Quicker than you can say QuickBar, your credit card number can get stolen by people who use Square—or people who can read. These are your remainders for Wednesday, March 9, 2011.
Twitter updates iPhone app fixing the QuickBar (The Loop)
Not long ago, Twitter released version 3.3 of its iOS app, which introduced what the company called the QuickBar—a translucent strip showcasing popular and sponsored trends from the microblogging site. (Daring Fireballist John Gruber gave it a different, less safe-for-work name.) On Tuesday night, the company released a new update that minimizes the seeming offensiveness of the QuickBar, so that it no longer obfuscates the tweets you’re trying to read. Fun mental exercise: imagine explaining any part of this story to a time traveler from 2006.
VeriFone Releases Open Letter to the Industry and Consumers (sq-skim.com)
Square makes a dongle that you plug into your iPhone, which then lets you swipe credit cards and take payments with the device. VeriFone makes more traditional credit card scanners, like you see at most retail stores. In VeriFone’s new open letter, the company calls on Square to recall all of its dongles, since evil folks could theoretically steal a person’s name and credit card number with the devices and a custom app for sniffing that data. Of course, the Square-wielder could steal such data just by looking at the dang credit card itself. Thus, Macworld calls on VeriFone to offer invisible credit cards post-haste.
Apple to begin production of white iPhone 4 this month, ship by April, says analyst (AppleInsider)
The endlessly-delayed white iPhone 4 may start shipping in April. And the iPad 3 may run Android. Anything’s possible, I guess.
Pattern recognition: Apple to hold mid April iOS 5 unveiling? (9to5 Mac)
So, based on tea leaves, stars, and other fine prognostication tools, it seems some folks believe that Apple will unveil iOS 5 at a special event in April. Frankly, my money’s on an April event devoted to celebrating the white iPhone 4. Which I intend to purchase with an invisible credit card.