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A Designer's Perspective on AirPods Annoyances

Andrew Orr ·

UI designer Philip Ardeljan wrote a blog post on AirPods annoyances and how they don’t fit Apple’s mantra of “Just Work.”

Annoyance 1: If you have 2 devices, say iMac and iPhone connected to AirPods, when you are using your iMac and unlock your iPhone to check something, sometimes, the AirPods switch to the iPhone. But you didn’t want them to. I get that Apple is trying to be clever and anticipate your moves, which I genuinely appreciate, but when it gets in the way it’s annoying.

This one in particular annoys me too.

Apple Releases ‘Unity Lights’ Watch Face for Black History Month
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Apple Releases 'Unity Lights' Watch Face for Black History Month

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has released a Unity Lights watch face to celebrate Black History Month. In a press release this morning, the company shared all the ways in which it will celebrate this year. Throughout February, Apple Watch users can participate in the Unity Challenge and earn a limited-edition award by closing their Move ring seven days in a row. The Unity Lights watch face will be available today and requires Apple Watch Series 4 or later running watchOS 8.3, and iPhone 6s or later running iOS 15.2. The Black Unity Braided Solo Loop is available now at the link below and in the Apple Store app, and will be available in select Apple Store locations beginning Tuesday, February 1 for US$99. The Black Unity Braided Solo Loop is compatible with Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 or newer.

AirGuard Lets You Detect AirTags on Android Smartphones
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AirGuard Lets You Detect AirTags on Android Smartphones

Andrew Orr ·

Android owners, this one is for you. AirGuard lets you detect AirTags on Android so you won’t get secretly tracked like we’ve been hearing about in the news. You can download it from Google Play, F-Droid, or straight from the GitHub page linked below. From the page: “With AirGuard you get the anti-tracking protection you deserve! The app periodically scans your surroundings for potential tracking devices, like AirTags or other Find My devices. If a devices follows you, you will get a notification in less than an hour. With the app you can play a sound on AirTags and find it easily. Afterward, you can view at which locations the device has tracked you. If no one is trying to track you, the app will never bother you.“

ProtonMail 1.15.11 Update Fixes Bugs With Push Notifications
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ProtonMail 1.15.11 Update Fixes Bugs With Push Notifications

Andrew Orr ·

The ProtonMail 1.15.11 update for iOS fixes a slew of bugs that users were experiencing. From the version notes: Fixed a bug where push notifications where not received properly. Fixed an occasional bug where swipe actions in the inbox were applied to the wrong message. Fixed an occasional bug where the reply, reply all and forward option did not work on some messages.  Fixed an occasional bug during signup where the prompt for captcha was not fully visible. Fixed a bug where contacts migrated through the Proton Easy Switch functionality were not properly displayed. Preparation for upcoming change to exclude embedded images from counting towards attachments. Technical improvements behind the scenes (including updates to the cryptographic library, improvements related to key management and password changes and more).

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A Crypto Wallet Crack Recovered $2 Million in Tokens

Andrew Orr ·

The Verge had a fascinating story out yesterday about a crypto wallet crack that helped two friends get their tokens back. It’s a long-ish read but not overly technical.

Reich gave up and wrote off the money in his mind. He was willing to take the loss — until the price started to rise again. From a low of around $12,000, the value of their tokens started to skyrocket. By the end of 2020, it would be worth more than $400,000, rising briefly to over $3 million. It would be hard to get into the wallet without the PIN — but it wasn’t impossible. And with potentially millions on the line, Reich and his friend vowed to find a way inside.

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Google Topics Will Categorize Your Browsing for Advertising

Andrew Orr ·

Google Topics will track your browsing and divvy it up into 300 categories for advertising. It replaces Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).

When you hit upon a site that supports the Topics API for ad purposes, the browser will share three topics you are interested in — one for each of the three last weeks — selected randomly from your top five topics of each week. The site can then share this with its advertising partners to decide which ads to show you. Ideally, this would make for a more private method of deciding which ad to show you — and Google notes that it also provides users with far greater control and transparency than what’s currently the standard. Users will be able to review and remove topics from their lists — and turn off the entire Topics API, too.