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iPad Air Might Make the Pro Obsolete

Charlotte Henry ·

The reviews of the new iPad Air are starting to appear. Wired UK‘sis very positive, with author Jeremy White saying that it might make the Pro redundant for many users.

The inclusion of Apple’s A14 Bionic means you get the company’s latest chip that is in some respects even better than the one in the current iPad Pro. While to say this results in better performance than the Pro would be outright wrong, you do get a big bump in power – a 40 per cent increase in performance over the previous iPad Air, Apple says, and a 30 per cent uptick in graphics performance. Much like the new iPhone 12 series that also carries the A14, the Air is noticeably faster than its previous iteration. Battery life is of the usual iPad standard – top drawer. You will not need to charge the Air for days with light use, and if you do employ it as a PC replacement (which is certainly possible, especially with the keyboard) you will get many more hours out of it than a standard laptop. The faster 20W charger that comes in the box will help top things up if you do run low. It’s not all good news, though. Despite stealing so much from the Pro there is no LiDAR and no ultrawide camera.

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Hints of an Apple Search Engine Resurface

Andrew Orr ·

A report in the Financial Times (which is paywalled so I’m linking to TechCrunch) claims that Apple could be creating an Apple search engine. Or, maybe the company is instead improving search for Siri or Spotlight.

Apple is now showing its own search results and linking directly to websites when users type queries from its home screen in iOS 14. For context, this is a behavior that has been known for a while as people have seen the feature pop up in beta versions of iOS. And the search volume being up on Apple’s crawler is something that Jon Henshaw of Coywolf had noted back in August.

I’m going with the “improving Siri and Spotlight” take. Apple isn’t known for creating products outside its ecosystem (Music on Android and Apple TV on other devices notwithstanding).

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Instagram’s “Unlink Account” Feature is Deceiving

Andrew Orr ·

Instagram’s Unlink Account feature is deceiving, at least when it comes to Facebook. Since Instagram is a Facebook company your two accounts will forever be connected.

That’s because the wealth of data that Facebook collects through its multiple services is more than enough to properly identify users’ various accounts and link them to one another. Even in cases where a different name, email address, or device was used to create each account—be it a throwaway WhatsApp profile, stalker Instagram account, or joke Facebook profile—Facebook often is able to suss out who is actually behind the account and whether they have accounts on other Facebook-owned apps.

TMO Deals

FlipNetik Kinetic Desk Toy: $22.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

I’m a sucker for fidget toys, and I love today’s deal on the FlipNetik. It’s designed to roll, so to speak, even though its shape in no way looks like it should roll. There’s a square model and a hexagon, and they come in gold, silver, or black. I’m linking directly to the black hexagon listing, but there’s a pulldown menu for the other options, including buying both a square and a hexagon at a discount. Spoiler, that’s what I did! One is $22.99, while two are $34.99.

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Apple Music For Android Gets Crossfade Feature Before iOS

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple Music for Android got an update Monday with the arrival of version 3.4 of the app. Amongst other things, AppleInsider noted that the latest version includes Crossfade, a feature not yet available to iOS users.

The Autoplay feature also makes the transition to Android, with users able to let Apple Music select the next songs to play once a playlist has been exhausted. When enabled, Apple Music will analyze the playlist and select songs that seem to be similar, such as the same artist or genre. Social media users will be able to share their current listening selection with others, by using the Share Song option in the menu to post to Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. One unusual option that Android has is Crossfade, a feature that has Apple Music overlapping the end of one song with the beginning of another for a few seconds, fading between the two for a semi-seamless and continuous listening experience. While the option is available on Mac, it has yet to be made available on the iOS or iPadOS versions of the app.

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Zoom Rolls Out End-to-End Encryption for Video Calls

Andrew Orr ·

Starting next week, video conferencing app Zoom is finally adding end-to-end encryption to its platform.

Zoom’s E2EE offering uses public key cryptography. In short, the keys for each Zoom meeting are generated by participants’ machines, not by Zoom’s servers. Encrypted data relayed through Zoom’s servers is indecipherable by Zoom, since Zoom’s servers do not have the necessary decryption key. This key management strategy is similar to that used by most end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms today.

Good to see Zoom doing this; they’ve certainly had misses in the past. Update: The new version is now available for most users.

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Link Previews in Chat Apps Could Leak Your IP Address

Andrew Orr ·

Security researchers found that link previews in chat apps could expose data like IP addresses if not implemented properly. Or they could be downloading as much as gigabytes of data in the background. They tested a variety of different messaging apps, and iPhone users will be relieved to know that iMessage didn’t experience any of these security leaks.

We think there’s one big takeaway here for developers: Whenever you’re building a new feature, always keep in mind what sort of privacy and security implications it may have, especially if this feature is going to be used by thousands or even millions of people around the world.

Podcast

Archaeologist and Author Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes - BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist, writer and creative professional. She earned her Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2010. She is the author of the just published book Kindred which is about Neanderthal life, love, death and art.

Dr. Sykes attributes her interest in Archaeology to «mucking around in the dirt in the backyard» as a child. But also her parents took her to historic sites on holidays. Then she started devouring books about the ancient Egyptians. By and by, she became keenly interested in the reality of life in the past. Rebecca humorously explained how «Archaeology is like Anthropology but for dead people.» In segment two, we explored her new book about the Neanderthals, and it was mesmerizing. For example, new findings have proven that there was interbreeding with Homo sapiens. There is much more in this delightful show.