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The Gold-12-Inch Edition Wednesday, January 20, 2016

My Love Of MacBook, by Jim Dalrymple, The Loop

One of my favorite Macs ever is the gold 12-inch MacBook. This computer shows that Apple’s forward thinking design is not limited to iPhone and iPad. It also maintains Apple’s vision of giving consumers what they need before they even know they need it.

Going To Schools

iOS 9.3 And Education, by Fraser Speirs, MacStories

While Apple isn't cutting the price of iPads for schools, there are four major new features and programmes coming in iOS 9.3 that will make iPads easier to share and easier to deploy. iOS administrators everywhere should be directing their gifts of beer and muffin baskets to the Chromebook education team at Google this time around.

Apple's Diversity

Apple's US Diversity Barely Improved Last Year, by Amar Toor, The Verge

Apple's US workforce is slightly more diverse than it was last year, but the company remains overwhelmingly white and male, according to its latest EEO-1 Federal Employer Information report. The report, released over the weekend, shows that 30 percent of Apple's US employees are women, compared to 29 percent in its previous report. About 8.6 percent of its workforce is black, inching up from 8 percent in 2014, and 11.7 percent is hispanic or Latino, compared to 11.5 percent. Among executives, senior officials, and managers, nearly 83 percent are male, and 83.5 percent are white.

Apple Says It Cares About Diversity. Facts Say Otherwise., by Emily Peck, Huffington Post

And how exactly has the iPhone maker demonstrated its commitment? Mostly by spending money to help girls get into the tech field and creating a diversity webpage. Those are both fine things to do, but even the company's own data shows it hasn't been enough to move the needle.

Previously:

Cracked The TV

Deeper With ESPN’s John Skipper On Apple, Sling And Sports Rights, by Amol Sharma And Shalini Ramachandran, Wall Street Journal

"They are creating a significantly advantageous operating system and a great television experience and that television experience is fabulous for sports. We are big proponents of believing it would be a fabulous place to sell some subscriptions. We have ongoing conversations. They have been frustrated by their ability to construct something which works for them with programmers. We continue to try to work with them."

Apple TV Designer Ben Keighran Is Leaving, by Peter Kafka, Re/code

Keighran wouldn’t comment on Apple projects that haven’t seen the light of day, beyond acknowledging that “we looked at many different ways of delivering an awesome TV experience.” He said the decision to leave Apple was “really difficult. I’ve totally fallen in love with the people, the culture, the product.”

Stuff

Security Update 2016-001 (Mavericks And Yosemite), by Agen G. N. Schmitz, TidBITS

The update improves memory handling with libxslt (the library used to perform XSL transformations on XML documents) to avoid a type confusion that could allow a maliciously crafted to execute arbitrary code.

Hermes Apple Watch Edition Hits Online Store On Friday, by AppleInsider

Four months after announcing a special Apple Watch edition created in collaboration with French fashion house Hermes, Apple is taking the device out of limited availability and will begin online sales starting Friday.

iMovie For Mac Updated To Version 10.1.1, by Dennis Sellers, Apple World Today

How I Quickly Fixed A Weird Siri Remote Problem, by Rob Lefebvre, Cult Of Mac

So if your Siri Remote Menu button has gone wonky, be sure to power cycle your Apple TV and see if it helps. Chances are a complete power cycle will help other wonkiness, as well, with both your Siri Remote and Apple TV itself.

How Email To 2Do Has Improved My Daily Email Workflow, by Federico Viticci, MacStories

The gist of the idea hasn't changed in the past two months: Email to 2Do is an email client built into 2Do that doesn't display an email-like interface to the user. Its sole job is to connect to your email inbox and monitor new messages as they arrive. If they match rules assigned by you in the Settings, they will be saved as tasks in the inbox or another designated list.

Mindly For Mac OS X, by MacTech

It help keep your “inner universe” organized by giving a structure to your thoughts, ideas, plans and projects.

You Have A Jack Lets You Decide When Messages Can Be Opened, by Sandy Stachowiak, AppAdvice

Well, a new app plays off of that feeling of eagerness by letting you send and receive text messages that cannot be read until a certain time. You have a Jack lets you choose the date and time for your messages to be opened.

SoundBow Draws Up Creative Music For iPhone Users, by Colin barry, KnowTechie

SoundBow is a drawing based music instrument with a clean and simple visual interface. Create music by drawing curves over the screen.

Develop

Profiling Your Swift Compilation Times, by irace.me

I had a problem. The new iOS application that I’m working on – written 100% in Swift – was noticeably taking much longer to compile than should, given its size (~200 files). More concerning, it was suddenly a lot slower than only a couple of weeks prior. I needed to get to the root of the problem as soon as possible, before it got any worse.

Notes

Apple Seeks DIPP Nod To Open Own Stores In India, by Varun Jain and Rasul Bailay, India Times

The Apple stores famed for their ambience and unparalleled customer experience may soon come up in your city. Apple India has filed an application to open its own Apple branded stores in India with the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

How Donald Trump Got Everything Wrong About Apple In One Sentence, by Arik Hesseldahl, Re/code

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much Trump gets wrong with that one statement, and how little power he will have, if elected, to do what he says. If he means what he says, he is ignorant about how many American workers, both at Apple and other companies, participate in the creation of “Apple’s computers and things,” including its Mac line of personal computers as well as the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The company’s products are, if anything, an example of the engine of American technical supremacy chugging along at a job-creating pace that is the envy of the world.

The Promise And Confusion Of USB Type-C, by Bob O'Donnell, Techpinions

The real problem is there are no simple means of demarcation or labelling for different varieties of USB Type-C. One of the goals of the standard was to produce a much smaller connector that would fit on smaller devices—leaving little room for any type of icon.

Why Google Quit China—and Why It’s Heading Back, by kaveh Waddell, The Atlantic

Google’s move to pull the plug in China is an extreme example of the kinds of decisions Internet companies operating abroad are often up against: If they want to do business, they have to abide by local laws, which can include restrictions on speech. And since the United States has some of the most permissive freedom-of-speech laws in the world, American companies must adapt in order to do business even in parts of the world that are culturally very similar to the U.S.

Bottom of the Page

There are rules created by gods, and they arrive through tablets or word-of-mouth.

Then there are rules created by human, which is why I cannot simply kill people I hate, or run naked in the streets, just because.

And then there are rules created by me. For example, I've more-or-less pre-planned what my lunch will be on the different days of my work week. By taking the decision-making process out of my head, I can spend more time figuring out what to write here at the bottom of the page.

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Thanks for reading.