Year: 2022

Software developers spend a third of their week in meetings on average, according to data collected by time management app Clockwise — with those at large companies facing the most packed schedules.

Clockwise’s data is gathered from 1.5 million meetings tracked by its platform over the course of 12 months up to May 2022, providing an overview of work practices by 80,000 developers at 5,000 companies. It shows that the average software engineer spends 10.9 hours per week in meetings, with 19.6 hours of “focus” time – defined as two or more hours free to concentrate on work.

The remaining six hours are classed as “fragmented”, which refers to the schedule gaps between meetings that provide little opportunity to settle back into completing a task. Separate research has shown that it can take around 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption, and meetings can often be the cause of context switching that distracts workers from more productive work.

The Clockwise report also highlighted the importance of focus time via a survey of 150 software engineering managers. Almost all (90%) correlate focus time with productivity, and most (77%) see a connection with increased revenue for the business.

That’s not to say that meetings aren’t important, but it makes sense for managers to find the right balance for their teams, said Dan Kador, vice president of engineering at Clockwise. “It’s something that companies have to pay attention to and try to understand their meeting culture — what’s working and what’s not working for them.”

“It is important that teams get together to discuss things and make sure they are all on the same page, but often meetings are scheduled at regular intervals even if they aren’t necessary,” said Jack Gold Principal analyst & founder at J. Gold Associates. “We are all subjected to weekly meetings, or other intervals, where, even if there is nothing to discuss, the meeting takes place anyway. And some meeting organizers feel obligated to use up the entire scheduled time.”

Of course, meeting overload is not just an issue for those writing code. “Too much time spent in meetings is not just a problem for developers,” said Gold. “It is a problem across the board for employees in many companies.”

Clockwise

Unsurprisingly, developers spend more time in meetings as they climb the career ladder and become managers: seven hours more a week on average, according to Clockwise, largely due to an increase in one-to-one meetings.

There is, however, little difference between senior roles. Developers that become managers, directors or vice presidents all spend a similar amount of time in meetings. The same goes for focus time, which drops markedly for managers, but again remains relatively similar for more senior leaders, too.

Another indicator of time spent in conference rooms or staring at a webcam is company size. Developers at large organizations spent an average of 12.2 hours in meetings, compared to 9.7 hours at smaller companies. Those at large and medium-sized businesses also spend 36% more time in one-to-one meetings than those at smaller firms.

And focus time drops from 22.5 hours a week at small companies to 16.9 hours for large businesses.

That happens, said Kador, because more established businesses rely on meetings to make decisions. The bigger they get, the more decisions are required — and that leads to more meetings. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but that’s the way things are often done,” he said.

By contrast, smaller companies are more likely to adopt new ways of working, such as greater reliance on asynchronous communications that don’t require everyone take part at the same time.

Clockwise

“Larger, more established companies haven’t embraced a more asynchronous way of working as fully,” said Kador, “whether that’s Loom or leaning into Slack or Teams’ audio and video messages…,Notion, Google Docs — the suite of async documentation tools that exist out in the world.”

Gold also sees potential for collaboration and productivity tools to cut down on the need for some meetings.

“With newer collaboration tools, some of the burden of meetings has been reduced, as people can now have ad hoc meetings with just the folks that need to be involved, leaving others to do their thing,” he said.  “These tend to be to the point and briefer, and are not as broad, meaning I’m more involved and not tuning out when other things are discussed not relevant to me.

“That doesn’t completely replace periodic group meeting[s], but it does have the potential to reduce the non-productive part of meeting.”

Async tools can replace the daily or weekly standup meeting (which are held on Tuesdays 80% of the time, according to the Clockwise data, making that the day with the least focus time on average). Thirty-five percent of engineering teams have at least one standup a week, and the same proportion have them daily.

While technology can help cut back on meetings, it can also require a cultural change on behalf of management.  

Companies can try introducing “no-meeting days” to encourage new meeting habits and drive adoption of async communications, said Kador. “Those are the kinds of things that larger organizations can experiment with,” he said. “My expectation, based on my own career and what I’ve seen in the industry, is they actually have a pretty positive impact.”

Microsoft’s August Patch Tuesday release addresses 123 security issues in Microsoft Windows, Office, Exchange (it’s back!) and Visual Studio — and unfortunately, we have two zero-days with reports of active exploitation in the wild. Since this is a broad update, it will require planning and testing before deployment.

The first (CVE-2022-34713) occurs in the Windows diagnostic tools and the second (CVE-2022-30134) affects Microsoft Exchange. Basically, the holidays are over and it’s time to pay attention to Microsoft updates again. We have made “Patch Now” recommendations for Windows, Exchange and Adobe for this month.

You can find more information on the risk of deploying these Patch Tuesday updates in this infographic.

Key testing scenarios

Given the large number of changes included in this August patch cycle, I have broken down the testing scenarios into high risk and standard risk groups:

High Risk: These are likely to include functionality changes, may deprecate existing functionality and will likely require creating new testing plans:

• Service Stack Update: There is a significant change to the Microsoft Servicing Stack (SSU). I have written a brief explainer that details some of the ways that Microsoft “updates the update process” and how its servicing stack has moved to a singular, combined update each Patch Tuesday. The changes included for August will require reboot testing to collect/collate and then parse event viewer logs. Microsoft provided a handy reference to Windows Boot Manager event viewer files found in KB5016061.
• Web Printing: Though there do not appear to be any functional changes, Microsoft has updated how web documents (HTML and JPEG) are printed. Basic print testing is required here. It doesn’t look like this update will take down any servers, printer server or otherwise.

The following updates are not documented as functional changes, but still require a full test cycle:

• Microsoft FAX: Like printing, we now have to test enterprise FAX services with each Patch Tuesday update. This month’s update is actually pretty cool; it addresses a vulnerability in junctions, which I have not used since the early 2000’s. Here’s a hint: avoid FAX drivers, and don’t use junctions. They were a cool way to address directory redirect requirements through the registry — and are definitely not needed in a modern desktop. 
• DirectComposition: This Windows component allows for rapid bitmapping and animations. There was an API update this month that will require testing for internally developed applications. I can’t share the exact API changes, but I suggest you scan your applications (and subsequently test) for any references for IDCompositionDevice3.
• Microsoft Office Updates: We recommend a general “smoke” test for all updated Microsoft Office products this month. Specifically for Outlook, we recommend testing with a Gmail account and then switching to a Microsoft account; test sending invites between accounts. This applies to all supported versions of Microsoft Office.

Given the changes to the SSU, Windows Boot Manager and updates to the Windows kernel (WIN32KY.SYS) this month, it may be worth having a look at some Microsoft testing platforms such as the Microsoft Test Authoring and Execution Framework (TAEF). You will have to know C++ or C# and you will need the Windows Driver kit (WDK). Noting that for each of these testing scenarios, a manual shut-down, reboot and restart is suggested, with a focus on Boot Manager entries in the event viewer logs.

Known issues

Each month, Microsoft includes a list of known issues that relate to the operating system and platforms that are included in this update cycle. This month, there are some really complex changes:

• The Secure Boot Forbidden Signature Database (DBX) prevents UEFI modules from loading on systems with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The KB5012170 update adds modules to the DBX in an attempt to address a vulnerability that exists in the secure boot loader process. Unfortunately, if BitLocker is enabled with the PCR7 binding, this update may fail. To resolve this issue, use the following command: “Manage-bde –Protectors –Disable C: -RebootCount 1.” Then deploy the update and reboot.
• After installing KB4493509, devices with some Asian language packs installed may receive the error “0x800f0982 -PSFX_E_MATCHING_COMPONENT_NOT_FOUND”. PSFX is a differential compression mode used in reducing the size of Microsoft updates. Microsoft has probably published the most interesting update and deployment and packaging article ever to be included in the middle of a long technical article related to packaging and updates. Given that this issue relates to how Windows installs feature-level components, Microsoft recommends reinstalling any language packs. This usually solves the problem — though it is not an official fix.
• After installing this month’s update on Windows 10 builds, IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a modal dialog box. Microsoft is still working on an official fix.

And for the latest release of Windows 11, it looks as if this month’s update may lead to the utility XPS Viewer behaving badly (using increasing processor and memory resources) before closing unexpectedly (i.e. badly). A reboot will solve the issue until Microsoft posts a fix.

Major revisions

Though we have fewer “new” patches released this month, there are a lot of updated and newly released patches from previous months:

• CVE-2022-26832: NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability. This is the fourth update to this .NET security fix. First released in April, all subsequent revisions have related to updating the products that are affected by this patch. It appears that all versions of Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and with this latest revision, Windows 8 and Server 2012, are affected. If you’re using Windows update (or even Autopatch), no further action is required.
• CVE-2022-30130: .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability. This revision to May’s update now includes coverage for Windows 8 and Server 2012. This is only an informational update — no further action required.
• ADV200011: Microsoft Guidance for Addressing Security Feature Bypass in GRUB. This revision relates to the Linux sub-system boot loader in Windows. For more information refer to KB5012170 and the very informative blog post, “There is a hole in the boot.”

Mitigations and workarounds

• CVE-2022-34715: Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. Microsoft has offered a set of PowerShell mitigation commands to reduce the severity of an attack by disabling NFSV4.1 :”PS C:\Set-NfsServerConfiguration -EnableNFSV4 $false.” Running this command will require a reboot of the target system. Microsoft recommends patching these systems as soon as possible, even with NFSV4.1 disabled.
• CVE-2022-34691: Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Microsoft advises that this vulnerability is applicable if you are, in fact, actually running Active Directory Certificate Services. If you are, you must deploy the Microsoft May 10 update immediately and enable Audit events. Take your time planning and deploying this patch as it may put your server into a special compatibility mode. You can read more here KB5014754. You have until May 9, 2023 before Microsoft closes this loophole.

Probably the most important workaround this month relates to Microsoft Outlook crashing and locking up immediately after start-up. Microsoft explains, “When you start Outlook Desktop, it gets past loading profile and processing, briefly opens, and then stops responding,” Microsoft is currently working on the issue and we expect an update soon. Microsoft offered the following workarounds:

1. Sign in and out Office.
2. Disable support diagnostics in Outlook with the following registry keys: software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\options\general\disablesupportdiagnostics, Disabled value =0
3. Manually set the email address to the identity of the user that is seeing the issue in the registry path.

You can find out more about Microsoft Diagnostic settings here. This is a little embarrassing for Microsoft as this is another significant Office issue following the recent Uber receipt crashing issue.

Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings:

• Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge);
• Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server);
• Microsoft Office;
• Microsoft Exchange;
• Microsoft Development platforms (ASP.NET Core, .NET Core and Chakra Core);
• And Adobe (retired???, maybe next year).

Browsers

Microsoft released three updates to its Edge browser (CVE-2022-33636, CVE-2022-33649 and CVE-2022-35796). Following a trend, none of these are rated as critical. There were also 17 updates to the Chromium project. Google has published all these changes in its update log. For further information, refer to the Chromium security update page. Along with these security fixes, there were a few new features in the latest stable release (103) which can be found here. Add these low-profile updates to your standard patch release schedule.

Windows

Microsoft addressed 13 critical issues and 43 issues rated important this month. This is fairly broad update that covers the following key Windows features:

• Windows Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol including RAS;
• Kernel Updates (Win32K.SYS);
• Windows Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP);
• Windows Print Spooler Components.

In addition to this large update, CVE-2022-34713 (Microsoft Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability) has been reported as both publicly disclosed and exploited in the wild, making this a serious Windows zero-day. This serious Windows security flaw is a path traversal flaw that attackers can exploit to copy an executable to the Windows Startup folder when a user opens a specially-crafted file through an email client or downloaded from the web. In lighter news, you can find the latest Windows 11 update video here. Add these critical Windows updates to your “Patch Now” release schedule.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) patch (KB5002248) for Microsoft Office 2016 (both 32- and 64-bit) relating to VBA projects and Microsoft Access. This month’s release cycle delivers only four updates, all rated important. Microsoft Excel, Outlook and a few core Microsoft Office libraries are affected, with the most serious leading to remote code execution scenarios. Fortunately, all of these security issues have official fixes from Microsoft and are all relatively difficult to exploit, particularly in a well-managed enterprise environment. Add these low-profile updates to your standard release schedule.

Microsoft Exchange Server

Unfortunately we have six updates for Microsoft Exchange Server, with three rated critical and the remaining three rated important. As promised in May, Microsoft has updated its patching process to include self-extracting EXE’s. You will not find these latest updates in the Microsoft catalog, so I have included a list of updates available for the following specific builds of Exchange Server:

Given the publicly disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange (CVE-2022-30134) which allows an attacker to read targeted email messages, Microsoft has recommended you apply these security related fixes immediately (italics added by Microsoft). To get the latest updates, you may also have to run the Exchange SetupAssist PowerShell script. 

Your organization may already be comfortable with the new update format, but if you are in doubt about the status of your Exchange servers, you can run the Microsoft CSS Health Checker. My feeling is that some preparation and planning is required to stage these updates. It took me a while just to walk through the patching decision/logic trees this month, never mind troubleshooting failed Exchange updates. Add this month’s updates to your “Patch Now” schedule, noting that all updates this month will require a server reboot.

Microsoft development platforms

Microsoft released five updates rated as important for Visual Studio and .NET Core. The .NET vulnerability (CVE-2022-34716) is really tough to exploit and depends upon successfully executing a technically challenging blind “external entity” injection (XXE) attack. The remaining Visual Studio vulnerabilities relate to remote code execution (RCE) scenarios exploited through a local email client (requiring the user to open a specially crafted file). Add these updates to your standard developer update schedule.

Adobe (really just Reader)

Who would have thought it? We are back this August with three updates rated critical and four as important for Adobe Reader. APSB22-39 has been published by Adobe but not included by Microsoft in this month’s patch cycle. All seven reported vulnerabilities relate to memory leak issues and could lead to a remote code execution scenario (RCE), requiring immediate attention. Add these Adobe updates to your “Patch Now” schedule.

As development of its AR glasses inches toward the release of v.1, Apple’s innovation engine continues to churn — and now the company is investing in content to drive services revenue in what is expected to be a challenging macro-economic environment.

Dance nimble, dance light

Apple’s teams of economists, accountants, lobbyists, and managers are feeding back insights from across the planet, which is why the company knows that to make it through the coming years it needs to continue to diversify its business.

Yes, it can’t make Macs and iPads fast enough, and yes, as it works to begin product manufacturing outside of China, the company is horribly exposed to the continued decline in global order. But that doesn’t mean Apple can’t think laterally about how to continue to generate good business in a difficult environment. The company has been working at it for years. Its pivot to services — which accounted for 23.6% of its net revenue in the just gone quarter — is part of this, and it’s an approach any business should explore.

But building a new opportunity takes thought, time, effort, and investment, which is potentially why Apple is spending more on content. Consider how it is aggressively investing in sports content for TV+, reaching deals with MLB and MLS, with others such as the NFL also hotly tipped. Consider, too, the dozens of films and shows reported in the last two weeks alone, and the status of some of the stars it is working with. None of these things come cheap, but once filming ends the content created becomes an Apple product, just like everything else it invests in.

Apple doesn’t seem to be satisfied, yet. Most recently, we learned that it has reached a deal with podcast creator Futuro. That deal reflects the company’s quest to find and film new TV+ shows as it seeks to upsell content to its nearly 860 million existing services subscribers. Apple gains first chance to turn any podcast into a film or TV show under that deal. It clearly intends on building a very large collection of high-quality, watchable, repeatable content.

How to build your digital business

I know you’ve not come to Computerworld to explore a long hit list of Apple’s media content deals, but this activity represents at least three important traits any digital business can learn from, particularly as every business today is digital.

For example:

1. Think laterally: Apple was swift to recognize that if people used its platforms to offer their own products it could begin to use the same platforms to offer its own solutions, too. Ever since iTunes, the company has understood the value of content; now it provides its own. Apple’s opportunity to scale to media is a little unique, but every business has some digital services it can provide – it’s just a matter of exploring the nature, the data, and the customers to identify where you can develop something that may make a difference. One example of this I like is the John Deere TractorPlus app, which gives farmers easy access to frequently accessed information about their machines. The business plan may not be obvious, though components ordering and servicing provision within the app become a convenience that reaches customers, as is the chance to build customer loyalty.
2. Build iteratively: It’s difficult to imagine just how important Apple’s investment in Cassady & Greene’s Soundjam MP application turned out to be; it was perhaps almost as foundational as the PA Semi purchase. Think about it: Soundjam begat iTunes, which itself enabled iPod and eventually morphed into the services offer Apple now provides, generating almost a quarter of the vast company’s revenue. That journey wasn’t a simple one, it took years in which each platform and each evolution was in some way built on the one before. That constant iteration underpins Apple’s services pivot today, and it’s  reasonable to think that almost every company has its own unique advantages, such as data, knowledge, or experience, that could be reconfigured to become a new business opportunity. Technology can help identify such chances. Data analytics helps big companies, including Adidas, NBA, Tesco, and others monitor existing business and customer experiences and identify opportunities. If they can do this, your business can, too, building new strands of business on top of what you already do. “Pull the string to see where it goes,” as Apple CEO Tim Cook is wont to say.
3. Know yourself, know your customer: We all know Apple’s customers skew toward being a little wealthier, which means they also tend to be more willing to take a chance on subscriptions and less likely to abandon them once they do. With its foundations exploring the intersection between technology and the liberal arts, Apple also recognizes that its core audience remains comprised of creative professionals with an interest in creativity and the arts. It was because it knew this that the company saved itself with the iMac, iBook, iPod, and iTunes. It was this that informed the company when it worked to bring Quark, Adobe, and (indeed, in a piece of news that meant a huge amount at the time it emerged) Maya to OS X. Apple played to its existing strengths, its core market, and built out from there. It focused on what its customers needed. It still does — even recently with the high quality creative apps coming to Apple Silicon. But don’t underestimate the importance of the company’s services segment. After all, if it is winning critic’s choice awards with its TV shows and movies today, just imagine how much of a response it’s going to get when it offers up this content in highly immersive, near realistic 3D. Which of course it will eventually do in support of the next iterative innovation it’s about to introduce in the form of those AR goggles everyone is talking about. Apple’s 154,000 employees do like to iterate into tomorrow’s world, after all.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

President Biden on Tuesday signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, which includes a $52.7 billion package of subsidies and grants to the US semiconductor manufacturing industry, in a move aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on Asian silicon makers and reinvigorating US chipmakers.

Manufacturing incentives form the lion’s share of the funding in the bill, at $39 billion, but there’s also $2 billion for legacy chipmakers who make products critical to automotive and defense systems, $13.2 billion for research and workforce development, and $500 million for supply chain and networking security.

“America invented the semiconductor, but today produces about 10% of the world’s supply—and none of the most advanced chips,” the president’s office said in a statement. “The CHIPS and Science Act will unlock hundreds of billions more in private sector semiconductor investment across the country, including production essential to national defense and critical sectors.”

US chipmakers start investments in manufacturing

Two major US chipmakers have already committed to expanding their domestic manufacturing facilities, in the run-up to the act’s passge. Qualcomm, in partnership with GlobalFoundries, said Monday that it would invest $4.2 billion to expand the latter company’s facility in Malta, NY.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat for New York, one of the key legislative supporters of the bill, said that the move is “terrific news” for industry and the community.

“This deal to 2028 proves what we have always known – that the industry will grow here when we are competitive with Asia and Europe,” he said in a press release. “With major new federal incentives for microchip manufacturing in the U.S., I look forward to many more announcements like this to come.”

The other major deal announced was memory manufacturer Micron’s commitment to $40 billion in new capacity spending, a move that the Biden administration said could create as many as 40,000 new jobs.

While the bill enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and is generally popular in most quarters of the technology industry, some companies aren’t thrilled about what was left out of the CHIPS and Science Act.

According to Gartner Research vice president and analyst Gaurav Gupta, US-based chip designers and some fabless semiconductor companies have expressed irritation that the bill provides the vast majority of its funding for manufacturers only—not for other parts of the silicon sector.

“If you talk to folks in the industry, you’ll get that view that it’s not going to benefit everyone equally,” he said in an interview with Computerworld last month.

Nor will the Act solve the semiconductor industry’s broader issues on its own, according to Forrester vice president and research director Glenn O’Donnell, who said that problems caused by supply chain failures and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to be felt for the foreseeable future.

“Big problems in the semiconductor market will take a long time to resolve,” he said in a statement. “Also, the US government will need to establish oversight bureaucracy before it can disburse any investments.”

Disclosure: Nvidia is a client of the author.

Next week at Siggraph, Nvidia will be talking about its Omniverse offering, which contrasts sharply with the much-overhyped metaverse. What makes Nvidia’s effort powerful isn’t just that it’s being wrapped with services from companies like Siemens and used for cutting-edge autonomous factories like BMW’s latest, but its ability to anticipate and correct problems early on before they result in cost overruns or injuries. 

I also wish more companies understood is how much richer Nvidia’s presentations are in general because they use tools like Omniverse to create them. (This video of the last GTC keynote demonstrates the point.) Rather than relying on static word slides, the video experience from an Nvidia keynote better conveys the message while keeping the audience glued to the screen in a way that few speakers do today, proving you don’t need to be Steve Jobs if you have the right tools and spend the time on multimedia tools to entertain and inform. 

Nvidia at Siggraph

Nvidia is expected to talk about its progress with its Omniverse tool and the short-term future of these efforts. Much of what is driving the advance of Omniverse at the moment are the underlying concepts of digital twins and AI — one can’t reliably exist without the other. To be viable, digital twins not only have to initially emulate the real world but must stay connected to their physical counterparts to assure related simulations can accurately predict future events.  Without that connection, any variances between the physical element being emulated and the digital twin will introduce a growing number of unknown errors, which will reduce the accuracy of the result at an increasing rate because of the disconnect.

This is particularly problematic if, when used for factories and automobiles, the system attempts to come up with methodologies that blend these two elements. The result might not adequately predict future problems, and decision makers would have no way to understand the related risks in believing something that’s increasingly unreliable. 

AI is critical not only to making sure the physical world and its related digital twin remain connected (by bridging information gaps sensors can’t yet collect), but also by predicting the future behavior of these elements so problems can be identified early on. Nvidia’s approach to aggressively use AI in its Omniverse tool should provide a far higher degree of accuracy and reliability to any related metaverse simulation, which translates to more reliable outcomes.

Nvidia’s presentation process

Even if you have the best tool available, it won’t make much difference  if you can’t sell it. Nvidia’s heavy use of graphics during presentations has always given it a competitive advantage. These tools make presentations more entertaining and compelling, which has helped the company move ahead of rivals and drive new markets such as autonomous machines (including automobiles), the metaverse, and broad AI. With these tools, Nvidia can recreate much of the magic master presenters like the late Apple CEO and P. T. Barnum delivered through oration alone. It can show you what their version of the future will be — and make it real.

And if people believe in a future, much like what happened with Jobs and the iPhone, they will make it happen. If they don’t, you end up with something like the LG Prada — it was which was just like the iPhone but failed in market. Nvidia’s success isn’t just tied to what it builds, but how it presents what it builds. If more companies understood that dynamic, more new and potentially revolutionary products would succeed.

With that in mind, Nvidia’s presentation at Siggraph is important for two reasons. First, it represents the cutting edge of what is working in the metaverse and addresses the growing belief (thanks to overhype on the consumer side) that the metaverse is more smoke than mirrors. And it makes the case with presentations for audiences that are still largely remote 9with attention spans that are exceedingly short). 

Presentation matters

In short, Nvidia’s success isn’t just in building revolutionary offerings, but in presenting them in ways that are compelling and interesting, better assuring a future that benefits the company. 

I wish more firms would emulate Nvidia. If they did, not only would I be more entertained (and yes, sometimes it is about me) but their potential for success would be tremendous. Nvidia is turning the metaverse into a powerful productivity tool by both building a great toolset and presenting the technology in a way that will get it adopted.

This isn’t multiple choice. You have to do both to ensure the benefits the tool promises will be achieved. 

Hosts Ken Mingis and Michael Simon talk with guests about the latest tech trends and news.

Audio

Join Macworld executive editor Michael Simon and Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis as they talk about the latest iPhone 14 rumors – everything from anticipated release date to price to design changes. Plus, they'll talk about the features they hope to see in the latest release.

Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.

7 inconvenient truths about the hybrid work trend

Depending on how you look at it, Apple may be ramping up ways developers can  reach out durectly to customers via its App Store – or building its own business at others’ expense.

What Apple is doing

Apple has had an advertising business of its own ever since Apple’s then CEO, Steve Jobs, introduced us to iAds in 2010. The scale of that offer was always limited to Apple’s platform, but the service arguably failed, with its technology living on in the form of ad slots in Apple News and the App Store.

Apple’s App Store currently hosts just two ad slots, one in the search tab and the other in Search results. You can tell when you are looking at an ad from the blue shade behind the graphic and a small blue badge that says “ad” – these ads are hard to mistake for content.

Apple now intends to add more ad slots to the App Store:

• One new slot will appear on the second row of the Today section of its store.
• Another may appear at the very bottom of an App Store app listing under the “You May Also Like” banner.

What Apple says about the ads

Apple says search ads provide opportunities for developers of all sizes to grow their business. “Like our other advertising offerings, these new ad placements are built upon the same foundation — they will only contain content from apps’ approved App Store product pages and will adhere to the same rigorous privacy standards,” the company said in a statement to 9to5Mac.

Apple says developers will likely use these slots to reach customers searching through specific ad categories, though they will not be able to target specific competing apps.

At the same time, ads shown will be those that are seen as relevant to the app you are looking at, which implies that apps from competing developers will be seen on some app pages.

What’s interesting is how effective these ads seem to be. The company says 70% of App Store visitors use Search to find their next app; that 65% of all downloads take place after search; and that it sees a better than 50% conversion rate for search ads.

“Apple Search Ads was the most efficient, scalable paid channel for our relaunch. We captured a broader audience with higher intent while maintaining efficiency,” said Brooke Tarabochia, director of growth marketing at Peloton Digital, in a statement on the Apple website.

Apple seems to want to grow this business

Apple made several short references to its digital advertising business during its last financial call.

The overall sentiment it shared seems to be that Apple’s ads business isn’t really meeting expectations, which Apple CEO Tim Cook said reflected the macroeconomic environment. Cook also pointed out: “We want to empower our users and care about their privacy. We do offer search ads.”

Apple CFO, Luca Maestri, said a little more.

“[Tim Cook] mentioned that there are some pockets of weakness, primarily in digital advertising, that we will need to work through. But at the same time, our services business a year ago grew a lot….”

Apple criticized for expanding ads provision

Apple is facing some pushback for the decision to add a couple of additional ad placements to its service. Some argue that these ads mean Apple is placing ads above users’ own results and adding ads to a listing page once a developer attracts a user to the page.

Some developers are infuriated at the ads appearing at the bottom of their app listing. They feel that, having done the work needed to bring a potential user to their page, the existence of ads from competitors could damage conversion rates. (The Today listing comprises a curated selection of apps, which means the ads may dilute the value of those pages a little.)

The other issue involves consistency.

Despite its stance on privacy, the company’s own website explains that advertisers can target ads at specific customer segments, so long as each segment contains at least 5,000 people to prevent personal targeting.

The ad system also uses account information, App Store data, transaction data, and a variety of contextual clues, such as device type, iOS version, and more. The system can, apparently, use personal data individual developers have collected through customer relationships.

However, there are significant differences between third-party ads and Apple’s own, not least that these ads cannot be for products or services available outside the store, and that ads are very clearly marked, at least so far.

All the same, Apple’s decision to expand ad placement in the App Store makes for a very easy target for some critics, who will argue that its recent moves to prevent things like App Tracking show the company using privacy as a weapon against competitors. Apple will argue that its system is inherently private, while those used by others have already been abused to the detriment of all.

How to de-personalize Apple ads

It is possible to turn off personalized ads entirely on Apple’s platforms in Account Settings on the App Store app. You need to disable Personalized Recommendations, which is the part of the app that uses your app usage, downloads, purchases “and other activity” to improve recommendations you receive in the App Store and across other Apple services.

Earlier this year, Apple explained that roughly 78% of iOS users opt out of these ads, noting that doing so had little impact on conversion rates of effectiveness.

It claims advertisers saw 62.1% conversions from customers who opt into personalized ads in comparison to 62.5% from those who opt out.

Where to learn more about Apple Search Ads

Apple offers a full certification course in how to use Apple Search Ads, which registered developers can explore here.

At a time when there’s already controversy concerning Apple’s attempts to quell competing ads services by invoking rules about privacy, I’m in little doubt developers and regulators will be paying close attention to that course.

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Bern and Zürich are the best cities in the world in which to pursue a tech career, based on data released this week by Scotland-based digital skills development organization CodeClan.

CodeClan’s study begins with the top 100 cities in the world based on Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings, and uses a combination of several weighted indices to determine their suitability for technology workers, including average salary, rent and broadband connection speed, as well as tech companies per capita.

Tech companies per capita a key metric

The results show the two Swiss cities atop the rankings, based mostly on the large numbers of tech companies per capita in each place, coupled with high available broadband speeds. US cities fill out the rest of the top 10, though only two of the country’s more traditional tech hubs—Seattle and Boston—made that particular cut. San Franciso ranked 36^th, due in large part to its extremely high cost of living, and New York 68^th, for similar reasons as San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the best US city in which to pursue a tech career, according to CodeClan, is Atlanta, which ranked third behind Zürich. A high concentration of tech companies, coupled with strong average broadband speeds, propelled it to third place, just ahead of Washington, D.C., in fourth. In respective order, Seattle, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Minneapolis and Boston rounded out the rest of the top 10.

Some patterns in the data are easy to see—Australian cities like Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney were all heavily penalized for low average broadband speeds, while low salaries pushed Japanese cities like Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya further down the list than their other scores might have indicated.

Broken out by categories, the data also show that CodeClan’s analysis used national data, rather than local, to rank internet speeds, as all cities in a given country were given identical figures. The rest of the categories, though, provide useful comparative data on cities around the world. The highest average salaries, for example, were found in San Francisco, at $108,096, while the largest number of tech companies per capita saw a statistical tie between Zürich and Atlanta, at 0.016.

The US Senate, by a vote of 64-33, has approved the CHIPS Act, a bill that would provide $52 billion in assistance funds for semiconductor manufacturers looking to make products in the US, along with a 25% tax credit for investment in the industry, as well as research and workforce development grants.

The bill still needs the approval of the US House of Representatives and President Biden, a vocal supporter of the legislation, to become law.

While $2 billion of the direct assistance funds is already earmarked for legacy programs—specifically, technologies that the Department of Defense wants to produce within the US—the other $50 billion is generally available for the development of additional domestic silicon manufacturing in the country.

The big winners, should the CHIPS Act be signed into law, will be companies like Intel, who either already have chip fabrication facilities in the US or are planning to build them—but other chip companies, particularly those that take a lead role in chip design but don’t manufacture products themselves, warn that the bill doesn’t go far enough in helping the US silicon industry.

Lawmakers urged to aid chip designers as well

The CEO of wireless chip design company EdgeQ, Vinay Ravuri, said in a statement that the US risks losing its edge in innovation by not providing funding for designers and other fabless silicon businesses.

“The CHIPS [Act] addresses a scaling issue. But it does not address ingenuity,” he said. “To remain relevant, we need to invest in cutting-edge companies, especially those pushing to disrupt and elevate the industry in new frontiers, like 5G and AI.”

Gartner Research vice president and analyst Gaurav Gupta said that EdgeQ is far from the only company irked by the bill’s exclusive focus on the manufacturing end of the silicon industry.

“If you talk to folks Iin the industry, you’ll get that view that it’s not going to benefit everyone equally,” he said.

Nevertheless, said Gupta, the CHIPS Act remains a game-changer for chipmaking in the US, making it far more competitive with semiconductor manufacturing overseas, which generally has far lower production costs.

“This gives OEMs and fabless companies the option to buy devices from here,” he said. “And the reason is that these companies won’t come here unless there’s motivation through the CHIPS Act, because there’s obviously a cost gap between running a fab in Asia and running one here.”

Chip revenue forecast to decline

The CHIPS Act’s probable passage comes at the right time for the semiconductor industry overall, as new figures released today by Gartner show semiconductor revenue growth slowing sharply over the next 18 months. Global revenue is projected to grow by 7% over the course of 2022, down from a whopping 26% in 2021, and to actually decline by 2.5% in 2023.

Practice vice president Richard Gordon said that that could be good news for customers, however, as prices may begin to decline and lead time between purchasing and delivery shrinks.

“The semiconductor market is entering an industry down cycle, which is not new, and has happened many times before,” he said in a statement accompanying the results. “While the consumer space will slow down, semiconductor revenue from the data center market will remain resilient for longer (20% growth in 2022) due to continued cloud infrastructure investment.”

The temptation to make the new world of work a digital reflection of old ways of working still exists, so it’s going to take time to get the balance right. And actually reaching the potential for asynchronous remote and hybrid working practices will take some measure of imagination.

Digital presenteeism is not your friend

That’s the sense I get from the latest future-of-work report to cross my desk. It’s from Qatalog and GitLab and explains how employers insisting on a 9-5 hour workday in this digital age reduce productivity and increase staff churn with little payback. Digital presenteeism, insisting people are at their desk during set hours, eats into the work/life balance employees seek and doesn’t really get work done.

Think of it this way. Once upon a time, workers trooped into offices to sit quietly at desks for eight hours a day while attempting to seem busy. Management could watch what people did, summon staff into ad hoc meetings to create a little friction and scare others into working harder, and might even sometimes turn up at the office themselves.

This began to change as Apple, the iPhone and iPad showed the potential for mobile technology to transform how we work, but it took a quantum leap forward when the pandemic struck. A decade of digital transformation took place in scant weeks.

Some employers continue to insist on a rigid 9-5 working culture, even when working remotely. Combined with strict hierarchies and the use of multiple remote working tools, this creates a “pervasive culture of digital presenteeism.”

At work 24/7? No thanks

The problem, according to the research, is that 54% of staff feel pressured to always appear online and visible. Yes, they might seem to work harder to gain recognition, but some of this effort, such as attending extra meetings or responding to emails late at night, means they are adding an average 67 minutes to their working day (most of which is unproductive). That effort, those additional hours, and the challenge of handling seemingly endless app notifications, means workers are stressed out, concentration is blunted, and productivity can fall.

Don’t neglect a recent Corel survey that suggested companies rely on the wrong tools a significant amount of the time. Businesses must think deeply to ensure the tools they supply are sufficiently good that workers will use them.

The report authors argue that employers should push their thinking forward a few more gears and learn to embrace flexibility, not just in terms of where people work, but also in terms of when. They point out that technology means workers can do their jobs at almost any time of day, which means coordinated hours are becoming an anachronism.

“In 10 years, we’ll look back at this period and wonder why asynchronous work seemed so difficult. Those who will succeed in the next decade will have an iterative mindset, an empowered team, and a bias for action,” writes Darren Murph, GitLabs Head of Remote.

Wake up and embrace change

It is worth noting that the principle of coordinated working hours in offices grew out of working patterns in factories at a time when the technology for business was mainly an in-person exercise. Yet, as everyone who has been through the pandemic knows, knowledge workers no longer work that way ‚ we’re asynchronous, remote, and international.

In many senses, this change in expectations is no change at all. Knowledge work has always been marked by a sense of asynchronicity. People meet, talk, agree, and then go off and work in small groups or alone. What has changed is that 65% of workers now have, and expect, more flexibility to decide when they work.

[Also read: How to set up and use Focus modes on iOS 16]

It’s time to get the apps right

Perhaps one of the most boringly predictable challenges remote workers face involves the tools they’re asked to use. On average, workers have 6.2 apps sending them notifications at work, and 73% of them respond to those outside of working hours, further eroding the division between (asynchronous) work time and personal time. It means over half (52%) of workers find it hard to switch off, and this is made worse by habits of digital presenteeism. A worker may find that they do their work at times that suit them best, but still feel pressurized to pretend to be present the rest of the time, too.

To be fair, managers are also feeling the strain, with more than 70% feeling burnt-out as they struggle to handle so much change. You could argue that inflexible management practices constitute an unarticulated cry for help, though that may be a stretch.

To arrive at these conclusions, the report authors spoke with 2,000 knowledge workers (those who use a computer or laptop over 50% of the time for work) in the US and UK. “The concept of ‘time’ at work is dead. We just don’t know it yet,” the report explains.

The inference of all this really should be clear: These days it’s less important to choose your time, and far more important to clearly define and communicate your goals if you want to deploy highly productive, highly motivated teams.

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