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Daring Fireball: How We Shot The Talk Show Remote From WWDC 2020

For video, we shot 4K 30 FPS using iPhone 11 Pros. That’s right, iPhones. Apple seems to have plenty of them so Federighi and Joz each had two — one positioned head-on, and one to the side for a wider-angle view. I just used one.

The video in this interview was great, and I’m not surprised to hear they shot it all on iPhones. While I love having a “real camera” for still photography, there’s no question my iPhone 11 Pro takes better video than any video camera remotely in my price range. You can get better video, sure, but you have to spend an insane amount of money to get it.

How we achieve "simple design" for Basecamp and HEY - Signal v. Noise

Always choosing clarity over being slick or fancy. Internally we call this “Fisher Price” design. We aim to make the UI totally obvious and self explanatory, by keeping individual screens simple, showing only one focused thing at a time, and so on. Good product design eliminates the need for an instruction manual!

This is good advice. An obvious UI that looks okay is better than something super slick that it’s hard to use or figure out in the first place. Seems obvious, but it’s easy to get dragged into making something look great before you make it work well.

This isn’t me suggesting I’m holier than thou, it’s more me reminding myself in public.

Is WebKit Sabotaging the Future of the Open Web?

Why can’t the WebKit developer energy be spent on building these great new APIs and connect them with user empowering privacy tools. A great example of what I mean is website location tracking. If a website wants access you your location (for say driving directions) you can grant it access. I don’t understand why a similar approach could not be applied for things like Web Bluetooth access or Proximity sensor access.

I think the miss here is a communication one, primarily. I sympathize with Mike's point about being baffled by some things on the list of "privacy unfriendly" browser features shall not be implemented, all while things like your exact location are allowed and hidden behind an access warning. I don't think there is a clear answer as to what makes a feature "secure" or not from their perspective, and that's the miss. If there was something we could point to and see why the battery status API is worse than location access, then it would feel like a decision made on more solid ground.

Gruber serving up a little of his own claim chowder:

So I thought iMessages addressed to a phone number should only go to your iPhone (and not your iPad or Mac, let alone your Apple Watch (which was years away from being released) or glasses (which remain years away now)), and Phillips thought iMessages should go to every device, but should only use phone numbers as identifiers. I’ll score this as me being very wrong, and Phillips being a little wrong.

2012 was a long time ago, and I think this is a good example of how the world has shifted in the past decade. This distinction between your phone and computer is not something that makes much sense in 2020, but I totally get how that was a thing back then.

Today, the expectation across basically everything we use is that I can do something on one device and pick it up later on another device, and it doesn't matter if I use a phone, a tablet, a desktop PC, or even my watch, the experience should continue across all of them. The idea of my messages app having some messages on my phone and other ones on my iPad or Mac is crazy to me, but agian, this wasn't as crazy an idea a decade ago.

The Earn It Act Threatens Our Online Freedoms. New Amendments Don’t Fix It.

The July 2 manager’s and Leahy amendments attempt to respond to some of the concerns that I and others have raised about EARN IT. But they perpetuate the basic underlying problem: if passed, even in this amended form, the bill would still pose a serious threat to our freedoms online, especially freedom of speech. That threat is inherent to this legislation; no amount of amendments can fix it. And here’s the kicker: it still won’t guarantee children’s safety online.

I'm not a legal expert, but this write up does a good job explaining the proposals in this act and why the new changes don't actually fix it (if it even could be fixed and is not fundamentally flawed).

Opinion | You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument - The New York Times

I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.
If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.

And:

I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.

Wow, this is a tough read, but worth your time.

Is anyone watching Quibi?

Instead, Quibi has foundered. The app’s ranking dropped to No. 284 by mid-June. A handful of shows, such as a reboot of Reno 911!, seem to have found an audience (it’s impossible to know precisely how large an audience, since Quibi, like other streamers, doesn’t release numbers), but critical attention has focused mostly on the flops.

Genuinely, outside of the occasional “Quibi is bad” article, and the couple days I spent trying to watch it when it was new, I see no real evidence that the service actually exists. Past launch day, no one in social media is talking about it and no one in my “real life” has mentioned it even in passing.

Really, did Quibi launch? Is it real? I see a giant pile of money on fire in the distance, but I see no evidence that Quibi is a real thing.

Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not. At best, it appears to be something that’s cultural influence is exclusively the snarky articles it lets people like me write every once in a while. At worst, it’s a figment of my imagination that I’ve created to add some drama to these quarantine months this summer.

https://twitter.com/mattbirchler/status/1247206935016996864

Ah, that hopeful fool!

Microsoft is forcing Edge on Windows users with a spyware-like install - The Verge

If I told you that my entire computer screen just got taken over by a new app that I’d never installed or asked for — it just magically appeared on my desktop, my taskbar, and preempted my next website launch — you’d probably tell me to run a virus scanner and stay away from shady websites, no?

This is not a good look for Microsoft, although I’m maybe not going to have the same take as the rest of the Apple fandom…

First off, Edge is the system browser, just like IE before, and just like Safari on macOS and iOS. You couldn’t uninstall IE on Windows before, and you can’t uninstall Safari on iOS or macOS now. Let’s not make this a thing we get upset about.

Second, automatically pinning itself to your taskbar isn’t cool, but again, I got the new Translate app on my iPhone home screen when I upgraded to iOS 14. I get new apps all the time on my home screens on iOS when Apple releases new apps with new iOS releases, so again, not the end of the world.

And third, making you confirm your default browser choice is not cool, but again, this is an interesting take from the Apple fandom. We’ve had 13 years of having zero choice about default browsers, and it’s been annoying for Chrome, Firefox, and yes, even Edge users forever. Also, if you hate this, every time you install a new browser, email client, or basically anything else on Android, it will ask you if you’d like to change your mind on your default.

Anywho, later in the article they get to real conclusion.

Because if I’m being honest, after the initial shock wore off, I found Edge easy enough to ignore. The experience mostly just left a bad taste in my mouth.

So yeah, good to get some hate out there and vent about the company you love to vent about, but it’s actually not a big deal.