MyAppleMenu

The Compartmentalize-Stupid Edition Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Apple Celebrates Accessibility Awareness Day With Fitness+, Live Sessions, Shortcut Suggestions, More, by Allison McDaniel, 9to5Mac

Apple is celebrating Accessibility Awareness Day this entire week with new content for Apple lovers of varying abilities. There’s a lot to check out this week from Fitness+, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and more.

How A Burner Browser Hides My Most Embarrassing Internet Searches, by Thorin Klosowski, New York Times

I’ve used this dual-browser setup for years so that every random product, trivia, or health-related search doesn’t follow me around for days or weeks. I still use a standard browser for work, where I want a history, saved logins, and other tracking-based conveniences. But by using a burner browser, I’m compartmentalizing the stupidest part of my brain (the part that searches mostly for nonsensical trivia I’ll immediately forget) from the useful part of my brain (the part that had to write this article).

Researchers Devise iPhone Malware That Runs Even When Device Is Turned Off, by Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

When you turn off an iPhone, it doesn’t fully power down. Chips inside the device continue to run in a low-power mode that makes it possible to locate lost or stolen devices using the Find My feature or use credit cards and car keys after the battery dies. Now researchers have devised a way to abuse this always-on mechanism to run malware that remains active even when an iPhone appears to be powered down.

[...]

The findings have limited real-world value since infections required a jailbroken iPhone, which in itself is a difficult task, particularly in an adversarial setting. Still, targeting the always-on feature in iOS could prove handy in post-exploit scenarios by malware such as Pegasus, the sophisticated smartphone exploit tool from Israel-based NSO Group, which governments worldwide routinely employ to spy on adversaries.

Apple Works

Apple Delays Plan To Have Staff In Office Three Days A Week, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

The company also told staff that they must again wear masks in common areas -- at least in Silicon Valley offices. Separately, retail employees were informed Tuesday that about 100 US stores will again require mask wearing by staff members as well.

Apple Accused Of Union Busting In New Labor Board Filing, by Zoe Schiffer, The Verge

Apple retail employees in Atlanta are accusing the company of violating the National Labor Relations Act by holding captive audience meetings to counter an ongoing union drive at the site. The Communications Workers of America, which is working to organize the store, filed an unfair labor practice reporting the activity earlier today.

Stuff

Apple Music’s New Concert Series Will Livestream Select Performances, Starting With Harry Styles, by Aisha Malik, TechCrunch

Apple is launching a new concert livestreaming series called “Apple Music Live” that will showcase performances from “the biggest stars in music,” the company announced today. The series will kick off on May 20 with a livestream of Harry Styles’ “One Night Only in New York” performance. The concert will be available to stream exclusively to Apple Music subscribers in 167 countries at no extra cost.

Eve Outdoor Cam Brings HomeKit Secure Video To Outdoor Floodlights For The First Time, by Bradley Chambers, 9to5Mac

It’s built from the ground up where only authorized HomeKit users can access it remotely using a Home hub (HomePod or iPad). Video recordings are stored securely and fully encrypted in your iCloud account using Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video technology.

Nomad Launches New Sport Band Slim For Apple Watch, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

The Sport Band Slim is made from an FKM fluoroelastomer rubber that is 100 percent waterproof. It includes interior ventilation channels to keep it dry and cool when worn, and it features a custom stainless steel closure pin with a pin-and-tuck mechanism.

Develop

Apple Releases Swift Playgrounds 4.1 For iPad And Mac, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

On the Mac, Swift Playgrounds 4.1 adds a host of new features including support for building Mac apps with SwiftUI with macOS 12.4 or later, guided walkthroughs that teach SwiftUI app building basics, live updates in App Preview as changes are made, and App Store Connect integration for uploading finished apps to the ‌App Store‌.

Notes

How To Silence An Alarm On A Family Member's iPhone Using Your Own iPhone, by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors

The next time you hear an alarm going off on a family member’s ‌iPhone‌ and your own ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌ is within earshot, simply say “Hey Siri, turn off the alarm on Anna’s ‌iPhone‌” (or the name of whoever’s ‌iPhone‌ it’s likely to be).

Apple Facing Lawsuit After AirPods Allegedly Ruptured Child's Eardrums With Amber Alert, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

The child, identified as B.G. in the filing, was watching a movie on Netflix on his iPhone in 2020 while wearing AirPods Pro. The ‌AirPods Pro‌ were allegedly set at a low volume, but an Amber Alert sounded without warning and the high-pitched noise damaged B.G.’s eardrums.

"Disregard The Words", by Internet Blue

Yet looking back on the last decade or two, the most transformative consumer products – and generational changes in behavior – have often been the most difficult to describe. The ones where words escaped us initially.

Sometimes I think of it in this way: if the words already exist to describe something new then maybe it is not truly that novel after all.

Bottom of the Page

I, too, uses multiple browsers. On my Mac, I uses Safari for personal stuff, and Firefox for work stuff. And I've added Edge to the mix just for Microsoft services -- Outlook, Teams, and Sharepoint. No, using Teams on Edge is not that much better than on other browsers. But at least Microsoft cannot blame me for using an 'unsupported' browser.

~

Thanks for reading.