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The Taking-Away-Options Edition Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Apple CEO Escalates Fight Over App Store Regulation In Rare D.C. Speech, by Cat Zakrzewski, Washington Post

The remarks amounted to Cook’s most visible efforts to date to fight legislation that would fundamentally loosen the iPhone maker’s grip on app downloads — forcing Apple to overhaul a key line of business. In the Washington D.C. speech, the CEO leveraged Apple’s image as a privacy-friendly tech giant, arguing that the proposals would allow app makers to circumvent the App Store’s privacy and security protections, leaving people with insecure apps or malware on their devices.

“Taking away a more secure option will leave users with less choice, not more,” he said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Criticizes Antitrust Regulation, Says Some Policies Would Hurt iPhone Users, by Kif Leswing, CNBC

"Here in Washington and elsewhere, policymakers are taking steps in the name of competition that would force Apple to let apps on the iPhone that circumvent the App Store through a process called sideloading," Cook said. "That means data-hungry companies would be able to avoid our privacy rules, and once again track our users against their will."

Cook's remarks Tuesday highlight Apple's strategy to soften the sideloading requirements in pending antitrust regulation by focusing on the risks it presents to users.

Stuff

Storyboards And Magic Movie Features Now Available With iMovie 3.0 Update, by José Adorno, 9to5Mac

These iMovie features make it easier than ever to create beautifully edited videos on iPhone and iPad. Storyboards, for example, help content creators and moviemakers learn to edit and improve their video storytelling skills with pre-made templates for popular types of videos shared on social, with colleagues, or with classmates.

Apple Releases Final Cut Pro 10.6.2 Featuring Duplicate Detection, Voice Isolation, And Optimized Mac Studio Performance, by Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac

The FCP update includes two primary new features – Duplicate Detection and Voice Isolation. Duplicate Detection is a feature that will be much appreciated for those editing long-form content and documentaries, while Voice Isolation wields machine learning to help isolate voice frequencies.

Studio Buds The ‘Fastest-selling’ Beats Product To Date, Now In Three New Colors, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

The Apple-owned company has announced that Beats Studio Buds will be available in Moon Gray, Ocean Blue, and Sunset Pink starting tomorrow.

Pixelmator Pro Adds Color Adjustments And Effects Layers, 200 New Vector Shapes, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Pixelmator Pro is out today with another significant update, this time focused on layers. This includes a redesign of the Layers sidebar to make it easier to manage all your layers in a document. Plus, there’s brand new capabilities with the addition of Colur Adjustments and Effects layers.

Darkroom 6 Changes The Photo Editing Game With New Masking Features, by Oliver Haslam, iMore

An update that brings improvements to all three versions of the app, Darkroom 6.0 adds four new types of masks including "AI-generated Depth Masks, Smart Masks for Portrait & ProRAW photos, Gradient Masks, and Range masks." The idea is simple — users select a region of a particular photo and then edit it completely independent of the rest of the image.

How To Create A Writing Habit Inside Of Notion, by Chloe Roberts, The Sweet Setup

When you develop a system, it helps you to create and enforce the habit you need to actually get stuff done. When I create a new system or habit, I want to automate as much as possible so I can spend more time actually doing stuff… In this case: writing.

Here is how I’m using Notion to build a system that helps me to write more.

Nomad’s Base One Max Adds An Apple Watch Stand To Its Fancy MagSafe Wireless Charging Pad, by Dan Seifert, The Verge

The Base One Max effectively looks like what happens when you double the width of the Base One and add an integrated Apple Watch charger. Unlike the MagSafe section, which remains flat, the Apple Watch charger sits vertically so your Watch can display its nightstand mode and show the time.

Develop

How To Use Block Scheduling To Revamp Your Workflow, by Kenneth R. Rosen, Wired

Why is block scheduling effective? It promotes focused work, like programming, studying, researching, or writing a business proposal, while setting less important tasks aside for later.

It’s a productivity method that requires no special mobile or web app (though there are plenty) and works fine on any handwritten or digital calendar you currently use. (If you’re not using a calendar—how?!) Downloading another app—signing up, creating a profile, tinkering with settings, receiving all those pesky newsletters and notifications—would simply be distracting busywork.

Notes

The Future Of The Mac Is Bright–thanks To The Pains Of The Past, by Jason Snell, Macworld

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a little time buying a few old Mac models and getting them up to speed. Within five feet of me as I write this are a working G4 Cube, G4 iMac, Mac Plus, PowerBook 170, and even a Power Computing Mac clone.

As much as using old computers can be a fun nostalgia trip, it also makes me appreciate what we have today all the more. You remember the good times, but forget the bad! As someone who recently had to figure out how to boot a SCSI drive, let me tell you how good we’ve got it.

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My first Mac was a Quadra 630, which, according to Wikipedia, did have a SCSI interface. I didn't have much money, so I didn't have any external SCSI devices. I did bought a lot of floppies though.

My second Mac was the Bondi Blue iMac which, famously, didn't have anything but USB.

So, I guess I never had to deal with SCSI and its famous Terminator.

~

Thanks for reading.