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The No-Incentives Edition Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Apple Will Ban Apps Offering Rewards To Users That Enable Tracking, by Malcolm Owen, AppleInsider

"Don't offer incentives for granting the request," writes Apple, with developers unable to "offer people compensation for granting their permission." Developers also cannot "withhold functionality or content or make your app unusable until people allow you to track them."

Apple Highlights Three Financial Wellness Apps That Help Marginalized Communities, by Wesley Hilliard, AppleInsider

In what Apple calls a "WWDC Spotlight," it has selected three apps that are targeted at financial wellness and education.

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Banking, credit building, and investing are three tentpoles to a better financial future but often left out of the hands of marginalized communities. Goalsetter, Perch Credit, and Ellevest are three apps that hope to improve financial literacy and bring more financial freedoms to women, children, and people of color.

The Good And Bad Of Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

On its own, Apple Podcasts Subscriptions will make it harder for users to consider using a different app—especially if podcasts don’t offer subscriptions via other means. But those other apps won’t even be allowed to compete with Apple on their own merits, because the App Store rules effectively bar them from doing so.

Epic Case

Eddy Cue Wanted To Bring iMessage To Android In 2013, by Russell Brandom, The Verge

Eddy Cue pushed to bring iMessage to Android as early as 2013, according to a new deposition made public as part of the Epic case. Currently Apple’s senior VP of software and services, Cue wanted to devote a full team to iMessage support on Android, only to be overruled by other executives.

The line of questioning is likely to play a significant role in Epic’s antitrust lawsuit, which argues that iOS app store exclusivity represents an illegal use of market power.

Apple Tried To Help Adobe Bring Flash To iOS, But The Results Were 'Embarrassing', by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

When asked about Flash support on iOS, Forstall assumed that Apple even tried to help Adobe port the technology to Apple’s mobile devices, but performance was terrible.

Rumors

Apple's Follow-up To M1 Chip Goes Into Mass Production For Mac, by Cheng Ting-fang And Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia

The next generation of Mac processors designed by Apple entered mass production this month, sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia, bringing the U.S. tech giant one step closer to its goal of replacing Intel-designed central processing units with its own.

Shipments of the new chipset -- tentatively known as the M2, after Apple's current M1 processor -- could begin as early as July for use in MacBooks that are scheduled to go on sale in the second half of this year, the people said.

Apple Trims AirPods Production Plans As Sales Lose Steam, by Lauly Li And Cheng Ting-Fang, Nikkei Asia

Apple is trimming its planned production of AirPods wireless earphones by 25% to 30% this year as intensifying competition dents sales of the U.S. tech giant's fastest-growing product line, sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia.

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The downward revision indicates that demand is weakening for AirPods, whose shipments have been growing by double-digit percentages since their introduction in 2016.

Stuff

Apple AirTag Review: A Humble Tracker With Next-Generation Tech, by Brian X. Chen, New York Times

From my tests comparing AirTag and Tile, I found that ultrawideband was far superior to Bluetooth for finding items. What’s more, the AirTag demonstrated that ultrawideband is next-generation tech that is worth getting excited about.

1Blocker 4.0 Adds In-App Tracker Blocking With Its New Firewall Feature, by John Voorhees, MacStories

Firewall takes that a step further by automatically blocking trackers and doing so even if the trackers are what are known as first-party trackers because they don’t correlate your data with data collected by other companies. It’s an extra layer of protection between you and data brokers.

Hands On: Twelve South Forte Is A MagSafe Charging Stand For iPhone & AirPods, by Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

Forte is great because you can easily remove your MagSafe puck at any time to take with you for travel, and it is very adjustable. Few other stands can tilt and are instead locked at a fixed angle. Not to mention the ability to charge AirPods right on top.

Nomad Base Station Mini Review: A Compact + Premium Charger, by Blair Altland, 9to5Toys

Anyone looking for a sleek nightstand charging solution for a single device, or maybe to add in the family room or other commonly shared places, will find this to be a compelling option.

SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe Review: Storage For iPhone, iPad & Mac, by Ed Hardy, Cult of Mac

The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe includes both Lightning and USB Type-C connectors so it plugs into almost any computer. You can easily access the same collection of files from an iPhone, Mac or iPad without resorting to iCloud, etc. Even better, the drive is small and comes in an all-metal casing.

Notes

Microsoft's Surface Pro Can't Keep Up With Apple's iPad Pro Anymore, by Rich Woods, XDA

Apple had come along with this idea for a third device, and Microsoft was the one that was trying to cram a computer into a tablet that would be your only device. Apple’s strategy has evolved over time, but Microsoft’s hasn’t too much.

How To Live In Wonder, by Caitlin Johnstone

Wonder comes naturally to a very small child. To fresh eyes, eyes whose vision hasn’t been obscured the cataracts of knowing, the cataracts of “I know what that is, that’s just a flower, I’ve seen lots of those,” wonder is the natural response to the experience of perception on this unfathomably beautiful planet of ours.

But to victims of adult-mind this experience has been lost. Eyes that have been ravaged by adult-mind scan past a million tiny miracles every single day while attention is turned toward stale, repetitive stories in the head about a character called “me” and its various relationships with life.

🚨 What Really Happened At Basecamp, by Casey Newton, Platformer

Interviews with a half-dozen Basecamp employees over the past day paint a portrait of a company where workers sought to advance Basecamp’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by having sensitive discussions about the company’s own failures. After months of fraught conversations, Fried and his co-founder, David Heinemeier Hansson moved to shut those conversations down.

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“We've hired opinionated people, we've created opinionated software, and now basically the company has said, ‘well, your opinions don't really matter — unless it's directly related to business,’” one told me. “A lot of people are gonna have a tough time living with that.”

Bottom of the Page

In a fantasy world of iMessages-on-Android, Apple may well be selling less iPhones, but Apple may be selling a whole lot of iMessages stickers.

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Thanks for reading.

(sent with Laser)