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Apple Stores Have Gotten Worse, Say Staff

Charlotte Henry ·

Angela Ahrendts recently gave her first interview since leaving Apple. However, it seems some at the company will not miss her. Bloomberg News spoke to a number of staff members at Apple Stores who say they became more unfriendly under her leadership.

They say the quality of staff has slipped during an 18-year expansion that has seen Apple open more than 500 locations and hire 70,000 people. The Genius Bar, once renowned for its tech support, has been largely replaced with staff who roam the stores and are harder to track down. That’s a significant drawback because people are hanging onto their phones longer these days and need them repaired…. [Deidre] O’Brien’s immediate challenge is to make the stores more shopper-friendly—even if that means moving away from the tony gathering places her predecessor favored and creating more clearly defined spaces for browsing, quick purchases and service.

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Passwords Are Dying. Here Are Some Solutions.

Charlotte Henry ·

Passwords are dying, and nobody is going to miss them very much. Fast Company reported on firms who are leading on finding the alternatives, including MobileIron, and even Google. Not surprisingly, there is a large focus on biometrics.

Most people still don’t use a password manager, which leads many to select the weakest password they can get away with under whatever rules an organization or site sets. That makes most passwords somewhat or highly vulnerable to cracking. With many businesses relying on scads of services to get work done, one service that allows weak passwords–or suffers a breach–can render many other linked services vulnerable. To avoid a password is to rely on an approach in which identity and access are paired. Once you have enrolled by proving sufficiently who you are and that you own a given device that requires biometrics to unlock–a fingerprint or facial scan.

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Is Europe Going Too Far With Tech Regulation?

Andrew Orr ·

Don’t answer that, because the answer is already no. Adam Satariano feels that maybe Europe is going too far when it comes to tech regulation.

Europe has clamped down on violent content, hate speech and misinformation online through a thicket of new laws and regulations over the past five years. Now there are questions about whether the region is going too far, with the rules leading to accusations of censorship and potentially providing cover to some governments to stifle dissent.

The New York Times: Why does Apple control its competitors?? Also The New York Times: Is Europe going too far?? I know that these articles were written by different people, but I still did a double take so hard that now I have whiplash.

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Lots of Good Reasons for Apple to Dump the Mac's Intel CPUs

John Martellaro ·

Ed Hardy at Cult of Mac writes:

It’s past time Macs stopped depending on Intel processors. There’s new evidence to show they’ve outlived their usefulness. A switch to Apple-designed chips will make macOS devices better for a variety of reasons …

It’s an opinion piece, but the author’s opinions are, in my parallel view, well-founded.

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TMO Background Mode Special Edition Chat #6 with Kelly Guimont

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Kelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls.

Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned several times for interesting technical discussions. In this encore special edition, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. John: Stargate SG-1 (Amazon), Endeavour (Amazon), Electric Dreams (Amazon). Kelly: Daredevil & The Punisher (Netflix), The Goldbergs (ABC), and Westworld (HBO). Join us as we explore together why we like these shows and how, in some cases, our feelings have changed upon repeat viewing.

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Who Can Tame the AI-Powered Web?

Charlotte Henry ·

Kara Swisher is not afraid to ask tough questions of the tech industry. In her latest column for Recode, she asks for a solution to the looming problems in the internet’s AI-powered next iteration.

To thrive in this environment will require being in a profession that is creative, where analog interactions are critical — one that cannot be easily made digital. Think art, think the caring professions, think anything in which being human trumps cyborg. And since AI becomes ever smarter, it will make sense to allow it to do more and more as we become ever less so. It is a path humanity is already on, of course: When was the last time you ever read a map rather than got directions from Google? Or cracked a book to find an errant fact? It’ll be like that for so many things we do, as normal practices change to reflect and take advantage of the convenience and precision of AI.