At one end of the spectrum, multiple 27” monitors, eGPUs (external graphics processors) or multi-terabyte disk drives, at the other, iPhones with iPads in the middle. A single operating system cannot serve both the needs of high-end Mac usage scenarios, and the miniaturization and mobility requirements of iPhones. The macOS UIKit would bridge the gap between two distinct styles of personal computing without bastardizing either. This would allow users to move from an iPad to an iMac without jarring changes in their everyday habits and yet to benefit from the different tasks each device is best suited to. This supports the party line of two distinct (and destined to remain so) personal computing styles.
Workflow, for all of its glory, was an app that felt like it was put together with scotch tape and chewing gum. The Workflow team, and the development community at large squeezed more automation life out of the URL scheme than anyone ever thought possible. This new version, however, lets developers make application functions much easier to automate and gives the Siri Shortcuts tools way more power than Workflow ever could have achieved when it was on the outside. Going forward, an App’s integration with Siri Shortcuts is going to be a significant factor in which apps I use.
My bewilderment quickly mutated into offense. This out-of-office message seemed to flout all the rules of email that we, as an internet-based society, had imposed on ourselves and others—and it was doing so unabashedly! Of course we’re allowed to not check email while we’re on vacation. That makes perfect sense. But to not check what arrived when you were gone, to not spend hours “digging out” upon return? To avoid it altogether? To extricate oneself, a cog in the email machine, while the rest of us remain? How dare you?
A minute later, it hit me. My reaction doesn’t seem ... healthy.
1Password continues its gradual improvement in ease of use, especially with the addition of app-based password matching and drag and drop entry. Improving its display of potentially compromised passwords is a great help for users in consolidating a security review as well.
Each of the Safe & Sound's primary features does a great job standing out from low-tech, and even other "high-tech" products. There are clear benefits of using a smart smoke/CO detector, the ceiling-integrated Wi-Fi speaker is way more convenient than others, and smart home/Alexa integration really make the whole product more powerful.
Swift actively distracts me in that endeavor by making me answer questions I really don't want to answer right now. Yes, stuff might be less correct in the meantime, but heck that is what I want during the design phase. Find my concept, sweet spot, iterate, pivot quickly.
So my opposition to Swift is very deep – on a fundamental design level. I see it as the devil on your shoulder, always fighting for your attention away from your problem domain, back to how everything is completely correct, or more swifty. And at the same time it is very unforgiving towards bigger change - ever tried to switch code from objects back to structs, or vice versa?
In my experience, the great software companies are run by singleminded people who bend the physics of design to their will, creating powerful leverage for those that they serve. They are craftspeople, impatient with the status quo and eager to make things better.
Apple has made their devices where iCloud is an essential aspect of it. It’s time they offered enough free storage to where it’s usable without paying a monthly fee. I’ll continue to keep paying for my expanded storage, but it would provide a more “Apple-like” experience to many people out there who enjoy their Apple devices but refuse to pay for monthly storage. In a year where students got 200GB for free, regular users got nothing.
AI is not a community management strategy because it’s skipping the hard part of community management: deciding what’s allowed and what’s not. You can’t skip the definition step in community management because that’s literally the very first thing you have to do, and the thing that only you can do. You can’t just give a pile of bad stuff to the computer and say “you figure it out.” That’s just outsourcing your responsibility.
You have to do the hard part. You have to decide what your platform is for and what it’s not for. And, yeah, that means deciding who it’s for and who it’s not for (hint: it’s not bots, nor nazis). That’s not a job you can outsource. The tech won’t do it for you. Not just because it’s your job, but because outsourcing it won’t work. It never does.
But, as it has become apparent in the past year, we don’t really know who is seeing our data or how they’re using it. Even the people whose business it is to know don’t know. When it came out that the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal information of more than fifty million Facebook users and offered it to clients, including the Trump campaign, the Times’ lead consumer-technology writer published a column titled “I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes.” He was astonished at how much of his personal data Facebook had stored and the long list of companies it had been sold to. Somehow, he had never thought to look into this before. How did he think Facebook became a five-hundred-and-sixty-billion-dollar company? It did so by devising the most successful system ever for compiling and purveying consumer data.
And data security wasn’t even an issue: Cambridge Analytica didn’t hack anyone. An academic researcher posted an online survey and invited people to participate by downloading an app. The app gave the researcher access not just to personal information in the participants’ Facebook accounts (which Facebook allows) but to the personal information of all their “friends” (which Facebook allowed at the time). Cambridge Analytica, which hired the researcher, was thus able to collect the personal data of Facebook users who had never downloaded the app. Facebook at first refused to characterize this as a security breach—all the information was legally accessed, although it was not supposed to be sold—and continues to insist that it has no plans to provide recompense.
Between the iPad and the Mac, my usage has sort-of fallen into a pattern. I use my iPad for reading and browsing and watching, and occasionally coding and writing when I am out and about. I use my Mac for coding and writing, and, because both my iPhone and iPad are always nearby when I am using my Mac, I don't really use my Mac for reading and browsing and watching.
So, is Apple expecting me to read all about new Mac apps on my Mac with the new Mac App Store? I know I'd rather read these articles on my iPad.
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Thanks for reading.