Twitter Wasn’t Worth the Effort ⇢

Gabe Bullard at Nieman Reports, reporting an internal memo from NPR, which left Twitter back in April:

Six months later, we can see that the effects of leaving Twitter have been negligible. A memo circulated to NPR staff says traffic has dropped by only a single percentage point as a result of leaving Twitter, now officially renamed X, though traffic from the platform was small already and accounted for just under two percent of traffic before the posting stopped. (NPR declined an interview request but shared the memo and other information). While NPR’s main account had 8.7 million followers and the politics account had just under three million, “the platform’s algorithm updates made it increasingly challenging to reach active users; you often saw a near-immediate drop-off in engagement after tweeting and users rarely left the platform,” the memo says.

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The Story of a 22-Year-Old Firefox Bug ⇢

Kevin Purdy, writing at Ars Technica about a fun Firefox story:

Back in June 2002, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth was experiencing space for the first time, the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Microsoft was reaching its final arguments, and Adam Price, using what was then called Mozilla on a Mac, had an issue with persistent tooltips.

“If I mouseover a toolbar link, and wait for a second, a little yellow box with the description of the link appears. If I now use command-tab to move Mozilla to the background, the little yellow box stays there, in the foreground. The only way to get rid of it is to put mozilla in the foreground again, and move the mouse off the toolbar,” Price wrote on June 2. There were a few other bugs related to this issue, but Price set down a reproducible issue, confirmed by many others in the weeks to come—and months to come, years to come, and more than two decades to come.

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iTunes Movie Trailers Taken Offline ⇢

As noted by Chance Miller at 9to5Mac, Apple has pulled the plug on its iTunes Movie Trailers website and app after starting the process earlier in August.

This website had been around a long time. It made big news back in the late 1990s when it hosted the trailer for STAR WARS: Episode I. Here’s a press release from that era:

The popularity of the STAR WARS: Episode I trailer has set an Internet record with over 3.5 million downloads since it first premiered on the joint Lucasfilm/Apple web site (reachable through www.starwars.com or www.apple.com) last Thursday, March 11.

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Obscura 4 ⇢

Version 4 of Obscura, the excellent camera app for iOS, has launched today. The update brings a revised interface, iPad support and a new business model, as John Voorhees writes as MacStories:

If you bought Obscura 3, you’ll still have access to all its features with the free version of Obscura 4, which you can upgrade to at a discount. I think the new pricing model is a good deal, and I wanted to mention it up front because it’s behind many of the design changes in Obscura 4.

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The MacSparky Obsidian Field Guide ⇢

My pal David Sparks has a new Field Guide out:

The Obsidian on-ramp is steep. It takes a while to wrap your arms around exactly what you can do with this app and unlock its full potential. You need a guide. That’s me, MacSparky, your Obsidian pal. Once you master Obsidian, you’ll also need help picking plugins and figuring out exactly how far down that rabbit hole you want to go. I’ve got you covered there, too.

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Another Plea to the Reminders Team, This Time About the Today View

After getting my much-loved badge change in Reminders last year, I am back with another request, now as a full-time Reminders user.

The Today view is the most important UI in Reminders, as it pulls in overdue and due tasks into one place. Here is what mine looks like right now:

Reminders Today

As you can see, Today puts tasks in this order:

  • Overdue
  • Due Today (no time)
  • Due this Morning
  • Due this Afternoon
  • Due Tonight

The last three are dependent on the “Group by Time” option being enabled. If it is not, the list simply looks like this:

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Alex Hay’s Apps Live on at Snailed It ⇢

In March, app developer Alex Hay tragically passed away. Hay’s apps, which include Toolbox Pro, Logger for Shortcuts and Nautomate.

Thankfully they all have a new home, and the news couldn’t be better. Here’s Rosemary Orchard:

We’re truly honoured to be able to announce that we have taken over development of Toolbox Pro, Logger for Shortcuts, and Nautomate.

All three apps were originally developed by indie developer Alex Hay before he tragically passed away back in March after a battle with cancer.

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Siri, Define ‘Irony’ ⇢

Ashley Belanger at Ars:

Earlier this month, Zoom announced a surprising decision to require some of its employees to return to the office, where they were expected to work more effectively. Now, leaked audio from an internal Zoom meeting shared with Business Insider has revealed that Zoom CEO Eric Yuan called employees back to the office because he believes that “remote work didn’t allow people to build as much trust or be as innovative.”

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RIP, Dr. John Warnock ⇢

Adobe:

It is with profound sadness that Adobe shares the passing of the company’s beloved co-founder Dr. John Warnock. Dr. Warnock passed away on Saturday surrounded by his family.

Dr. Warnock co-founded Adobe in 1982 with Dr. Charles Geschke after meeting as colleagues at Xerox. Their first product was Adobe PostScript, groundbreaking technology that sparked the desktop publishing revolution. Dr. Warnock retired as CEO in 2000 and he was chairman of the board, a position he shared with Dr. Geschke, until 2017. He was a member of the Board of Directors since then. In recognition of their technical achievements, Dr. Warnock was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama; the Computer Entrepreneur Award from the IEEE Computer Society; the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement; and the Marconi Prize for contributions to information science and communications.

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Callsheet ⇢

Casey Liss has launched a new iPhone and iPad app that makes learning about TV shows and movies a breeze. Here he is on his blog:

Callsheet, in short, allows you to look up movies, TV shows, cast, and crew. You can think of it as similar to the IMDB app but… with respect for its users. Which, actually, makes it not like IMDB at all.

When I watch a movie or TV show, I’m constantly trying to figure out who that actor is, who the director is, and so on. Early this year, I wanted a way to look this up that was native to iOS/iPadOS, but also fast, with no fluff that I wasn’t interested in. I wanted a bespoke version of the IMDB app.

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According to Foreca’s Weather Data, Everyone in Memphis is Dead

Like many places around the world, it is very hot in Memphis currently. When I checked to see how hot it was, I was in for a surprise.

I’m a long-time CARROT Weather user, and love the app for its customization options and powerful UI. One of those features is the ability to change the source for the weather data shown in the app.

I’ve used Foreca for years, as according to Forecast Advisor, it’s among the most accurate sources for where I live.

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