Linked List: December 22, 2017

Friday, 22 December 2017

If Your iPhone Is Slow Try a Backup and Restore 

Michael Glenn:

Ever since iOS 11 came out I had experienced a significant performance issue on my iPhone 6S. Animations and transitions were slow, app loading was noticeably and unbearably slower than iOS 10 and my battery was draining faster. Many rumours swirled that others were experiencing this but not all.[…]

Then several weeks ago a Reddit conversation started spreading online that presented possible evidence Apple was reducing the performance of their iOS and possibly laptops when the battery life was sufficiently degraded. That day I decided to test the theory by getting my battery replaced at the Apple Store.

[…] After I confirmed with her that I was not using it that heavily and the battery setting statistics also didn’t show an application using a large percentage of the battery she suggested a rogue system process that somehow persisted through upgrades and restarts.

She also let me know that my battery was at 83% health and that Apple won’t even do a replacement unless it’s below 80%.

So I went home and immediately did a local backup, wipe and restore. And voila! Performance issues were gone.

Again I say, if “everything” is slow on your iPhone, it’s probably not this issue related to older batteries. A full backup and restore is a pain in the ass, but it’s worth trying. There are clearly some bugs in iOS 11 that triggered such problems in far too many devices.

Justin O’Beirne: ‘Google Maps’s Moat’ 

Justin O’Beirne has written a series of extraordinary essays over the past few years on maps, focusing particularly on Google Maps and Apple Maps. His latest is my favorite yet, attempting to answer the question “How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps?”

It’s a fascinating, insightful read, and the work O’Beirne has put into collecting and assembling his comparative illustrations — most of them animated — is simply staggering. As icing on the cake, even the typography is gorgeous.

What Took Him So Long? 

Roger Fingas, AppleInsider:

A day after Apple acknowledged slowing down iPhones with degraded batteries, a Los Angeles man is pursuing a class action lawsuit in the matter.

A Line-by-Line Breakdown of Mike Pence’s Master Class in Toadyism 

Katy Waldman, writing for Slate:

Sacrificing results to values is one thing. The shameful spectacle of Pence, a U.S. elected official, toadying up to his fuming, incompetent boss as his peers nodded along felt like a glimpse from some dark totalitarian timeline. It was unreal: Cabinet members called together to fawn over their leader in the most obsequious possible terms, as he steamed in the center of the camera frame like a bratty starlet caught in a downpour, and the chyrons ran past with their tidings of tax-related disaster.

You really have to watch the video to appreciate just how obsequious the whole thing was. The word that sprang to my mind was lickspittle.

Dave Winer:

The speeches Repubs made today about Trump remind me of the speeches Iraqi members of the Ba’ath Party made about Saddam Hussein in 1979. He was having delegates taken out for execution. They were basically pleading for their own lives, with praise for Saddam.

The men in Iraq in 1979 groveled before Saddam Hussein because they literally feared for their lives. They were watching their peers be escorted to their executions. I don’t get why the men and women in Trump’s cabinet put up with this. Except for Pence — I get why he does it. It’s his nature.

NYT: ‘Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration’ 

Caitlin Dickerson and Ron Nixon, reporting for The New York Times:

The Trump administration is considering a plan to separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, according to officials who have been briefed on the plans. The forceful move is meant to discourage border crossings, but immigrant groups have denounced it as draconian and inhumane.

Under current policy, families are kept intact while awaiting a decision on whether they will be deported; they are either held in special family detention centers or released with a court date. The policy under discussion would send parents to adult detention facilities, while their children would be placed in shelters designed for juveniles or with a “sponsor,” who could be a relative in the United States, though the administration may also tighten rules on sponsors.

ICE, under Trump, is a terrorist organization.