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Andrew Orr

Since 2015 Andrew has been writing about Apple, privacy, security, and at one point even Android. You can find him most places online under the username @andrewornot.

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Articles by Andrew Orr

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Blue Screen Light From Phones is Making Us Miserable

Andrew Orr ·

Writing for FastCoDesign, Amber Case writes how the blue light that iPhones give off make us miserable by messing with our circadian rhythms. iPhones and Macs can counteract this with Night Shift, but is that enough? We should look to the military, which uses orange for dense information displays.

[Harvard researchers] found that blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours compared with 1.5 hours). And worse, it’s been linked in recent studies to an increased risk of obesity and some cancers.

Airplane cockpits, submarines, and other military-grade systems are specifically designed for information density, with primary, secondary and tertiary information sources. A key difference in all of these interfaces is color–by and large, many military displays are deep red or orange.

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Watch Out Borg: the Apple Hive Mind May Be Real

Andrew Orr ·

Quartz put out an interesting piece today about Apple and the definition of consciousness. Thome W. Malone writes that Apple is technically a conscious organism based on certain criteria. At first I thought it was silly, but then I considered that since corporations have personhood, why not consciousness? Of course this applies to any corporation, not just Apple. And it seems to me that it wouldn’t be just any consciousness, but a hive mind. Android users scoff at the Apple hive mind, but it will assimilate you next and resistance is futile.

Awareness: The entity can react to changes in the world.

Self-awareness: The entity can react to—and can tell others about—changes in itself.

Goal-directed behavior: The entity can take intentional action to achieve goals.

Integrated information: The entity can combine many different kinds of information simultaneously.

Experience: The entity feels happiness, pain, hunger, or other subjective experiences.

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Grand Unified Theory of the Apple Media Platform

Andrew Orr ·

Writing for MacStories, Ryan Christoffel examines the Apple media platform and presents a Grand Unified Theory of the company’s strategy. We know that Apple combines hardware, software, and services into a profitable user experience, and Mr. Christoffel opines on how this is shaping Apple customers’ media consumption.

Apple has one unified goal, I believe, driving all its media efforts: it aspires to utilize hardware, software, and services to provide the entirety of a user’s media experience. If you consume media, Apple wants to provide the full stack of that consumption, from media delivery to media discovery. My aim in this story is to share an overview of how that goal is being fulfilled today.

Scout FM Introduces New Features, Like Compatibility with CarPlay
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Scout FM Introduces New Features, Like Compatibility with CarPlay

Andrew Orr ·

Scout FM is a podcast radio service that streams a curated selection of podcasts and radio shows. Today the service is getting new features, including compatibility with Apple’s CarPlay. A cool new feature is called Commute Mode, which automatically finds shows for you that fit your commute time. Scout FM is a bit different than other podcast apps. You don’t subscribe and download podcasts. Instead it’s more similar to a traditional radio station. There are stations focused around categories like Daily News, Brain Food, and True Stories. You just pick a station and immediately start listening. App Store: Scout FM – Free

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How Can We Build Healthy Technology?

Andrew Orr ·

Wired has a good op-ed about how to build healthy technology. It examines our relationship with technology, as well as our technological addiction and dependence.

There is no defined category for technology addiction, but psychiatrists have been debating whether internet addiction is a real malady. It was not added to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic bible of mental health professionals around the world.

Each of us relates to technology in a unique, highly personal way. We lose or cede control, stability, and fulfillment in a million different ways. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in the novel Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

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Meru Health Wants to Make Mental Health Care More Accessible

Andrew Orr ·

TechCrunch writes about a service called Meru Health, a company that wants to make mental health care more accessible to employees.

Meru Health offers an eight-week treatment program for depression, burnout and anxiety. The program, currently led by five licensed therapists, utilizes both cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral activation and mindfulness-based intervention. Provided as an employee benefit, Meru Health only charges companies if the patients report feeling any better.

Down the road, Meru Health may make its service available to everyday consumers, but right now, Ranta said the focus is on selling to larger employers and doing clinical research. Meru Health is also looking to bring on board a doctor to help with medication management and, possibly, even providing prescriptions.

SongShift Lets You Transfer Apple Music Playlists to Other Services
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SongShift Lets You Transfer Apple Music Playlists to Other Services

Andrew Orr ·

There’s an app called SongShift that lets you transfer Apple Music playlists to other services. Supported services include Apple Music, Deezer, Discogs, HypeMachine, LastFM, Napster, Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube. You can “shift” complete playlists from one streaming service to another, and automatically keep all of your playlists synced with each other. I’ve heard some Apple customers say that when they unsubscribe from Apple Music, then re-subscribe later on, none of their playlists and content is saved. I’ve never unsubscribed yet so I haven’t run into this issue, but it sounds like SongShift can help in these cases. App Store: SongShift – Free

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Free App Trials From Apple's Perspective

Andrew Orr ·

Drew McCormack took to Medium to write a post on trying to understand Apple’s perspective when it comes to free app trials. Developers aren’t happy about the move, because some argue that the changes to In-App Purchase guidelines aren’t true free trials.

So why does Apple…not offer a more formal version of free trials? Most developers seem to assume they are deliberately ignoring their protests, for no good reason, or that they simply are not willing to dedicate the resources to solve the problem. I doubt both of these assumptions. I think Apple have probably thought long and hard about it, and concluded that the options they have introduced are actually better than the free trials developer’s are requesting.

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The MacBook Touch Bar Helps Customers who need Accessibility

Andrew Orr ·

Redditor u/cozygodal shared a story of using the MacBook Touch Bar. A lot of Apple customers (including the press) don’t like the Touch Bar and think it’s a gimmick. But u/cozygodal found it helpful for their dyslexia.

I would love to spotlight a specific use-case for the Touch Bar that maybe not a lot of people notice. I have dyslexia and a really hard time to spell words correctly. Taking notes in class is hard because I write so slow and it is a a lot harder to discuss my notes with classmates because nobody can read a dame word.

And a that point the MacBook Pro came in. You can see the words while typing and that is a godsend. I’m so much faster it is unbelievable like a switch in my brain is turned on. If you are telling me a word I cannot spell it in my head I had to memorized every single word I know like a foreign language and I can recall my memory so much faster with the pictorial representation of words in the touch bar.

Thank you Apple for making my life a lot easier 🙂