When Your Mac Sleeps Too Deeply – Mac Geek Gab 792

Sleeping computers are good, until they don’t wake up. Thankfully, John and Dave are here each week to answer your questions, including this one. But that’s not all! Listen for answers to questions about Apple Watch hourly chimes, registering Apple devices, and tips on using the camera adapter between two iPhones, opening windows in new tabs, and more. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things on this week’s episode of Mac Geek Gab.

File Speeds Using iOS Files are Terrible Compared to Finder

Redditor u/j1ggl did a test to compare Finder and Files using a folder of 2048 texture files. The folder was only 1MB, but iOS Files still handled different tasks way worse than Finder. For example, using the app’s built-in zip function, zipping the folder took 3 seconds with Finder and 38 seconds with Files. Unzipping took 7 seconds versus 42 seconds, respectively.

Conclusion: The Files app for iPhone/iPad is badly optimized and not ready to handle a larger amount of files, even though they take up just 1MB in total. It is also worth noting that the iPad required several reboots to even achieve the zipping and unzipping of the folder.

Finally a Way to Batch-Rename Files on iOS

Every since I bought an iPad Pro I’ve been able to conduct most of my work and personal life on my iPad. But I still need my MacBook Pro for a couple things, like using Automator to batch-rename files (renaming multiple files simultaneously). This isn’t possible to do on iOS, until now. A shortcut I found on RoutineHub lets you do this. It lets you rename your files in custom formats, like alphabetically, prepending text, sorting by date modified, etc.

Is Facebook Secretly Accessing Your Camera? This Man Found a Bug

For years there have been anecdotes from people saying that Facebook secretly uses their phone’s microphone and/or camera for targeted advertising. Joshua Maddux tweeted about a bug he found within the Facebook app. By tapping on a profile picture and slowly sliding it down the screen, you can see his rear camera being accessed on the left hand side. He tested it using five iPhones running iOS 13.2.2.

Found a @facebook #security & #privacy issue. When the app is open it actively uses the camera. I found a bug in the app that lets you see the camera open behind your feed. Note that I had the camera pointed at the carpet.

Hey Presto! I Outsmarted Myself! – Mac Geek Gab 787

Tips about new functionality, including moving Catalina’s windows, scanning with your iPhone, fixing mail, running cron jobs, and downloading installers from the Terminal are just scratching the surface. Then it’s on to diagnosing some network problems and learning how Time Machine can keep your volumes from being resized. Listen as John and Dave walk through all of these, to ensure everyone (including them!) learns at least five new things this week.

Adobe Creative Cloud App Brings Fonts to iOS 13.1

For the first time Adobe is bringing its fonts in its Creative Cloud app. Your device needs iOS 13.1 or later as that release supports custom font APIs.

If you already have a Creative Cloud subscription, you’ll have the same access as you do on your desktop to over 17,000 fonts from type foundries around the world. Users without a subscription but with an Adobe ID have access to 1,300 fonts included within the app for use on iOS13.1-compatible devices. Any fonts installed in Creative Cloud mobile are automatically activated across all your devices.

iOS 13.2 Aggressively Kills Background Apps and Tasks

Nick Heer put together a list of people noticing that iOS 13.2 is awfully aggressive in killing apps and tasks in the background.

As bugs go, this is isn’t a catastrophic one, but it absolutely should be the highest of priorities to fix it. It’s embarrassing that all of the hard work put into making animations and app launching feel smooth is squandered by mismanaged multitasking.

Is Dark Mode Technically Better? No, But That's Not The Point

Since Apple introduced Dark Mode in iOS 13 we’ve had a wave of people arguing that dark mode isn’t better for legibility, it could made reading worse on your eyes, et cetera et cetera. But I think they’re missing the point. I’m sure it’s subjective but staring into a searing white screen is worse than staring into a dark screen at night, and I don’t care how many “experts” pull a “well, ackshually.” Speaking of searing white screens, using as much white space as possible in web design has been popular for the last several years and it’s probably a reason why everyone wanted dark mode in the first place. Some web designers tend to prize aesthetics over readability. I’m looking at you Jony Ive.

So yes, you can have the Wednesday Adams aesthetic on your phone interface too. But at this point, it seems to be just that—about the looks.