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The Lucky-Developers Edition Wednesday, March 26, 2025

WWDC 2025 Scheduled For June 9–13, by Adam Engst, TidBITS

Apple has announced that its 2025 Worldwide Developer Conference will take place June 9 through June 13. It will again be free and entirely online, although Apple is also hosting a special event at Apple Park on the first day for some lucky developers who request to attend. Apple doesn’t say how attendees will be selected. Also on the schedule is the traditional Swift Student Challenge for budding developers.

WWDC 2025 Announced, by Nick Heer, Pixel Envy

If you are planning on travelling there and live outside the United States, there are some things you should know and precautions you should take, particularly if you are someone who is transgender or nonbinary. It is a good thing travel is not required, and hopefully Apple will once again run labs worldwide.

Stuff

Apple Music Classical Updated With Three New Features, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Apple Music Classical was updated today with time-synced listening guides, curated stations, and personalized recommendations on the Home tab of the app.

Apple Music Now Integrated With More DJ Apps, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

The popular DJing app djay by Algoriddim already offered Apple Music integration since last year, and additional platforms that are now supported include AlphaTheta, Serato, and inMusic's Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, and RANE DJ. For example, you can now access the entire Apple Music catalog in AlphaTheta's rekordbox app for iPhone and iPad.

AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Health Features Expand To More Countries, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

AirPods Pro 2 users in Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Colombia will soon have access to the hearing health feature set that Apple has been rolling out for the last several months.

The Studio Laughs To Keep From Crying, by Nicholas Quah, Vulture

Showbiz satire The Studio pulls off an anatomical feat, shoving its head so far up its own ass that it comes out the other side resembling something genuine and heartfelt. This is by design. [...] What distinguishes Apple TV+’s new half-hour comedy is its choice to marry farce with a palpable warmth toward the world it lampoons. There’s a real honesty to the resulting mixture: Yes, Hollywood is a silly, destructive business that deserves ridicule in so many ways, and yet there’s something about it that continues to inspire our deep, abiding love.

This App Gets Rid Of Autoplaying Videos, Trackers, And Other Modern Browsing Annoyances, by Pranay Parab, Lifehacker

StopTheMadness Pro is a one-stop solution to reclaiming the internet. It has so many features that it's hard to list them all in one article, but I'll highlight the ones I like the most (for context, I primarily use it with Safari on Mac). If my brief rundown isn't enough for you, once you install the extension, you can also of course click its icon in the toolbar to see everything it can do. This can be a bit overwhelming, since the General tab itself lists over 50 features, but the extension enables a good set of defaults to get you started. If you don't have the time to immediately check out every feature, the defaults and my recommendations will still take care of a large number of annoyances for you.

Notes

Apple Maps Look Around Cars Will Now Also Take Photos To Help Train Apple Intelligence Models, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

You may have seen Apple Maps survey cars in your area before. As they drive around, the cars take photos and 3D scans to generate ground truth data that can be used to improve map accuracy and offer features like Look Around, Apple’s equivalent of Google Street View.

But now the data collected from these cars will also have another purpose. In an updated disclosure on the Apple Maps Image Collection website, Apple says that starting this month, imagery from its vehicle surveys will also be used to train generative AI models, like those used for Apple Intelligence features such as Image Playground and Clean Up.

Apple Barred From Google Antitrust Trial, Putting $20 Billion Search Deal On The Line, by Ryan Whitwam, Ars Technica

Apple has suffered a blow in its efforts to salvage its lucrative search placement deal with Google. A new ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirms that Apple cannot participate in Google's upcoming antitrust hearing, which could leave a multibillion-dollar hole in Apple's balance sheet. The judges in the case say Apple simply waited too long to get involved.

Bottom of the Page

We now have Snoopy and Woodstock on Apple Watches and Apple TVs. Is it time for Snoopy to make an appearance on iPhone's lock screen? Maybe at WWDC?

I wish there are more customization options as well as new lock-screens offered in iOS. Different clocks and even different Now Playing widgets will be welcoming from me.

But given what's happening -- or rather, what is not happening over at Apple Watch and its selection of watch faces, I am not holding out hope.

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Thanks for reading.