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Googleās openness isnāt enough apparently (#antitrust #security #cybersecurity)
Wow, that one is close to being hilarious. Big tech companies are the target of hate these days. Google was hit by another antitrust lawsuit by no less than 36 states about their handling of applications side loading on Android. In summary, it is so cumbersome to side load an app on Android, thanks to security measures, that it makes it hard for competing App Store to compete. Google makes the sideloading process unnecessarily cumbersome and impractical by adding superfluous, misleading, and discouraging security warnings and by deterring users by requiring them to grant permission multiple times for a single app installation (discussed in more detail in Sections I. Continue reading ā
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Bye Bye Skylum - I barely knew you
In preparing to move off my 2017 Intel iMac (and put if for sale), I must make sure to re-install remaining applications on my M1 Mac mini. Photography-related apps were the last to be updated for the M1 chip. Lightroom CC is now fully optimized, but none of the Skylum apps I was (rarely) using: Luminar 4 and Aurora 2019 HDR. After spending some time on their support forums, I found out that none of their apps are optimized for the M1 chip. Continue reading ā
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What comes before the right to repair? (#apple #righttorepair)
The next step for Apple is to design for repairability which goes beyond recycling. AirPods are the worst example of this. When the battery life on these is reached, there is no practical way to replace them without throwing it to the trash and buying a new one. So for me, the right to repair goes way beyond having a choice of where Iām going to take a device for repair. Continue reading ā
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Going to spaceā¦ to watch a burning planet.
So Richard Branson went to space. Next, Jeff Bezos. And then, what? Is there any scientific purposes in these flights to space? Nope, not directly at least. Is this a publicity stunt? Yes and no. Iām not at ease seeing billionnaires spending their pretty money on something that donāt bring value to a community except for themselve. Oh, they want to start a new commercial flight in space business apparently, for billionaires: Continue reading ā
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A few thoughts on cleaning up my Twitter accounts following list
Since last year, Iāve been making a major cleanup of my Twitter account. I came from following more than 2000 people down to less than 300ā¦ and my goal is to drop below 100. Iām slowly getting there. Here are a few take outs from this major cleanup of my accounts following list. First, there are a lot of stale accounts on Twitter, which tends to artificially increase āfollowshipā. It looks like people stopped tweeting a while ago ā they left the building. Continue reading ā
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The return of the Touch ID?
A recent poll ran by 9To5Mac gives surprising results about what people would like to see if Touch Id is to return to the iPhone. Touch ID under the screen wins popular favour… personally, I would prefer Touch ID to go on the power button, just like the iPad Air because it is easily accessible while holding the phone. Continue reading ā
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Here is some relief for Safari 15 users who hate the new designā¦ (#ios15beta2 #apple)
For those like me who despise Safari redesign in iPadOS 15 & iOS 15: here is simple trick to better cope with Safari redesign: keep the number of open tab to ONE. Why do you think Apple thought it was a good idea to include a āClose Other Tabsā in the popup menu while pressing the address bar? With on,y one tab open, this is close to what we had before. Continue reading ā
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Apple in a weakness positionā¦
I keep thinking of this phrase from Phil Schiller who once said: “whenever we make a change we do it from a position of strength rather than weakness.”. The window has closed a long time ago for Apple and they find themselves in a weakness position. I thought Mr. Schiller was still partly involved in the App Store related decisions. Continue reading ā
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Letās pretend there is side-loading of apps on the iPhone, then what?
InitialCharge: The only one that stands to lose anything in this scenario is Apple and thatās why theyāre doing everything they can to convince us that side-loading is inherently bad. But theyāre wrong.Source: Appleās Head of Privacy Doubles Down on Anti-Sideloading Stance - Initial Charge I’m a bit late on this one but, let say Apple does go ahead and allow for side loading of apps. Besides the proliferation of App Stores, what will we get in this scenario that we donāt get today? Continue reading ā
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Pleaseā¦ stopā¦ usingā¦ ellipsisā¦ for gods sake (#apple #ux #design #iosdev)
In the following screenshot taken this morning on my iPad screen, how many ellipsis signs to you catch? I highlighted them for you to make it easier. To all developers, to all designers, to Apple: please, stop this shit NOW and find a better way, use your imagination, stop being lazy at design. Thank you. Continue reading ā
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Iām starting a new trend: open writing.
If youāve been paying attention in recent months, did you know that you can have a peek at my upcoming blog posts that Iām working on? Thanks to Craft, You can peak at a selection of drafts, ideas, reference lists, etc. I give a name to this: open writing. Think of this as being this observer looking at a painter while he or she is painting a new artwork.šØš»āš» What would be super cool is if someone interacted with this by posting commentsā¦ which is something Craft makes possible. Continue reading ā
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On Appleās Hybrid work model ā Appleās employees to become targets?
Dave Mark for LoopInsight: Did the pandemic make a foundational change to the way we think about where we do our jobs? Or was this a blip, with a slow slide back to the old ways? I certainly hope that we wonāt return massively to the old days. For Apple, it looks like the pandemic was a blip and employees will need to be back at the office at least three days a week. Continue reading ā
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What if nobody really knows what is going on? (#google #privacy #surveillance)
What if nobody at Google knows exactly what their data hungry engine is all about? I mean, what if nobody has a global picture, so nobody can say āoh my god, it’s terrible, we must stop it!ā. This makes me think of the nazis in second world war: very few had a global picture of what was really going on. It was devised this way so it was easier to āmanageā and keep the machine humming. Continue reading ā
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Another coat of paint to Windows UI mess? (#windows11)
So Windows 11 is a thing. Is it a revolution to Windows? Maybe, maybe not. It depends if you can install it on your PC, which is far from certain. But letās say you can, how deep goes the UI refresh? Is it like it was for Windows 10 which was supposedly a redesign of Windows 8 which was tweaks to Windows 7 UI that came before it. Here is a simple question: Did Microsoft really clean up the Windows UI mess that it has become over the years? Continue reading ā
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On design trends ā sadness
While reading a recent article from Basic Apple Guy about News+, there is this illustration that shows how far Apple News icon has come since its beginnings. I have included the illustration here. It shows how bad design has become in the last five to ten years. That is really depressing to see. As much as things like AR and LiDAR technology help bring real world and virtual world closer together, UI design seems to go the opposite direction. Continue reading ā
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A few observations on my iPadOS 15 beta2 experience so far
So, I took the plunge and installed iPadOS 15 beta2 on my iPad Pro. A few observations. Itās beta and it shows. Home screen and widgets placement is janky. One springboard crash so far. All my apps are working just fine. Battery life is taking a hit. Text recognition in pictures is jaw breaking and open up all sort of new use cases. The QuickNote feature is a nice addition that will complement my blogger workflow. Continue reading ā
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When hackers strikes personal NAS-type devices
Pool Western Digital My Book Live NAS ownersā¦ many of them woke up to find out that their content was gone from their devices. Apparently, hackers came in by using an unpatched vulnerability on devices where the last update was issued in 2015 by Western Digital. This brings me to ask the following questions: were those devices directly connected on the internet? If yes, that dumb. If this was a known vulnerability, why WD didn’t issue a patch? Continue reading ā
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iPadOS 15 beta 2: install or not, that is the question (#ipados15 #ipadod15beta2)
Iām on vacation. I have some time to spare. My vacation time is spent between my home and a rented chalet. The iPad Pro and my iPhone 11 Pro are my main devices. Beta 2 came late this week and reports are starting to come in. In summary, lotās of fixes, a bit faster and apparently no big show stopper. Iām mostly using Craft these days and Appleās stock apps like Reminders and Notes. Continue reading ā
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Are Facetime Links Enough to compete against Zoom or Teams?
Benjamin Mayo on FaceTime 15 in the landscape of collaboration tools like Zoom and Teams: FaceTime is more like an add-on of Messages, competing against WhatsApp and traditional phone calls if anything. You also see this in how each service handles identity; Zoom and Teams have abstracted user accounts, whereas on FaceTime you connect by sharing your personal phone number or email address ā information that you only want to give out to close friends. Continue reading ā
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One design doesnāt fits all device sizes ā Safari in iOS 15
This Safari redesign concept misses the point of Appleās decision to redesign Safari on iPhone. Appleās intention was two-fold: provide a better navigation on the iPhone with the thumb and bring the navigation model of switching across open websites closer to switching between apps. Appleās intention were good but where they fail is to provide the exact same design for things like opened tabs the same across all screen sizes. Itās probably not needed on the Mac, itās good on the iPad but messy on the iPhone. Continue reading ā
