Hollywood Reporter:

Andy Samberg and his Palm Springs writer Andy Siara have teamed up with Noah Hawley and Ben Stiller for a untitled sci-fi comedy-drama that has landed at Apple Studios.

Apple finalized the deal over the weekend, picking it up in a competitive situation.

And:

The project also joins the growing list of homegrown projects that Apple Studios is developing and will be part of the Apple Original Films banner. The latter last year released On the Rocks, Greyhound and Wolfwalkers, all of which are part of this year’s awards conversation. This year it will release Joe and Anthony Russo’s drama Cherry and go into production on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Andy Samberg will star in the series. Noah Hawley was the show creator behind the series Fargo. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Dell Cameron, Gizmodo:

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by their Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence.

In a nutshell, Parler was hacked before it was taken down, all the posts, including deleted posts, were downloaded and archived. I can’t help but imagine the FBI will be interested in getting their hands on that data.

Here’s a link to an alleged description of how this all was done.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

When the ‌M1‌‌ MacBook Air, ‌‌M1‌‌ MacBook Pro 13-inch, and ‌‌M1‌‌ Mac mini models arrived in customers’ hands, a number of owners almost immediately began reporting various Bluetooth problems ranging from intermittent disconnects of wireless peripherals to completely non-functional Bluetooth connections.

This is great news. I’m hoping that same team is working on a fix for the broken Big Sur, Safari iCloud tabs that make it a bit of a nightmare to share pasteboard and iCloud tabs between machines.

100% reproducible for me, have heard from a fair number of people with the same issue. Feedback submitted.

Jason Snell:

A recurring game on Incomparable’s Game Show podcast is a modern take on Family Feud, a show where contestants guess the answers that people gave in a survey. (We did a version of this, with Apple themed questions, for the Relay FM 5th anniversary show.) Last summer I fielded a survey with Star Wars questions—but never wanted to do the hard work of compiling the answers.

The problem with these sorts of surveys is, they’re all based on free-form text boxes. And people don’t answer in a consistent fashion—they misspell things, phrase responses differently, you name it. And yet at the end, I need to say “38 people said Han Solo, 24 people said Luke Skywalker.”

This is where BBEdit saved me an enormous amount of time, and I thought I’d share what I did so that you don’t have to waste your time in the future.

This is just one example of the incredible power of BBEdit. There are so many times when I need to do some sort of data or text manipulation and after a bit of digging, turns out BBEdit has a tool to do what I need.

Jason does an excellent guided tour here, showing exactly how BBEdit solved a knotty problem.

As I’ve mentioned many times, when I get a new Mac, the two apps that I install first are BBEdit and Keyboard Maestro.

Hidden in the massive new Burger King branding redesign is a charming mini-logo.

Though it does get a mention in the branding link above, a better showcase is via the headline link. It’s such an excellent little mini-design: A capital “B” eating a “K”, the whole thing, unmistakably, a Burger King burger.

Mitchell Clark, The Verge:

The Apple Watch’s ability to act as a camera remote for your phone got a mention in its announcement keynote, so it’s been around a while, but I’ve only ever used it once or twice to take group pictures. Twitter user @PeterSciretta, however, has pointed out that you can also use it as a vlogging aid.

Here’s a tweet video showing this remote viewfinder in action:

Using your Apple Watch as an iPhone viewfinder: surprisingly latency-free and useful pic.twitter.com/PyoxK6TxND

— Mitchell (@strawberrywell) January 6, 2021

Bloomberg:

Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.

A 4.8% rally in the electric carmaker’s share price Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.

And:

Over the past year his net worth soared by more than $150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743% last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.

“The fastest bout of wealth creation in history”.

The pandemic has been very good to Elon Musk and to Tesla stock.

Parker Ortolani, 9to5Mac:

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, Apple has introduced a limited-edition pair of AirPods Pro available in multiple Asian countries, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. This coming new year is the Year of the Ox, and Apple has created an adorable new emoji character to celebrate. On these countries’ home pages, Apple has also added a new custom logo to commemorate the occasion.

Here’s a link to the product page, if you want to check it out for yourself.

And follow the headline link, check out the image with the box and AirPods Pro, check out the box design and “Year of the Ox” icon.

I’m a fan of custom Apple gear, like a rare, event-specific Apple Watch band, or a custom color iPhone.

Reddit:

I ordered an Apple product off of Best Buy and was shipping overnight through FedEx. After a week and a half of checking the tracking number and seeing no update on the FedEx site, I contacted Best Buy and they determined it was lost in the mail and I received a full refund. I used the refund to buy another Apple product from Best Buy at a better deal (opted for pick up this time). A little over a month later the original package arrived at my door.

Is it wrong to right it off as Best Buy/FedEx’s problem and keep the original item?

Read the comments, points made to keep the item. First, that the effort to return it to Best Buy will be a huge hassle, especially mid-COVID. I’ve not got experience with this, hard to say, but I do know that both Apple and Amazon make it very easy to return purchases.

There are arguments that Best Buy is a huge corporation, don’t care about you. They can afford the loss, means nothing to them. And they have insurance.

Can’t get past this. At the very least, I’d notify them, let them decide if it’s worth the hassle to process the return. Depending on the item value, I’ve often been told to keep the mistake, more than it’s worth to return it. Am I naive here?

Just a bit of food for thought.

Stephen Warwick, iMore:

Facebook has continued to warn its business users of upcoming privacy changes to iOS 14 that will ask users to opt-in to tracking through the use of a device identifier for advertising for IDFA.

In an email sent to businesses seen by iMore, Facebook has again reiterated that it disagrees with planned upcoming privacy changes to advertising and tracking in iOS 14. Apple isn’t actually changing tracking, instead, users will have to opt-in to tracking.

And the email itself:

Apple’s requirement that all apps in the App Store show a prompt to iOS 14 users in accordance with their AppTrackingTransparency framework will have hard-hitting implications across targeting, optimization, and measuring campaign effectiveness for businesses that advertise on mobile devices and across the web. Apple’s changes will benefit them, while hurting the industry and the ability for businesses of all sizes to market themselves efficiently and grow through personalized advertising. We believe that personalized ads and user privacy can coexist.

Take it one sentence at a time. That first one is definitely on the money. Not sure how you could argue that it is anything but good for users.

The second sentence starts with “Apple’s changes will benefit them”. Feels a bit disingenuous. This benefits users. If it benefits Apple, it’s only that it makes their gear more attractive for folks who value privacy.

And the last sentence, about coexisting, sure, I’ll buy that. After all, didn’t advertising and computing coexist before all the invisible tracking come into being?

Follow the headline link and scroll through the images. The first one shows an open MacBook, with an iPhone and Apple Watch laid on either side of the trackpad. Both devices were wirelessly charging.

True, the devices would get in the way if you were trying to actually type on your Mac, but if you were doing something else and wanted a quick charge, your open MacBook would make a convenient Qi charger. And would mean one less thing to pack for a road trip (when road trips become a thing again).

The second image is even better. It shows a bunch of Apple devices stacked on top of a closed MacBook. Presumably all of them were charging, though I’d assume multiplestacked devices would slow down the charge time proportionately. But it looks like there are multiple coils, so maybe not?

It’s a patent, not necessarily something in the works, but I do think it’s an interesting idea.

On the off chance you didn’t know this, you can delete an app from inside the App Store update page.

In a nutshell:

• Launch the App Store
• Tap your profile pic (upper right corner) to get to the update page
• Scroll down to the UPDATED RECENTLY section
• Swipe left on an app to reveal the Delete button

Not a big deal, but I do find this useful, an easy way to scroll through apps and delete the ones I no longer use. An alternative to hunt-and-peck in jiggle mode.

Apple:

For products purchased online, including online purchases that were picked up at a store, curbside or express location, you can start a no-contact return at apple.com/orderstatus. For purchases made at an Apple Store, you can return your product within 14 days after the store reopens. Stores that are open for curbside pickup only are unable to complete returns at this time. If your local store has only curbside pickup available, you can return your product within 14 days of the store fully reopening.

If you bought something at your local Apple Store and the store closed or was reduced to curbside pickup only, your return window just got extended.

Go to apple.com/retail to check your local Apple Store’s status.

Apple:

As the world navigated an ever-changing new normal of virtual learning, grocery deliveries, and drive-by birthday celebrations, customers relied on Apple services in new ways, turning to expertly curated apps, news, music, podcasts, TV shows, movies, and more to stay entertained, informed, connected, and fit.

Follow the headline link and just scan through the long scroll. An interesting look at some of the major wins for Apple services, starting with the App Store:

As a result of their efforts, developers selling digital goods and services — which is only a small fraction of the overall commerce the App Store facilitates — have now earned more than $200 billion since the App Store launched in 2008.

That “small fraction of the overall commerce” is just a gigantic number. And (assuming 30% take, not quite exact, but close) if my math is correct, if devs took home $200 billion, Apple’s take was about $86 billion. No small thing. Again, this is all time, since 2008.

The post also digs into Apple Music, Apple TV (huge year for Apple TV+), Apple News, Fitness+, Apple Pay, Apple Books, and Apple Podcasts, with a brief mention of iCloud right at the end.

Interesting read.

These are pins, representing all the various Activity Awards you can earn. As far as I can tell, you can buy any of the awards, so there’s a level of honesty required here.

I found this fascinating, like a museum tour of Apple’s Activity artwork. Not seeing any affiliation with Apple, wondering about that.

Use the Photos iOS 14 widget on your iPhone? If so, you want to read the linked post.

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac, walks through the process of telling the widget not to display a specific photo, and clarifies where the widget sources those photos from. Good stuff.

Kirk McElhearn, digging into ProRAW:

One of the key elements of raw files is that they are not demosaiced.

Demosaiced? That’s a new term for me.

From the Demosaicing Wikipedia page:

A digital image process used to reconstruct a full color image from the incomplete color samples output from an image sensor overlaid with a color filter array (CFA). It is also known as CFA interpolation or color reconstruction.

Most modern digital cameras acquire images using a single image sensor overlaid with a CFA, so demosaicing is part of the processing pipeline required to render these images into a viewable format.

Many modern digital cameras can save images in a raw format allowing the user to demosaic them using software, rather than using the camera’s built-in firmware.

OK, got it, back to Kirk:

When you open a raw file in an editing, your software processes the file, performing the demosaicing, along with some other processing, and then allows you to then proceed with other edits. Because of this, there are a number of photo editing apps that perform this demosaicing in slightly different ways; photographers choose the app they prefer according to the results (and for other editing capabilities as well).

But Apple’s ProRAW has already done this demosaicing, which means that, well, it’s not a raw file.

This is just the beginning of a long, interesting take on ProRAW. If you are into the camera side of your iPhone, this is definitely worth a read.

Apple:

Apple today announced that Monica Lozano, president and CEO of College Futures Foundation, has been elected to Apple’s board of directors.

And:

Prior to joining College Futures Foundation, Lozano spent 30 years in media as editor and publisher of La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the US, helping shine a light on issues from infant mortality to the AIDS epidemic. She went on to become chairman and CEO of La Opinión’s parent company, ImpreMedia. Lozano continues to serve on the boards of Target Corporation and Bank of America Corporation.

And, way at the bottom of the release:

Lozano is also a former board member of The Walt Disney Company.

Start with this post from Joe Rossignol, MacRumors, titled HomePod Mini Now Works With Select 18W Chargers Following 14.3 Software Update.

Apple includes a 20W power adapter with the HomePod mini, but many customers may have an 18W power adapter from an iPhone 11 Pro or other device.

Point being, if you have an 18W charger and buy a HomePod mini, use the 18W for your HomePod, now you have a 20W for general use.

Moving on to the headline linked post from John Gruber:

The only way to tell Apple’s new 20W charger apart from their old 18W charger is to look at the hard-to-read small print (light gray text on a white background, a veritable crime against accessibility). And even when you read the small print, you have to know that Apple’s 20W chargers say “20W” on them and their 18W chargers aren’t labeled with a wattage. Seriously, Apple’s 18W charger doesn’t say “18W” — the only way to know it’s an 18W charger is to examine the even-harder-to-read smallest-of-small print and know that it’s stated maximum output of “9V × 2A” is 18W. (Their 20W charger is 9V × 2.2A, so it’s really a 19.8W charger.)

First, check that math at the end. Good to know the W=V*A equation.

That aside, amazing that it is so hard to tell the difference between a 20W and 18W charger. Read this, then go look at your chargers, maybe make some labels so you can easily tell which is which.

Moving on:

So on the one hand, because the HomePod Mini includes the 20W charger, it was fine that it didn’t work with the old 18W charger. But on the other hand, if you ever toss the 20W charger into a bag or drawer along with an Apple 18W charger, you needed an extraordinary amount of knowledge to be able to know which charger the HomePod Mini required. Not sure how much work Apple had to put into the 14.3 software update to make the HomePod Mini work with the 18W charger too, but I’m glad they did. It’s too confusing otherwise.

Lots of details here, but update to the latest HomePod OS and you’ll have the ability to swap out the 18W and 20W chargers.

Gruber’s post is worth reading, especially with details on what he discovered about his Magic Keyboard and Apple’s slightly older 29W USB-C power adapter, which looks exactly like Apple’s more recent 30W USB-C power adapter.

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac:

Along with the shift to Apple Silicon, performing things like a restore is different with M1 Macs compared to their Intel predecessors. Follow along for a look at how to revive and restore M1 Macs, what the difference is, when to use them, and what to try before taking those steps.

Do you know the difference between a revive and restore? If not, give this a quick read, get the basic model in your head so you don’t have to start from scratch when a Mac emergency hits. This is the new way.

Zoe Schiffer, The Verge:

A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company. Its goal will be to tackle ongoing issues like pay disparity, retaliation, and controversial government contracts.

And:

Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company. Instead, the Alphabet Workers Union will only represent employees who voluntarily join. That structure will also allow it to represent all employees who seek to participate — including temps, vendors, and contractors (known internally as TVCs) who would be excluded by labor law from conventional collective bargaining.

This seems a pretty big deal. Google’s response:

“We’ve always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our workforce. Of course our employees have protected labor rights that we support. But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.”

Which contrasts with this:

The news comes one month after the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint alleging Google illegally fired two workers who were organizing employee protests. The employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, were organizing against the company’s decision to work with IRI Consultants, a firm famous for its anti-union efforts.

It also follows the firing of prominent AI ethicist Timnit Gebru in December. In a press release announcing the union, the Alphabet Workers Union wrote: “The firing has caused outrage from thousands of us, including Black and Brown workers who are heartbroken by the company’s actions and unsure of their future at Google.”

Here’s the Alphabet Workers Union announcement.

The Mayron Cole piano method is pretty comprehensive. And now it’s free.

If you ever wanted to learn to play piano, these guides and some sort of keyboard are all you need. The guides are available as PDFs, perfect for displaying on an iPad.

If you are stuck at home for some reason, consider learning to play the piano. Definitely satisfying to master a new skill.