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4 Privacy Features Apple Should Add

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has made a good start when it comes to privacy, but there are more private features the company can add. Here are four.

…based on Apple’s marketing focus as of late, which has centered on privacy, it’s reasonable to assume that the company will unveil additional privacy protections for users and their data in its next operating systems. What those privacy protections might be is anyone’s guess–but here are my hopes.

End-to-end encryption for iCloud backups is definitely on my wish list. But it should remain optional, because people who forget their password would be unable to access this kind of backup.

Podcast

Communal Head Scratching to Help Solve Your Problems – Mac Geek Gab Podcast 758

John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · · 2 Comments

It’s true, your two favorite geeks have come together again to have a “communal head scratch” about all the questions and problems you’ve submitted. Then it’s on to some happy tips, including one about working around the new Dropbox limitations. Download, press play, and learn at least five new things… and get your questions answered, too!

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News+ Efficiency is Aesthetically Pleasing

Andrew Orr ·

In Wired’s latest magazine, Clive Thompson writes that for some programmers, efficiency isn’t just a way to make a job easier. It’s aesthetically pleasing.

Many of today’s programmers have their efficiency aha moment in their teenage years, when they discover that life is full of blindingly dull repetitive tasks and that computers are really good at doing them.

I’m not a programmer, but I’m a big fan of efficiency and optimizing my life. I don’t go as far as the “optimized self” movement, but I like to automate whenever possible. The less time you spend doing repetitive tasks, the more you can spend enjoying life.

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

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500M iOS Users Affected by Cyberattack via Chrome Bug

Andrew Orr ·

Roughly 500 million iOS users have been affected by a cyberattack that takes advantage of an iOS Chrome bug.

The attacks are the work of the eGobbler gang, researchers said, which has a track record of mounting large-scale malvertising attacks ahead of major holiday weekends. Easter is coming up, and the crooks are banking on consumers spending a lot more time than usual browsing the web on their phones.

Another research firm says this attack can also affect Safari users. Be careful this weekend.

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Why Your Kid Loves Being on TikTok

Charlotte Henry ·

This week, TikTok got banned in India. Apple removed it from the iOS App Store in the country. However, the video-sharing app remains hugely popular with a young audience worldwide. Bloomberg Businessweek looked at why.

TikTok decides what videos to show by tapping into data, starting with your location. Then, as you start watching, it analyzes the faces, voices, music, or objects in videos you watch the longest. Liking, sharing, or commenting improves TikTok’s algorithm further. Within a day, the app can get to know you so well it feels like it’s reading your mind. That’s why Jade, the Oklahoma teen, mostly sees videos of people dancing, while her mom regularly gets clips of dog tricks.