Dian Zhang and Ignacio Calderon, reporting for USA Today:

Even before Terry Rozier dropped out of the 2023 NBA game in which he’s accused of rigging his statistics, computers at an “integrity monitor” firm flagged a flood of bets that did not match a mathematical model of how this game should go. The company, now called IC360, alerted the NBA and sportsbooks about the unusual bets coming in on Rozier’s performance.

The investigation that led to the arrest of the Miami Heat point guard and dozens of others for illegal gambling started with math. It ended Oct. 23 with Rozier charged with manipulating his performance in that 2023 game so that gamblers in the know could win tens of thousands of dollars.

Beep. Boop. Busted.

Federal authorities allege more than $200,000 poured in betting that Rozier would turn in a below-average performance in that game after Rozier told another defendant he would drop out of the game early with an injury. Rozier played 9 minutes, 34 seconds for the Charlotte Hornets in the game against the New Orleans Pelicans before leaving with an injury and finished under his usual totals for points, assists and 3-pointers.

A lot of these stories about cheating on sports betting involve characters who aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. Makes me wonder how many inside-info cheaters are getting away with it, because they’re not doing anything conspicuous like placing very large wagers on very obscure games or prop bets.

Adobe Design profiles Adobe’s new Premiere app for iOS, and interviews Christopher Azar, group design manager for Adobe Video, regarding the thinking behind the app and its design:

What was the primary goal when you set out to design Premiere on iOS?

Christopher Azar: Our goal was to design a professional-grade product that carried the powerful, precise spirit of Premiere while feeling modern, approachable, and even fun. We call our vision “intuitive precision”: a high-performance, intelligent tool powered by cutting-edge AI that enables creators to work how and where they want — in the field, experimenting, and honing their storytelling craft.

That meant making this editing power available to a broader creative community. Desktop software has traditionally been built for professionals with large budgets. Our goal was not only to make a professional tool easier to use, but to make it available to more people than ever before. I would have wanted to use this app when I was coming up as a creative, so I’m excited we’re providing high-quality software for everyone who wants it — without a big investment in time or money.

It really does seem like a breakthrough app for the platform. An Android version is in the works, Adobe says, but for now, Premiere is an iOS exclusive. Kind of weird that Apple itself makes Final Cut Pro for both the Mac and iPad, but still hasn’t made a serious video editing app for the iPhone.

For your weekend listening enjoyment, a new episode of America’s favorite 3-star podcast, with special guest Dan Moren. Topics include Atlas, ChatGPT’s new web browser (or anti-web browser) for the Mac; Apple’s loss in a “landmark” regulatory lawsuit in the UK regarding App Store commission rates; multiple reports of poor sales for the iPhone Air; and Apple’s M5 product announcements: MacBook Pro, iPads Pro, and Vision Pro.

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Worth a re-link, following up on my post yesterday linking to Stephen Hackett’s “Boring Is What We Wanted”, here’s Rogue Amoeba co-founder Quentin Carnicelli, writing back in 2018:

At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year. Here are the last updates to the entire line of Macs:

• iMac Pro: 182 days ago
• iMac: 374 days ago
• MacBook: 374 days ago
• MacBook Air: 374 days ago
• MacBook Pro: 374 days ago
• Mac Pro: 436 days ago
• Mac Mini: 1,337 days ago

Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with many machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. While the Mac Mini hasn’t seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop), even that 2014 update was lackluster. [...]

Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. The much smaller Apple of the mid-2000s managed this with ease. Their current failure to keep the Mac lineup fresh, even as they approach a trillion dollar market cap, is both baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their livelihood.

Five years into the Apple Silicon era, and Apple is doing exactly that. The situation has completely reversed. Apple Silicon has been an utter triumph for the Mac platform.

Yours truly on Friday, regarding the news that Meta is going to ban rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp:

Perhaps because I’m only a light user of WhatsApp, I had no idea that rival AI chatbots had accounts there. I just tried it with 1-800-ChatGPT and it seems pointless. It’s noticeably slower and uses an older model than just using the ChatGPT app.

A few readers have pointed to one good use case for this gateway: airplane Wi-Fi, particularly on airlines that offer “free” Wi-Fi for messaging apps like Apple Messages (iMessage) and WhatsApp. The ChatGPT app won’t work unless you pay for full Wi-Fi access on a flight, but WhatsApp does, and through January, you can interact with ChatGPT through that loophole. Clever.

Update: Similarly, these WhatsApp bot gateways are also useful in third-world countries with spotty Wi-Fi networking, but where Meta’s apps — including WhatsApp — are zero-rated against cellular network bandwidth caps. India is one prominent example. In some parts of the world, the only reliable networks are cellular, and the only “free Internet” is Meta’s suite of apps and services that are zero-rated on those cell networks.