I was going to write a rant—OK, another rant—about how stupid Twitter is being its APIs and third party apps. The company announced a change that will effectively render third party clients useless without change—this after the company killed its own Mac client. Twitter has confused its ^#%$ desire for me to use its service on a browser with my desire to do so. Because I do not want to. At all. Anyhoo, enter John Gruber, who already wrote the rant. It’s a good one.
To me this is like finding out you’re now required to access email entirely through a web browser. Sure, lots of people already do it that way and either prefer it or think it’s eh, just fine, who cares — but a lot of others hate it and find it completely disruptive to longstanding workflows.
The U.S. Senate passed legislation that would restore Net Neutrality in the country, but Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet explain why they don’t think it will go any further. They also break down Ralph Nader’s kind-of-weird whiff in complaining about Apple’s share buyback program. They cap the show with a look at how Sir Jony Ive is a watch-man, though Steve Jobs wasn’t involved with Apple Watch.
Apple has made no announcements. There aren’t even any leaks or rumors. But if Apple were to build a family service/companion robot, what would it be like? John ponders.
After trying myriad attaché-style briefcases and messenger bags, Dr. Mac decided the backpack is a much more practical form of luggage. After trying dozens of ‘em over the years, he lists a few of his faves along with several other great gifts for the mom, dad, or grad in your life.
We have a deal on the CINEMOOD portable movie projector, a 3-inch device that streams Netflix and YouTube content. You can also download Netflix content for offline projecting. It’s $349 through our deal, 12% off retail.
Are you hearing Yanny or Laurel in the recording that’s zipping around the internet? The short answer is “Yes.” The longer answer involves a little audio knowledge.
Kelly Guimont and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to talk about what a personal robot from Apple could be, plus they explain what’s going on with the “Yanny or Laurel” meme.
Apple and Samsung are back in court for the next round in their years-long legal fight over copying the iPhone’s design. This new trial is to determine how much money Samsung owes Apple for patent infringement. Apple is pushing for US$1 billion in damages, and of course Samsung is balking. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out considering Apple was originally awarded over $1 billion, but that was cut back dramatically over the years in the ongoing legal fight. Maybe now Apple can get that number pushed back up. Bloomberg has more about the new damages trial.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, goes into effect on May 25th, 2018, and it can impact websites that aren’t hosted in member states. If you want to see if the cookies on your website are GDPR-complaint, Cookiebot is a great place to start. You’ll get a quick audit of site cookies in a PDF showing how compliant—or not—they are. It’s free to try, and offers a little insight into how GDPR impacts websites.
Tweetbot 3 for the Mac is out, and it’s loaded with a bunch of new features. The Twitter client has improved timeline management, autoplay (or not) for videos and GIFs, drag-and-drop column organizing, quicker access to DM chats, a dark mode, and more. Tweetbot 3 is priced at US$9.99 and is available at Apple’s Mac App Store.
Check out this Apple video on using 2FA to secure your Apple devices. I won’t pass up an opportunity to promote device and service security. For instance—and while I’m here—DON’T REUSE PASSWORDS! So, anyway, Apple has this short (only 6 seconds) how-to video that gives you the quick run-down on using 2FA to protect your Apple ID. Really, it’s a pointer to a more in-depth piece on using 2FA, and that article has a lot of good information. TMO has somegreat articles on 2FA, too, and too, and too, and too. Many of our readers already know this stuff, but we all have friends and family who don’t. Pass it to them. Post a link in social media. Help the people who count on you for tech stuff learn more about protecting their digital #^%$!
Keep your personal information secure, even in your sleep. With two-factor authentication, you can protect your Apple ID with more than just a password.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is backing the the Secure Data Act, proposed legislation the EFF says would stop government-mandated backdoors.
Check out this wonderful presentation from Susan Kare, a member of the original Mac team who designed the icons and typography for those early Macs. This movie has been around for years, but I just saw it in a piece at Testedabout the Command Key icon. That story is part of the presentation and involves Steve Jobs. In fact, it includes all kinds of anecdotes and lore, and if you’re interested in Apple or Apple products, you will enjoy watching this presentation. And the reality is if you use a modern computing device, you owe Susan Kare a debt of gratitude. She’s done a lot of work for many other companies, too, and she touches on that in this preso. It’s great!
We have a deal on a pair of TREBLAB X11 earphones. These wireless earphones use Bluetooth 4.1 CSR, and are designed for active people. They features 6 hours of play time with a charge time of 2 hours. They’re $32.99 through us.
For as long as Dr. Mac can remember he’s relied upon the same three products when his hard (or solid state) disks go bad: Apple’s Disk Utility (free), Prosoft Engineering’s Drive Genius ($79), and Alsoft’s DiskWarrior ($119.99), but only one has succeeded three times in the past few months after the other two failed… Read Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves Episode #276 to find out which one succeeded and which two failed!
While many have argued that Apple has lost its footing without Steve Jobs at the helm, and some will say Apple hasn’t released any revolutionary new products, Apple’s success since Steve left-then-passed is undeniable. Many of us remember times where any non-Steve Jobs CEO at Apple was complete and utter failure. That’s most certainly not been the case with Tim Cook.
