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The Apple TV 4K has been shipping since September, 2017. Now there’s a new competitor, Amazon’s Fire TV Cube. One might think that a later design might be seriously better than the Apple TV 4K, but as this review demonstrates, the Fire TV Cube is a long way from achieving that. Apple’s mighty little black brick packs some real punch while “the Fire TV Cube is simply last year’s Fire TV combined with an Echo Dot.” This is a good review.

Writing for AppleInsider, Daniel Dilger makes the argument that iPads are the new PC, and Apple isn’t targeting PC switchers anymore. The “What’s a Computer” commercial seems to be one of the most hated ads of all time. It sends a clear message that the iPad is the computer for the majority of people, and only people in specialized professions need a Mac.

This year, Apple again devoted massive new attention to macOS Mojave at its Worldwide Developer Conference. And fittingly so, because developing software for its massive mobile iOS platform requires a Mac. Apple’s macOS Mojave is still a work in progress, but the strategy is clear: Welcome to the Mac for iOS users.

Popular website StumbleUpon is closing down. First launching in 2002, it was a content discovery platform that helped people find cool stuff before the likes of Facebook and Twitter. I was a big user of StumbleUpon back in the day, and when I got my first computer the service was my main tool to explore the internet.

Creating StumbleUpon has been an amazing experience. It was the first project I worked on back in college in 2002. I have personally clicked the stumble button hundreds of thousands of times, and learned a lot in the process. But it’s now time to focus on the future, and create the next discovery platform that will uncover hidden gems we would never think to search for.

We live in our iPhone. Almost. And every day, we use the wireless communication technologies called 4G and LTE. But what do those terms really mean? What’s the difference between them? How do we interpret our iPhone’s display?  This article nicely explains it all. It’s an easy-to-read primer on the tech we use every day

Writing for FastCoDesign, Amber Case writes how the blue light that iPhones give off make us miserable by messing with our circadian rhythms. iPhones and Macs can counteract this with Night Shift, but is that enough? We should look to the military, which uses orange for dense information displays.

[Harvard researchers] found that blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours compared with 1.5 hours). And worse, it’s been linked in recent studies to an increased risk of obesity and some cancers.

Airplane cockpits, submarines, and other military-grade systems are specifically designed for information density, with primary, secondary and tertiary information sources. A key difference in all of these interfaces is color–by and large, many military displays are deep red or orange.

Apple wants its own Maps app and service to be the best there is, so the company is completely rebuilding everything from the ground up. Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue told Tech Crunch Maps is ditching its dependance on other mapping services and has been working over the past four years to make its own map data. Cue says the new Maps will be built from Apple’s own data and include much more information, get faster updates for new and changing roads, and offer a level of detail not found in other map platforms. Cue said:

We wanted to take this to the next level. We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up.

The new Maps is launching in California with iOS 12, and expanding out from there over the next year. I find all of the current map app options lacking in different ways, so bring on the new and better Apple Maps.

Writing for MacStories, Ryan Christoffel examines the Apple media platform and presents a Grand Unified Theory of the company’s strategy. We know that Apple combines hardware, software, and services into a profitable user experience, and Mr. Christoffel opines on how this is shaping Apple customers’ media consumption.

Apple has one unified goal, I believe, driving all its media efforts: it aspires to utilize hardware, software, and services to provide the entirety of a user’s media experience. If you consume media, Apple wants to provide the full stack of that consumption, from media delivery to media discovery. My aim in this story is to share an overview of how that goal is being fulfilled today.

Facebook has a patent application for a way to use your smartphone’s microphone to eavesdrop on you without your knowledge. The system triggers with a sound too high for humans to hear, records whatever your phone’s mic can pick up, and then sends the data back to Facebook. Don’t worry about that being creepy because Facebook says the patent is to stop other companies from spying on us, and they won’t ever use this tech on us. Or so they tell Mashable. If only Facebook didn’t have a history of abusing our privacy.

Smart home technology may add convenience to our lives, but there’s a darker side, too. The New York Times explores how domestic abusers are using smarthome devices to control and gaslight their victims. Reports of smart home devices in domestic abuse cases has been on the rise over the past year, too. From the report:

One woman had turned on her air-conditioner, but said it then switched off without her touching it. Another said the code numbers of the digital lock at her front door changed every day and she could not figure out why. Still another told an abuse help line that she kept hearing the doorbell ring, but no one was there.

It’s a stark reminder that abusers will find a way to turn anything into a weapon against their victims.

Check out this rather brilliant piece imagining Apple keyboards past and present drinking in a bar, when in walks that obnoxious fellow, Touch Bar (via Daring Fireball). It’s high-larious, spot on, and flawlessly executed. Here’s a taste:

APPLE EXTENDED II: Lonely times, man. Lonely times. First, it was scissors then butterflies. Do you want to know what I miss? Electric Alps switches. That was the dream, right?

MACBOOK PRO (nervous, staring at the bar, napkins in both hands): Did you clean up before I sat down? It looks clean, but…

APPLE EXTENDED II (interrupting): Kids today. They don’t appreciate the reliable, credible haptic feedback of a single healthy keystroke. It’s all hunt, peck, and swipe swipe swipe.

TOUCHBAR (arrives): Hey! Nobody told me we were going out to drinks 🍷. This is great! 👍

The current W-iFi protocol we all use, WPA2, isn’t considered very secure these days. It badly needs to be upgraded. And that’s going to happen in late 2019 with WPA3. This article explains the problems with WPA2 and how WPA3 will fix them. Excerpt.“If you ask virtually any security person, they’ll say don’t use Wi-Fi, or if you do, immediately throw a VPN connection on top of it,” says Bob Rudis, chief data officer at security firm Rapid 7. “Now, Wi-Fi becomes something where we can say hey, if the place you’re going to uses WPA3 and your device uses WPA3, you can pretty much use Wi-Fi in that location.” That will change everything. The Wired article fills us in.

TechCrunch writes about a service called Meru Health, a company that wants to make mental health care more accessible to employees.

Meru Health offers an eight-week treatment program for depression, burnout and anxiety. The program, currently led by five licensed therapists, utilizes both cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral activation and mindfulness-based intervention. Provided as an employee benefit, Meru Health only charges companies if the patients report feeling any better.

Down the road, Meru Health may make its service available to everyday consumers, but right now, Ranta said the focus is on selling to larger employers and doing clinical research. Meru Health is also looking to bring on board a doctor to help with medication management and, possibly, even providing prescriptions.

Apparently the best solution for accidentally scratching your Apple Watch face is to sue the company because that’s exactly what Dean Lubaki did. He claims Apple’s advertising is misleading because his mode, the ceramic Edition, is called “brilliantly scratch-resistant.” Turns out his Milanese Loop band scratched the display surface when he took off his watch. Lubaki’s small claims court filing says his local Apple Store blew him off, so now he wants to stop Apple from “lying to customers on their website by falsely claiming that a product ‘won’t scratch'” and to stop “lying to customers to their face and in store.” Bonus: When Apple offered him a new watch and free accessory he said no so he can move forward with his case. Call it a hunch: Lubaki is really pissed off right now.

Apple plans to introduce a new HomePod, higher-end AirPods, and studio-quality over-the-ear headphones in 2019. Details are slim on the new HomePod, but sources did tell Bloomberg a little about next year’s AirPods refresh:

The Cupertino, California-based company is working on new AirPods with noise-cancellation and water resistance, the people said. Apple is trying to increase the range that AirPods can work away from an iPhone or iPad.

The over-the-ear headphones will be higher quality than Apple’s Beats line and compete with high-end models from Bose and Sennheiser. This all follows an AirPods refresh coming later this year with hands-free Siri support and a wireless charging case. Apple seems to be staying busy in the audio market.

Really, I just loved the first line of this piece by Josh Constine at TechCrunch, enough so I needed to make a nice graphic for it. It’s all about how Facebook leaked a bunch of app data meant for app owners (bad enough IMO) to app testers. Oops. It’s cool, though, bro, because Facebook fixed it. TechCrunch has the details.

Set the “days without a Facebook privacy problem” counter to zero. This week, an alarmed developer contacted TechCrunch, informing us that their Facebook App Analytics weekly summary email had been delivered to someone outside their company. It contains sensitive business information, including weekly average users, page views and new users.

This is far from a comprehensive list of the best tech ads in the last 35 years, but it’s a quick trip back in time to some of the best. Writing for TechCrunch, Sarah Wells offers thoughts and the videos for several Apple spots; the annoying (but definitely successful) “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” spot; Sprint’s “Can You Hear Me Now?” spot; and a compelling Google spot.

With stunning visuals (most of which were not CGI) and captivating choreography, Jonze breathes life into a product that got mixed reviews after its release in February. This made us think, what other tech commercials have grabbed our attention in the last 35 years and transformed how we think about technology?

Back in April, we learned that Amazon is working on a family robot. Now, LoupVentures  has gone into considerable detail in its analysis of this project. In part: “Amazon’s robot could open up new market opportunities. According to The Information, Amazon has considered offering home insurance. By having real-time monitoring of homes, the Amazon robot could monitor and notify a human in instances of theft, fire, or in-home hazards (i.e. an infant wondering near stairs), thereby mitigating the cost of a claim and lowering premiums. Lastly, Amazon has highlighted they want to deliver packages to your home when you are not there. We feel consumers would be more comfortable letting couriers into their homes if a robot could monitor the drop-off.” Are you ready?

Apple’s ongoing legal fight with Qualcomm over patent royalty payments iPhone parts suppliers must pay now includes the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Apple filed petitions to invalidate the four patents in question claiming they don’t cover new ideas, according to Bloomberg. The patents cover devices that are phones and PDAs, autofocus for digital cameras, circuit memory, and touch sensitive displays. It could take a year to get a final ruling, assuming the USPTO agrees to move forward with the filing. For now, Apple and Qualcomm will keep moving forward with their other lawsuits in the U.S. and abroad.

The massively popular battle royale shooter game Fortnite has already brought in US$100 million from iPhone and iPad players in the three months it’s been available on the iOS platform. Sensor Tower reports that’s three times as much as Arena of Valor brought in during its first 90 days on iOS. The game itself is free but offers in-app purchases that players are clearly happy to buy. You can download Fortnite for free at Apple’s App Store and join in on what’s currently the most popular game on any platform.