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A Solution to Improve iPad Multitasking

Andrew Orr ·

Complaints about iPad multitasking have been making the rounds lately, and I largely agree with them. It’s not obvious how to put two apps into Split View mode for example. When I got my iPad Pro I had to look up how to do it. Ryan Christoffel of MacStories came up with a solution, reminiscent of macOS Catalina. As in, long press an app icon and see a menu with options for “Pair Left of App”, “Pair Right of App” etc. I have to say, I do hate this feature in Catalina, where you click on a Safari full screen button to drag it into Split View, but now there’s this same menu. It adds an unnecessary wait to a feature that was previously instant. However, I think it makes sense on the iPad because a long press already required a wait.

With a long-press on any app icon, on both iPhone and iPad, a context menu appears. This same gesture works whether the app icon is in your dock, on your Home screen, or in Search. Context menus currently display options like Edit Home Screen, Show All Windows, and any app-specific quick actions. Let’s add a couple new options that relate to multitasking.

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More Cities, States Say No to Cashless Businesses

Andrew Orr ·

Last month New York City passed a bill to ban businesses from rejecting cash. On February 13 a similar resolution will be heard in Washington, D.C.

Excluding people from paying with cash means “essentially discriminating against people who are low-income, people who are homeless, also undocumented,” she said.

Getting a credit or debit card often requires a form of ID, a utility or another bill, money to deposit and a financial history. Mitchell said that in Washington, D.C., nearly a third of residents rely on cash every day because they don’t have a card or even a bank account.

TMO Deals

Turn Your Phone Into a Universal Remote and Control Multiple Smart Home Devices: $19.95

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on Hombli, a smart IR remote control that turns your iPhone or Android device into a universal remote for multiple smarthome devices. The Hombli acts as a hub, and you control it with a companion app. With it, you can access over 80,000 devices from popular brands including Samsung, Sony, and Philips, and you can use hands-free voice commands using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. This device is $19.95 through our deal.

https://youtu.be/a1-ibIspYbs
Cool Stuff Found

New Video Shows off iPhone 11 Night Mode Capability

Andrew Orr ·

Set to “We Only Come Out At Night” by Smashing Pumpkins, Apple’s new video shows the capabilities of iPhone 11’s Night Mode feature. Whether your situation is low-light or no-light, Night Mode is a powerful camera feature that turns on automatically. Look for the Night Mode icon at the top of the camera, which looks like a crescent moon. It will turn yellow when it’s enabled. Your iPhone might take the shot instantly, or it will take several seconds. It depends on how dark your scene is.

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Was Facebook’s Libra Planning to Make Money in Dirty Ways?

Andrew Orr ·

I know that’s kind of a clickbait headline but it’s from a quote by Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, who dropped out of Facebook’s Libra organization after “multiple red flags.” Emphasis mine:

One reason was Libra’s leaders wouldn’t commit to abiding by laws around knowing their clients, money laundering, and data management, he told the newspaper.

“Every time you talked to the main proponents of Libra, I said ‘Would you put that in writing?’ They wouldn’t.”

It was also unclear to Banga how Libra would generate revenue, stoking his fears that it would make money in unscrupulous ways. “When you don’t understand how money gets made, it gets made in ways you don’t like,”

Facebook profiting off of money laundering?

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Amazon Creating 15,000 Jobs And Building New Giant Tower

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon is set to create 15,000 new jobs in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle. The firm is also building a giant 43-story tower there, it’s biggest ever.

Planning for the 43-story tower, its tallest yet, is currently underway. Amazon’s plans for the proposed building, referred to as Bellevue 600, were unveiled last July. The building will have about 1 million square feet of office space and is expected to be completed by 2024. Amazon said it expects to bring the 15,000 jobs to Bellevue over the next few years. More than 2,000 employees currently work in Bellevue, and the company has about 700 job openings in the city.

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Most Apple TV+ Seven Day Trial Users Don't Buy it

Charlotte Henry ·

Flixed surveyed Apple TV+ users. It found that 72 percent of those who signed up for a seven-day trial people didn’t purchase it once that trial expired, iMore reported.

According to their report, they surveyed 1090 Apple TV+ trial users. 73% of those people signed up with a seven-day trial, only 21% got the free year that comes with an Apple device purchase. Half of those surveyed said their trial had expired. Of those whose trial was over, 72% said they did not purchase Apple TV+ after it had expired, with only 28% going on to become paying subscribers. Of the rest whose trials had not yet expired, nearly 60% said they would pay the $4.99 fee once the time came. In comparison to Netflix, only 19% said that the service was either a little or much better. The rest all said that Apple TV+ was either the same, a little worse or much worse than Netflix.

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Twitter iPhone and iPad Apps Get Update

Charlotte Henry ·

Twitter shared news of version 8.7.1  of its iOS app on Thursday. 9to5Mac noted a number of welcome updates. They included fixing the issue that meant users did not see polls whilst using the mobile version and updating some criticized layout features on the iPad.

Twitter says that it is rolling out version 8.7.1 of the Twitter for iOS app with a fix for a bug that meant polls would not appear for users on iPhone: “Having trouble seeing polls in Tweets on iOS? Updating your app to version 8.7.1 when it becomes available for you in the App Store should help! Thanks for bearing with us while we worked on this.” [It] also made a change to the Twitter app on iPad.

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Wacom Tablets Track Your Open Apps, Sending the Data to Google

Andrew Orr ·

Software engineer Robert Heaton discovered that his Wacom tablet was tracking every app he opened and sending that data to Google Analytics.

I suspect that Wacom doesn’t really think that it’s acceptable to record the name of every application I open on my personal laptop. I suspect that this is why their privacy policy doesn’t really admit that this is what that they do. I imagine that if pressed they would argue that the name of every application I open on my personal laptop falls into one of their broad buckets like “aggregate data” or “technical session information”, although it’s not immediately obvious to me which bucket.