Linked List: May 9, 2022

Monday, 9 May 2022

Apple’s Director of Machine Learning Is Leaving the Company, Citing Return-to-Office Policy as Biggest Reason 

Speaking of Zoe Schiffer, she tweeted a scoop:

Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, is leaving the company due to its return to work policy. In a note to staff, he said “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.” He was likely the company’s most cited ML expert.

The New York Post, following Schiffer’s tweet, added this:

Several Apple employees confirmed Goodfellow’s departure on corporate gossip site Blind. One Apple employee quoted Goodfellow as saying, “I’m leaving for many reasons … but Apple’s return to office policy is the biggest single reason.”

Goodfellow joined Apple from Google in April 2019.

Jony Ive Guest Edits The Financial Times’s ‘How to Spend It’ Magazine 

The Financial Times:

There are few people who have not been touched by Jony Ive’s designs, but the man behind them remains a quiet, lesser-known character, preferring mostly to let his work speak for itself. Under the aegis of the LoveFrom team in San Francisco, this second guest-edit issue of HTSI looks at makers and creators. A rare opportunity to share Jony’s passions, interests and the personalities he finds inspiring, the magazine’s focus is on the craft of the hand. The project started with a simple cover concept: Jony asked that we shoot his father’s hands.

Jony Ive, in his introductory letter:

Perhaps our hands have become less necessary in a digital world, but in a pandemic of loneliness and isolation, the nuance and power of direct touch and connection seems more critical than ever.

Our hands have assumed an iconic and cultural importance. They are represented and understood as symbols of making, skill and industry, as symbols of solidarity, power and resolve. We can hold hands. We can punch.

And of course, our hands both enable our writing, our painting, our building and in turn tell unique stories of how we use them. They enable us and they describe us.

Third Apple Store Launches Union Drive 

Aaron Gregg and Reed Albergotti, reporting last week for The Washington Post:

A group of Apple employees in Maryland launched a union drive Tuesday, becoming the third store to make a run at organizing the world’s most valuable company. Organizers at the Towson Mall store near Baltimore say they have been drumming up support for nearly a year in coordination with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, two employees and a union organizer said. They say they have signatures from more than 65 percent of employees who are likely to be eligible, giving them a “supermajority” that would be difficult for the company to overcome. [...]

The organizers notified Apple chief executive Tim Cook of their intention to organize as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees ― AppleCore for short ― in a letter dated Tuesday, a copy of which was reviewed by The Post.

Here’s their letter to Tim Cook.

Curious to see how this retail unionization push goes for Apple. So far, it doesn’t seem like Apple is obstructing unionization efforts. We shall see though — according to Zoe Schiffer at The Verge, Apple has hired a law firm that specializes in helping companies fight unionization efforts.

Using an iPhone as a Single-Purpose Webcam 

Speaking of Simon Støvring, he wrote a good post back in August about using an old iPhone as a single-purpose webcam with Camo:

Once the Camo app is launched on the iPhone it will keep the iPhone awake, even if the camera is not in use or the video feed has been paused from the Mac app. I like to manually lock the iPhone when I’m not using the webcam. This will prevent the Camo Mac app from having a connection to the iPhone app and use the camera. That’s the equivalent of using one of those webcam covers.

I will only be using the iPhone 6 Plus as a webcam and I will have it permanently mounted to my monitor, so to make it easier to launch the Camo app on the iPhone after the phone have been locked, I put the iPhone into Single App Mode using Apple Configurator and disabled the passcode on the phone. When in Single App Mode (sometimes also referred to as “kiosk mode”), the iPhone will only be able to launch a single app and the app will automatically be launched when the phone is unlocked.

Single App Mode can be enabled using Apple Configurator by plugging your phone into the Mac and selecting Actions → Advanced → Start Single App Mode.... That will make the iPhone supervised meaning that its features can be restricted from elsewhere by installing profiles. After supervision has been enabled, you will be prompted to select the app to be used in Single App Mode.

Via Jason Snell.

Runestone: New Text and Code Editor for iOS by Simon Støvring 

Alex Guyot, writing for MacStories:

Runestone is the latest app from Simon Støvring, the developer behind Scriptable, Jayson, and Data Jar. Støvring’s apps tend to be focused on developer or automation use cases, filling holes in the iOS and iPadOS ecosystem to aid power users. Runestone mostly falls into the same category, although it also has some wider potential appeal for general purpose writing.

The new app functions as an excellent plain text editor for anyone who needs to write on their iPhone or iPad. It’s simple and thoughtfully designed, and includes a variety of excellent themes to improve your writing experience. Runestone’s marquee feature, however, is its syntax highlighting. For Markdown writers, the app will use simple color schemes (which can be altered to your liking using the theme settings) and subtle style changes to highlight your links, bold and italic words, footnotes, and more. The result is a very simple, essentially plain-text approach which still makes it easy to see your markup at a glance.

I’ve been beta-testing Runestone for a few months, and it’s excellent. Fast and intuitive, Runestone looks and works great on both iPhone and iPad. Because it integrates with the system document browser, you can easily use Runestone to open not just files stored locally on your device and in iCloud, but through any app that provides a standard document browser. Dropbox works great, as does the excellent Secure ShellFish for reading and writing files over SSH.

Runestone is free to download and use. For a one-time $10 purchase, “Premium” unlocks a bunch of customization options and one of the best Easter eggs I’ve seen in years.

The Talk Show: ‘Like Neo Dodging Bullets’ 

Zach Gage joins the show to talk about game design and creativity, including his new game Knotwords.

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Apple’s New Developer Center: Tantau 14? 

I’m sure we’ll find out for sure next month at WWDC 2022, but one small mystery is the location of Apple’s new Developer Center at Apple Park. Based on a few tips, I think it’s in the building currently named “Tantau 14”, next to the Visitor Center, which makes a lot of sense.

Update: More on this building from Parker Ortolani, including photos.

Kolide 

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