This is episode 100! Thank you so much for subscribing to TechFirst. I very much appreciate it.

In a year we've taken this podcast to a top-100 podcast in the tech category in the U.S., and much higher in some other countries (#4 in Austria!) :-)

That's because of you, and what you've done. Thank you!

I've decided to celebrate by doing a 100th-episode giveaway ... check the details in the podcast. And, let's connect wherever you're online:

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iOS 14 is a game-changer in more than a few ones. One of them is definitely privacy.

I've been writing a lot about privacy, Apple, and what Apple's been doing with the IDFA (identifier for advertisers), so I was invited to speak at the Mobile Growth Summit about it. Here we talk about what's changing, why, what the implications are, and what Google will do as a result.

What I chat about:

Is iOS 14 fundamentally changing what kinds of apps can be successful? And … with iOS 14 … is Apple building a fundamentally different future for software?

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Nick Hobbs, the former head of Google’s iOS app. Hobbs says that iOS 14 is fundamentally different and that it will benefit certain kinds of apps while de-prioritizing others.

We chat about when Google's traffic from iOS massively dropped, and what will happen this time with games, Facebook, Google, and more. And, of course, we also chat about The Social Dilemma.

Literally five minutes ago I updated to the new version of Safari, version 14. Then I browsed Forbes, hit up Techmeme, checked Twitter briefly, went to Fox News (first time, I think), clicked over to Slashdot, and finally read a story on ZDNet. Oh, and I checked for a picture for this story on Unsplash.

In that five minutes, Safari prevented 90 trackers from profiling me.

Let me repeat that. Five minutes, 90 trackers.

Read this story in my Forbes column: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Could smart contact lenses grant millions the gift of sight?

In this episode of  TechFirst with John Koetsier with chat with Andrés Vásquez Quintero, a professor at Ghent University in Belgium, where researchers have just presented an artificial iris embedded in a smart contact lens.

It has an artificial iris, an all-day battery, an on-board ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, and a very small LCD screen. And it can do very basic augmented reality for people with limited vision.

PLEASE NOTE: the wifi at Ghent was not great, so Andres' audio and video is pretty sketchy.

As always, full transcripts will be available at: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

I used to think that Apple Music was an enormous treasure chest filled with amazing things that you could never really get out.

And I used to think that Spotify’s biggest advantage over Apple Music was not its free tier, but its user experience and playlists.

Not any more.

Consumer Report says extensive testing on Tesla’s “full self-driving” capability shows that it falls short of its name, isn’t worth the $8,000 price tag, and actually makes Tesla drivers less safe.

“Tesla has repeatedly rolled out crude beta features, some of which can put people’s safety at risk and shouldn’t be used anywhere but on a private test track or proving ground,” says William Wallace, manager of safety policy for Consumer Reports. 

Get the full details in this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier ...

Also, see my written column at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/08/4-ways-tesla-self-driving-falls-short-in-consumer-reports-testing/

It’s been a little challenging to get fitness equipment lately, hasn’t it?

Scammers have noticed too.

That’s why there’s been a proliferation of scammy-looking fitness product ads on Facebook lately. I’ve personally seen literally dozens of ads for fake Bowflex products, often from “stores” with unpronounceable names and obscure but extremely similar websites.

So I bought some fake Bowflex weight from a fake store. And here's what happened ...

When you generate economic activity on an iPhone, Apple wants a piece. 

That’s not changing in the new App Store review guidelines Apple released this morning. What is changing is that Apple cracked open the door to off-platform purchases.

The question will be whether that applies to everyone, or only smaller developers.

Apple and Epic, makers of the hit game Fortnite, have been locked in a battle over payments. Epic wants all the revenue when players purchase an upgrade or enhancement in its game; Apple wants a 15-30% cut on purchases and subscriptions. After they could not come to terms, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, as did Google from the Android equivalent, Google Play. 

While the matter is now before the courts, Apple updated the rules that govern the App Store this morning. 

How do you automate risk 8 billion times a year? In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat with Anjali Dewan, American Express’ VP of Risk Management. 

Credit card companies have some serious challenges ... with trillions of dollars in transaction volume, they’re target #1 for fraud. But customers expect everything to work perfectly every time.

So American Express started managing every single risk decision on risk using AI in 2015, which makes them much faster. They can now make billions of decisions in nanoseconds, using what might be the largest commercial machine learning system on the planet (probably excluding Google and Facebook)