Monthly Archives: May 2018

iMac Pro & Hasselblad H6D Photo Review: Antarctica →

May 9, 2018 · 13:48

Austin Mann, on his blog:

Twenty years ago today (May 6, 1998), my dad walked into my classroom on the last day of school holding an inkjet print. He handed it me and said, “You’re going to want one of these!” On this piece of paper was the just-announced Bondi Blue iMac […]

Today, after a few months with the iMac Pro, I can say in many ways it stays true to its original ancestor. It packs a powerful punch and continues to deliver on its promise to be a simple yet powerful tool that unlocks creative potential in people.

Screw the iMac Pro review (just kidding, don’t) and look at his shots from Antarctica!

Pocket Casts Addressing Our Concerns →

May 8, 2018 · 10:44

From Shifty Jelly’s blog:

That’s an easy question to answer for those that know a bit about the podcasting industry. The industry is amazing because it’s open. Anyone can publish a podcast and distribute it everywhere. No podcast is treated differently than another. However, “open” is not the default state of markets as they mature, as we’ve seen in other content businesses. When power is consolidated into the hands of just a few closed platforms, creators rarely win. And we care deeply about the fate of podcast producers everywhere.

It’s our mission to ensure that this doesn’t happen. If we succeed, we all benefit. If we lose, well, we feel it was a thing worth attempting. In the meantime there are some steps we need to take to get where we want to go, and we’ll talk about those when we’re ready. It’s early days, but we’re really excited for the future. Hope you all are too!

That’s what the guys at Shifty Jelly were doing before they were bought — building an open community around an open medium. I hope I’m wrong, but historically when a private company buys a product, it isn’t to further an “open” agenda, but to benefit their own product(s) at the cost of those who care that podcasts remain the way they are. Perhaps it’s the cynic in me, but while I believe everything they are saying now (I’m sure they believe it too), I’m willing to bet this will slowly change over time, as it has so frequently in the past.

Why a Massive Sinkhole Tore Open in New Zealand →

May 8, 2018 · 10:27

Sarah Gibbens, for National Geographic:

New Zealand’s newest sinkhole may be one of its largest. It extends down more than six stories. From end-to-end, it measures just about the length of two football fields. The sinkhole is so large it even exposed 60,000-year-old volcanic soil.

One Space Between Each Sentence, They Said →

May 6, 2018 · 09:58

Avi Selk, writing for The Washington Post:

Ob viously, thereneed to be standards. Unless    you’re doing avant – garde po e try, or    something , you  can’tjustspacew ords ho w e v   e    r   y      o        u            want.     That would be insanity. Or at least,

obnoxious.

Enter three psychology researchers from Skidmore College, who decided it’s time for modern science to sort this out once and for all.

I’m still not convinced, especially since the test was conducted using a fixed-width font. The article is perfect though — go read it, spacing and all. It also has the perfect correction:

Note: An earlier version of this story published incorrectly because, seriously, putting two spaces in the headline broke the web code.

via @ania13

Apple Took 8 Days to Give Jefferson the Data It Had Collected on Him →

May 5, 2018 · 11:53

Jefferson Graham:

The zip file I eventually received from Apple was tiny, only 9 megabytes, compared to 243 MB from Google and 881 MB from Facebook. And there’s not much there, because Apple says the information is primarily kept on your device, not its servers. The one sentence highlight: a list of my downloads, purchases and repairs, but not my search histories through the Siri personal assistant or the Safari browser.

This approach by Apple makes me trust them more with my data than any other company.

Pocket Casts Acquired by NPR, etc. →

May 4, 2018 · 00:17

Chris Welch, on The Verge:

Pocket Casts, widely considered to be one of the best mobile apps for podcast listening, has been acquired by a collective group that includes NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life. “This unprecedented collaboration furthers public radio’s leading role as an innovator in audio discovery and distribution, while ensuring the continued support and growth of one of the most popular listening platforms on the market,” the companies said in a press release announcing the news. That team of stations and podcast producers are responsible for some of the format’s biggest hits like This American Life (duh), Serial, Radiolab, and Planet Money.

Moving forward, Pocket Casts will operate as a joint venture between the new owners. Philip Simpson and Russell Ivanovic, who formed Shifty Jelly (Pocket Cast’s developer) in 2008, will have unspecified “leadership roles.” The existing staff and development team is staying put. Owen Grover, a veteran of iHeartRadio / Clear Channel, has been named as Pocket Cast’s CEO. NPR’s apps including NPR One will remain in development.

Rest In Peace Pocket Casts, good luck Russell and Philip.

Everyone on iOS go get Overcast [App Store]. I have no clue what you should do if you’re on Android.

The 2017 Panic Report →

May 4, 2018 · 00:04

Cabel Sasser, on Panic’s blog:

Hello, my friends. It’s (Q2) of a (not-so) new year. That means it’s time to talk about Panic!

I look forward to these every year and having recently switched to Transmit Mac, I was saddened to see Transmit iOS retired. Transmit has become my go-to software to not only interface with various servers, but to access my Dropbox, GDrive, etc. I don’t have to rely on their respective apps anymore, which is worth getting Transmit in itself.

Unsecured IP Video Cameras Directory →

May 3, 2018 · 23:20

Welcome to Insecam project. The world biggest directory of online surveillance security cameras. Select a country to watch live street, traffic, parking, office, road, beach, earth online webcams. Now you can search live web cams around the world. You can find here Axis, Panasonic, Linksys, Sony, TPLink, Foscam and a lot of other network video cams available online without a password. Mozilla Firefox browser is recommended to watch network cameras.

These cameras have no passwords set. Some on purpose, others not so much.

I Wouldn’t Expect a Cheaper iPhone X After What Tim Cook Said Last Night

May 2, 2018 · 12:47

Tim Cook on Apple’s earning’s call:

We were surprised, somewhat, that through all of this period of time that the iPhone X winds up at the most popular for every week of the time since the launch and so that’s, I think, a powerful point. And it’s number one in China, which is another powerful point. And so obviously at some point if those technologies move to lower price points and that [inaudible] probably more unit demand. But the way we think about is trying to price a reasonable price for the value that we deliver and I feel that we did that.

There were plenty of recent rumours suggesting the iPhone X’s price would go down by $100 to $899, perhaps also to make way for an iPhone X Plus at the $999 price point. After hearing Tim’s remarks on the X last night, I wouldn’t expect the price to go down anytime soon — the iPhone X is selling extremely well, and people are voting with their wallets by buying them. You just don’t walk away from that as Apple.

I hope I’m wrong.

(You can find a full transcript of the call on iMore.)

Apple Financial Results — FY Q2 2018 →

May 2, 2018 · 12:39

Apple PR:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2018 second quarter ended March 31, 2018. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $61.1 billion, an increase of 16 percent from the year-ago quarter, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.73, up 30 percent. International sales accounted for 65 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold:

  • 52.217 million iPhones (50.763 million in FY Q2 2017)
  • 9.113 million iPads (8.922 million in FY Q2 2017)
  • 4.078 million Macs (4.199 million in FY Q2 2017)

John Gruber Has Further Details On Project “Marzipan” →

May 1, 2018 · 09:25

John Gruber, for Daring Fireball:

This “Marzipan” rumor got a lot of people excited. But Gurman’s report is so light on technical details that the excitement is based mostly on what developers hope it could mean, not what’s actually been reported. The less specific the rumor, the easier it is to project your own wishes upon it. And, oddly perhaps, we haven’t seen any additional rumors or details about this project in the four months since Gurman’s original report.

I’ve heard a few things, from first- and second-hand sources. Mostly second-hand, to be honest, but they’re all consistent with each other.

Firstly, the details John posted shed more light on iOS and macOS in the coming years.

Secondly, since this is in regard to Gurman’s “Marzipan” leak, Mark isn’t as credible as he once was:

Gurman doesn’t mention that the meeting was leaked to Gurman himself — the person who leaked this story was caught and fired.

WhatsApp and Facebook — A Massive Culture Clash Over Encryption →

May 1, 2018 · 09:08

Elizabeth Dwoskin, writing for The Washington Post:

The WhatsApp co-founders were also big believers in privacy. They took pains to collect as little data as possible from their users, requiring only phone numbers and putting them at odds with data-hungry Facebook. At the time of the acquisition, Koum and Acton said Facebook had assured them that WhatsApp could remain an independent service and would not share its data with Facebook […]

Another point of disagreement was over WhatsApp’s encryption. In 2016, WhatsApp added end-to-end encryption, a security feature that scrambles people’s messages so that outsiders, including WhatsApp’s owners, can’t read them. Facebook executives wanted to make it easier for businesses to use its tools, and WhatsApp executives believed that doing so would require some weakening of its encryption.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg don’t know when to stop.