Hi! My name is Cédric Bozzi, I make websites and iOS apps, and this is my blog about technology (mostly a Twitter archive, really).

15 October

@zeynep:

NEW piece from me: We’re missing the important question about China. The mystery isn’t why Apple and NBA are quick to cave but why the Chinese government threw a fit over minor things—and why now? That answer isn’t obvious but it’s greatly consequential. [theatlantic.com]

# 2019/10/15 - 23:04 — original tweet by @zeynep

@sidneyfussell:

Google’s announcing new phones today, so I hope you’ll take a few moments to read how unwitting, mostly black homeless people became part of the Pixel 4’s development process [theatlantic.com]

# 2019/10/15 - 18:05 — original tweet by @sidneyfussell

Are we supposed to believe that the new Nest Mini has better sound than the much bigger Google Home, or should I buy a three-year-old device that is so obsolete they haven’t even bothered to rename it “Nest Something”?

# 2019/10/15 - 17:38 — published on @ff00aa

Every year Google’s keynote makes me kinda want to buy a Pixel just as a dedicated camera, but I don’t have that sort of disposable income and switching to Android is a forever nope.

(Okay, not quite forever if Apple keeps its current trajectory.)

# 2019/10/15 - 17:29 — published on @ff00aa

@davidberreby:

Uber passengers don’t wear seatbelts. Nonsmokers vape. Waze clogs streets not meant for heavy traffic. All examples of tech services eroding hard-won public-safety measures, because for tech there is no public, only individuals. @ibogost explains [theatlantic.com]

# 2019/10/15 - 16:16 — original tweet by @davidberreby

Power went out. It never occurred to me before but I went to my laptop’s wifi menu to enable tethering and, oh, that’s a real good test of whether the power’s out in the whole building.

# 2019/10/15 - 12:42 — published on @ff00aa

14 October

That is rather contrary to what Apple’s own blurb in “Safari & Privacy” says. If the paragraph is obsolete, it would have been a good idea to update it when they added Tencent. Or are they giving themselves leeway to flip a switch later?

# 2019/10/14 - 18:44 — published on @ff00aa

@Pinboard:

The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy

# 2019/10/14 - 12:59 — original tweet by @Pinboard

I saw these screens in two games and figured they were too similar to be a coincidence. So Apple gave boilerplate code to all Arcade developers and not only does it produce the worst sync UI ever made, it doesn’t even work well.

# 2019/10/14 - 02:26 — published on @ff00aa

13 October

Oh for fuck’s sake I’m gonna buy a Surface Laptop

# 2019/10/13 - 23:15 — published on @ff00aa

I enjoy seeing the LED lights of modern sports cars blink in Top Gear’s slow-motion footage almost as much as Top Gear’s cinematographer does, but I can’t help thinking that long-exposure shots looked better when I was young 👴🏻

# 2019/10/13 - 18:07 — published on @ff00aa

In that case let’s hope it was officially touted to Chinese users as a new ever-so-desirable feature, and not foisted upon them without warning (but what are the odds if it was added in a point release?)

# 2019/10/13 - 17:36 — published on @ff00aa

How crazy is it that this went almost completely unnoticed at the time?

# 2019/10/13 - 17:26 — published on @ff00aa

It’s probably just for users in China, but it doesn’t cost much to disable Fraudulent Website Warning anyway out of principle.

# 2019/10/13 - 17:15 — published on @ff00aa

@matthew_d_green:

Also, can we assume that only users configured in the Mainland China region are having their data sent to Tencent? That warning is pretty damn broad.

# 2019/10/13 - 17:09 — original tweet by @matthew_d_green

@matthew_d_green:

Wait, Apple is sending URLs to Tencent?! [reclaimthenet.org]

# 2019/10/13 - 17:09 — original tweet by @matthew_d_green

L’article est sur le 11 ouais :) (Le Pro c’est pareil avec le zoom en plus)

# 2019/10/13 - 11:52 — published on @ff00aa

12 October

@stroughtonsmith:

A must-read for prospective Catalyst developers; look at how much thought went into redesigning LookUp for Mac Catalyst, which as a result is one of the nicest Mac-like apps of the launch lineup [medium.com]

# 2019/10/12 - 23:08 — original tweet by @stroughtonsmith

@JuddApatow:

Apple Told Some Apple TV+ Show Developers Not To Anger China- hey and don’t mention that Turkey is bad. We sell a lot of watches there. And don’t mention Saudi Arabia murdering journalists- they love the iMac and don’t mention Russia—big iPad market. [buzzfeednews.com]

# 2019/10/12 - 16:33 — original tweet by @JuddApatow

Digital Photography Review: “iPhone 11’s Portrait Mode sets a high bar for the Pixel 4”

As much as I’ve hated the very idea of portrait mode, I must admit that these test shots all look really good.

# 2019/10/12 - 15:18 — published on @ff00aa

@random_walker:

My university just announced that it’s dumping Blackboard, and there was much rejoicing. Why is Blackboard universally reviled? There’s a standard story of why “enterprise software” sucks. If you’ll bear with me, I think this is best appreciated by talking about… baby clothes!

# 2019/10/12 - 01:14 — original tweet by @random_walker

Everyone complained about Reminders but no one mentioned that upgrading my phone to iOS 13 would make Shortcuts unavailable on my old device suck on iOS 12. Goddammit, Apple.

# 2019/10/12 - 00:50 — published on @garoocomplains

10 October

The fun continues…

# 2019/10/10 - 23:16 — published on @ff00aa

I just love that Apple Pay now fails half the time on my iPhone because Apple didn’t bother to test on non-Face ID phones beyond “yup it runs.”

# 2019/10/10 - 21:41 — published on @garoocomplains

This is very cool and I’m sorry for any hypothetical user of Uniconsole who might be disappointed that I’ll never implement such a UI

# 2019/10/10 - 20:41 — published on @ff00aa

Funny, I’d never realized the obvious parallel between dynamic compression in pop music of the last thirty years and the more recent obsession for local contrast enhancement in photography (the pseudo-HDR effect, of which I suspect Deep Fusion is guilty)

# 2019/10/10 - 16:24 — published on @ff00aa

@danielpunkass:

Apple could have engineered their way out of this conundrum, the same way they engineered their way out of being liable for sharing private user data. Embracing some kind of user-facing side-loading solution would diminish the impact of Apple’s own authoritative power over users. [twitter.com]

# 2019/10/10 - 14:35 — original tweet by @danielpunkass

9 October

“The Obvious UI Is Often the Best UI”

The good side of Google’s obsession with usage metrics: a bunch of useful stats you can whip out at your next UI design meeting.

# 2019/10/09 - 22:28 — published on @ff00aa

I just happened upon a Half-Life 2 screenshot and suddenly realized why playing with an iPhone 11’s ultra-wide camera in the store felt so trippy: with the fisheye distortion magicked away in post-processing, the phone turns reality into a first-person game.

# 2019/10/09 - 11:17 — published on @ff00aa

8 October

Honestly didn’t expect to be approved with these release notes. I guess I left them suitably vague. Or too vague.

# 2019/10/08 - 21:32 — published on @ff00aa

@Nevin_Thompson:

Man arrested for stalking, attacking female Japanese “idol” performer says he found out where she lived by examining reflection of her surroundings on her eyeball in photos of her posted online. [twitter.com]

# 2019/10/08 - 21:20 — original tweet by @Nevin_Thompson

@tapbot_paul:

If you thought only Apple had been making some crazy OS choices lately…

[medium.com]

# 2019/10/08 - 21:20 — original tweet by @tapbot_paul

@tylerhall:

macOS 10.15 Vista

[tyler.io]

# 2019/10/08 - 00:42 — original tweet by @tylerhall

“Because everything is better with lasers”

# 2019/10/08 - 00:37 — published on @ff00aa