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The Limits-of-Our-Devices Edition Monday, February 11, 2019

Autocomplete Presents The Best Version Of You, by Gretchen McCulloch, Wired

In eight years, we've gone from Damn You Autocorrect to treating the strip of three predicted words as a sort of wacky but charming oracle. But when we try to practice divination by algorithm, we're doing something more than killing a few minutes—we're exploring the limits of what our devices can and cannot do.

Apple Retail Employees Aggressively Pushing iPhone Upgrades, by Benjamin Mayo

It’s the fact Apple is instructing retail staff to also prey on people coming in to get help at the Genius Bar that is unequivocally distasteful, and not something that you expect from a premium brand. It’s offensive behaviour. These are tactics that try to inflate iPhone sales in the short term that risk damaging Apple’s long-term reputation and image.

What It's Like To Work Inside Apple's 'Black Site', by Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg

Apple’s new campus in Cupertino, California, is a symbol of how the company views itself as an employer: simultaneously inspiring its workers with its magnificent scale while coddling them with its four-story café and 100,000-square-foot fitness center. But one group of Apple contractors finds another building, six miles away on Hammerwood Avenue in Sunnyvale, to be a more apt symbol.

This building is as bland as the main Apple campus is striking. From the outside, there appears to be a reception area, but it’s unstaffed, which makes sense given that people working in this satellite office—mostly employees of Apple contractors working on Apple Maps—use the back door. Workers say managers instructed them to walk several blocks away before calling for a ride home. Several people who worked here say it’s widely referred to within Apple as a “black site,” as in a covert ops facility.

Inside the building, say former workers, they came to expect the vending machines to be understocked, and to have to wait in line to use the men’s bathrooms. Architectural surprise and delight wasn’t a priority here; after all, the contract workers at Hammerwood almost all leave after their assignments of 12 to 15 months are up.

Mini Rumor

Report: New iPad Mini 5 Will Look The Same As iPad Mini 4 Design, Aimed As Lower Cost Product, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

The iPad mini 5 is not going to be the most exciting of updates according to recent reports. Macotakara says informed accessory manufacturers indicate the new iPad mini will look almost identical to the iPad mini 4 design.

Stuff

How Did Apple's AirPods Go From Mockery To Millennial Status Symbol?, by Elena Cresci, The Guardian

But fast-forward to 2019 and, somehow, the £159-a-pair little pods have transformed into a bona fide status symbol.

Everybody Has A Newsletter, So Here's A Great App To Help Manage Them All, by Todd Haselton, CNBC

There's an app called Stoop, available for iPhone and Android, that makes discovering and reading newsletters a lot more enjoyable. You get a unique e-mail address that sends them right to the app, so you don't have dozens of newsletters collecting in your regular email inbox.

Notes

Italian Apple Homepage Forced To Add iPhone Battery Throttling Advisory As Result Of Lawsuit, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Apple has been compelled to add a statement regarding the outcome of a ‘planned obsolescence’ lawsuit to its homepage in Italy. The court ruled showed that Apple did not provide adequate information about the impact of performing the iOS 10.2.1 update, which introduced the infamous iPhone performance throttling for degraded batteries.

Bottom of the Page

If the rumor is to be believed, it seems that the new iPad mini's main attraction will have to be a low-enough price for a decent-enough tablet. Maybe something that can also be pushed to schools, alongside with the regular iPad?

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I haven't read much about the new Netflix show Russian Doll before I started watching the show, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good the show is.

If you are a Netflix subscriber, do go ahead and watch the show. Do not read any reviews or find out about the storyline. Just go watch it.

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Thanks for reading.