• In Loving Memory of my Great Aunt Rose

    For those who don’t know (find my first Tweet here and my follow-up here), my Great Aunt Rose unfortunately passed away last week. She was a beautiful and kind-hearted woman who truly loved her family, despite rarely getting to see everyone in-person. The first (and last) time I had saw her since I was a baby was July 2019. We had a wonderful time, and made so many memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

    Love you, Great Aunt Rose! We’re all going to miss you!

    1955 – 2024

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  • It’s official, Apple has shuttered Epic Games’ ability to create an “alternative app marketplace” on iOS–shutting down their Swedish developer account on the 6th of March. It seems that Tweets critical of the company by Epic Games‘ CEO recently may have sparked the response. Despite Epic Games trying to operate in good faith with Apple, the multi-trillion dollar company chose a path of bad faith: shuttering the competition before they even stood a chance. It’s sad to see–I’ve spent several years now as an Apple customer, even recently switching back to using their devices primarily, but now I can’t trust them on mobile.

    The biggest reason is that developers are going to stop trusting them soon enough. Frankly, Apple is becoming the very thing they sought to destroy almost forty some-odd years ago. The fact that they’re becoming more and more litigious is enough evidence, to be honest.

    The company is simply on a power trip, fueled by a hunger for control and dominance over every industry in which they take part, even if that means costing themselves a significant amount of goodwill among their vast community of developers and enthusiasts. At least Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer understood that developers mean everything to a thriving platform. That said, Ballmer was controversial as a CEO, and most of that reputation is his own fault.

    Every move the company has made, from RCS support and beyond (especially recently), has been done in a way that is nothing short of malicious compliance. Developers from across the industry, including several third-party developer alums, have come together and spoken out against these moves. Whether it’s independently, or through the Coalition for App Fairness, or through some other alliance.

    Spotify, for example, is a member of the Coalition whose CEO was incredibly vocal against the proposed DMA rules set forth by Apple. They released another letter to the European Commission on Apple’s “lack of DMA compliance” just last week. Apple responded, with an incredibly anger-filled press release on Monday:

    “Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.”

    Keep in mind, the EU recently fined them €1.84 billion EURO ($2 billion USD) as a result of the anti-trust litigation between them, Spotify, and this is just a result of their distaste in their loss. The fact of the matter is–the Apple beast has become too powerful. We, the consumers, have given them this power–and we’re the only ones who can seize it once more.

    Google isn’t exactly a saint either, to be clear. They’ve had their own myriad of bullshit and muddy bodies of antitrust and litigation of all sorts that would take ages to wade through. However–Android has, and will continue to be, an open platform in both source and user choice for as long as the Android Open Source Project exists and smartphone manufacturers (who aren’t Apple) continue making phones.

    For Apple to succeed in interfacing with developers in the long-term–beyond their evangelists and most dedicated users who have zero understanding of how Android, Windows, or Linux works–they must stop alienating them and being so disrespectful when given constructive feedback. I’m not sure why their knee-jerk reaction is to play the victim card so much, especially when I’m sure they have a million other cards to play, but they continue to choose it.

    For sympathy? Probably.

    I believe it’s time for us iOS users to rebel in the only way Apple has given us the ability to do: take our business elsewhere. The grass is certainly greener on the other side of the wall. Even DHH, a well-known lover AND critic of Apple (being an Apple evangelist for a long ass time–perhaps 99% of my life–will do that), has switched to Android and Windows and has no reason to leave for a while.

    Wild that we’ve gotten here. I’m doing the same thing, too–plotting my course out of the “ecosystem.” Perhaps it is that time. If Apple has a sincere change of heart, sure, but I don’t think developers are going to stick around for long with their attitude lately. Without developers, a platform is nothing. Without COMPETITION, a developer is nothing. If Apple truly is seeking to destroy both, iOS may as well be deemed irrelevant now.

    Unless you want to eventually be stuck without any third-party apps in the future… I’d start looking at your options and plotting your exit plan. Samsung Galaxy S is probably the closest choice, but Google Pixel has a great line, too. That’s my take.


  • Happy 69th Birthday, Steve Jobs

    Love him or hate him, he made an impact on the world — under his leadership at Apple, they spearheaded the smartphone revolution. Steve Jobs is a true inspiration for the next generation.

    He would have been 69 this year. Happy birthday, Steve!


  • Apple announced that there’s a new app for Sports on iPhone, aptly named “Apple Sports” and the design cues are very similar to those of watchOS and visionOS. I generally don’t like speculating too much–but considering how out of place this app and the Action Button menu looks on iOS 17, this could potentially mean iOS will receive an overdue redesign treatment this year to bring the platform more in line with other Apple platforms.

    iOS has stayed largely the same design-wise since iOS 7, with mainly minor tweaks each update cycle. With iOS 18 rumored to be a big update this year, only time will tell whether or not this happens!

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  • No Bulletin This Week (February 24, 2024)

    Just a friendly reminder that, due to unforeseen circumstances, The Bulletin will be taking a one-week break and will return on March 2, 2024. In the meantime, subscribe for future updates at bulletin.sladewatkins.net! Be well!

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  • My friend Max writes about my US House Rep. Elise Stefanik’s “Trumpification” in his new blog post:

    “I think he has been insulting to women,” she told WAMC Northeast Public Radio in August 2015. She went on to predict that Trump’s first debate would be his campaign’s “peak moment” before his numbers drop. […]

    […] It was then and there that the old Stefanik died and in her ashes rose a leading MAGA figure. Stefanik realized quickly that she could quit this precarious cat-and-mouse game of bipartisanship and gain power rather easily. […]

    He really does a great job taking you from the beginning of her career all the way to the present “Trumpified” version of her former self. It’s worth the read.

    Disclosure: Like I mentioned, Max is a close friend of mine. I share this with you here because it’s an interesting read and deserves a signal boost — not simply because he’s a friend.


  • The Bulletin for February 17th, 2024

    Hey party people,

    This week has been spent on two secret projects I can’t tell you about yet. Sorry! There’s one that I could technically tell you about now but I’m too excited and want it to be a surprise. That said, I’ve spent most of my week taking care of Beau’s bad ear. Unfortunately he ended up having to get it drained, so now he’s on an oral antibiotic, ear drops, and an ointment. My youngest cat just cannot catch a break, I swear… I hope he feels better soon.

    Chayse ​came to visit last week​ and we’re planning to do it again very soon. Not sure exactly when, as we’re still working out the details, but I’m willing to bet it will be within the next month and a half or so. We’ll see! Keep your fingers crossed for us and pray that everything works out in that regard.

    Instagram will load in the frontend.

    Okay, enough chit-chat: here’s The Bulletin.


    Things I found across the net…

    Catching them all, one step at a time.

    • A damning report says ​Twitter’s Super Bowl stats that the company shared were actually fake​! (My thoughts are here on the Slade’s Corner linklog.)
    • ​Cobalt​ is a great video downloader for websites like Twitter and YouTube that doesn’t have any ads, and isn’t doing anything shady! It’s quite cool, check it out.
    • Google Pixel is almost done with the transition to their own in-house Tensor chips, as ​Android 15 drops support for Pixel 5, 5a, and earlier​.
    • Windows 2000 launched 24 years ago today! NeoWin ​has a wonderful look back​ at the business-oriented operating system that would later be used as the foundation for Windows XP (which was released in 2001 and the first unified release of Windows for both home and business consumers.)
    • A woman was able ​to take a flight from Nashville International to Los Angeles International Airport without a ticket​. She was caught and immediately taken into custody upon landing in LA. The investigation is ongoing, but the TSA insists she was screened, but was able to bypass the ID checkpoint by jumping a barrier. How she was able to even board a flight without scanning her ticket is unknown. (Somebody’s probably getting fired.)
    • Elon Musk was caught with his pants down again sharing fake stats on Super Bowl 58’s performance on Twitter, ​according to a report​ from CHEQ. They found that 75.8+% of those numbers were fraudulent, and the impressions were much, much less than what the company shared. “‘I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to 50 percent, not to mention 76 percent,’ ​CHEQ​ founder and CEO Guy Tytunovich told Mashable regarding X’s fake traffic data. ‘I’m amazed…I’ve never, ever, ever, ever seen anything even remotely close.’” Geez.

    For more, consider checking out ​my linklog on SladeWatkins.net​! I usually share a bunch of stuff throughout the week that doesn’t always make it into The Bulletin.


    What I’m listening to…

    I’m kind of a Spotify addict, so I happen to listen to a lot of music. Here’s what I’m currently listening to—usually on repeat. Here’s what I’ve got for you, for the week of February 17, 2024

    Thanks to ​Odesli​ for making all these streaming platform-agnostic!


    Here’s hoping you feel better soon, Beanie <3

    I close this week by reminding you to be kind to yourself and others. These are some hard times we live in, and a little kindness goes a long way towards making that at least a little bit better.

    Just keep swimming,
    Slade

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  • In case you were curious how I had my computer set up in this month in 2017, I found a screenshot laying around of a client’s website, but for some reason, it was my entire desktop. I don’t work with these folks anymore — so it’s blurred out here — but I believe the computer this was running on was a Mid 2010 Mac Mini running macOS Sierra!

    At some point down the line, I switched to an Early 2011 MacBook Pro, and then eventually upgraded to a 2014 Mac Mini and the 2022 M2 MacBook Pro that I currently use. macOS returned to a more skeuomorphic-inspired look. I believe they call it “neumorphic” or something like that.

    For giggles, here’s what my desktop looks like today! A lot has changed. I actually store files on the Desktop now, and I don’t keep my RAM monitor in my Menu Bar anymore. I went for a tidy yet functional set up.

    My Dock is hidden off to the right-hand side of my screen–with a Terminal tweak to make it instantly appear and reappear. For folder management on the Desktop (where I store in-progress projects), I use Stacks and I move the labels to the right. I use SoundSource to manage my audio interface, CleanShot X for screenshot management, and an app called Tiles to bring window snapping from Windows 7 and later to the Mac. Oh, and I keep Downloads in the Dock now, and don’t remove the shortcut anymore–it’s handy.

    I suppose the only things hardware-wise besides the machine that has changed was my keyboard–I’m using a model of the Logi Pop Keys line that’s red/pink/off-white. Reason being is that it supports macOS keyboard shortcuts. On my other computers, I use a SteelSeries Apex 5.

    Was kind of interesting to see this. Chrome certainly changed a lot, and macOS looks like a completely different piece of software. That screenshot I found was taken only about three months into my switch from Windows to Mac, too. Incredibly nostalgic! Wonder if I have any more old screenshots laying around somewhere…


  • Just a friendly reminder that tonight’s Bulletin will be out to all subscribers at 8PM Eastern (US). It will, of course, be available to the general public on Tuesday the 20th at 12am Eastern (US) at SladeWatkins.net/bulletin.

    You can subscribe today at bulletin.sladewatkins.net for a weekly dose of interesting links and music recommendations in your inbox! (Oh, and I guess some updates of stuff going on in my world, too.)

    Talk to you later,
    Slade

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  • From Mashable:

    However, it appears that a significant portion of that traffic on [Twitter] could be fake, according to data provided to Mashable by CHEQ, a leading cybersecurity firm that tracks bots and fake users.

    According to CHEQ, a whopping 75.85 percent of traffic from [Twitter] to its advertising clients’ websites during the weekend of the Super Bowl was fake.

    Are we really surprised? These stats are coming out of the mouth of Elon Musk, who is not only a liar, but didn’t even want to buy the website in the first place. He then changed the name and ruined Twitter’s own brand value and recognition (there is a reason we don’t refer to it by its new name on this blog) for fun.

    He wants you to think this was intentional, and that the name and its CEO in-name-only Linda Yaccarino are a fresh start and chapter for the website, but that’s not true. Inside the company’s walls sits Elon Musk–who is still very much the owner with full control over everything. Yaccarino can’t even give straight answers to anything, and every interview she does is really awkward because of it. It’s embarrassing.

    I won’t say the previous regime was great–all of my run-ins with them were always drama-filled–but they never pulled things like this, and they weren’t helmed by a billionaire and his fake CEO who couldn’t tell you how a social media platform is supposed to function.

    And no, unlike what DHH suggested many moons ago (based on potentially fraudulent numbers to begin with*), the layoffs and subsequent “cloud exit” did not correspond to anything good. In fact, Twitter is now plagued with numerous bugs and tons of issues — like frequent outages — that have only been exacerbated by Musk’s lack of knowledge and shoddy leadership skills.

    *And importantly, the reason I say this is because we know now that the numbers most recently cited for the Super Bowl are fake, so how can we believe anything that the company said or will say in the future? We can’t. We have to question it now.

    The truth is, Musk’s dream of an “everything app” akin to that of China’s WeChat will never happen unless governments around the world forgo democracy and enforce its use. And that’s just not going to happen. Elon Musk can’t even get people to subscribe to his platform’s “Premium” offerings, as the offering only has around 640 million people subscribed to it as of September 2023. (Still waiting on more recent data, but I suspect it hasn’t gone up that much.)

    I close with this quote from the same Mashable article:

    Most […] users who are regularly on the platform can attest to a noticeable uptick in seemingly inauthentic activity in recent months. When a post goes viral on […], its now commonplace to find bots filling the replies with AI-generated responses or accounts with randomly generated usernames spamming a user’s mentions with unsolicited “link-in-bio” promotions. Now, there’s data which backs up that user experience.

    Yep. That’s what happens when you lay off your moderation staff, and sell boosts and verified badges for money… Rest assured, the world will not be doing “everything” through an app produced by Elon Musk any time soon. It just won’t happen.