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The Exponentially-More-Competent Edition Friday, August 16, 2024

Apple’s Newest Short Film ‘The Relay’ Is A Microcosm Of Its Ethos On Empowering Everyone Through Tech, by Steven Aquino, Forbes

The cynical (albeit technically correct) viewpoint by many journalists and other industry watchers is to view films such as The Relay as mere marketing exercise meant to hawk Tim Cook’s wares. While it is true the film has a marketing component to it—buy Apple because they’re accessible—the more meaningful message lies in how the disabled people are portrayed as exponentially more competent than society historically has given us credit as being.

Stuff

Beats And Kim Kardashian Team Up For New Beats Studio Pro Colors, by Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Following a successful 2022 collaboration with Kim Kardashian for a set of three neutral color options for the Beats Fit Pro earphones, the "Beats x Kim" campaign is back to bring the same colors to the Beats Studio Pro headphones.

Stellar Data Recovery For iPhone Review, by Lloyd Coombes, Macworld

An easy-to-use app that could maybe do with a design refresh, Stellar Data Recovery is a great way to recover lost iPhone data – and it’s budget-friendly, too.

Swift Shift Is The Window Management Tool Apple Should Have Built, by Justin Pot, Lifehacker

Resizing and moving windows on a Mac isn't impossible, or even hard, but I spend more time trying to precisely position my mouse in the corners than I'd like. Swift Shift is a free, open source application that makes it easier by allowing you to move or resize a window from anywhere, just by holding a key and moving your mouse.

AllTrails+ Review: Discover New Trails And Roam With Confidence Anywhere On The Planet, by Julia Clarke, Advnture

This GPS hiking app makes it easy to discover and research routes wherever you are in the world, with handy functions like current weather conditions and downloadable 3D maps to help plan your hike. Once you're on the trail, you can alert your emergency contacts to your location and receive wrong turn notifications if you stray off the path.

'Fortnite' Maker Epic Games Challenges Apple’s Dominance With New iOS App Store, by Morgan Meaker, Wired

Epic Games today officially launched a rival app store for iOS in the European Union, marking the first time Apple’s own App Store has had to face a serious rival. The Epic Games Store will initially offer Epic’s games, including Fortnite, for users to download onto their iPhones, with plans to start onboarding third-party developers’ games beginning in December.

Develop

Developers Must Share Phone Number And Address On EU App Store To Meet 'Trader' Requirement Starting In October, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple today reminded developers who plan to distribute apps in the European Union to submit their trader status, a requirement that will see the App Store sharing the address, phone number, and email address of each developer. The information will be displayed on a developer's ‌App Store‌ page.

Notes

iPhone Driver's License Support Rolling Out Soon In California, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

California will soon start rolling out support for digital driver's licenses and IDs in the Apple Wallet app on iPhone and Apple Watch, becoming the sixth state to implement the feature.

Escaping Spotify’s Algorithm, by Tiffany Ng, MIT Technology Review

Glenn McDonald, a former engineer at Spotify and the self-described “data alchemist” largely responsible for developing the company’s encyclopedia of genres, believes that while accessing new music is technically easy, many of us don’t do it—mainly because we’re not sure where to start looking.

As we grow accustomed to the convenience of shuffling a generated playlist, we forget that discovering music is an active exercise.

Is This The End For The Magnetic Stripe?, by Chris Baraniuk, BBC

The magnetic stripe was invented by an IBM engineer in the 1960s – his wife was instrumental in the process as it was she who suggested melting a strip of magnetic tape onto a card using a clothes iron.

In the decades since, magstripes have been used on bank cards, rail tickets, IDs and even cards containing medical information, to set up hospital machines.

But that murky brown strip of plastic usually made with polluting heavy metals may not be around for much longer.

Bottom of the Page

I am having strange dreams again this past week, where I was dreaming me realizing I was in dreams. I sure hope this is not because of stress, of impending doom, or maybe I am not doing my weekly review of to-dos correctly.

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Thanks for reading.