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The Unlock-With-Passcode Edition Thursday, May 19, 2016

New Touch ID Rules: Why You Have To Enter Your Passcode When You Wake Up, by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

When iOS 9 was released, Apple updated its list of cases in which iOS asks for a passcode even when Touch ID is enabled. A previously undocumented requirement asks for a passcode in a very particular set of circumstances: When the iPhone or iPad hasn’t been unlocked with its passcode in the previous six days, and Touch ID hasn’t been used to unlock it within the last eight hours. It’s a rolling timeout, so each time Touch ID unlocks a device, a new eight-hour timer starts to tick down until the passcode is required. If you wondered why you were being seemingly randomly prompted for your passcode (or more complicated password), this is likely the reason.

Missing Music

This Video Proves That Apple Actually Is Deleting Music Files Off Some People’s Hard Drives, by Leon Neyfakh, Slate

As you can see in this extremely clear and persuasive video he posted on YouTube, there are many songs in his collection that iTunes has “matched” to tracks that exist in its cloud-based Apple Music library. This would be more or less OK if Etropolsky could still listen to the MP3s that, in many cases, he imported to his computer years before Apple Music even existed. But as Etropolsky demonstrates, those files are not on his hard drive anymore: Using the TimeMachine feature on his computer, he makes it clear that this was not the case just a few months ago.

Mobile Internet Space

Didi Chuxing Boss Discusses Apple Deal, China's Market And Growth Strategies, by Eunice Yoon, CNBC

"We are both in the mobile internet space. So how do we serve our passengers, our drivers better? How do they [Apple] serve their users better? This is already a common ground...We also share a huge overlap in customer base. Our driver and passengers use iPhones and iPads a lot so I think it's very intuitive."

While Liu refused to comment on specific areas of collaboration, such as car technology or Apple Pay, she said "there are a lot of things that can happen.

Stuff

Dos And Donts For Managing Data On External Hard Drives, by Topher Kessler, MacIssues

When looking for a device to handle your data, you will be confronted with a number of possibilities, including a plethora of brands, single-drive and multi-drive setups, connection technologies, formats, network storage, and more. So how do you choose?

This Guy's App Could Turn Our Old iPhones Into Thousands And Thousands Of Surveillance Cameras, by Mike Pearl, Vice

Back in the dial-up days of the neolithic internet, staring at choppy, blurry webcam footage of people living their average, boring lives was an exciting and transgressive facet of online life. App developer Rob Banagale was a fan. "In the 1990s the earliest webcams were some of the coolest things about the internet," he says.

His new app, Perch Live is definitely another app for people who love staring at 24/7 webcams. But Banagale says Perch Live comes with a "twist": It's meant to place those sorts of all-day-every-day webcams pretty much everywhere on Earth.

Alien Skin Exposure X Review: Film Emulation App Offers New Organizing Tools, by Jackie Dove, Macworld

Exposure X delivers a vast variety of old-time film looks and keeps the interface simple in the process and using the app as a plug in to Photoshop or Lightroom simply allows you to launch it independently from—rather than integrating it into—the host app.

'WhoApp' Provides Users With Detailed Unknown Caller Information For Free, by Mitchel Broussard, MacRumors

WhoApp promises to recognize calls from telemarketers, wrong numbers, and potential scammers by returning information about the unknown dialer's name, picture, address, and even a Google Street View image of their location.

Adobe Debuts iOS Compatible Spark Visual Storytelling Solution, by Dennis Sellers, Apple World Today

Adobe has served up Adobe Spark, an integrated web and mobile solution for creating and sharing visual stories. The free service — part of Creative Cloud — lets you create visual content that engages audiences across multiple channels and looks great on any device, says Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe.

Develop

Do Startups Have A Drinking Problem?, by Sarah Jane Coffey, Backchannel

As a non-drinker, I’ve been hesitant to say anything too loudly, too boldly lest someone label me an abolitionist. I’m not. Truly. But the longer I work in startups, the more I hear from those around me that they are uncomfortable, too. I hear concerns from more drinkers than non, and those concerns are becoming more and more frequent. Friends and colleagues who enjoy having a glass of wine or beer from the office fridge mention they are uncomfortable that there are events that feel like getting drunk is a company mandate. If they’re not drinking hard enough, they’re not dedicated. Is it okay not to feel comfortable, or safe, when their colleagues are drunk around them?

Notes

The Print Shop And The Origins Of Emoji, by Adrienne Lafrance, The Atlantic

Once upon a time, long before there were smartphones or emoji, computer graphics were crude, pixelated, and often came screeching out of a dot matrix printer.

Those who wished to use their computers to express themselves visually and without text had limited imagery. Three decades ago, there was no crying cat. There was no smiling poo. There was no suggestive eggplant. But in these otherwise dark ages, we had The Print Shop, a cultural phenomenon that infused an otherwise text-based world with images—part of a long tradition that can be traced from the rare emoticons of the 19th century to Zapf Dingbats to The Print Shop to emoji.

Manhattan Office Workers Stick To Battling It Out In Post-it Window War, by Rick Rojas, The Star

The creations are the result of a friendly back and forth between the firms, mostly advertising and marketing companies, on opposite sides of Canal Street.

Bottom of the Page

Thanks to Apple, I spend an extra second this morning figuring how to pronounce the X in DirectX.

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Thanks for reading.