stead-fast resolve in the face of security enhancements

as you well know if you've read this blog for any length of time, i am an apple loyalist. the computers in this house are macs, our phones are iPhones, we frequently wrestle for possession of our iPad. i prefer iWork over office and i use iPhoto to manage my many photos. our music is in iTunes. we are thoroughly apple-ified in this house.

so i was very surprised when sabin showed me a strange message on her phone on sunday afternoon when she tried to update some of her apps. it said that my appleID had been disabled and that i needed to go to iForget to get a new password. sabin hadn't made multiple attempts at the password and i had downloaded a free app on friday afternoon, no problem. nothing had, to our knowledge, happened to our account in the approximately 48 hours between my download and her attempted update.

i dutifully tried to get a new password via iForget, but oddly, the mail i asked it to send me never came through to my email, even when i checked spam. when i tried the online route, apple informed me that i didn't know my own birthday.

i began to be rather worried at this point, thinking my account must have been hacked. so i tried to call apple. of course, in denmark, they don't man the phones on sunday (apparently danes never have issues with their apple products on sunday), so i reported the issue via an email to the iTunes store. to their credit, and although i got a message saying i'd have an answer within 48 hours, within a couple of hours (late sunday afternoon), i had at least a first-round answer. my problem wasn't solved or explained, but i felt like apple was working on it and was going to keep me updated (every other day, they promised).

tho' it hadn't yet been quite two days, the issue was eating away at me, and i was tired of messages from various apps, telling me there was an update, so i emailed this morning, asking for a status. with all of those apple products in this house that are attached to that apple ID, we have issues with updates, so its unexplained suspension is a problem.

i asked apple to at the very least disassociate the credit card i have attached to the account, so that if it is indeed hacked, i can at least rest easy that no one will be running up a bunch of charges. after about six hours, i got another very polite and apologetic mail (apple apparently understands my frustration, but doesn't really see any reason to do anything about it).

but there were a couple of strange statements in the mail, in fact, i'll quote them directly here: "This is due to our increasing efforts to maximize security on the iTunes Store. Our current stage of operations dictates that we cannot comment on why we are enhancing these various security protocols; we also will not speculate on how long this security enhancement will last. " (impressed by the correct use of the semicolon.)

apparently, my account being disabled is a "security enhancement." and further "We ask that you endure this rather unfortunate circumstance with stead-fast resolve as we really do want you to enjoy the iTunes Store in the safest, most enjoyable ways possible."

apple, my loyalty is, for the first time, wearing a bit thin, even as your grammar and vocabulary impress me.

just lemme do my friggin' updates...

reading steve jobs

as all of my facebook buddies know, i'm reading walter isaacson's steve jobs bio. as a disciple of the religion of apple, i figured i should get to know my god a little better. as i was chatting away with cyndy about it on facebook, i looked down and noticed this rather a fitting scene on my desk - iMac, keyboard, the bio with steve's serious face on the cover, sabin's iPhone, an iPod touch and a 160GB iPod, and a postcard from google - so i took a quick instagram photo of it with my own iPhone.

i was a little bit worried about reading this book, because i kinda already knew that steve jobs was a bit of a volatile person and well, an asshole. i didn't want to ruin my love of the products created by his company by knowing more about it. i think it's why i let the book sit here while i read 4 cadfael mysteries - i was putting it off. happily, it doesn't seem to have put me off my beloved apple products. tho' i am slightly put off isaacson's dry, lifeless, chronological prose, the subject alone is compelling enough to keep me reading.

i think what i'm most struck by (and perhaps envious of) is the milieu in which the ideas steve had arose. he was truly in the right place at the right time. of course, he also had the right brain and what looks like the right sort of mental illness, but the fact that he was adopted by a family who lived in silicon valley just as it was becoming silicon valley and that he grew up there in that environment, surrounded by other computer-interested nerdy people and with access to mind-expanding drugs - it has resulted in the devices on my desk today. and they have changed the world. the confluence of circumstances and people is breathtaking. what if his mother hadn't given him up for adoption and had dragged him off to wisconsin? would there be an  today? or would silicon valley be in madison?

i'm also struck at how CEOs in the computer industry rise and fall - it's a volatile world and fortunes are made and lost overnight and companies change CEOs like we change shoes with the seasons. it's interesting that jobs, tho' fabulously wealthy, didn't go in for the giant house compound like bill gates or the yachts like paul allen and larry ellison. he didn't end up a philanthropist either, but my feeling is that he felt that was as much an ostentatious display of wealth as a yacht would have been. and oddly, it seems that he wasn't really in it for the money as much as he was for the thrill of designing the perfect, world-changing product. and he definitely did that.

he might have been a real jerk, but he had admirable drive, focus and dedication as well as vision and a solid sense of design and the details. and he created truly fantastic products that seriously bring me joy on a daily basis. it will be interesting to see if he left behind a company that is strong enough to continue on the revolutionary path without him.

goodbye steve

i woke up this morning to the news of steve jobs’ death - fittingly enough, i read about it on my iPhone. i didn’t know him personally, but yet i feel truly saddened by his death. it’s not even that it was that unexpected - it must have been really bad for him to step down from the helm of apple in august. and yet someone like him seemed somehow invincible. but he wasn’t and i feel shock and sorrow. and i’ve even shed a few actual tears. 56 is far too young to die.

for all my joking about worshipping at the altar of apple, there is some truth to it. since college (except for those years where i accidentally worked for microsoft), all of the computers in my life have been macs. i even remained faithful during the PowerPC years (tho’ those were the years of apple without steve). now, as i write this, i’m doing so in a cute little café, latté at hand, on my MacBook Air, connected to the ‘net via my iPhone as a personal hotspot. a large portion of my identity is connected to my ownership of apple products and even more importantly, to being seen with them.

what a breathtaking legacy steve jobs leaves behind. what his vision did for design and how we use and identify with technology in our everyday lives is nothing short of stunning. but i think what worries me most is not what will happen to apple - they surely have some of the most creative people in the world working for them - but that i don’t see anyone on the radar who can even come close to his innovation and vision. and it makes me wonder where we’ll be without him, in general.

where are the visionaries? the real innovators? the ones truly unafraid to think differently and push us in new directions? like real philosophers, true innovators are thin on the ground without steve.

he will be missed. by the whole world.