Today, we @playgroundAI release our first product, Anonymous Camera. Designed together with investigative journalists, it lets you anonymise photos and videos in real time, locally on device. All IAP proceeds go towards @BlackVisionsMN and @UR_Ninja. pic.twitter.com/EfU0hCxpoc

— Aaron Abentheuer (@aaronabentheuer) June 11, 2020

I’ve been playing around with this app and it works mostly as advertised. I say mostly because if you move too quickly, the blur can’t keep up. Hopefully, you’ll never have to use this app but it’s good to know it’s available. Also, if you’d like to blur photos automatically, I found a Blur Faces iOS extension. The downside of this extension is the blur doesn’t sem customizable. In my testing, I saw that I could still recognize the faces of people I knew. The other issue is the extension sends the photos off of your phone to be blurred, creating security and data integrity issues.

Conner Carey, iPhone Life, in a post from a year back:

The Do Not Disturb function on iPhone allows you to silence all incoming calls, texts, and notifications. Here’s how to bypass Do Not Disturb for individual contacts using a feature called Emergency Bypass. This allows the people designated to reach you on your iPhone even if your Do Not Disturb settings are set to silence calls and texts from everyone.

Obviously, this has been around for a while, but the discoverability is pretty low, thought it worth posting. Here’s the details:

• Go into Contacts
• Search for a contact you want to be able to reach you, even if you have Do Not Disturb enabled

(Note that “Add to Emergency Contacts” is on this page. Not what we’re going for, that’s for the Health app and emergency responders)

• Tap Edit to edit the contact
• Scroll down and tap Ringtone
• There at the top of the Ringtone page is the Emergency Bypass switch.

Emergency Bypass allows sounds and vibrations from this person even when the ring switch is set to silent, or when Do Not Disturb is on.

Since you’ve come this far, take a minute to visit:

Settings > Do Not Disturb

Note the Allow Calls From setting, which defaults to your Favorites list. Slightly different from Emergency Bypass. This is about phone calls. Odd to me that they are not integrated in some way.

No matter, thought this was worth a visit.

Though this post is written from a software developer’s perspective, it is quite readable even if you’ve never written a line of code. And if you are interested in a potential Arm-based Mac, it’s short and worth your time.

If I had to cherry-pick one highlight:

Assertion: ARM Macs will exclusively run Catalyst apps.

The thinking goes, since major apps like Microsoft Word and Photoshop already have versions on the iPad, it would be a piece of cake for them to recompile and run on MacOS as Catalyst apps.

This would be a serious downgrade for users of these apps on MacOS, and would be a major departure from the way the apps currently behave on MacOS. And even with Catalyst, it’s still a lot of work for an iPad app to look and feel like a Mac app. You’re still going to need a team to make sure everything ports correctly, in addition to adding all the missing functionality that your users would expect to be there. I just don’t see this happening.

WWDC, and the answers it’ll bring, is a week and a half away.

Another milestone. Some tiny thoughts:

First US company? Hmmm. I wonder what other companies have done this. Dig, dig, dig. Ah, here’s a list of publicly traded companies, world-wide, by market-cap.

Number 1, by far, is Saudi Aramco, which passed $2 trillion back in December, in its first day of public trading. Interestingly, Saudi Aramco’s market cap today is about $115B. That’s a pretty astonishing fall. Oil biz.

Next up is Apple, followed closely by Microsoft, just a whisker behind.

Will we one day look back on numbers like these as small? Will Apple hit $2 trillion?

My immediate thought on reading that headline was, “Why one year?”. To get that, here’s Amazon’s actual announcement:

We’re implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology. We will continue to allow organizations like Thorn, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Marinus Analytics to use Amazon Rekognition to help rescue human trafficking victims and reunite missing children with their families.

We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge. We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.

The headline linked CNBC article expands on this with coverage of IBM exiting the facial recognition business, and lots of other background snippets. Worth reading.

New York Times:

HBO Max has removed from its catalog “Gone With the Wind,” the 1939 movie long considered a triumph of American cinema but one that romanticizes the Civil War-era South while glossing over its racial sins.

The streaming service pledged to eventually bring the film back “with a discussion of its historical context” while denouncing its racial missteps, a spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

“‘Gone With the Wind’ is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society,” an HBO Max spokesperson said in a statement. “These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible.”

But they were wrong “yesterday” as well. And the day before that and the day before that. HBO Max is making it seem like they watched the movie on Monday and thought, “Holy crap! We had no idea how racist this movie was!” HBO Max pulling it today makes you ask the question, “If it was so racist, why did you ever have it available for streaming?” Even Disney recognizes some of its racist past and has refused to ever make “Song of the South” available on any platform.

Gone with the Wind has always been a racist movie. It didn’t just become one when HBO Max recovered from the fainting couch and put away their smelling salts like Aunt PittyPat. My wife and I watched it again (me for the 10th time) this past weekend and enjoyed it immensely while still seeing, being aware of and acknowledging its racism.

AppleInsider:

Apple is discontinuing its iBooks Author platform in July and plans to do the same for iTunes U in 2021, the company said Wednesday.

In an email to publishers seen by AppleInsider, Apple said that it will no longer update the iBooks Author platform. As part of its switch to publishing with Pages, Apple also said that it will pull the app from the Mac App Store on July 1.

Apple also said that it would discontinue iTunes U, its aging education-aimed ecosystem, toward the end of 2021.

The iTunes U platform will be available for the 2020 to 2021 school year, but will stop being supported in 2021.

I had someone desperately try to convince me to help them build a business around iBooks Author and iTunes U but, having been burned by peripheral Apple tech in the past (anyone remembers QuickTime Broadcaster?) I had zero faith in Apple continuing it for the long term. Glad I made the right call.

Gizmodo:

Video editing is easier than it’s ever been, with the barrier to entry becoming less pricey every year. As long as you have some decent footage to work with, you can turn it into something presentable—and dare we say professional—using programs that won’t cost you anything. Here are six of the best free video editors to help you unleash your inner Oscar-winning director.

These are alternatives in the most generous sense of the word. FCP is a professional app and many of these are for hobbyists or those who don’t have others relying on their work. That being said, I’ve used several of these apps and many of them are very good. The article missed one excellent free editor though – DaVinci Resolve from Black Magic Design.

Mark Gurman:

Apple Inc. plans to launch a trade-in program for Mac computers next week at its retail stores in the U.S and Canada, adding the devices to an effort already in effect for other products.

The Cupertino, California—based technology giant informed retail employees that the new program will begin on June 15 in the U.S. and June 18 in Canada, according to people familiar with the matter.

Can’t help but think this will help bring along a wave of purchases when (if) the first ARM Macs start shipping. WWDC is less than two weeks away. The ARM Mac question definitely has my attention.

Mark Gurman:

Apple Inc. told staff at its main Silicon Valley headquarters that the first phase of a plan to return to the office will begin on June 15, but stressed that most employees won’t go back for several months at least.

Phase 1 will be “very limited” and workers will only be allowed in the office on certain days depending on their job, the Cupertino, California-based company wrote in a recent memo to staff. More details will be shared later this month, it added.

And:

Apple also reiterated in the memo that it is limiting how many people are allowed in buildings and other work area simultaneously, implementing social distancing, taking temperatures and requiring employees at the office to pass a daily health check.

This approach mirrors other offices planning to reopen this month, limiting personnel both by physical space and by day.

Apple is moving quicker than some other tech companies that focus more on software than hardware. Alphabet Inc.’s Google is slowly re-opening more offices, starting July 6. San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. has said employees can work away from the office forever, while Facebook Inc. expects as much as 50% of its workforce may be remote in 10 years.

I’d quibble with the word “quicker”, purely in that it might read to some that Apple is being overly quick. With their approach, Apple is easing into their reopen with safety in mind.

Inside Hook:

I’m very lucky in that I have gotten to race a number of different disciplines, from single seat racing to NASCAR. But I have to say the pinnacle of racing, in my opinion, is done at Le Mans.

I have done four of the 24 hour races, and I’ve only finished half of them, which is a fairly typical rate. It is such a breaker of people and material.

The driving is shared between three team members, and everyone does their stint, which means driving the car until it needs to be refueled again. The goal is to get the best time that you can, without killing the tires and forcing a pit stop, with your turn at the wheel.

I love racing of all sorts but I’ve never gotten into Le Mans. It’s just “too much” racing. But I’d love to drive those cars for a few laps. BTW, this article was written by Top Gear’s The Stig.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel Corp., as early as this month at its annual developer conference, according to people familiar with the plans.

The company is holding WWDC the week of June 22. Unveiling the initiative, codenamed Kalamata, at the event would give outside developers time to adjust before new Macs roll out in 2021, the people said. Since the hardware transition is still months away, the timing of the announcement could change, they added, while asking not to be identified discussing private plans.

Take this with a grain of salt, of course, but the answer is less than two weeks away. And the concept of an Arm-based Mac does seem inevitable to me. Not hard to believe this announcement will happen.

Side note: Having been to so many WWDCs in person, this year’s remote event feels jarring to me. I’m excited for the keynote, look forward to seeing how Apple will make this happen, really appreciate the fact that this year is the great leveler, a WWDC that anyone who wants to can attend.

But that said, I’m already missing the Loop Bash, missing the camaraderie, the wee hours talking tech and clinking glasses with old and new friends in person.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Unlike some Android phones, Apple’s iPhones don’t have a dedicated notification LED that lights up when you get a call, text, or other alert. What iPhones do include is an optional Accessibility feature for the deaf and hard of hearing that blinks the rear camera flash and provides a visual cue for incoming notifications.

Follow the screenshots to see how to turn this on. Definitely worth knowing about.

The tagline:

Add them together. Multiply their power.

Nice wordplay. Here’s the subhead:

Get directions on iPhone and a tap on your wrist when you need to turn. Check your heart rate on Apple Watch and track it over the last hour, day, month, or year on iPhone. When you put the two of them together, they add up to so much more.

What follows is a series of use cases, each animated in a long single-scrolling series of “pages”, ending with pages to Shop Apple Watch and Shop iPhone. Take a look.

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:

Twitter is developing a new in-app system for requesting verification, according to a recent finding from reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, which Twitter has since confirmed.

Follow the link, check out the image to see where this sits in the interface.

And if you haven’t already listened to the Twitter Pettiness episode of the Dalrymple Report, take a listen. Can’t help but wonder how this will play out for us.

Follow the headline link to see a detailed image of the updated Apple Maps satellite image of the road leading up to the White House.

This view of the now-renamed portion of 16th St. in Washington D.C . has evolved over the weekend. If you zoom in on Apple Maps, you’ll see the new name as you make your way south, towards the White House, to where the street ends. And if you switch to satellite view, you’ll see the linked image (which is from a comment on this Reddit post).

Patently Apple:

The synthetic group selfie can be a composition of still images, stored video images, or live streaming video images. The computing device can automatically arrange the individual selfies into the synthetic group selfie.

Like all patents, existence of the patent doesn’t guarantee that the underlying idea will ever see the light of day.

Great concept. Key here will be the implementation. I would love the ability to take a selfie with friends scattered across the country, even around the world, and have the result feel seamless, as if we were all within arms reach.

Danielle Prokop, The Santa Fe New Mexican:

Forrest Fenn, an 89-year-old Santa Fe author and artifacts dealer, said his treasure chest hidden in the Rocky Mountains in 2010 was found last week.

“It’s true,” Fenn told The New Mexican in a phone call Sunday, adding that the finder of his chest located the valuable goods “a few days ago.”

I love a good treasure hunt story. This one spans a decade, starting when Forrest Fenn put out the word that he’d hidden a chest full of loot, said to be worth more than $1 million, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

Taking this all with a grain of salt, since we’ll never see video of the treasure, of it being hidden, nor of it being found.

And:

An estimated 350,000 people have hunted for Fenn’s treasure. Some quit their jobs to do so. But it’s had deadly consequences. At least five people have died while searching for the chest.

And:

In December, David Harold Hanson of Colorado Springs, Colo., sued Fenn for $1.5 million, claiming he has deprived him of the treasure through fraudulent statements and misleading clues.

All adds to the fascination.

Following the resignation of co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman posted next steps in moderating hate, efforts that will no doubt be watched closely by teams at Twitter and Facebook.

Take a minute or two to read the post. Can this work? I really hope so.

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, writing about a new Qustodio survey:

Kids ages four to 15 now spend an average of 85 minutes per day watching YouTube videos, compared with 80 minutes per day spent on TikTok.

And:

Kids are now watching twice as many videos per day as they did just four years ago. This is despite the fact that YouTube’s flagship app is meant for ages 13 and up.

And:

The next largest app for online video is Netflix, watched by 33% of U.S. kids, 29% of U.K. kids and 28% of kids in Spain.

To me, this reflects the splintering we are seeing in streaming services, as Disney Plus, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Hulu, HBO Max, CBS Online, BritBox, and a host of others fight for our monthly budget and threaten Netfix’s dominance.

SFGate:

Bay Area residents were serenaded by the Golden Gate Bridge as wind gusts passed through the region Friday — a new phenomenon that has a relatively simple explanation.

A number of individuals shared videos of the eerie humming sound coming from the bridge, with many reporting they could hear the noise from miles away. After enough people inquired about the noise, the Golden Gate Bridge Sargent reported the sound is caused by wind hitting new sidewalk railing slats.

Like 2020 wasn’t weird enough already.

Bloomberg:

Intel Corp., Apple Inc. and Amgen Inc. are among more than a dozen companies supporting Harvard University in a fierce legal battle that could shape the use of race in college admissions for decades to come.

The nation’s oldest university is fighting a challenge by Edward Blum, a staunch foe of affirmative action who seeks to stop it from weighing race in student selection altogether.

“As the Supreme Court recognized nearly twenty years ago, ‘the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people,’” the companies wrote in a “friend of the court” brief, quoting the decision. They said that “in the absence of workable race-neutral alternatives,” affirmative action was still the right means to that end.

Sadly, this case will likely go to the US Supreme Court.

Wall Street Journal:

Kathryn Albany-Ward, founder and chief executive of British nonprofit Colour Blind Awareness CIC, said colorblind people struggle to discern basic color-coded information in many experiences with technology, from reading maps online to figuring out whether the LEDs on a Wi-Fi router are blinking green or red.

Ms. Albany-Ward said colorblind people have historically been hesitant to raise accessibility issues in the way other disability rights activists have.

Apple in 2019 introduced a “Differentiate Without Color” iOS setting, which replaces interfaces that rely solely on color with noncolor alternatives. The company said it has supported customers with colorblindness for more than a decade with tools such as the iOS Color Filters setting, which was rolled out in 2016.

As is often the case, accessibility features benefit all users, not just the users the feature is designed for.

Maddie Stone:

or the past eight years, I’ve been working mainly on a late 2012 iMac. I’m no Luddite, but the computer has held up well over the years, and I’ve never felt the need to replace it. Recently, though, my iMac developed its first serious tic: The fan has started to power on loudly every time the computer goes to sleep. While the computer is long past warranty, I decided to call up Apple to see if the company could offer any help. When I did, I learned my iMac is considered “vintage” and was told Apple won’t touch it.

According to Apple, “vintage” devices are those that the company discontinued selling more than five and less than seven years ago. Once Apple hasn’t sold a product for seven years, it’s considered “obsolete,” meaning the company won’t offer any repair services. But vintage products exist in a liminal space: Despite what I learned when I called Apple Support, Apple Stores as well as AASPs can, in theory, repair them for you “subject to availability of inventory, or as required by law,” according to Apple.

In practice, people in the repair community told me Apple isn’t particularly interested in fixing vintage tech.

My beloved 2014 iMac is rapidly coming up on “vintage” status and I worry about repair if anything happens to it. I live in a backwater town with little to no authorized Apple support.