Lots of new features this year. iOS 16 iPadOS 16 watchOS 9 macOS 13 And also a new Macbook Air using an M2 chip, the next iteration on their M-series processors. A list of thoughts: Lock Screen widgets look awesome. The ability to have a time-bound, floating widget sitting on the bottom of the lock screen showing you sports scores or when your Uber/Lyft arrives could be a killer feature; but I hope it becomes more widespread and successful than App Clips....
A trip to Key West and riding on the Overseas Highway (US Rt. 1) always makes for a good month in biking! Despite the time off for that vacation, I managed to just barely eclipse my 2021 mileage at this same point last year - 1,005 miles for this year versus 994 for last. Certainly an improvement against where I was in February or March. No video yet from Key West; I am being exceptionally lazy editing that footage....
As reported by Bruce Schneier and The Verge: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a controversial anti-hacking law which bans “exceeding authorized access” on a computer system, was narrowed by the Supreme Court on Thursday in a 6-3 ruling. The court said the law shouldn’t cover people misusing systems they’re allowed to access — and that claiming otherwise would criminalize a “breathtaking amount” of everyday computer use. Great news here on a couple fronts:...
Spent a solid seven days in Key West, Florida the other week, a wonderful little island at the end of the Florida Keys. For the next time I visit, here’s a nice, quick summary of all the best places to visit for food, drink, or fun. Best Places for… Food Red Shoe Island Bistro. Probably the best meal we had all week. They don’t have a long menu, but each and every item they had was excellent....
This is a rather long (at 53 minutes) video, but it has some fascinating bits of information about the heat shield deployed by the James Webb Space Telescope. This video focuses on how to precisely measure the dimensions of the heat shield, so that other scientists could model the properties of the shield in diffusing heat away from the delicate instruments in and on the telescope. Really cool tech used to take these measurements, including a laser with a spinning mirror that could blind you fairly quick....
Reporting from The Verge: In a joint effort, tech giants Apple, Google, and Microsoft announced Thursday morning that they have committed to building support for passwordless sign-in across all of the mobile, desktop, and browser platforms that they control in the coming year. … A passwordless login process will let users choose their phones as the main authentication device for apps, websites, and other digital services… … “For example, users can sign-in on a Google Chrome browser that’s running on Microsoft Windows—using a passkey on an Apple device....
One solid weekend of biking in there. The rest…eh. For the long weekend of riding in April, I’ve embedded a YouTube video I cut together of the two days of riding. Scroll past the VeloViewer image to check that out. This was our first attempt at strapping the GoPro onto our bikes and capturing the adventure. Shot using a GoPro Hero 10. On the “do again” list I’ve got a GoPro handlebar mount, and on the “never do that again” list I’ve got the chest mount....
I’ve seen so much confusion about who is funding what, I am compelled to publish this here for constant reference. From Matt Levine writing in Money Stuff on 21 April 2022: Elon Musk needs about $46.5 billion to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share: about $39.4 billion to pay for the 91% of Twitter’s stock that he doesn’t currently own, about $4.3 billion of debt to refinance and various miscellaneous costs....
Work on improving the sunroom continues (haven’t yet written about this here!), which means my free hours are dedicated to construction and not getting out on the bike as much. Here’s hoping by the high-summer days of June this whole sunroom project is wrapped up and I can focus more on recreation. Did get in my first long outdoor ride for the year! Beautiful weather combine with rolling along in a group of friends from the Outdoor Club of South Jersey; it feels nice to be back out on the road, breathing in that fresh air....
Yesterday, I laid out some concerns with Apple’s App Store model. Here’s a suggestion for how Apple could improve and tackle those challenges: The iOS App Store is reduced to a curated experience of 20,000 apps or less. Sideloading apps is allowed. Optional: Apple sells an “App Platform as a Service” that handles distribution, hosting of app binaries, etc. Curation for the Best By reducing Apple’s iOS App Store to ~20k apps, consumers who visit it know they are getting the best of the best....
