Apple
Just a reminder…. maybe hold off before installing the latest updates on your iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac. Give it a few days.
Thank You and happy update day for those that celebrate. Apple iOS 18
Breaking News… There Are Shady Companies on the Internet!
Shameless. This is an example people who are concerned with AI will point to has why we need to slow down.
So, I read a fair number off technology websites and blogs, some big like Macworld and others smaller like TechRadar. I am a regular reader of John Gruber’s long running blog DaringFireball and Jason Kottke’s Kottke Like a lot of things on the Internet, some sites get published, are read a good bit, but for whatever reason fade away. One such site I read regularly was The Unofficial Apple Weblog but a few years ago, it went away from my regular bookmarks. Originally owned by AOL, they let the site go to Yahoo, recently the domain (and all of its many years of articles and reviews) was sold by Yahoo to a company based out of Hong Kong called Web Orange Limited. I am not going to link to them because I find them despicable.
Instead of maybe restoring TUAW to a legitimate news source with curated reporters, they took a different route. They are basically using AI to scrape articles from other sites such as MacRumours and engadget and then publish them on TUAW. Now many sites will do similar things but the reputable ones will attribute the source of the original articles. TUAW is not doing this, worse, they are giving the author of such articles to people on their staff…. except most of these people don’t exist.
The following tech writer, Christina Warren, discovered this because she was one off the original TUAW contributing writers, they even were still using her picture, name, and bio on their about page! You can find her X post about it here. When confronted, all TUAW did was change the name on the about page but as of now kept her picture. Horrible.
Adam Engst at TidBits has a very nice summary article with screen shots showing the thefts and explaining it further.
I know there are a lot of more important news happening in the world but things like this really irritate me because it wont get a lot of main stream reporting. Just trying to do my part, however small, to share and call out the offender.
It’s The Little Things
It’s The Little Things
As of iOS 17, Apple introduced Animated Cover Art for album art in the Apple Music app. So now when viewing the album art while playing a song from the album, the artwork will animate creatively. Artists can design their own animations and submit them to Apple for use in listeners libraries.
I have only now noticed it since for the most part I will begin a playlist and then put the phone away in my pocket or set it down on the desk.
Here is a snippet of the Album animation for Van Halen’s album 1984. Check the cigarette smoke and the angel wings.
Very Clever.
To Sideload or Not to Sideload
There are a lot of articles and opinions out there right now about the new App Store policies they are implementing due to the new EU ruling going into effect. John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a really nice take on a Wall Street Journal report, you can read it here. The Wall Street Journal On Apple’s Plans For iOS Sideloading In The E.U.
As a long time user of both the MacOS on Mac computers and iOS on iPhones and iPads, my opinion is this. Keep the current policy for the MacOS where you can use the App Store to obtain software both free and paid but if the use really needs software that is not available on the App Store, allow the installation but with a warning dialog about the security risk that entails. On iOS I prefer to only use software that has been vetted by the App Store. I really appreciate the iOS sandboxing that apps have to be installed in with iOS that insures that an application has no access to other applications unless explicit permission is granted by me. I can see the argument for “unlocking” the iPhone or iPad and allowing for installations from any source but the vast majority of user of those devices do not need this kind of access.
Will be interesting to see how this all works out.
The Macintosh at 40 Years
This January marks 40 years since Steve Jobs unveiled what he believed to be the future of the personal computer. It was expensive and underpowered but the paradigm shift it introduced is unmistakeable. Instead of command line interface with directories you had pictures of folders that contained pictures of documents and all you had to do was move this mouse thing and click on them. Crazy.
Recently the Upgrade podcast had a few guests and they went through an informal ranking of various Macintosh models, including their first models, their favorite models and also models that were duds. If you are of a certain age, ahem, then a good bit of their conversation will resonate with you, it did with me.
For the record, the Apple Performa 6116CD was my first personal Macintosh that I owned. I was exposed to Macintosh computers in my last year at the Art Institute and I knew I would want one for myself. Thinking back on that computer, it was nothing really special in comparison to what was available at the time but it started me down a path that continues today of an Apple evangelical. I definately drank the kool-aid as they say.
I am currently writing this post on an Apple Mac Mini that contains an Apple M2 processor that roughly clocks at aproximately 3.49 GHz and contains 16 GB of RAM and storage on an incrediably fast 500 GB SSD internal drive. That Performa… had a PowerPC chip that clocked at 60 MHz, contained 8 MB of RAM and files stored on an internal 700 MB SCSI hard drive.
Happy Anniversary Macintosh and I look forward to see what your next 40 years have in store.
Apple Vision Pro First Steps
Apple Taking More First Steps
I am very curious to see how well received/reviewed the new Apple Vision Pro being released by pre-order from Apple starting today. It looks amazing and yes, there have been VR glasses out for a while now but Apple as usual takes what is out there and usually makes a new version that does things the others just don’t. I am particularily intereted in the productivity aspects and features.
Let also all remember, this is the first version and whatever shortcomings it may have, remember the first iPhone didnt even have cut and paste.