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The One-Obsession-For-Another Edition Wednesday, August 13, 2025

A Moment That Changed Me: I Resolved To Reduce My Screen Time – And It Was A Big Mistake, by Joe Stone, The Guardian

I traded one obsession (looking at my phone) for another (not looking at it). In my second week, I was down to two hours of screen time a day. By my third, it was an hour and a half – and I became determined to get it below 60 minutes. Part of me was impressed that I could appear normal while quietly (nobly?) wielding this superpower. However, I was unable to keep my gift a secret. I soon began boring friends, acquaintances and service workers with tales of my herculean discipline.

Before long, my quest was disrupting my day in new ways. I resented having to open Maps on my phone, so I found myself getting lost while cycling to appointments. If I wanted to show someone a picture or a meme, I would ask to Google it on their phone, rather than my own. I refused to order Ubers after nights out (the painstaking process of watching a cab crawl towards my location while the minutes of screen time racked up was torturous) and instead offered to transfer the money (later, on my laptop) to whoever did.

Stuff

Apple Arcade Gets New NFL And Jeopardy Games And More Next Month, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Just in time for the start of the upcoming NFL season on September 4, NFL Retro Bowl '26 features authentic NFL players and rosters with retro styling. In this year's version of the game, there is a new Retro Bowl Championship Leaderboard that tasks players with competing against each other in weekly matchups, in line with the NFL schedule.

Older Apple TV+ Movies Available To Purchase Directly, by Hartley Charlton, MacRumors

Older ‌Apple TV‌+ titles including Sofia Coppola's 2020 movie "On the Rocks," Sian Heder's Academy Award-winning 2021 film "CODA," and Aaron Schneider's 2020 World War II drama "Greyhound" are now available to buy or rent in 4K HDR options within the store section of the ‌Apple TV‌ app.

This Designer Turned The New Beats Pill Into A Cool Art Piece You Can’t Get Everywhere, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

Beats is rolling out a fresh limited-edition version of its recently relaunched Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker, teaming up with Bulgarian-born fashion designer Kiko Kostadinov.

Cassette's New App Turns Your Videos Into Retro, VHS-like Home Movies, by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

To use the app, you virtually “load” one of the tapes laid out across the screen by selecting the year’s videos you want to view. The videos are labeled with what look like handwritten stickers with the year attached to the VHS tape’s cover sleeve.

You can then watch your life unfold on the screen with no further interaction required on your part.

This App Switcher For Mac Is Way Faster Than Command-Tab, by Pranay Parab, Lifehacker

My favorite Dory feature is the ability to permanently assign certain keys to launch certain apps.

Pebblebee’s AirTag Alternative Can Now Share Your Real-time Location In An Emergency, by Andrew Liszewski, The Verge

Alert Alive expands your automatically contacted Safety Circle from just a single person to up to five, and it shares your real-time location with them until you’re safe and turn it off.

Notes

This Auction Is Selling A Treasure Trove Of Vintage Apple Tech, by Grace Snelling, Fast Company

The collection of items, titled “Steve Jobs and the Apple Revolution,” is currently being sold by RR Auction, and will remain live until August 21. It’s one of the company’s 12 annual speciality auctions, which focus on specific subjects like space exploration, the Olympics, and animation.

Bottom of the Page

Lowering your screen-time of your device is, I feel, not a worthwhile goal. Rather, it should be lowering your screen-time of specific apps that you choose.

My iPhone is not just a phone and an 'internet communicator'. It is also my book, my book-on-tape, my on-demand radio, my walkman, my newspaper, my magazine, my camera, my telegram, my map, my notebook, and my calendar. Why would I want to decrease the usage of any of the above?

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Thanks for reading.