Linked List: April 9, 2015

Thursday, 9 April 2015

Apple Rescinds Policy on Hiring Felons for Construction Work ★

The San Jose Mercury News has a full story on this, but here’s the full statement Apple is sending out to the press:

“We believe in opportunity for everyone, and Apple has never had a blanket ban on hiring people with felony convictions. It recently came to our attention that, as part of a background check process unique to the Apple Campus 2 construction project, a few applicants were turned away because they had been convicted of a felony within the past seven years. We recognize that this may have excluded some people who deserve a second chance. We have now removed that restriction and instructed our contractors on the project to evaluate all applicants equally, on a case by case basis, as we would for any role at Apple.”

This sounds exactly as it should be.

List of Apple Stores That Will Carry the Apple Watch Edition at Launch ★

Includes my local store here in Philly.

Bani McSpedden on Apple Watch ★

Bani McSpedden is the watch editor of the Australian Financial Review — he’s a watch guy. I really enjoyed his video review.

Fight 215: Stop the Patriot Act’s Mass Surveillance ★

Speaking of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and the campaign not to renew it, the EFF has put together a great little website explaining what’s going on, why it’s a problem, and most importantly, what we can do about it as citizens. They have a compelling, succinct video from Kirby Ferguson too. I strongly support this campaign, and urge you to spread the word about it, and call your congressperson.

I hate making phone calls, but I’m making this one.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Government Surveillance ★

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver devoted last week’s episode to U.S. government surveillance programs, including an interview with Edward Snowden in Moscow. It’s been widely linked, so I’ll bet you’ve already heard about it. It’s really good. Yes, it’s funny — but it’s also truly excellent journalism, and they’ve figured out a way to frame the issue that resonates with regular people. If you haven’t watched it yet, make time for it. You won’t regret it.

It’s important not only because civil liberties are important, but because the law that enables these programs — section 215 of the Patriot Act — is up for renewal this year, and it’s urgent that we press lawmakers not to.

Jason Snell Reviews the New MacBook ★

Jason Snell:

Using a computer that feels like it fell through a time warp from the future is fun, but if that computer drops through the wormhole without any compatible accessories then there’s going to be some aggravation, too.

The new MacBook is one of those Apple products. It feels like it came from the future, and didn’t bring its ecosystem with it.

Like Dalrymple, Snell was thrown off by the new arrow key layout:

The Esc key has been elongated and the function keys narrowed, which didn’t really bother me. However, the redesign of the arrow keys really shook me–the up and down arrows are still half-height, but the left and right arrows are now full sized. It turns out that I used the gaps above the left and right arrow keys on prior keyboards to orient by feel, so I knew which arrow key was which. On the MacBook’s keyboard, there’s no longer a gap–and I kept having to look down to make sure I was tapping the up arrow key.

If you don’t type a whole lot, or very fast, you may not care about the substantially reduced key travel. And you can get used to it. But it’s just a tiny step up from typing on flat touchscreen glass. I managed to score almost 120 words per minute on TypeRacer on the MacBook keyboard, but I didn’t enjoy it. If you’re someone who notices when a keyboard feels different or weird, you will notice this keyboard. If you’ve never really understood why people write about keyboards, you probably won’t care — but why are you even reading this section?

Samsung Facing Supply Shortages for Curved-Screen Galaxy S6 Edge ★

Min-Jeong Lee, reporting for the WSJ:

J.K. Shin, the mobile chief, said that while the company’s Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone has garnered strong demand, the screens are difficult to make.

“We’re working hard to resolve the difficulty in supply,” he said at a media event in Seoul ahead of the flagship phone’s global launch on Friday. He added that the supply issue could persist “for a while.”

My guess is this is why they released both the regular S6 and the S6 Edge — they knew they couldn’t produce sufficient quantities of this display. If it’s in short supply alongside the regular S6, it would have been impossible to release as the only design for the S6.

Joanna Stern Reviews the New MacBook ★

Joanna Stern, writing for the WSJ:

It’s nearly impossible not to be seduced by this MacBook’s beauty, its dazzling screen and perfect trackpad. But don’t give in. Like the original MacBook Air, introduced in 2008, there are too many key compromises — in battery life, speed and port access — for the early-adopter price.

I expect the new MacBook to follow the same path as the Air. Over the next few years, it will improve, and become an affordable, indispensable tool for life in the future. But here, now, in the present day, there are more practical slim, everyday laptop choices.

Again, today, I think the new MacBook is an alternative to an iPad, not a replacement for the MacBook Airs. It’ll definitely replace the Airs in a few short years, but not today.

LinkedIn Buys Lynda.com for $1.5 Billion ★

Natalie Gagliordi, reporting for ZDNet:

The social network for professionals is buying lynda.com in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $1.5 billion.

Founded in 1995, lynda.com is a subscription-based online learning portal, where members can focus on a range business and technology skill sets. The website also offers a premium subscription for members in corporate, government and educational organizations.

Executives for both companies called the merger a “kind of fit that benefits everyone.”

Interesting acquisition. They had some integration with each other already — LinkedIn users could get their profiles updated with courses they completed through Lynda.com. But another angle is that Lynda.com has a lot of site-license deals with universities — this could help funnel students into LinkedIn as they enter the job market. (Maybe that was happening anyway? It’s been a long time since I last looked for a job.)

Jim Dalrymple Reviews the New 12-Inch MacBook ★

Jim Dalrymple, on a subject near and dear to my heart, the feel of the new keyboard:

When you first start using the keyboard, you may get the feeling that you didn’t actually hit the key, but you really did. This is what will take some getting used to — I am typing very quickly with the MacBook now, but it took a day or two in order for my mind to trust my fingers were hitting all the keys.

The arrow keys took the most time to get used to. Surprising, I know. However, I use the up and down arrow keys a lot to navigate email messages and RSS feeds and those keys are quite close together — in fact, they are the only two keys on the keyboard that are so close together. It’s like the person that designed the keyboard doesn’t use those two keys and put them together like that because it looked better. At any rate, those keys are just taking a bit longer for me to use without error. I hope for a change in the future.

The difference between the new arrow key layout and the old one is that the left and right keys are now full height, but the up/down ones are still half-height.

Overall, it sounds like the machine you think it is: an iPad-esque device for people who would rather use OS X with a laptop form factor than iOS on a tablet as their portable. People who want this thing to have more ports and better performance aren’t looking at it for what it is — they’re looking at it for what they want it to be.

Amazon Files First-Ever Suit Over Fake Product Reviews ★

Todd Bishop, reporting for GeekWire:

Amazon has filed suit against the alleged operator of several sites that offer Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake 4- and 5-star customer reviews of their products.

The suit, the first of its kind from the Seattle company, was filed in King County Superior Court against a California man, Jay Gentile, identified in Amazon’s filings as the operator of sites including buyazonreviews.com, buyamazonreviews.com, bayreviews.net and buyreviewsnow.com. The site also targets unidentified “John Does” also believed to be involved in the scheme.

Good for Amazon; I hope they win. But I worry that this is just a game of whack-a-mole — there are so many scammers out there doing this for product reviews and the App Store.

Jeff Carlson Reviews Photos for Mac ★

Jeff Carlson, writing for Macworld:

Photos is a big step up for iPhoto users, with better speed and editing tools. Power users of Aperture will probably want to stay with Aperture or switch to another pro-level app like Lightroom.

Popcorn Time for iOS, Doesn’t Require Jailbreak ★

Mic Wright, writing for The Next Web:

While Popcorn Time has been available on Android for some time, it’s now arrived on iOS with an installer that can put the app on non-jailbroken devices. It’s likely that it uses a test key from an enterprise device to achieve that.

If that’s the case, the key could be revoked by Apple, right?

We’ve chosen not to link to the Popcorn Time for iOS installer in this story. It’s only available for Windows currently but the developers say an OS X version will arrive in the next few weeks.

That it’s Windows-only for now is the most surprising thing in this story. You don’t see that much these days. Perhaps this simply says something about the seedy nature of the pirated content community.

iMore’s Guide to Photos for Mac ★

Comprehensive.

And don’t miss the companion piece, iMore’s equally comprehensive guide to the just-out-of-beta iCloud Photos Library. Read these and you should be all set.

iOS 8.3 ★

Josh Centers at TidBITS has a nice rundown of what’s new.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 With New Photos for OS X App ★

It’s been a long transition, but starting today, Apple’s photo management circle is complete. Software is never finished, of course, but what I’m saying is that they now have a complete story for how photos should sync between all of your devices. Back in the day, iPhoto was a revelation — prior to that, we were managing digital photos manually, using folders in the Finder. But they really did need to start over to move the Mac’s photo app from being local storage-centric to cloud-centric.