Shared posts

30 Mar 05:18

Thoughts on Dependency Injection

by Mark Finkle

I hear some strong opinions on dependency injection (DI). I’ve never really thought too much about DI specifically, but it is part of an Inversion of Control strategy, which I think about a lot.

Focus on the developer experience, low-friction maintenance and code health outcomes. What’s important to me:

  • Loosely coupled code
  • Easy to test code
  • Simple code
  • Easy to maintain code

Many folks seem to focus on constructor or method based DI. I agree the approach works great for shallow code hierarchies. I’d argue that loosely coupled, easily testable code requires constructor/method DI. Trying to inject everything across deep call stacks can get painful the deeper you go. It creates friction for developers trying to update code, possibly inhibiting code health refactors.

Singletons are usually considered pure evil — hiding code details, creating global state, and making it difficult to test code. That said, they work nicely for accessing basic services and configuration from anywhere.

Service locators can sit somewhere in between the pure DI and singletons. Pretty easy to swap concrete and mock services, but you are adding a single dependency wherever it’s used. TBH, I think of things like Dagger as annotation-based service locator tools.

The tl;dr is that code gets complicated and instead of being too idealistic on the implementation details, know when to be pragmatic and focus on the higher-level objectives. Consider the pros & cons of different approaches. Legacy code is not an ideal situation, but one you need to handle. It’s a rare treat when you get to work in brand new code. This means you need to make pragmatic choices.

  • Make the best compromise to increase the testability of your code.
  • Avoid thousand line code changes to add logging or a network check in one place.
  • Keep the code simple and clean, focusing on a code-maintenance point of view.

Don’t blindly follow to idealistic dogma. Make choices that deliver the best impact.

30 Mar 05:18

Retiring my 2012 Nokia 808

by Martin

It just appeared to me today that I could finally retire my Nokia 808 that I had since 2012 as I finally have a mobile phone now that can match its camera’s quality!

I’ve had a bit of a strange usage scenario for that phone. For the past 6 years I’ve been using it exclusively at home when I had to bulk photograph (i.e. ‘scan’) documents. Using a normal scanner for the purpose was far too slow, taking pictures of the document pages is much much faster. The Nokia 808 had an exceptional camera that made crisp and sharp pictures not only in daylight but also in somewhat degraded light conditions. Also, it was hard to get blurry pictures with that camera.

For years I didn’t have a smartphone that could rival that camera, until September last year when I bought a Samsung S9. The camera in the S9 now finally matches and even exceeds the Camera in my 7 year old Nokia 808 in speed, ability to take pictures of documents in low light conditions without blur and without large distortions at the border of documents.

There are ‘just’ 7 years between the 808 and the S9 but the differences between the two devices are just stunning. The Nokia 808 was one of, if not the last Symbian based phone. It was also the first Symbian phone that had a good touch screen, good touch support and was an impressive harbinger of what could have been if Nokia had continued on its path from Symbian to the Linux based Maemo. But that never happened.

Anyway, it’s time for the museum now so at this point, thank you very much to everyone at Nokia who designed such a great device at the time!

30 Mar 05:18

Master of the Impromptu

by peter@rukavina.net (Peter Rukavina)

In the end, the only area of human activity where I truly excel is in the organization of impromptu adventures while traveling. And there is no more fertile ground for this skill than the awkward night shoehorned between a late arrival in a new city and a following day of planned activities.

Arriving in Seattle from Portland on the 3:30 p.m. train as we did today was a prime example of this: all other things being equal we could have simply checked into our hotel, found a place to have supper, and then retired early after a day that was sedentary but somehow also exhausting.

But that is not my style.

So here’s what we did instead.

We did, indeed, take a cab to our hotel, a return engagement at the same Palihotel where we stayed on Tuesday night.

After dropping our bags and feeding and watering Ethan the Dog, we walked up the street to the Seattle showroom for the Tuft & Needle mattress-in-a-box company. I am confounded by mattress purchasing, and haunted by the memory of too much time spent in the basement at Leon’s being overwhelmed by choice and unable to get a true sense for how any given mattress will perform under daily use.

The mattress-in-a-box industry has a not unpleasant “we’re shaking things up and taking down Big Mattress” quality to it, but not being able to take their wares for a ride makes it similarly impossible to get a sense of whether their mattresses are actually any good for my body.

Enter the aforementioned showroom, which consists simply of four neo-rooms formed out of semi-transparent gauze, each outfitted with a mattress on which one is free to lay about and, relative to Leon’s et al, simulate day-to-day life. Tuft & Needle doesn’t ship to Canada, so the experiment was moot for our particular purposes, but it was pleasant to see things done differently, and the comfort of their beds gave me some hope that the made-in-Canada equivalent mattresses might work for me.

Thus-sated, we called an Uber and headed for Northwest Film Forum, in Capitol Hill, where I’d secured us tickets for Astra Taylor’s film What is Democracy?, a film that ticked our interests in both documentaries and politics.

We arrived with about an hour to spare, and so looked around the neighbourhood to see what we could see.

Oliver’s eagle eyes spotted a hair salon directly across the street that was, oddly, still open on a Sunday at 6:00 p.m. We poked our head in the door and found that they did, indeed, have a slot available for Oliver. And so he got his hair cut.

Twenty minutes later and freshly-shorn, we went looking for a place to eat and found a Poké Bar just up the street where we enjoyed bowls of rice, fish and seasonings along with iced jasmine tea.

We finished up supper just in time to walk across the street to the cinema, and got two seats in the second row, with a nook for Ethan to curl into right in front of us.

Northwest Film Forum is an interesting institution, equal parts film exhibition space and film school; the promos that ran during the pre-show revealed a collection of screenings and courses that would have made me comfortable renting an apartment nearby and dropping by every day.

What is Democracy?, as the title suggests, is an extended rumination on democracy. It is neither a class in civics nor a polemic, but rather a holding up of the sphere of democracy to the light, through the eyes of everyone from Cornell West to Miami school students to Syrian refugees living on the docks in Greece. It was heady stuff, and made all the more heady by a fellow audience member who started to yell out dissenting views early on and, when shushed by others, became militantly anti-social and was expelled from the theatre while yelling a series of epithets about how we who remained were sheep-like white people being lured into a cult.

The irony of the interruption in the context of the subject matter was not lost, but there was a significant collective sigh of relief when calm returned, as things could have easily gone further sideways.

The film was followed by a brief Q&A with the director, who was engaging and thoughtful.

When it was all done we piled into another Uber and were back in our hotel by 9:45 p.m., ready for bed and anticipating a final day of vacation adventuring in Seattle tomorrow.

30 Mar 05:17

Should you replace your laptop with a pro tablet?

by Ganda Suthivarakom
Should you replace your laptop with a pro tablet?

A version of this post was sent to our weekly newsletter mailing list. If you’d like to receive this in your inbox, subscribe here.

I bought the first-generation iPad Pro and, to be honest, I use it primarily to watch Netflix and YouTube or to read digital books to my niece. But pro tablets have improved since they were introduced. I talked to Andrew Cunningham, editor of our tech guides, to understand what’s new and what kind of work is best done on a pro tablet.

Ganda Suthivarakom: What changed with the update to our pro tablets guide?

Andrew Cunningham: The previous version of the pro tablets guide asked whether a tablet could replace your laptop, which was still a bit of an open question a few years ago. These days I think it’s clear that a tablet can replace your laptop, so I wanted to spend more time on whether a tablet should replace your laptop. I also wanted to make sure we had a good budget pick (which is a regular iPad), since the best pro tablets tend to be a bit more expensive than the best laptops and it’s really important to me that we have options for as many people as we can.

GS: What was the most surprising thing you found in this round of tests?

AC: The common wisdom is that Windows tablets don’t have as many finger-friendly tablet apps as iOS tablets, and most of the time that’s true. But because of the Microsoft Surface Pro 6, I was surprised to see just how many good, well-reviewed drawing and sketching apps exist in the Windows Store. There’s still a bit more variety in iOS (we recommend the 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro), but artists have plenty of apps to choose from either way.

GS: What do they mean by “Pro,” anyway?

AC: Pro is a nebulous term because we all do different jobs and use different tools, but in Apple’s and Microsoft’s lineups, tablets with the “Pro” label have larger, higher-quality, and higher-resolution screens; faster processors; and more memory and storage than tablets without it. That isn’t to say that you can’t get work done on the Surface Go, or the regular iPad (our budget pick). But people who edit photos, audio, and video; who spend a lot of their time in big spreadsheets or databases; who design websites or develop apps; or who create and edit 3D models will appreciate the bigger screen and the extra power.

The real killer app for these tablets is their stylus support. If you sketch or draw, or even if you just want to quickly mark up a PDF or image, doing it on a tablet is way easier, faster, and more enjoyable than on any laptop, even if the laptop supports a stylus. Lots of artists use these tablets as their main drawing device—Brad Colbow does a series of YouTube “artist’s reviews” of these tablets and their stylus accessories, and I found them enormously helpful when I was doing my research and testing. If your job is mainly writing or communicating with people, if you’re mainly just browsing the Internet, or if you’re on a tight budget, that’s when you should think about skipping the “Pro” power and price tag.

GS: Thanks, Andrew!

You can read more in our guide to the best pro tablets. If you have questions about your tablet or laptop situation, send a note to notes@wirecutter.com and we’ll forward them to our tech team.

New this week

The Best Stuff From IKEA, According to Our Obsessive Staff
Published March 18

The Best Lenses for iPhone Photography
Updated March 18

I Have a Costco Credit Card. I Never Use It at Costco. Here’s Why.
Published March 18

The Best Soundbar
Updated March 19

The Best Electric Pressure Cooker
Updated March 19

How to Kit Out Your Rental Car Like a Pro
Published March 19

List: What to Bring to Your Vacation Rental
Published March 20

The Best Running Belts
Published March 20

Reading Your Credit Report Can Be Confusing. Read Mine.
Published March 21

The Best Bike Lock
Updated March 21

iPad Pro vs. Surface Pro 6: The Best Pro Tablets
Updated March 21

The Best DNA Ancestry Test
Updated March 21

Ask Wirecutter: The Best Stroller for the City
Published March 21

I’m a Priority Pass Maniac. Here’s How I Maximize My Membership.
Published March 21

Deals We Love From the REI Member Rewards Event
Published March 22

List: Smart Home for Apartments and Renters
Published March 22

The Best Blood Pressure Monitors for Home Use
Updated March 22

The Best Qi Wireless Chargers for iPhone and Android
Updated March 22

Things we’ve been enjoying lately

Some good listening, watching, and reading you may like

This man will eat only what he can grow or forage—here’s why [National Geographic]

“Every spring I think about what I should be planting in my garden. This year I take inspiration from a man eating only what he forages, grows, or fishes.“

—Ganda Suthivarakom, special projects editor

Where Some See Trash, She Sees Treasure [The New York Times]

“This article about the ‘Museum of Everyday Life’ in Vermont, filled with mundane, useful items from people’s garages, attics, and barns made me think about how the stuff we recommend at Wirecutter should be good enough to end up in such a museum someday!”

—Courtney Schley, research editor

The Fourth State of Matter [The New Yorker]

“I found this narrative piece from 1996 about a campus shooting and was pretty mesmerized by how the author narrated the event in relation to her personal life. It was anthologized the next year in the Best American Essays series.”

—Eve O’Neill, senior staff writer

30 Mar 05:16

Counting the Countless

Reconstructed transcript of a talk I gave at Seattle University earlier this year

Good evening everyone! My name is Os, and I’m a PhD student at the University of Washington. According to my website I study gender, data, technology and control; it also says that I’m an inaugural Ada Lovelace Fellow. And I’m here for a variety of reasons, but one of the big ones is that I really enjoy giving talks. Particularly community-oriented talks; remaining grounded in my communities is important to me and for my work to be effective. So I was really pleased when, as a result of my last talk here, the Seattle Non-Binary Collective reached out. And they said: “we hear you’re a data scientist. Could you do a talk on how trans &/ non-binary people can get involved in data science?”

And I replied: well, to be perfectly honest, I think data science is a profound threat to queer existences. And then for some reason they stopped replying! Who can say why? So when Jodi asked me what I’d like to talk about in this lecture series, I figured I’d do a talk on that. Why do I think data science is a profound threat for queer people?

The difficulty of definitions

Let’s start off with some definitions. What does it mean to say someone is queer? What does it mean to say someone is trans? In both cases, there really isn’t a fixed definition that holds everywhere. Trans identity is contextual, and fluid; it is also autonomous. There’s no test that you give someone to determine they’re “actually” trans, unless you’re a doctor or a neuroscience researcher or a bigot (but I, often, repeat myself).

But one constant, to some degree or another, is that living as a trans person is frequently miserable. Not because we’re trans, but because we exist under what hooks refers to as a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”. We live in an environment that is fundamentally racist; fundamentally built around capitalism; fundamentally based on rigid and oppressive gender roles. And as trans people, we suffer under all of these facets of society, both collectively and individually. Trans people of colour experience racism and transphobia, the latter induced by rigid patriarchal norms. Poor trans people - which is most of us, given how poverty correlates with social ostracisation - suffer under both transphobia and capitalism. Those of us who are disabled, and so don’t fit norms of a “productive” worker, experience that poverty tenfold.

Administrative violence

These norms and forms of harm do not exist “just because”: they exist as a self-reinforcing system in which we are coerced to fit the mould of what people “should be”. Those who can are pressured to; those who can’t, or refuse, are punished. Dean Spade, an amazing thinker on trans issues and the law, has coined the term “administrative violence” to refer to the way that administrative systems such as the law - run by the state, that white supremacist capitalist patriarchy - “create narrow categories of gender and force people into them in order to get their basic needs met”, a common example of this kind of violence and normalisation.

Let’s look at an example; suppose you want to update the name and gender associated with your mobile phone, right?

  1. You go in and they say that you need a legal ID which matches the new name and gender.
  2. So you go off to the government and say: hey, can I have a new ID? And they say: well, only if you’re officially trans.
  3. So you go off to a doctor and say: hey, can I have a letter confirming I’m trans? And the doctor says: well, you need symptoms X, Y and Z.

…and then when you do this, and jump through all that gatekeeping, everything breaks because suddenly the name your bank account is associated with no longer exists. You attempted to conform, and you still got screwed.

This case study nicely demonstrates what “administrative violence” looks like and what it does. It reinforces the gender binary (good luck getting an ID that doesn’t have a binary gender on it); it reinforces the medicalised model of trans lives; it communicates that gender is not contextual, that you can only be one thing, everywhere; it enables control and surveillance, because now, even aside from all of the rigid gatekeeping, a load of people have a note somewhere that you’re trans.

So: could we reform this? Spade would say: nope. This - the rigid maintenance of hierarchy and norms - is really what the state is for. Moreover, attempts to reform this often leave the most marginalised amongst us out; those of us who are multiply marginalised, least listened to. Efforts to get the gender binary expanded in ID forms are great, if you can afford a new ID, and if you can afford to come to the attention to the state, and in some ways they’re counterproductive even then. We are attempting to negotiate with a system that is fundamentally out to constrain us.

Defining Data Science

That might appear as a massive deviation, but I’d like you to keep it in mind as we veer back towards data science. And what is data science, anyway? There are a lot of definitions but the one I quite like is:

The quantitative analysis of large amounts of data for the purpose of decisionmaking

There’s a lot that’s packed into that, so let’s break it down.

First: quantitative analysis. A field based on quantitative analysis, on numbers, raises a lot of questions. For example: what can be counted? Who can be counted? If we’ve decided to take a quantitative approach to the universe, then by definition we have to exclude any factors or variables that can’t be neatly tidied into numbers - and we have to constrain and standardise those that can, to make sure tidying them is convenient.

Second: large amounts of data, that “big data” you’ve been hearing so much about. A data science approach encourages the collection of as much data as possible (all the better to measure you with). This data is vast across time: we should have as much of your history as possible. It’s vast across space: we should be able to measure as much of the world as possible, in this tidied, standardised way. It’s vast across subjects: we should be able to measure as many people as possible, in this tidied, standardised way. Our data should be collected ubiquitously, it should be collected consistently and perpetually, and any variation that complicates our data collection should be eliminated. The ideal data science system is one optimised to capture and consume as much of the world, and as much of your life, as possible.

And then finally we have for the purpose of decisionmaking, which is the bit proponents of data science really seem to drool over. We can use datalogical systems for efficiency gains, for consistency gains; we can remove that fallible, inconsistent “human factor” in how we make decisions, working more consistently and a million times faster. Which is, you know, fine, sort of, but by definition a removal of humanity makes a system - well. Inhumane!

So perhaps a more accurate definition of data science would be:

The inhumane reduction of humanity down to what can be counted

Data violence

This sounds resonant with Spade’s work. And so Anna Lauren Hoffmann, one of my favourite scholars and human beings and inspirations (and I’m not just saying that because she’s the person who gets to decide if I graduate) has coined the term “data violence”. Without being too reductive, or stealing too much of her thunder, think of it as the perpetuation of violence through datalogical systems, in the same way that administrative violence refers to the perpetuation of violence through administrative systems.

It’s different from administrative violence in a few ways; first, the ubiquity at which it operates (the state is not the only entity that can perpetuate data violence) and second, the scale at which it operates, and the fluidity of it. Data systems are mutable, ubiquitous, and constantly pointed to as the future: the direction in which we should be going. They can capture a lot more of your life than the DMV. This is not accidental; this is the point.

So let’s look at that same case study again; name changes!

  1. You go in and they say that you need a legal ID which matches the new name and gender.
  2. So you go off to the government and say: hey, can I have a new ID? And they say: well, only if you’re officially trans.
  3. So you go off to a doctor and say: hey, can I have a letter confirming I’m trans? And the doctor says: well, you need symptoms X, Y and Z.

…and then when you do this, and jump through all that gatekeeping, everything breaks because suddenly the name your bank account is associated with no longer exists. You attempted to conform, and you still got screwed.

…. and then when you resolve that, you out yourself, and mark yourself, forever. Everyone and their pet dog has a record that you’re trans; every data system you have to interact with is oriented to keep that known, for as long as possible, in case it becomes relevant to their model. And even if it somehow doesn’t, one of those background check websites, using outdated data, lists your deadname with that data, ensuring that you’re outed every time someone googles your number. Your administrative transition is a boon to you, but it’s also a boon to the vast number of systems dedicated to tracking the course of your life, for their own (not necessarily benevolent) purposes. And this tracking is going to be reductive; it will only track the things that matter, in the ways that are acceptable, punishing you when you deviate.

Marking & Punishing

An example of that punishment can be seen in a less state-oriented (and less trans-oriented example) I ran into in Forbes recently; health insurance companies tracking the food you buy. If you eat healthily, you get lower premiums; if you eat unhealthily, you get higher premiums.

Let’s set aside for a second the really (really) obvious issues with quantifying “food healthiness”. You’re tracking food purchases through smartphone apps, through supermarket and store purchases. Who gets tracked, and who doesn’t? Presumably if I go to somewhere like Trader Joe’s, the system is all neatly and nicely integrated and my health insurance company gets all my data. But I don’t go to Trader Joe’s: I live in the Central District, and there’s precisely fuck-all there except an Ezel’s fried chicken, where I pig out once a month, and a bodega, where I do my shopping. And if that bodega doesn’t have integration with my insurance company’s new fancy data science system for determining premiums, then according to their systems, I subsist off fried chicken approximately once a month, and nothing else. I’m guessing my premiums are going to be pretty high!

And as with administrative violence, we have to ask: who does this harm the most? The Central District is the historically black district of Seattle; the people caught in this trap are disproportionately likely to be already-marginalised, already-marked. The system’s integration with things like smartphone apps for discounts and coupons further invisibilises people without smartphones - which, again, is disproportionately the poor, immigrants, people of colour. The distribution of costs of this reduction to the quantifiable and the countable is not even. And the response that the people running this program are likely to have to critiques is: you’re right! We should make sure there’s a sensor in the bodega, too. Now: I don’t know about you, but my idea of a solution to being othered by ubiquitous tracking is not “track me better”.

So the long and the short of it is that, as currently constituted, data science is fundamentally premised on taking a reductive view of humanity - and using that view to control and standardise the paths our lives can take, responding to critique only by expanding the degree to which it surveils us

Reforming Data Science?

So: can we reform these systems? Tinker with the variables, the accountability mechanisms, make them humane? I’d argue: no. With administrative violence, Spade notes how “reform” often benefits only the least-marginalised, while legitimising the system and giving cover for it to continue its violence towards those more silenced. The same is true here, and a nice example can be found in attempts to reform facial recognition systems.

In 2018, a researcher at MIT published an intersectional analysis of gender recognition algorithms: facial recognition systems that identify gender, and use them for decisions from the small (demographic analytics) to the vast (who can access bathrooms). She found that these systems - which she notes are premised on an essentialist, biological view of gender - are biased against dark-skinned female-coded people. Her recommendation, developed in a subsequent paper, was that the people building facial recognition systems use more diverse datasets. In other words, it was a fundamentally reformist approach.

There are two really obvious problems with this. The first is that gender recognition systems are fundamentally controlling and dangerous to trans people, and simply cannot be reformed to not be violent against us. Normalising, reducing views of gender are what they’re for. Curiously, the second paper - the one about how great expanding data diversity was - did not mention the constrained view of gender these systems take. The other problem is that incorporating more people into facial recognition systems isn’t really a good thing even for them. As Zoé Samudzi notes, facial recognition systems are designed for control, primarily by law enforcement. That they do not recognise black people too well is not the problem with them - and efforts to improve them by making them more efficient at recognising black people really just increases the efficacy of a dragnet aimed at people already targeted by law enforcement for harassment, violence and other harms.

So, this reformist approach to facial recognition - making the system more “inclusive” - did not really reduce harm for the people actually, well, harmed. This control and normalisation is part of the point of data science. It is a requirement for data science’s logics to work. All reform-based approaches did was make violent systems more efficiently violent, under the guise of ethics and inclusion, and in doing so throw people such as trans people of colour entirely under the bus.

Radical Data Science

So in summary, data science as currently constituted:

  1. Provides new tools for state and corporate control and surveillance
  2. Discursively (and recursively) demands more participation in those tools when it fails
  3. Desires to, through that control, communicate universalised views of what humans can be, and lock us into those views.

Those don’t sound compatible with queerness, to me. Quite the opposite: they sound like a framework that fundamentally results in the elimination of queerness; the destruction of autonomy, contextuality and fluidity, all of which make us what we are and are often necessary to keep us safe.

Now: if you’re a trans person or otherwise queer person interested in data science, I’m not saying “don’t become a data scientist under any circumstances”: I’m not your mother, and I get that people need to eat to survive. I’m just explaining why I refuse to teach people, or train people, to be data scientists. Why I think that reformist approaches to data science are, while helpful, insufficient, and that co-option into data science, even to fix the system, is fundamentally inimical unless your primary question is asking who is left out of those fixes. You need to make the decision that is right for your ethics of care.

For me, my ethics of care says that we should be working for a radical data science; a data science that is not controlling, eliminationist, assimilatory. A data science premised on enabling autonomous control of data, on enabling plural ways of being; a data science that preserves context and does not punish those who do not participate in the system.

How we get there is a thing I’m still working out. But what you can do right now is build counterpower; alternate ways of being, living and knowing. You can refuse participation in these systems, whenever possible, to undercut their legitimacy. And you can remember that you are not the consumer, but the consumed - you can choose to never forget that the harm these systems do is part of the point.

30 Mar 05:16

Apple Arcade: Our Overview of Apple’s New Gaming Subscription Service

by Ryan Christoffel

Today at the Steve Jobs Theater, Apple detailed a variety of services it plans to launch from now through the end of the year. In addition to the expected services for video, news, and an iOS-integrated credit card, perhaps the event's biggest surprise was Apple Arcade, a gaming subscription service debuting this fall. Apple Arcade will feature no games currently on the App Store, but will instead serve as the only way you can play 100+ new games on iOS.

As part of announcing Apple Arcade during today's event, Apple shared how the gaming market on the App Store has increasingly become dominated by free games with In-App Purchases, such as Fortnite, making it difficult for indie paid up front apps to find success. While clearly Apple's happy to continue raking in those Fortnite bucks, in noticing this trend the company has also sought to find a better path forward for the makers of smaller indie titles. Apple Arcade is that path forward.

When it launches in the fall, Apple Arcade will feature over 100 brand new games that are exclusive to the service. The term 'exclusive' apparently means you can't play them on iOS unless you subscribe to Apple Arcade, not that they won't exist on other platforms. Some of these titles are being partially funded by Apple themselves, and the company plans to continue working with indie teams big and small to help provide a steady stream of new releases for Apple Arcade.

Games included in Arcade are curated by Apple's team, and they're meant to represent some of the best the App Store has to offer. The idea is that Apple wants thoughtful, creative third-party titles from smaller studios to thrive on the App Store, so that it's not only IAP-heavy titles finding success in the future. Full details on Arcade's launch roster aren't available yet, but here are a few titles the company highlights on its website:

  • Where Cards Fall by Snowman | The Game Band
  • Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm by Cornfox & Bros.
  • Beyond a Steel Sky by Revolution Software
  • The Pathless by Annapurna Interactive | Giant Squid

Games included in the Apple Arcade service will live in a new Arcade tab of the App Store app on iOS, which replaces the current Updates tab. You'll also be able to play these titles on the Mac and Apple TV, with each title offering a seamless experience across devices so you can stop playing on one device and pick up where you left off on another.

One of the appeals of Arcade is that it's meant to provide a consistent, reliable experience in terms of certain distinguishing characteristics of its games. Apple highlighted that every Arcade title will be entirely ad-free, will not require an Internet connection to play, can be shared with family members through Family Sharing, and will include no In-App Purchases.

Pricing has yet to be announced for Apple Arcade, but it's likely that in addition to a standalone subscription option, Apple will also provide a discount of sort via bundling with other services such as Apple Music and Apple News+. When the service launches, it will be available in over 150 countries and regions around the world.


When rumors first began swirling earlier this year of Apple working on a subscription service for games, there was concern about what this would mean for the existing business models utilized by games on the App Store. Arcade's focus as a service for new games only, with notable guarantees such as cross-device support, offline gameplay, and the absence of In-App Purchases, is an interesting way to offer an alternative – but not replacement – for what's currently on the App Store. Apple's prioritization of curation and quality is reminiscent of a theme found with the company's upcoming video service as well, and I'm excited to see how it plays out in the area of games.


You can follow all of our Apple event coverage through our March 25 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 25 RSS feed.


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30 Mar 05:16

Hot springs here I come!

by Liz

I’m so excited to go to the hot springs, it’s all I can think about!

I re-read Sorcerer to the Crown recently & The True Queen by Zen Cho & heartily recommend them! They’re so much fun. I hope there will be more!

NOw reading Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World, by Miguel León-Portilla, and some other books – Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature, pretty interesting (the footnotes are where all the action is – I wish the footnotes were on each page instead of at the end of each work.)

What else. I’m pretty brain dead today. Milo is back from his 3 day camping LARP so I’m sure I’ll hear all about that soon! I’m going out for a drink and then plan to read until Danny gets home from LibrePlanet later tonight.

Spent some time looking over this May First stuff. Also reading about Cooperation Jackson.

30 Mar 05:14

Don’t Pee on My Leg and Call it Science!

Gary Stager, Stager-to-Go, Mar 25, 2019
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I have to say, Gary Stager is not wrong here: " Social media and the nonsense masquerading as education journalism have become inundated with a flaming brown paper bag full of articles out to prove that phonics and penmanship instruction are crucial 21stCentury skills, class size does not matter, constructivism is a failed pedagogical strategy, there are no learning styles, not everyone “needs to code,” all kids need to be above the norm, and that standardized testing is objective, reliable, and valid... Free advice: Forbes, the McKinsey Group, anyone associated with Clayton Christensen, TED Talks and EdSurge are not credible sources on education reform, pedagogy, or learning theory even if they accidentally confirm our own biases once in a while. They are libertarian hacks hell-bent on dismantling public education."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
25 Mar 22:43

If you live in the European Union, please consi...

If you live in the European Union, please consider participating in the #SaveYourInternet campaign.

25 Mar 22:43

How bidirectional cycle-paths improve cycling safety and efficiency

by David Hembrow
Click for more information about the railway station including the excellent convenient access between the platform, the extensive cycle parking and these cycle-paths. Imagine if sidewalks (pavements in the UK) for pedestrians were unidirectional. If you wanted to visit your neighbour who lived on the right side of your home then you could walk there directly, but to come back home again in a
25 Mar 22:28

The Pragmatic Theory of Truth

John Capps, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mar 25, 2019
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While most educators know John Dewey as one of the founders of progressive education, in the wider world he is known (along with William James and Charles Sanders Pierce) as one of the three leading lights of pragmatism, and in particular, the pragmatic theory of truth. This article, just posted in the SEP, outlines that philosophy. "By focusing on the practical dimension of having true beliefs, Peirce plays down the significance of more theoretical questions about the nature of truth. In particular, Peirce is skeptical that the correspondence theory of truth—roughly, the idea that true beliefs correspond to reality—has much useful to say about the concept of truth." The article as a whole leans toward a positivist interpretation of pragmatism, equating it in places to verificationism, but I think that my be too strong a reading of the pragmatists.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
25 Mar 22:28

One More Turn Of The Screw At Medium

Announced with fanfare a few days ago: Medium Seeks Partners to Launch New Publications. This is...
25 Mar 21:50

What is Robert Kraft apologizing for?

by Josh Bernoff

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft just apologized for not doing anything wrong. Why bother? Police in Jupiter, Florida say they have video of Robert Kraft visiting the Orchids of Asia spa and massage parlor, which they say was a front for prostitution. The video almost certainly shows him doing something he’d rather you didn’t … Continued

The post What is Robert Kraft apologizing for? appeared first on without bullshit.

25 Mar 21:50

Here are the top 6 announcements from Apple’s ‘Show Time’ event

by Jonathan Lamont

Apple hosted its ‘Show Time’ event at its Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino, California, where it announced several new services.

From a magazine subscription to new original content for its TV app, Apple covered multiple areas. The tech giant even launched a credit card.

We picked out a few of our favourite announcements from the events, which you can check out below.

Apple Card

apple card

Apple announced several new services at its ‘Show Time’ event, but perhaps the most interesting was its exclusive new credit card.

Dubbed ‘Apple Card,’ the Cupertino-based tech giant boasted that its credit card would help improve your financial health. It features lower interest rates, transparent billing and more.

Additionally, Apple built comprehensive financial tools into its Wallet app. At a glance, cardholders can see how much they owe and when it’s due. Plus, you can get a breakdown of spending.

Users can also opt for bi-weekly and weekly billing and get live estimates on how much interest they’ll pay when they choose not to pay back the full bill when its due.

Apple also released a physical, titanium card for use where Apple Pay isn’t supported.

Apple Card will launch this summer in the U.S. It’s unclear if Apple Card will eventually make its way to Canada. You can learn more about it here.

Apple News+

Apple News looks like it aims to be the newsstand of the future.

Among everything announced at Apple’s event, the News+ subscription really sets itself apart as a unique offering that only Apple could provide. News+ doesn’t feature digitized magazines — it has fully realized digital creations that harness the best of Apple’s iOS and mobile hardware.

The company’s ‘Live Covers’ feature is a prime example. Live Covers allow magazine designers to create custom, animated covers. On stage, Apple showed off a National Geographic Live Cover that panned across a city skyline.

Overall, News+ brings a promise of expert, unique digital magazine experiences that could alter the face of the magazine publishing industry.

The service brings over 300 digital magazines and newspapers to subscribers. That includes 30 Canadian magazines as well as the Toronto Star.

You can learn more about News+ here. Also, here’s a list of the Canadian magazines included in the platform.

Apple Arcade

Apple joined Google in launching a gaming service, but took a shot at Google-made Stadia’s cloud-based platform, noting that you could play its games even if you didn’t have an internet connection.

Called Apple Arcade, the service will offer subscribers more than 100 premium games developed by a variety of different game studios.

This includes Toronto-based developer Snowman, known for co-producing Alto’s Odyssey, as well as Vancouver-based Klei Entertainment, which made Don’t Starve.

Games will be available across iOS, macOS and tvOS devices and it supports ‘Family Sharing,’ so your whole family can access games at no extra cost.

Apple Arcade will come to Canada in fall 2019. You can learn more about the service here.

A refreshed Apple TV app

Apple also announced that it’s revamping the Apple TV app to better incorporate Apple TV+, streaming platforms and other cable packages, which will be integrated into the app, at least in the United States. Canadian-specific cable information has yet to be released.

The app is coming out in May and features a slick new design, as well as a ‘Kids’ section.

Similarly to how it now the app will be populated with content from other streaming services in the U.S., Apple’s TV app in Canada will feature the likes of CBC’s Gem, Amazon Prime Video, Crave and others. Notably, Netflix’s content won’t be available in the new app.

The new version of the app will also include movies from iTunes so users can rent or buy movies without leaving the Apple TV app.

To learn more about the app, check out MobileSyrup’s story about the revamped Apple TV app.

Apple TV coming the Roku and Fire TV

One of the more surprising announcements from Apple’s Show Time event was the sheer number of devices that the tech giant said its new TV app will run on.

The fact that Apple is putting the new app on Roku and Fire TV devices proves that the company aims to make sure as many people as possible use it and, by proxy, its new streaming service Apple TV+.

At the event, the company specifically said that it’s coming to Samsung, Sony, Vizio and LG’s smart TVs, but there’s no mention of what models or operating system versions are supported.

All in all, this is a big step for the company, which usually keeps its services locked down to its first-party devices.

Apple TV+ originals

To go along with the new app, Apple showed off and teased six shows under the Apple TV+ moniker at the event, but there will be at least 17 total, according to the tech giant’s keynote.

The highlights include Little America, which is an Anthology/Drama series created by Kumail Nanjiani and The Morning Show, a workplace comedy with Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell.

Oprah also showed up on stage as this event’s iconic ‘one more thing’ moment to announce two new shows, as well as plans to create the world’s largest book club.

We’ve got a full list of Apple’s upcoming original content right here.

The post Here are the top 6 announcements from Apple’s ‘Show Time’ event appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:49

Omar Khadr's sentence is finished, Alberta judge rules

mkalus shared this story .

Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr has completed his sentence, an Alberta judge ruled Monday.

Court of Queen's Bench Chief Justice Mary Moreau counted the time Khadr spent on conditional release for nearly four years as counting toward his eight-year sentence.

Outside court, Khadr said he is pleased with the decision.

"I think it's been a while but I'm happy it's here, and right now I'm going to just try to focus on recovering and not worrying about having to go back to prison, or, you know, just struggling," Khadr told reporters.

His lawyer, Nate Whitling, said efforts to overturn Khadr's U.S. convictions will continue. But the completion of his sentence will mean more freedom for his client, Whitling said.

"All those conditions that were restricting his liberty up to this point are now gone, so for example he can apply for a passport, he can talk to his sister, he can travel around the world or around Canada without having to seek permission."

Khadr had sought a dismissal of his U.S. military commission conviction for killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. His eight-year sentence, which was imposed in 2010, would have expired last year if he had remained in custody.

Khadr has been out on bail since 2015.

Whitling told CBC News earlier that "our position is that the court does have the authority to effectively end Mr. Khadr's sentence now, even though technically there's still three years and five months remaining to be served."

The prosecution argues Canada has international obligations to see that Khadr serves his full sentence.

Khadr spent several years in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after he was captured in 2002 and accused of tossing a grenade that killed special forces soldier Christopher Speer in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 at the time. 

He was later transferred to Canada, where the Supreme Court ruled Khadr's punishment was to be served as a youth sentence. Khadr was released on bail in May 2015 pending an appeal of his war crime convictions in the United States. Since then, he has lived in Edmonton and Red Deer without incident.  

Last month, Whitling told the court Khadr's U.S appeal hasn't advanced "even an inch."

Khadr received a $10.5-million legal settlement and an official apology from the Canadian government in 2017. Whitling said Khadr wants to move past the sentence and "get on with his life."

25 Mar 21:49

Everything You Need to Know About Editor Split View

by Rebekka
mkalus shared this story from Ulysses Blog.

Split view editing – a new feature that was recently released with Ulysses 15 – is helpful if you want to refer to one text while writing another.* Do you want to see your outline while drafting a chapter? Or display a text in its original language while translating it? We’ve assembled everything you need to know about it in a tutorial. Find out how to

  • enter editor split view on your Mac,
  • switch your vertical split view for a horizontal one,
  • toggle the active editor highlight,
  • scroll through two texts simultaneously,
  • and switch between the two editors with simple shortcuts.

Read the full tutorial here.

* For the time being, editor split view is available only with Ulysses for Mac.

25 Mar 21:49

A Guide to Better Designer Client Relationships

by Eric Karjaluoto

TL;DR: Those who run design studios often struggle with their client relationships. They can change this by taking a client-first viewpoint. I wrote this article for owners of design studios. That said, you can apply it to many other service-based businesses. It’s represents a lot of hard-won lessons learned through missteps. My hope is that […]

The post A Guide to Better Designer Client Relationships appeared first on Eric Karjaluoto.

25 Mar 21:49

Dreams of Motordom – and Nightmares that Never Happened

by Gordon Price

Over the years, I thought I had seen all the renderings and sketches for the various freeway proposals that had been put forward in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

Nope.  The indispensable John Mackie, the Sun journalist with the time, interest and access to the paper’s archives, has pulled out some great pics to illustrate this week’s history column: 1967 — Wacky Bennett and Tom Terrific team up to push for a third crossing.

In the 1960s everybody seemed to have a plan for a new bridge or tunnel at the First Narrows. But nobody wanted to pay for it.

So on March 23, 1967, Social Credit Premier W.A.C. Bennett came up with a funding formula: 40 per cent from the federal government, 40 per cent from the provincial and civic governments, and 20 per cent from the National Harbours Board and the developers of Project 200, a giant highrise development on the downtown waterfront.

Bennett talked Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell into supporting his plan. But federal Liberal Arthur Laing dismissed it as “ridiculous nonsense.” …

The same day Bennett announced his formula, a consortium of four city engineering firms unveiled a $57-million plan to twin the Lions Gate Bridge.

Artist’s conception of a 1960 proposal for a new bridge from the North Shore to Brockton Point.

 

View from the corner of Comox and Thurlow streets in the proposed ‘Big Trench’ downtown-freeway system, 1960. Note mini-bridges across freeway on Robson, Haro, Alberni and Georgia streets.

 

An artist’s conception of a 1960s’ freeway in Vancouver, showing the unbuilt east-west freeway that would have sliced through East Vancouver to Burnaby, and a freeway that would have gone through the West End. Note there is no Carrall Street freeway.

 

Map of a proposed 1960 ‘waterfront parkway,’ six-lane freeway that would have been built in English Bay. The present beach would have become a ‘bay lagoon’ if it had gone through. The plan also shows a second bridge to the east of the Lions Gate Bridge.

 

More pics here.

25 Mar 21:48

A few thoughts on the Apple event

by Volker Weber

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This is a tough one for tech journalists. Apple opens a new chapter and you cannot interpolate from the past. First the news:

  • Apple TV gets a new app where you can subscribe to channels like HBO and it all integrates into this one app, online or offline. Big elephant not in the room: Netflix. They live on Apple TV, but their content isn't integrated. The TV app will not require an Apple TV, but will be available on SmartTVs and other streaming devices. Available: May, worldwide.
  • Starting in the fall, Apple will integrate its own content into this app and call the service Apple TV+. Big name creators, with a focus on quality: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Jon M. Chu ... US only.
  • Apple News gets a new app and a new service: News+. 300 magazines, formatted to the screen of iPhone and iPad. $9.99 flat. North America only. Will be coming to other English-speaking countries.
  • Apple partners with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard to offer it's own credit card Apple Card. 3% cashback on Apple Pay purchases at Apple, 2% for all Apple Pay purchases, 1% for purchases with the physical card. The card does not have any printed numbers, just your name and a chip. The rest of the data is in your Apple Wallet. Accepted worldwide, in the summer, availability unclear, possibly US only.
  • Apple Arcade will offer more than 100 new exclusive games from indie developers. Availability in the fall.

Pricing for everything besides News+ will be announced when available. Some thoughts:

  • What Apple is offering now cannot be delivered globally, so most of it starts in the US market. I wonder how they will scale these offerings.
  • News+ is a very attractive offering based on Texture, especially since it includes everybody within your family. I would subscribe immediately.
  • TV+ will be a tough sell against Netflix and Amazon Prime. Apple could try to buy into this market by bundling it with News+ and possibly Music.
  • Apple Card is a much bigger deal than most people will notice, especially from our German vantage point. Banking in the US is expensive and very, very bad.
  • Apple was banging the privacy drum throughout the whole show. I like that.
  • I have no idea why anybody travelled twelve hours each way for this event.
25 Mar 21:47

The Best Pizza Stone and Baking Steel

by Lesley Stockton
The Best Pizza Stone and Baking Steel

A pizza stone is the best tool for baking up crispy pies that’ll rival those made by your favorite restaurant, but it can also do so much more. After making more than 50 pizzas, 24 flaky croissants, and 10 loaves of rustic bread on four stones and two baking steels, we think the FibraMent-D Home Oven Baking Stone is the best all-purpose stone for preparing crisp pizza, crusty bread, and golden pastries.

25 Mar 21:47

Apple to bundle 18W Power Adapter, USB-C to Lightning cable with 2019 iPhone: report

by Igor Bonifacic
iPhone XS Max

Apple will bundle its 18W USB-C Power Adapter, as well as a USB-C to Lightning cable, with its upcoming 2019 iPhone lineup, according to a new report from Japan’s Mac Otakara.

If accurate, this would represent a significant upgrade over the 5W power adapter the company currently includes with the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR. The 18W adapter is capable of recharging an iPhone’s battery from 1 to 79 percent in approximately an hour.

One thing to note: Mac Otakara previously wrote that Apple would continue to ship a 5W adapter with the 2019 iPhones, which is to say, take these rumours with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Source: Mac Otakara Via: MacRumors

The post Apple to bundle 18W Power Adapter, USB-C to Lightning cable with 2019 iPhone: report appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:46

Here are all the Canadian publications coming to Apple News+

by Brad Bennett

Apple just announced its new magazine subscription service, Apple News+ 

Not only is Apple launching the service in Canada, it’s including 30 Canadian magazines and the Toronto Star in the platform.

Apple showed off 24 magazines and one newspaper on stage at the event:

  • Our Canada
  • Ottawa Magazine
  • Sélection
  • Canadian Cycling
  • The Walrus
  • Mon Parent
  • Best Health
  • Maclean’s
  • Today’s Parent
  • The Hockey News
  • Toronto Life
  • House and Home
  • Chatelaine
  • Canadian Running
  • Readers Digest
  • Gripped
  • Hello! Canada
  • FASHION Magazine
  • Zoomer
  • Mieux être
  • Triathlon
  • Cottage Life
  • Ricardo
  • L’actualité
  • Véro
  • Home
  • Toronto Star

 

The post Here are all the Canadian publications coming to Apple News+ appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:46

Apple announces ‘Apple Card,’ coming to U.S. this summer

by Dean Daley

Apple has announced the ‘Apple Card.’

The new digital credit card is available exclusively on Apple devices. Apple Card is easy to sign up for on your iPhone’s Wallet app, according to the Cupertino-based company. The digital credit card will work anywhere you can use Apple Pay.

Every time you use Apple Pay with your Apple Card, you’ll get two percent ‘Daily Cash’ back. Direct purchases from Apple users will get three percent back as well. Daily Cash can be used everywhere you can use Apple Pay, and can even be used to pay off your balance. There is no limit to how much money you can get back daily.

With the Apple Wallet app, you can easily see your total balance when you have to make your next payment and your previous transactions. With Apple Card, the Cupertino-based company will also simplify transactions and will use data to make your previous transactions easier to read and understand.

The app also automatically categorizes the user’s purchases, such as ‘food and drink’ and ‘travel.’

To save on interest you can pay bi-weekly and weekly. Apple Pay has no late fees, no annual fees, no over limit fees and no international fees. Even if you miss a payment Apple will not charge a penalty. The American company has also promised lower interest fees.

Apple has partnered with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, which will allow the card to be accepted all over the world. Goldman Sachs has also promised to never share or sell user information. Apple plans to keep your information secure and says that the company will not know what you bought, where you bought it and how much it costs.

Every payment needs either Face ID or Touch ID for it to go through.

Apple will release a physical titanium card that features no card number, no CVV and no expiry date — though all that information is available on via Apple Pay. Payments with this card will get users 1 percent ‘Daily Cash’ back.

Apple Card launches this summer in the U.S. 2019. It’s unclear if Apple Card will ever make its way to Canada but we’ve reached out to Apple for more information and will update this story when it becomes available.

The post Apple announces ‘Apple Card,’ coming to U.S. this summer appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:46

Apple TV+ video streaming service to launch in Canada this fall

by Bradly Shankar

Apple has confirmed that its Apple TV+ video streaming service will launch in 100 countries this fall, including Canada.

Apple TV+ will feature exclusive original series from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston and Kumail Nanjiani.

The tech giant hasn’t yet detailed pricing for Apple TV+, but it did note that the service will be subscription-based and be free of ads.

It’s worth noting that unlike several of its other recently revealed services like Apple News+ and Apple Card, Apple TV+ hasn’t been confirmed to feature a family sharing option at no additional cost.

Therefore, it’s possible that the company will charge more for users who share with one another.

The post Apple TV+ video streaming service to launch in Canada this fall appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:45

Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL concept show slim bezels and hole punch display

by Dean Daley

While Google’s Pixel 4 and 4 XL are months away from their official release, that hasn’t stopped the phone from getting leaked, and for concept creators to create renders of the handset.

This newest concept render is from @PhoneDesigner, who created white versions of the Pixel 4 and 4 XL. The renders for the 4 XL feature a hole punch display with dual front-facing cameras. There’s are slim bezels at the top and bottom with what might be a forward facing speaker at the top.

The rear also features a dual camera setup with a dual LED flash.

The Pixel 4, on the other hand, looks nearly identical, except with single shooters on the front and the back.  Both phones lack a physical fingerprint scanner, which likely indicates that Phone Designer believes the devices will sport in-display fingerprint scanners.

Phone Designer’s render seems to come from the sketchy 4 XL design document that was leaked a couple of weeks ago.

Phone Designer also created a render of an even smaller Pixel handset that looks similar to the size of the Palm Phone, which features a 3.3-inch screen size. This handset could be for the user who prefers smaller devices, or for those who want a smaller device to accompany their larger handset.

What do you think? Do you like Phone Designer’s render of the Pixel 4 and 4 XL? Would you prefer a newer design, such as a Pixel handset with a curved display and a pop-up selfie camera?

Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Phone Designer 

The post Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL concept show slim bezels and hole punch display appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:45

iOS 12.2 now available to download, Apple News and Apple News+ comes to Canada

by Ian Hardy

Coming off Apple’s ‘It’s Show Time” event, the company has pushed out an update to its operating system, now at iOS version 12.2.

This update officially brings Apple News, and the newly announced Apple News+, to Canada. Apple News+ comes with 30 Canadian magazine titles and costs $12.99 CAD per month.

In addition, iOS 12.2 also loads up your iPhone and iPad with a bunch of new Animoji characters, specifically the owl, boar, giraffe, and shark.

Here’s the complete list of release notes that also comes with the usual unknown ‘bug fixes and improvements.’

Apple News+

  • Apple News+ is a new subscription service that extends the Apple News experience with hundreds of magazines and top newspapers
  • Our editors handpick top articles and magazine issues, and you also get personalized recommendations on the topics most interesting to you
  • Automatic downloads make it easy to read magazine issues offline
  • Apple News is now available in Canada, with a free experience that includes handpicked Top Stories, a personalized Today feed, and support for both English and French
  • Apple News+ is available in the U.S. and in Canada, with dozens of additional Canadian magazines

Siri

  • Ask Siri on your iPhone or iPad to play any video, show, movie, sports game, or channel on Apple TV. For example, “Hey Siri, play Free Solo on my TV”

Animoji

  • Four new Animoji—owl, boar, giraffe and shark—are included for iPhone X and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) and iPad Pro 11-inch

AirPlay

  • Dedicated TV controls in Control Center and on the Lock Screen give you quick access to TV controls
  • AirPlay multitasking for video allows you to browse other apps, as well as play other short form audio and video files locally on your device without interrupting AirPlay
  • AirPlay destinations are now grouped by content type making it faster for you to find what device you want to play to

Apple Pay

  • Apple Pay Cash customers can now transfer money to their bank accounts instantly using their Visa debit cards
  • Wallet app now conveniently displays Apple Pay credit and debit transactions right below the card

It’s worth noting that, at this time, Apple Pay Cash isn’t available in Canada — although it did appear in the iOS 12.2 beta.

Screen Time

  • Downtime can be configured with a different schedule for each day of the week
  • A new toggle enables easily turning app limits on or off temporarily

Safari

  • Website sign-in now occurs automatically after filling credentials with Password AutoFill
  • Warnings now appear when loading unencrypted webpages
  • Removes support for the expired Do Not Track standard to prevent potential use as a fingerprinting variable; Intelligent Tracking Prevention now protects against cross-site tracking by default
  • Smart Search Field queries can now be modified by tapping the arrow icon next to search suggestions

Apple Music

  • The Browse tab shows more editorial highlights on a single page making it easier to discover new music, playlists, and more

AirPods

  • Support for new AirPods (2nd generation)

This update also includes other improvements and bug fixes. This update:

  • Supports Air Quality Index in Maps for US, UK, and India
  • Includes information in Settings on how much time remains on your device’s warranty period
  • Supports real-time text (RTT) for phone calls made through a nearby iPhone on iPad and iPod Touch
  • Displays a “5G E” icon for iPhone 8 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) or iPad Pro 11-inch indicating that users are in an area where AT&T’s 5G Evolution network is available
  • Improves quality of audio recordings in Messages
  • Improves stability and performance of Apple TV Remote on iOS
  • Fixes an issue that prevented some missed calls from appearing in Notification Center
  • Addresses an issue where a badge notification could appear on Settings even though no action is needed
  • Addresses an issue in Settings > General > iPhone Storage where the storage size of some large apps, the System category, and the Other category in the storage bar graph could be incorrect
  • Fixes an issue that could cause Voice Memos to automatically play back recordings after connecting to a car Bluetooth device
  • Resolves an issue that could cause Voice Memos to temporarily prevent renaming a recording

The post iOS 12.2 now available to download, Apple News and Apple News+ comes to Canada appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:45

Here’s all the original content announced so far for Apple TV+

by Dean Daley
Oprah Winfrey Apple

Apple has announced ‘Apple TV+,’ the tech giant’s often-rumoured original video content streaming platform.

The Cupertino-based company has promised television shows and movies from big names like Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, J.J Abrams, Oprah Winfrey, M. Night Shyamalan, Spike Lee and more.

The service will also feature actors such as Rupert Grint, Jennifer Aniston, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Garner, Tituss Burgess, Chris Evans, Kristen Bell, Ewan McGregor, Brie Larson, Jason Sudeikis, Jason Momoa, Ben Stiller and even Peanuts‘ Snoopy.

Here’s a list of Apple original content

Below are the series that were announced at Apple’s ‘show time’ event.

  • The Morning Show: Comedy/Drama, 2 seasons with 20 episodes — Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Carell
  • See: Drama, 1 season with 8 episodes — Alfre Woodward and Jason Momoa
  • Little America: Anthology/Drama, 1 season — Kumail Nanjiani
  • Helpsters — Cody and Big Bird
  • Toxic Labor — Oprah
  • Little Voice: Romantic/Comedy-drama, 1 season with 10 episodes — J.J. Abrams, Sarah Bareilles

Here are some of the other series coming to Apple TV+

  • Amazing Stories: Anthology/Drama, 1 season with 10 episodes — Steven Spielberg
  • Are You Sleeping: Thriller/Drama, 1 season with 10 episodes — Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul and Reese Witherspoon
  • Calls: Thriller/Drama, 1 season with 10 episodes — Timothée Hochet
  • Central Park: Animated musical comedy, 2 seasons with 26 episodes — Loren Bouchard
  • Defending Jacob: Drama miniseries, 8 episodes — Chris Evans, Mark Bomback and Morten Tyldum
  • Dickinson: Comedy, 1 season — Hailee Steinfeld and Alena Smith
  • For All Mankind: Science Fiction/Drama, 1 season — Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi
  • Foundation: Science Fiction, 1 season with 10 episodes — David S. Goyer, based on Isaac Asimov novels
  • Home: Docuseries, 1 season with 10 episodes — Matt Tynauer
  • Magic Hour: Mystery Drama, 1 season with 10 episodes — Dana Fox
  • Pachinko: Drama, 1 season with 8 episodes — Min Jin Lee

The post Here’s all the original content announced so far for Apple TV+ appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:45

Apple’s updated TV app will feature Bell’s Crave service in Canada

by Bradly Shankar
Crave

Apple has announced that its TV app will feature Bell Media’s Crave streaming service in Canada.

As part of major overhaul to its TV app in May, users will soon be able to access shows and movies from over 150 apps and channels, including HBO, Showtime, CBS All Access and Starz.

The inclusion of Crave ensures that popular shows from some of these services like The Handmaid’s TaleGame of ThronesCounterpart and Billions are available in the Apple TV app in Canada.

However, this is the only Canadian service that has been confirmed for the Apple TV app so far. It’s also unclear how many of the 150-plus apps and channels are exclusive to regions like the U.S.

The goal behind the updated TV app is to offer one dedicated hub for entertainment across iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac and smart TVs and streaming devices. Users will be able to subscribe to services à la carte in the TV app.

This fall, the TV app will also debut Apple TV+, a premium subscription service that offers exclusive original content from the likes of Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston.

Specific pricing for Apple TV+ has not yet been detailed, although the service is confirmed to be coming to Canada at launch.

The post Apple’s updated TV app will feature Bell’s Crave service in Canada appeared first on MobileSyrup.

25 Mar 21:45

Images of Beats Powerbeats Pro wireless earphones revealed in iOS 12.2

by Ian Hardy

Last week, rumours pointed towards Beats releasing a wire-free version of its popular PowerBeats earphones.

Today, hidden within the newly released iOS 12.2 udpate is are images of the upcoming ‘Powerbeats Pro,’ which looks to have the same overall design lines of the Powerbeats3 but without the wire connecting the two together.

According to 9to5Mac, the Apple-owned Beats earbuds will be an alternative to AirPods and come in both white and black and also have a charging case that will be able to charge the buds when they are not being used.

There is still no indication of a release date, pricing, or official specs such as battery life.

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25 Mar 21:45

Teardown of Google app 9.51 reveals changes to Collections, Lens and more

by Jonathan Lamont

The Google app beta version 9.51 started rolling out to Android users and it’s already been torn down and thoroughly investigated for upcoming features.

According to an APK teardown performed by 9to5Google, Google is working on several new features in its app, including new features for the Google Assistant-powered headphones, Collections, Google Lens and more.

APK teardowns like this will take an app and decompile it to investigate upcoming features. As with all teardowns, it’s important to remember that these features are works-in-progress. They may not see completion, and if they do, they could look different from what we see in the teardown. With that in mind, let’s dig in.

First up, version 9.51 brings some changes to ‘bisto’ — the internal code name for the Google Assistant headphones.

Specifically, the Google app renames the ‘Output responses via HFP’ option to ‘Speak responses as a phone call.’ HFP refers to Bluetooth’s Hands-Free Profile, typically used to communicate with cars.

The update also adds a description that says “Try this if you’re having trouble hearing your Assistant.”

Finally, the option briefly appears on screen when you open the Pixel Buds page in the Assistant settings. It’s not clear what it does at this time, but it seems like it may be an accessibility setting designed to make it easier to hear Assistant.

Collections, Google Lens and more

Google’s Collections feature, which lets users save links, images, products and places, recently received an option to share the collections publicly.

The APK teardown reveals Google is working on a contribution option as well, which may let users edit lists. Several strings of code suggest future options include an ‘Editable’ and ‘View only’ selection.

On top of the changes to Collections, Google app 9.51 includes code to enable a ‘Region search mode’ in Google Lens. This allows users to designate a specific location, such as Canada, U.S. or Argentina, to search.

9to5Google also uncovered code for a new prompt that’ll appear on devices with a built-in Assistant button. The prompt will encourage users to use the button.

Further, a few lines of code mark small changes to a tip calculator feature Google is working on.

Finally, Google changed a code string to note that its Continued Conversations feature is now available in U.S. and U.K. English. The search giant is also testing support in all English locales and German.

If you want to try out the newest Google beta app, you can enroll in the beta on the Play Store. However, you won’t find any of the features mentioned in this article as they’re still in development.

Source: 9to5Google

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