Linked List: February 26, 2018

Monday, 26 February 2018

Apple Park Visitor Center’s Accessibility 

Interesting thread on Twitter examining the accessibility of Apple Park Visitor Center. With architecture as with software, what’s good design for those with accessibility needs is almost always good design for everyone else, too.

‘You’re Probably Underestimating What You Can Do With Your iPhone Home Screen’ 

Michael Lopp:

I wrote this short piece on the current state of apps on my iPhone. People started sharing their home screens and I was blown away. The full list can be seen here. Here are a few that I ❤️.

As inflexible as the iOS home screen is, it’s kind of amazing how creative people can be with it. If you’re curious, here’s my incredibly uncreative home screen, snapped a moment ago.

Timers, Reminders, and Alarms on Apple Devices 

Dr. Drang:

I decided to dig into the many ways you can set timed alerts on your Apple devices and how the alert systems vary from device to device. It is, you will not be surprised to learn, a mess.

Putting Your Phone in Grayscale Mode to Reduce the Urge to Use It 

Nellie Bowles, writing for The New York Times last month:

I’ve gone gray, and it’s great.

In an effort to break my smartphone addiction, I’ve joined a small group of people turning their phone screens to grayscale — cutting out the colors and going with a range of shades from white to black. First popularized by the tech ethicist Tristan Harris, the goal of sticking to shades of gray is to make the glittering screen a little less stimulating.

I’ve been gray for a couple days, and it’s remarkable how well it has eased my twitchy phone checking, suggesting that one way to break phone attachment may be to, essentially, make my phone a little worse. We’re simple animals, excited by bright colors, it turns out.

On the iPhone, you can manage this in the Display Accommodations section with General → Accessibility in Settings. The easiest way to use it is to enable “Color Filters” as the Triple-Click accessibility shortcut, all the way down at the very bottom of the Accessibility section. Then you can just triple-click the side button to toggle it.

I tried this while hanging out with some friends over Super Bowl weekend. They liked it more than I did. I can definitely see how this reduces the urge to turn to your phone the moment you’re bored, but to me it’s so unpalatable that I find it hard to use the phone. Your mileage may vary.

Berkshire Hathaway’s 2017 Annual Report (PDF) 

As usual, a cogent, clear-cut, plain-language read. I find Berkshire Hathaway to be such a fascinating company. Their principles are so simple, but because they require patience, no other company has followed them.

Here’s Warren Buffet on how they treat shareholders:

While I’m on the subject of our owners’ gaining knowledge, let me remind you that Charlie and I believe all shareholders should simultaneously have access to new information that Berkshire releases and, if possible, should also have adequate time to digest and analyze that information before any trading takes place. That’s why we try to issue financial data late on Fridays or early on Saturdays and why our annual meeting is always held on a Saturday (a day that also eases traffic and parking problems).

We do not follow the common practice of talking one-on-one with large institutional investors or analysts, treating them instead as we do all other shareholders. There is no one more important to us than the shareholder of limited means who trusts us with a substantial portion of his or her savings. As I run the company day-to-day — and as I write this letter — that is the shareholder whose image is in my mind.