Amazon just rolled out Alexa Guard, a new feature that lets your Echo monitor all the sounds in your house while you are away. If it hears a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, or glass breaking, it will send you a smart alert, playing the sound on your phone.
On one hand, this is a clever idea and requires no extra purchase on your end. Just tell Alexa you are leaving the house and Alexa will vigilantly listen as instructed. This is great for Amazon, as I’m sure it’ll help them sell more Echo devices, as people want to have their home secure, even in big cities like London where a lot people is running around, and if you want a new home you can also try the estate agents London to find you a good place for you and your family.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how I would feel about knowing that Alexa was always listening and, if the moment was right, always ready to record a sound for posterity, especially if you came home and forgot to turn Alexa Guard off.
This just strikes me as anti-privacy.
On the other, other hand, I can’t help but think this is a feature Apple could easily implement, if they so chose. Would I feel any different with Apple eavesdropping, vs Amazon? I’m not sure.
> On a warm night in May of 1969, a throng of awestruck gamblers crowded around a well-worn roulette table in the Italian Riviera. > > At the center stood a gangly 38-year-old medical professor in a rumpled suit. He’d just placed a $100,000 bet ($715,000 in 2019 dollars) on a single spin of the wheel. As the croupier unleashed the little white ball, the room went silent. He couldn’t possibly be this lucky… could he? > > But Dr. Richard Jarecki wasn’t leaving it up to chance. He’d spent thousands of hours devising an ingenious method of winning — and it would soon net him the modern equivalent of more than $8,000,000.
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Apple debuted a brand new Pride face in the middle of the WWDC 2018 keynote last year, pairing a rainbow colored watch face with a matching band. Now Apple’s Pride face is getting a new design on the Apple Watch with an updated style option. There’s also a new Pride Analog version with full screen and circular versions.
To see these for yourself, launch your iPhone Watch app and tap the Face Gallery tab.
Follow the headline link to the iFixit teardown page for the Google Pixel 3a. Lots of step-by-step images and details. This is one of the most easy to take apart phones on the market but, that said, it is still an incredibly complex puzzle to put back together.
Take a look if your inner nerd runs that way.
And, if video is more your thing, embedded below is the teardown of the Pixel 3a XL.
Users of older versions of Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Lightroom Classic, have been told by Adobe that they are no longer licensed to use them, and anyone who continues to use these versions could face “infringement claims” from other companies.
Users of older versions of Adobe Creative Cloud apps including Photoshop have been told to stop using them or face potential “infringement claims” from third-party companies who are unnamed but suspected to be Dolby. Adobe cites only “ongoing litigation” as the reason for the abrupt announcement.
I got my “cease and desist” letter. Adobe continues to make decisions that hurt average customers. It’s unlikely individuals would “face potential “infringement claims” from Dolby and Adobe is just using the wording as a scare tactic.
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that an antitrust case against Apple could move forward effectively allowing iPhone users to sue the company. The crux of the argument is that Apple only allows apps to be sold on its store and that it takes a 30 percent commission, which inflates the prices.
When I first heard about the ruling, I thought about two things: 1. What is Apple providing to us with the App Store? 2. What would happen if you could download apps anywhere and install them on your iPhone?
I think most people believe Apple is merely providing a service with the App Store that gives us a convenient place to download the apps and for developers to sell their products. That’s undoubtedly true, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
Through its system of rigorous review of all apps submitted to the App Store, Apple makes sure that everything we download is safe and secure for us to use. That is the most significant benefit of the App Store for me.
We see every day how unsafe the Internet is in a lot of different ways. Being able to download a simple app and not have to worry about being spied on or having some malicious code installed that will make my device less secure is imperative to me and should be critically important to everybody.
It’s also essential to Apple as we’ve seen from their privacy stance over the years with their hardware and software products.
Apple does not dictate the price of apps in its store—the developers set prices. The App Store is a platform and Apple is providing a service that goes far beyond an e-commerce portal for developers to sell apps.
There are plenty of free apps available in the App Store and many others that are $0.99. If anything, the apps are priced too low, not too high, but developers are setting the price based on what people will spend and hope the volume of purchases make up the difference.
We’ve come to a point as consumers where many don’t value the work developers do daily to make the products we use. Consumers value free and scoff at paying $0.99 for an app, even if they find it useful.
Allowing apps to be downloaded and installed from anywhere may lower prices, but it will certainly raise security concerns. The sad thing is that when someone gets hacked because they installed one of these malicious apps, the headline won’t be that they voluntarily installed an app that wasn’t secure, it will be “iPhone Hacked” or some other stupidity.
I will always buy my apps from the App Store because I trust what Apple is doing with its ecosystem. I want to be secure, and I want a company that values my privacy to be in charge of the apps I download and use.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that consumers can press ahead with a lawsuit that accuses Apple Inc. of using its market dominance to artificially inflate prices at its App Store.
The 5-4 ruling May 13 could add to pressure the company faces to cut the 30 percent commission it charges on app sales. Lawyers pressing the case have said they will seek hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of overpaying consumers.
Want to read the ruling, get the story straight from the horse’s mouth? Here ya go.
Before you check out Mark Linsangan’s Apple Insider post/video, take a quick look at this tweet, which shows the focus of Google’s iPhone bashing Phone X (not a typo, they compare their new phone to the mythical Phone X) campaign.
Google is, rightfully so, focusing on the availability of Night Sight on the Pixel 3a and the lack of a night mode on modern iPhones. Fair dinkum.
But if you really want to compare the Pixel 3a to an iPhone, do what Mark Linsangan does and run the gamut. Compare all the things. Like blazingly fast speed, fit and finish, and other features missing from the 3a entirely.
I think the Pixel 3a is a good enough smartphone. But compare it side-by-side with the low end iPhone if you want to truly play fair.
“Music Skills: Creating Your First Podcast” is a 30-minute Apple Store session that uses GarageBand for iPhone to teach the basics of recording, editing, and refining a podcast trailer with music and audio loops. The session isn’t meant to be an end-to-end guide to publishing a show — Apple offers other resources for that — but it will help you decide if starting a podcast is something you want to pursue.
Currently only at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store, I’m hoping it’ll roll out to other Apple Stores over time.
Here’s a location free link you can check to see if it’s coming to your store anytime soon. I will definitely be signing up for this one.
Some Apple employees are getting Apple Card, so I received this photos, edited the name to protect the source and this also works as a watermark ??? https://t.co/UcSzcEDY3v
The obvious choice for a music-streaming service seemed to be Spotify since it works on both platforms. Or at least it seemed that way until we ran into the baffling and user-hostile way Spotify handles home postal addresses.
As Centers said on Twitter, “I don’t just love Apple Music, but after trying everything else, I’m convinced that it’s the least-awful streaming service.” Damning with faint praise.
Yes, you read that right, Dave and I kicked off this week’s episode talking about potatoes. We also talked about Google’s privacy stance.
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The mysterious, rainbow-colored stage erected inside Apple Park bears all the hallmarks of the company’s meticulous design, according to an Apple document provided to Cult of Mac.
It’s the latest creation by Jony Ive’s team — and it’s just as thoughtfully and intricately designed as you might imagine.
The Cult of Mac article is worth reading. But short answer (and don’t let it stop you from reading the CoM piece, it’s got much more):
Apple and its collaborators are supposedly rushing to complete the brightly colored stage prior to a May 17 special event for employees at Apple Park. That event reportedly will do double duty. It will serve as a celebration of the formal opening of Apple Park, the sprawling headquarters of the world’s most powerful tech company. And it will pay tribute to Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder whose vision drove the design of the unique Cupertino campus with the spaceship-like circular building.
Wish I could be there. I can only imagine it will be quite an event.
For those who use their iPad with an external keyboard, we’ve put together a list of more than 30 helpful iPad Keyboard Shortcuts to save you time and be more productive on your device. We’ve also included a cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts to accompany some of our favorite iPad apps (such as Things, Ulysses, Lightroom, and more).
Use an iPad with an external keyboard? Have at it.
Take the screen design for Apple’s phones. The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. Bruce Tognazzini and I, both former employees of Apple, wrote a long article on Apple’s usability sins, which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Once Apple products could be used without ever reading a manual. Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
When Don Norman says he wrote the book on user-friendly design, he’s not kidding. Don is a former Apple VP and his book The Design of Everyday Things is a seminal work.
If you care about design, take the time to read the linked article. This strikes me particularly, because my mom is legally blind and I’ve been unable to find a solution that she can master (voiceover and other accessibility features are just too complex for her to grasp).
I’d love to see a simpler interface as an option, one that lets me eliminate all the clutter and reduce her choices to a few large, customizable buttons (perhaps backed by Shortcuts). And I’d love for that interface to servive reboot, an accessibility kiosk mode.
Fluttering like wind through the leaves of a tree, the ‘furry’ bark of the oyamel trees comes alive. One by one, and then in a kaleidoscope of flight, the monarch butterflies drop away from the trees to drink nectar and mate.
I’ve always wanted to visit this Monarch sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico.
No one has ever been killed by a selfie. A lot of people have been killed by stupid behavior. No beautiful destination has ever been ruined by an Instagram post. A lot of beautiful places have been ruined by irresponsible assholes. When it comes to social media’s impact on the outdoors, all of us are getting mad about the wrong thing. And that anger is one of the reasons why we have a problem.
I don’t know if it was the poppies in California, or the tourists who died in the Grand Canyon, or the guy who fell off a cliff in Yosemite National Park, but it seems as if the social-media outrage cycle has come full circle. Now, rather than being mad at a dentist who shot a lion or a zoo that killed a gorilla, everyone is outraged at social media itself.
To attend her son Stephan’s commencement ceremony, Sharonda Wilson was unable to attend her own from Ferris State University. Learning this, @cmichprez contacted FSU President Eisler and was able to confer her degree on behalf of FSU's president and trustees. #cmichgraduationpic.twitter.com/anCSTHDCdC
Apple on Thursday previewed its Carnegie Library store in Washington, D.C., set to open on Saturday at 10 a.m., saying it will help the Library once again serve a public good despite much of it being turned into a private store.
The store represents Apple’s “most extensive historic restoration project to date,” the company said. The building was originally Washington’s Central Public Library, funded and opened by Andrew Carnegie in 1903. Apple worked with conservation experts on preserving facades and details, and restoring interior spaces to their original dimensions. Apple’s usual architectural firm, Foster + Partners, operated in conjunction with chief design officer Jony Ive.
I wish I still lived in the area. Even from Nashville or Connecticut, I’d ride to see the re-opening of this gorgeous building.
The flyover is fascinating, as always, but that stage just grabbed my attention. The colors are reminiscent of the old school Apple logo and, of course, the pride flag.
Wondering if there is an event planned for WWDC centered on this stage.
In each of these muggings, the perpetrator allegedly held the victim up at gunpoint, demanded that they pull out their iPhone, and gave them instructions: Disable “Find My iPhone,” and log out of iCloud.
And:
A stolen iPhone which is still attached to the original owner’s iCloud account is worthless for personal use or reselling purposes (unless you strip it for parts), because at any point the original owner can remotely lock the phone and find its location with Find My iPhone. Without the owner’s password, the original owner’s account can’t be unlinked from the phone and the device can’t be factory reset. This security feature explains why some muggers have been demanding passwords from their victims.
And:
In practice, “iCloud unlock” as it’s often called, is a scheme that involves a complex supply chain of different scams and cybercriminals. These include using fake receipts and invoices to trick Apple into believing they’re the legitimate owner of the phone, using databases that look up information on iPhones, and social engineering at Apple Stores. There are even custom phishing kits for sale online designed to steal iCloud passwords from a phone’s original owner.
Fascinating read, especially the coverage of phishing. Incredible balance, with the makers who make valuable things on one end, and the people seeking to convert those efforts into illicitly gotten cash on the other.
Every original Mac shipped with this cassette. So weird to think about it now, a cassette tape as guided tour, but this is the real deal.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I drove home from the computer store at warp speed, my brand new Macintosh in tow. Unpacked everything, amazed at the novelty of it all, thrilled to get started. MacWrite, MacPaint, the ImageWriter printer, and glacially slow floppy disks.
Despite the fear that the introduction of the Mac App Store meant that Apple would eventually limit the Mac software market to App Store apps only, that has never happened. In part, this is because a huge array of important Mac apps have not qualified for inclusion in the Mac App Store, something Apple seems now to be dedicated to rectifying.
And:
With the introduction of Gatekeeper, Apple began differentiating between Mac App Store apps, apps that had been created by known Apple developers outside the App Stores, and apps with unknown provenance.
And:
Last summer, Apple introduced a new concept for Mac software distribution outside the Mac App Store, something called “notarization.” Just as the older approach allows Apple to recognize registered developers—and turn off their accounts if they’re creating malware—this new approach requires developers to pass their apps through an automated process at Apple. Apple gets the ability to flag any problems it sees, and retains the ability to shut off individual apps from a developer, rather than the entire output of an account.
Good stuff from Jason Snell.
One side note: Interesting difference between the Mac and iOS is the ability to download and run a Mac app without any involvement from Apple. While you can sideload an iOS app using Apple’s Mobile Device Management, Test Flight, or by building the app yourself, none of those offer the freedom the Mac brings.
Will Marzipan change that, even a bit? Will I be able to download a Marzipan app from a developer’s site and just run it on my Mac? Or will Marzipan restrict apps to the Mac App Store?
The invention allows the system to extend to a future Apple Pencil for iPhone and through to other accessories that could be charged by a host device. Perhaps the AirPods case sitting on an iDevice.
Imagine an Apple Pencil that can charge on both an iPad and iPhone, and that can be used on both devices. Maybe the Apple Watch could ride on that train as well?
This more complex than AirPower? Maybe not, if this is just a single Qi-coil per device.
It’s clear that this year’s WWDC is going to be a doozy. We’ve written here previously with our thoughts about Dark Mode, now it’s time to talk about iOS apps coming to the Mac.
Of course I’m talking about Marzipan, a technology Apple introduced with few details during last year’s Keynote. We knew that some apps in Mojave used the new technology and that was about it.
What I’m going to focus on today is how this new technology will affect product development, design, and marketing. I see many folks who think this transition will be easy: my experience tells me that it will be more difficult than it appears at first glance.
Really interesting look at what the future holds after WWDC 2019.
As the 16-year-old walked into the Mall at Millenia’s Apple Store on Tuesday, he saw a swarm of employees and customers buzzing around a kiosk. When he approached, the crowd parted, and there stood Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“I was not expecting that at all,” said Liam, still flush and grinning ear-to-ear after meeting Cook. “It was such an amazing surprise.”
This had to be insanely exciting for this 16-year-old and what a great thing for Cook to do.
Developer Jeff Johnson, the maker of StopTheMadness, has released a free Mac utility called StopTheNews that forces Apple News links to open in Safari instead of the News app.
The app works with Safari and Safari Technology Preview by registering itself as the default handler for the Apple News URL scheme.
This comes in very handy but it feels like something Apple might not approve of. But I’ll use it regardless.
