Linked List: December 23, 2021

Thursday, 23 December 2021

The Talk Show: ‘The Post-Doom Era’ ★

Emmy Award-winning Joanna Stern returns to the show. Topics include: Apple’s new iCloud “legacy contact” feature, the current state and future of VR headsets, Elon Musk, and more.

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‘A Normal Person Explains Cryptocurrency’ ★

Chef’s kiss video by Avalon Penrose. Makes sense to me.

Philadelphia Gets the New 3D Apple Maps With Detailed Landmarks ★

Jacob Krol, writing for CNN Underscored:

In order to unpack the latest Apple Maps improvements that you should know about, CNN Underscored got to chat exclusively with David Dorn, product lead, and Meg Frost, design lead, at Apple Maps. From 3D buildings in cities to clearer navigation instructions, here’s everything you need to know.

Good interview, and well-illustrated with examples.

I’ve explored the new 3D views in Apple Maps in other cities already, but it’s really something else to explore your own city. These new 3D maps for Philly are really good — beautiful, accurate, and useful. I love the illustration style for the landmarks — a friend commented that he’d buy a model of Apple’s rendition of our City Hall. It’s a very neat style.

After a few days, it occurred to me what this style reminds me of: the maps Disney provides for their theme parks. They don’t put everything in the park on their maps — just the important stuff. And they render the major attractions — the landmark attractions — with far more detail and at a larger scale. Not just so they pop visually, but because they help you navigate and orient yourself.