple Watch Models)

Posted in Products with tags on January 27, 2023 by itnerd

When the Apple Watch Ultra first popped up, people naturally compared it to Garmin sports watches and pointed out the shortcomings that the Apple Watch Ultra had. These shortcomings were:

  • No offline maps for the Apple Watch Workout app
  • No recovery and training advice

Now to be fair, these were shortcomings that the Apple Watch have always had. But they were magnified because of how the Apple Watch Ultra was marketed. Which was directly against established sport watches that had these features baked into their offerings. The good news is that you can easily add these features to not only your Apple Watch Ultra, but any Apple Watch actually to make either more “Ultra”. Let’s start with recovery advice as that is important to the Apple Watch Ultra’s target market.

For recovery and training advice, I have been using an app called Athlytic for the last couple of years on both my iPhone and Apple Watch. I’m going to use their definition of what their app does a great job of encapsulating it:

Athlytic is an app that works with both the iPhone and the Apple Watch to leverage the data in Apple Health, giving you daily, personalized insights into and coaching about your health and daily training.

More specifically, Athlytic uses the health data, collected by your Apple Watch, to help you gauge three things for the current day: how ready your body is to perform, how much cardiovascular exertion you should aim to put on your body, and how much cumulative cardiovascular exertion you’ve put on your body.

Athlytic generates three primary metrics: a Recovery score, a Target Exertion Zone, and an Exertion score.

So in short, it helps me to figure out how hard I can or more accurately should push myself when I work out or take it easy. Which in case you are wondering, I do a workout every day either on the bike outdoors, on the bike indoors via the Zwift platform, cross country skiing in the winter, and some other stuff like hiking and walking.

Let me walk you through how I use it.

When I wake up in the morning and open Athlytic, the recovery screen is the first place I go to. I’ve really been doing some hard workouts lately on Zwift, and it shows that over the last week that my body really isn’t recovering form the efforts that I have put in over the last few days. So based on this, I should be doing less intense workouts to get my body to fully recover. Athlytic goes deep into the weeds to help you understand how these numbers are calculated which you can read here. But the main metric that works into this recovery score is HRV or heart rate variability which Athlytic defines as follows:

The next screen that I go to is the sleep screen to see how well (or not so well) I slept the previous night. On this night, I had decent sleep as it was north of 7.5 hours.

I also pay attention to my sleep debt, which is a way of illustrating if you are consistently getting 7.5 or more hours of sleep consistently, which in turn pays off in terms of better recovery scores. I also pay attention to my sleep time consistency. Which is another way of illustrating if my bedtime is the same every night which helps me get a better nights sleep. Both of these are in a very good place at the moment.

I also tag what happened the day before. For example, the day before I had two cups of coffee in the morning. I do this because Athlytic can start trending recovery relative to different things that happen. Thus I can see what positively or negatively affects my recovery.

Athlytic measures a number of metrics via your Apple Watch, and presents them in this summary page. If anything is out of line, you’ll get an alert, as having any of these out of line may be in indication of fatigue or sickness.

The final screen that I look at is the trends screen which has my exertion or how hard I worked out in blue, and the recovery in grey. This illustrates that earlier this week, I was working out way harder than I should have and I am now paying for it later in the week as the blue line was way above the grey line. I got that under control later in the week. But by then my body was clearly fatigued. Thus something that I need to focus on is bringing those lines closer together as I am going to get more fitness gains by not over training.

So with that out of the way, my wife and I planned to go cross country skiing and given this recovery level, we planned to do two laps of a loop that was just over 5K. I would do the second lap by myself at my typical pace which is way faster than what my wife can do. That’s where another app called WorkOutDoors comes in:

The Apple Watch Workout app is really inadequate. It doesn’t have anywhere the level of customization that any dedicated sports watch such as a Garmin watch has. It also doesn’t support the paring of sensors like power meters on bikes for example. And more importantly, it doesn’t support offline maps which a lot of endurance athletes rely upon. WorkOutDoors solves all of that and really leverages the big screen of the Apple Watch Ultra as seen here. I can use the iPhone app to create custom screens like this one to display the information that I need to see, as well as download routes in .gpx file format to allow me to follow a route. Including in situations where I do not have cellular service which is something that the baked in Workout app cannot do. I will admit that when you first look at this app to try and customize your screens, it can be intimidating. But I encourage you to experiment with different views and try them out to see if you like them or not as it really isn’t that intimidating. One big plus of WorkOutDoors is that I can have it upload directly to the sports social networking site Strava because if your workout is not posted to Strava, it didn’t happen as far as your friends are concerned. WorkOutDoors has mostly replaced the Workout app on my Apple Watch Ultra as it is simply far more usable and functional with the exception of one thing. WorkOutDoors really needs to leverage the always on display as it doesn’t offer “live” views even when the screen is dimmed. If they fixed that, this app would be perfect.

So, after my wife and I did our laps of the route that we planned, I can go back to Althyltic and see how hard I worked.

This is the second lap of the just over 5K route that I spoke of earlier where I was pushing myself a bit harder. Athlytic can display the heart rate of my cross country ski run and then go into the weeds about what this means.

In this case, it showed me that while I was working hard, but not insanely hard. Most of my heart rate was in zone four which is good for building my VO2 Max capacity. I also note that this workout was scored as a 4.01 in terms of effort. Combined with my first run which was much easier, I got an exertion score of 5.9 which was well within my exertion range of 4.5 to 6.5 that I was aiming for. It also shows how intense the workout was. Because you can do a workout and think “wow that was hard” and it actually wasn’t. In this case, it validates that I was working hard but not going over the top.

In fact, Athlytic says so as 76% of this lap was anaerobic. This is the sort of workout that will help my cycling when the road season starts up again.

For me, the combination of these apps allows me to really focus on how I train, how I recover, as well as seeing the real time metrics that I need to work out effectively. And both have resulted in a significant gain in fitness for yours truly. Thus I consider these apps to be a must if you’re serious about using the Apple Watch to up your fitness game. Athlytic is a subscription app which costs $30.99 CDN a year. WorkOutDoors however is a one time payment app which is $8.49 CDN. However both support Family Sharing so others in your family who want to up their fitness game can do so easily and for one fee for up to six people. If you want to make your Apple Watch more “Ultra” regardless of whether you have an Apple Watch Ultra or some other Apple Watch so that you can really improve your fitness, and make up for the lack of this functionality from Apple, you should have a serious look at both of these apps.

Apple’s Activation Lock Has Resulted In Perfectly Good Apple Products Being Scrapped

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 26, 2023 by itnerd

When Apple came out with Activation Lock which stops Apple Products from being reused if they are stolen because they are locked to the original owner, I applauded that as it makes iPhones and Macs less of a target for thieves. Or at least it should make them less of a target for thieves. But there’s one unfortunate side effect that Motherboard has detailed:

Secondhand MacBooks that retailed for as much as $3,000 are being turned into parts because recyclers have no way to login and factory reset the machines, which are often just a couple years old.

In short, Activation Lock is creating a problem with recyclers where they can’t factory reset perfectly good computers. So instead of factory resetting them and selling them on the used market, they are selling them for scrap. Or in the worst case, destroying parts that they can’t use with all sorts of health and environmental effects.

This is a huge optics issue that Apple has unintentionally created. And at least at this point, they don’t seem to want to help solve this problem. And I can see why from Apple’s point of view. If you give recyclers the tools factory reset these Macs, those tools might end up in the hands of thieves who would do the same thing with stolen Macs. And if Apple were to reset these computers themselves, it would be a logistical challenge for them as they would likely have to sort out what’s legit and what might have been stolen. Still, I think Apple may have to do something here as this is a bit of an optics issue for a company that likes to brag about their environmental “street cred.”Let’s see if they do or say something now that this is out there.

HomePod OS 16.3 Has Been Released And It Activates Hidden Climate Sensors… Here’s What That Looks Like For You

Posted in Tips with tags on January 24, 2023 by itnerd

Today Apple released HomePod OS 16.3. And part of that release includes code to active climate sensors that have been hidden in the HomePod mini since the day that they were released in 2020. I believe that Apple intends that these will be used to monitor the temperature and humidity in rooms, and run automations based on that. I just updated my HomePod minis and here’s what I saw.

First of all, I noted that it took about 30 minutes per HomePod mini to update which is a bit longer than I was used to. I have four HomePod minis and I did the update on all of them at the same time to save some time. During the update, I noted a new tab was added to the Home app:

There’s now a Climate tab that allows you to see what the HomePod mini is detecting in terms of temperature and humidity. But once the update was completed, I wasn’t able to use this right away. Instead I saw this:

All the temperature and humidity sensors were in a “calibrating” state. That took about 30 minutes to complete. After that, I was able see this:

Now I don’t have anything like HomeKit compatible fans or anything of the sort. So I can’t use for anything useful myself. Other than perhaps ask Siri what the temperature is in a room. But if you have a HomeKit compatible fan or something of the sort, you can leverage that to turn on a fan if the temperature is too high, or turn on a HomeKit compatible humidifier if the humidity is too low. For what it’s worth, this information will also show up in widgets on the Home Screen in a summary format. Finally, I should note that the new HomePod that Apple is releasing shortly, which I can’t figure out why it exists, has similar functionality. And it is a safe bet that those will ship with 16.3 installed from the factory.

So is this new functionality in the HomePod mini something that you will leverage? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Apple Puts Out A Campaign For Data Privacy Day… While Being Sued For Data Privacy Issues

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 24, 2023 by itnerd

I really find the fact that Apple is celebrating Data Privacy Day which is January 28th with a full campaign highlight that they apparently protect the privacy of its users ironic. But before I get to the ironic part, let’s get to the campaign that Apple is running. First, there are dedicated privacy-focused “Today at Apple” sessions. According to Apple, in this session, attendees will learn how they can customize each feature based on their individual privacy preferences. Which I suppose is a good thing. You can sign up for the “Taking Charge of Your Privacy on iPhone” session starting today on Apple’s website in the “Today At Apple” section in your country.

Second, there’s a short film that stars Ted Lasso star Nick Mohammed who plays “Nate the Great” on the show:

Now to the ironic part. Currently there are a total of three separate lawsuits relating to the lack of privacy on the iPhone that Apple is currently dealing with. While nothing has been proven in court, it’s clear that the “reality distortion field” is set to full strength at Apple Park as clearly they don’t see the irony here. And perhaps, maybe their MARCOMM people didn’t really think this through. Or they’re banking on the fact that the average Joe hasn’t heard of the three lawsuits in question. Either way, I am not sure that this is a good look for Apple.

What’s In My Tech Sling Bag – The 2023 Edition

Posted in Products with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2023 by itnerd

Often when I get a phone call from a client from a client to assist them with some sort of tech issue, I need to grab a handful of things that I know that I will usually need on a job and go. For years, I’ve sort of scrambled to find what I need on a moment’s notice, and that came to a head when I lost my Victorinox Cyber Tool. Thus I decided that I needed to do something different and have a bag that has the most commonly used items that I need when I go see a client. That way I know where everything is, and I can get out of the house quicker. Not to mention reduce my chances of losing something. I decided on a sling bag as that is compact enough to fit inside a backpack or a laptop bag, but holds everything that I need. This is the sling bag in question:

The is the tomtoc Explorer-H02 EDC Sling Bag in the 8 inch size which has an outer compartment that holds miscellaneous items, a compartment in the back that holds one item that I will get to in a moment, and a middle compartment that holds the majority of my gear. Because it is a sling bag, it goes over my shoulder which is handy if I am just using it by itself. But it will also fit inside my laptop bag or backpack. Another plus is that it will fit some of my EDC should the need arise. Be it my sunglasses, AirPods Pro or anything like that.

As for what’s inside of it, here’s the current list.

I’ve got an Apple AirTag in it so that if I misplace it, I can find it easily. It’s inside a Belkin AirTag holder which makes sure that I can attach it to a loop inside the sling bag.

In the back compartment is this GearAid HeroClip. What this is for is to allow me to hook, hang, and carry my gear. I have it because if I have to use a public restroom, there is often no place to hang a jacket, or the sling bag, or a laptop bag. Thus making this piece of kit extremely handy. I got the large size to make sure that I could hang anything that I needed as it has a 100 pound weight limit.

I also carry some Woosh Screen shine and a microfibre cloth as I never know when I might need to clean a computer’s screen or keyboard. Be it mine or somebody else’s. This stuff works really well and it’s currently my go to for my computer cleaning needs.

I carry two cables with me at all times. The first is an Anker USB-C cable that does power delivery, as well as a RollingSquare InCharge XL which is my one cable to rule them all. I say that because it will cover any use case that I may need when at a client’s location as it is good for data transfer and for charging.

On the right is a replacement Victorinox Cyber Tool as I find this to be extremely handy to do everything from open boxes to disassembling computers. On the left is a 1TB NVMe that I use to transfer data at a customer’s site. This is something that I built myself so let me explain what went into building this. I started with a SABRENT 1TB SSD Rocket NVMe m.2 4.0, Gen4 PCIe M.2 SSD which is one of the fastest drives that the company makes, then I got my hands on this four pack of thermal pads from Amazon as NVMe SSDs tend to get hot, and I wanted to make sure that it didn’t nuke itself while I was using it. I also got my hands on this enclosure from Amazon that did USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps transfer speeds. That’s more than fast enough for my needs. Plus it’s made of metal so it will dissipate heat. Putting it together was a bit tricky as I wrapped the thermal pads around the SSD which made sliding it together a tight fit. But by using the thermal pads, I can be assured that the heat that the SSD generates would be transferred to the case and then dissipated from there. I will say the case does get hot when it is used for extended periods of time, but that does not concern me given the care that I have taken to put this together.

The next thing in my sling bag is this Ugreen Nexode 100W USB charger. This allows me to provide power to my MacBook Pro or customer’s computer, tablet, or phone should the need arise. And you would be surprised how often that happens. Because this adapter is 100W and doesn’t take up a lot of real estate, I am covered for almost any charging related issue.

If I am away from a AC outlet and I need to top off my iPhone, or a phone belonging to someone else, I have this Jackery Mini charger along with the RollingSquare InCharge X which between the two of them allow me to charge any smartphone to past 50% at the very least.

Finally, I have the Bic 2 in 1 Pen. This is a lightweight pen plus stylus for any capacitive touch screen device which is handy for an iPad or iPhone. I have an emergency pen as part of my EDC, but it doesn’t hurt to have another one in my sling bag.

I have a CR2032 battery in this sling bag. Why? I can’t count the number of times that I have come across a PC with a dead clock battery, and then had to find a battery either at a corner store or a local “The Source” store in a panic. Thus I keep one in my possession at all times.

So that’s what is inside my tech sling bag. This works for me, but I would be interested in hearing from you in terms of what you think I should add to it or change. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Apple Is Now Up To Three Lawsuits Over iPhone Data Collection…. And Counting

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 19, 2023 by itnerd

You might recall that last year that a security researcher named Tommy Mysk discovered that regardless of whether you allowed your iPhone to send analytics data to Apple or not, iPhones and specifically Apple apps were sending that data anyway. That led to a lawsuit. Then it led to a second lawsuit. And now the number of lawsuits is up to three:

Paul Whalen, the attorney suing Apple in the New York suit, told Gizmodo he’s worked on a number of high-profile data breach cases over the last 20 years, matters that often involve unintentional errors. This isn’t one of those cases, he said.

“Those data breaches happened in large part because someone made a mistake that shouldn’t have occurred,” Whalen said. “In this case, with Apple, there doesn’t appear to be a mistake. Apple knowingly promised one thing and did exactly the opposite. That is what makes this case feel so very different.”

The fact is that Apple is in very deep trouble here. And they really need to speak to this whole situation as simply letting people sue them and saying nothing isn’t a strategy that’s going to work long term. I say that because they have to address the perception that they’ve lied about privacy on their platform. And the longer that they go without doing that, the worse it will get for them. Thus if they were smart, they’d come out and address this head on. This is on top of the fact that there are sure to be more lawsuits regarding this, and the best way to mitigate that is to address this head on.

Here’s the problem with that, Apple rarely does that. They would rather let people sue them and find some way to make whatever issue that they are dealing with go away rather than address the issue in question head on. That’s the sort of thing that works until it doesn’t. And I’m calling it now, it’s not going to work in this case.