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Here's How iOS Push Notifications Work

Andrew Orr ·

There’s a short article on Medium where the author explains how iOS push notifications work. Apple added push notifications in 2009.

Push notifications were introduced to the greater public by Apple in 2009 to solve the problem of wanting to receive messages in real time without having to run the entire app in the background. Until then, there were two predominant methods of sending notifications to applications.

There aren’t a lot of technical details but that makes it easier for people to understand.

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The End of an Era: Cydia App Store Shut Down

Andrew Orr ·

If you’ve ever had a jailbroken iOS device you’ll be familiar with the Cydia app store. But Cydia’s creator Saurik says it’s being shut down after a bug was discovered on the platform that put user data at risk.

The reality is that I wanted to just shut down the Cydia Store entirely before the end of the year, and was considering moving the timetable up after receiving the report (to this weekend); this service loses me money and is not something I have any passion to maintain…

Nowadays I’m surprised to hear that people still jailbreak. But back in the day it was a bit more relevant. I remember jailbreaking my 5th gen iPod touch back in 2011.

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Why Apple Computers are no Longer Built in the U.S.

Charlotte Henry ·

Steve Jobs was fascinated by the automobile manufacturing process masterminded by Henry Ford in Detroit. He was similarly taken with the Japan-based system implemented by Sony. Jobs tried to build a similarly successful domestic manufacturing system at both Apple and Next, but it turned into one of his rare failures. On Saturday, the New York Times explained what went wrong.

So, the story of Silicon Valley’s success turned out to be the ability of a company like Apple to devise manufacturing supply chains that stretch all the way around the globe, taking advantage of both low-cost labor and lax environmental regulations. “We don’t have a manufacturing culture,” [former Apple executive Jean-Louis] Gassée said of the nation’s high-technology heartland, “meaning the substrate, the schooling, the apprentices, the subcontractors.” It took Mr. Jobs a bit longer to grasp that idea, however.

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HQ Triva CEO Colin Kroll Found Dead

Charlotte Henry ·

Colin Kroll, the co-founder and CEO of HQ Trivia and Vine was found dead on Sunday, aged 34. He founded the daily quiz app with Rus Yusupov. Kroll also founded the video app Vine, which Twitter bought in 2012. He was found dead in his home in New York by police.

Police discovered Kroll in his apartment in New York City early Sunday morning. Kroll, 34, had recently been named the CEO of HQ Trivia, a company he co-founded alongside Rus Yusupov that runs a daily live trivia show with cash prizes. The duo also created the once-popular video app Vine, which Twitter acquired in 2012.

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Russian Robot Exposed as a Fake

Charlotte Henry ·

A Russian state-owned TV news channel proudly showed off a «state-of-the-art» robot at a technology forum for children this week.  Boris appeared to walk, talk, and dance. Except, as the Telegraph explained, everything was not quite as it seemed. Boris was, in fact, a man in a very expensive costume…

‘Boris’ the Robot was apparently able to walk, talk and dance – and was passed off as state-of-the-art robotics by the TV channel at a technology forum for school pupils. But its authenticity started being questioned when photos appeared online that clearly showed a human inside a robot suit.

TMO Deals

Turn Your Wired Devices into Bluetooth Ones with This Ultra-Portable Receiver: $11.20

Bryan Chaffin ·

We’ve got an interesting gizmo for our deal of the day, a portable Bluetooth 4.2 receiver that turns your wired devices into wireless devices. It works with speakers, headphones, and even your car’s stereo system. You can also connect to up to two Bluetooth devices at the same time with just one receiver. Our deal is for $14, but coupon code GREENMONDAY20 takes 20% off, for a final price of $11.20.

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How to Get an iOS Linux Shell On your iPad or iPhone

Andrew Orr ·

OSXDaily has a cool tip on how to put an iOS Linux shell on your iPhone or iPad. It involves installing an app called iSH through TestFlight. You can also side load it.

In case it’s not obvious, iSH is not a full version of Linux with a window manager and GUI like Ubuntu for iPad or iPhone, it’s just a shell, but it is by far the most functional local command line environment in iOS that is currently available.

Sounds like a fun weekend project for all you Terminal tinkerers 😉

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Don't Be Fooled By The 5G Hype Train

Andrew Orr ·

Carriers insist that 2020 will be the year of 5G. Apple says it won’t have 5G iPhones until 2020. But it’s going to take years for widespread rollout.

The industry is doing its best to hype 5G up as The Next Big Thing™, but 5G hardware in 2019 is going to be a decidedly first-generation affair. Early adopters for 5G will have to accept all manner of tradeoffs. And when there might not even be 5G reception in your area, it might be better to just wait the whole thing out for a year or two.

4G LTE will remain the dominant spectrum for a long time. There are a lot of problems with 5G millimeter-wave broadband, and my opinion is that we won’t see America fully 5G until 2030 or so.