MyAppleMenu

The Impossible-Technology Edition Thursday, February 8, 2024

“Wherever You Get Your Podcasts” Is A Radical Statement, by Anil Dash

You've heard the call to action at the end of nearly every podcast you've ever listened to: "Listen to us on your favorite podcast app", or in the phrasing of podcaster extraordinare Roman Mars, "...wherever you find podcasts". [...]

But here's the thing: being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.

I Stopped Using Passwords. It’s Great—and A Total Mess, by Matt Burgess, Wired

For the past month, I’ve been converting as many of my accounts as possible—around a dozen for now—to use passkeys and start the move away from the password for good. Spoiler: When passkeys work seamlessly, it’s a glimpse of a more secure future for millions, if not billions, of people, and a reinvention of how we sign in to websites and services. But getting there for every account across the internet is still likely to prove a minefield and take some time.

Apple Releases ‘MGIE’, A Revolutionary AI Model For Instruction-based Image Editing, by Michael Nuñez, VentureBeat

Apple has released a new open-source AI model, called “MGIE,” that can edit images based on natural language instructions. MGIE, which stands for MLLM-Guided Image Editing, leverages multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to interpret user commands and perform pixel-level manipulations. The model can handle various editing aspects, such as Photoshop-style modification, global photo optimization, and local editing.

Coming Soon

iOS 17.4 Allows Video Calling Apps To Turn Off Hand Gesture Reactions To Prevent Awkward Moments, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Alongside iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4, Apple is releasing a new API that allows video conferencing apps to turn off the gesture-based reactions by default in their apps.

Vision Pro Gets iMessage Contact Key Verification On visionOS 1.1 Beta, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

iMessage Contact Key Verification is an optional security feature that allows you to manually verify who you are messaging with by comparing verification codes in person or on a phone call.

In The Courts

Apple Defeats Lawsuit Claiming It Overpaid CEO Tim Cook, Others, by Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon in Manhattan said the iPhone maker described its pay methods in detailed compensation tables in its 2023 proxy statement, "precisely" as securities laws and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules require.

Judge Rules Against Users Suing Google And Apple Over “Annoying” Search Results, by Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica

While the world awaits closing arguments later this year in the US government's antitrust case over Google's search dominance, a California judge has dismissed a lawsuit from 26 Google users who claimed that Google's default search agreement with Apple violates antitrust law and has ruined everyone's search results.

Stuff

Apple Maps Now Offers Cycling Directions In Switzerland, by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors

Apple Maps‌ provides cycling directions along bike lanes, bike paths, and bike-friendly roads wherever possible, including details like steep inclines, how busy a street is, and whether there are stairs or other obstacles along a route.

Apple Officially Splits iTunes For Windows Into Apple Music, TV, And Devices Apps, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

The Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Devices apps that Apple has been testing for Windows machines have officially launched, ending a long preview period and bringing an end to the iTunes app on some computers.

Apple Launches A Redesigned iCloud App For Windows, by Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch

The new app, available for Windows 10 and 11, has a new setup experience for easier onboarding. It also has a syncing status indicator for different services to better indicate how many items have been downloaded or uploaded.

Photoscope Helps You Clean Up Your Photo Library, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

Photoscope just launched on both iPhone and Apple Vision Pro (possibly a first for that combo with a new app). The pitch is that it can help you clean up your massive photo library and rediscover your best shots.

Plex Now Lets You Rent Movies As It Continues Expansion Beyond The Media Server Business, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Unsurprisingly, Plex’s app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV doesn’t support the ability to rent movies. Instead, you’ll have to jump out to the Plex website to rent content, which you can then watch in the Plex app. This is Plex skirting Apple’s App Store fees, like many other streaming services.

Universal Print, Microsoft's One-stop Solution For Printing In Cloud Services, Now Arrives On macOS, by Rafly Gilang, MSPoweruser

It’s been at least four years since Microsoft first launched Universal Print, its one-stop solution for businesses to print documents without installing drivers locally. Now, the Redmond company is rolling this out for macOS users.

Notes

Vision Pro's Biggest Shortcomings Are Its Best Path To Success, by Dan Moren, Macworld

There are a handful of places where Apple has spent very little time talking about the Vision Pro’s capabilities–in some situations those capabilities are limited or simply aren’t present at all. If you look closer, there’s often a very clear reason why that’s so, but it also means that there’s clearly room for Apple to make forays into new arenas as the platform develops.

Bite Me! How Apple’s Download Chart Became A New Battleground For Pop – And Politics, by Shaad D'Souza, The Guardian

Over 20 years after its launch, Apple’s online music store has found a surprising new life – as a battleground for online turf wars. Last week, at least five songs rose to the upper reaches of the Apple Music (formerly iTunes) download charts, powered by different internet factions.

Security Researcher Allegedly Hacked Apple’s Backend, Scammed $2.5 Million, by Joseph Cox, 404 Media

A legitimate presenting security researcher who has reported multiple vulnerabilities to Apple has been charged with allegedly breaking into a system connected to Apple’s backend, and then using that access to defraud the tech giant out of $2.5 million worth of gift cards and electronics, according to recently unsealed court records.

Bottom of the Page

And so, here's the end of that glass of ice water for someone in hell.

It's finally time to say goodbye to iTunes.

(I'm not a music person, so my fond memories of iTunes -- and the great AppleScript support -- is it being my first podcast client.)

~

Thanks for reading.