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The Thanksgiving-Run Edition Monday, November 21, 2016

Apple Watch Has A Special Thanksgiving Activity Achievement, Run/walk 5K On Nov 24 To Earn Unique Award + iMessage Sticker, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Apple Watch owners can get a special Activity Challenge for Thanksgiving, this November 24th. Apple Watch owners are waking up to notifications on their wrist announcing a special achievement in the Activity app, the first time Apple has done this. To receive the reward, users must run or walk 5K (3.1 miles) on November 24 using Apple’s Workout app or any third-party app that integrates workouts with HealthKit.

Apple Launches Repair Program For iPhone 6s Devices Experiencing Unexpected Shutdowns, by Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Apple today launched a new repair program for iPhone 6s users whose devices may be unexpectedly shutting down. The issue is a limited one only affecting certain devices manufactured between September and October 2015.

How Apple Empowers, And Employs, The American Working Class, by Vindu Goel, New York Times

For a host of reasons, Apple is unlikely to produce iPhones in the United States. But opening a smartphone factory in this country is not the only way to provide solid employment for working-class Americans who lack college degrees.

Apple’s overall contribution to the American economy is significant. Beyond the 80,000 people it directly employs in the United States, it says 69 supplier facilities in 33 states manufacture parts that go into its products. Hundreds of thousands of software developers also write apps for iPhones and iPads.

Malleability, by And Now It's All This

The death of AppleScript and other automation techniques has seemed imminent before, and it’s always escaped. Sometimes we’ve even gotten small advances likeJXA. This latest news is more troubling than what we’ve heard before, but I’m going to keep scripting. My computer works for me, I don’t work for it.

Touch Bar Impressions, by Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels

I liked that it surfaces things in complex applications like Final Cut Pro X and Numbers, but the inconsistent usage and mode switching that has to take place to find things would need to be second nature before I considered it helpful day to day. I think there’s a ton of potential here, though, and it’s still early days of this thing.

‘Designed By Apple In California’ Brought To Life, by John Voorhees, MacStories

Hackett, who owns an extensive collection of Apple hardware, filmed the gear side-by-side with the photographs in Apple’s book, bringing it to life in a way that the photos alone cannot.

Stuff

Apple Debuts New Apple Music Ad Starring Drake As It Ramps Up Marketing For Holiday Season, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

The ad is essentially a mirror of an ad that starredTaylor Swift and was released earlier this year.

Notes

Apple Abandons Development Of Wireless Routers, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple began shutting down the wireless router team over the past year, dispersing engineers to other product development groups, including the one handling the Apple TV, said the people, who asked not to be named because the decision hasn’t been publicly announced.

Is The Jig Finally Up For Coffee Shop Wi-Fi Freeloaders?, by Jimi Famurewa, The Guardian

Hesketh agrees that people are “super understanding” about their digital blackout. Perhaps this is a new age. Perhaps people truly have had enough of work encroaching on notionally social spaces. Either that or they have found that spot by the window where you can serviceably nick Wi-Fi from the train station.

Bottom of the Page

If you ask 30-year-old me what I will tell my 20-year-old me, I'd probably say: learn to accept loneliness, and save more money.

If you ask 40-year-old me what I will tell my 30-year-old me, I'd probably say: try harder to accept loneliness, and save even more money.

If you ask future 50-year-old me what I will tell me today, I'd most likely say: try even harder to learn to accept loneliness, and save much more money than what you are saving now.

(I don't need a top-of-the-line iPhone. But I can't resist...)

~

Thanks for reading.