2026-04-17 09:00:26
Terry Godier:
For example, if you have a 4.1 star rating in the App Store, any 4 star review is going to decrease that average. In other words, leaving a 4 star review is essentially leaving a negative review. [...]
You will see a lot of 4 star reviews that say things like, “This is my favorite app!” or “Gamechanger!” The apps that tend to have these types of reviews are often over a 4.0 in the store and are being actively harmed average-wise by having them, even though the intent was clearly not to do so.
Problem #1 is that star-rating systems absolutely suck for aggregation. If you’re going to collect and average ratings from users, the system that works best is binary: thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Netflix switched from stars to thumbs in 2017, and YouTube switched all the way back in 2009. The App Store should switch to thumbs.
The logical endpoint of apps optimizing for a 5 star review invalidates the system as meaningful on the store. The system becomes a better representation of the sophistication at review prompt execution than it does an accurate reflection of app product quality. The incentive isn’t to create an actual 5 star app, but rather to create a robust system that transmits only 5 star reviews.
Problem #2 is that even if the App Store switched from stars to thumbs, the system would still be gamified by developers, rewarding, as Godier aptly puts it, not the best apps but instead the apps that are best at “review prompt execution”. Apple should remove the APIs that allow apps to prompt for reviews, and forbid the practice of prompting for them. Nothing good, and much bad, comes from these prompts. Imagine being in a restaurant, and in the middle of your entree, the server comes to your table and hands you an iPad and asks you to rate the joint on Yelp. That’s what using most apps is like. And the apps that do the right thing — like Godier’s Current — and never solicit a review like a needy hustler are penalized.
Every time I see one of these prompts it’s like getting hit up by a panhandler — and some of the prompts come from Apple’s own apps. It’s all so greasy. One of the advantages of a walled garden ought to be keeping panhandlers and solicitors out.
2026-04-17 08:10:09
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
If you’ve been on TikTok this year, you’ve more than likely encountered ads for Freecash. The app has been marketed as a way to make money just by scrolling TikTok — and jumped to the top of the app stores in recent months, peaking at the No. 2 position in the U.S. App Store.
In truth, Freecash pays users to play mobile games — all the while collecting a heaping amount of sensitive data, according to cybersecurity company Malwarebytes. [...]
On Monday, after being contacted by TechCrunch for comment, Apple pulled Freecash from its App Store. As of Monday afternoon, the app was still listed in the Google Play store. (It has since been removed).
As I have repeatedly written, it boggles my mind why Apple doesn’t have an App Store “bunco squad” that targets scam and fraud apps that are popular and/or high-grossing. It’s folly to think that the App Store could ever be completely free of scam apps. But it’s absurd that this app Freecash rose to #2 in the App Store, with millions of downloads, and Apple only took a look at and removed it after TechCrunch asked about the app.
Pieter Arntz, writing at Malwarebytes:
The landing pages featured TikTok and Freecash logos and invited users to “get paid to scroll” and “cash out instantly,” implying a simple exchange of time for money. Those claims were misleading enough that TikTok said the ads violated its rules on financial misrepresentation and removed some of them.
Once you install the app, the promised TikTok paycheck vanishes. Instead, Freecash routes you to a rotating roster of mobile games — titles like Monopoly Go and Disney Solitaire — and offers cash rewards for completing time‑limited in‑game challenges. Payouts range from a single cent for a few minutes of daily play up to triple‑digit amounts if you reach high levels within a fixed period.
The whole setup is designed not to reward scrolling, as it claims, but to funnel you into games where you are likely to spend money or watch paid advertisements.
Dystopian. And it’s gross that the follow-the-money chain here ultimately leads to pay-to-win games from established brands like Hasbro (Monopoly Go) and, of all companies, Disney (Disney Solitaire). Look at these games’ App Store listings, and you’ll see: (a) their in-app purchases are clearly meant to capitalize on addicts, and (b) their privacy report cards are appalling. And Apple is taking 30 percent of all this. Honest to god, how would it be any worse if Apple started selling cigarettes in its retail stores? Because there’d be butts to clean up outside the glass doors?
2026-04-17 04:39:05
Anton Troianovski, reporting for The New York Times under the headline “Trump’s Portrayal of the War in Iran Collides With Reality”:
President Trump is trying to cast his Iran war as all but over, a done-and-dusted success.
But after years of trying to impose his own reality on the world, he has now run into a crisis that is not bending to his narrative.
On the one hand, I’m loath to complain about the Times finally stating the obvious and treating Trump like they would any other official. Same goes for a Peter-Baker-bylined piece this week, “Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate”. Finally. It was good that the Times’s reporting on Biden’s mental acuity two years ago was sharp enough to draw the ire of the Biden administration. But Biden never once said anything crazy. Forgetful? Slightly confused? Sure. But Trump is saying and tweeting crazy-ass stuff every day now. A steady stream of abject unhinged nuttiness. For chrissake he badgered kindergarteners at the White House Easter egg roll about Biden’s use of an autopen.
But on the other hand, when exactly has Trump “run into a crisis” that did “bend to his narrative”? He’s a bullshitter, and so good at bullshitting that his bullshit often flies. That’s very different from reality bending to meet the bullshit.
The difference with Iran is that war is about as close as anything gets to being bullshit-proof. Trump created a crisis that can’t be bullshitted.
(Also, take it easy on the Oompa-Loompa makeup, sir.)
2026-04-17 04:09:07
The Associated Press Stylebook, on Threads:
We updated our style for telephone numbers in 2024 to drop parentheses. We now recommend the form: 212-621-1500.
For international numbers use 011 (from the United States), the country code, the city code and the telephone number: 011-44-20-7535-1515.
Use hyphens, not periods. No parentheses. The form for toll-free numbers: 800-111-1000. If extension numbers are needed, use a comma to separate the main number from the extension: 212-621-1500, Ext. 2.
I have long been annoyed that U.S. phone numbers are so often formatted in the outdated (123) 555-1234 format. The use of parentheses for the area code dates back to the old days, when you only needed to dial the area code to call a number outside your own area code. (The same era whence comes the verb dial.) Until 10-digit dialing with mandatory area codes started to become standard in the late 1990s, you only needed to dial seven digits to call a local number.
Apple’s Contacts app (and I think the system-wide Contacts framework, used by third-party apps like Flexibits’s excellent Cardhop), will go so far as to reformat numbers entered in 123-555-1234 format as (123) 555-1234. Apple should update the formatting to go the other way, and turn phone numbers with the area code in parentheses into the 123-555-1234 format. It’s only because area codes used to be optional that they were put in parentheses. Given that 7-digit dialing is never going to return, we should abolish the parentheses too.
2026-04-17 03:27:00
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
The change began rolling out a few weeks ago, and user frustration is mounting. On Reddit, there’s a growing thread of Netflix subscribers saying they are canceling their subscription because of this change to the Apple TV app. [...]
The change also means you lose access to full payback controls using the Apple TV Remote app on your iPhone. You can’t enable Enhance Dialogue from the video player. That clever Apple TV feature that automatically enables subtitles when you rewind? Gone.
One of my most-used tvOS video player features is the ability to tap the Siri Remote to see when what I’m currently watching will end. It’s great for trying to decide whether you have time for one more episode before bed. That feature is gone in Netflix as part of this change.
FlatpanelsHD has a great roundup of all the features on Apple TV that rely on an app using the native video player.
Someone tried to argue with me when I complained about this horrendous regression that Netflix users somehow want consistency across different platforms — that users want the same Netflix player on Apple TV as on Roku, Amazon Fire, Google TV, and whatever crap is built into their “smart” TV. Nonsense. Why would users of one platform care what the Netflix player is like on other platforms? Apple TV users buy Apple TV boxes because they want the Apple TV experience. Maybe Netflix wants to present the same experience everywhere. Maybe Netflix wants to save on engineering costs by having a write-once-run-like-shit-everywhere video player. That’s a Netflix concern, not a user concern.
From the perspective of users, this change to the tvOS Netflix app just sucks. There’s no upside at all. Nothing is better, much is worse, and a slew of cool platform features are now gone.
2026-04-17 02:43:44
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
The process requires the victim to have Express Transit Mode enabled for payments, and a Visa card linked for those payments, among other steps. As it turns out, it’s a Visa-related security loophole rather than an iPhone issue, and it doesn’t work with a Mastercard or an American Express card because other cards use different security methods. It also doesn’t work with Samsung Pay on Samsung devices, and it requires the specific combination of a Visa card and an iPhone. Apple told Veritasium that it’s an issue with the Visa system, but something unlikely to occur in the real world.
The video, hosted by the Veritasium YouTube channel, but starring Marques Brownlee as the victim, takes over 15 minutes before clarifying that the exploit only works with Visa cards, and only when a Visa card is set as your card for Express Transit Mode. Until then, the video implies that the exploit can work against any iPhone that has Apple Pay configured, with any sort of credit card. The technical explanation of how the hack works is pretty good though.
As I wrote a year ago (when Apple was looking for a new partner to replace Goldman Sachs as the bank for Apple Card), Visa is the most popular credit and debit card in the U.S., by a significant margin. If you don’t use Express Mode, you’re safe. If you do use Express Mode, I suggest any card other than a Visa.
Update: It’s worth noting that according to Apple, Express Mode is turned on by default “when you add an eligible transit card or other compatible card”.
