Standardization is a good thing. Forced standarization can appear beneficial, too. But the two are not the equivalent. Consider the increasingly ubiquitous USB Type-C cable.
Last week, I grumbled about Apple’s “vision” which is visionless at worst and horribly dystopian at best. What could have been different? I found myself imagining what WWDC23’s big announcement might have been if Steve Jobs were still living.
Last week I saw a short video that demonstrated an amazing new fabric. Controlled by a small “smartphone” application, this fabric changes color. It is very expensive, so the only people who will have garments made from it are teenagers.
I watch Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote every year like people watch the Superbowl — snacks, celebratory anticipation, the works. The greatest ones over the years remain memorable long after, conveying master showmanship and a clarity of vision for technology that makes life better. Ironically, while introducing a device called Vision Pro, this year’s conference felt like an aimless stumble towards dystopia.
My good friend and fellow OFB writer Dennis E. Powell and I met years ago on a group that championed Free/Open Source software, much for the same sorts of reasons he advocates for his new phone configuration over Apple’s offerings. OFB itself was founded, in fact, to promote such open software, especially Linux, so why would I defend locked down systems from Apple? That’s a story that started 19 years ago, before the iPhone even existed.
The IOS update that killed my original iPhone SE was the last straw. I was done with Apple. They’d already skated far out onto the thin ice when they killed the excellent Dark Sky weather application and replaced it with their more-is-less Weather application, which took what was once quick, convenient, easy, and comprehensive — Dark Sky — and replaced it with a jumble of information, often not the information being sought, on a too-busy screen. It would have been forgivable if they had provided a setting that restored the look, feel, and functionality of Dark Sky. They didn’t. They never do. Apple knows best.
As a friend battled viruses on his brand-new Windows computer this week, I thought again about just how spoiled Apple users are by better security and better privacy than Android and Windows folks live with. Long adept at bringing such advantages to the masses that will never try (much less secure) Linux, Apple has one vulnerability is tech prowess cannot overcome: China.
By now most of us know the unpleasant drill. The credit card company calls or texts you and says there appears to be an unauthorized purchase. Somehow, that happened (near as I can tell, merely coincidentally) on three different accounts for me within a week in July. One has turned into a continuing pain months later: Apple Card. Some of this is a fault of the card, but the greater fault lies in a weak bit of design in Apple’s platforms I otherwise love.
The Boys talk about Jason’s adventures this summer, the changing world we find ourselves in (and some encouragement from Ps. 89 related to it), their mutual love of all things Apple and the importance for Christians being people of the Truth.
New OFB contributor D. Griffin Jones peers into 2022 and offers a roundup of everything Apple is expected to release in the upcoming year.