MyAppleMenu

The Behest-of-Apple Edition Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Inside Robert De Niro’s Gotham Awards Speech Debacle, by Brent Lang, Matt Donnelly, Variety

The “Killers of the Flower Moon” actor was gearing up to slam Donald Trump at Monday’s Gotham Awards, but when he took the stage he discovered that the speech he planned to give had been altered at the behest of Apple, the film’s producer. The company was responding to feedback from the filmmaking team that wanted the actor’s remarks to be centered on the movie, according to a source.

[...]

A source close to the film denied that there was any censorship involved and said that the incident was a miscommunication. There had been multiple versions of De Niro’s speech and there was a desire to focus solely on the moviemakers and their artistry, according to the source. Apple and the filmmakers were unaware that De Niro hadn’t signed off on the final draft, the insider added.

It's Almost End of the Year

Apple Books Launches New 'Year In Review' Feature, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Apple today announced that its Books app now offers a "Year in Review" recap in select countries, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, France, and Germany. [...]

Year in Review allows Apple Books users to view personalized highlights about the books and audiobooks they read in 2023, including their total time spent reading, the longest book or audiobook they read, their most-read author and genre, their highest-rated book, and more. The recap can easily be shared with others.

Apple Music Reveals The Most-streamed Songs Of The Year And More, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Continuing with the “year-in-review” trend of the day, Apple Music has shared an in-depth look at the top songs of the year. This comes after Taylor Swift was crowned Apple Music’s Artist of the Year earlier this month.

Apple Music Replay 2023 Experience Now Live, by Hartley Charlton, MacRumors

Apple today rolled out the Apple Music Replay experience for 2023, allowing subscribers to see their top artists, songs, albums, genres, playlists, and stations of the year.

Apple Announces Top Podcasts Of 2023 Alongside New Apple Books Year In Review Feature, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

After recently naming Taylor Swift artist of the year for being the “most-streamed female artist in Apple Music history,” it’s time to check in with Apple Books and Podcasts.

Stuff

How To Use Obsidian For Writing And Productivity, by Justin Pot, Wired

My favorite thing about Obsidian, though, is the extensive plugin ecosystem. There are over a thousand Obsidian plugins, and I depend on several of them. There's Kanban, which allows you to create a board of cards you can move between tiles. There's Extract URL, which can grab all text from any website and turn it into a note. I could list plugins for a long time. But the point is that you can customize Obsidian to work basically any way you want it to. I've done this to create a perfect setup for my workflow—one that allows me to do my planning and my actual writing in the same application.

Mimestream 1.2, by Agen Schmitz, TidBITS

Mimestream has released version 1.2 of its Gmail-specific email app, adding support for inline text predictions when composing messages in macOS 14 Sonoma.

Play 2.0 Adds YouTube Channel Support, Folders, And A New Premium Subscription, by John Voorhees, MacStories

With version 2.0, Marcos has transformed Play from a utility where I save links for later to how I find videos and watch them in the first place. The big difference is that Play now allows users to manage YouTube channels inside the app.

Google Drive Users Say Google Lost Their Files; Google Is Investigating, by Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica

Did Google Drive lose some people's data? That's the question swirling around the Internet right now as Google announces it's investigating "sync issues" for Google Drive for desktop. [...]

Google has a post up on the Google Drive help forums more or less acknowledging the issue.

Notes

Apple Offers Exit Ramp To Goldman For Troubled Card Accord, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

The iPhone maker, which offers a credit card and savings account with Goldman, recently sent a term sheet to the financial giant that would be a first step toward severing the contract, according to a person familiar with the matter. The process could still take multiple years, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The partnership had been slated to last at least another five years.

[...]

The iPhone maker remains committed to its Apple Card credit card and savings account and doesn’t plan to discontinue the products — whether or not Goldman is involved — the person familiar with the situation said. Apple hasn’t gotten to the point of talking to firms that could replace Goldman, according to the person.

Bottom of the Page

Whether Apple intentionally or accidentally altered the text of Robert De Niro's speech, it is entirely a stupid error by the new Hollywood-wannabe company that is trying to attract talent. An own goal, as they say on the soccer field.

If this is intentional, the damage to Apple now is actually, it seems, larger than if Apple has let De Niro speaks his mind. If this is accidental, the lack of attention to details, and the lack of follow-up, reflects badly on Apple.

~

Thanks for reading.