Rolandt

I was surprised and honored to be given ACM SIGSOFT’s Influential Educator Award for 2020, though I was a bit surprised by the “influential” part: while I like to think I’ve helped some scientists, nothing I’ve done in the last 20 years has changed software engineering curricula or teaching methods in any noticeable way.

But now that I’ve had a chance to digest the news, I have a few thoughts about software engineering education that I’d like to share. They won’t be new to regular readers of this blog, but I still hope we’ll see movement in this direction in undergraduate SE curricula some day.

1. Stop asking students to follow a process when they can’t. Many software engineering courses put students into project teams and ask them to do all the things they’d do if they were building a product: gather requirements, architect a solution, test it, and so on. That’s great, except that these courses also often ask them to follow some name-brand process like Scrum when they actually can’t: most of them are taking four, five, or six courses concurrently, and since their instructors don’t coordinate homework deadlines, students simply can’t work in the steady, focused fashion that brand-name processes assume.

2. Don’t spend more than a lecture on UML. In the 25 years since its creation I’ve only met one programmer who actually used it, and he was a Russian mathematician who’d read up on knot theory before tying his shoes. My friend and mentor Marian Petre won an award for her paper analyzing why developers mostly ignore it; given that we have better ways to model software (discussed below), I think that forcing it on today’s students is about as useful as requiring doctors to learn Latin.

But if not this, then what?

1. Teach software architecture by example. I taught a senior software architecture course three times in 2006–07, then told the university they should cancel it. The reason was a lack of meaningful material: the eight books I had with “Software Architecture” in their titles told readers how to gather architectural requirements and how to document architectures, but between them devoted a grand total of 20 pages to describing the actual architectures of actual systems.

   Beautiful Code and Architecture of Open Source Applications were attempts to create the raw material I wished I’d had. I believe more strongly than ever that this is the right approach—that we should teach students how to read and reason about the source of medium-to-large applications. The assignments in such a course would include building working models of those applications like Matt Brubeck’s browser engine and Conor Stack’s little database, or comparing and contrasting things like the undo/redo stacks in Emacs and Vim or the data structures beneath Git and Mercurial. I expect graduates of such a course would be much better able to contribute to complex real-world applications, and would know enough about prior art to avoid making all of their predecessors’ mistakes.

2. Teach data science for software engineering. Can we predict whether or not a bug will be fixed based on how quickly someone first responds to it? What is the best indicator of when we’ll be ready to release a package: the number of outstanding bugs or the rate at which new bugs are being found? And are commits on Friday afternoon more or less likely to contain bugs than commits made at other times? Other engineering disciplines tackle their equivalents of these questions by collecting data and analyzing it statistically.

   We should do the same. We should teach software engineers how to collect, clean, analyze, and present data from and about their own products and processes. Conferences like Mining Software Repositories have made a lot of raw material available and produced some fascinating results for students to replicate (or refute). It’s culturally defensible—no one ever got fired for saying that computer science students ought to learn more math—and given how hot data science is right now, students would flock to a course with that title. I expect graduates of such a course would be more skeptical of the bandwagons that roll through Silicon Valley every couple of years, and (from a professorial point of view) would be much better prepared to tackle interesting problems in grad school than most of today’s students.

3. Teach rigorous modeling. Teach students TLA+ and Alloy. Their user interfaces are awful, but if enough young programmers are exposed to the joy of rigor, one of them will eventually create a tool that’s usable as well as powerful.

Changing the curriculum is always hard, but trying to do things the right way when your situation won’t let you is harder, and having to pass exams on things you know you’ll never use is harder still. I think we owe it to our students to change as well as teach; I hope I can use whatever influence I have to push us in that direction, and if you’d like to help, please get in touch.

In almost every community I work with today, members shift between a central community site and various social media tools.

They might meet on a site you host, but their interactions will spill out all over the place.

Generally, members use social media for quick messages and self-expression.

If people have a quick question or want to update members on what they’re doing. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram seem to be their preferred tools.

If they want to convey their identity, they increasingly turn to social media instead of their member profiles.

If they have a more complicated question or need more detailed information, they turn to the community.

This has three implications.

1) You’re going to need to be engaging with your audience on social media too. Answering quick questions from members is as important as complicated questions. It helps to promote a simple hashtag for members to use (#companyname works fine).

2) You need to design your community site accordingly. Speed of response might be less important in the future than the quality and quantity of responses. It has to be a repository of the best information that pulls in the best content from social media too. Search is going to be a critical piece of the puzzle too.

3) Give members assets to display on social. If members primarily use social media for self-expression, giving them assets which they can display on social (avatars, great photo opportunities) is going to be more important than gamification badges. Even status as an official ‘verified member’ can be powerful.

If you’ve been avoiding social media so far, it might be time to dive in.

Rogers and Fido are changing their device unlocking policy for customers who still have locked phones to ensure only people that are or where valid Rogers customers can unlock devices sold at by the carrier.

This seems to be an effort to stop people from re-selling stolen phones unlocked through Rogers.

The policy now states that you must be an active Rogers customer, or have been a Rogers customer in the past 12-months with no outstanding fees, to unlock your device. For example, this means that if you have an old iPhone from 2016 you bought from Rogers but haven’t unlocked since the Wireless Code went into effect, you’ll need to be a Rogers customer still or have left within the last year to do so.

This change goes into effect on April 21st. Following this date, anyone who recently left Rogers’ network with a locked handset should take advantage of this now.

To be clear, customers who purchased a phone from Rogers since 2017 when the Wireless Code went into effect don’t need to worry about this shift since their device was sold already unlocked.

Back in 2017, the CRTC ruled that all cell phones sold in Canada must be unlocked. Since then, Bell and its flanker brand Virgin Mobile have circumvented that rule by stocking locked phones in stores and only unlocking devices during the activation process. The carrier states that it did this to help curb smartphone theft as well.

It’s unclear if Telus and Bell have similar restrictions like Rogers in their unlocking policies. MobileSyrup has reached out for clarification from Telus and Bell. This story will be updated with more information when it becomes available.

If you want to find out more about the CRTC’s unlocking fee ruling, you can read our prior reporting here.

Update 04/21/2020 8:47pm: An early version of this story featured inaccurate information. MobileSyrup regrets this error.

The post Rogers and Fido now requiring that only subscribers can unlock phones appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Popular video-conferencing service Zoom will soon be adding a feature to allow hosts to report participants in a meeting.

This means that users will soon be able to report ‘Zoomboming,’ which refers to unauthorized people entering meetings and displaying hateful or inappropriate content.

The new feature will be available to users in a new update being released on April 26th, according to the app’s release notes.

“This feature will generate a report which will be sent to the Zoom Trust and Safety team to evaluate any misuse of the platform and block a user if necessary,” the update description notes.

Zoom has experienced a significant surge in users across the world as lockdown measures are requiring people to work, study and socialize from home. The platform had a maximum of 10 million daily users in December, but the number has increased to 200 million by March.

However, as its popularity has increased, its many security and privacy issues are coming to the surface. Security experts have revealed numerous flaws with Zoom’s software that can easily be exploited.

In response, the platform recently added new privacy measures to address the several security shortcomings present in the service.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently said that the company failed to fully implement its best practices due to added service capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Zoom Via: The Verge 

The post Zoom will soon let hosts report participants to crack down on ‘Zoomboming’ appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Will things like digital contact tracing leave a legacy of better privacy norms, or worse ones?

The conversation about privacy and the pandemic — and about the idea of digital contact tracing in particular — has shifted a great deal in the last few weeks. It’s moved from an understandable ‘we don’t want to live in this dystopian science fiction novel’ gut response (my initial gut reaction) to a vigorous debate about whether privacy-by-design and good data governance make it possible to trace COVID contacts in a way that we can all trust (I’m still trying to sort through all this). A recent tweet from @hackylawyER summed up the state of the conversation nicely:

I’m not happy things are headed this way but if they are, we’d damn well better have safeguards.

Watching all of this, I’ve tried to step back and ask myself: what exactly are we worried about? And, amidst the rush to tech solutions, is this all downside for privacy and data governance, or is there an upside? Could we actually use this moment to set new and better norms for privacy?

What are we worried about?

The gut reaction worries are obvious: tracking everyone (or the bulk of people) with a smartphone to monitor COVID exposure could go wrong in myriad ways if done poorly or if the data falls into the wrong hands. And, on top of it, many have called into question whether this kind of tracking is even effective at stopping the spread of the virus. There is a legitimate worry that we could quickly find ourselves inside a huge mass surveillance experiment that has limited or no return in terms of public health and safety. Questions about efficacy and privacy are step one in considering whether or not to roll out contact tracing. While it’s far from universal, a fair number of governments are digging into these questions in earnest.

There is also a longer term, potentially more serious worry that seems to be getting less consideration: that governments, tech platforms and telcos working together to track citizens at scale becomes normalized in democracies. And, that this kind of surveillance gets used for reasons other than tackling the pandemic. Earlier this week, an open letter on digital contact tracing by scientists and researchers from 26 countries noted that:

… some “solutions” to the crisis may, via mission creep, result in systems which would allow unprecedented surveillance of society at large.

Centralized approaches like BlueTrace in Singapore include the collection of significant information about citizens and their contacts. And there are indications that some governments are pressuring Google and Apple to modify their decentralized approach to provide health officials with more information. As we learned from the Snowden experience, the in-the-moment desire to collect information about citizens in crisis can lead to a systemic invasion of privacy that lasts decades.

A few weeks ago, I was worried that this was where we were headed: increased government and tech company surveillance as the new norm. The rallying of the privacy and data governance communities has me cautiously hopeful that we could go in the opposite direction. There may be a chance to use this moment to set new and better norms for privacy.

Embracing privacy-by-design

One source of this hope has been the rapid momentum that has grown behind decentralized, Bluetooth-based approaches to contact tracing. This general approach was initially proposed by academic groups like DP3T in Europe and PACT in the US, and was picked up by Apple and Google as something they could roll out across all their smartphones. The idea is to use Bluetooth to collect contact data locally on phones, leaving it there (and private) unless a person tests positive for COVID. In that case, a set of ‘beacons’ informs possible contacts that they may want to self isolate and get tested. Governments don’t get access to any of the contact data, striking a balance between public health and privacy. This comic explains the concept better than I can.

The hopeful piece here is not just the decentralized approach itself — it has pros and cons — but more importantly the quick embrace of privacy-by-design by governments, tech platforms and academics. As a Chaos Computer Club blog post notes:

In principle, the concept of a “Corona App” involves an enormous risk due to the contact and health data that may be collected. At the same time, there is a chance for “privacy-by-design” concepts and technologies that have been developed by the crypto and privacy community over the last decades. With the help of these technologies, it is possible to unfold the epidemiological potential of contact tracing without creating a privacy disaster.

As the post notes, the idea that privacy should be a foundational part of any digital product and service design has been around for decades — but it has been an uphill battle to make this way of thinking mainstream. The current setting may offer a chance for this way of thinking to make a leap forward, and to nudge governments and tech companies towards the idea that privacy-by-design should be the norm.

Good ideas for governing tech and data

While receiving less attention, there has also been a wave of constructive work on how to govern contact tracing efforts. As a leading proponent of decentralized contact tracing said in a recent tweet:

Contact tracing apps, even private ones like #DP3T, need more than technical safeguards. @lilianedwards has been leading on our effort to draft a Coronavirus (Safeguards) Bill for the UK Parliament — which limits what these apps can be used for in practice.

Ensuring digital privacy is not only a matter of technology, but also a matter of rules, policy, oversight and stewardship. Getting privacy right — and making sure we don’t slide into ‘unprecedented surveillance of society at large’ that the recent letter from scientists warns of — will require us to develop smart approaches to governing any technology we put in place to tackle the pandemic. Unfortunately, smart data governance is even less commonplace than privacy-by-design.

The good news is that thoughtful and practical data governance proposals are quickly emerging. For example, the draft Coronavirus (Safeguards) Bill mentioned above would place strict purpose, access and time constraints on any technology that was rolled out to manage the pandemic. It also addresses topics related to inclusion, ensuring that no one is penalized for not having a phone. Others have called for the creation of independent ‘data trusts’ or trust-like mechanisms to ensure the interests of citizens are represented in the design of tracking technology and the handling of data. Like the decentralized technology approaches outlined above, these data governance proposals would allow us to meet both privacy and public health goals if governments are motivated to listen.

We can make good decisions now, or bad ones

It’s heartening to see how engineers, lawyers and activists who have long championed privacy have stepped up in creative and constructive ways to answer the question: if we end up building this stuff, how do we make sure it has the right guardrails?

Much of the thinking and evidence from this work has been summarized in the Exit Through the App Store report that Ada Lovelace Institute released earlier this week. The report shows that we have the technical and policy tools that we need to make good decisions about technologies like digital contact tracing (e.g. use a decentralized tech approach). It also points out that we could easily rush into this and make bad decisions (e.g. use a centralized approach).

The design decisions we make will have a huge impact whether we move into an era where privacy-by-design and good data governance are the norm, or end up laying the data gathering foundations for the dystopian science fiction future that many of us imagined when we first heard the term ‘contact tracing’ a few short weeks back.

It’s up to us — and, in particular, our governments — to decide which way we go.

The post Privacy Norms and the Pandemic appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

TL;DR: Trump weaponized the term fake news. In doing so, he undermined important notions like investigation, reason, and factuality. This is a problem that startup founders ought to solve. It strikes me that Trump exhibited a stroke of brilliance by co-opting the term “fake news”. In just two words, he was able to cast doubt […]

The post Well Played… Now What? appeared first on Eric Karjaluoto.

Here’s a short update on the pandemic situation, partly spurred by crude oil prices having reached zero this week and because we’re now a little over 50 days into it here.

I’m pretty much exhausted. “Regular” work plus a few overlapping deadlines plus whatever household chores I can manage and all the random stuff that comes with being permanently home means I can’t find the time to relax, let alone do something borderline creative.

Days are mostly the same. Mostly about work (I was up at 8AM on Easter Sunday for a conference with folk in the Middle East) and lack of time.

Our freezer died a few days ago, which put a lot of things into perspective since (besides rushing to save all the food) resurrecting it meant having a technician over, all of which entailed sanitizing everything with a rather large amount of chlorine (which is also in short supply).

There is news regarding the state of emergency here in Portugal being lifted sometime in early May, although to be honest I think we’re being overly optimistic, since case reporting has been erratic at best, and even applying a 7-day moving average the pandemic is still quite active in the northern part of the country, with confirmed cases progressing at roughly the same rate (the discontinuities are due to constant changes in reporting methods):

So I expect curfew of some sort to become a cyclic thing, and am planning accordingly. I understand people are fundamentally fed up with being home (something I can readily relate to having no garden, patio or anywhere else to go but a balcony), but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that loosening the restrictions isn’t going to do us any favors:

Meanwhile, the kids have sort of adapted to online schooling (even though teachers have regretfully picked Zoom as their go-to solution, which just goes to show how hard it is to get anyone to understand security), and online shopping seems to be converging to some sort of steady state (delivery slots are improving, food stocks are iffy but OK, hardware and electronics are all running out), so…

Let’s give it another month or so. Then I’m going to take a seriously long break.

TP-Link’s newest Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers will soon be available in Canada.

Starting in May, both the Deco X60 AX3000 and the Deco X20 AX1800 ‘Mesh WiFi 6 Whole Home Routers’ will be available online at Best Buy Canada and other select retailers. Both products are similar in function and ability, with small differences in theoretical max speeds and other specs.

TP-Link says the routers feature next-gen Wi-Fi 6 technology like multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO), orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) and 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). If that doesn’t mean much to you, that’s okay. In practice, those technologies increase network capacity and efficiency.

For example, the Deco X60 and X20 can support up to 150 connected devices without impacting performance thanks to MU-MIMO and OFDMA. Additionally, 1024-QAM helps boost speeds up to 3Gbps on the X60 and 1.8Gbps on the X20. While certainly impressive, it’s important to note that the numbers on the box don’t necessarily translate to real-world speed. Other factors such as the internet speed you pay for, house layout and signal interference can impact performance.

That said, TP-Link says the Deco X60 and X20 support features like ‘BSS Coloring,’ which detects and marks data from neighbouring Wi-Fi networks to avoid slowdowns and unnecessary interference. Meanwhile, the mesh routers also support ‘beamforming,’ which can optimize connections based on the location of devices for better signal.

Finally, both the X60 and X20 include support for WP3 encryption as well as TP-Link HomeCare, which is powered by TrendMicro. HomeCare includes antivirus software, parental controls and a quality of service (QoS) controller. Customers can use the Deco app to quickly set up and manage the routers and both the X60 and X20 work with Amazon Alexa.

The Deco X60 will be available in a 3-pack configuration starting in May 2020 with an MSRP of $549.99. The X20 will also come in a 3-pack configuration with an MSRP of $399.99.

You can learn more about the Deco mesh Wi-Fi routers on TP-Link’s website.

The post TP-Link’s Deco X60, X20 Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers will launch in Canada next month appeared first on MobileSyrup.

This is a response to the Marc Andreesen article I cited here yesterday. "I actually agree that education in America is in a bad place but we’re in a crisis. And even if we weren’t this isn’t a problem of building. It’s a problem of leadership, policy and bureaucracy... It’s a really hard and long term problem that is rarely solved by budgets and technology alone." I would also link to Andrew Yang but it's behind a paywall, so I'll just quote him here: "our biggest problems generally don't have market-based solutions and the true solutions often aren't aligned with profit maximizing activities the way they are currently defined." (Source). This is a problem I've run up against my entire career: you can't get companies to support projects that don't improve their bottom live, even if the project produces a broad social benefit.

laughingsquid:

Stanley Tucci Calmly Shows How to Make a Negroni

Today we’re bringing you a guest post from German data journalist Simon Haas, who recently wrote about how to use live-updating JSON data in Google Sheets and Datawrapper – without any code. We were intrigued. Here’s Simon article in an extended version:

There are tons of APIs out there that provide near real-time data that you can use to create automated charts and maps with free tools like Datawrapper, like coronavirus case data or stock market data.

Those APIs usually provide data in JSON format, like in this API by Muhammad Mustadi that provides data about coronavirus cases, collected by the Johns Hopkins University:

This article explains how you can import this JSON data into a Google Sheets table and make sure that it gets updated automatically. There’s no coding or web server required, plus people can collaborate in your spreadsheet and collect data from other sources.

The table I created for the German public-service TV broadcaster ZDF. Find it in its natural habitat here.

Eventually, we create a nice-looking Datawrapper table (the one above) showing the worst-hit countries by the novel coronavirus based on data by Johns Hopkins, including:

• confirmed cases
• COVID-19 related deaths
• a seven-day average of the daily confirmed new cases and deaths
• and how that average changed compared to the prior seven days

Let’s start:

Step 1: Copy sample sheet and scripts

• Go to this Google Sheet file I prepared for you.
• In Google Sheets, click on File → Make a copy. This will also copy two scripts, ImportJSON and triggerAutoRefresh that you can find in Tools → Script Editor.

The spreadsheet should become available in your Google Drive. Thanks to the ImportJSON script, it’s now possible to populate your Google Spreadsheet with JSON data from the API.

Just replace the URL in the corresponding sheet with your API of choice.

In the sample spreadsheet you find these in cell A1 of the allCountriesCases sheet:

=ImportJSON("https://covid19.mathdro.id/api/confirmed", "/", "noTruncate;noInherit", doNotDelete!$A$1)

and in cell J2 in topCountriesTimeline:

=TRANSPOSE(ImportJSON("https://pomber.github.io/covid19/timeseries.json"; "/US"; "noInherit,noTruncate,noHeaders"; doNotDelete!$A$1))

The last formula imports the pomber/covid19 API and automatically switches its rows with columns (= “transposes”).

Brad Jasper, the developer behind ImportJSON, explains its option parameter here.

Step 2: Set up a Google “trigger”

Almost done! Next step: Set up a script that generates a random number every x minutes, thus triggering an auto-refresh in your Google sheet.

1. Go to script.google.com/home/all
2. Open the menu (three vertical dots) next to ImportJSON
3. Click on Triggers. This will open a new page.
4. Click on the blue button in the bottom right, Add Trigger. A pop-up will open in which you can decide on settings for your trigger:
   • Choose which function to run should be set to triggerAutoRefresh
   • Select event source should be set to Time-driven
   • Select type of time-based trigger should be set to Minutes timer
   • Select minute interval: 15 might be a reasonable value in our case

Step 3: Prepare the data for your visualization

The first sheet datawrapper will be used for your visualization. I recommend to import the JSONs in other sheets, do calculations there, then pull them from the first sheet.

If you’re wondering where the arrows in the Trend column come from: Those are calculated in the sheet topCountriesTimeline starting at cell I3.

=IF(AND(H3>=-0.0449, H3<=0.0449), "➙", IF(AND(H3>=0.045),"➚", "➘"))

Just change the numbers if you prefer other thresholds.

The Cases column gets calculated like so:

=IFERROR(CONCATENATE(TEXT(topCountriesSorted!D7,"#,##0")," ^",TEXT(topCountriesSorted!F7,"+#,##0;-#,##0"),"^"),"Server-Fehler")

This results in 760,520 ^+29,110^ (probably a higher number by the time you’re reading this), which is the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States and how many new cases got reported since yesterday. Datawrapper will notice the two ^'s and make two lines out of it.

What does the formula do? First of all, if there’s an error (IFERROR – e.g. if the JSON is broken), the text in the cell will become “server error”. But if everything is ok, Google Sheets will pull the case numbers from two different columns in the topCountriesSorted sheet.

Because you will show two numbers per cell in your final Datawrapper table, Datawrapper recognizes them as text instead of numbers. Adjusting the number format in Datawrapper won’t be possible anymore. You can transform the numbers to text in the right number format with TEXT(D7, "#,##0") before importing them to Datawrapper.

Step 4: Visualize your data

That’s it! You can now visualize your data with Datawrapper and embed the result on your website. To do so, create a new chart, then select Link external data source (not Import Google Spreadsheet) in step 1: Upload data.

Now paste the Google Sheets URL. Make sure your Google sheet is set to Anyone with the link can view when you click the green Share button. You can find a detailed explanation in this Datawrapper Academy article.

Once that’s done, go to step 2: Check & Describe and select English (en-US) as your Output locale. In step 3: Visualize, tick Parse markdown, Merge with emtpy cells and Add first row to header to properly display the table.

Flags can be displayed with Replace country codes with flags. The Countries column is for desktop, Country for mobile only.

This is how your final table looks like:

How it works

Two scripts in your Google spreadsheet are doing all the work for you: ImportJSON.​gs and triggerAutoRefresh.​gs. The latter one generates a random number in cell A1 of your sheet doNotDelete each time it gets triggered. If you change the sheet’s name, you’ll need to change the function in triggerAutoRefresh.gs, too. You can access both scripts in Google Sheets in Tools → Script Editor.

This article is based on a tutorial by Vadorequest. The table is inspired by spiegel.de & sueddeutsche.de. The APIs used in the sample sheet come from pomber/covid19 & mathdroid/covid-19-api.

Thanks for this great guest post, Simon! Make sure to follow Simon on Twitter (@simondhaas) and find other projects he worked on over at simonhaas.de. If you’re learning something and would like to teach it to others, get in touch with Lisa at lisa@datawrapper.de – we’re always looking for data- and Datawrapper-related guest posts.

It was, at first glance, hard to understand how anyone could be upset at the idea that It’s Time to Build. That’s the title of a recent essay by Marc Andreessen, and of course I agree; I expressed the same sort of frustration Andreessen opens with last month in Compaq and Coronavirus:

There has been divergence between countries that acted and countries that talked. Taiwan, where I live, is perhaps the best example of the former…The contrast with Western countries is stark: to the extent government officials across the Western world were discussing the coronavirus a month ago, it was to express support for China or insist that life carry on as before; I already praised the role Twitter played in sounding the alarm — often in the face of downplaying from the media — but even that was, by definition, talk. What does not appear to have happened anywhere across the West is any sort of meaningful action until it was far too late…

The first problem of being a society of talk, not action, is the inability to even consider hard work as a solution; the second is a blindness to the real trade-offs at play. The third, though, is the most sinister of all: if talk is all that matters, then policing talk becomes an end to itself.

“Action” is a different word than “build”, but, at least from my perspective, they express the same sentiment: bend the world to our will, instead of simply accepting our fate. In that light Andreessen’s article was meaningful not for the examples of what might be built, but rather for arguing for the action of building as an end goal in and of itself.

Andreessen and Me

Andreessen, who today is perhaps more well-known for his eponymous venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is first-and-foremost a living legend for having created Mosaic, the first web browser that supported graphics; Mosaic became the basis for Netscape’s Navigator, whose 1995 IPO kicked off the dot-com era.

An irony of Andreessen’s claim to fame, though, is that while it provided access to information from anywhere by anyone, perhaps the most important impact on Andreessen was getting him out of the Midwest and to Silicon Valley. That, at least, was a theory put forward in a fascinating 2015 profile in the New Yorker:

One afternoon, as we sat at his baronial dining table, he made an agonized but sincere effort to discuss his blue-collar childhood without mentioning his nuclear family. “I really identified with Charles Schulz in the David Michaelis biography of him, ‘Schulz and Peanuts,’ ” he said. I was struck by the parallels between Andreessen and both “Peanuts” — in which Charlie Brown has a massive bald head and the parents are kept offstage — and its creator. Charles Schulz, who grew up in Minnesota, was socially awkward, hated being embraced, and loathed his mother’s Norwegian relatives, a farming family. Andreessen went on, “Ninety-six per cent of the people who grow up like he and I did, in the Midwest, just stay there, but the ones who leave” — the cartoonist, too, moved to California — “become intensely interested in the future. In Schulz’s last ten years, he really focussed on Rerun, Linus’s younger brother—the youngest and most optimistic character.”

I can, given my own childhood in small-town Wisconsin and current residence in a country so far West it is called East, relate to Andreessen in this regard. For me, the Internet was a way out, first to learn, and then to live abroad, and now, a way to make a living. I know it gives me a positive bias towards technology; I’m not convinced it is wholly unearned, but an easier way out should always be viewed with some amount of suspicion.

Software Eats the World

This perspective led to Andreessen’s most famous essay, 2011’s Why Software Is Eating The World:

My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services — from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.

Why is this happening now?

Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale. Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day.

On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees. In 2000, when my partner Ben Horowitz was CEO of the first cloud computing company, Loudcloud, the cost of a customer running a basic Internet application was approximately $150,000 a month. Running that same application today in Amazon’s cloud costs about $1,500 a month.

With lower start-up costs and a vastly expanded market for online services, the result is a global economy that for the first time will be fully digitally wired — the dream of every cyber-visionary of the early 1990s, finally delivered, a full generation later.

Andreessen was right, which was good for him for lots of reasons. First, it’s good to be right generally, and even better to write the defining piece of an era.

Second, software is, as I have discussed previously, perfectly suited to venture capital: it has significant capital costs, and mostly zero marginal costs, which means there is a big need for up-front investment combined with unlimited upside. In other words, if software is eating the world, then it is the venture capitalists who are among the best positioned to get fat, at least in theory (that noted, one would have likely been better off investing in the Big 5 tech companies in 2011 — for reasons I discussed last week — than in Andreessen Horowitz’s funds).

Third, in Andreessen’s vision, Silicon Valley was doing the disrupting from, well, Silicon Valley, which had always been the plan. Andreessen told Wired in 2012 that when it came to Andreessen Horowitz (Chris Anderson, the interviewer, is in bold):

Our vision was to be a throwback: a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. We were going to be a single-office firm, focusing primarily on companies in the US and then, within that, primarily companies in Silicon Valley. And — this is the crucial thing — we’re only going to invest in companies based on computer science, no matter what sector their business is in. We are looking to invest in what we call primary technology companies.

Give me an example.

Airbnb—the startup that lets you rent out your home or a room in your home. Ten years ago you would never have said you could build Airbnb, which is looking to transform real estate with a new primary technology. But now the market’s big enough…everything inside of how Airbnb runs has much more in common with Facebook or Google or Microsoft or Oracle than with any real estate company. What makes Airbnb function is its software engine, which matches customers to properties, sets prices, flags potential problems. It’s a tech company — a company where, if the developers all quit tomorrow, you’d have to shut the company down. To us, that’s a good thing.

I’m probably a little bit elitist in this, but I think a “primary technology” would need to involve, you know, some fundamental new insight in code, some proprietary set of algorithms.

Oh, I agree. I think Airbnb is building a software technology that is equivalent in complexity, power, and importance to an operating system. It’s just applied to a sector of the economy instead. This is the basic insight: Software is eating the world. The Internet has now spread to the size and scope where it has become economically viable to build huge companies in single domains, where their basic, world-changing innovation is entirely in the code.

Software eating the world, with zero marginal costs, all from Silicon Valley.

It’s Time to Build

This, as far as I can tell, is where the disconnect for some comes with It’s Time to Build.1 The sort of building Andreessen calls for is very much in the real world, costs real money both up-front and on a marginal basis, and would surely make the most sense anywhere but Silicon Valley. From the essay:

Why do we not have these things? Medical equipment and financial conduits involve no rocket science whatsoever. At least therapies and vaccines are hard! Making masks and transferring money are not hard. We could have these things but we chose not to — specifically we chose not to have the mechanisms, the factories, the systems to make these things. We chose not to *build*.

You don’t just see this smug complacency, this satisfaction with the status quo and the unwillingness to build, in the pandemic, or in healthcare generally. You see it throughout Western life, and specifically throughout American life.

You see it in housing and the physical footprint of our cities. We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities with surging economic potential — which results in crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it nearly impossible for regular people to move in and take the jobs of the future. We also can’t build the cities themselves anymore. When the producers of HBO’s “Westworld” wanted to portray the American city of the future, they didn’t film in Seattle or Los Angeles or Austin — they went to Singapore. We should have gleaming skyscrapers and spectacular living environments in all our best cities at levels way beyond what we have now; where are they?

You see it in education…manufacturing…transportation…

The point about Singapore — Asia broadly — could be made about every point that followed. And that includes the response to the coronavirus.

Andreessen then states what he sees as the problems:

The problem is desire. We need to want these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want new companies to build these things, even if incumbents don’t like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things.

This leads to the core question about Silicon Valley and its relationship to Andreessen’s essay: has tech — specifically the software-centric tech that Andreessen has done more than anyone to proselytize — been the primary source of American innovation because it represented the future? Or has it been the future because it was the only space where innovation was possible, because of things like inertia and regulatory capture in the real world?

I can’t speak for Andreessen, but having observed him for many years I would guess the answer was mostly the former: Andreessen’s entire career, from Mosaic to Loudcloud to Ning, has been about creating space online, obviating the constraints of the real world, which wasn’t worth much anyways. From that Wired interview:

Think about Borders, the bookstore chain. Amazon drove Borders out of business, and the vast majority of Borders employees are not qualified to work at Amazon. That’s an actual, full-on problem. But should Amazon have been prevented from doing that? In my view, no. Because it’s so much better to live in a world where that happened, it’s so much better to live in a world where Amazon is ascendant. I told you that my childhood bookstore was something you had to drive an hour to get to. But it was a Waldenbooks, and it was, like, 800 square feet, and it sold almost nothing that you would actually want to read. It’s such a better world where we have Amazon, where everything is universally available. They’re a force for human progress and culture and economics in a way that Borders never was.

Human progress in this view is solely online.

What Tech Must Do

I agree with Andreessen that much of the software revolution is inevitable; I also agree that tech’s seeming exclusivity on innovation has also been about the online space being the one place without the inertia and regulatory capture Andreessen decries. If you are talented and ambitious, what better place to be?

What I also sense in Andreessen’s essay, though, is the acknowledgment that tech too has chosen the easier path. Instead of fighting inertia or regulatory capture, it has been easier to retreat to Silicon Valley, justify the massive costs of doing so by pursuing infinite-upside outcomes predicated on zero marginal costs, which means relying almost exclusively on software as the means of innovation. To put it another way, where did Andreessen’s personal preferences end and his vision begin? Note this paragraph:

Building isn’t easy, or we’d already be doing all this. We need to demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors. We need to demand more of our culture, of our society. And we need to demand more from one another. We’re all necessary, and we can all contribute, to building.

What it means to ask more of one another, at least in tech, is right there in the overlap between preferences and vision.

First, tech should embrace and accelerate distributed work. It makes tech more accessible to more people. It seeds more parts of the country with potential entrepreneurs. It dramatically decreases the cost of living for employees. It creates the conditions for more stable companies that can take on less risky yet still necessary opportunities that may throw off a nice dividend instead of an IPO. And, critically, it gives tech companies a weapon to wield against overbearing regulation, because companies can always pick up and leave.

Second, invest in real-world companies that differentiate investment in hardware with software. This hardware could be machines for factories, or factories themselves; it could be new types of transportation, or defense systems. The possibilties, at least once you let go of the requirement for 90% gross margins, are endless.

Third — and related to both of the above — figure out an investing model that is suited to outcomes that have a higher likelihood of success along with a lower upside. This is truly the most important piece — and where Andreessen, given his position, can make the most impact. Andreessen Horowitz has thought more about how to change venture capital than anyone else, but the fundamental constraint has remained the assumption of high costs, high risk, and grand slam outcomes. We should keep that model, but surely there is room for another?

I do believe that It’s Time to Build stands alone: the point is not the details, or the author, but the sentiment. The changes that are necessary in America must go beyond one venture capitalist, or even the entire tech industry. The idea that too much regulation has made tech the only place where innovation is possible is one that must be grappled with, and fixed.

And yet, Andreessen himself said that we need to demand more from one another. We need to figure out how to fix Wisconsin, not flee from it. We need to figure out how to build real businesses that build real things, not virtualize everything. And we need to start fighting for not just infinite upside, but the sort of minute changes in cities, states, and nations that will make it possible to build the future.

1. I see no point in bothering with those who appear to hate technology, and particularly Andreessen, as a lifestyle.

Apple’s rumoured upcoming 5G iPad Pro may be delayed until 2021 due to supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19.

According to details shared in an Economic Daily News report, the new 5G iPad was supposed to launch in the fall. Apple is expected to prioritize the launch of the rumoured iPhone 12, which will also feature 5G. 9to5Mac reports that testing of the flagship iPhone is behind schedule and the launch could be delayed by weeks.

As such, it comes as no surprise that Apple would delay the rumoured fall 2020 iPad launch. Despite Apple already launching a refreshed iPad Pro this year, the rumour mill predicted a second launch in the fall with a larger refresh and a focus on 5G.

Along with the next generation of wireless connectivity, the new iPad Pro was rumoured to use a mini-LED display instead of OLED. It would also likely include the LIDAR sensor and ultra-wide camera featured on the 2020 iPad Pro. Further, the fall iPad Pro was expected to use the upcoming 5nm A14 architecture in its chip. Apple is expected to launch the new A14 chip in the iPhone 12 in the fall as well.

Why mini-LED and not OLED?

For those unfamiliar with mini-LED, the technology is a stop-gap between LCD and OLED panels. What makes OLED panels so great is that each pixel is its own light source. In other words, when an OLED panel wants to display dark colours or black, it can dim or turn off the pixels entirely. Because LCD panels have backlighting to illuminate the display, they can’t show deep blacks as the backlight will bleed through.

However, mini-LED panels use multiple smaller ‘dimming zones’ instead of one large backlight. These zones can be turned on and off individually and allow for deeper blacks than an LCD panel. Plus, mini-LED displays are cheaper and don’t suffer from the same burn-in and colour shift issues as OLED screens.

Previously, reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted the company would release several new mini-LED devices, including a new MacBook Pro. Further, the company is reportedly working on a new ‘micro-LED’ technology that can achieve per-pixel lighting like an OLED screen but without the downsides. Unfortunately, it could be several years before the much more complex micro-LED tech is ready.

Finally, the 5G iPad Pro model is expected to use Qualcomm modems. Likewise, the upcoming iPhone 12 will also use Qualcomm modems. The shift comes after Apple settled a long-running legal dispute with the company. However, Apple is also reportedly developing its own custom modem designs in order to remove its dependency on Qualcomm. Those parts won’t be available until at least 2022.

Source: Economic Daily News Via: 9to5Mac

The post Apple’s rumoured 5G iPad Pro may be delayed until 2021: report appeared first on MobileSyrup.

General Motors has shut down its car-sharing service Maven, citing COVID-19 as the last straw that put the startup under.

Maven launched in 2016 but wasn’t available in Canada until 2018 when it rolled out in Toronto. The company allows users to rent/borrow GM-owned cars and select GM-owners’ vehicles for a fee to compete with other car-sharing services like Zip-Car.

#Maven car service has shut down. pic.twitter.com/iQquTGfPKm

— Cameron Wykes (@cameronwykes) April 21, 2020

Last month, the company suspended its operations due to the pandemic and after looking at the business, it’s decided to wind it down and officially close its doors. Even before that, the future was looking bleak for Maven. It shuttered its operations in many American cities during 2019.

In a statement to The Verge, GM said that it has learned valuable information about operating a car-sharing platform during its time behind Maven’s wheel. The automaker also says that it can apply what its learned to other GM-owned businesses.

Source: The Verge

The post GM shuts down Maven car-sharing platform in Toronto appeared first on MobileSyrup.

If the coronavirus self-isolation is provoking anything, it seems to be rumoured Apple product releases. A new report from the China Times says that Apple is working on a revamped 23-inch iMac and a new low-cost iPad.

Other recent leaks also point to a gesture control ring, a redesigned iPhone and a game controller.

The new iMac leak seems to get the most attention in the report where its says we can expect it in the final quarter of 2020. Still, it likely won’t have a Mini-LED display since the coronavirus is causing some complications with the new display technology.

9to5Mac is hoping that Apple will take this opportunity to shrink the display’s bezels and refresh the design. I can get behind this because other than the Pro Display XDR, we haven’t gotten a Mac display refresh in a while. Therefore I’m hoping that Apple will refresh the iMac lineup to look more like the Pro Display, but if Mini-LED is out of the picture for this year, I’m skeptical Apple will actually do this.

On the iPad end of things, the report says “low-cost iPad Air,” so it’s hard to pin this one down as well. Especially since Apple’s iPad lineup is so convoluted right now. The report also mentions an 11-inch screen size, which would suggest it might get a design change to match the 11-inch iPad Pro.

This leaves the question, what will happen to the 10.2-inch iPad and the iPad Air? In my opinion, Apple should scrap the Air and price this new iPad as close as it can to the existing entry-level iPad’s $429 price tag.

This device is supposed to start production in Q3 of this year.

Source: 9to5Mac, China Times

The post Apple planning new 23-inch iMac and 11-inch base-level iPad: report appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Tony Bates writes that many people have been writing that the sudden shift to online learning has disadvantaged a number of underserved populations. The use of technology, he says, "can easily increase existing inequalities, and this is a real danger of just moving everything online without considering the full implications." Agreed. But the move online was the right one, because completely shutting down all education would have been irresponsible. However, he says, "Institutions and school boards need to develop back-up strategies for students who will have difficulties, either because of where they live or because they are in at risk groups for online learning." Again, agreed. It would have been nice had these back-up strategies been in place long before now, and provision made to ensure everyone in society benefits from education and technology, but I for one applaud our community's newly-renewed concern for the poor, the remote, the disconnected, and the disadvantaged.

You heard that right, Pixelmator for iOS just got an awesome major update! in Pixelmator 2.5, we’ve added a brand new, Files-based document browser, a new photo browser that makes it easier to browse and open images from your Photos library, and new image size presets along with a new browser.

Native Document Browser

Use the new Files-based document browser to open and manage your documents.

New Photo Browser

Use the new Files-based document browser to open and manage your documents.

Image Size Presets

Quickly create new images with common sizes.

A big step for Pixelmator for iOS

This update is a really big deal for Pixelmator for iOS. These new features might not be amazingly flashy but they’re incredibly important to the future of Pixelmator for iOS. And the headline feature is the awesome Files-based document browser, bringing a much-improved file browsing and opening experience along with great features like file search, tagging, and more.

Ever since the Files app was introduced, it was obvious it would be absolutely perfect for Pixelmator and we’ve been waiting for the right moment to replace our gallery with it. As we start working to refresh and update Pixelmator for iOS, this always had to be the they key first step in that process. And while it may seem relatively simple, this update actually took us around 6 months to design, develop, and test — a lot of work!

Today, we couldn’t be happier to be able to share this with you. The update is a free for all existing Pixelmator users and is available to download from the App Store right now.

Download now

That’s it for this round of major updates (we also recently updated Pixelmator Pro and Pixelmator Photo), next stop — more great updates and new features (of course!) and some new tutorials and other user materials over the coming weeks. Until next time!

Neighbourhoods are taking possession of their greenways.

Or, rather, pinkways.

It’s that time of year in Vancouver East.  From the 1950s on, thousands of flowering cherries and plums have been planted on the avenues east of Ontario.  When flying into YVR, if anyone could at the moment, you’d see a grid of pink outlining the streets as they curve over the slope of the city.

On the streets themselves (in this case 14th and 15th Avenues near Main Street) people aren’t acting as though the car was ever-present and dominant, to be yielded to at all times.  Because at the moment, it isn’t.

There’s a little psychic no-no that pops up whenever you walk down the centre of a street.  It’s caution.  And it gets in the way of just assuming that what you’re doing is okay.

When two mothers with their strollers are comfortable walking in the middle of the street, it’s definitely okay.

Then more and more follow.

Et voila.  The neighbourhood has possession.

Thanks to Tracy Wilkins for the pics.

mkalus shared this story from Price Tags.

Neighbourhoods are taking possession of their greenways.

Or, rather, pinkways.

It’s that time of year in Vancouver East.  From the 1950s on, thousands of flowering cherries and plums have been planted on the avenues east of Ontario.  When flying into YVR, if anyone could at the moment, they’d see a grid of pink outlining the streets as they curve over the slope of the city.

On the streets themselves (in this case 14th and 15th Avenues near Main Street) people aren’t acting as though the car wasn’t ever-present and dominant, to be yielded to at all times.  Because at the moment, it isn’t.

There’s a little psychic no-no that pops up whenever you want to just walk down the centre of a street.  It’s caution.  And it gets in the way of just assuming that what you’re doing is okay.

When two mothers with their strollers are comfortable walking in the middle of the street, it’s definitely okay.

Then more and more follow.

Et voila.  The neighbourhood has possession.

Thanks to Tracy Wilkins for the pics.

From News1130:

She’s the first to say anything.  Testing the waters.  And “a little bit more” is one step up from nothing.

She definitely sees where this could go:

Other cities are already testing out road closures, Dominato says, including London in the United Kingdom and Calgary, Alberta.

She says she hopes improvements can be made soon because restrictions linked to the pandemic will likely continue well into the summer. …

Now that the world’s primary method of communication is the clunky, awkward video call, people’s horrid at-home selves are being revealed. Nobody wants to come across to their co-workers and friends as a dimly lit basement troll. The only thing that can save you is good lighting.

The Magic Keyboard and my iPad Pro, featuring the iVisor matte screen protector.

Following the surprise early release of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, I’ve been waiting to get my hands on Apple’s highly anticipated accessory and evaluate it from the perspective of someone who uses the iPad Pro as a tablet, laptop, and desktop workstation.

I received the Magic Keyboard for my 12.9” iPad Pro yesterday afternoon; fortunately, I was able to order one in the US English keyboard layout from the Italian Apple Store last week, and the keyboard arrived three days ahead of its original scheduled delivery date. Obviously, less than a day of usage isn’t enough time to provide you with a comprehensive review; however, given that plenty of iPad users are still waiting for their Magic Keyboards to arrive, I thought it’d be useful to share some first impressions and thoughts based on my initial 24 hours with the keyboard.

Let’s dive in.

Laptop Mode and iPad Modularity

From the get-go, it’s apparent that the Magic Keyboard was primarily designed to enable a native laptop mode for the iPad Pro. Unlike the Smart Keyboard Folio, the Magic Keyboard comes with a built-in 5x10cm multi-touch trackpad; because of its hinge-based floating design, you can’t fully fold the Magic Keyboard on itself, hiding it in the back of the iPad Pro like you can with the Smart Keyboard Folio. This is Apple’s answer to users who have been asking for years for a “pro Smart Keyboard” to turn the iPad into a quasi-laptop device, and it doesn’t try to replicate all the features from the Smart Keyboard Folio or regular Smart Folio. I would have liked to see the option to fold the Magic Keyboard in the back of the iPad; I’m just not sure how that could be physically possible given Apple’s design direction for the Magic Keyboard (more on this later).

The first thing I noticed when setting up the Magic Keyboard is that, when laying flat on a desk, you can’t open the iPad Pro with one hand: you can easily lift the screen from the Magic Keyboard’s inner magnetic cover, but if you want to fully open it to start typing, you have to keep at least one finger on the keyboard’s base while lifting the rest of the unit – just like most laptops.

Here’s where the Magic Keyboard’s design differs from traditional laptops though: when lifting the iPad’s display, you’ll feel a first snap when the bottom hinge (the cylinder-shaped one that comes with a built-in USB-C port) has reached its open position; keep pushing on the iPad’s display, and the iPad will detach from the second hinge, which is located in the Magic Keyboard’s back cover and lets you adjust the iPad’s viewing angle. It’s the horizontal line that separates the two halves of the Magic Keyboard’s cover. In a nice act of design symmetry, the second hinge runs exactly across the antenna line of the 12.9” iPad Pro:

The Magic Keyboard’s second hinge.

What’s even nicer about this opening procedure is how the iPad’s software knows when to turn on the display and activate Face ID. If you pay attention when lifting the iPad, you’ll notice that the display turns on as soon as the iPad is detached from one half of the Magic Keyboard’s back cover; a few moments later, the Face ID sensor is activated and starts scanning. In practice, this isn’t just a delightful detail that proves Apple’s proverbial integration of hardware and software – it also means that by the time you’re done adjusting the iPad’s viewing angle, the iPad will have already authenticated you. At that point, it’s just a matter of pressing the space bar to dismiss the Lock screen and start working.

Over the last 24 hours, I’ve used the iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard at my desk, at the kitchen table, on my lap, and in bed. In all circumstances, I found the Magic Keyboard’s two-hinge system strong and reliable. I wouldn’t describe the hinges as overly stiff; they require just the right amount of pressure to lift the iPad and put it in place, and once that’s done, they’re sturdy enough to maintain the viewing angle you set and prevent the iPad from tipping over. As with the Smart Keyboard Folio, the magnetic connection between the cover and the back of the iPad is also strong – so much, in fact, that it allows the iPad to float above the keyboard.

I was somewhat skeptical of Apple’s floating design initially and wondered whether the whole structure could be stable enough to type with a Magic Keyboard on your lap. I’m happy to be proven wrong: I find the Magic Keyboard very comfortable to use on my lap; its footprint is smaller than a 13” MacBook Pro, but it feels stable and the iPad’s screen doesn’t wobble when typing thanks to the array of magnets that keep it locked in-place to the back cover. No matter how I was using the Magic Keyboard, I never second-guessed the stability of its hinge-based floating design.

The iPad does wobble back and forth a little if you’re using the Apple Pencil or tapping your fingers on the display with a moderate amount of force (perhaps because you’re playing a game or liking certain tweets with particular emphasis); however, this is to be expected given the keyboard’s flexible design, and they’re not activities I’d recommend you perform while the iPad is inside the Magic Keyboard anyway. Plus, any laptop screen would wobble a little if you tried to interact with it via touch.

In terms of viewing angles, while the Smart Keyboard Folio only supported two fixed positions, the Magic Keyboard lets you manually adjust the display’s angle thanks to its secondary hinge in the back.

The Magic Keyboard’s most open angle is roughly comparable to the Smart Keyboard Folio’s (pictured in the back), but the iPad floats higher.

The Smart Keyboard Folio’s other viewing angle. The Magic Keyboard can also be adjusted to this position and can create an even steeper angle.

The best way to think about it is this: at its most open position, the Magic Keyboard essentially replicates the largest viewing angle of the Smart Keyboard Folio, only the iPad’s screen floats higher. I like to type with the display tilted a bit further back into the Magic Keyboard’s case, and it’s nice that I can adjust the angle to get it just right instead of being limited to two preset angles. What’s even better is that I no longer have to hear the horrible noise the Smart Keyboard Folio makes when locking the iPad into a viewing angle, which would routinely wake up my girlfriend or dogs at night.

Based on my experience in these first 24 hours, I would go as far as saying that, because of the adjustable viewing angle, robust design, and built-in trackpad, using the Magic Keyboard on my lap has been my favorite mode so far. Thanks to the improvements in iPadOS 13.4 and adoption from third-party developers, I very rarely have to touch the iPad’s display; because of the Magic Keyboard’s design and integration with iPadOS, I can work with the iPad Pro in a variety of contexts without ever worrying about pairing, charging, or having a subpar trackpad experience. I’ll probably follow up on this in a few months, but I have a feeling I must have really missed using a portable computer on my lap after years with the Brydge keyboard and Smart Keyboard Folio.

Which brings me to the point I believe most people are not seeing when comparing the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard to other laptops or tablets. The Magic Keyboard is an accessory that fully embraces Apple’s modular approach to the iPad Pro: it enables a reliable, functional laptop mode while at the same time encouraging you to detach the iPad at any time and use it as a tablet when you no longer need a keyboard and trackpad. This is, I believe, the key differentiator for the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard: when paired together, you have a useful, credible laptop mode for your iPad; pick up the iPad – which you can even do with one hand by just pulling it from the cover without knocking it loose¹ – and you still have a fantastic tablet with a vibrant ecosystem of tablet-optimized apps and a multi-touch OS. For the same price and weight, yes, you could get a MacBook Air (or even a MacBook Pro) instead of an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard; however, I wouldn’t recommend trying to pull a MacBook’s display away from the keyboard when you’d like to use a tablet instead.

The Magic Keyboard strikes a perfect balance between altering the iPad’s nature and keeping it intact at the same time.

The Magic Keyboard turns an iPad Pro into a laptop, but it does so in a way that isn’t definitive – the transformation can always be reversed by the simple act of pulling the “computing core” away from it. This is also where the Magic Keyboard differs from competing accessories such as the Brydge keyboard: aside from Brydge’s poor trackpad implementation, I always found their design discouraged a constant alternation of roles – from laptop to tablet, and vice versa. It could be done, but carefully putting the iPad inside the Brydge’s keyboard clips and pulling it out was a chore. As a result, I found myself leaving the iPad Pro inside the Brydge keyboard at all times and never using it as a tablet. The Magic Keyboard feels like it was designed with the opposite principle in mind: it enables a laptop mode for the iPad, but you can always undo it and return to the iPad’s pure tablet form in two seconds. And when you’re done using the iPad as a tablet, you can just as easily re-align it with the Magic Keyboard (thanks to magnets in the case) and go back to using the physical keyboard and trackpad.

Based on what I’ve seen and tested so far, the Magic Keyboard is the only laptop-like accessory that strikes a perfect balance between altering the iPad’s nature and keeping it intact at the same time.

Typing and Trackpad

The Magic Keyboard is powered by the Smart Connector, so it’s always ready to type as soon as you unlock the iPad since it requires no pairing. The absence of Bluetooth was one of my favorite aspects of the Smart Keyboard Folio, and I’m glad Apple was able to continue down this road with the Magic Keyboard as well.

Keyboards – especially Apple’s – are best judged over time, but right now I can say that typing on this keyboard feels great. The keys are larger than the ones on the Smart Keyboard Folio and have a more traditional square shape, which is a welcome change; despite the size increase, there’s enough space between them. The keyboard is backlit (finally!), which allows me to more easily edit articles at night²; the return of the inverted-T layout for arrow keys is also nice. As far as comparisons to other Apple keyboards go, the Magic Keyboard for iPad has less travel than my old external Magic Keyboard, but I find it vastly superior to the infamous butterfly keyboard (which I tested on my girlfriend’s 13” MacBook Pro). In short: I like the keyboard, and I find its layout more comfortable than the Smart Keyboard Folio.

That said, I’m still adjusting to typing on the Magic Keyboard because one of my initial concerns has proven true: the bottom edge of the iPad’s display occasionally gets in the way of my fingers, resulting in accidental touches on the screen. I believe this is due to a combination of the way I type and how, at its widest viewing angle, the iPad’s bottom edge floats right above the keyboard’s number row. I’ve had similar issues with other keyboards in the past, and I usually get used to it by adjusting the way I type over time; I’ll have to report back on this in a few weeks. For now, tweaking the iPad’s angle so it floats farther away from the keyboard seems to do the trick.

It’s a small trackpad, but I’ve already grown used to it.

The trackpad is fairly small at 5x10cm (compared to the Brydge keyboard’s 6x10cm), and I was afraid it would be too cramped for my hands, but in practice it feels great to use. Scrolling and swiping across the iPadOS UI is smooth and responsive; you can press down anywhere on the trackpad to physically click (which isn’t true of other keyboard cases), but tap to click is also supported. Just like Apple’s Magic Trackpad 2, multi-touch gestures are activated instantly; based on the size of my hands, three-finger gestures (which are needed to navigate the iPadOS multitasking interface) are fine; 4-finger gestures require a bit more dexterity and precision. Making good trackpads is hard; the Magic Keyboard’s trackpad feels like a mini version of the excellent Magic Trackpad 2 – quite the accomplishment given its diminutive form factor.

The trackpad’s most important feat is that it allows you to navigate the iPadOS UI entirely with the system-wide pointer. As I explained weeks ago, this is turning out to be a transformational addition to the iPad experience that I wouldn’t have expected to witness within the iPadOS 13 release cycle. In editing this story last night, I was laying in bed, iPad Pro on my lap with the Magic Keyboard, and dark mode enabled in iA Writer; it was just so nice to be able to see the keys in front of me in the dark and control the iPad’s interface without lifting my hands off the keyboard. I know – none of this comes as a surprise to laptop owners; but as a longtime iPad user who has long struggled trying to use the device in a traditional laptop configuration, especially when the lights are out, the Magic Keyboard feels like a game changer already.

Materials, Size, and Weight Comparisons

The Magic Keyboard is made of the same material as the Smart Keyboard Folio’s outer case. The keyboard and trackpad are made of plastic, of course, and keys aren’t covered in fabric; everything else has the same texture as the Smart (Keyboard) Folio’s outer layer. Time will tell how this material will age after intense use; what’s for certain today is that you can’t freely spill water or crumbs on the Magic Keyboard and hope to wipe everything away as you could with the Smart Keyboard Folio.

As was widely expected, the Magic Keyboard is heavier than the Smart Keyboard Folio, and when you pair the 12.9” iPad Pro with it, the combined weight is comparable to a MacBook. This doesn’t shock me. After all, this is a laptop keyboard with backlit keys, two adjustable hinges, and a trackpad; it’d be foolish to think Apple could replicate a laptop configuration (and support the structure of a floating design that facilitates pulling the iPad away) with the same design of the Smart Keyboard Folio – nor would I want them to. The Magic Keyboard feels just right for what it is and does. The MacBook comparison fails to acknowledge the basic premise of this entire story: some people prefer working on iPadOS and like having a computer that transforms into a tablet or laptop when necessary. Perhaps a better comparison would be to consider how much a bag would weigh if you carried both a MacBook and iPad at the same time.

That said, if you really wanted to know about the Magic Keyboard’s numbers, here you go. I weighed my iPad Pro and various keyboards with my kitchen scale, so pardon the margin of error.

• iPad Pro 12.9”, cellular: 640g
• Magic Keyboard: 710g
• iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard: 1350g
• Smart Keyboard Folio: 455g
• iPad Pro and Smart Keyboard Folio: 1095g
• Brydge Pro+ keyboard: 685g
• iPad Pro and Brydge Pro+ keyboard: 1325g

The Magic Keyboard’s base is thinner than the Brydge keyboard (right), but Apple’s accessory adds thickness by covering the iPad in the back.

As you can see, the Brydge Pro+ Keyboard paired with the 12.9” iPad Pro actually weighs slightly less than the Magic Keyboard + iPad combo (when closed, both configurations have the same thickness at 1.5cm). In practice, however, carrying the iPad Pro around with the Magic Keyboard feels more “portable” than the Brydge Pro+ keyboard. I don’t know why, exactly, but I feel like the Brydge’s aluminum body and blocky design makes it feel heftier overall. In any case, despite the weight increase over the Smart Keyboard Folio, using the iPad Pro inside the Magic Keyboard on my lap doesn’t feel like I’m using a heavy laptop.

Miscellaneous Notes

Here’s a collection of assorted notes and details I’ve noticed since I started testing the Magic Keyboard yesterday.

The Apple logo is very faint. Unlike the Smart Keyboard Folio, the Magic Keyboard features an embedded Apple logo (placed horizontally) on the back cover, facing out from the iPad when in laptop mode. However, you can barely see it. I still find Apple’s only color choice for this keyboard boring, so I’m probably going to cover up the whole thing with stickers very soon.

The camera cutout is fine, even if you have an older iPad Pro. I’m testing the Magic Keyboard with a 2018 iPad Pro, and the larger camera cutout (designed to accomodate the additional sensors in the 2020 iPad Pro) doesn’t bother me. I never look at it anyway. This is not something worth being concerned about.

My 2018 iPad Pro inside the Magic Keyboard.

No media keys. My biggest criticism of the Magic Keyboard so far (aside from accidentally touching the iPad’s bottom edge) is that the keyboard doesn’t come with a function row for media keys, system shortcuts, and an ESC key. This is a disappointment given that other keyboard manufacturers figured out how to embed an additional row in keyboards of the same footprint. I wonder if a future revision of the Magic Keyboard – or perhaps a Magic Keyboard for a larger 15” iPad Pro – could solve this.

As a general tip, you can always use the system-wide ⌘. (Command-period) keyboard shortcut on iPadOS to replicate the functionality of a physical ESC key.

You can manually adjust the keyboard’s backlight illumination. The Magic Keyboard’s backlit keys automatically adjust via the iPad’s ambient sensor, but if you want to manually tweak the keyboard’s brightness, you can do so with a slider in Settings ⇾ General ⇾ Keyboard ⇾ Hardware Keyboard.

If you want an easier way to get to this page, I created a shortcut that launches the Hardware Keyboard section of Settings directly. The shortcut is best used as a widget on the iPad Home screen, and you can download it below.

Hardware Keyboard Settings

Open the Hardware Keyboard section of the Settings app. Useful to tweak the brightness level of the Magic Keyboard for iPad.

Get the shortcut here.

The USB-C port is for charging only. The embedded USB-C port in the Magic Keyboard’s hinge doesn’t support any data transfer – it’s a charging-only port. As others have shown on Twitter, and as I was also able to confirm with my USB-C power meter, the port lets you charge the iPad Pro at full-speed (although I haven’t personally tested fast charging yet). I like that I will be able to connect my Sony Walkman to the iPad Pro’s USB-C port and charge the device from the keyboard’s pass-through port at the same time.

The CoverBuddy case fits, but the Magic Keyboard doesn’t close. I tested the Magic Keyboard with my existing SwitchEasy CoverBuddy case for the 2018 iPad Pro and, while the case fits and can be attached to the Magic Keyboard, it prevents the keyboard from staying attached to the iPad when closed. I hope SwitchEasy will come up with a Magic Keyboard-compatible design soon.

Hybrid Laptop

As I noted at the outset, it’s impossible to come up with a comprehensive review of a major new iPad accessory and consider its effect on the ecosystem in 24 hours. For instance, I still don’t know where the Magic Keyboard fits in my modular desktop setup (but I have some ideas), and, given the current circumstances, I haven’t been able to use the Magic Keyboard outside the house yet.

What I can say right now, however, is that it only took me a couple hours of working with my iPad Pro – writing, doing some research, talking with my colleagues, building some shortcuts and editing code – to get the feeling the Magic Keyboard is the best external keyboard experience I’ve had on iPad to date.

The Magic Keyboard is, at least for me, superior to the Smart Keyboard Folio for a handful of reasons: the keyboard itself is more comfortable to type on; it’s backlit, which helps me get work done at night; the adjustable hinges let me get the iPad’s angle just right; I can stop reaching out to touch the display because there’s a trackpad built-in. The Magic Keyboard offers a professional typing experience and seamless integration with the iPadOS UI; it’s a pro keyboard for pro iPad users who demanded more than a Smart Keyboard Folio.

At the same time, the Magic Keyboard underlines the iPad’s nature as a modular computer by enabling me to pick it up and resume using it as a tablet whenever I want, with a simple gesture. More than any other iPad accessory, the Magic Keyboard reinforces the idea that the same computer can transform into two radically different form factors at any given time. This philosophy goes beyond the design of a keyboard alone: it’s supported by the iPad’s hardware (with a magnet-based system that simplifies attaching the iPad and encourages pulling it out), software (with the new system pointer that disappears when not in use), and app ecosystem (with apps that can be used with multi-touch and the pointer). Considered through this lens, the Magic Keyboard delivers on the kind of hybrid computing experience I hoped the iPad would eventually achieve, and it’s here today.

24 hours in, the Magic Keyboard feels like an entirely new class of accessory for the iPad Pro, and it’s the keyboard + trackpad combo I’ve been waiting for. Let’s check back on this in a few months.

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Before moving into his current role as Product Manager in 2016, Matthew Roth was one of the most familiar faces of Flickr staff: the man who jumped into the forums to calm tempers and alleviate hurt feelings, the source of many important announcements, and the organizer of many great community events. In his current position as a Product Manager, Matthew is focused on improving the Flickr user experience and making engagement its central pillar.

How long have you worked at Flickr, and what made you join?

I started at Flickr on January 22nd, 2014. I was friends with a Flickr engineer who I had worked with previously and he forwarded a Senior Community Manager job description to me. I was working at the time for the Wikimedia Foundation, but I was very stressed out and looking for something that could bolster my interest in photography. Though I hadn’t done the standard tech Community Manager role, I was working daily with the largest community of free-knowledge evangelists around, so I felt qualified to jump in.

When I met the various people who interviewed me, particularly at the old Flickr office on Sansome Street in San Francisco, I was hooked. It was clearly a very fun and lighthearted atmosphere. Some people were flying drones and others were trying to hit them with foam darts. One woman was dressed as Padmé Amidala from Star Wars, for no reason I could discern.

You’ve been a Flickr member since 2006. What brought you to this site?

Prior to joining as a staff member, I had used Flickr as a tool for organizing my photos for my WordPress blog at a previous job. From 2006 to 2011, I shot mostly with point and shoot cameras and used the images for utilitarian purposes. I didn’t think of myself as even a hobbyist photographer, though I did like the mechanics of shooting. The point and shoot camera I had at the time allowed me to do some manual exposure and metering, so I occasionally tried out new techniques.

In early 2011 though, I started participating more in the Flickr community. That was transformative for my photography and helped me rekindle a passion that I hadn’t explored since I took darkroom classes in high school nearly two decades prior. I had recently purchased a DSLR camera (my first Flickr pic with that camera of my then girlfriend, now wife). I got pretty into Trey Ratcliff’s HDR tutorials (my first HDR shot that wasn’t horribly crispy and hamfisted), then started submitting photos to challenge groups like Hot Box Uncensored, Deleteme Uncensored, The Icebox, and others. Though the feedback in those types of groups could be quite harsh, participating in the groups inspired me to improve my craft.

I also went on several meetups with Flickr members and was particularly taken with an event at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard organized by the HBU crew. Before that event, I hadn’t done much long-exposure shooting and even less night-time photography. Meeting a number of Flickr regulars from the Bay Area and learning about photography from them was a big boost. I was completely hooked and it has continued to be my creative outlet to this day. Thanks, Flickr community!

Can you explain what your day to day job at Flickr involves exactly?

I’m now a product manager for the Engagement team. I work with designers and engineers to boost community engagement and interactions among Flickr members. As a product manager, I work on strategy to improve parts of Flickr that are in disrepair (oh hi Explore!), to bring new technologies to our platforms, and to bolster community connections.

Our team is all about communication, from daily check-ins to weekly meetings with Product Team members and our Design lead. Most of this happens over Slack, but I also rely heavily on Google Hangouts because I’ve been remote since the summer of 2018, when SmugMug rescued Flickr from being shuttered by our former owners. I spend most of my day in meetings with various teams. It’s challenging to be a product manager while remote in Oregon, but we have adapted and I rely heavily on the super talented engineers and designers I work with. They are tremendous people who take great responsibility for our future as a website and a community of creatives.

You’ve had an interesting trajectory, beginning as a community manager and now working in product management. What drew you to this world?

In late 2016, we needed to update the signed out home page (flickr.com) with new marketing language, and we didn’t have Product Management capacity to do so. They asked if I wanted to try it out and I accepted. Flash forward a few months and I was taking on more of the product workload and really enjoying it. I sometimes joke that I now get to fix all the problems I had been reporting to the Product Team for the two years that I worked on the Community Team.

While I never pictured myself as Product Manager in consumer technology, it definitely suits my skill set. I love working with a diverse team who don’t report to me, but who want to achieve great things with me. Flickr’s Engineers and Designers are some of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with. I learn from them every day and I’m constantly impressed by their abilities. Plus, being Flickr, most of them are quirky and interesting, which suits my style.

What’s your favorite thing about Flickr from both the product and community perspective?

Flickr’s community makes it a really rewarding place to spend time and a very interesting place to work. I love how passionate our community is — when you mess up and betray their trust, they will be sure to let you know. When you deliver a new feature that is useful and beneficial, they will celebrate you. It’s not at all what I would expect of a job in a business environment. Prior to working at Flickr, I had only ever worked for nonprofits and political campaigns. The passion that Flickr’s community brings to the product resembles the passion that you find in nonprofit communities.

Since SmugMug acquired Flickr, my favorite development has been the building of our Customer Support infrastructure. We now have more Support Heroes (40+ people) working for Flickr than we had on the entire team at the time of acquisition (30 people). This dedication to resolving problems and delighting our members has been the bedrock at SmugMug since its inception and it now buttresses Flickr. We not only reply to every single inquiry that comes in, we do it quickly and with a warmth that makes me proud.

A lot of people in this community know you, as you have been involved in many activities and events during your time as a community manager. For those who don’t, what’s the most important thing they should know about you and a random fact most won’t know?

I’m really into Flickr and I’ve always wanted the best for our community and our product. Recently we’ve made hard decisions that have resulted in price increases for Pro subscriptions and changes in free plans, but those were fundamentally good decisions for Flickr’s future. We’re on a good path forward, though there is still a great deal of work we need to do. I hope all our friends out there know that we’re committed to seeing Flickr thrive long into the future.

The only random fact that you need to know about me is that I’m obsessed with avocados. I was born in an avocado orchard in California. Avocado was the first food I ate and it was the first food I fed my daughters. I usually eat at least one per day, sometimes two. It’s a big deal for me. I might have a problem.

After seven years working at Flickr, what keeps you excited about your job?

I’m very excited for Flickr’s future. Now that we have migrated out of the old infrastructure and our community of Pro members has stepped up to provide the financial stability we needed to operate as an independent company, we have the time and resources to restore Flickr’s place as the best photographic community online.

Got any exciting things you and your team are working on lately?

I’ve been waiting six years (my entire tenure at Flickr) to improve Explore. We’ve recently made some significant improvements to boost the quality of the algorithm’s results. We’ll continue to make adjustments and test new inputs as we develop new technologies and make use of the many AWS services that we have access to now.

We’re also working on improvements to your signed-in Feed experience and Notifications. We’ll be making sure it’s easier to see and hear all the activity that’s happening on Flickr so that you enjoy your experience with your communities that much more. I’m also excited to work on our communications tools and our mapping and geolocation features.

Do you have any final words of wisdom?
I do not. I wouldn’t trust any words that I might try to pass off as wisdom.

Every few weeks, Flickr will feature other members of our team. Get to know all of us that make it happen! Meet Flickr and SmugMug’s Head of Trust & Safety Holly Lawrence, and front-end engineer Phil Dokas, and join the conversation here.

I own a dozen fanny packs. Cheap ones, expensive ones—doesn’t matter. People give them to me as gifts, and I treat myself to one when I feel like I deserve it. Every fanny pack is ridiculous, and every fanny pack is essential, and I love them all. (I know you think you’re my favorite, Rains Bum Bag, you black, rubbery, waterproof, vaguely BDSM darling. But that’s just a rumor. Don’t we love all our children equally?)

Martin Weller uses the analogy of Jaws to argue that the current crisis is creating a scenario where only two of an uneasily balanced trio of students, vendors and educators can emerge. In fact, of course, all three may feel the effects - there may be fewer students, educational institutions may collapse, and some vendors may be hurt. But yeah, there may be a point to this. In one scenario, educators "rush to vendors to create online courses." In another, "vendors and learners engage in a form of deprofessionalised, unbundled education market." And in the third, "educators and learners exist in a higher education system which after the pandemic and its reimagining of socialist intervention is based around education as a social and public good. How do we decide? Who best ensures access? Who best ensures equity and access? Who most supports quality?