Category: Links

How do people have that many pillows? This topic can double for using the iPad in bed. Now, excuse me as I head to buy 25 more pillows.

They’re spying on me‽ The horror!

Warrantless eavesdropping on people who have done nothing wrong – the largest system of suspicionless mass surveillance ever created – is inherently abusive and unjustified, and one shouldn’t need a report that this was done to the Benjamin Netanyahus and Pete Hoekstras of the world to realize that.

Fraser Speirs is making his iPad Pro his only computer:

The iPad Pro was just the icing on the cake. It took everything that was good about iOS 9 on the iPad Air 2 and made it much, much better. The iPad Pro is fast, capable and packs a screen basically the same size as the laptop I just sold. This is how I want to work.

Makes me feel ashamed I had to keep my MacBook. Though to be fare I charge my MacBook once a week because I rarely ever use it.

I think the way Josh Ginter is using his iPad Pro at work is great:

I use a laptop PC at the office with an external monitor, but my desk has a keyboard tray. I don’t want my personal email flooding my work computer, and I have no way of sending iMessages on the laptop. So instead, I put the iPad Pro flat on its back on that keyboard tray and have Messages, Outlook, Slack, and Omnifocus running in Split View throughout the day. If an email comes in, I pull out the keyboard tray, print out any documents to my wireless printer, and tap a quick reply to the email before sliding the keyboard tray back in and getting back to the task at hand. If something comes through Twitter or Slack, same thing: tap a response and get back to work.

This is kind of genius.

This new gun tax in Seattle is great:

At least some of these new revenues, moreover, will be used to throw a handful of sand into a canyon dug by pro-gun lawmakers at the federal level. Though some portion of the funds will go to research on gun violence, such research is sparse because of a 20 year-old ban on federal research into such violence.

Dr. Drang on the notion that Touch ID is too fast:

So these “edgy” interface fans want to unlock their phones by pressing the home button, swiping on the “slide to unlock” area, and then putting their thumbs back down on the home button for Touch ID. I’m sure Apple will get on that right away.

The idea that Touch ID could ever be too fast is moronic.

The greatest control Americans have had over the abusive and pointless security theater of the TSA has been to opt out of body scanners. That has now changed:

Indeed, the only thing the TSA is alluding to is the fact some passengers will be denied the right to opt-out “in order to safeguard transportation security,” something we know is a sham since the body scanners have a 96% failure rate.

I highly doubt that I have anything to personally worry about. But if I were — and I’m guessing here — say a person of middle eastern descent, I’m guessing they won’t be allowed to opt out. Which is infuriating to write, but this wreaks of racial profiling. I hope they get their asses handed to them over this.

My takeaway from Erin’s review: this is as close as you can get to Fujifilm, film simulations with filters.

Don Melton on moving to WordPress:

What I really needed was a publishing system easily accessible from anywhere — even mobile devices — to quickly create and deploy content. Which is the whole point of having a blog that people want to read.

See, I just don’t understand people who bother using non-Wordpress blogging platforms.

I sent out a newsletter containing all the links and a general thought for this week. I am going to move to this approach instead of posting links on the site when I come across them. I’m not sure Friday is the right day, but it’s the day for this week.

The link above will give you the web version of the newsletter, you can subscribe to the newsletter here.

I’ve given The Verge a lot of shit over the years, but this video is basically the most helpful comparison I have seen on the two devices.

Jack Lowe:

The results were incredibly revealing – after just 7 days 88% of the group that left Facebook said they felt “happy” as opposed to 81% in the group still using the site. They also felt less angry, less lonely, less depressed, more decisive, more enthusiastic, and enjoyed their lives more. Ditching Facebook also appeared to reduce stress levels by as much as 55%. They’re some pretty strong results…

All this makes me want to leave Twitter and Instagram behind… Again.

Luke Dormehl:

In fact, the group is arguing that, “Apple’s conduct … enhanced competition by increasing e-book output, the number of e-book titles, and the number of e-book distributors, which led to technological improvements in the e-book market and enhanced freedom of expression and access to e-books.”

Instead of focusing on Apple, the group claims that the Department of Justice should instead apply its antitrust investigations to Amazon.

Gabe Weatherhead:

Data syncing may be the most critical aspect of modern computing and we’ve settled too easily for the most convenient solution.

Sketch Blog writes about their decision to leave the Mac App Store. This is a real shame as Sketch is amazing and having all your apps purchased from the Mac App Store is a way better experience for users setting up new Macs.

There’s been thousands of words spilled on this topic already, but I want to spill some different ones. Words directed at Sketch and not Apple.

Sketch,

Hi, big fan here. You’ve long said you won’t be coming to the iPad because you can’t be convinced it will be profitable. That’s very reasonable, but your life just got a lot harder moving outside the Mac App Store.

Now you can certainly make it, but you won’t have that sweet — sweet — free banner marketing from Apple. So that’s going to be a little more expensive for you.

So meet the iPad Pro.

It’s a hell of a device and maybe if you made a small thing to perhaps even just view Sketch files on the iPad (not the Mirror app) — perhaps that would give you an idea of interest. And then maybe give us some basic tools. See where things go, you don’t need to marry the device, but at least take it on some real dates.

The iOS App Store is better, not great, but better. I would love to have you on it.

Love usually,

Ben

S.V. Dáte:

All of this is read­ily known to even a school­child with a cas­u­al in­terest in air­planes—which raises the ques­tion: Where and why would Trump get the idea his plane was big­ger?

Great read. But why not call these lies?

Thomas Wong:

One of the coolest multitasking benefits of the iPad Pro is that there’s enough space to read source material and take handwritten notes, simultaneously. I write with my right hand (even though I’m normally left-handed), so I usually keep my note app in Split View along the right hand side.

I feel like an idiot, but it never even occurred to me to do this. Man is this going to be a great tool for students and meetings.

Fraser Speirs:

If you have certain very specifically-defined workflows, and a work environment where you can guarantee yourself a chair and desk, you can probably get your work done on a MacBook Pro. For the rest of the world, there’s iPad.

A must read.