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The Not-Planning-to-Appeal Edition Friday, March 8, 2019

Spotify, Google And Pandora Go To U.S. Appeals Court To Overturn Royalty Increase, by Jem Aswad and Chris Willman, Variety

Spotify, Google, Pandora and Amazon have teamed up to appeal a controversial ruling by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board that, if it goes through, would increase payouts to songwriters by 44%, Variety has learned.

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The four companies all filed with the court separately. Sources say that Apple Music is alone among the major streaming services in not planning to appeal — as confirmed by songwriters’ orgs rushing to heap praise on Apple while condemning the seemingly unified front of the other digital companies.

iPhone XS And XS Max Devices Exhibit Slight Animation Stutters After Ten Seconds Of Being Idle, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

The good news for iPhone XS owners reading this is you might not notice the problem, even if it is going on. It is very subtle, lasting only a fraction of a second, so many people are unlikely to spot it — even if someone else points it out.

For people that are sensitive to this kind of stuff, though, it is understandably very annoying and clearly not working as intended. You can classify it as nitpicky — but customers spending $1000+ on phones naturally have high expectations of quality.

Weather App Doesn't Care Like Mom Did, by Debbie Leffler, Norwalk Reflector

I have a readout inside the house that tells me, via a sensor on the porch, what the temperature is outside. I have a weather app on my iPad and one on my iPhone. I have the number programmed into my cell phone that I can call for road conditions. And last weekend, as I traveled along I-71 from Cincinnati to Columbus, there were signs lit up along the road, telling drivers that winter weather was predicted from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. the next day.

One would think that all this technology would make deciding what to wear and whether to leave the house much simpler and much more accurate.

But no.

Skills Mismatch

Apple CEO Tim Cook Explains Why You Don't Need A College Degree To Be Successful, by Lisa Eadicicco, Business Insider

"And so to that end, as we've looked at the — sort of, the mismatch between the skills that are coming out of colleges and what the skills are that we believe we need in the future, and many other businesses do, we've identified coding as a very key one," Cook said during the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting on Wednesday, during which President Trump met with the board's members, including Cook.

Cook also added that about half of Apple's US employment last year was made up of people who did not have a four-year degree.

The Stigma Of Choosing Trade School Over College, by Meg St-Esprit, The Atlantic

“College doesn’t make sense” is the message that many trade schools and apprenticeship programs are using to entice new students. What specifically doesn’t make sense, they claim, is the amount of debt young Americans often take on to chase those coveted bachelor’s degrees.

Security Matters

Hackers Can Get Into Macs With Sneaky Tricks, Crowdstrike Experts Say, by Laura Hautala, CNET

At the RSA Conference on Thursday, CEO George Kurtz and CTO Dmitri Alperovitch detailed hacking techniques they've seen used to do a host of bad things on Apple-built computers.

Attackers can trick Mac users into downloading malicious software and then get deep access into the computer, the Crowdstrike executives said. They also have tools to loot the system's keychain for more passwords and build backdoors into the machines, allowing hackers to have repeated access.

Stuff

Texture App For iOS Updated As Apple News Subscription Service Looms, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

The release notes for today’s Texture app update, version 5.11.8, are as mysterious as you can get with no explanation at all for what has changed in this update. Instead, it simply asks for customer feedback to help make Texture even better, a stock sentence that has been included in Texture’s release notes ever since it was acquired.

Castro Launches Curated Podcast Collections And Instant Search To Improve Discovery, by Ryan Christoffel, MacStories

Through curated podcast collections, new buttons to add podcasts to your library, and instant search, Castro's development team has brought positive change in several connected areas.

Hands On With Sony’s PS4 Remote Play App For iOS, by John Voorhees, MacStories

In a bit of unexpected gaming news, Sony has released PS4 Remote Play, an iOS app that allows PS4 owners to play the console’s games on an iPhone or iPad over WiFi. Although it’s a surprising development this late in the lifecycle of the PS4, it’s great to see Sony continuing to expand the ways its customers can enjoy the console.

Notes

Tim Cook Brilliantly Responds To Trump’s ‘Tim Apple’ Reference On Twitter, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

Cook, who had no reaction in the moment during the meeting, has changed his Twitter name from Tim Cook to ‘Tim ’, playfully referencing yesterday’s presidential gaffe. For Cook’s part, the name change could be seen as a simple sign of Apple fandom, but we all know the real meaning behind that strategically placed Apple logo!

Why Self-Checkout Is And Has Always Been The Worst, by Brian Merchant, Gizmodo

For every automated appliance or system that actually makes performing a task easier—dishwashers, ATMs, robotic factory arms, say—there seems to be another one—self-checkout kiosks, automated phone menus, mass email marketing—that actively makes our lives worse.

I’ve taken to calling this second category, simply, shitty automation.

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I'm having Monday Blues on a Friday evening.

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Thanks for reading.