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The Not-Charged Edition Saturday, February 13, 2016

Apple Initiates Replacement Program For MacBook USB-C Charging Cables, by Mikey Campbell, AppleInsider

As noted by Apple, a "limited number" of MacBook USB-C charging cables shipped through June 2015 have a design flaw that causes a attached laptop to not charge or charge intermittently when connected to a power source.

Coming Soon: New Refresh

Apple Execs Eddy Cue & Craig Federighi Talk Apple Music, App Store & More In New Interview, by Greg Barbosa, 9to5Mac

Starting with discussions internally two years ago, Cue re-iterates that iTunes was designed at a time when everything was synced with cables. He quickly touches on the idea that when Apple was introducing Apple Music, they played with building it “all in the cloud” because “Apple Music’s all in the cloud”, but by doing so it might have limited users from uploading their music into the cloud without a tool like iTunes. Cue finalizes his statements explaining, “we’ve got a new refresh, with the new version of OS X coming out next month, that makes it even easier to use in the music space.”

Apple Music Tops 11 Million Subscribers; iCloud Reaches 782 Million, by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

It was revealed that Apple’s iCloud service now reaches 782 million users; Apple’s iMessage users send 200,000 messages per second; Apple Pay has processed billions of dollars in payments; the App Store and iTunes see 750 million transactions every week; and Siri handles billions of requests per week.

Yet Another File-Deleting Installer

Warning: Bug In Adobe Creative Cloud Deletes Mac User Data Without Warning, by Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

The deletions happen whenever Mac users log in to the Adobe service after the update has been installed, according to officials from Backblaze, a data backup service whose users are being disproportionately inconvenienced by the bug. Upon sign in, a script activated by Creative Cloud deletes the contents in the alphabetically first folder in a Mac's root directory. Backblaze users are being especially hit by the bug because the backup service relies on data stored in a hidden root folder called .bzvol.

Stuff

OS X Hidden Treasures: Quick Look, by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS

Quick Look offers a fast preview of what’s inside a file, most notably in the Finder and third-party file transfer apps. It works with many common file types, such as text files, images, audio, video, PDFs, Microsoft Office files, and even fonts.

We’ll explain how to use Quick Look, in which apps you can use it, and how to use it from the command line (which is also helpful for troubleshooting). Then we’ll share some of our favorite Quick Look plug-ins to extend Quick Look’s capabilities and make it even more useful.

How To Live With A 16GB iPhone Or iPad (And Not Lose Your Mind), by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet

With a little bit of thought and planning, you can make it so that 16 gigabytes of storage is adequate. And I want you to know that I feel your pain. I am usually too thrifty to hand Apple hundreds of dollars in exchange for a few bucks worth of storage chips.

Hands On: MindNode 2.2.2 For OS X And 4.2.2 For iOS, by William Gallagher, MacNN

Most of the time if we turn to a mind map it is because what we're doing is so complicated or we've thought it out so poorly that we need to really chew over everything. Sometimes after we've chewed, though, we realise there are only a couple of bits we need or want to actually do something about. So now we can mark those as tasks.

How To View iPhone System Info, Launch Apps, And More In Notification Center, by Allyson Kazmucha, The App Factor

Not only can you use Orby to make calls and send messages faster, you can also view iPhone system info such as memory and storage, launch apps, and even perform conversions.

Slack Adds Support For iOS Document Providers, New Emoji Picker, by Federico Viticci, MacStories

Develop

Transitioning From Objective C To Swift In 4 Steps – Without Rewriting The Existing Code, by Gregely Orosz, Code Voyagers

There are many resources talking about how to decide whether to use Swift for a new project or not, and best practices for writing Swift. However if you’re working on a pretty large Objective C codebase, you will probably find this article useful. If not – one day you might bump into a codebase where you want to start using Swift: this article presents some advice on how to get started doing so.

Sendbird Looks To Help Developers Add Chat Functions To Any App, by Matthew Lynley, TechCrunch

“We’ve been building this for a couple times when we were building our social game, we had to build this chat functionality every time,” Kim said. “We felt like it was re-inventing the wheel every time. Even though chat is really important, as a startup you have limited resources. You want your product guys and engineers focusing on what matters most. ”

Watch Apps Worth Making, by David Smith

There seems to be only three kinds of apps that make sense given the current hardware and software on the Apple Watch.

Notifications, complications, and sensors.

Notes

Apple: Dear Judge, Please Tell Us If Gov’t Can Compel Us To Unlock An iPhone, by Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica

In a new letter, Apple has asked a judge to finally rule in a case where the government is trying to force the company to unlock a seized iPhone 5S running iOS 7. Currently, United States Magistrate Judge James Orenstein has been sitting on the case for nearly three months.

Harvard Study Says Apple's Tim Cook Was Right: Encryption Bans, Backdoors Wouldn't Work, by Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider

Efforts by the FBI and certain lawmakers seeking to ban Apple and other U.S. companies from selling products with real encryption will not be effective, note researchers in a study citing 865 encryption products already available in 55 countries—two thirds of which originate outside the U.S.

The Age Of Indie Fitness Apps Is Over, by Lauren Goode, The Verge

And as with all acquisitions, the initial promise is that nothing will change — that app will still be your workout buddy, even if it’s upgrading to a much bigger house in a fancier neighborhood. But eventually, things change. It can be as subtle as a logo: the grande jete-ing silhouette in the MyFitnessPal app now has an Under Armour logo hovering over its head. But it can be as significant as ads for services like Munchery now appearing in your food diary, or a deal on sneakers popping up in your workout log. Your runner’s high is being monetized.

There’s also your data to consider. That free fitness app you signed up for a couple years ago, the one that needed you to enter your gender, height, weight, birthday, and general health and fitness goals in order for you to use it? That information is now owned by another, larger company. All of them will hurry to say that the data, when used to inform business decisions, is completely anonymized or non-identifiable. But it’s still there. Your height and weight are part of the borg now.

Rumor Of The Day

Dr. Dre Filming Apple's First Scripted Television Series, by Michael O'Connell and Lesley Goldberg, Hollywood Reporter

Multiple sources say the 50-year-old mogul is starring in and executive producing his own six-episode vehicle, dubbed Vital Signs, and the production is being bankrolled by Apple. The series likely will be distributed via Apple Music, the company's subscription streaming site, but it's not clear if Apple TV, the iTunes store or other Apple platforms (or even a traditional television distributor) will be involved.

Bottom of the Page

Instead of spending on expensive flowers and expensive dinners tomorrow, why not celebrate Renri instead? Just bake a cake and sing a Happy Birthday song. Or if you are really traditional-minded, eat some seven-kinds-of-vegetables-in-a-soup and blow up some fireworks.

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Thanks for reading.