New York Times on Data Mining in Mobile Apps

December 10, 2018

The New York Times has written a great dive into mobile apps that harvest data off your device, such as location data. Many of these companies feel entitled to harvest and store your data for things like location when you give consent for location access, and are in the business of selling that data to advertisers.

The book ‘1984,’ we’re kind of living it in a lot of ways.

Bill Kakis, a managing partner at Tell All

I’ve been removing a lot of the native apps I’ve relied on recently in favor of mobile web apps. I won’t let Facebook run code natively on any device I own, precisely because I know they go out of their way to capture every scrap of data they can. Running Instagram in a mobile web browser provides a much stronger sandbox, limiting the amount of data they can steal dramatically.

Apple and Google have largely destroyed any real marketplace for paid apps that don’t need to rely on selling data, and app review mechanisms have been unwilling or unable to protect customers from it. They deserve a huge share of blame for the status quo being what it is.

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Separating Apple Watch from iPhone as a Public Health Good

September 19, 2018

At their September event, Apple spoke of their annual upgrades to their iPhone and Apple Watch lines. While the iPhone update was mostly limited to the processor and camera, the Apple Watch had some more significant improvements, notably including the capability to capture an electrocardiogram, atril fibrillation detection, fall detection, and an emergency SOS feature.

While the original pitch for the Apple Watch included health features, it was more concerned with being a workout accessory and general activity tracker. Over the years, it has grown more sophisticated at being not just an accessory, but a true guardian of the wearer’s health. Features like ResearchKit are making it possible for medical research to be conducted on people on a daily basis. It’s clear Apple is going to continue moving the Apple Watch in this direction.

This has potential to be transformative to public health, but there’s a problem: this device is limited to people who have iPhones, which makes up about 2 in 5 US phones and 1 in 5 phones worldwide. That means these features are not available to the vast majority of smartphone users, a market that is currently starved for a comparable product. And while there are finally some signs of life for an alternate smartwatch platform, Apple’s actively working with the FDA on some of their features; they’re simply better positioned to have accurate results.

When the iPhone launched, it was tethered to a computer running iTunes, but with its fifth release, the iPhone went PC-free and became fully self-sufficient. While it’s unlikely that the Apple Watch could ever be completely run without a connection to some other device, surely there will be many features that aren’t dependent on an iPhone. The health care features alone would be transformative for many people; there are absolutely people who would buy an Apple Watch just to have a modern health guardian device. Are they obligated to make the Watch work without the iPhone? Of course not. But it would dramatically expand the market for the device, and provide a marked improvement to the health and lives of people who can’t get one today.

LG V30 Review - The Underrated Flagship Android Phone of 2017

November 08, 2017

LG’s V series phones have been enthusiast-class Android devices that have always flown a little under the radar, never quite escaping the shadow of phones like the Galaxy Note or the Nexus/Pixel. But the latest entry, the V30, is a very impressive phone that should be on your list of devices to consider, even if it’s not perfect.

Unboxing the LG V30

October 10, 2017

The just-launched LG V30 has finally arrived! This new flagship Android phone from LG is gorgeous and packed with features. In this video, we’ll take it out of the box, show everything included, and get it booted up to the first launch. Full review of the LG V30 to follow, so make sure to subscribe!

Android Catching Up to iPhone in Interest, Satisfaction

January 05, 2010

Ars Technica:

ChangeWave queried 4,068 current and potential smartphone consumers last month and noted that a full 21 percent said that they would prefer Android on their next smartphones—a jump of 15 percentage points from the year before. Comparatively, 28 percent of respondents said they would prefer iPhone OS; this makes the iPhone the leader in this category, though this number dropped four percentage points year over year.

Many iPhone developers and Apple enthusiasts are quick to shrug off the Android platform, for a variety of reasons ranging from aesthetic and design, to functionality and developer tools. Many of these criticisms are certainly valid. But iPhone has its own share of problems, and certainly is deficient in many ways to the Android.

With Google’s press conference tomorrow, and CES for the remainder of the week, there will be a lot of focus on the Android platform. It will become a much stronger platform in 2010. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds with iPhone OS 4.0 (which history suggests they’ll probably talk about in March).

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