Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
Just for Fun, Some Vintage 2014 John Dvorak Claim Chowder
John Dvorak back in 2014, two months before Apple Watch was announced:
I got a lecture from a potential buyer, who will only purchase an iTime as a replacement for the iPhone rather than an accessory. But all evidence leads me to believe this device will be an accessory.
Doing that limits the appeal to people who were promised a sleeker gadget profile, which they desperately need, because they never manage to pare down anything. It’s tablet computing all over again.
If he’d meant that Apple Watch would be like the iPad, in terms of being a durable long-term many-billion-dollars-in-sales-per-quarter platform, he’d have been correct. But he meant that both were duds.
Dvorak is still writing, but alas, only occasionally.
Apple Launches New Web Interface for the App Store
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
Apple has launched a dramatic new web interface for the App Store. You can now get the full App Store experience right in your browser, with dedicated pages for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision, Watch, and TV app libraries.
Previously, Apple’s “apps.apple.com” domain simply redirected you to a generic page about the App Store on Apple’s website. Now, it takes you to a full-fledged version of the App Store you can browse on your computer.
This new website is nice, but it’s not the “full” App Store experience, insofar as you can’t buy or download apps from it. It’s more like a full website mirror of the App Store than a web version of the App Store.
Apple Releases 26.1 Updates to Its Operating Systems
John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:
With iOS 26, Apple placed two big buttons onscreen when an alarm went off. One was for stop and the other snooze. That wasn’t a big deal for many of the alarms you set throughout the day, but when you’re waking up in the morning blurry-eyed, two big buttons stacked on top of each other weren’t ideal. For a lot of users, it was a toss-up whether stabbing at their iPhone through a morning haze would stop their alarm or snooze it.
With iOS and iPadOS 26.1, the “Stop” button for an alarm set in the system Clock app now requires a slide to stop gesture, which echoes the Slide to Unlock gesture of the original iPhone. The more deliberate gesture is a good move on Apple’s part. I can’t imagine someone tapping and sliding their finger to stop an alarm by accident.
This is a clever little change. I enjoy that it harks back to the original iPhone’s slide-to-unlock.
Update: If, for whatever reason, you don’t like this slide-to-stop feature, you can turn it off by toggling this option in Settings: Accessibility → Touch → Prefer Single-Touch Actions.