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The Stopped-Caring Edition Saturday, June 5, 2021

The Kings Of Calm, by Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic

“What an extraordinary 12 months this has been,” one of Calm’s founders, Michael Acton Smith, told me, a somewhat awed tone to his voice, as his co-founder, Alex Tew, nodded. We met via Zoom in February, with me in San Francisco, Tew in the Cotswolds, and Acton Smith on the western Irish coast. “When the pandemic hit, interest went completely through the roof,” Acton Smith said. “We’ve had our work cut out for us,” Tew added.

Why I Ditched App Folders And Embraced Phone Chaos, by Tim Marcin, Mashable

I don't know the exact second I stopped caring about app folders, but I think it was during the pandemic. I just couldn't bring myself to spend half an iota of energy on organizing my apps.

Here’s Why You Can’t Use The Siri Remote’s Best Feature On Disney Plus And Other Apps, by Catie Keck, The Verge

Some streaming apps available on Apple TV use their own players, while others use the tvOS media player. The jogging gesture works with streaming apps that use Apple’s native media player, but it is not yet supported for third-party developers that use a custom media player, and that includes Disney’s streaming titan.

Switch

I Gave Up On Android Tablets After I Discovered The iPad As A Writing Tool, by Michael Crider, Android Police

Despite a form factor and hardware that’s more or less the same as any Android tablet (and many Chrome OS tablets, now), Apple’s unrivaled focus on why and how people actually use its hardware makes it an experience that’s years ahead of anything Google or Samsung can manage.

On App Stores

iPhone? AirPods? MacBook? You Live In Apple’s World. Here’s What You Are Missing., by Joanna Stern, Wall Street Journal

If Apple and its $2 trillion market capitalization keep snatching up ideas and turning them into their own products (see AirTags vs. Tile), what happens to the little guys?

Remote Work

Apple Employees Push Back Against Returning To The Office In Internal Letter, by Zoe Schiffer, The Verge

For some Apple workers, the current policy doesn’t go far enough, and shows a clear divide between how Apple executives and employees view remote work.

Internal Letter Circulates At Apple — and Leaks To The Verge — Pushing Back Against Returning To The Office, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

And who are these people who took jobs at Apple not knowing the company’s on-site culture? Do they think Apple built a new $4 billion campus on a lark? Three days a week on site and two days remote is a huge change for Apple.

Stuff

Seven Third-Party Accessories Show MagSafe’s Potential, by Julio Ojeda-Zapata, TidBITS

I’ve been trying out a variety of such MagSafe products, with an emphasis on those that solve particular problems. Here are seven that I think stand out.

Sensibo Pure Air Purifier Adds HomeKit Integration, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Through the Home app, the Sensibo unit will be able to report air quality, as well as integrate with your other HomeKit scenes and automations.

Develop

Apple’s Eshwar Vangala: Entrepreneurial Spirit Biggest Asset Of Indian Developers, by Nandagopal Rajan, The Indian Express

Apple’s Bengaluru app accelerator, established in 2017, has been helping developers improve their apps and learn news skills as well as soft skills that help them market their products and themselves better. Among the many success stories out of India have been apps like Calzy which won Apple Design Award in 2018, Froggipedia which was the iPad app of the year in 2018 and many others like Lumy, Look-up, Cone and Bonfire which have been featured on the App Store.

Notes

Chrome, Safari, Firefox And Edge Join Forces To Improve Browser Extensions, by Stephen Shankland, CNET

The teams behind the Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers have banded together to improve extensions, the add-ons you can download to customize the software. That should mean your extensions will work better and come with a better security foundation to protect you from malware.

Apple News Could Bear Local Fruit, by Christina Haley O'Neal, WilmingtonBiz

Apple Inc. and its location in the Triangle could have ripple effects in Southeastern North Carolina, said Ted Abernathy, managing partner of Economic Leadership LLC.

There are several areas in which Apple and its announcement of a company location in Wake County could impact the Cape Fear region, including its supply chains and overall workforce, he said.

Rich Nations Back Deal To Tax Multinationals, by BBC

Finance ministers meeting in London agreed to battle tax avoidance through measures to make companies pay in the countries where they do business.

They also agreed in principle to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each other.

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It has been 14 days since my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, and I am feeling fine.

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