» Happy 25th anniversary to TidBITS
Adam Engst looks back on 25 years of publishing TidBITS. I first heard of TidBITS when I bought Adam’s “Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh” in the very early 1990s and was thrilled when TidBITS published one of my silly pieces back in 2002. Other than that one piece, TidBITS has been consistently professional and informative over the years while other sites have come and gone. Congratulations to Adam and Tonya and best wishes for the next 25.
» A different kind of ‘in your face’
Apple’s updated environmental page:
We don’t want to debate climate change. We want to stop it.
Tim Cook’s Apple can be almost as “we don’t care what critics think” as Steve Jobs’s Apple. Personally, I like this a lot more than “you’re holding it wrong”, not that that didn’t have a certain charm to it.
» Turning This Car Around #58: 5th Grade Camp
This week on America’s most American dadcast, I relate my recent experience at 5th grade camp.
» The Rebound #30: Force Touch Is Perfect For Reading Siracusa Articles
This Dan-less episode features Jon Armstrong of Turning This Car Around fame. We talk Watch pre-orders, of course, haptic feedback, emoji and more.
» Confirmed. Again.
Verizon, in its annual data breach report:
Before we get too far, let’s just get this out of the way now — Android wins. Not just wins, but Android wins so hard that most of the suspicious activity logged from iOS devices was just failed Android exploits.
Still, some antivirus software vendor will come out and say how iOS is most at risk because Apple doesn’t allow antivirus software.
(Via Rich Mogull)
» 5 Minecraft Tips
Who likes hot tips? EVERYONE. That is why I wrote five (5) hot tips for Minecraft that pair with A Visual Guide to Minecraft like red wine with steak,
The best iPhone
For a long time before the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus came out, I heard from a number of people that “larger phones are just better and you just wait and see because our large-phone future will be glorious to behold.” That’s not verbatim, but it’s pretty close. The actual quote had something about the blood of the unbelievers running through the streets or words to that effect.
I like my iPhone 6 well enough, but having used it for six months am I ready to fully submit to our large screen overlords? Not in the least. The large screen is the one thing I don’t like about it. It frustrates me daily. Reachability does not work consistently enough to be reliable and I can’t reach the upper right corner without that thumb-extension surgery which my health plan doesn’t cover.
Turns out (turns out) the large screen superiority is simply a matter of preference. The large-screen zealots bent on the destruction of our reachable-corner way of life were wrong.
So, if Apple makes a 4-inch iPhone 6c in plastic, will I go with that? Eesh. Maybe? I’ve held the iPhone 5c and the build quality is terrific. Apart from the laughable 8 GB of space, it’s a nice phone even if it has an outdated feature set. I find the color choices a bit off-putting, however, and if a 6c has 2014 internals, that would likewise be a knock. If I can’t get one with at least 32 GB, then forget it.
I want an iPhone with a 4-inch screen, but in the end I’m going to buy what I think is the best iPhone. That’s what I did before the iPhone 6 and that’s what I’ll continue to do. I can’t say that one feature is a deal breaker without knowing what all the options are. I hope there will be a 4-inch iPhone this year in metal with the majority of the new features, but I doubt that will happen.
» Turning This Car Around #56: Musical Camp
What this week’s Turning This Car Around has to do with fatherhood is anyone’s guess but it sure is funny.
» The Rebound #28: Anyone Can Draw Hitler
This week we detail the best things to send someone a drawing of from your Apple Watch.
» Not dead yet
Stephanie M. Lee for BuzzFeed:
Earlier this year, Google stopped selling the first version of Glass and moved the project out of its Google(x) lab into a stand-alone unit.
But while Glass failed to set the consumer space on fire, some clinicians and other medical professionals have embraced it as a hands-free means of sharing and accessing information quickly.
Medicine has always seemed like one of the more suitable markets for Glass. Despite the rumors of its death, I think Glass definitely has a place. It’s just not in the social setting Google seemed to want it to be in.