Tag Archives: App Store 30%

Weekly output: space tourism, Netflix sharing, FedEx drone delivery, trans-Atlantic data privacy, App Store attacks (x2), new ISP deals excluding old customers, DoD cybersecurity rules of engagement

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My published work this week includes one story about people in space and another about robots in the sky.

Story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini and showing its illustration, a close-up of the Inspiration4 badge on a SpaceX space suit3/28/2022: Will SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic ever be affordable?, Fast Company

Covering the Satellite 2022 trade show in D.C. two weeks ago both allowed me to interview somebody who’s experienced suborbital space flight and write this post about the prospects of more people being able to have that experience–if they can write a sufficiently large check.

3/29/2022: Using Someone Else’s Netflix Account? You’re Not Alone, PCMag

I wrote up a survey that found that 15 percent of Netflix viewers watch for free on somebody else’s subscription.

3/30/2022: FedEx Teases Texas Drone-Delivery Demo, PCMag

The embargoed copy of this announcement specified a flight test around Dallas, but the final copy of the release left out that geographic detail.

3/30/2022: The new trans-Atlantic data agreement puts E.U. priorities first, Fast Company

This explainer went farther into the policy weeds than I’ve gone in a while.

3/30/2022: Dutch Class-Action Seeks Almost $5.6B From Apple for App Store Overcharges, PCMag

The first of two posts about Apple’s App Store control covered a pending class-action lawsuit in the Netherlands–where Apple is asking for trouble with insultingly greedy responses to regulators’ demands that it let dating apps opt out of Apple’s in-app billing and its cut of 15 or 30 percent.

3/31/2022: Apple Finally Lets ‘Reader’ Apps Link Out to Sign-Up Pages, PCMag

The second post covered an overdue and still inadequate App Store liberalization move by Apple. Yes, I enjoyed the chance to throw in a comparison to 1995-vintage AOL.

4/1/2022: New deals for existing customers? AT&T, Charter and Spectrum make getting better rates hard., USA Today

This column originally ran with a headline that named Comcast; although large and seemingly unfeeling telecom conglomerates can start to look alike, that cable company did not figure in my story.

4/2/2022: Biden Admin May Roll Back Trump Policy on Military Cyber-Offensive Operations, PCMag

Writing this got me up to speed with an episode of questionable executive-branch conduct under the previous administration that I’d missed.

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Weekly output: 5G leaders, Mr. Antenna, streaming study, Desi Bundle, Disney’s Star+, Seinfeld coming to Netflix, two-factor authentication, HBO Max on Vizio, Locast logs off, Apple loosens App Store rules for “reader” apps, Nielsen nixed, checking wireless coverage, WhatsApp privacy fine

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I worked a volunteer shift at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic Friday, the fourth time I’ve done so. On this occasion, we had far fewer customers than before, most coming for their second round of Pfizer or Moderna. But a few had yet to get any dose, which meant that they got to choose between those two vaccines or Johnson & Johnson’s; the latter needing a single jab made the difference for one man who said he was only getting vaccinated because his job required it. We also had a few under-18 kids who were limited to Pfizer–and one whom had been brought by her mom on her 12th birthday, so we had to take a minute to sing “Happy Birthday” to her.

8/30/2021: The 5G 50 to Watch Top Ten List, Light Reading

I helped write the bios for this list of top telecom industry executives put together by my trade-pub client. Yes, my last name is spelled wrong at the end of the piece.

8/31/2021: OTA antenna service alleges Vegas station refused to air its ads, FierceVideo

I spent most of this week filling in at my other big trade-pub client. I started by covering an allegation by a broadcast-antenna vendor named Mr. Antenna that a Las Vegas station had quit airing its ads because increased broadcast viewing would undercut its cable-TV income.

8/31/2021: New study finds more Americans splitting their streaming budget, FierceVideo

I wrote up a Leichtman Research Group study finding more Americans signing up for at least three streaming services.

8/31/2021: DistroScale streaming bundle serves up free South Asian channels, FierceVideo

If you didn’t know that “desi” is a term for people of South Asian descent before reading this post, you did after.

9/1/2021: Disney debuts Star+ in Latin America, FierceVideo

Writing this led me to dust off my VPN service for the first time in months to see what pricing this new Disney streaming service would show to a viewer in its target Latin American markets–the press releases I saw didn’t list any.

9/1/2021: Seinfeld coming to Netflix Oct. 1—and in 4K, FierceVideo

I only referenced one Seinfeld catch phrase in this piece, which I thought showed remarkable restraint.

Screengrab of column as seen in USAT's iPad app9/1/2021: Why you shouldn’t rely on texts when using two-factor authentication to sign into accounts, USA Today

I could have written this column at any time in the previous two years, but T-Mobile’s latest data breach made it newly relevant.

9/2/2021: HBO Max app comes to Vizio connected TVs, FierceVideo

This post reminded me how much of HBO Max’s early struggles with getting its apps on streaming platforms.

9/2/2021: After hostile court ruling, Locast logs off, FierceVideo

As I tweeted after this story ran, the broadcasters who succeeded in suing Locast offline might not want to gloat too much. Viewers aren’t getting any less weary of endless pay-TV rate hikes, and telling people without good over-the-air reception to stick with cable will only get less persuasive every year.

9/2/2021: Apple to let video apps point users away from its payment system, FierceVideo

Apple deigning to allow “reader” apps to include one link to their own site shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is in the context of that company’s history of App Store control-freakery.

9/3/2021: Media Rating Council suspends Nielsen accreditations, FierceVideo

My last post for Fierce this week covered an industry group snubbing Nielsen’s audience-tracking work.

9/3/2021: Which wireless carrier has the best coverage where you’re going? Here’s how to find out, USA Today

A friend’s query about ways to see if T-Mobile or Verizon would offer better service than AT&T at his home was followed by my realizing that USAT had yet to cover the FCC’s release of a new and surprisingly helpful map of predicted LTE coverage from the major carriers.

9/3/2021: WhatsApp fined under GDPR, Al Jazeera

The Arabic-language channel had me on to discuss WhatsApp getting hit with a €225 million fine for violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The European Data Protection Board’s ruling in this case calls those failures of transparency, but I see the underlying problem as WhatsApp insisting on access to your phone’s contacts list to place a call or send a message to anybody who hasn’t already contacted you in the app.

Weekly output: Apple’s App Store vs. Hey, cable modems, voice tweets

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Happy Father’s Day to all who observe! Fatherhood is probably the worst-paying job I’ve had, but it’s also the best job I’ve had.

6/17/2020: Apple To Basecamp’s Hey: Expect To Pay Us If You Want To Sell Privacy, Forbes

I jumped on the chance to write about Apple hard-balling the Hey e-mail app with a demand that Hey developer Basecamp add Apple’s in-app-payment mechanism–allowing the Cupertino, Calif., company to take 30% of all subscriptions opened that way. Then I discovered that writing for a site that lets me publish immediately does not curb my instinct to fuss over my prose before filing. Another realization with this post: Calling out Apple’s abusive behavior towards an app built along the privacy-optimizing principles it says rank among its core values did not yield page views by the truckload, notwithstanding the history of reader interest in that company.

6/18/2020: Don’t keep paying for that cable modem, Talking Tech

I talked to my USA Today colleague Jefferson Graham about my recent column reminding readers that they should buy their cable modems instead of renting them.

6/18/2020: Voice tweets, Al Jazeera

The Arabic-language news network had me on to explain Twitter’s introduction of audio tweets. I said the upside of this was letting followers pick up on differences in intonation that text alone doesn’t convey, while Twitter will need to be careful about abusive types exploiting this feature. I told my producer that my favorite example of a good use of voice tweets was Liz Phair improvising a song about this product development; since I don’t know if that made its way to TV, I’m sharing that with you all below.