MyAppleMenu - Thu, Dec 31, 2015

Thu, Dec 31, 2015The All-The-Small-Ways Edition

With Taps On The Wrist, Apple Watch Points To The Future, by Michael D. Shear, New York Times

But after eight months, I’m convinced that people will eventually view a smartwatch as an essential purchase. And waiting endlessly for the “next great thing” means missing out on all the small ways that the watch already can improve your life. So unless you want to be one of those people who hang on to their BlackBerrys forever, go ahead and get one. You won’t regret it.

Why The Apple Watch Will Be The Most Accurate Way To Ring In The New Year, by Rhiannon Williams, The Telegraph

Apple built its own Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers at various locations to ensure the delivered time is as close as possible to Stratum One accuracy, the time server which keeps the Apple Watch within microseconds of Stratum Zero devices - the highest possible quality for time references.

Once the time reaches the Apple Watch, the team worked to ensure it remains accurate, he says. Each device uses a temperate controlled crystal oscillator to counteract the natural drift that clocks and watches tend to experience over time.

Twitter Updates Its App

A First Look At The New Twitter For Mac, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

Overall, the new design is airy, with a lot more white space than the previous version. That’s not a bad design direction, except… two-thirds of the Macs out there in the world are laptops, so making the Twitter app more spacious seems like a mistake.

Twitter For Mac 4.0, by Federico Viticci, MacStories

But the problem is – it looks like Twitter shipped a ton of bugs and regressions in this release, while still missing some of the latest additions for mobile platforms and the web.

Twitter’s Updated Mac App Wasn’t Made By Twitter, by Casey Newton, The Verge

Development of the Mac app was outsourced to a third-party developer, said Jonathan Wight, a former Twitter employee, in a tweet. The Verge confirmed that the app's development was outsourced with other people familiar with the matter. One of those people said the developer is Black Pixel, a well-regarded digital studio based in Seattle.

Stuff

How To Collaborate On Documents Using iWork And iCloud.com, by Kirk McElhearn, Macworld

When you want to collaborate with someone on a document or project, Apple’s iCloud.com offers collaboration features that can make it easy to work with others. Whether you just want friends or colleagues to make comments on your documents, or whether you are creating documents with others, you can use Apple’s iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and iCloud.com to streamline this process.

Here’s a look at how you can collaborate with iCloud.com, the features it offers, and what’s missing.

Quiver 3: A Notebook That Adapts To How You Work, by John Voorhees, MacStories

Quiver [...] bills itself as programmer's notebook, but it has evolved into much more than that. At the highest level, Quiver uses an organizational metaphor like Evernote, with individual notes organized into notebooks. But it's at the note level where things get interesting.

Hands On: Wunderlist 3.4.0 (OS X, iOS), by William Gallagher, MacNN

Remarkable To Do app for sharing tasks.

Curiosity: A Contextual Wikipedia Reader, by Jake Underwood, MacStories

Billed as "the easiest way to discover and learn about the world around you," Curiosityis a Wikipedia reader for the – well – curious. By pulling location data from the user's iPhone, Curiosity provides a map with the locations of nearby points of interest and displays the corresponding Wikipedia pages. Sometimes, it's a city or county page; in other instances, it can be an interesting landmark, school, or business.

Microsoft Made A Selfie App For The iPhone, by Nick Statt, The Verge

Unambiguously called Microsoft Selfie, the product is designed to improve photo qualities like color balance, skin tone, and lighting for the most shareable shot possible.

Notes

Apple Pressured By Investor For Racial Diversity In Senior Ranks, by Laura Colby, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. shareholders could make history next year by deciding whether the company should be forced to increase the number of non-white executives and directors, with a vote on a proposal the iPhone maker has tried to squelch.

A resolution submitted by an investor who lives in New York and London would require Apple to put more “people of color” in such high-profile roles to increase diversity. Apple told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it believes it doesn’t have to include the proposal in its proxy materials, contending it’s an attempt to “micromanage” recruitment. Apple also said that while it’s trying to attract minorities, “the company has no power to ensure that its recruits will accept offers.”

What Do You Call A Reckless Texter?, by Ben Zimmer, Wall Street Journal

What to call someone who simultaneously walks and texts is still an open question, however. But with new studies showing that the hazards of walking-while-texting are on the rise, you can bet you’ll be hearing more of these new labels in 2016.

Bottom of the Page

I hope you've enjoyed my little web site / link blog this year. Onwards to 2016, one more year closer to the Y2038 Problem.

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Thanks for reading.