Apple
A Notch in Your Fanboy Belt
The Moto 360 has a cutout at the bottom. Apple fanboys: OMG it’s a flat tire, what trash!
The Pixel 3 XL has a big old bathtub notch. Apple fanboys: man, what an ugly notch, Google sucks.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has a tiny notch. Apple fanboys: ugh, why even have a
🟩 Not Wordle, Just a Newsletter (#102)
It's Friday, which means it's time for some fun links! Music is back today as well 🙂
The Links
* You're better off flipping a coin than listening to the groundhog. Come on, Phil!
* People keep acting like getting Covid either kills you or makes you stronger, but study after study
Apple
What if Apple's 27% Deal Goes Worldwide?
Apple's "best I can do is 27%" deal for merchants selling dating apps in the Netherlands is a bit of a laugh, but what would it look like if Apple made this available to everyone?
Like let's just say that at WWDC this June Apple announces that later this
Links
Why I (well, Lloyd Coombes) Blog Using Drafts
Why I blog using Drafts - Lloyd Coombes
It’s a utilitarian approach, and yet there’s something I love about that. Perhaps even better, Drafts will let me share my text in a variety of ways. I can fire stuff over to a million different apps, or export into HTML to copy into WordPress.
While
Links
Maybe It’s Not Confidence Holding You Back
Is Confidence the Secret to Success? Not Exactly.
Over time, Dr. Gill said, they realized that “inequalities were being explained away through this psychological characteristic of confidence.” Their research is distilled in “Confidence Culture,” a feminist cultural critique that will be published by Duke University Press on Feb. 9. The book skewers the notion that
Links
Just Some Plain Good News
A Cancer Treatment Makes Leukemia Vanish, but Creates More Mysteries
Dr. June and his colleagues, Dr. J. Joseph Melenhorst and Dr. Porter, report that the CAR T treatment made the cancer vanish in two out of the three patients in that early trial. All had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The big surprise, though, was that even
Apple Reveals Their Tap-to-Phone Solution
From Apple's Newsroom blog:
Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers
Links
The Six Colors Report Card
Apple in 2021: The Six Colors report card
John Siracusa said, “Every new Mac Apple introduced in 2021 was a hit. The new MacBook Pros have rescued that product line after years of decline and dysfunction. The multi-colored 24-inch iMac is a breath of fresh air after nearly two decades of white and
Links
Security Updates End for Google's 2018 Flagship
Pixel 3 and 3 XL get final update with February security patch
Google today rolled out the final update for the Pixel 3 and 3 XL.
For reference, the Pixel 3 came out a month after the iPhone XS. Imagine if iOS 16 was announced at WWDC and Apple said it would support the iPhone
Links
It’s More Than 3%
John Gruber: Going Dutch
Consider Stripe, which is incredibly popular (and deservedly so). Stripe charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. That’s very fair and delightfully simple, but while that extra 30 cents per transaction is negligible for large transactions, for small ones, it’s very significant. Consider a $10 in-app purchase
Links
Malleable Software
Settings are not a design failure
While I was reorganizing my phone, I had a sudden realization: Settings are typically seen as the result of design failure. The thinking goes that as designers, our goal is to create product experiences that don’t require any adjustments by the user. Consequently, offering customization options is interpreted
Links
Why Luke Skywalker Might Have Weirded You Out
The Unbridled and Mildly Horrifying Evolution of CGI Luke Skywalker
Read this horrifying description of Respeecher from a sound editor who worked on the series, Matthew Wood: "It's a neural network you feed information into and it learns," Wood says. "So I had archival material from Mark in that era.
Links
What College Students Really Think About Cancel Culture
What College Students Really Think About Cancel Culture
Though self-censorship is a problem in academia—more than 80 percent of college kids say that they self-censor at least some of the time, according to one study—not all students agree with the adults who are catastrophizing.
I don’t really understand this metric,
Links
Take The State of Switch Survey!
Chris Brandrick does a weekly (week #268 just went out) newsletter called Switch Weekly, and it covers all the Nintendo
Links
WordleForever is a Gift from the Heavens
Federico Viticci and Finn Voorhees have teamed up to make something amazing:
So in the spirit of game preservation (a topic I care deeply about) and out of skepticism regarding the future of Wordle as a NYT product, I teamed up with Finn Voorhees to create WordleForever, a shortcut that lets you back up the
Links
I Hope the AirPods Max Don’t Lose the Crown
AirPods Max 2 could feature touch controls instead of a Digital Crown
Touch controls on AirPods Max 2 could make it easier to jump songs, invoke Siri, turn the volume up or down, and more. As of now, having the Digital Crown is still a pretty clever and unique feature to Apple’s premium headphones.
Links
The ’80S Are Back, Baby
The ’80s Are Back, Baby
VHS grain, airbrush art and officecore prop use is too widespread to list every occurrence, though one particular spot of interest is how fully these motifs form the backbone of Coach’s Spring 2022 social campaigns, including ’80s- and ’90s-era details as specific as faux 1-800 numbers and
