Fingerprint thieves?

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Since we got the news about Apple’s iPhone 5S with a fingerprint sensor, there has been so many speculations about how dangerous it might be. Dangerous? Come on, really?

The first one is that Apple will collect a bank of fingerprints. Of course they will, because it’s so handy to have many fingerprints, they are valuable too and that’s why you can see fingerprints thieves everywhere collecting fingerprints from glasses in cafés and bars, from handles, from glossy books, from other glossy surfaces and then they sell these fingerprints to, eh, wait a minute? Who are they selling them to? Who wants a fingerprint? How much do they pay? Oh? Right, people might not be that interested in fingerprints after all… hm?

Well, Apple will still collect the fingerprints, right? NO they won’t! They have no interest in doing that. In fact they have more interest in proving to their customers that they can’t get access to their fingerprints and that’s why the fingerprints you scan and save on your iPhone, are stored in a separate card that doesn’t communicate with the other units in the phone.

Then these German, ”clever” hackers came up with the big news that they have created a fake fingerprint in latex, put that on a finger, moist it a little and then it worked to lock up the iPhone 5S screen. So, how useful is that? Why would you want to be able to lock up some other persons iPhone 5S? Well, because you want access to it’s content of course. You can have different reason to why you want that access.

If you for example suspects that your partner is keeping secrets from you or if you want to play a joke with a friend, then it’s easy to see that you might get plenty of opportunities to get hold of that needed fingerprint and since you probably spend a lot of time with your partner or friend, then it’s also possible that you could get hold of their iPhone before the code lock is activated, so that you can get access with the fingerprint. Yes, you read that right: code lock. You see, even if you use the fingerprint sensor to unlock your screen, it will still activate the code lock if you leave your iPhone inactive for a while. Then you have to know the code – or you could try to guess the code, but hey, you were going to use the latex fingerprint now, when you have done this smart achievement to get it. So, then you have to get hold of the iPhone before the code lock gets activated. Good luck!

If you are a thief on a public place there won’t be much use of this fake, latex, fingerprint. You can’t just steal the iPhone, steal the owners fingerprint, run away, unpack your ”how-to-make-a-fingerprint-in-latex-kit” and then SESAM use that fake latex to unlock the screen – because by then the code lock will be activated.

A smarter thief would steal the iPhone while it’s active, keep it active and then ran somewhere where he can change the safety settings and inactivate the code lock, except, if you want to shut off the code lock, you need to know the code…

So, even if you manage to make a fake latex fingerprint and you are quick enough to snatch the iPhone from your friend, you can’t relax if you want to be able to use it. As soon as the iPhone is inactive so that the code lock gets active, then there’s no point in using the latex fingerprint…

If you are a spy in Mission Impossible you will of course be able to make that fake latex fingerprint, snatch the iPhone in the right, active moment and then very quickly use it to send a fake text, steal a photo or something like that. You can’t however download an app – if you haven’t got the Apple ID, you can’t log in to the bank, order something online and you can’t get access for logins and other protected information that the owner keeps in an app like 1Password. You will need other logins to do that. Well, you could probably find some notes and you could get access to DropBox and that might be valuable for you if you are a spy. On the other hand, if you are a spy, you probably know a lot of other ways to get access to that…

If you however are a regular guy with a regular life, you won’t have so many spies lurking around your house. The thieves might have other ways to get inside your iPhone – but then you have of course activated ”Find My iPhone” right? And then you can turn it off…

Finally, what if they cut off the owners finger and uses THAT for the fingerprint sensor! Ha! Well, there’s not much point in doing that. To start with it’s messy. It will be useful for a very short time… and it has to be moist (like the latex has). By the time it takes to handle all this, the code lock will probably get activated again…

I think the speculations about Apple’s fingerprint sensor are really making a chicken farm from a feather and people who read those speculations and don’t bother to get the information or think by themselves, will not understand how smart and simple the feature with a fingerprint sensor is.

It’s just a very cool way to unlock your iPhone, it’s so easy to use that a lot of people will use it, that means all of them will activate the code lock as well and that means all those people will protect their iPhones a lot better than they do today, because it’s not fun to use the code lock ”all the time”.

Update

I found a very interesting interview with Jony Ive and Craig Federighi. They talk about the fingerprint sensor and Craig remember their concerns during the creative process:

”…we’re going to have to build in our silicon a little island, a little enclave that’s walled off so that literally the main processor—no matter if you took ownership of the whole device and ran whatever code you wanted on the main processor—could not get that fingerprint out of there…˝

Samsung don’t get it – send out spies!

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If we boil down this question about why Apple haters and/or Android users consider Apple users to be part of a cult, we end up with the simple fact that they don’t get the full concept of Apple.

If they did, Samsung wouldn’t have to send out spies to Apple stores to ask questions to people standing in line to get the new iPhone 5C or 5S. To me, it’s so obvious why they stand there and also why Apple is still so freaking hot that an iPhone 5S gold is reported to be sold for $1800.

Samsung still believes that a bigger screen is innovation and to be the best is a matter of collecting technical features on a list.

Apple users talk about the user experience. They are happy. We love Apple because Apple makes a huge effort to simplify our lives. I don’t think that I would stand in line to get a new iPhone, because I buy my stuff online and when it comes to iPhones, I buy them directly from the carrier, but I can understand why people want to stand in that line – it’s fun to be around others that like Apple.

In my case, I get my share of that from social media and of course in my daily life as well.

I got very happy when I found out that Tim Cook has started a Twitter account. I hope that he will use it as well. In the beginning there was Steve Jobs but there were also the Macintosh evangelist Guy Kawasaki. I also remember that there were like Apple clubs that you could join, in for example Växjö where I lived, by then. Some people think Apple’s success is a cult thing, but I tell you, it’s more a sense of being part of something that makes a difference and to ”know” the persons that do the excellent job of developing Apple to what it is today and to what i will become in the future. It’s like a personal relation to the brand.

I’ve blogged about my concerns regarding that I missed the possibility to be able to follow Apple in social media and it’s a true concern. I’m writing a book about social media and has thought a lot about Apple and why they shouldn’t or should take part of social media and I can’t come to another conclusion than yes, Apple should step out and be part of social media. People expect a personal relation with brands today and that was exactly how Apple was built from start, so it’s a natural thing that they should be present on for example Twitter.

Business as usual in the Apple world

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Despite all the negative investors, Apple is doing fine as a company. It’s still hot no matter what you Apple-haters say. Anyone heard of a big fuzz when Android releases a new OS?

Yesterday my feed on Facebook was filled with friends that was upgrading to iOS7 or at least tried to, because, apparently so many wanted to get iOS7 at once, that we had some technical problems with downloading it. Some persons I know stayed up very late to do this, others actually woke up in the middle of the night to get iOS7…

Today I have got some reports saying that people in Stockholm were so obsessed by checking out how their new iOS7 worked, that they almost forgot to get off the train or the bus at the right station… hey, I wonder when I will get the news about someone who actually did forget!

One week ago when Apple launched the 5C and the 5S everyone talked about it the next day. It seems like everyone wants the gold iPhone…

Conan O’Brian has produced a hilarious video about the Gold iPhone!

Same, same, but different, Mac-PC, iOS-Android… here we go again…

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A long time ago, in the 90’s, we produced and sold teaching materials covering the subjects of typography and layout, together with how to use PageMaker. We taught methods and theory at a basic, but very functional level. We had customers all over Sweden and unfortunately we had to sell to PC-users even though we barely could stand it, since we were proud Mac-users.

When the customers called us for help, the PC-users most often had questions about their hardware which was not our responsibility. Mac-users asked questions about the subjects we taught. It was so frustrating to get those phone calls from the PC-users because we really wanted everyone of our customers to get a good experience from our teaching material, but if their hardware didn’t work – what could we do about it?

Yesterday I noticed that a woman complained about an app that she has on her Android smartphone. I have the iOS version of the same app and it works fine. She claimed that the app has totally crashed twice and she was mad at the company who has made it.

There are more than 3000 different hardwares that runs Android. Compared to what, hm, maybe 10 different hardwares that run iOS. That’s why it’s a lot easier to get control over the apps for iPad or iPhone, than the Android apps. That’s why iOS apps works better. Simple as that.

If you ask me, to buy an Android smartphone is to buy more problems. It’s impossible for me to look at in another way. Yes, they do get a lot more options – but at what price? If I had the time to play around and chase faults all the day long, okay, then it wouldn’t matter, but I don’t have that time, I want my apps to work. Simple as that. Call me crazy, that’s the way I am and that’s why I keep on buying Apple products and iOS devices.

Apple is doing just fine!

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Yesterday it was time for Apple’s FQ3 Earnings report. I think it was just like what to be expected, if you are a sane person and not like a small and scared sardine in a big shoal of fish swimming around in the ocean watching out for sharks and changing direction every time one of them sees a shadow that could be a shark… I think that there has been a lot of Apple sardines trading on the market during the year. I haven’t got so much experience from trading with shares so I guess that’s not unusual, but even so, it seems to be a bit too nervous in my opinion. Escpecially considering the amount of money those sardines are handling. Sometimes it’s other people’s money as well.

I am optimistic about Apple’s future. What really counts is if people like Apple’s products and continues to buy them. A crucial part of the puzzle is education, because if you learn to use something in school, then it wears off on your future and also on your family. That’s why news like this is one of the most important parts of yesterday’s report:

The state of Maine’s Learning Technology Initiative, which provides the state’s little school and high school students and teachers with personal computing solutions allowed individual school districts to choose which products to purchase rather than standardized on a single statewide solution. We are very proud that an estimated 94% of the 69,000 total units selected this year were Apple products.

Another crucial part is all the workplaces around the globe. Ten years ago Microsoft was the most important player on that market and as an Apple enthusiast I had to argue a lot with those Windows-using persons that somehow was provoked by my decision to use Apple (which I have been doing since April 1989). Things have changed and since ”everyone” started to buy iPhones they also learned what it’s like to use Apple products and so they got curious about Macs and iPads. Today we have a trend called BYOD = Bring Your Own Device and it seems that we almost could say BYAD = Bring Your Apple Device, because that’s the actual result in my opinion. When people can make their own choice about what kind of devices to use when they work, I believe that the majority choose Apple.

So, if Apple is the preferred choice of both schools and working places, then the future looks bright.

Yet another interesting sign is Tim Cook’s remark about the web traffic:

iPad accounts for 84% of the web traffic from tablets which is absolutely incredible and so if there are lots of other tablets selling I don’t know what they are being used because that’s a pretty, the basic function is web browser.

This has been a puzzling fact for a long time, what on earth do people do with their Android tablets? Why don’t they surf the web? Don’t they understand how to do it? Aren’t the tech good enough? Is Android users not interested in what happens on the internet??? I think it would be very interesting if someone investigated this.

So, what’s in the future for Apple? We know about iOS 7, the new Mac Pro and OS Maverick that will be available during this autumn. We expect some other interesting news about products to come as well. Apple is for sure preparing something new and big if you ask me. They have lots of creative brains working to reach new goals.

We have developing markets like China and India, and the mature markets still enjoy Apple’s devices and implement them more and more in schools and working places. On top of that we also have the movie Jobs which will be launched in August 15th. Do I worry about my Apple shares? Not particularly. I’m not a scared sardine, I’m more like a happy seal resting on a sunny stone in a beautiful ocean.