Extra Reading: February 27, 2022

The source for what’s here comes from my weekly reading. My reading starts with my RSS feed in NetNewsWire. From NetNewsWire, things that I want to read go into Instapaper. What ends here are things that I found interesting enough to highlight in Instapaper.

Posted on Sundays.

The Basic iPad — Basic Apple Guy

The 9th generation can be easily overlooked when viewed through a tech-forward lens. It has a decade-old design, 2-year-old processor, limited RAM, only supports the old guard of iPad accessories, no 5G, lightning port, smaller 10.2-inch non-laminated sRGB display, and is thicker than any other iPad on sale. Sure it's cheap, but looking at it from the laundry list of what it lacks, it risks being overlooked.

But this is the iPad I steer many of my family and friends to when contemplating a tablet, and the reason is that despite its dated design, it's the most well-equipped iPad for most people's needs.

Apple patents Magic Keyboard with integrated Mac inside to bring macOS to any display – 9to5Mac

Patently Apple shows that Apple is working on an all-new computer concept. It envisions a Magic Keyboard designed with a full computer inside that can plug into any display.

Apple’s new Focus tool is painfully distracting – Vox

Apple’s new productivity tool for iPhones, Focus, is intended to limit distractions by letting you specify when you want to turn off notifications from certain apps and contacts. The problem is it’s not especially intuitive and takes a lot of work to set up right. As a result, since Apple began rolling out the feature to iPhone users in September, many people have missed work calls, home repair visits, and doctor appointments. Social media is full of confused people wondering why they weren’t notified of calls and why it seems as though everyone’s messages are silenced. Moms are wondering if their daughters are mad at them or if the person who urgently called about a plugged sink suddenly figured out how to unclog the drain on their own.

Global Consumer Spending in Top 100 Subscription Apps Climbed 41% to $18.3 Billion in 2021- Sensor Tower 

Top Subscription Apps See More Than Twice the Spending on the App Store

As in previous years, consumers spent more on subscription-based apps downloads from the App Store than on Google Play. The top 100 non-game subscription apps on the App Store generated $13.5 billion in 2021, up 31 percent Y/Y from $10.3 billion. Worldwide consumers spent $4.8 billion on the top 100 subscription apps on Google’s marketplace, up 78 percent from $2.7 billion in 2020. While the top subscription apps on Google Play experienced more growth, the top apps on the App Store saw nearly three times as much spending last year.

Apple Finds Itself Under Scrutiny in Washington’s Big Tech Clampdown – The Wall Street Journal

“Some consumers might prefer a closed device that provides a layer of security,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) of the app store bill. “If we aren’t careful, we might be taking a choice away from the marketplace.”

Saving sites: Pocket’s bookmarking app and its alternatives – The Verge

I (and at least one other staff member here at The Verge) opened the app to find a warning that “all existing Pocket accounts will need to convert to a Firefox account by June 30, 2022.” The reason, according to Mozilla, is “[p]roducts from Mozilla use Firefox accounts as a centralized and secure account system.” The company goes on to suggest that this is an advantage for the app’s fans since they will now be able to use two-factor authentication and other security features.

Trump’s Truth Social’s disastrous launch raises doubts about its long-term viability – Washington Post

His long-promised social network, Truth Social, has been almost entirely inaccessible in the first days of its grand debut because of technical glitches, a 13-hour outage

[…]

“The basic thing they needed to actually get right to get someone in the door, they couldn’t get right,” said Bill Fitzgerald, a privacy researcher. The “ineptitude of the rollout,” he added, could be a warning of future issues ahead: “There is no better sign of a rushed implementation than the fact that you can’t onboard anybody. So I’m hard-pressed to understand why anyone would trust that these people would keep their information safe.”

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