A Major Die Hard Plot Hole Was Just Explained… 29 Years Later →

December 25, 2018 · 10:12

Sam Warner:

The makers of Die Hard have explained a big plot hole in the middle of the movie, and it’s only taken them three decades to give us the truth.

To jog your memory in case you’ve forgotten, baddie Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) pretends to be a hostage when he first comes face to face with John McClane (Bruce Willis).

McClane suspects that something is off and manages to get away – but it is never specified what exactly set off his alarm bells.

Missed this last year! Perfect for the film’s 30th anniversary though.

Kensington Surface Pro Dock Turns Your Surface Pro Into a Mini Surface Studio →

December 21, 2018 · 11:56

Daniel Rubino, for Windows Central:

Saying the Kensington SD7000 is just a port expander is like saying Surface Studio 2 is just an expensive desktop computer – you’re missing the point.

Slotting in the Surface Pro 6 into the Kensington SD7000 you immediately experience how this hinged-mount changes everything. Now at eye-level, the Surface Pro now feels like a mini-Surface Studio.

The Surface Pro’s screen might be a bit on the small side for some but this is amazing. I’m sure people could do with a cheaper version without all the additional I/O. I could see definitely see something like this for the iPad Pro too, but I would like an option to change the orientation to portrait — I prefer vertical screens for typing. However, just the ability to lower the screen and use it at an angle for drawing would go a long way.

Logitech Shuts Down Local API Making Harmony Hub Incompatible With Homebridge and HomeKit →

December 20, 2018 · 13:19

Paulus Schoutsen, on Home Assistant’s blog:

Logitech has decided to remove a widely used local API of their Logitech Harmony hub. We’ve been tracking the story here. This has caused a lot of commotion among our users, and users of other smart home solutions, that integrated with the Logitech Harmony hub and all of a sudden were surprised with a broken smart home. Not a nice way to start the already busy holiday season!

Unfortunately, this means that without rolling back the firmware of my Harmony Hub, my TV’s, AV receiver’s, and Apple TV’s HomeKit integration is broken.

More Lies from Facebook — Users’ Private Data Disclosed to Other Companies →

December 19, 2018 · 13:23

Gabriel J.X. Dance, Michael LaForgia and Nicholas Confessore, for The New York Times:

For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews […]

Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.

The social network permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and it let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts as recently as this summer, despite public statements that it had stopped that type of sharing years earlier.

There’s a lesson to be learned here for other tech companies, which I’m sure they’ll completely ignore. Lying to users and toying with the privacy should not be taken lightly and I keep on wondering when most will realise they don’t need Facebook anymore.

Building a Spotify Player for a Mac SE/30 →

December 19, 2018 · 11:23

68kMLA forum user ants:

Hi all, I built a Spotify player for my Macintosh SE/30 […] The app is called MacPlayer and works thanks to the magic of Spotify Connect. The speaker itself streams and plays the music, and the Mac simply tells the speaker which song to play (as well as volume, current playlist, shuffle mode and other settings) […] The first version is pretty basic, it just plays your Spotify playlists. You can browse tracks, and the app displays 1-bit album art, which I think is a bit of fun […]

Brilliant!

via Steve Troughton-Smith

The New Apple Pencil Gestures Are Pretty Bad →

December 17, 2018 · 09:17

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The new Apple Pencil gestures are pretty bad, accidentally invoked all the time; think I’m gonna disable it. Should have had a button.

I disabled mine. Turns out that I like to give my Pencil a single tap from time to time, which is more often registered as a double tap for some reason. Perhaps this happens when I move it around a little too vigorously, when preparing to use it, and the movement itself (with the shock of resting my palm on the iPad’s screen) registers as the first tap.

My First Homebridge Problem — Logitech Harmony Was Unresponsive

December 17, 2018 · 09:10

I restarted my modem and router yesterday — something I do every month or so — and I couldn’t get Siri to turn on my TV almost immediately after that. This hasn’t happened before. Since I could still view the PiCamera and control my Air Purifier, I assume it was a problem with the Harmony portion of Homebridge. A quick status check displayed the following errors…

Continue reading →

Shirley Wang’s Dad’s Friendship With Charles Barkley →

December 15, 2018 · 22:16

Shirley Wang:

When Charles Barkley’s mother, Charcey Glenn, passed away in June 2015, Barkley’s hometown of Leeds, Alabama, came to the funeral to pay respects. But there was also an unexpected guest.

Barkley’s friends couldn’t quite place him. He wasn’t a basketball player, he wasn’t a sports figure, and he wasn’t from Barkley’s hometown. Here’s what I can tell you about him: He wore striped, red polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts and got really excited about two-for-one deals. He was a commuter. He worked as a cat litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. In short, he was everyone’s suburban dad. More specifically, he was my dad.

“You know, it was obviously a very difficult time,” Barkley told me recently. “And the next thing I know, he shows up. Everybody’s like, ‘Who’s the Asian dude over there?’ I just started laughing. I said, ‘That’s my boy, Lin.’ They’re, like, ‘How do you know him?’ I said, ‘It’s a long story.’ “

Amazing story. Get a tissue ready. And #fuckCancer.

Horrific Tesla Customer Experience in Europe →

December 13, 2018 · 13:43

When asked what should my employee [do], left in the middle of the road, he answered “take a taxi”, and said he could not help me, and ended the conversation.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, read the whole thing. There are many other such examples in Europe. What’s worse, Tesla actively organizes test drives for Poles, inviting them to buy their cars in Berlin — I took part in one personally. They even went out of their way to collaborate with a Polish company to offer a simple way to lease their cars.

There’s more to being a “luxury” car maker than just selling expensive cars. Tesla obviously has a lot to learn and a long way to go.

via @janmazurczak

How to Open a New Safari Tab Next to the Current Tab, Instead of at the End of the Lot

December 13, 2018 · 10:36

John Gruber, on Daring Fireball, detailing how he got to change Safari’s behaviour to open new tabs next to the active tab:

If I have, say, 10 tabs open in a window and I’m currently using, say, tab 2, when I type ⌘T to open a new tab it feels like the rightmost end of the row of tabs is “way over there”, but what I want is the new tab to open “right next to where I am” — like what happens when I ⌘-click a link.

A few months ago I asked on Twitter if there was a secret preference in Safari that would change this to what I want — which is for new tabs to always open right next to the current tab. There is no such preference. I set about trying trying to figure out if this could be done using AppleScript, but I couldn’t figure it out.
Jeff Johnson figured it out, though, and was kind enough to share the solution and explain the rather ungainly syntax required.

John used FastScripts for this but I decided to try my luck with Keyboard Maestro…

Continue reading →

Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret →

December 12, 2018 · 10:07

Jennifer Valentino-Devries, Natasha Singer, Michael H. Keller and Aaron Krolik, for The New York Times:

More than 1,000 popular apps contain location-sharing code from such companies, according to 2018 data from MightySignal, a mobile analysis firm. Google’s Android system was found to have about 1,200 apps with such code, compared with about 200 on Apple’s iOS.

The most prolific company was Reveal Mobile, based in North Carolina, which had location-gathering code in more than 500 apps, including many that provide local news. A Reveal spokesman said that the popularity of its code showed that it helped app developers make ad money and consumers get free services.

Apple is a better proprietor than Google in this regard, but a lot more can and should be done to protect users.

Facebook Filed a Patent to Calculate Your Future Location →

December 12, 2018 · 10:03

Nicole Nguyen, for Buzzfeed:

Facebook has filed several patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for technology that uses your location data to predict where you’re going and when you’re going to be offline.

Have you deleted your Facebook account yet?

In a statement, Facebook spokesperson Anthony Harrison said, “We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patent applications — such as this one — should not be taken as an indication of future plans.”

Yeah… it really should in Facebook’s case.

My Photography (58) — Sunrise Somewhere Over the Alps, Kleinarl⁩, Austria, 2018

December 11, 2018 · 13:47

We had an early morning flight to Italy last week and I was sound asleep, minding my own business, when my wife brutally shook me awake and told me to look out of the window. I checked the flight log and this photo was taken somewhere above or close to the city of Kleinarl in Austria but I am uncertain which exact city is visible in the photo.

Shot with Sony A7R II + FE 28 mm f/2: f/2, 1/60 s, ISO 1600.

iCloud Drive Still Has Sync Issues in 2018

December 11, 2018 · 11:31

I still rely on Resilio Sync (formerly BitTorrent Sync) to sync my files between Macs, an iPad, and an iPhone. It works perfectly but I have been considering switching to iCloud Drive ever since I upgraded to the 2 TB storage option (please give me a cheaper 500 GB and 1 TB option Apple — I don’t need 2 TB at this point in time).

I was trying to transfer an edited photo from my iPad to my MacBook Pro a few minutes ago. I saved it to iCloud Drive and went to look for it on my Mac. Not there. I checked my iPhone and verified it was synced. So I restarted my Mac. Nope, nothing.

Want to know what triggered the sync process? I created a new folder in Finder.

Seriously, Apple?

Poland Is Europe’s Smog Capital →

December 9, 2018 · 12:06

Josh Gabbatiss, for The Independent:

Poland is Europe’s smog capital, home to 33 of Europe’s 50 most polluted cities. As delegates gathered in Katowice last week, data collected by the European Environment Agency revealed it was the second most polluted city on the continent. Its levels of particulate matter were twice as high as those deemed safe by the World Health Organisation.

Considering the toxic air, the mounting pressure to drop coal altogether and the dire climate warnings, it seems remarkable that Polish politicians are gripping on to fossil fuel with such tenacity.

What’s even more frightening is that normal people — not politicians — want us to use coal, because that’s what they heard our beloved government say is good for us (insert facepalm emoji here). I have personally seen and heard their arguments. Unbelievable.

The Quality of Apple Software and Marzipan

December 9, 2018 · 07:15

iKyle:

The quality of software Apple ships shows what Apple considers good enough quality. Including the marzipan apps in the released OS signals the state they are in now is officially good enough quality for macOS software as far as Apple is concerned. That’s worrying.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

They are absolutely ‘good-enough’. Apps updated day and date with iOS? With the complete, up-to-date featureset? This is leagues beyond what we usually get from Apple’s work on macOS. I am not worried about macOS actually getting software on par with iOS, because that’s a step up.

Personally I’m horrified at what these apps look like and how they function. They appear to be foreign entities among all the software designed for MacOS. Despite understanding Apple’s reasoning behind shipping them now and not when their backbone is ready, I cannot quite fathom who said: ‘Yes, this is good enough.’ Not at Apple in any case.

Apple chose their own path. Two separate operating systems, with their own look and feel, with some points of overlap. We’re in the middle of an evolution of both OSes, waiting to see where they’ll both end up. Maybe it’ll be better but it sure as hell feels that it’ll get a lot worse in the short-term.

HTTP Server on iPad via iSH →

December 9, 2018 · 07:09

Dandy Weng:

It’s definitely mind-blowing that you can set up a simple HTTP server on your iPad. All I need now is a more sophisticated Files integration so I can copy files into @iSH and edit them with another app to do some real work! Huge shout out to @tblodt.

iSH is amazing but… this shouldn’t be mind-blowing. iOS is 8 years old and based on MacOS — we should have been able to do this years ago (without jailbreaking).

Download Procreate’s Undo Gesture Project →

December 8, 2018 · 08:33

Procreate Team:

We think Procreate’s Undo gesture is one of the best things we’ve ever made. Apple highlighted it as an exceptional user experience when Procreate Pocket was lucky enough to win iPhone App of the Year 2018, and it’s one of our most beloved features. It’s simple, fast, and takes full advantage of multi-touch […]

Whether you’re one of our competitors, or in an entirely different field, please feel free to grab the project below. Take it, use it, and give your users the most instinctive Undo and Redo method available.

The Biggest Threat to the Mac →

December 8, 2018 · 08:08

John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

The biggest threat to the Mac isn’t iPads, Chromebooks, or Windows 2-in-1’s — it’s apathy towards what makes great Mac apps great.

Apple’s own software quality is slowly going down hill over these past few years, as if they stopped caring. There are too many examples to list, but it’s long past due to sound an alarm. Even on iOS, Apple often fails to have updates for its own apps ready in time for new screen resolutions or features.

Apple Security Expert Jon Callas Moves to ACLU →

December 5, 2018 · 03:28

Joseph Menn for Reuters:

A senior Apple Inc security expert left for a much lower-paying job at the American Civil Liberties Union this week, the latest sign of increasing activity on policy issues by Silicon Valley privacy specialists and other engineers.

Jon Callas, who led a team of hackers breaking into pre-release Apple products to test their security, started Monday in a two-year role as technology fellow at the ACLU. Prior to his latest stint at Apple, Callas designed an encryption system to protect data on Macs and co-founded communications companies Silent Circle, Blackphone and PGP Corp. […]

Callas said he felt particular kinship with Google employees pressing to have more of a say in the company’s prospective deal to return to mainland China with a censored search engine.

“A bunch of people have in fact woken up and said ‘Where are we, where are we going?’” Callas said. “These employees are wanting more discussion and access to what’s going on.”

Callas said phone makers had improved security and he wanted to see progress continue and widen without companies succumbing to pressure to install back doors.

There could be a simple explanation for his choice but the elephant in the room is Apple in China.

Microsoft Is Building a Chromium-Powered Web Browser That Will Replace Edge on Windows 10 →

December 4, 2018 · 09:30

Zac Bowden:

Microsoft’s Edge web browser has seen little success since its debut on Windows 10 back in 2015. Built from the ground up with a new rendering engine known as EdgeHTML, Microsoft Edge was designed to be fast, lightweight, and secure, but launched with a plethora of issues which resulted in users rejecting it early on. Edge has since struggled to gain any traction, thanks to its continued instability and lack of mindshare, from users and web developers.

Because of this, I’m told that Microsoft is throwing in the towel with EdgeHTML and is instead building a new web browser powered by Chromium, a rendering engine first popularized by Google’s Chrome browser. Codenamed Anaheim, this new web browser for Windows 10 will replace Edge as the default browser on the platform. It’s unknown at this time if Anaheim will use the Edge brand or a new brand, or if the user interface between Edge and Anaheim is different. One thing is for sure, however; EdgeHTML in Windows 10’s default browser is dead.

Having used many different browsers over the years, Safari has always appealed to me most for a number of different reasons. Since it was discontinued on Windows a few years ago, I have defaulted to Firefox on my only PC (I still naturally use Safari on my Mac), especially since Mozilla appears to be pushing privacy hard, but I really wish Safari was still around. I tried and tested Edge a few times, but it never appealed to me much. Chromium would be my second choice and I’m curious what Microsoft will do with it.

My Photography (57) — Admiring the Sunset, Pizzo, Italy, 2017

December 3, 2018 · 11:10

We had just had something to eat and were getting ready to leave the beautiful city of Pizzo in the south of Italy, when we decided to go take a last look at the sunset before setting off for the airport. I had already stowed away my “big” camera and since there was a chilly wind, I did not want to bother going back to the car to get it. I did have my iPhone X on me though…

There was just something about the geometry, depth, gradients, and shadows that spoke to me — I really love this shot.

Shot with iPhone X @ 28 mm: f/1.8, 1/153 s, ISO 20.

Take a look at what the person below saw →

Apple iMac and MacBook Screen Defect Class Action Lawsuit →

December 3, 2018 · 10:49

Steve W. Berman and Jerrod C. Patterson:

iMac and MacBook owners have reported dark smudges and spots on the interior of the screens of their desktop computers as well as excessive slowness and break downs of their computers related to the lack of filter on Apple computers. The computer intakes air to cool its components, but with no filter, dust gets trapped inside. This affects the screen and logic board of the computer, leading to dust stuck behind the screen and gummed up motherboards, causing the computer to run slow and/or overheat.

According to many consumer reports online and across Apple’s support forum, the smudging substantially interferes with the functionality and use of the premium displays, especially for creative purposes such as photo editing, digital illustration and other activities requiring precise visual capabilities. The smudging often appears soon after purchase (but after Apple’s standard warranty period has expired).

When iMac owners raise the issue with Apple, Apple refuses to remedy the defect, forcing owners of affected iMacs to pay more than $500 to fix this screen defect, and even more if they wish to replace parts integral to the computer’s speed and performance.

I wholeheartedly support this, as my iMac had exactly the same problem. I sold it after having the screen replaced six times over a period od 3 years. Apple paid for the repair without question four times and I had to strong-arm them for the remaining two. I was delicately led to believe there would not be a seventh.

After an unofficial investigation in Poland, I found that every single iMac model since 2004 has exhibited this issue. Not every single iMac of course, but a decent percentage of every model. This has not been acknowledged or fixed by Apple since, nor are there are any repair programs.

Microsoft Will Reportedly Release a Surface Studio Monitor In 2020 →

November 30, 2018 · 10:13

Tom Warren, for The Verge:

Microsoft is reportedly planning to release a monitor-only version of its Surface Studio in 2020. “Microsoft will finally deliver a Surface monitor in the 2020 timeframe,” claims Brad Sams in Beneath A Surface, a new book detailing the history of Microsoft’s Surface efforts. While you might expect a regular PC monitor, in true Surface style it will have its own unique twist. Microsoft will reportedly swap to a modular design, which is something that Surface chief Panos Panay hinted at in an interview with The Verge recently.

Hurry up, and take my money.

Looking at Apple’s hardware decisions over the past few years, I’m already expecting that I won’t be buying the screen they’re planning to introduce with the Mac Pro next year. Seriously, this was my first thought on Apple’s upcoming product, which just goes to show how disappointed I am in their choices. Perhaps they’ll prove me wrong but I’m not holding my breath.

David Barnard Explains How to Game the App Store →

November 29, 2018 · 09:09

David Barnard:

I’ve been pestering Apple for years publicly and privately about the manipulation and outright scams going on in the App Store. Apple has made some progress here and there, but overall Apple’s strictness in some areas and hands off approach in others has disproportionately rewarded bad actors while stifling conscientious developers.

First of all, read the whole thing — some parts might shock you. These issues won’t be problematic to users aware of which developers are the good guys — there are quite a few out there — but the average consumer will have no clue which ones to trust. Apple really needs to crack down hard on the bad actors, cleaning out their own store of the garbage that has accumulated over the years.