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Steve Jobs Is Houdini

Richard S. Levick, reporting for Forbes:

“In any event, we don’t often see a corporate kingpin deliver such a multifaceted message about a product, his company and himself. Even without the triumphant earnings report, two fundamental truths came through, and they both ultimately bode well for Apple and its stakeholders.

The first is that when you’ve used your peacetime effectively, by building support among vital stakeholders and fanning the warm fires of their impassioned loyalty, you can survive big mistakes. The failed leadership decried in the Washington Post and other venues might have been fatal for most leaders other than Steve Jobs. We saw another example of the salutary effect of longtime trust and brand equity with consumers who might otherwise have deserted in droves when Toyota faced all its product quality woes in the past year.

The second lesson is that the right fix in a crisis can seem almost miraculous. Assuming the iPhone 4 case giveaway works and customers are kept satisfied, Apple will reinforce its brand more emphatically than if the crisis had never happened. Apple will have delighted the crowd, all the more so because the crowd held its breath to see if Houdini would escape the trap. If the fix works, Jobs’ demeanor at the press conference only reinforces the zeal of his loyalists, and it likely wins new adherents to the cult, too.”

Now go ahead, and start saying that this was all planned.

P.S.

If so, what a plan.

FacePlant is FaceMail for FaceTime

How the heck do you know if someone’s available to chat via FaceTime? Check it: FacePlant is command central for all your FaceTime leaves. Leave a voicemail, erm, FaceMail for that lovely barista you met last week, get notified when someone wants to FaceTime with you, and go undercover when you don’t want to be bothered. It’s this extra functionality that Apple should have implemented, but didn’t.

FacePlant is still in the review process, but you can totally catch a video after the break.

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Why You Should Disable your Browser Autofill

Geeking out on all things security, Jeremiah Grossman details an interesting attack that could steal information stored in a web browser for use in autofill.

These fields are AutoFill’ed using data from the users personal record in the local operating system address book. Again it is important to emphasize this feature works even though a user never entered this data on any website. Also this behavior should not be confused with normal auto-complete data a Web browser may remember after its typed into a form.

All a malicious website would have to do to surreptitiously extract Address Book card data from Safari is dynamically create form text fields with the aforementioned names, probably invisibly, and then simulate A-Z keystroke events using JavaScript. When data is populated, that is AutoFill’ed, it can be accessed and sent to the attacker.

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Thoughts on Flipboard

Like I said in my first coverage of Flipboard, I didn’t have enough time to test the application and come up with an opinion about the innovations of this new way to consume and, to a degree, produce news content on the iPad. When Flipboard launched two days ago, the servers were immediately hammered down by Robert Scoble’s highly hyped preview, people tried to add their own Twitter / Facebook feeds and the application servers crashed. I guess McCue wasn’t expecting such a huge and positive response, probably because he didn’t know that iPad users were looking for something like this.

A new, fresh, revolutionary app that could prove that the iPad is indeed magical. We’ve seen some great apps on the iPad, but as Scoble puts it: “you’ve never seen one like this”. Is Flipboard revolutionary? It’s the first seed for a revolution in how people find interesting content on the crowded web, and this revolution is happening now. The problem with this revolution is that many people don’t think it’s a revolution at all. Strange, isn’t it? A company comes out with a greatly innovative product and many people don’t see that product as great or innovative.

They’re not looking at the big picture. They don’t get the concept, they don’t see the potential because they’re too busy criticizing some developers that made the wrong choice of not choosing the right amount of servers for day-one.

I’ve been testing the app with full Twitter and Facebook support since yesterday. Indeed, I was able to add my Twitter and Facebook accounts, other people’s profiles and Twitter lists, both the ones curated by me and others. So, I’m enjoying the complete Filpboard experience right now. Here are my thoughts about it.

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If the iPad is So Good, Can You Eat Off of It?

Occasionally there’s an article that’s just… weird. You know, the kind of stuff that’s instantly able to turn a sour day into something incredibly awesome. Leave it to the Japanese to provide me with the one iPad article that beats them all. In fact, I don’t think anything will be able to top this for a long time. If you’ve read the headline, I think you know where this is going.

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Apple New World Leader in Software Insecurity?

We’ve read about various vulnerabilities and security issues related to Apple and the software they push out before, and yesterday Ars Technica reported that Apple has become the new world leader in software insecurity. While it’s mentioned that OS X itself isn’t the most insecure in practice, the various pieces of software you use like iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari, all display gaping security flaws that aren’t being addressed.

To illustrate this point, the report includes cumulative figures for the number of vulnerabilities found on a Windows PC with the 50 most widely-used programs. Five years ago, there were more first-party flaws (in Windows and Microsoft’s other software) than third-party. Since about 2007, the balance shifted towards third-party programs. This year, third-party flaws are predicted to outnumber first-party flaws by two-to-one.

There is a valid point to be made: yes, third party software can introduce vulnerabilities to the OS. But what bothers me about the article is two things. The first is that while Apple is known to have plentiful vulnerabilities in their software that should be fixed (quicktime vulnerabilities have been complained about for years now), it’s never addressed how these vulnerabilities affect OS X – Windows is mentioned as the only OS affected by Apple’s software. The second issue I have: it’s not mentioned specifically what vulnerabilities are being exposed and what ill-effects are had on the user. It seems unlike Ars Technica to throw out an article like this without further explaining potential risks for users. Instead, it’s mentioned that third party software is harder to update and Microsoft does a better job of applying patches.

[via Ars Technica]

Apple Appoints Senior VP of Operations Jeff Williams to Address Product Quality

Now joining Tim Cook (Chief Operating Officer), Jeff Williams has been promoted to join Apple’s executive team in order to oversee and ensure product quality. According to AppleInsider, Jeff Williams has previously been responsible managing the company’s supply chain and securing components for the production of the iPod. He also a big player in the success of the iPhone, and will continue to oversea world-wide operations and supply management.

AppleInsider writes,

It’s believed Apple is grooming Williams to take on Cook’s role as chief operation officer in the event that Cook takes over Steve Jobs’ role as the company’s chief executive. Cook has been profiled as the most likely successor to Jobs when Apple’s iconic chief chooses to step down.

[via AppleInsider]