This list was based on a survey and, like all lists of this type, it’s subjective. That said, I love lists like this. Just like a list of the best movies of all time, its real value is in finding something new.

Spend some quality time going through this one. My favorite description is this one, for The Ihnatko Almanac:

Tech journalist Andy Ihnatko delivers extemporaneous and knowledgeable soliloquies about comic books, movies, technology, photography, and dozens of other topics. Like a very nerdy Roger Ebert. Co-host Dan Benjamin hardly gets a word in, but he’s there just to wind up Ihnatko and let him go.

Just perfect!

Did you know that the earbuds that came with your iPhone are actually called EarPods? Here, see for yourself.

Name aside, this article, written by Christian Zibreg for iDownloadBlog is jam packed with useful information about your EarPods. Even if you are an EarPod ninja, I’ll wager there’s a trick or two in this post that is new to you.

My favorite:

Summon Siri: Press and hold the center button, then make your request.

To be clear, you press and hold the center button to summon Siri, then let go of the button before you start speaking. Siri will ignore you until you release the button.

Bookmark and pass along.

Stephen Aquino, writing for iMore, hasn’t yet got his hands on one of the new Apple TVs. Nonetheless, he uses the tvOS specs to lay out the accessibility elements built in to the new Apple TV, including Voiceover, Zoom, Bold Text, Increase Contrast, Reduce Motion, and much much more.

On one of the most important accessibility features:

I think Siri is going to be game-changing for accessibility on the Apple TV. If it works as well as advertised, I can foresee myself using voice to drive the UI so that I can save my vision for the actual content. Overall, though, Siri on the Apple TV has the potential to be a lifesaver for those with physical and motor impairments, for whom using the remote may be difficult.

Nate Raymond, writing for Reuters:

Apple Inc told a U.S. judge that accessing data stored on a locked iPhone would be “impossible” with devices using its latest operating system, but the company has the “technical ability” to help law enforcement unlock older phones.

Apple’s position was laid out in a brief filed late Monday, after a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn, New York, sought its input as he weighed a U.S. Justice Department request to force the company to help authorities access a seized iPhone during an investigation.

In court papers, Apple said that for the 90 percent of its devices running iOS 8 or higher, granting the Justice Department’s request “would be impossible to perform” after it strengthened encryption methods.

And:

Apple told U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein it could access the 10 percent of its devices that continue to use older systems, including the one at issue in the case. But it urged the judge to not require it to comply with the Justice Department’s request.

“Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand,” Apple’s lawyers wrote.

Also at stake is a precedent that would be set if the judge forces Apple to turn over this information on an older phone. A wedge in the crease that might be used to pressure Apple to change the current encryption policy.

Two months ago, The New York Times ran a bruising expose on Amazon’s workplace, with this memorable quote:

Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” he said. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

Amazon protested, but the Times stuck by their story. Time passed.

On Monday, Jay Carney, Senior Vice President for Global Corporate Affairs at Amazon, wrote a direct response to that expose in Medium, called What The New York Times Didn’t Tell You.

With those two pieces as background, go read this brilliant analysis by Stratechery’s Ben Thompson. There’s too much in Ben’s piece to summarize in a few words, but here’s just a taste:

The importance of Amazon’s response is obvious: unlike days of old, when corporations or individuals in the news had to resort to letters to the editor (which may or may not have been printed) and angry calls to the editor-in-chief, Amazon can go straight to the public with their complaints; it may sound cliché to say that “everyone is a publisher” but for the fact it’s true. Moreover, like anything else on the Internet, Amazon’s response was immediately available to everyone in the world: we take that for granted today, but compared to not that long ago when distribution required printing presses and delivery trucks this is truly an astounding development.

Terrific, insightful writing.

From the Matcha Tea blog comes this fascinating discussion of the influence Japanese culture had on Steve Jobs and, as a result, on Apple and the design of Apple products. Much of this has been discussed before, but this particular paragraph really struck a chord:

Apple enables productivity without requiring it, and this certainly played a role in the popularity of the devices with consumers. While they offer high reliability for business functions, they also offer convenient functionality for personal use. Where Microsoft saw itself rising to dominance partly with the success of its Office suite as being productive in traditional western business roles, Apple saw itself rising due to occupying a special place within culture as a range of devices suited towards normal life.

Well said.

[H/T Catalin Zorzini]

Rene Ritchie, writing for iMore, pulled together a nice collection of details on Apple’s new Magic Keyboard. Among other things, you’ll learn how to pair/unpair the Magic Keyboard to your Mac, iOS device, and Apple TV, as well as check its battery life in various configurations.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out Rene’s Magic Keyboard review.

Nick Statt, writing for The Verge:

Apple today removed more than 250 apps from its App Store that were using software from a Chinese advertising company that secretly accessed and stored users’ personal information. The firm, called Youmi, provided app makers with a software development kit that would glean which apps a user had downloaded, that user’s email address, and the serial number of their smartphone, according to mobile security company SourceDNA. The apps in total received 1 million downloads.

The app makers that relied on Youmi’s SDK, most of which are ​based​ in China, may not have knowingly violated Apple’s security and privacy guidelines. “We believe the developers of these apps aren’t aware of this since the SDK is delivered in binary form, obfuscated, and user info is uploaded to Youmi’s server, not the app’s. We recommend developers stop using this SDK until this code is removed,” reads SourceDNA’s blog post.

Vigilance. This part of Apple’s app review process is incredibly important. Detecting this sort of obfuscation is critical.

Soundsnap has a library of over 200,000 high quality sound effects. They are not free, but they are reasonably priced.

Try this:

• Go to the site
• In the search field, type klaxon, hit return
• Play through some of the results until you find one you like
• Tap the button to the right of the sound to either favorite a sound, or go to an MP3 or WAV purchase page

Pricing starts at $9 for 5 sounds ($1.80 per sound). Pretty reasonable, no?

[H/T Dermot Daly]

I connect my iPhone to my Mac for a number of reasons. Sometimes, I’m downloading an app from Xcode. Sometimes, I’m doing a backup, other times an iOS update. Sometimes I’m using QuickTime Player to create a movie, using my iPhone as a source.

When I plug my iPhone into my El Capitan driven Mac, I can count on one thing. Photo will launch. And if I’m doing a screen capture, Photos will keep launching each time I hit the end of a capture session.

Painful.

If you share my pain, read this, and suffer no more. Simple, but well hidden. Thank you Kirk!

Christian Zibreg, writing for iDownloadBlog, pulled together this excellent exploration of OS X System Preferences. This is one of those articles where the value lies in that one or two tips you never knew existed.

Bookmark and pass this along, especially to folks who are new to the Mac, but will become the next generation of tech support/power users.

Daisuke Wakabayashi, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

Speaking at WSJDLive, The Wall Street Journal’s global technology conference, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the company has 6.5 million paying customers for Apple Music and 8.5 million customers on three-month trials.

In August, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue, who is overseeing the rollout of Apple Music, said it had 11 million people on the trial version of the service. That suggests that nearly 60% of those users agreed to pay for the service after the trial period ended.

By comparison, Spotify AB, which launched in 2008, says it has 75 million active users and 20 million subscribers.

Embedded below are a few clips of Tim Cook’s interview.

On Apple Music and new music discovery:

On Apple’s culture:

The Verge:

Apple will “start taking orders Monday” for the new Apple TV, and it will ship by the end of next week, Cook says.

This is from the liveblog of the Wall Street Journal conference’s interview with Tim Cook this evening, according to The Verge.

The Wall Street Journal:

Cook will be interviewed by Gerard Baker, The Wall Street Journal’s Editor in Chief. They will live-blog Cook’s interview on stage beginning at around 11:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 PST.

This should be an interesting interview. I’ll miss it though because I will be caught up in the exciting Canadian Election results. To all my fellow Canadians – get out and vote!

Benjamin Mayo:

The current set of videos in the list include imagery from China, San Francisco, Hawaii, New York City and London. Interestingly, there are multiple variants for each location as well as separate day and night shots. It seems like the Apple TV will dynamically show a contextually-relevant video for the user’s time of day. It’s also interesting just how many different sequences Apple has for each same location and time.

There are some gorgeous videos here. I look forward to seeing them on my TV and seeing Apple update them for more locations.

What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job!

Igloo can’t solve the conflict in Syria but it can help with conflict with coworkers. Igloo’s not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It lets you work better together with your team. Stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Send your IT guy to try Igloo Software and see for yourself why Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.

Craig Grannell, writing for Stuff.tv:

Recently, I was asked by a games mag you’ve probably all heard of to write about Apple TV and gaming, largely from a development standpoint. As ever under such circumstances, I went through my list of email and Twitter contacts, seeing this as a good opportunity to offer some exposure to indie developers whose work I’ve enjoyed over the years. One response came back very quickly, albeit from a name I didn’t quite recognise. The message was in fact from a developer’s wife; the person I was trying to get in touch with had died the previous week.

The developer in question was Stewart Hogarth, who’d lost his battle with congenital heart disease; he was just 34. We’d only been in touch a few times, but I’d been captivated a couple of years ago by his truly excellent 8-bit tribute I Am Level for iOS and Android. This was a smart, charming, entertaining title that married eye-searing Spectrum-style graphics, old-school single-screen platforming challenges, and modern mobile tilt-based controls. It was still installed on all of my devices, and it was strange and very sad to think that the person who created it was no longer with us.

And:

Once a developer account lapses through non-payment, the apps are gone forever, which feels wrong.

Came upon this story in this post on MacStories.net, by Federico Viticci.

Federico says:

I genuinely believe that, years from now, apps and games will be studied as interesting data points and references for our society, behaviors, and sociological traits. Today, quite paradoxically, in many cases it’s actually easier to preserve physical media than digital app store (lowercase, as it applies to every company) content and developers’ back catalogues. Servers that eventually disappear, expired contracts, apps that are no longer supported on the latest OS – it doesn’t make much sense to me that the rules and limitations of software make it harder to preserve apps than something which physically decays.

I continue to believe that app preservation is a topic worth discussing, and Craig is touching on an important aspect of it.

If the developer of your favorite app stops paying for their developer account, when Apple cancels the account, do the apps immediately get pulled from the app store? Does Apple have a policy that covers this?

This is incredible.

There’s the core of the story, a drummer recovering his ability to drum again after losing his arm. But this goes deeper, into the world of robotics and the very essence of music. Is Jason’s newfound musical ability robotic in nature?

Fascinating.

From Apple’s official unenroll beta page:

When your device is enrolled in the Apple Beta Software Program, you will automatically receive new versions of the public beta from the Mac App Store or iOS Software Update. At any time, you may unenroll your device so that it no longer receives these updates. You may also choose to leave the program entirely.

If you are enrolled in the beta program, you’ll get app store or software update updates for every beta that comes along. This is problematic if you don’t want to install an update. The beta notification will be stuck in your queue, like a piece of corn in your teeth.

Bookmark the page in case this every comes up for you.

[H/T the pugnaciously effervescent not Jony Ive]

Twitter can bring the worst part of humanity to a laser focus. Frequently, that focus is on a single person.

iOS developer Brent Simmons has been on the receiving end of that merciless pile-on and shares his perspective. Please read this and, if you share Brent’s sentiments, pass this along.

Alexandra Alter, writing for the New York Times:

A United States appeals court ruled on Friday that Google’s effort to build a digital library of millions of books was “fair use” and did not infringe on the copyrights of authors.

The ruling affirmed a decision that was reached two years ago in a lower court. In that case, the court rejected the claims by the Authors Guild, a writers’ organization, that Google’s book scanning project is a commercial venture that violates authors’ copyrights and drives down sales by making portions of their work available online free.

From the Google Books Wikipedia page:

The Google Books initiative has been hailed for its potential to offer unprecedented access to what may become the largest online body of human knowledge and promoting the democratization of knowledge. But it has also been criticized for potential copyright violations, and lack of editing to correct the many errors introduced into the scanned texts by the OCR process.

I’ve got a number of titles in there. Doesn’t bother me. But I do wish the process was opt-in instead of opt-out. In other words, I wish Google would assume I don’t want my book scanned and ask me for permission, rather than force me to discover that a book I wrote is part of this program and then jump through hoops to get it removed.

Not certain how this works, but I believe this project brings a revenue stream to Google, that this is not purely a work for the good of humanity. Anyone know the details of that?

Adam Engst goes off on an entertaining rant. Long story short, it’s my fault. And yours.

Joe Rossignol, writing for MacRumors:

Apple has issued an internal notice about a new Quality Program that addresses anti-reflective coating issues on MacBook and MacBook Pro models with Retina displays. These issues include the anti-reflective coating on displays wearing off or delaminating under certain circumstances.

Apple will replace affected Retina displays at no cost for MacBook or MacBook Pro models with Retina displays within three years from the date of original purchase, or one year from October 16, 2015, whichever is longer. Affected customers that have already incurred out-of-warranty costs may be eligible for a refund through AppleCare support.

Affected customers can book an appointment with a Genius Bar or visit an Apple Authorized Service Provider to determine if their MacBook is eligible for coverage. Apple will not be posting the new Quality Program publicly on its support website, but should contact some potentially affected customers directly, according to sources.

Yeah, I know. This is connected to Apple by the thinnest of threads, the common link being former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée. But trust me, this is a fascinating read.

For starters, dig a bit into the highflying story of Theranos, the medical tech company founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, whose goal was to reduce the cost of blood tests. Certainly a noble goal. It made Elizabeth Holmes a billionaire at a very young age.

Enter Jean-Louis Gassée:

> I have a dog in this game. It seems a Hungarian forebear passed down an errant JAK2 gene that trips bone marrow into polycythemia vera (PCV), a fancy name for “too many blood cells” — and potential clots, especially as one’s vessels degrade with age. There’s no cure, yet, but with frequent attention the treatment is simple: Hydroxyurea, an inexpensive 19th century urea derivative, slows bone marrow output. > > In homage to my ancestor, I perform a decade-old routine, a stroll to Stanford Hospital’s Hematology Lab to give blood samples that are tested for Complete Blood Count (CBC) and Metabolites. My numbers haven’t fluctuated much since my last visit and the kind hematologist pronounces me “medically boring” (Pourvu que ça dure! ). Good for me: If the hematocrit (HCT) number crosses the 45% threshold, I get to meet the vampire and “donate” 500ml of blood. (After which this perfectly good pint of blood must be tossed. Regulations. Sigh…) > > On my way back to my University Avenue office, a thought pops up: Why not try Theranos for comparison? I head back to my doctor’s office and get a test prescription from his obliging nurse. (In California, you still need a doctor’s Rx, not so in Arizona where Theranos successfully lobbied for prescription-free access to its tests.) A few minutes later, I’m in the small Theranos office inside the University Avenue Walgreens store. I give a few drops of blood and am told to create an on-line account and wait for the results.

And that’s where things get interesting. Read the post.

Oh, here’s just a teeny taste:

> Last week, two Wall Street Journal stories (here and here) shed serious doubt on Theranos’ integrity. As the Journal reports, former employees have accused the company of various forms of misrepresentation and even outright cheating.

This story is still unfolding. Thought it was worth a share. Visit this website if you’re fascinated by Bioshare and Leukopaks.

The New York Times:

George Bell — a simple name, two syllables, the minimum. There were no obvious answers as to who he was or what shape his life had taken. What worries weighed on him. Whom he loved and who loved him.

Like most New Yorkers, he lived in the corners, under the pale light of obscurity.

In discovering a death, you find a life story and perhaps meaning. Could anything in the map of George Bell’s existence have explained his lonely end? Possibly not. But it was true that George Bell died carrying some secrets.

A well written and painfully sad story that will make you ask of yourself, “Will I be remembered when I’m gone?” Some of us won’t like the answer to that question.

Digg:

Two weeks ago, a YouTube channel called “Tony is Back!” was born. It claims — in a series of three commercials — that the Frosted Flakes mascot is now here to help the adults who grew up eating his nutritious cereal. Unfortunately, Tony is no longer any sort of role model.

Each of the three commercials functions like a brutal and disturbing garden-path joke, made plausible by the production value, “They’re Grrrrreat!” tagline, and inclusion of one obviously trademarked and highly-protected mascot/spokestiger. Even stranger, the channel created a website and a hashtag (tonyisback.com and #tonyisback, respectively). The site, like the commercials, looks professional enough to fool an average person. Many of the links point back to the official Kellogg website.

These might be considered NSFW but they are definitely weird and demented. How the site is still up even after the Facebook and Twitter pages have been suspended is beyond me. Perhaps it’s an attempt at a viral campaign by Kellog itself? Regardless, if you like your Sunday humor dark and weird, these videos will be right up your alley.

The Robb Report:

I decided to upgrade my Mac to El Capitan, but my computer said, on one condition: I must “carefully” read and agree with something. And so I did what anyone else would: I cleared my afternoon schedule and got right down to business; reading, carefully, the entire document. It turns out that I was much too pessimistic! I needed only 33 minutes.

I should note that I’m an attorney with a good understanding of license, trademark, and copyright law. I’m also a software developer with 20 years’ experience. So your own read-through may take more or less time, accordingly.

I thought it’d be a “fun” project to see what the “El Capitan License” actually says. Cool idea, huh? Kind of like spelunking through a cave that everyone says they’ve been through, but maybe no one really has. What will I find wedged in a wall or lurking in the dark around the next turn?

Like so many of us, I have never read these agreements we see all the time so it’s good that a trained professional did on our behalf. It’s also good to not see any truly onerous restrictions in Apple’s licensing terms.