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The Locate-Belongings Edition Thursday, April 8, 2021

Apple Announces Find My Network And Three Initial Accessory Maker Partners, by John Voorhees, MacStories

The Find My network program, which is part of Apple’s Made For iPhone program, allows accessory makers to hook into Apple’s Find My network to locate belongings securely and privately. Apple also said it is publishing a draft specification for chipset makers later this spring, so they can take advantage of the precise, directional capabilities of Apple’s short-range U1 chip.

Apple Just Made Its Long-rumored AirTags Trackers Completely Unnecessary, by Michael Simon, Macworld

AirTags were always going to be something of a tough sell, and now that third-party devices can tap into Find My without a dongle, it’s even harder. The arrival of Find My for third-party devices doesn’t just blunt the impact of AirTags, it makes them largely irrelevant before they even arrive.

Apple Announces Third-Party Products That Work With Find My Network, by John Gruber, Daring FIreball

And it’s unclear to me whether Tile even wants to be in the Find My app — their spat with Apple is more about their own app competing with Find My, and their accusations that Apple unfairly advantages Find My by not holding it to the same rules as third-party apps that ask for always-on location access. Apple’s solution is this third-party accessory program; Tile’s preferred solution would be Apple allowing Tile’s own app to do everything Find My can do.

Stuff

Albums 4.0: A Must-Have App For Music Lovers, by John Voorhees, MacStories

Albums 4.0 is a beautifully designed, feature-rich app with more filtering and discovery tools than any other music app I’ve tried. The app is also opinionated, favoring album playback over individual songs or playlists. It’s the sort of focused, deep approach to music that Apple’s Music app doesn’t offer because it’s designed to appeal to a wider audience.

Watchsmith For Apple Watch Gets Major Update With New Complication Styles And More, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

Watchsmith now takes full advantage of watchOS 7 features, which enables better performance and also multiple complications of the same app. Users will also find new complication styles for showing photos, a 24 hour dial, text calendar, solar path, and much more.

WaterMinder App Adds Support For Tracking Caffeine Intake With Apple Health Integration, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

A new update rolling to WaterMinder today adds support for tracking your caffeine intake alongside your water intake.

SmartGym Universal App Adds 330 New Band And Bodyweight Exercises, Enhanced ‘Smart Trainer’, by Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac

The new version brings over 330 new exercises for bands, loops, TRX, bodyweight, an updated Smart Trainer, more pre-made workouts, new Apple Watch history screen, and more.

Develop

The Lack Of A Price Tag Seems Almost Criminal, by Brent Simmons, Inessential

There’s nothing wrong with commercial software — NetNewsWire was commercial software for many, many years — but it’s also a great freedom to us that it’s not. And it allows us to make something much greater than I would have made all on my own.

Notes

Epic V Apple Discovery Details ‘Project Liberty’ Scheme To Skirt App Store With Fortnite, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

A key argument that Apple has reiterated is that, contrary to what Epic says, App Store doesn’t lead the gaming market, so consequently it cannot be considered a monopoly. “Apple has no monopoly or market power in the relevant product market for game app transactions. And there is no claim that it had any such power when the restrictions at issue were imposed around the launch of the App Store,” said the company.

MacBook And iPad Production Delayed As Supply Crunch Hits Apple, by Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia

Production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage, Nikkei Asia has learned, in a sign that even Apple, with its massive procurement power, is not immune from the unprecedented supply crunch.

Chip shortages have caused delays in a key step in MacBook production -- the mounting of components on printed circuit boards before final assembly -- sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. Some iPad assembly, meanwhile, was postponed because of a shortage of displays and display components, sources said.

Bottom of the Page

I'm glad that, I guess, my iPhone is going to help somebody locate their missing stuff some day in the future.

You're welcome.

:-)

~

Thanks for reading.