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The Might-be-the-Time Edition Saturday, July 4, 2020

What Changes Might Be Coming To New Mac Hardware?, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

Part of it is my guess that Apple’s been champing at the bit to roll all sorts of iOS features into the Mac for years, but has been limited by Intel’s architecture. What the Mac has gotten is the stuff that was enabled by the T2 chip—biometric ID, better camera control, secure storage, and security features. But there are plenty of features that haven’t come over from the iPhone and iPad, and now might be the time.

How Mobile Games Crushed Consoles, Tim Bradshaw, Financial Times

The coronavirus crisis has proved a bonanza for video game makers, as shut-in consumers turn to digital distractions in greater numbers and for longer sessions than ever before.

But while the sector’s big listed groups such as Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, and Take Two have enjoyed share price rises of more than 25 percent since early March, a clutch of mobile gaming studios, many privately held, have enjoyed the real windfall. Along with the sudden rise in leisure time among a ready market of more than two billion smartphone owners, they have reaped the rewards of a plunge in mobile advertising prices as other corporate sectors slashed their marketing budgets.

The Walkman, Forty Years On, by Matt Alt, New Yorker

Even prior to extended quarantines, lockdowns, and self-isolation, it was hard to imagine life without the electronic escapes of noise-cancelling earbuds, smartphones, and tablets. Today, it seems impossible. Of course, there was most certainly a before and after, a point around which the cultural gravity of our plugged-in-yet-tuned-out modern lives shifted. Its name is Walkman, and it was invented, in Japan, in 1979. After the Walkman arrived on American shores, in June of 1980, under the temporary name of Soundabout, our days would never be the same.

On Privacy

LinkedIn Says iOS Clipboard Snooping After Every Key Press Is A Bug, Will Fix, by Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet

"We've traced this to a code path that only does an equality check between the clipboard contents and the currently typed content in a text box," Berger wrote on Twitter.

"We don't store or transmit the clipboard contents. We will follow up once the fix is live in our app," he added.

On iOS Apps Peeking At Your Clipboard Contents, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Most apps want to access these things for good, honest reasons, but because some don’t, we need OS features to defend against the bad actors. And it winds up adding a bit of unfortunately necessary friction.

Apple Privacy Changes, by Brent Simmons, Inessential

I like that Apple knows that it’s not enough to just shut down the bad actors — people who have questions to answer, but who have no interest in violating privacy, need solutions.

Stuff

AirPods Versus AirPods Pro: Apple’s Earbuds Go Head-to-Head, by Adam Engst, TidBITS

Happily, I’ve ended up in a situation where I can choose between the AirPods and the AirPods Pro depending on what I’m doing. If noise cancellation is important, as it is when vacuuming or mowing the lawn, I always go for the AirPods Pro. [...]

But for nearly everything else, I gravitate to the AirPods. They may stand out in my ears a bit more due to their long stems, but they’re more comfortable, and their case is a marvel of modern design that borders on artistry.

Notes

Taiwan's Foxconn Says Customs Clearing Procedures In India Have Been Resolved, by Yimou Lee, Reuters

Apple supplier Foxconn said on Friday customs clearing procedures in India have been resolved, as additional scrutiny by the country of imports from China disrupted operations in some foreign firms amid tensions between the Asian giants.

Nicholas Carr On Deep Reading And Digital Thinking, by Ezra Klein, Vox

The point of this conversation is not that the internet is bad, nor that it is good. It’s that it is changing us, just as every medium before it has. We need to see those changes clearly in order to take control of them ourselves.

Bottom of the Page

Was the vision of what a Mac-with-Apple-Silicon should be kept Apple fixated on the butterfly keyboard for so long? How has the failure of this keybard changes the vision?

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Thanks for reading.