I’ve written about my brother’s non-profit before. Operation Broken Silence is hard at work to end the genocide happening in Sudan. I believe in their work, and was honored to narrate their last documentary. I’m helping them raise money to shoot their next film. These films allow Operation Broken Silence to tell the story of the people caught in this terrible situation. OBS provides food, medicine and education to the refugees who have fled the conflict.
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Review: the Withings Activité Pop
Back in December, I wrote this about my Apple Watch, after not having worn it very much in the weeks leading up the article:
The Apple Watch can do a lot of neat things, and I miss its fitness tracking, but so much of it just doesn’t fit my lifestyle anymore. It’s not super useful for work, apps are still miserably slow and at times, its an additional distraction.
Since then, I can count on one hand the times I’ve powered up the Watch to wear it, but as I mentioned, I have missed the fitness tracking way more than any of the other features.
RSS Sponsor: Blink: Better Affiliate Links⇢
Blink is a universal iOS app that helps you earn commissions from the iTunes affiliate program. Creating affiliate links on iOS is time-consuming and fiddly. Blink simplifies the process by saving your affiliate credentials and other preferences so they are always at your finger tips.
Blink converts existing App and iTunes Store URLs into affiliate links. If you don’t already have a link, Blink can search across Mac and iOS apps, film, TV, music, audiobooks, and iBooks all at once, making it easy to grab the link you want. Blink is fast and provides loads of detail on each item in its search results, which makes it great for writers researching an app or other media. Blink is even available from within other apps via an extension, so you can create links without interrupting the flow of your work.
Apple publishes security FAQ⇢
Apple has published an FAQ tackling a lot of common questions and misconceptions surrounding this FBI thing. This bit jumped out at me:
Is it technically possible to do what the government has ordered?
Yes, it is certainly possible to create an entirely new operating system to undermine our security features as the government wants. But it’s something we believe is too dangerous to do. The only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn’t abused and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands is to never create it.
The password reset⇢
John Gruber, breaking down the most recent detail in the San Bernardino case:
The FBI screwed this up by directing the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health to reset Farook’s Apple ID password. They did not, and apparently could not, change anything on the phone itself. But once they reset the Apple ID password, the phone could not back up to iCloud, because the phone needed to be updated with the newly-reset Apple ID password — and they could not do that because they can’t unlock the phone.
Apple extends MacBook Pro video REP⇢
I’ve seen a couple machines in the last month or so just start showing symptoms of this hardware failure. I’m glad to see Apple extending this past what most repair extension programs get.
A look at Apple’s chipmaking division⇢
Bloomberg Businessweek has a great profile of Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president for hardware technologies:
Srouji runs what is probably the most important and least understood division inside the world’s most profitable company. Since 2010, when his team produced the A4 chip for the original iPad, Apple has immersed itself in the costly and complex science of silicon.
Six months of indie life
I’ve been independent for just about six months now, 1 and I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how things are going.
The Work
As most nerds, I can’t really just work on one thing, so I divide my working time into three big categories.
Relay FM
Relay FM is the majority of my income and is what I spend the most time on. Being able to dedicate much more of my time and effort to the network has been huge. For example, our membership program had been on the to-do list for months before I had time to get it built out. It’s been a big success, and it’s really great to see our hosts be able to make more from their shows. Putting together the newsletter for our members is a real joy each month.
It’s bigger than a single phone⇢
As we’ve learned from national hero Edward Snowden and, well, almost every other high-profile action taken by law enforcement recently, this most likely has very little to do with the specific crime or iPhone that the FBI is citing in this case.
It’s their excuse to establish precedent and permanent backdoors for themselves so they can illegally spy on anyone’s data whenever they please.
This is the most dangerous kind of slippery slope in today’s world: one that starts under the guise of security in the face of terrorism.
Connected #78: The Nostalgia of the Underdog⇢
I missed today’s recording, but I’m hitting play as I type this:
This week, Federico and Myke discuss Amazon Echo, Tim Cook’s letter to the FBI and Apple executives on The Talk Show.
Our thanks to our sponsors this week:
- Squarespace: Build it beautiful. Use code ‘WORLD’ for 10% off.
- PDFpen, from Smile: The Swiss Army Knife for working with PDFs.
Tim Cook: ‘We oppose this order’⇢
The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.
This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.
If you haven’t read this, go read it.
Thoughts on an iPad Air 3 Smart Keyboard
With an iPad Air 3 rumored to be right around the corner, there’s been a lot of discussion about the new 9.7-inch iPad. Will it gain Pencil support? What about the Smart Connector?
I think the Pencil is probably a no-brainer for this device. The iPad Pro is great — I’m typing this on mine, actually — but it is big. An iPad Air with a Pencil more closely mimics keeping a paper notebook tucked under you arm if you’re just going out to sketch. I think putting the Pencil in the hands of more users is only good for the platform.