Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to talk about Adobe’s new Photoshop CC for iPad announcement, plus share their thoughts on third-party watch faces for Apple Watch.
Check Out the Apple Watch Faces Steve Troughton-Smith Designed
Steve Troughton-Smith does more than post Apple product leaks. He’s also a professional coder, and his latest pet project shows why it would be cool to get third-party faces for Apple Watch. He’s come up with some pretty interesting watch faces, plus he posted the example code on Github so you can experiment with your own—assuming you’re a developer. I get Apple not wanting horribly garish watch faces, but maybe they could partner with some developers or make a watch face screening process. I know I’m ready for some options outside of Apple’s limited pool.
Apple Buys Asaii, Adds its Team to Apple Music
Apple purchased the music and artist discovery service Asaii—a deal that was confirmed by the company’s investment backer The House. Asaii makes tools for finding and managing artists, along with a tool for music services to make recommendations to listeners. The House founder Cameron Baradar told Music Ally,
As the first investors in Asaii, we are incredibly excited by their recent acquisition by Apple where they will have the opportunity to dramatically scale their impact and continue building out their vision for the future of the music industry.
Asaii’s founders are now part of the Apple Music team. Their tools can predict the next music hits weeks in advance. Couple that with the music discovery tools and Apple Music’s listening recommendations could get a lot better very soon.
Adobe Photoshop CC Coming to the iPad in 2019
Adobe Photoshop CC is coming to the iPad in 2019. It’s really Photoshop, and not just a subset of photo editing features.
APFS Corruption, Wi-Fi Numbering, and Backups – Mac Geek Gab Podcast 731
APFS has been available on our Macs for a year now, and we’re beginning to see the issues with corruption that can’t be yet be solved by Apple or third party utilities. Wi-Fi is changing names… and getting faster! And folks, Backups are still important! All this and more in this week’s Mac Geek Gab. Press play and enjoy!
Introducing Salto, Another Terrifying Robot
Robot technology often invokes sophisticated mechanisms, in order to perform a task, that mimic those of living creatures. When done right, the visual effect can be startling, even creepy. Mark Serrels writes: “Meet “Salto-1P” a robot being designed by the Biomimetic Millisystems lab at Berkeley, University of California. The work is being supported by an Army Research Office Grant, which makes me wonder if one of these things is gonna kill me one day.” Better check under your bed again, Mark.
Apple Music Trailer for Carpool Karaoke with Jamie Foxx and Corinne Foxx
Apple has a new trailer out for Carpool Karaoke promoting an upcoming episode with Jamie Foxx and his daughter Corinne Foxx. The trailer feature’s Foreigner’s ripoff of Deep Purple’s “My Woman from Tokyo” “Hot Blooded.” The theme of this episode is father-daughter clashes over what gets played on the car’s radio, which will surely resonate with lots of folks. Jamie Foxx is a great singer, too. Here’s the trailer.
Meross Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip: $23.99
We have a deal on the Meross Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip. This device not only has three standard plugs and two USB ports, it has Wi-Fi connectivity that allows you to control each plug individually through the Meross app. You can turn connected devices on and off, set schedules, and activate timer routines, protecting your devices and trimming down your power usage. It’s $23.99 through our deal.
macOS Mojave Made Me Hate Dark Mode
I’ve been a fan of Dark Mode ever since Adobe added it to Photoshop CS6 back in 2012. That’s why I was so excited to see system-wide Dark Mode support in macOS Mojave, and yet Apple managed to make me dislike the feature so much I gave up on it. For now, I’ll be sticking with the pre-Mojave light colored windows and menus instead. I planned on using Dark Mode to cut the brightness out of Finder windows, but now I’m going back to what I did before: When I’m writing and my screen feels too bright I switch to Grayscale mode. Andrew Orr did a great job of explaining how to turn it on and off for your Mac as well as iPhone and iPad. Check out his tip.
How Do Companies Make Money off our Data?
Big Data is a huge money making business, and a big example of this is AOL. No longer an ISP, AOL is now a data broker.
The collected data has value because of how it’s used in online advertising, specifically targeted advertising: when a company sends an ad your way based on information about you, such as your location, age, and race. Targeted ads, the thinking goes, are not only more likely to result in a sale (or at least a click), they’re also supposed to be more relevant to consumers.
While some people might want better ads that are more relevant to them, the article makes a good point: “I have targeted ads that are more attuned to my desires and my wants… But if you have someone who has an alcohol abuse problem getting a liquor store ad…”
And I’m cynical enough to believe that the average advertiser wouldn’t care about that in the slightest.
