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The Again-and-Again Edition Monday, July 8, 2019

Why You Have To Keep Logging In To Read News On Your Phone, by Rani Molla, Vox

It might seem like the problem lies with publishers — I pay you good money, dammit, Wall Street Journal! — but in reality, they have little control. Instead, on the most basic level, the apps where you find those stories (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, among others) are largely responsible. That’s because they require you to read most publications’ content within their apps, which don’t communicate with the publications’ websites — forcing you to log in again and again.

Still, the problem is complicated and involves numerous stakeholders with competing interests. Beyond app makers trying to keep you in their apps, other factors like privacy concerns, advertising, and the fragmented ways in which we read news also contribute to why it’s so annoying to read paywalled stories on your phone.

Apple: Misunderstanding Design And Jony Ive’s Role, by Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note

Ive is a living representative of the relatively new lineage of industrial designers, of artists and engineers who understand that to design a product means taking care of the Look and Feel and the operational factors that are required to deliver their wares in extremely large quantities, on time, while meeting cost and reliability targets.

Apple Tests New iCloud Sign In For iOS 13 Beta Users, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

For iOS 13, iPadOS 13, and macOS Catalina beta testers, Apple is trying out a new sign-in process for iCloud on the web. When you head to beta.icloud.com on a device running the betas, you can now sign-in to your account using Face ID or Touch ID.

Stuff

In New 'Nap' TV Commercial, Apple Says Face ID Is 'Even Easier And More Secure Than Touch ID', by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

The ad shows the man opening his eyes and merely glancing at the phone to unlock the device and reveal the notifications. The ad closes with the tagline “Face ID. Even easier and more secure than Touch ID.”

Why I Made An App To Document The Seclusion And Restraint Of Special Education Students, by Gabriela Marcu, Midland Reporter-Telegram

The first app that we designed enables the classroom staff to use an iPad instead of a clipboard for documenting behaviors in real time. A web portal allows the data collection interface to be customized and gives the rest of the team access to review the data. This allows teams to have more informed discussions about whether the child is responding to things they have tried, and to adjust the strategies they use as needed.

By swapping out their clipboard for an iPad, my research group gave them a portable tool that has enabled them to make the process as paperless as possible. The app also gives educators more space to write notes than the small paper forms they used to use. This has led educators to write more detailed notes than they did before.

How An App Made Hiking Easier – With Unintended Consequences, by Taylor Gee, Outside Magazine

It took the entire set of tools needed for thru-hiking – a map, compass, guidebook and water reports – and consolidated them into a single virtual location. It functioned offline and crowdsourced updated information about trail conditions and campsites when online. Such an app might have been inevitable, but for ultralight-obsessed thru-hikers, it was a revolution.

[...]

But as the the app’s empire continues to grow, many thru-hikers worry about its unintended consequences. They see themselves and fellow hikers depending on their phones to decide where to sleep and eat and to discover exactly how far, down to the tenth of a mile, they are from those places. They fear that American thru-hiking, once the ultimate test of self-reliance, is no longer as wild as it once was.

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Becomes A Live-in Video Game With The Disney Parks App, by Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times

Amid this bounty of theme park activity I stood alone near the clustered shopping stalls of the Black Spire Outpost marketplace, my face buried in a phone. While an obsession with personal screens is often considered a modern societal affliction, here on Galaxy’s Edge it’s encouraged.

Nestled inside the 1-year-old Play Disney Parks mobile app is an exploration-encouraging experience called the Star Wars Datapad. Largely a home to mini-puzzles and short quests that can only be activated while inside Disneyland’s recently opened 14-acre area, the Datapad not only fleshes out the Galaxy’s Edge back story but also contains an ongoing game for control of the land itself.

Develop

Privacy And Security Risks As Sign In With Apple Tweaks Open ID Protocol, by Sophos

The OIDF published this list of ways in which Sign In with Apple differs from OpenID Connect and what security and/or privacy risks those deviations entail.

Notes

Logitech Keyboards And Mice Vulnerable To Extensive Cyber Attacks, by Ronald Eikenberg, Heise

Many Logitech wireless input devices are vulnerable to wireless attacks and can pose a security risk. This is the conclusion of security expert Marcus Mengs, with whom c't has been in contact for quite some time. Mengs has investigated the wireless connections of several Logitech devices and found numerous weaknesses. They affect keyboards, mice as well as wireless presenters.

Social Media Could Make It Impossible To Grow Up, by Kate Eichhorn, Wired

Several decades into the age of digital media, the ability to leave one’s childhood and adolescent years behind is now imperiled. Although exact numbers are hard to come by, it is evident that a majority of young people with access to mobile phones take and circulate selfies on a daily basis. There is also growing evidence that selfies are not simply a tween and teen obses­sion. Toddlers enjoy taking selfies, too, and whether intentionally or unintentionally, have even managed to put their images into circula­tion. What is the cost of this excessive documentation? More spe­cifically, what does it mean to come of age in an era when images of childhood and adolescence, and even the social networks formed during this fleeting period of life, are so easily preserved and may stubbornly persist with or without one’s intention or desire? Can one ever transcend one’s youth if it remains perpetually present?

Bottom of the Page

Today, I discovered I can be happy doing a little bit of programming work while I am sleepy and hungry.

~

Thanks for reading.