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The Forgotten-Apps Edition Saturday, April 30, 2022

Apple Gives Developers More Time To Update 'Outdated' Apps Before Removal, by Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Apple has now shared a new developer update clarifying its ‌App Store‌ Improvements policies and extending the amount of time it is giving developers to update their affected apps from 30 days to 90 days.

Apple says that apps that have not been updated within the past three years and which do not meet a minimum threshold for downloads (“not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period”) are subject to the policy, with developers receiving notices via email.

Apple To Developers: If We Deleted Your Old App, It Deserved It, by Mitchell Clark, The Verge

From one angle, this reasoning doesn’t necessarily gel with the first half of Apple’s post, where it says it removes old apps to ensure “user trust in quality apps,” and to improve discoverability, security and privacy, and user experience. After all — if an app is problematic because it’s outdated, more downloads would make a bad app a bigger issue. Who’s being harmed if there’s an outdated app almost no one is downloading?

But Apple says it doesn’t want the App Store cluttered up with apps that both developers and users have forgotten about. It has enough problems making it easy for users to find good apps as it is, and it’s easy to imagine Apple seeing deleting old, seemingly irrelevant apps as a good solution.

Stuff

Using A Synology NAS To Escape The Cloud, by Josh Centers, TidBITS

Running a home server isn’t for everyone, but Synology makes doing so about as accessible as possible, and you can be up and running within an hour. It’s still a big investment in both money and time, but it’s well worth it if you have a lot of data you access from multiple computers. Your files are right there in your home and you don’t have to transfer them over the Internet to carry over your work to another device. A NAS makes even more sense for a small office where multiple people might be running into the same problems with needing easy access to a centralized set of files.

Logitech's New Lift Vertical Mouse For Mac Makes All The Right Compromises, by Rikka Altland, 9to5Toys

Actual usage keeps up the notable first impression, with a responsive sensor that’s the same as you’ll find on the higher-end version. Buttons on the other hand aren’t as clicky or tactile as I would have liked to see, though they’re still quite responsive all the same. On the flip side of speaking to another one of my favorite aspects of the Logitech Lift, the two side buttons are a nice inclusion.

Grid Studio Frames Review: The Best Way To Memorialize Classic Apple Devices, by Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

Any iPhone or Apple lover will appreciate Grid Studio's nostalgic art pieces that are made of vintage devices such as the original iPhone or Apple Watch.

Notes

Apple Has A Little Time On Its Side, by Dan Gallagher, Wall Street Journal

More shutdowns could pose some risk to this year’s new iPhone models expected to come out in the fall. But Chris Caso of Raymond James says builds on new models typically don’t start until August, which gives Apple some breathing room in getting its factories back on line.

This Is What Apple Retail Employees In Atlanta Are Fighting For, by Zoe Schiffer, The Verge

The Apple Store, located in Atlanta’s Cumberland Mall, is the first of the company’s 272 retail locations to file for a union election. Employees have written an open letter explaining what changes they are pushing for: fair compensation and transparency on alleged pay inequality within the company, a commitment to promote more BIPOC employees into leadership positions, and increased COVID-19 safety measures in stores.

Apple Employees Demand More Flexibility From Company As Three-day Office Return Looms, by Sara Ashley O'Brien, CNN

The employees, organizing under a newly-formed group known as Apple Together that advocates for workers’ well-being and rights, are petitioning leadership for more flexibility. They’re also calling out a disconnect between the company’s external marketing to customers that its products allow people to “work from anywhere” and its internal messaging to staffers. “How can we understand what problems of remote work need solving in our products, if we don’t live it?” reads an open letter addressed to company leadership and published Friday on Apple Together’s website.

Bottom of the Page

Given all the scrutiny Apple is under nowadays, the company really need to be more transparent in all its dealings with third-party developers.

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Thanks for reading.