Linked List: September 28, 2021

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

The Talk Show: ‘Skeptical Not Cynical’ 

Matthew Panzarino returns to the show to talk about the new iPhones 13 and their camera systems.

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  • Mack Weldon: Radically-efficient wardrobing.
TopTechGeek: Selecting and Dragging Multiple Images Out of Safari on iOS 15 

15-year-old “TopTechGeek” with a tip that blew my mind: iOS 15 Safari lets you select and drag multiple images from a web page. I had no idea this was possible. Tight video, too.

I retweeted TopTechGeek’s iPhone 13 Pro unboxing video over the weekend, and quipped that, as requested, I’d be staying tuned for more content. Didn’t take long to pay off.

Yours Truly at B. PHL Innovation Fest Thursday Afternoon 

Local note, quite possibly of interest to non-locals as well: I’ll be on stage this Thursday afternoon at 2 pm for the B. PHL Innovation Fest, in a chat with Youngmoo Kim, director of Drexel’s ExCITe Center. It’ll be him, interviewing me, about the stuff I do and have done. I’ve known Youngmoo for a few years — this will be good. In-person attendance has been scrapped because of COVID-19 (they haven’t updated the website to make this clear), but virtual attendance registration is open and is now free of charge.

Good lineup of keynote speakers too, including Don Lemon and Sixers president Daryl Morey. (If I see him backstage, I’ll try to get the scoop on Ben Simmons.)

Tim Cook, in Leaked Memo, Says Employees Who Leak Memos Do Not Belong at Apple 

Tim Cook, in a company-wide memo leaked to Zoe Schiffer at The Verge, after a company-wide all-hands virtual meeting, portions of which leaked to Zoe Schiffer at The Verge:

I’m writing today because I’ve heard from so many of you were were [sic, at least in The Verge’s copy] incredibly frustrated to see the contents of the meeting leak to reporters. This comes after a product launch in which most of the details of our announcements were also leaked to the press.

I want you to know that I share your frustration. These opportunities to connect as a team are really important. But they only work if we can trust that the content will stay within Apple. I want to reassure you that we are doing everything in our power to identify those who leaked. As you know, we do not tolerate disclosures of confidential information, whether it’s product IP or the details of a confidential meeting. We know that the leakers constitute a small number of people. We also know that people who leak confidential information do not belong here.

When Tim Cook is right, he’s right. When some of these leakers — all of whom signed contracts agreeing not to leak; all of whom know that the overwhelming majority of their colleagues despise leaks — wind up getting fired, it’s on them. An orchestra of the world’s tiniest violins is queued up and ready to serenade them out the door. The idea that it’s somehow mean-spirited or vindictive to say leakers ought to go is ludicrous. Everyone at Apple knows the score.

Zoe Schiffer’s singular place in this saga is rather remarkable. She’s on the labor beat at The Verge, not a product beat, but she’s reported more leaks from Apple than anyone in recent months — perhaps more leaks than all other reporters combined — and has established herself as a must-read reporter regarding Apple. Apple’s Slack fiasco, the (self-indulgent, in my opinion) internal letter that circulated amongst employees dissatisfied with the company’s post-COVID plans for new work-from-home policies, another internal letter asking Tim Cook to take a pro-Palestinian stance, the petition demanding an investigation into the hiring of Antonio García Martínez — all of those leaks came in the last five months, and all of them were reported first by Schiffer.

If Schiffer weren’t on this beat, most of these stories would not be public. Antonio García Martínez’s knee-jerk firing probably would have been reported — his hiring was news, so his firing would have been too — but I’m not sure about any of the others.

Let’s Raise Even More Money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the good folks at Relay FM always conduct a fundraiser. This year they’ve already raised a whopping $572K as I type this. What a wonderful annual tradition this is. St. Jude is an amazing institution: they both provide world-class treatment for kids with cancer free of charge and perform research to make those treatments better and more effective. Tiltify, the platform they’re using for fundraising, makes it super simple to contribute, including support for Apple Pay.

Let’s push Relay’s campaign way over the top with a push from the DF audience. (And if you do chip in, check if your employer matches charitable contributions.)

My iPad Stand, 2021 Edition 

Last April, after posting this photo of my desk setup for my iPad Air review, I got a few questions about the stand I was using to prop up the iPad. The answer was Anker’s $15 Multi-Angle Stand. Last week I posted a similar photo, this time for my iPad Mini review, and I’m still using the same stand. Alas, that stand is no longer available.

The closest thing I could find is this $10 copy of that stand from Amazon Basics. It’s such a blatant rip-off of Anker’s stand that ordinarily I wouldn’t link to it, on principle, but, given that Anker’s original is seemingly no longer being produced, a rip-off design is the best we can do. I even bought one to try it out before linking to it. (If you buy one through this link, I’ll earn affiliate revenue that will get me one step closer to buying one of the upcoming Jony Ive/Marc Newson-designed electric Ferraris.)

Amazon’s multi-angle stand is extremely similar to Anker’s in size, weight, and angles of tilt. But it’s slightly lacking in fit and finish compared to Anker’s. Whereas Anker’s felt like a bargain at $15, this one feels like what you’d expect from a $10 knock-off. My biggest annoyance is that Amazon, for some reason, decided to screen print “Press/Presse” on the button that you quite obviously must press to adjust the tilt. (Why French? Update: [Best guess: to sell the same unit across Canada.]) This is as helpful as printing “Press” on the knock of a click pen. And of course they typeset these needless words in Arial. A wee nip of nail polish remover took care of that, though.

I still recommend it. It folds flat, and when your iPad is sitting in it, the stand effectively disappears.

Ferrari Hires LoveFrom, Jony Ive’s Oddly-Named Design Firm 

Katie Deighton, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

Ferrari NV hired Apple Inc.’s former design chief Jony Ive as it readies its debut into full electric vehicles.

Mr. Ive’s design company LoveFrom Inc., which he formed in 2019 alongside industrial designer Marc Newson, will work with Ferrari and its largest shareholder, Netherlands-based Exor NV on a number of projects, the companies said Monday. […]

Ferrari declined to reveal the specifics of the collaboration, but said it sees potential in working with LoveFrom across the whole range of its business. Alongside its legacy production of its engine-powered cars, the company sells clothes, watches and other apparel.

If they wind up shipping a car through this collaboration, it might not cost that much more than the scrapped first draft Apple Car under Ive, which I’ve heard — admittedly like fourth-hand — would have started at $150,000. (Which is one of many reasons the project was rebooted.)

Cabel Sasser (click through for photos):

(Actually, Marc Newson’s Ford 021C concept was my dream car right around 2000. It’s the perfect encapsulation of the style of that time, a Deee-Lite/CD-ROM/Dreamcast/iMac/Virgin Megastore car. I still want one today!!! But the Fun Design Train now only stops at Luxury Station ☹️)

Newson’s concept car was indeed delightful — real-world car-from-Pixar’s Cars vibe to it.