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The Non-Compliant Edition Friday, February 26, 2021

Apple Releases macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 To Prevent MacBooks From Being Damaged By Third-Party Non-Compliant Docks, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

According to Apple’s release notes, the ‌macOS Big Sur‌ update prevents 2019 or later MacBook Pro models and 2020 or later MacBook Air models from being damaged when connected to certain third-party, non-compliant powered USB-C hubs and docks.

Tech Firms Train Voice Assistants To Understand Atypical Speech, by Katie Deighton, Wall Street Journal

Apple Inc. said its Hold to Talk feature, introduced on hand-held devices in 2015, already lets users control how long they want the voice assistant Siri to listen for, preventing the assistant from interrupting users that have a stutter before they have finished speaking.

The company is now researching how to automatically detect if someone speaks with a stutter, and has built a bank of 28,000 audio clips from podcasts featuring stuttering to help do so, according to a research paper due to be published by Apple employees this week that was seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Stuff

Apple Celebrating Women's History Month With Featured Apps, Podcasts, And More, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Apple today announced that it will be celebrating Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day with featured content that promotes female creators across the App Store and other Apple services throughout March and beyond.

Apple Stores Offering Free Sign Language Interpreter Appointments, by Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac

Apple is now offering prescheduled support from sign language interpreters at hundreds of its retail stores in nearly a dozen countries. The service is provided to customers by appointment at no cost.

Apple Begins Showing Repairability Index For iPhones And Macs In France, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

The index is related to local regulations set by the Minister of Ecological Transition. There are five different criteria used to determine the index for each device, which include ease of disassembly and availability of parts needed for repair.

Remove Intel Binaries From Apple Silicon With CleanMyMac X, by Bradley Chambers, 9to5Mac

CleanMyMac X is one of my favorite Mac utilities for uninstalling apps I no longer needed, freeing up hard drive space by clearing full caches and general macOS maintenance. Today, they’ve released a great update that adds support for Apple Silicon, a refreshed interface for macOS Big Sur, and the option to remove Intel binaries.

Notes

Apple Donating $1 Million To LGBTQ+ Nonprofit Encircle, Tim Cook To Join As Honorary Co-chair, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Apple is teaming up with Encircle, a nonprofit that provides community resource houses to LGBTQ+ youth and their families. Apple will be donating $1 million and contributing products that “promote digital connection” to the organization, while Apple CEO Tim Cook will serve as an honorary co-chair.

Bottom of the Page

Apple's operating systems seem to be hitting some serious hardware-damaging problems lately. Hopefully, it's just a coincidence, and not because of some underlying fundmamental issues.

I only have one Mac and one iPhone, and I don't have any hardware backups if anything goes wrong.

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Thanks for reading.