iOS 14 Beta: Widgets Are Great, Everything Else Is On Fire
Two days into running the iOS 14 public beta on my main phone: the home screen widgets are the real deal, App Library sorts my apps into nonsense, and my Fitbit app keeps crashing.
Those Do Not Sell Links Actually Do Something Now
CCPA enforcement kicked in on July 1st and I spent an evening actually testing the Do Not Sell links instead of ignoring them like usual.
The Hey App Fight Was Never Really About the 30%
A closer look at the Hey email app's fight with Apple's App Store rules, and why the real problem isn't the 30% cut but who gets heard when they push back.
The Visa News Everyone Missed Because of WWDC
While the internet argues about Apple's ARM transition from WWDC, this week's H-1B and L-1 visa suspension is quietly upending plans for a lot of the people who actually build tech.
The Hey App vs. Apple Fight Is About More Than 30 Percent
Apple threatened to pull Basecamp's new Hey email app from the App Store over in-app purchase rules, the same week it was on stage at WWDC talking about empowering developers.
Master to Main, and a Broken Deploy at Midnight
A weekend spent renaming git branches from master to main on old side projects, one broken deploy at midnight, and a quick note on Zoom finally doing the right thing.
The PS5 Looks Like My Router and I Can't Unsee It
Sony revealed the PS5's actual design last week, and five days later the internet still can't decide if it's a gaming console or a Wi-Fi router with delusions of grandeur.
A Year-Long Pause on Rekognition (and Why I'm Not Totally Buying It)
Amazon just paused police use of its Rekognition facial recognition tool for one year. Having actually used Rekognition on my own photos, I'm not convinced a pause is the same thing as fixing anything.
IBM Quits Face Recognition. I'll Believe It When I See It
IBM told Congress it's exiting facial recognition entirely. I'm glad, but a letter isn't the same as a company actually changing what it does.
Nine Days: How Long the unc0ver Jailbreak Lasted
Apple patched the unc0ver jailbreak nine days after it went public with iOS 13.5.1, and I spent a weekend finding out just how short that window really was.
The Pilot Who Flew the Last Shuttle Mission
SpaceX just launched astronauts to orbit for the first time from US soil since 2011, and the pilot flew the last shuttle mission ever. A personal reaction, watched from a kitchen table.
Face ID Finally Learned About Masks
iOS 13.5 shipped this week with the big COVID exposure-notification API everyone's covering, but the small fix I actually noticed was Face ID giving up faster when you're wearing a mask.