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The Hopes-and-Dreams Edition Sunday, December 17, 2023

The iPhone’s Notes App Is The Purest Reflection Of Our Messy Existence, by Adrienne So, Wired

Surprisingly, the simplest app on the iPhone is the one that is the most trusted repository of all our hopes and dreams. If you want to know who someone truly is—what they eat, what books they read, what movies they watch, or how furious they get inside their own minds—you should probably check their Notes app.

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Notes is simple. Notes is serene. When I’m writing in Notes, I’m not tinkering with the best way to clip web content or writing in Markdown or worrying about the level of encryption. When you have to write a note, even the tiniest bit of friction, like trying to decide if you want checkboxes or bullets, can stop you from jotting something down.

Apple Makes It Easier For App Makers To Compete For Your Dollars, by Wes Davis, The Verge

Apple announced a pilot program called “contingent pricing for subscriptions” yesterday that will let App Store developers automatically offer discounted subscriptions for users of other apps. Developers, the company says, will be able to base this on subscriptions “from one developer or two different developers,” which lets them not only to entice customers they already have to their other apps, but also compete by offering deals to their competitors’ subscribers.

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In the EU, where Apple will soon allow third-party app stores, simply having a store won’t be enough — Apple will have to make it attractive for developers and customers, too. That means helping developers make the most money they can for their efforts, and giving them more ways to compete for customers is part of that.

Notes

The Epic Question: How Google Lost When Apple Won, by Sean Hollister, The Verge

In fact, market definition was arguably the deciding factor in the Apple case, when Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers singlehandedly decided the proper market definition was “digital mobile gaming transactions,” a market where Apple’s 30 percent cut looked relatively fair, since Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo nominally charge the same rate.

But in this case, the jury got to choose the relevant market for themselves — it was a write-in option on the verdict form — and the judge was publicly skeptical of Google’s market definitions, casting serious doubt on the idea that “digital transactions” made sense as an antitrust market at all.

In the end, the jury decided to go with Epic’s chosen market definitions: Android app distribution and Android in-app billing services. From there, it was a lot easier to agree Google had monopoly power — and now, it’s up to the judge to decide what penalties it should incur.

The Curious Case Of Epic Games: How The Developer Beat Google But Not Apple, by Mack DeGeurin, The Guardian

Donato instructed members of the jury that they “may” infer that any missing evidence from Google related to the case may reflect poorly on Google. Van Dyke called the direction “rare and significant”; other experts agreed that the instruction may have swayed the jury in favor of Epic.

Szabo criticized Donato’s instructions to the jury for leaving too much up to the imagination. The jury, he argued, was essentially allowed to conjure up damning evidence in their minds that may not have existed.

Bottom of the Page

I've spend half an afternoon trying to debug my washing machin. Yes, it was relatively easy to do a google, but it was not easy to google for additional things to try after all the easy (and duplicated all over the place) stuff are attempted.

Yes, in the end, my washing machine is working. But I am not sure if the problem will come back. And the idea of getting a backup has crossed my mind.

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Thanks for reading.