Linked List: September 26, 2017

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

Twitter Begins Testing Support for 280 Characters Per Tweet ★

I think this is a mistake. I’d rather see them keep the limit at 140 characters but add support for plain text media attachments — the same way you can add a photo or video to a tweet, you could add a plain text string.

Eric Reid: ‘Why Colin Kaepernick and I Decided to Take a Knee’ ★

Eric Reid, former teammate of Colin Kaepernick, in an op-ed for The New York Times:

After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former N.F.L. player, we came to the conclusion that we should kneel, rather than sit, the next day during the anthem as a peaceful protest. We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.

It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag and military personnel. We chose it because it’s exactly the opposite. It has always been my understanding that the brave men and women who fought and died for our country did so to ensure that we could live in a fair and free society, which includes the right to speak out in protest.

iCloud Text Replacements Do Not Sync Reliably ★

Brian Stucki has a detailed post about something I’ve been irritated by for five years now:

Text replacement snippets are a useful tool that can be used on macOS and iOS. With this feature you create shortcut text that, when typed, expands to something longer. […]

In iOS 6 (2012), syncing between Mac and iOS devices was introduced. At least that is when Apple said it was introduced. I have yet to see the feature roll out. Therein lies the premise of this post.

Text replacement syncing is completely broken. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it will only sync back old snippets that you have deleted. Sometimes the sync will work one direction, but not the other. Every time I ask about this on Twitter, it brings a strong response of similar experiences. Even though I know it’s broken, I decided to get scientific about it. […]

From my own experience, syncing of all other data via iCloud has really improved. Notes, Calendar, address book, reminders, photos, etc all sync almost instantly across all devices.

What is so special/not special about Text Replacement snippets that makes it so hard?

My personal experience exactly matches what Stucki reports here. And, also, exactly as Stucki writes, my experience with other forms of iCloud syncing has been nearly perfect in recent years, corresponding pretty closely to the introduction of CloudKit in 2014. Apple Notes, for example, used to sync via IMAP (yes, the email protocol), and it was never reliable for me. When Apple Notes switched to CloudKit a few years ago, syncing became rock-solid. Even the newish feature that lets you share notes with others and collaboratively edit shared notes is rock solid for me.

I don’t know what’s going on with text replacement syncing, but it is the worst kind of buggy: it works just well enough to keep using it, but my machines are never in perfect sync. And, the feature is really useful, and really helpful to me on a daily basis. Apple: please get this fixed.

Update: Greg Pierce:

My little birds told me years ago these sync using the horribly buggy and deprecated “iCloud Core Data”. Seems trivial to migrate to CloudKit.

Update 2: An Apple spokesperson told me that text replacement syncing is moving to CloudKit for iOS 11 and MacOS 10.13 High Sierra users in the “next month or so”.

Bill Gates Now Using an Android Phone ‘With a Lot of Microsoft Software’ ★

I say this with no snark intended: who would have guessed 10 years ago that Bill Gates would be using a personal computing device running a non-Microsoft OS? Or really, an OS that didn’t have “Windows” in the name?

I wonder what’s more popular among Microsoft employees — iPhone or Android? I’m guessing iPhone.

While I’m at it, it occurs to me that Apple is the only company left where all its employees are using only systems made by their own company. Microsoft employees need to use phones running iOS or Android. Google employees need to use MacOS or Windows (there might be some administrative jobs where they can use Chromebooks, but I doubt there are any engineers or designers getting by with Chrome). But at Apple, it’s MacOS on your PCs, iOS on your phone and tablet, WatchOS on your watch, and even tvOS on your set-top box. Microsoft used to have a slogan “Windows everywhere”. Apple doesn’t have one OS that runs everywhere (although it’s close with iOS — WatchOS and tvOS are really just offshoots of iOS with different UI layers), but there is a sort of cultural “Apple everywhere” mindset that I worry could lead to the sort of insularity that blinded Microsoft in the early ’00s.

Update: A few Google employees have written in to say that Chromebooks are actually in somewhat common use by Google engineers for work, because just about all work is compiled on servers and Chromebooks can serve fine as a simple machine that’s just running a terminal app in a Chrome tab. But my point stands: MacBooks are the most common device, even if for work they’re just running Chrome and a Terminal. Folks at Google aren’t just using Google products. (Lots of Google folks use iPhones too.)

A few other people have pointed out that Apple uses non-Apple tech for server related stuff. iCloud runs on Linux. That is indeed unlike the Microsoft of yore, where they ran Windows all the way up their stack. But the difference is that enterprise-grade server-side Windows was (and is) a product for Microsoft. Apple doesn’t have a cloud server product. What I’m saying is that when people at Apple choose a product to use personally, they almost always choose Apple’s own products.

Apple’s Two-Step Verification Replaced by Two-Factor Authorization With iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra ★

Glenn Fleishman:

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a method of protecting an online account. The two factors — things that identify you — in 2FA: Something you yourself know, like a password; and something you have that can receive a token to confirm who you are, such as a smartphone.

Apple’s original two-step system relied on its Apple ID site for set up and management, and could only send codes to iOS devices and via SMS. Its update in September 2015 left two-step in place for those who continued to want to use it, but the 2FA revision was far better. Enrollment happens via iOS and macOS. Apple’s system isn’t as robust as some security experts would like, but it’s definitely better than a password-only option.

The differences between the old two-step and newer two-factor systems can be confusing. But the new system is definitely better. I go through this more than most people, because I own a bunch of Apple devices and review a bunch of them regularly. I’ve got three iPhones in use right now. Switching my Apple ID to two-factor a year or so ago made this so much easier.

You Can Only Wash Google and Levi’s New $350 ‘Connected’ Jacket Ten Times ★

So this jacket doesn’t just figuratively stink, it will literally stink too.

Showtime Websites Secretly Mined User CPU for Cryptocurrency ★

Shannon Liao, reporting for The Verge:

This past weekend, Showtime websites were found to be running a script that allows the sites to mine visitors’ extra CPU power for cryptocurrency, as pointed out by users on Twitter. The afflicted sites included showtime.com and showtimeanytime.com, but the script has since been removed following reports from Gizmodo and other sites.

The crypto mining Javascript is called Coinhive, and according to the site, it was made as an alternative to banner ads as a way for website owners to get around pesky ad-blockers. Ironically, some ad-blockers have now included Coinhive on the list of the banned.

This is like going to a restaurant and finding out the valets were using your car as an Uber while you ate.

Jared Sinclair on Apple Watch Series 3 ★

Jared Sinclair:

I was born in 1981, so I’ve got one foot on either side of the tech revolutions of the ’90s and ’00s. As far as I can recall, this is the first time since I first got a cellphone (let alone a smartphone) that I am deliberately leaving the house without any device in my pocket. It’s a refreshing feeling. I took a four-mile walk for exercise, drove an hour to my parents’ and back to pick up the kid, and picked up my wife from the airport. Apple Watch with cellular supports a critical slice of the features a smartphone provides, which means I get to enjoy best of both the old and new worlds: I am free from the temptation to waste quiet moments on social media and soul-crushing national news, but not at the expense of missing out on texts and phone calls from friends and family, or getting directions home, or triaging the occasional urgent email. This newfound flexibility is, simply put, mind-blowing.

I don’t mind or resent always having my phone with me. But I know several people who do. I really do feel like the addition of cellular networking — and the seamless way Apple has made it work — is going to be a game-changer for many people.

David Letterman on The Howard Stern Show ★

Talk show gold: The Howard Stern Show has posted Letterman’s 90-minute appearance last month. Both of them were at their best. Fascinating, engaging, and funny.

(If you don’t want to listen using the Soundcloud player on the web page, you can download the MP3 file using the youtube-dl command line tool, which in turn you can easily install using Homebrew. Then you can just type youtube-dl "https://soundcloud.com/howardstern/davidletterman" in Terminal and you’ll get the MP3 download.)

Rogue Amoeba’s 15th Anniversary Sale ★

Rogue Amoeba co-founder Paul Kafasis:

We’re always eager to help even more people with their audio needs, so to celebrate our 15th anniversary, we’re offering a rare and very limited-time sale. Through the end of September, we’re offering discounts on every product we make.

So just how big is this sale? We started by lowering the price of all of our products by 15%, to match the 15 years we’ve been in business. We didn’t stop there, however. We’re also offering the chance to boost those savings by 1.33x, 1.67x, 2x, 3x, or even 4x. A few lucky users will save as much as 60% off our everyday low prices.

They’ve rigged up a fun little “scratch-off” ticket to uncover your discount. Also fun: a screenshot of the original Audio Hijack from 2002.

It’s a good year for 15-year anniversaries.