Two decades have passed since newspapers launched websites, and yet here we are. Big city papers have gone under, thousands of journalists have lost their jobs, and the idea that digital news will eventually become a decent business feels like a rumor. The reality is this: No app, no streamlined website, no “vertical integration,” no social network, no algorithm, no Apple, no Apple Newsstand, no paywall, no soft paywall, no targeted ad, no mobile-first strategy has come close to matching the success of print in revenue or readership. And the most crucial assumption publishers have made about readers, particularly millennials—that they prefer the immediacy of digital—now seems questionable, too. [...]
Corporate titans often say that you must be willing to sacrifice your best products to develop new and potentially bigger ones. Apple killed the iPod with the iPhone. We all know how that worked out. But what if newspapers are killing their iPod without an iPhone in sight?
[M]ost of Silicon Valley’s leadership backed Trump rival and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and were even more supportive of outgoing President Barack Obama.
Tech companies also stand on the other side of a myriad of key issues from Trump, including immigration reform, encryption and a range of social concerns. But those involved said that tech leaders had little choice in accepting the invitation, even if they wanted to decline, opting to engage now even if they later oppose Trump.
The problem is that, between the source code and your phone, there is a black box of transformations that users do not see. We do not know if the binary from the AppStore does not also include other, possibly nefarious, code.
Ulysses 2.7 is a writing studio, or a writing environment, rather than a straight word processor. Users write in it like they would Pages or Microsoft Word, but Ulysses is focused equally on writing, organizing all writing work, and then preparing it to be read online or in print.
Effective automation doesn’t always mean writing a script or macro that performs all the steps in a process. Some of my most useful automation workflows are hybrids, set up so I do the parts that require thought and judgment and the computer does the parts that are rote and repetitive.
In the latest edition of its biannual report on Government Information Requests, Apple says that governments across the globe are making ever more frequent requests for access to customer data — and the U.S. makes six times as many account requests as China.
In a fraught public sphere, headphones provide a measure of privacy. Those who fall deeply into a Spotify playlist or the latest installment of an addictive podcast enter a cocoon-like zone all but impenetrable to tourists, beggars and those do-gooders with clipboards.
“Headphones are the front line of urban social defense,” said Julie Klausner, a comedian, actor and writer. “I’m introverted and socially anxious by nature. My worst nightmare is sitting next to someone on a plane or someone who wants to strike up a conversation on an elevator.” [...]
But the latest round of headphones popularity may be an expression of our disaffected times, coming during a season when people holding different views on matters political and cultural struggle to open their mouths without triggering an argument.
Today, I am re-organizing my RSS feeds and their folders. Again.
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