As I ponder how best to move forward with The Apex in 2021, I have decided that in whatever form it continues, it will be with a sole focus on the NTT IndyCar Series. Now that I’m back on my own — like the old days — it will be too much to focus on and enmesh myself in two vibrant series. Thus, beginning with this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship content will no longer be added to The Apex.
Continue readingJuli Clover, writing at MacRumors:
Edge for Mac has been designed to be similar to the Edge experience on Windows, but Microsoft has added optimizations to make it feel more Mac-like.
It’s a small snippet of text that could prompt me to head in multiple directions. A recent episode of Accidental Tech Podcast has me thinking about what makes a Mac app “Mac-like,” which might be one avenue to take. What I’m choosing to tackle is the larger question the text raises: Clover’s role as a reporter or, as her MacRumors bio reads, a Senior Editor.
Continue readingThree weeks ago, Brydge teased the Brydge Pro+, a device similar to the existing Brydge Pro keyboard for the 2018 iPad Pro but with a trackpad centered on the palm rest. Since then, pre-orders have opened for the product.
Here’s a snippet of John Voorhees’ reactive article at MacStories wherein the “feature” he references is iPadOS 13’s pointing device support:
I’ve experimented with the feature on several occasions, but until it’s more refined, I have a hard time seeing myself using a pointing device with my iPad Pro regularly. As a result, I’m not that interested in the Brydge Pro+, but I’ll withhold my final judgment on that score until I’ve seen reviews by people who have used production models of the device and tried one myself.
If MacStories is going to insist on incorporating opinionated nonsense in every article, wouldn’t it make sense to have someone write about the Brydge Pro+ who’s used iPadOS’s pointing device support more than on “several occasions”?
Continue readingNTT IndyCar Series history is replete with strategic alliances that proved successful suggesting that McLaren Racing’s tie-up with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports could be destined for success yet several factors point to the joint effort having an uphill battle upon its debut in 2020.
Teams joining forces in a myriad of ways has become more common with examples such as Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan, Meyer Shank Racing’s partnership with Arrow SPM and any number of one-off efforts for the Indianapolis 500 that combine established entities with smaller ones. This year, Harding Steinbrenner Racing’s technical relationship with Andretti Technologies brought about near-immediate success with rookie phenom Colton Herta becoming the youngest winner in Indy car history with his triumph at Circuit of The Americas.
Continue readingJohn Temple, writing for The Atlantic:
I was the editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver when the Columbine High School shootings gripped the nation in 1999. The Columbine attack was covered live on cable and broadcast television. At the time we thought it would be the mass shooting to end all mass shootings. How could we let anything so horrible happen again? Especially after seeing what we had all seen.
And:
I believed that if journalists did our job well, if we provided independent, fact-based reporting, citizens would make informed choices and make our country better, as night would follow day. That’s the way things are supposed to work.
And:
We kept at it even as we heard from many readers asking us to stop. Hostility against the press got so bad that we had people throwing snowballs with rocks in them at our photographers. Many people just wanted to be left alone.
It’s a heartfelt piece from a former journalist who seems to have gotten fed up with his inability to effect change with his work.
He wrote about “independent, fact-based reporting” influencing “informed choices” which is all very journalistic. It’s his desire to “make our country better” that derails the endeavor.
Independence and objectivity can’t exist in an environment driven by an agenda, even one as altruistic as ending violence or curtailing mass shootings.
Continue readingMany Apple pundits and analysts point to its services business as the future of the company and a major source of future revenue. I don’t deny that services revenue is steadily going up while hardware revenue is heading in the opposite direction.
Yet, I still see Apple as primarily, fundamentally and foundationally a hardware company. Its services exist to sell more hardware. When Apple makes money on services — sometimes, a lot of money — it only adds to the bottom line.
Continue readingJohn Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:
This difference in priorities is why Google forked Chrome’s rendering engine from WebKit in 2013. Which, in turn, makes me wonder what the endgame will look like with Microsoft adopting Chrome. Is Microsoft really going to stick with Chrome, under Google’s ultimate control, or will they fork it, the way Google forked WebKit?
Gruber’s question is the wrong one. The concern isn’t that Microsoft might fork Blink — the rendering engine that underlies not just Chrome but the Chromium open-source base upon which Chrome is built — but that its choice of Google’s project over another puts more control of the internet under Google’s purview.
Continue readingBrian Fagioli, writing at BetaNews:
When I first began using the Mac, I downloaded a bunch of software I thought I would enjoy. As a big Twitter user, I obviously installed the official app for that social network. You know what? It sucked. I tried to make it work, but ultimately, using a web browser was just a much better experience. On any desktop operating system, users are wise to use a browser. Let’s be honest — Twitter apps are best saved for smartphones and tablets. Twitter the company apparently agrees, as today, it officially kills the Mac app.
Later, he makes this profound observation:
Look, macOS is great for many things, but for accessing the web — including social media — it is no better than a Chromebook. Heck, from a security perspective, Google’s desktop operating system is arguably superior to macOS when surfing the web. And yeah, a computer running it can be had for $200. So?
Despite many routes I could take to assail Fagioli’s argument, I’ll begin with viewing social media as merely a web-based phenomenon. Is the Instagram experience better on the web? How about Snapchat? It’s true — both services started as apps. Twitter began as a bare-bones web service designed around the limitations of SMS messaging. In fact, I’m quite certain my first Twitter post was sent via SMS.
Should Twitter shutter its “much better experience” on the web to revert back to an SMS-focused model? Surely not, because how things begin isn’t necessarily how they should remain.
Continue readingFrom an Exclusive Autosport press release:
The impressive pairing of Exclusive Autosport and Parker Thompson has delivered much success over the past three years, locking race wins in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, the F1600 Super Series, the Toyo Tires F1600 Championship in Ontario and the Formula Tour 1600 series in Quebec. Thompson drove to major home country wins for Exclusive Autosport in both F1600 at the F1 Grand Prix in Montreal and USF2000 in Toronto in 2017. This year, he will aim to extend this streak into the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. Exclusive Autosport has signed the 19-year-old Canadian to lead their rookie charge into the series, which is the second rung of the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires. Exclusive Autosport debuted in the USF2000 series in 2017 and promptly won three races en route to third in the Drivers’ Championship. With teams in F1600 and USF2000, Pro Mazda is the logical progression in their expansion and development and Thompson represents the first of two driver announcements for this level of their program.
This, as the title states, is exactly how it’s supposed to work.
Continue reading