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The How-to-Shoot Edition Sunday, January 23, 2022

Apple’s Meta-as-hell Chinese New Year iPhone Film Is A Reminder Storytelling Trumps Gear, by Raymond Wong, Input

More than any previous Apple Chinese New Year spot, “The Comeback” doesn’t just promote #ShotoniPhone” but shows you how to shoot on iPhone. “The Comeback” is a film shot on iPhone about a Chinese town coming together to create a movie shot on iPhone while showing snippets of the shot-on-iPhone filmmaking process. It’s meta as hell and moved me enough to write this here blog. Hope you’re inspired like I was.

Apple Delays In-app Account Deletion Requirement, Extends IAP Exception For Group Services, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

During the first 2020 lockdowns, Apple allowed apps offering realtime group services to use payment methods other than In-App Purchase. This exception was introduced to help businesses trying to adapt to pandemic life. Citing the recent resurgence of COVID, this exception is now being extended to June. Apple has also deferred previously-announced rules that would require apps to offer simple in-app account deletion.

Stuff

Select UK Apple Stores End COVID Appointments, by Stephen Warwick, iMore

According to all of the retail listings on Apple's website, 17 stores are now "fully operational", while a further 21 remain under appointment-only conditions. It means certain customers no longer have to wait to get their hands on all of the latest and greatest from Apple including the company's best iPhone, the iPhone 13.

AT&T And Verizon Debut Faster, More Widely Available 5G Service, by Julio Ojeda-Zapata, TidBITS

On the hardware front, the news is all good. If your device supports 5G, it can tap into AT&T and Verizon’s mid-band spectrum, along with their low-band and (if you are precisely in the right urban location) high-band services.

[...]

However, you need the right wireless plan.

Notes

I Lost My AirTag In A Forest… But After Two Months I’ve Been Reunited With It, by Carrie-Ann Skinner, TechRadar

Carl said he used the Tracker Detect app for his Google Pixel 4a initially but that didn’t provide much information.

“The app confirmed there was an AirTag nearby, but didn’t offer up any contact details,” Carl said.

He then held the AirTag near the NFC reader on the Pixel 4a, which loaded a web page explaining the AirTag had been lost and a request to call the telephone number on the website, so he did just that.

Architect Behind Googleplex Now Says It's 'Dangerous' To Work At Such A Posh Office, by Bobby Allyn, NPR

He said blurring the line between work and non-work keeps employees tethered to the office, benefiting the employer most of all. That, he argues, may seem to keep workers happy but can quickly spark burnout.

"Work-life balance cannot be achieved by spending all your life on a work campus. It's not real. It's not really engaging with the world in the way most people do," he said. "It also drains the immediate neighborhoods of being able to have a commercial reality."

Bottom of the Page

I am currently reading an audiobook that have separate plots with separate characters in each plot. Meanwhile, I am also watching an Apple TV+ series that have separate plots with separate characters in each plot. I think you can guess where this is going: I am not having an easy time keeping the different characters and plots separate in my mind.

:-)

(Oh, and I am also watching a sitcom on Netflix. But nobody gets confused by a sitcom.)

The stories, if you are interested, are:

Light Perpetual, by Francis Spufford,
Invasion, by Simon Kinberg and David Weil, and
Schitt's Creek, by Dan Levy and Eugene Levy.

I am still in the middle of all of them, but they are all great.

~

Stay safe, UK. Stay safe, world.

Thanks for reading.