More than ever, Apple has been under a lot of pressure and scrutiny. There is a bad sentiment among the Apple developers community about Apple’s App Store business practices. Apple is on the defensive and doesn’t always offer their best side when it comes to the way they answer critics be it out of court or in court.
Many well-known developers and Apple’s pundits are demanding, loud and clear, wide-ranging changes: reducing the App Store commission, opening up the iPhone to allow sideloading of applications, allowing third-party payment processing platforms, etc. These demands target the iPhone fundamentals. …
Who cares about the latest Apple TV 4K, right? Apple finally did it: a new Apple TV Remote! That one was long in coming. The focus of this post is the new remote. Judging from my experience with Apple’s latest take on the TV remote, I have to admit that designing such device must be a daunting task, because… I’m not sure if waiting all those years was enough to fix everything. My thoughts here.
- I like the weight and the size. Good balance.
- Edges aren’t as sharp as they look in photos, but they could have been made “softer”.
- …
According to Hits Double Daily:
“Apple will announce a new high-fidelity audio streaming tier in the coming weeks at the same $9.99-per-user price point as its standard plan, label sources are telling us.
The announcement is expected to coincide with the launch of the third-generation AirPods. Whether these will be compatible with the new, improved audio offering is unknown.”
I think this upgrade would make sense in order to stay competitive against Spotify while adding new category of more demanding users. This move would likely add to Apple’s bottom line: more revenues dollars. …
Optimizing website experience to stay on top of Google’s updated ranking algorithm coming in May 2021.
Coming in May, Google is going to tweak their ranking algorithm, yet again, by including new experience metrics into the equation. Those changes were first announced back in May 2020. According to a recent post on Yoast’s blog:
In May 2021, Google will add Core Web Vitals as ranking factors in its algorithm. This means your site’s page speed and page loading time will impact your rankings.
And, from Liz Moorehead of ImpactPlus:
…these “page experience signals” will be rolling out in May 2021 as part of an algorithm update, meaning how well you measure up against these page experience…
For me, from now on, the iPad story wil be about iPadOS future releases. Unless Apple drops a big surprise next week, the major iteration for iPadOS will come at the upcoming WWDC conference. Things like better external monitor support, tweaked multitasking, improvements to Files.app just to name a few are mandatory for the next chapter of the iPad.
The latest macOS release, numbered 11.0 and named Big Sur, is a major overhaul of Apple’s oldest operating system platform. Big Sur is a turning point for the Mac (see “My Top 5 iPadOS & iOS Apps for macOS Big Sur”). When running Big Sur on Apple Silicon powered machines, with a few tweaks and the use of third-party utilities, you’ve got a much improved productivity-friendly desktop experience. Here is my setup.
Apple’s macOS Big Sur came pre-installed on my M1 powered Mac mini last fall. I did not restore from a backup to set it up, instead I chose…
Substack is getting a lot of attention, in good and bad ways. They are attracting journalists and great writers, but they also take controversial positions. As a Substack user, with a few things that I don’t like about it, it’s time for me to have a look at alternatives, just in case something goes really bad. In recent weeks, I’ve been testing Buttondown, another newsletter hosting service.
Buttondown competes against Substack, Mailchimp, Tinyletter, to name a few. As a Substack user, I wanted to give a shot at this alternative because, from a distance, it looked better, more professional. …
I hope you are wrong. I don't want to return to this "normality". Sure, there will be get togethers to celebrate but once the new normal settle, we will quickly remember how bad the commute time can be a waste of ... time. We will remember about those over-crowded transportation system can be stressful. We will remember how much time we lose by hearing stupid stories of some toxic collegue in front of our desk making us wish we could be somewhere else. No, I don't want to return to this work environment.
Regarding the famous "you're on mute": if tech companies can do user tracking, crash our democracy, do face recognition, etc. I think they can do something in the area of audio recognition and fix this damn problem.
Friday Notes #15 — Friday Notes are Dead, Long Live Friday Notes: now moving to a new home. Medium is not the best place for hosting these posts. Medium is…
I’ve been on Medium for many years and I learned a few tips along the way on maximizing articles exposure. These tips and tricks made a difference for me.
- If you plan to submit an article to a Medium publication, beware of busy publications: the exposure might not what you would expect. The turn-over is too high, your article won’t stay fresh for long. One example of such busy publication is Mac O'Clock. I did publish many articles for them over time. My content does get some traction, but it is for a very short period of time.
- Articles like…
