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The Accessibility-Awareness Edition Thursday, July 23, 2020

Apple Celebrates 30 Years Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, by Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Apple today shared a new feature celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. The law prohibits discrimination due to disability, and has led to significant improvements and awareness of accessibility to help disabled individuals navigate their worlds.

Apple Launches Security Research Device Program To Help Researchers Find Security Vulnerabilities In Its Devices, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

There is now a way for security researchers to gain (legal) access to unlocked iPhone test devices which do not have the usual protections surrounding arbitrary code execution and other defences. Access to ‘rooted’ hardware enables security researchers to inspect core parts of the operating system more easily, which helps to track down exploits in the kernel and other low-level areas of the iOS operating system. Apple announced its plans to do this almost a year ago.

Stuff

Feeling Paranoid? Micro Snitch Tells You If Your Mac Is Spying On You, by Josh Centers, TidBITS

Micro Snitch lives in your Mac’s menu bar. Whenever an app accesses your webcam or microphone, a large, square icon of a hat and glasses appears in the center of your screen and then moves to the lower-right corner. You also receive a notification. The hat and glasses icon doesn’t go away until you close it or the activity stops.

Soor 2 Review: Magic Mixes And Release Alerts Elevate The Beautiful Apple Music Client, by Ryan Christoffel, MacStories

Magic mixes enable building highly customizable and dynamic mixes using a variety of Source, Filter, Sort, and Limit options. Since these mixes are dynamic, as new music is released or Apple makes changes to its editorially-curated playlists, your mixes update to reflect an ever-changing roster of matched songs.

Eve For HomeKit App Updated With New Eve Aqua Smart Watering Features, More, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

The Eve app for iPhone and iPad is one of the better solutions for controlling your HomeKit accessories through a third-party app. An update to Eve for HomeKit today brings new features for the Eve Aqua, more powerful context menus, and more.

Adding An External GPU To Your Mac Is Probably A Better Upgrade Option Than Getting A New One, by Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch

But for anybody looking to extend the life of their existing Mac for a few more years to wait and see how the Apple Silicon transition shakes out, updates from Apple and key software partners make an eGPU a great choice.

Here are a couple of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure options out there for those considering this upgrade path, and the relative merits of each.

Notes

Apple Digs In Over Its App Store Fees, by Leo Kelion, BBC

The iPhone-maker says a study it commissioned shows content makers give away a similar cut to dozens of other online markets, and an even bigger share if their goods are sold offline.

Apple is facing complaints about the matter on both sides of the Atlantic.

Italian Officials Raid Local Offices Of Amazon And Apple For Antitrust Probe Over Sale Of Beats Headphones, by Lauren Feiner, CNBC

Italian antitrust officials said they searched the local offices of Apple and Amazon Tuesday as part of an antitrust probe into whether the companies engaged in anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple products and Beats headphones.

The Italian Competition and Market Authority announced the probe on Wednesday. It said the investigation was aimed at establishing whether Apple and Amazon had reached an anti-competitive agreement to prevent electronics retailers not included in Apple's official program to sell the products.

Apple, Nike Face Pressure Over China Uighur Ties, by BBC

Activists have launched a campaign accusing firms of "bolstering and benefiting" from exploitation of the Muslim minority group.

[...]

Apple also said it had investigated the claims. "We have found no evidence of any forced labour on Apple production lines and we plan to continue monitoring," the firm said.

SoftBank Approached Apple To Gauge Interest In Chip Designer Arm, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

The two firms had preliminary discussions, but Apple isn’t planning to pursue a bid. Arm’s licensing operation would fit poorly with Apple’s hardware focused business model. There may also be regulatory concerns about Apple owning a key licensee that supplies so many rivals. Representatives from SoftBank and Apple declined to comment.

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I miss the kill file feature in the rn newsgroup reading software that I was using 30 years ago.

(Whether 1990s or 2020s, we always have too many things to read.)

~

Thanks for reading.