Matisyahu's Blog

Apple has released iPadOS/iOS 14.4.1 and macOS 11.2.3 which includes a security update to Webkit – the size of the download particularly on macOS 11.2.3 lends me to believe that it also includes some low key bug fixes as well given that it was over 4GB and even on iOS 14.4.1 the update was more than 150MB (the framework itself in terms of it’s binary size is only around 1/10th that size). I’ve installed it on all my devices and no problems or noticeable changes – Safari is as snappy as always but I’m looking forward to macOS 11.3 because it includes an updated Safari (it has been updated to Safari 14.1) which will hopefully include a lot of the improvements that have been present in the Safari Technology Preview builds over the last few months.

It appears that the concerns about tracking, third party cookies and general ‘privacy invasive’ techniques employed by tech giants are coming under the microscope with the release of iOS/iPad 14.5 and macOS 11.3 which will require app vendors to ask customers permission to allow tracking beyond the site that is being used. Facebook took in its usual stride of throwing a temper tantrum while resorting to the usual hyperbole by claiming that Apple is destroying their business (they’re worried that, if customers were given a choice, they might not won’t the dodgy big brother privacy invasion?) where as Twitter has said it would have a modest impact but then again it is rumoured that Twitter is looking at offering a ‘premium’ tier of their service which will offer more features and being ad free. Google on the other hand have moved away from tracking individual users in favour of Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) (link) which places individuals into groups so as a result the relationship is abstracted away so that there is no longer that individual tracking.

Yes, some critics have bought up the fact that FLoC ignore what the anger regarding privacy invasion was all about – most people accept that if you use a platform then it makes sense for that platform to then use the information that you provide as an end user to not only make the service better to use (eg. tracking what videos you watch and suggest content that is similar) but also target ads that are relevant to you. The problem were third party cookies, Facebook creating ‘shadow’ profiles so even if you didn’t visit Facebook explicitly there was information being harvested by virtue of a website using Facebook as a vehicle for the comment section of an article.

What is also rather frustrating has been the meme put out there that so-and-so tech giant sells your information to advertisers – no they don’t ‘sell’ your private data to third parties. Firstly because it wouldn’t make any sense as a business model to sell the very data that gives you an competitive advantage so why would you give it away (even if it had a price tag attached to it)? Secondly the advertisement system doesn’t work that that – for example, a third party will go to Google, Facebook or Twitter and give them the target demographic that they wish to target, “I want to target males, between the ages of 23-35, interest in vintage computers and like eating pizza”, and the tech giant then comes back, “sure, and here is the cost of the campaign”. No information is swapped hands, the information is retained by the said technology company

I would hazard to guess that Google has changed to the FLoC system because they’ve realised that a lot of the information they have collected is of very little value – it uses a large amount of storage space, it consumes a lot of power and the extra data retained and the benefits yield from it doesn’t add up. It shouldn’t be surprising that at the beginning a technology company will go all in on something then as time goes on they realise that what they thought was necessary turns out not to be so, that the ‘fine grained’ nature’ of data collection and association is no better than the FLoC system they’re looking at becoming the default way of doing in 2022.

Apple released another update to macOS in the form of the 11.2.2 update although it appears that Apple haven’t gotten around to uploading a updated version of their macOS installer. I have a feeling that since Apple were happy to push out the 11.2.2 update gives me the impression that macOS 11.3 and iOS 14.5 it is still a month or two away – iOS will probably be released first with macOS 11.3 probably being released when the rumoured product refresh occurs in the next couple of months. Just this week Apple has released beta 3 – keeping in mind that any release notes only has the most high profile fixes and generally excludes any security fixes since disclosing those involve disclosing vulnerabilities that need to be kept hush-hush so that the baddies don’t get a hold of that information and start exploiting them.

Ubiquiti has released the UDM 1.9 firmware which includes support for WPA3 but keeping in mind that the firmware on the access point has to support it as well although I think I’ll stick with WPA2 until most of the bugs are hammered out in both the standard and the implementation. I’m happy that things are picking up in the world of Ubiquiti and I’m looking forward to the 5.x firmware series for my Unifi AP AC HD (although, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m looking to upgrading to a Wifi 6 AP when I upgrade my iMac and MacBook Pro to the new Apple Silicon). For all the issues experienced in the early days of owning a UDM, it was the best investments I ever made when it came to networking equipment.

The one thing I always remind people when it comes to buying something – yes, you an go for the cheaper option but 9/10 in the long run you end up spending more than if you went for the slightly more expensive option straight off the bat. In the world IT the general rule of thumb ‘you get what you pay for’ very much applies – although there are exceptions to that rule (high price but low quality but high market share due to inertia within the market when it comes to changing vendors. For example, see how long it took for the Microsoft Explorer monopoly to be undermined) but most of the time the general rule of thumb ends up being true. If you buy decent quality networking equipment it’ll run for years – set and forget with the occasional software update keeping the network secure.

Sigh, the incoherent arguments by Mark Zuckerberg and his opposition to a paid for option rears its head in the comment section of technology websites where people fail to read – they skim the article, jumping around trying to pick out key pieces of information and then surprised that they get it completely wrong. The latest part of this drama is the proposal by Twitter to offer a ‘pro’ or ‘premium’ version of Twitter for more features and no ads (link). I always find it funny when I see people on one hand complain about their ‘privacy being invaded’ and yet on the other hand they some how expect websites to sustain themselves off the back of unicorn farts and rainbows.

The reason why personal data is mined is because it is that data that allows them to command a higher price when selling ad space – businesses are more likely to spend money on ads where they have a lot more control over who they can target because time and money isn’t wasted on a scatter gun approach where people who have no interest in said product end up getting the ad. Your person data which powers the advertisement platform are a way of paying for the services provided when you as a consumer aren’t paying anything for it – if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product. Then why introduce a paid for option? for the same reason why software companies have moved from perpetual licences to subscription, why music has moved from the sale of music that one can use indefinitely to one of subscription – because it provides a consistent stream of revenue with the icing on the cake being that it doesn’t include the privacy headaches associated with data mining and targeting ads.

I think Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey can see a regulations coming down the pipe – one way to avoid a potential disaster is to wean itself away from a reliance on advertising revenue in favour of subscription services. Mark Zuckerberg on the other hand is playing this BS game of trying to claim that he is doing something noble aka ‘I’m trying to connect humanity’ then the moment you ask him “will you offer a paid for version that is ad free and privacy respecting” his response is to ramble on about ‘poor people not able to afford a paid for version” even though no one was proposing getting rid of the free tier version. If Mark was really interested in the survival of his platform he would not only offer a premium tier, he would be looking at expanding services – offer a marketplace platform to complete with Amazon where Facebook can position itself as the ‘neutral platform’ since Facebook isn’t actively competing against vendors who are using the platform to sell products. Then there is Facebook gaming which will fit in the niche to compete against Twitch – offer a Patreon like service, buy out one of the merchandise making companies and provide the ability to sell said products through the that platform. It won’t happen over night but Facebook has the ability, if they want, to move away from a dependence on advertising which will help deal with the concerns that regulators and politicians have raise by both the EU and the United States.

Apple released macOS 11.2.1 update which includes a fix for the much documented issue with sudo as well as fixing security vulnerabilities in the Intel GPU driver (link) and addressing the battery issue that has been impacting certain models of MacBook Pro (2016 and 2017) although funny enough I haven’t been impacted by it (link). macOS 11.3 is still in beta testing but it’ll be interesting to see the improvements that come.

On the matter of security, an interesting thing I noticed is that the ARM based binaries are compiled as an arm64e binary which adds and extra layer of security (it utilises a feature built into the ISA itself) when it comes to dealing with pointer based memory attacks (link). It will be interesting to see how this will translate in the real world in terms of picking up and mitigating possible threats. At the moment the A14 (M1 is based on the A14) is based on ARMv8.6-A and if you’ve been following the LLVM project you’ll notice that Apple has been gradually adding support for features found in the ISA to improve security and performance.

Although at this point the ARM ISA is as feature rich as a CISC ISA, the thing I notice is that any improvement is carefully considered through consultation with the various vendors that depend on the ISA so the end result is when features are added to the ISA it is because it has material benefit rather than, “lets add it and hope for the best”. It will be interesting to see whether Apple adopts the libc project that Google is working on which is a ground up replacement for the various libc implementations – rather than being a mixture of assembly and C, the focus is on a libc library delivered in pure C with optimisations done in the compiler itself rather than the library with the benefit that it makes the code more portable and any architectural improvements to an SoC can be delivered through making the Clang/LLVM toolchain better at producing code with the icing on the cake being all other code benefit from those Clang/LLVM toolchain improvements.

I’m enjoying the start of four days off (2 days off for the weekend and another 2 days off using my lieu days I built up) – relaxing in bed, watching movies, gardening and cleaning up around the house. With all that in mind, I’m also going to take off a week in June when WWDC takes place but I’ll need to wait and see what happens – whether there is a return to it being in the first week of June or whether they’ll have it at the end of June like last year.

Reading through Ubiquiti and it appears that part of the UDM 1.9.0 beta and latest firmware for the Unifi AP AC will be support for WPA3 which will be interesting to see how along with the big firmware upgrade impacts on performance (latency and download speeds). macOS 11.3 beta is still being developed but I am hoping that Safari 14.1 )which is included as part of macOS 11.3 beta) will inherit as many features from the Safari Technology Preview as possible particularly around optimisation. The next version of the Ad Guard for Safari Extension is drawing closer – Chromium backend has been updated, lots of bug fixes and optimisations so that is another piece of software I’m looking froward to.

Affinity is having a 1/2 off sale so I am tempted to buy Photo, Designer and Publisher which, although I won’t use straight away will be useful in the future so it makes sense to jump at the opportunity of a discounted version available for a limited time.

macOS 11.3 Developer Beta has been released and good news – it includes Safari 14.1 which hopefully includes a lot of the improvements that exist in Safari Technology Preview. I’m hoping that what we’ll see, with the move to Apple Silicon based Macs, that there will be more frequent updates of Safari particularly when it comes to the Webextensions API which at the moment the absolute bare minimum. What I’m hoping is that when Apple embraces more of the Webextensions API that any changes make their way back into the other browsers which will make extension developers more willing to target Safari. At the moment I use Ad Guard Safari Extension although it would be nice for uBlock Origin to be made available for Safari.

It looks like the first couple of updates were solely focused on fixing major bugs and security fixes with the next release bring in new features as part of the equation. There is also a corresponding Xcode 12.5 that being released along side macOS 11.3. It will be interesting to see whether, once the transition to Apple silicon is complete, whether they move to a rolling release schedule where major releases are instead replaced with new features, enhancements, bug fixes etc. are rolled out when they’re ready rather than being held back for ‘the big release’.

As I’ve noted in previous posts I have been running Safari Technology Preview bought I thought I should give Firefox a try considering that the WebRender is now enabled on macOS. So far it has been very reliable and with uBlock Origin v1.32.4 it is doing a good job blocking ads and other nasties. In terms of it’s memory footprint, it is a lot more efficient than when I used it last time along with it not hogging CPU time with my current tab pretty much sitting at 0.1% with media playback still being pretty good even with YouTube being the one using the most amount of CPU utilisation due to VP9/Opus but even then, I doubt I would notice any difference if I was on battery power. One thing to remember is to install the dictionary since it relies on an external dictionary rather than using the one that is built into macOS.

I guess over the years I’ve developed a theme on my blog about my less than enthusiastic embrace of the industries slow march towards the extensive use of PWA. I have to prefix this – in an ideal world I much prefer native applications because of the improved performance, lower source usage and better system integration but that being said when compared to what came before I would sooner have PWAs over the alternatives that were championed in the past.

I remember the bad old days when the focus was created multiplatform applications and the various technologies vying for it. There Java/Swing, slow, unresponsive and just generally horrible with applets (Java applications that ran inside ones browser) even worse given how it was common to see the whole browser lock up frozen because of a poorly behaving Java applet. ‘Write once, run everywhere’ they said but as the joke went at the time ‘write once, debug everywhere’ because there was no guarantee that your application could consistently run given that a bug in one implementation of the JRE might not impact another JRE.

What other alternatives were there? Shockwave and Flash was something offered but to a certain extent it was handspring by the same limitations as Java applets (in the case of using Flash within a browser) even with the improvement of NPAPI which became PPAPI (‘pepper extensions’) but the world had moved beyond desktops and laptops into tablets and phones – people demanded an experience that worked in the browser natively without a dependency plugins and all the security implications that came with it. Adobe AIR was positioned as a replacement but eventually that has gone by the way side in favour of the Electron framework sitting on top of Chromium.

Anyone who has lived through the past attempts to deliver a multiplatform framework for developers and experienced it first hand as a user would sooner have what we have today than what existed back when Flash was so dominant (along with those other solutions). Are PWA the ideal solution? not really but every step forward in terms of abstracting away from the system is going to result in reduced efficiency but what is lost in run time efficiency is gained in greater productivity by the programmer and less likelihood of mistakes. For example, moving from a 1st generation language (binary) to 2nd generation (assembly) will make life easier because programming is almost like a brief set of instructions in semi-readable human form then when you move to 3rd generation where writing a piece of software is almost writing it in a human readable language. With each level of abstraction the greater the productivity the programmer, the easier to debug, the ability to manage very large and complex projects, to be able to reuse code etc.

I don’t think that PWAs are going to solve all of lifes problems but many applications that are native are done so not because PWAs cannot deliver but due to habit – “we’ve always done it this way” but for those organisations that aren’t hamstrung by legacy many embrace fully the future. Reminds me of a survey where those who tended to go with Office 365 tended to be organisations that were already Microsoft customers thus any move to the cloud required the legacy setup take into account where as G-Suite tended to be used by small to medium businesses, those businesses that were recent startups without the legacy systems in place which have to be take into consideration, in other words it is a ground up brand new workflow unhindered by legacy considerations.

There were updates released today for iOS, tvOS, watchOS and homeOS however macOS Big Sur 11.2 is still in release candidate stage. It’ll be interesting to see whether the improvements build 118 of ‘Safari Technology Preview’ have made their way back into the mainstream build of Safari on Big Sur 11.2. Apple has updated its security page for iOS/iPadOS (link) but it’ll be interesting to see whether ‘Additional details available soon.’ mean additional security fixes disclosed once 11.2 Big Sur makes its way out to end users in the next few days. On a side note, Ubiquiti pushed out the UDM 1.8.6 update which fixes some security updates and bug fixes – so far things have going very well.