Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac
knocktounlock.com
knocktounlock.com
Please stop making a big deal about how you don't like hipster beards.
It really makes HN look like pretentious douchebags instead of intelligent thinkers.
It makes HN people look like the have no understanding of marketing.
If you're going to criticize the marketing, do it from a metrics perspective, rather than being exactly what you're claiming to hate by telling people to stop being hipsters - arrogant.
Let people be who they are. Measure them by their output and their product, and the effectiveness of their decisions. Not on whether or not they conform to your taste/style.
I get it - if you have design critiques, it makes sense to share those. If you have marketing critiques, it makes sense to share those (like: "If you market this to hipsters, you will not get the hipster-hating crowd to buy"). If you have a personal soap box of despise for another person's tastes, please do not bring it here.
I would guess that the true point being made is that these people are not "being who they are," because someone else has caused them to "conform to [their] taste/style."
Your reaction is actually pointing out exactly the same thinking on their part as you're using to criticize it: hackers don't like it when someone has forced their idea of aesthetics on them--because hackers are, fundamentally, aesthetes--so we get vicariously offended when they see a trend of some group "forcing" their idea of aesthetics on some other group.
This applies even if that "force" is just the majority declaring some particular style to be "objectively fashionable." Hackers don't like the idea that things can be "in vogue", because it coerces their ability to self-style down set paths they might not want to have gone down. Even if they would have liked a particular style, having it be popular means it's no longer their creative idea to choose it--so it doesn't demonstrate their creativity, and that's all they cared about doing in the first place.
However, there's one problem.
> these people are not "being who they are," because someone else has caused them to "conform to [their] taste/style."
This is assumption based on cultural hints. There have been quite a few times on HN where hackers have proven to indeed not be aesthetes, because hacking marketing requires aesthetic. This goes down to whether or not you appreciate aesthetics of your own appearance, as well.
I don't see anyone making the claim that this is "objectively fashionable". What I see is a bunch of people who rage against a marketing decision because it bastardizes their seemingly misguided need for aesthetic "purity" (whatever that means).
The criticism I'm offering isn't to stop liking your aesthetic preferences. If you don't like beards, don't grow one.
But someone posts a link on HN, and people bitch and moan because the primary subject of marketing is sporting a beard. It really misses the point of HN discussion. Again, I understand if the conversation is centered around the marketing (or other) implications of the decisions made by those who created the product and the site. But the conversation doesn't revolve around that at all. Instead, it's a bunch of "get off my lawn" and raging against trends without any particularly discernible purpose.
I see two posts making fun of beards. Two.
Why are you even making this discussion? Meta discussion is frowned upon on HN. If you feel someone's discussion is off-topic, down-vote them and move on.
The irony is your meta discussion is now the top-voted post, instead of discussion on the actual product.
I think the product is quite nicely done. I bought it. And I believe the discussion revolves around not only the product, but the presentation and the reception of that presentation. So the "meta" value here isn't limited to the beard conversation. It's a larger discussion about the HN community, which isn't quite "frowned upon." It's important that we all contribute to moderation and encourage better thought.
I posted early in response to a initial negative discussion (which indeed is a pervasive issue on HN) about the pretension of the video, the aesthetics, etc. It's not just a response about beards - it's a response regarding the product and a more valuable way of understanding marketing, which I think will contribute to the discussion of the OP in the future.
And thus, I think it is quite relevant to this particular thread. But I will rest my case here.
I like ties, and I enjoy wearing them. Are you vicariously offended that I might jeopardize my chance to get a developer job at Google or an SV startup if I wore a tie to the interview?
This is an amazingly light convenience, with really solid, streamlined execution. People, it's ok to think something is good.
All the same, though, it is expected that almost all new startups will fail and most products will not be "the best" or even original. That's the nature of competition; only the top products get any traction at all. Given that, I would expect critiques of most new ventures.
Just people you disagree with someone doesn't make them negative.
It's critique. HN is a place of dissenting opinions.
It's ok to have an opinion different than yours.
Edited for clarity.
I was going to post a comment about it, mainly as a data point, in case such things matter to the site owner. OTOH I have on iPhone and I don't have a Mac I use often enough to care about this sort of product anyway; it's in perpetual sleep mode 99% of the time. I'm not the target audience.
Does mentioning my dislike for the site make me negative? Is it to the long-term good that people feel reluctant to offer criticism?
I do get the point about "Knock stuff to show your IQ"; it's unpleasant and an easy habit to fall into. I've been with groups of geeks where it's impossible to discuss almost any piece of software because it turns into a dick measuring contest. (So to speak.)
Still, sometimes some things really are flawed and those flaws are worth pointing out.
I suppose that every criticism should be accompanied by some suggestion on how to fix or improve things, but that's not always possible.
I don't have any really good suggestions on how to temper negativity other than to encourage people to pause and consider why they are posting something, and for others to try to ignore the posts that irk them.
+ Really well thought-out interactions (noticing when I download, auto installing to /Applications)
+ Plain-English ToS under creative commons.
- An unsigned latest.zip for downloading, at least use a dmg so you can sign and have more control over the presentation
- Extremely difficult to find Knock on the app store. The app could open a web page or itunes, right now I'm left searching and wading through knock-knock joke apps.
- Making me run software before telling me the price of the software
All in all, you're doing great with presentation, but it has a few minuses. I can't use the software because I don't have an iPhone now, so this is where my review ends.
Apparently the iTunes link thing is a bug https://twitter.com/jschloss/status/397783949746769921
The nifty "presentation" adds a several needless steps and pitfalls to running an application:
• Mounting and verification of DMG is slow (Zip CRC and Developer ID signatures give you verification too).
• "Nothing happens" after clicking DMG — user has to find DMG mount on a cluttered desktop.
• Clicking app icon in the DMG window is tempting, but generally it's a no-no (some apps don't mind, but some ask to be moved to Applications, and some throw "error -13 read only volume" kind of errors).
• User is expected to copy the app to Applications folder, with instructions given in form of non-localizable non-accessible text-in-image, and it's trickier when sidebar with shortcut to Applications folder is hidden (and remember "Applications" folder name is localized and sounds nothing like it in many languages).
• User has to unmount and delete the DMG, but that gives non-obvious behavior when the app is running off the DMG.
• It gets super confusing when user has pinned app in the Dock while it was running off the DMG
Mounting and verification is slow: Perhaps. Enough to matter?
Opening a DMG is a two-click operation from either the download progress bar on the top right, or two clicks (which visibly floats to the Downloads folder and bounces again when done). Hardly "finding DMG on a cluttered desktop". The mounted DMG pops to the front, at least on my system.
Many applications, if they detect they're running from a DMG, will offer to restart and copy themselves to the applications folder. This deals with the next 3 problems. Even then, it's possible to put text in the window saying "Drag this to the applications folder". It's a dance that anyone using a mac for a reasonable amount of time is familiar with.
I'd say, overall, the presentation on a DMG is so much better than an anonymous zip file dropping an anonymous app in the downloads folder.
It takes a few seconds, hardly that much slower than opening a zip
>• "Nothing happens" after clicking DMG — user has to find DMG mount on a cluttered desktop
1) Unless you've really fobbed up your view settings, mounted drives show up, in alpha order, in the farthest right row.
2) DMG's have a bless value that makes them spawn a finder window on mount, the below command is run when my xcode spits out a new release build
'bless --folder /Volumes/$Application --openfolder /Volumes/$Application'
Really a non-issue and only apps built on an old SDK should have this behavoir any more (more recent SDKs will let them shove things in /tmp while run from a mounted dmg)
>• User is expected to copy the app to Applications folder, with instructions given in form of non-localizable non-accessible text-in-image, and it's trickier when sidebar with shortcut to Applications folder is hidden (and remember "Applications" folder name is localized and sounds nothing like it in many languages).
The user also has to drag the zipped app to applications. You can also solve this "problem" by including a finder shortcut to the Applications folder in the the DMG. Finder automatically localizes the Application's folder alias because it's a special URI
>• User has to unmount and delete the DMG, but that gives non-obvious behavior when the app is running off the DMG.
User has to delete the .zip and sometimes a, now empty, folder.
>• It gets super confusing when user has pinned app in the Dock while it was running off the DMG
No it doesn't, the DMG is automatically mounted and the app run if they do this
It really does, especially if you're one of the 99.999% of users who deletes their dmg's after installing. Then you just see an app icon with a big (?) in the middle of it.
From a consumer (end user)'s perspective, you're pretty much wrong on all points except the last two. Those are valid, and i have accidentally done that before. Tis annoying.
At least they need to change the name from "latest.zip" to "Knock for Mac.zip" or something like that.
Even better would be having it in the Mac App Store. Since you need to download the iPhone version from the App Store anyway, it would be better to keep things unified.
I'd buy the argument five or ten years ago. But times have changed.
When you install the Mac application, it will ask for your computer's password. This password is then stored, as I understand, on your phone.
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Quote:
When Knock connects to your Mac, it sends your password over that signal using both Bluetooth's built-in encryption and our own proprietary, 1024-bit RSA encryption.
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I think for many users, this is secure enough. This will probably not do if you are more interesting than an average joe.
What I don't like is that 'proprietary' remark. It almost sounds like they wrote their own crypto implementation of RSA 1024. Again: probably safe enough for home use.
I searched on knock unlock in the IOS app store and found it immediately.
It seems that the Knock application also records usage.
Furthermore, I seem to have troubles with sleep, if the computer does not wake from sleep with this app, I'm not sure if I think it's useful.
The iPhone app that this pairs with costs $3.99 by the way.
If you use Mac OS, Proximity is similar to BlueProximity, there are probably other solutions that don't require an iOS app and accomplish the same thing without the magical novelty, all the same, I think it's neat and if the app weren't $4 I would try it out.
Not to mention I wouldn't be surprised if they extended their app to work with other devices.
For example, I have compiz set to use the "Burn" effect when closing windows. This is delightful and unobtrusive, and completely pointless. But man is it a stress reliever when I decide to close all of my windows in frustration.
It also could receive and send SMS on the machine and pause/resume music on phone call.
That said, it's pretty cool, and I like the website design.
Edit: although ideally Prey will still be running. They'll just be able to run amok in the meantime...!
But that's exactly what I did on my last Mac (which wasn't using Filevault).
If my laptop is stolen with the 'keys' to the laptop also in the bag, my life could become very difficult very quickly taking me years to recover from.
I think the point is you don't want to have the same paradigm as car + keys when it comes to your private information.
In any case it's a big upgrade from people who leave their computer unlocked all day. I'd love to see them add automatic proximity-based locking.
I can get in the habit of hitting a key combination/alfred command when I get up but having to click the icon in the menu bar will get annoying.
This is a gimmick, as far as I'm concerned.
What am I missing that makes you think it's not the built-in locking mechanism?
Does Knock use its own proprietary lock screen?
No. Knock uses Apple's built-in OS X lock screen with our UI on top.
Another major caveat: locking your screen this way is a security risk if you are running FileVault. When OSX puts the computer to sleep and FileVault is enabled, DMA is automatically disabled until the screen is unlocked. If you use this app to lock your screen you will be removing the DMA prevention.
I would also be willing to bet there are other security concerns, as the iphone has taught us - lock screens can be hard :) be careful guys!
If you turn on drive encryption and then add a "bios" password in the firmware to prevent recovery, that's about as protected as things get on Mac.
Which means until your hard drive is decrypted it's still protected and this app won't work.
In my case, this app won't work even when the computer goes to sleep. Why? I've set mine to re-encrypt on sleep, so it prompts me for the password -- to unencrypt -- every time.
I'm not adding this until Apple can use this as a second factor for the encryption -- or as a way to select a profile and load user data from the phone.
i'm finding it odd that there are people who feel like commenting on the appearance of the gentleman (actor/friend/founder/dude) in the video in a negative way. who cares how a guy in a video is dressed to demonstrate a product? and then even if you don't associate with the type of grooming or style of dress, that's totally cool, but to start throwing around gross oversimplifications like 'hipster'?
stop being so fucking superficial.
That's my approach. I don't think scrollbars are entirely necessary (and in a slide-to-slide webpage like this, having a scrollbar wouldn't really work since it'd break the UI), but having some indicator that you can scroll is necessary. It doesn't necessarily have to be a scrollbar though. Having content peeking out from beneath the fold is often enough to let the user know, "Hey! There's stuff down here! Scroll and check it out!"
With the M7 coprocessor, iOS would be able to register a callback for a given "gesture," like two knocks. Then the phone could implement such functionality while staying in standby! Combined with a facility for securely determining proximity, you could use such a facility to securely unlock everything.
I was intrigued at how they did this from a locked phone, and it turns out they don't. You have to have the app launched before knocking, meaning at it's core, this is just a shake listener with a count and some Bluetooth code. Not that it's not worth $4 (yeah, app isn't free), but it's not getting my $4 yet, since typing my password is still easier and plenty secure.
The user decides. All of the callbacks get registered with a name and description, but the user picks which one is active.
I understand that you are trying to make this as simple as possible, but things you assume to be obvious might not be obvious for others. For example, where do I knock? Does the phone have to be awake? Does the app have to be open? etc.
Also, your app seems to be failing silently. I have been knocking all over the place and it would help tremendously if there was an alert telling me what had gone wrong. That way, I can email support and pinpoint exactly what is wrong. As of now, I have no idea why your app is not working.
edit
Finally figured out what I was doing wrong. Put your phone flat on the table. Then tap twice on your phone and you should see rings show up on your macbook pro. Your phone can even be locked.
Do not hold the phone in your hands while you tap it. I was holding the phone in my hands before, which causes the taps to fail to register.
This tap-your-phone stuff is similar, except less convenient. You actually have to take your phone out of your pocket and then tap on it, as opposed to just walking up to your computer and having it unlock automatically. In fact, this is probably slower than logging in via keyboard, depending on how fast a draw you are.
Also, you don't need to take your phone out of your pocket to tap it (it doesn't have to touch the computer, just any moderately firm object, such as a knuckle through a pants pocket).
+ great UX
- knock just works if I touch my computer once (I would just type my password instead of knock my phone)
- knock does not lock my computer if I knock to get a water or something at work for example (version 2 maybe?)
- the download file could have the app name on it (I do not care about being a zip)
- Expensive for this kind of feature (0.99 would be more appropriate)
- Some information about how my password is being stored would be nice
I can't get it to work? Are there minimum requirements for the mac end? I'm using the last 17" mac they made.
By the way, this attack is much more successful in reverse, for listening to and replaying keycard transactions. I was shocked to discover how little materials would be needed to make a decent amplified antenna.
BUT something already does this, for free, it's called keycard.
As someone else pointed out, very hard to find on app store, then also, it suddenly costs $3.99 in app store. YOU HID THAT PART NICELY.
One other thing, why name your zip file "latest.zip" - took me a good minute to find it in download folder.
Apple should already have this crap built in with new ios/mavericks though :( Also, does it work on my mac 2010? Doesn't look like it. >.<
Since iOS 7 - nothing works for this type of setup, Knock, or Keycard.
ls -lrt ~/Downloads
Also, complaining about $4? Really?
Doesn't work if you have it in screensaver mode and locked - you need to have the login screen up. Still very neat.
I wish someone would just hurry up and implement unlocking of your mac via touchid(I have no idea if its technically possible to use touchid for other apps then apples).
I don't know, but I like how well it works.
2. It seems the app changed something in the system settings, so that now, when I lock the screen, it goes off. Before, it started to show the screen saver. How to undo this?
3. You should have provided answers to my questions in your FAQ section, really.
Looks cool, but I was pretty disappointed that I paid money and it didn't work with no warning.
while submitting my email. If owners of project are here, I'm using Chrome on Windows.
hmmm
[quote]
The new M7 coprocessor is like a sidekick to the A7 chip. It’s designed specifically to measure motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass — a task that would normally fall to the A7 chip. But M7 is much more efficient at it. Now fitness apps that track physical activity can access that data from the M7 coprocessor without constantly engaging the A7 chip. So they require less battery power.
M7 knows when you’re walking, running, or even driving. For example, Maps switches from driving to walking turn-by-turn navigation if, say, you park and continue on foot. And if your phone hasn’t moved for a while, like when you’re asleep, M7 reduces network pinging to spare your battery. [/quote]
This is answered right on the linked webpage: Bluetooth Low Energy.
no android app?
>hipster beard
>authentic, vintage old storage space
>edgy minimalism
I am not buying it.
The point of these things was most likely a marketing strategy, and one that will likely be effective. I bought it. Not because of the jeans. Not because of the vintage storage space. Because it's a good product.
I wouldn't have bought it if there wasn't a decent presentation of the functionality. And that is there.
sheesh… it's just a cool, simple video introducing a product. way to tear it apart.
> slightly goofy credibility-straining setup
> tension-relieving drop-dead-simple interface
I'd have bought it already if not for my MacBookPro not supporting "low power bluetooth".
The sales pitch admittedly has nothing to do with the technology - yet that's practically the point! There's no specs to sell, no user interface to demo beyond a "knock knock" so simple you don't even have to take the phone out of your pocket. There's almost nothing to sell, yet what there is has value ($4, ok); how do you sell that? A just-a-guy in casual attire in a simple & slightly non-sequitur space works just fine. Simple product, presumably easy development, first-mover advantage (this thing will have a thousand duplicates overnight), near-zero ad production cost.
As for complaints about security: this is like the iOS fingerprint reader...it's not for serious security against serious attackers, it's about just locking your front door while making it easy for you to get in.
As for the app, etc. I'd like to see this grow into some multi-part thing that could optionally include voice, fingerprint, code, etc.