Jason Koebler (Slashdot): The FBI is attempting to unmask the owner behind archive.today, a popular archiving site that is also regularly used to bypass paywalls on the internet and to avoid sending traffic to the original publishers of web content, according to a subpoena posted by the website. The FBI subpoena says it is part […]

I have some old code that uses NSNotificationQueue to coalesce notifications. I think this is an underappreciated class. (Even in the old days, I saw a lot more talk about +cancelPreviousPerformRequestsWithTarget:selector:object:.) My newer code uses more threads, but notification queues are not thread-safe. You can create additional queues beyond the default and have each one […]

We have no idea how many of them they made, but seemingly, the price was not a problem for this product.

Rolfe Winkler and Yang Jie, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link, News+ link) under the headline “Apple’s iPhone Air Is a Marketing Win and a Sales Flop” (which headline, going from the web page <title> element, was originally the less sensational “Apple’s iPhone Air Sales Disappoint”):

Jason Purdy wanted to like his new iPhone Air.

Raised in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, Calif., and later an Apple senior product manager, Purdy said he loves to see innovative product design from tech companies. So he made an Apple store appointment to buy the new, ultrathin smartphone the day it went on sale.

Within a month, he returned it.

He found it hard to have speakerphone calls and listen to music. And the photos he took at his early October wedding came out noticeably worse than ones his brother took on a new iPhone 17 Pro.

“The performance wasn’t quite there. Across the board they’re sacrificing all these things,” said Purdy. The Air was very pleasurable to hold and impressed his friends, but didn’t work as his primary device, he said.

That’s a brutally unfair lede to this story without showing the photos. If Purdy’s brother’s photos (taken with an iPhone 17 Pro) were all taken with the telephoto 4× lens, and all of Purdy’s photos (taken with an iPhone Air) were from telephoto distance and he relied on digital zoom, then yes, his photos from the Air surely did look noticeably worse. But the lone (1×) camera on the Air is very good. It’s not as good as the main 1× camera on the iPhone 17 Pro, but it’s close enough that in most people’s hands, the difference isn’t perceptible. And between comparably talented amateur photographers, someone using an iPhone Air at a wedding, and using their feet to “zoom” by getting close to the subjects of their photos, will take way better pictures than someone shooting from across the room using the iPhone 17 Pro’s telephoto 4× lens. When it comes to optical quality, the Air’s 1× lone camera is obviously superior to the 17 Pro’s telephoto.

Saying that “the photos ... came out noticeably worse” with no explanation of what type of photos they were, let alone, you know, actually showing example images, is just a dirty trick. There are numerous valid reasons why someone might prefer a 17 Pro to an Air for photography, but what the Journal describes regarding this guy Purdy and his brother doesn’t describe such a situation. Someone who just wants to shoot some nice photos at a family gathering like a wedding can get terrific results from an iPhone Air. Show me someone who says the iPhone Air is a poor camera and I’ll show you a terrible photographer who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

The Air is billed as Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet.

It is Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet. You can measure it.

Mark Gurman and Edward Ludlow, reporting for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas, but summarized by The Verge and Ars Technica)

Tesla Inc. is developing support for Apple Inc.’s CarPlay system in its vehicles, according to people with knowledge of the matter, working to add one of the most highly requested features by customers. The carmaker has started testing the capability internally, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the effort is still private. [...]

Adding CarPlay would mark a stunning reversal for Tesla and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who long ignored pleas to implement the popular feature. Musk has criticized Apple for years, particularly its App Store policies, and was angered by the company’s poaching of his engineers when it set out to build its own car.

I wouldn’t call it a “stunning” reversal, but it would certainly be a reversal. And it would really show what a bonehead move it is for GM to be dropping CarPlay support.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google offers a CarPlay competitor called Android Auto for devices running its operating system. But Tesla isn’t actively developing support for it.

Like I just wrote the other day: a significant chunk of new-car buyers consider CarPlay support a dealbreaker, but, effectively no one cares about Android Auto. CarPlay support might make a difference for a company like Tesla, whose sales are in the tank. Android Auto support would not.