The name 4-H traditionally conjures up images of teenagers raising farm animals, or learning how to bake or sew — and those skills are still a big part of the organization that has helped support and educate young people across America for more than 100 years. On a recent day at the Franklin County Fair in Columbus, Ohio, 4-H club members presented livestock and displayed quilts they had crafted, but on closer inspection, there were signs of something new, and perhaps surprising.
Outside a 4-H mobile classroom bus parked near the fair’s midway, kids were using iPad to drive Sphero robots across the pavement, while inside, they were coding with Swift and composing music using GarageBand.
For Parekh, creativity is a major aspect of his passion for computer science. “I've always been a creative person,” Parekh said. “Computer science is one of those fields where you can build anything that you want as long as you have access to a computer.”
The UK's Competition and Market Authority (CMA) today announced it had closed an investigation into Apple's App Store policies, as it expects to consider the concerns under a new digital markets competition regime which is expected to come into force later this year.
Apple is increasingly reliant on its App Store fees to maintain its revenue balance. In China, this means extracting substantial fees from big tech groups like ByteDance and Tencent. For instance, on Douyin, Bytedance's flagship short-video platform for the domestic market, users buying virtual gifts must purchase virtual currency through the App Store, where iOS users get less value for their money due to Apple's 30% fee, compared with much lower fees for those using Google's Android system.
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Apple's response has been to subtly reject or delay iOS app updates from the likes of Tencent and ByteDance, according to analysts and developers. This in turn pressures the large Chinese tech platforms to enforce Apple's payment rules and fee rates, shutting down potential "bypasses" by small developers and creators. As discontent continues to simmer among the latter group, the South Korean and Japanese regulatory crackdowns have inspired calls for more forceful regulatory action.
Despite the complicated new rules, a handful of developers have taken advantage of the opportunity to distribute their apps outside of Apple’s walls.
Below is a list of some of the alternative app stores iPhone users in the EU can try today.
Apple in August increased the period in which customers can extend their AppleCare+ coverage after it expires. Apple used to allow coverage to be extended for 30 days after the end of the original AppleCare+ plan, but that has now changed to 45 days.
Today's firmware update introduces support for audio sharing, a feature that was not available at launch. Audio sharing is designed to allow two people to listen to music from an iPhone or iPad.
Even the tiniest of distractions can completely disrupt your flow when you’re trying to put words down on a page, and so a whole cottage industry has cropped up around making tools for distraction-free writing. These apps can’t stop telemarketers from calling you or deflect the deluge of Instagram notifications, but they do strip away the extraneous nonsense found in traditional word processors like rulers, toolbars, and tables, and focus on what’s most important: words.
Distraction-free writing apps come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and at various price points. Here are a few of my favorites.
In short, it took me too long to learn, software can’t automate your thinking. But I do think it can create the conditions for improved thinking: for making new connections between ideas; for reducing the number of times during the day that your attention flits from one app to the next; and for organizing your reading and making it more useful to you in the future.
If you want the old Sonos app back, it’s not coming. In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app, confirming a report from The Verge that the company was considering doing so. But after testing that option, rereleasing the old app would apparently make things worse, Spence says.
Of all the new products that Apple is likely to release in the remaining of the year -- or, for the iPhones, definitely will release -- I look forward most to the Mac mini and its rumored new mini design.
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