There’s a new employee on the severed floor. I wonder if the innie or the outie attended Trump’s inauguration earlier this week after helping pay for it.
posts
‘Our Homes Burned Down’⇢
Colin and Samir host some very interesting interviews on their YouTube channel. They each lost their homes in the L.A. fires and their video talking about it is really tough, but puts a real human voice to the tragedy so many people are facing right now. As expected, a good bit of the 28 minutes is the pair talking about how they want to use their platform to help others.
Connected 536: Dad Draws a Bath and Plays Mario Kart⇢
This week on an unhinged episode of Connected:
Federico has a new mail client, Myke is concerned about software releases, and Stephen shares a recent interaction with AppleCare’s iCloud support team.
On Connected Pro, we designed the Hurleys the perfect iPad for use their baby nursery.
Project 8086 Part II: Real Mode Productivity; or, 8,086 Reasons to Get a Newer Computer
MS-DOS Correspondent Kevin Lipe reporting again from the trailing edge of computing. When I was last with you, we discussed the Pocket 8086. If you don’t remember what the Pocket 8086 is, or who I am, or what any of this has to do with everyone’s favorite Apple blog, I’d refer you to part one of that series, as it will sort of answer maybe two of those questions.
I was pretty ambivalent about whether the Pocket 8086 was good at what it was trying to do, because I didn’t really think there was much of a goal for the project other than “hey this is cool.” But as someone who always loves a good deep dive into old software tools to see what I can learn about how to work with new ones, I have to admit that I felt a strong urge to see if I could actually find some thing to use it for.
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Mac Power Users 780: Our Home Screens & Focus Modes⇢
Our iPhones are always with us, making the Home Screen very valuable real estate in our lives. This week, the guys share their home screens and Focus modes and how their devices help keep them on track.
On More Power Users, we talked through our Control Center screens.
Apple Intelligence Really Wants Joanna Stern to Have a Husband⇢
Joanna Stern has written about this before, but in her email newsletter this week, she addresses the fact that Apple Intelligence continues to misgender her spouse:
Here’s a notification for you, Apple: There is no husband.
Despite what my iPhone’s frequent notification summaries report, my husband isn’t messy, he isn’t sad and he definitely didn’t take out the garbage—because, again, I don’t have one. Wife? Yes. Husband? No.
She goes on:
Apple Intelligence Notification Summaries Tweaked in iOS 18.3 Beta⇢
Apple’s “intelligent” notification summaries have been …uhhhhh… making things up as LLMs often do, and after repeated complaints from the likes of the BBC, Apple is changing how they work. Chance Miller has details:
Here are the changes included in iOS 18.3 for Apple Intelligence notification summaries:
- When you enable notification summaries, iOS 18.3 will make it clearer that the feature – like all Apple Intelligence features – is a beta.
- You can now disable notification summaries for an app directly from the Lock Screen or Notification Center by swiping, tapping “Options,” then choosing the “Turn Off Summaries” option.
- On the Lock Screen, notification summaries now use italicized text to better distinguish them from normal notifications.
- In the Settings app, Apple now warns users that notification summaries “may contain errors.”
The further we get into the Apple Intelligence Era, the more unhappy I am with the company’s whole approach to these features. These changes coming in iOS 18.3 should have been there from day one.
CARROT Weather 6.2⇢
I’m pumped about this version of my favorite weather app:
Live Activities
Now you can opt to have Live Activities start automatically when precipitation is in the area! They’ll be started via a notification about 15 minutes before rain or snow begins, then you’ll continue to receive updates until precipitation stops, at which point the activity will be automatically removed.
CarPlay App
View weather along your driving route, right from your car’s dashboard! The CarPlay app functions as a GPS app, so you can input your destination and get directions from CARROT in her typically snarky style - plus, you’ll get to see all the weather along the way, including live radar, severe weather alerts, and more.
Connected 535: Proper Governance⇢
Federico, Myke, and Stephen consider turning their podcast over to a non-profit for all decision-making. Other points of business include Unifi networking, Focus modes, daily notes, and other items.
My UniFi Experience, Thus Far
After years of waiting, AT&T Fiber finally became available on my side of the street,1 giving me access to sweet, sweet gigabit speed both to and from the Internet. This became the impetus for me to replace most of my home network.
I was using a set of pretty old eero base stations, back from when they were a Relay sponsor years ago. They were great, but I had a recurring issue with the entire network would drop to 100 MBps, despite my switches being gigabit-capable. This was annoying on my previous Comcast connection, but simply not tenable on fiber. After talking to several friends, I opted to dive into the UniFi universe.
Mastodon Moving Assets to a Non-Profit Organization⇢
Mastodon was founded on the principles that people should be able to control their social circle online, curate their own timeline, and convene freely with any community of their choosing. We believe social media should help users build bridges, not walls. And we believe this is best achieved through federation.
Today, we are excited to announce that Mastodon is taking important steps to ensure its legal and operational structures better reflect and support the pursuit of these ideals.