Former tech journo, used to write for Macworld, DailySocial, e27. Ex , ran a national startup initiative program in Indonesia. Very much into the news.
Losing 20 designers to Jony Ive must be a significant blow to Apple but it’s certainly a testament to Ive’s leadership as a design executive. And now the tech giant loses another senior design executive.
What Ive and his team built at Apple are unquestionably iconic, from the groundbreaking original iMac and its weird puck mouse to the oddly designed Magic Mouse and Lightning Apple Pencil, but with Ive’s and his former team members’ departures, Apple has to rebuilt the design team with new leadership and direction.
With almost none of Ive’s former charges left in the company, Apple’s award winning Ive era is over and if they want to return to that level, it’s going to take a lot of work.
It’s unfortunate that Apple is no longer a design focused company the way it used to be in the 90s to the 2010s having reorganized the team under Operations instead of its own vertical under the CEO but they’ve decided to take this path following Ive’s departure.
This is already a new era at Apple where product design is more iterative and functional than inspirational and if they aim to reclaim their crown as one of the most iconic industrial design companies, it will require a new batch of outstanding designers and design leadership.
Sorry Senator, nobody is stopping anyone from using alternative messaging apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, Messenger (which apparently had just been rebuilt using Signal’s end to end secure messaging protocol), Telegram, Snapchat, or any other cross platform ones that are available on both the App Store and Google Play. Shutting out Beeper from iMessage isn’t anti-competitive.
It may be inconvenient that many Americans are on iMessage while their Android friends and colleagues are being shown as unsecured green bubbles but the rest of the world don’t have this problem because they use other messaging apps.
There is no antitrust problem here. Just because people refuse to use clearly available alternatives doesn’t make it an antitrust problem.
If the Senator thinks iOS and Android users should be able to communicate securely without having to download other apps, maybe the Senator should consider finding out why the RCS protocol is not inherently secure? Google only recently made RCS secure on Android and it’s had a complicated past.
Will the Senator admonish Microsoft for not allowing Google Docs users to collaborate directly on Office docs and vice versa, or am I giving her a terrible idea?
This is also called introducing MITM (man in the middle) attack vector into your Apple ID and iCloud accounts thereby opening up potential breaches to your account.
“Would you like to compromise your account privacy security? Tap here to let your account be accessed by some random authentication server not maintained nor authorized by Apple somewhere”
Exactly the same sentiments have always been expressed for the Melbourne F1 GP ever since the city took over the Australian race from Adelaide decades ago.
For years you’d find protesters at the Melbourne Grand Prix because the circus brought fewer economic benefits than losses with evidence that the city lost money each time the race was held.
Protesters also pointed out that the race week disturbs the neighborhood as the sounds of those 2.4-3.0L V8s-V12s reached far beyond the race neighborhood. Albert Park is a housing area after all, so people’s routes and access would be affected for the week. Today’s V6s are nowhere near as loud.
The Singapore GP on the other hand, despite being held around housing neighborhoods as well, have seen little publicized protests. The racing circus there seems to be welcomed with open arms and many residents and visitors come to not just see the race but enjoy the accompanying concerts as well.
You could probably argue that government-controlled media may have a hand in not highlighting protests or maybe the Singapore Tourism Board have just been really good at framing the race to the residents. And the engines are also not as loud as they used to be.
Many people equate screen time or gadget use with addiction to smoking because they’re perceived as bringing far more harmful effects on health than any benefit but I’m a strong believer of context and what people (including kids) consume or use on their screens matter so much more than just the use itself because these devices can help if used the right way.
Separately, kids and adults also need to learn about control and ways to respond to certain triggers to reduce harmful effects.
The reports of Threads’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Just under 100 million monthly users in three months since launch is one hell of a feat.
Is the claim dubious? Anyone can certainly question that since they have yet to show additional information such as the highly coveted “unregretted minutes” a certain other billionaire CEO seems to prefer, but Business Insider was reporting just a week ago that Threads has 33 million daily active users so 100 million active users in a month does sound plausible.
But what about all those people who told us that Threads is a graveyard, that nothing is happening because their posts get no engagement? Well, are they the ones that logged in back in July or August once or twice and then return a few months later without posting anything in between? They have no idea what’s happening. How much interaction have they done in Threads, did they just post and expect responses or have they interacted with people? Have they been asking their friends and followers to check out the place and stick around for a while?
Threads have added so many features and functions between launch period and now that it’s become a full fledged social network that feels like it’s been around for years.
Sure, search is still limited to certain languages and markets, there’s no trending list, no lists, and no proper analytics, but there are separate feeds for Following and For You, can easily swap between accounts, log in on the web, post voice notes, follow every account mentioned in a single post all at once (makes Follow Fridays easier), quote posts, see basic stats per post, see quote posts and likes, follow and get notified of updates to any post for 24 hours, you can edit your posts and replies within five minutes of posting, and so on.
It’s still missing an API, however, which prevents many organizations, institutions, public figures, and businesses from using it with their social media admin tools. Perhaps that’s a big reason people think they can’t use it yet, but at nearly 100 million monthly users, it’s not a place for people to jump back in after months of absence and
ask if there’s anyone there, because it’s a thriving place.
That thing about the news? The one where Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said they’re not prioritizing or giving a leg up to news because they prefer people talk about other things? Yeah, that’s not a thing. News is absolutely what people share and talk about on Threads. Multiple major media organizations have found that Threads deliver far more traffic and engagement than expected.
Mosseri also reiterated today that they are working on landing in the EU as well as establishing early connections to ActivityPub and therefore federating or connecting to platforms like WordPress, Mastodon, and micro.blog in the next few months, not to mention the all important trends list that people have been shouting about.
There’s also evidence of more work already being done within the app but not yet ready for release, so while Threads may not be the place for real time updates yet, it is definitely sprinting forward.
Let’s face it, the iPad line up is a little bloated if not confusing at the moment.
You have the 9th Gen iPad which carries all of the baggage of that generation’s iPad, the 10th generation iPad which overlaps so much with the iPad Air, the iPad Air itself which has lost all meanings thanks to the 10th Gen iPad, the iPad mini which can serve whole other categories of functions due to its diminutive size, and finally the iPad Pro that comes in two sizes.
Sebastiaan de With’s proposal here tries to align the product closer to the less confusing iPhone line up. While it doesn’t change the number of models, it gets rid of the 9th Gen and the original Pencil, introduces a low end iPad and adds a Plus model to the regular range.
I can agree with that and my details would be as follows:
When Apple introduces the 11th Gen regular iPad, the 9th Gen would be gone along with the original Pencil and any other lighting iPad accessory. That clears that table.
Let the low end iPad be the previous generation model with one or two color options, no cellular, and just one storage size because it’s meant to be the most accessible iPad that also serves the education market.
The standard iPad would include the mini and the Plus, all carrying the previous generation chipsets, obviously lower tech specs compared to the Pro, no high speed charging or connector just the widely acceptable one, and a single camera.
As for TouchID vs FaceID on the regular iPads, I lean towards TouchID unless they can lower the cost on that component.
The Pro will obviously be the flagship model with all the bells and whistles.
What about the Air? Right now the Air nomenclature is just that, a nomenclature. Functionally it serves as a confusing spot on the line up because the 10th gen iPad is too close to it but it carries a previous generation Pro chipset and features. They can keep the name for the regular iPad like how they kept the MacBook Air and Pro and got rid of the vanilla MacBook. That way they can have the iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad Plus all under the “regular iPad” class.
The Pencil will have two options, regular or Pro but there will be a hard separation. Only the Pro iPads can use either Pencil models while the non Pro iPad have to stick to the regular Pencil. That takes away the customer confusion. You want Pro features, get the Pro iPad.
Although maybe the Pro Pencil can work with the regular iPads but it just won’t have the Pro features enabled. It’ll be like a high speed charging or data cable delivering at low speed because the host or target device doesn’t support high speed.
I’m not addressing the nearly Apple Watch level overwhelming range of SKUs here because there’s going to be multiple colors, storage sizes, and cellular vs WiFi models to worry about.
The important element is is addressing the fundamental differences between the different iPad categories. Streamlining the product range this way will present a much more coherent set of options to the consumers.
People will have an easier time deciding which model to get especially those figuring out if they should get the 10th gen iPad, the Air, or the smaller Pro model, and retail staff won’t be tearing their hair out helping customers figure it out.
The Verge raises serious journalistic questions on the legitimacy of images taken using Google’s latest phones because the AI tools in Pixel 8 are much more readily available to manipulate them from the moment they’re taken to having them saved and published.
While the AI-adjusted images may have certain markers embedded, they may not be easily detected without specific tools unless it’s an obvious visual label permanently affixed to the image.
What is a photo? Is it a snapshot of a single millisecond in time? An imprecise memory of a moment? An ideal depiction of an otherwise imperfect brief period? How much is too much manipulation?
Smartphone captures from any brand are almost entirely manipulated after all with software adjustments converging to create the best version of a snapshot, but until now, they are still generally accepted as accurate photographs of a specific moment due to the lack of meaningful deviation from the truth.
When it comes to casual personal collection of photos and videos, these adjustments don’t or won’t amount to anything too serious but for journalistic purposes, these techniques advances pose questions and challenges.
Journalism outlets have guidelines to determine what photo or footage is acceptable to be considered a true capture and the results of a typical smartphone snapshot usually don’t change anything meaningful from the actual scene, but when the definitive capture no longer represents the truth, will the media authorities need to restrict the use of certain devices?
While manipulated images have made their way to major publications undetected until it was too late, they are still relatively rare.
Of course, photographers have always been able to manipulate situations by changing or adjusting the scene before capturing and sometimes only the presence of a witness or the existence of another image depicting the actual truth can serve as evidence of manipulation.
When the tools people use can significantly alter what was actually taken by the lens before a definitive record is made or saved into the camera’s memory, instead of after, journalism authorities and watchdogs will need to be even more vigilant.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino showing her iPhone screen to the audience at Code Conference
CEO of X doesn’t have X on her Home Screen but casually (maybe inadvertently) shows off Facebook and Instagram while on stage at Code Conference. Maybe she uses the browser, maybe it’s on the second page, maybe she’s a desktop or Tweetdeck user, doesn’t matter, successfully fumbled the optics all on her own, nevermind the interview itself.
This is why companies have PR people who deal with media or appearance briefings. Going to be a study case or example in PR circles.
Kara Swisher then posted her Home Screen in response and hilariously this set off a trend on Threads where people started showing off their home screens and discussed why they have certain apps there.
Google is discontinuing its collaborative whiteboarding app, Jamboard, and will focus on third-party solutions like FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro.
Jamboard will become read-only on October 1st, 2024, and all files will be permanently deleted by December 31st, 2024.
The company will help customers migrate to other whiteboard tools.
The Google Graveyard is probably among the largest and most occupied tech graveyards to ever exist, with so many released products serving essentially as public experiments with no guarantee of long term commitment. Just the other day they announced the end of the Google Podcast app.
The Jamboard was quite useful and popular among education and enterprise customers but instead of committing to it and spending resources to keep iterating, the company chose to end it when customers say competitors’ products serve them better. It’s one thing to hire fast and fire fast but release fast and cancel fast is an irresponsible policy that often affects a large customer base who may have made significant financial commitments.
Why bother releasing new products when you have no long term commitment? Why would you attract customers when all you do is blink at the competition? How can anybody trust a company like this?
AuliaSays 