Category: software

Tales from the Orchard: Apple addresses iOS source code leak, says it appears to be tied to three-year-old software.

 

 

 

By Brian Heater of The Verge

Earlier this week, iOS source code showed up on GitHub, raising concerns that hackers could find a way to comb the material for vulnerabilities. Apple has confirmed with TechCrunch that the code appears to be real, but adds that it’s tied to old software. 

The material is gone now, courtesy of a DMCA notice Apple sent to GitHub, but the occurrence was certainly notable, given the tight grip the company traditionally has on such material. So, if the code was, indeed, what it purported to be, has the damage already been done?

Motherboard, which was among the first to note the code labeled “iBoot,” reached out to author Jonathan Levin, who confirmed that the code certainly looks real and called it “a huge deal.” While the available code appears to be pretty small, it could certainly offer some unique insight into how Apple works its magic.

“Old source code from three years ago appears to have been leaked,” the company said in a statement provided to TechCrunch, “but by design the security of our products doesn’t depend on the secrecy of our source code. There are many layers of hardware and software protections built into our products, and we always encourage customers to update to the newest software releases to benefit from the latest protections.”

Much of the security concern is mitigated by the fact that it appears to be tied to iOS 9, a version of the operating system released three-and-a-half years ago. Apple’s almost certainly tweaked significant portions of the available code since then, and the company’s own numbers show that a large majority of users (93-percent) are running iOS 10 or later. But could the commonalities offer enough insight to pose a serious potential threat to iPhone users?

Security researcher Will Strafach told TechCrunch that the code is compelling for the information it gives hackers into the inner workings of the boot loader. He added that Apple’s probably not thrilled with the leak due to intellectual property concerns (see: the DMCA request referenced above), but this information ultimately won’t have much if any impact on iPhone owners.

“In terms of end users, this doesn’t really mean anything positive or negative,” Strafach said in an email. “Apple does not use security through obscurity, so this does not contain anything risky, just an easier to read format for the boot loader code. It’s all cryptographically signed on end user devices, there is no way to really use any of the contents here maliciously or otherwise.”

In other words, Apple’s multi-layered approach to keeping iOS secure involves a lot more safeguards than what you’d see in a leak like this, however it may have made its way to GitHub. Of course, as Strafach correctly points out, the company’s still probably not thrilled about the optics around having had this information in the wild — if only for a short while.

Do you think this code leak warrants concern? Sound off in the comments below!

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App of the Week: Out of Milk

Out of Milk, the popular shopping list app, just added support for Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.

By Ryne Hager of Android Police

There are a lot of shopping list apps out there, and that’s an understatement. Back in the early days of app development, shopping lists were one of the most popular simple projects, and even now people learning the ropes typically toss one together. But Out of Milk has stood the test of time for the last seven years. And now managing your shopping list is getting just a bit more convenient via the new Out of Milk voice assistant, which works with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.

There are a couple of steps you’ll have to make to get things working as they should. The full instructions for Google Home are here (and Alexa instructions are here), but remember that the Out of Milk voice assistant requires you to use an account created on the Out of Milk app or website. Once it’s set up you’ll be able to yell at your assistant of choice and make use of the following features:

• Add and remove items to a list (e.g. “Add rice to my list.”)
• Include the quantity of an item on a list (e.g. “Add two gallons of milk to my list.”)
• Add multiple items at once to a list ( “Add bananas, cereal, & butter to my list.”)
• Check which list their editing (e.g. “Which list am I in?”)
• Switch between existing lists (e.g. “Switch to my ‘Walmart’ list.”)
• Read off items on a list (e.g. “What is on my current list?”)
• Read off all lists (e.g. “What lists do I have?”)

If you haven’t used Out of Milk, it’s pretty nifty. It allows you to add items to lists synced with other devices as well as friends or family. And you don’t just have to type or dictate, it can also scan barcodes. So the next time you toss out an empty bottle or box, you can quickly make sure you’ll grab it on your next shopping trip.

 

 

Ready to give things a try?

You can download Out of Milk at Google Play and iTunes.

Do you have a favorite App for Grocery Shopping? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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Tales from the Orchad: Apple seems to have forgotten about the whole ‘it just works’ thing.

 

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet

This is the phrase that Steve Jobs trotted out year after year to describe products or services that he was unveiling. The phrase expressed what Apple was all about — selling technology that solved problems with a minimum of fuss and effort on the part of the owner.

Well, Steve is now long gone, and so it the ethos of “it just works.”

2017 was a petty bad year for Apple software quality. Just over the past few weeks we seen both macOS and iOS hit by several high profile bugs. And what’s worse is that the fixes that Apple pushed out — in a rushed manner — themselves caused problems.

• A serious — and very stupid — root bug was uncovered in macOS
• The patch that Apple pushed out for the root bug broke file sharing for some
• Updating macOS to 10.13.1 after installing the root patch rolled back the root bug patch
• iOS 11 was hit by a date bug that caused devices to crash when an app generated a notification, forcing Apple to prematurely release iOS 11.2
• iOS 11.2 contained a HomeKit bug that broke remote access for shared users

And this is just a selection of the bugs that users have had to contend with over the past few weeks. And it’s not just been limited to the past few weeks. I’ve written at length about how it feels like the quality of software coming out of Apple has deteriorated significantly in recent years.

Now don’t get me wrong, bugs happen. There’s no such thing as perfect code, and sometimes high-profile security vulnerabilities can result in patches being pushed out that are not as well tested as they could be.

I also recognize that Apple has changed almost beyond recognition since Steve was on stage at keynotes telling us how stuff “just works.” Apple’s products are far more complex, the company is selling stuff at a rate that it could have once only dreamt doing, and the security landscape is totally different, and vulnerabilities now put hundreds of millions of users at risk.

But on the other hand, Apple isn’t some budget hardware maker pushing stuff out on a shoestring and scrabbling for a razor-thin profit margin. Apple’s gross profit margin is in the region of 38 percent, a figure that other manufacturers can only dream of.

And Apple is rolling in cash.

All this makes missteps such as the ones that users have had to endure feel like Apple has taken its eye off the ball, and that it’s perhaps putting increased effort into developing and selling new products at the expense of keeping users happy.

Apple owes a lot of its current success to its dedicated fanbase, the people who would respond to Windows or Android issues with “you should buy Apple, because that stuff just works.” Shattering that illusion for those people won’t be good in the long term, which is why I think Apple needs to take a long, hard look at itself in the run up to 2018 and work out what’s been going wrong and come up with ways to prevent problems from happening in the future.

Do you think Apple has dropped the ball when it comes to the finer details of their software? Sound off in the comments below!

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App of the Week: OmniGraffle

 

A refresh of the long-time Mac drawing app from the Omni Group now pulls in images and text from other apps.

By Mike Wuerthele and William Gallagher of Apple Insider

Like its fellow Omni Group apps OmniFocus and OmniPlan, the drawing and charting software OmniGraffle 3.2 has been updated for iOS 11. All three now take advantage of the new operating system’s drag and drop features to change and improve how you work with the apps.

If you’re an AppleInsider reader, you’re already aware that The Omni Group’s software dates back to the dawn of the PowerPC era. More than 20 years later, the company is still updating its suite of software, with OmniGraffle getting a new iOS version for iOS 11.

It’s a drawing application but not for art or sketching. Rather, it’s for making illustrations specifically to explain things. So OmniGraffle is often used for organization charts or for floor plans. You can get very elaborate and detailed, so much so that app designers can mock up in OmniGraffle how their software will look.

OmniGraffle is also meant for just explaining things quickly so it has tools and features to make drawing fast. It’s also got an extremely dedicated following among its users who share and sell collections of templates called Stencils.

If you’ve used MacDraw II, or LucidChart, you’ve got a pretty good handle on what OmniGraffle can do for you. What it can do for you now with iOS 11 is speed up how you can compile a drawing from other people’s Stencils or your own previous documents.

 

This is done by iOS 11’s drag and drop. It’s the same new drag and drop that has been added to the OmniFocus To Do app where it’s made a significant improvement. It’s the same feature that’s been added to OmniPlan and fixed an issue there that’s been dogging that project management software from the start.

Drag and drop doesn’t make as big a change to OmniGraffle, though. It’s a nice addition and one that when you’ve tried it, you won’t want to go back yet it doesn’t dramatically transform the app.

There are three aspects to how OmniGraffle exploits this new feature. You can now drag items in to your drawing, for instance, and you can drag elements between your drawings. Say you’ve got a floor plan for your house and are now doing one for your office: that sofa shape you spent ages drawing would work fine as a couch in the office plan so you just drag it over.

Similarly, if you’re planning out a bigger office with lots of cubicles then you can just draw one and duplicate it.

In theory you can also drag cubicles or pot plants in your drawings out of OmniGraffle and into other apps but currently that’s limited by how many other apps support this feature. This has long been an issue with OmniGraffle and really all such drawing apps like Lucidchart and Microsoft Visio: the way they play with other apps. You can get drawings from any of them into the rest but typically with some difficulty and actually OmniGraffle’s drag and drop may ultimately improve that. Once other apps are also updated to accept dragged and dropped items.

These most common uses for OmniGraffle —the floor plans, charts and app design —all tend to be jobs where you will reuse elements over and over again. So while everyone will be different, the odds are that you’re most likely to drag elements from one OmniGraffle drawing to another and we can see you building up a library of often-used elements.

Dragging these around is quick and handy, but only once you know how. You could spend the next week stabbing wildly at buttons and options without discovering how to drag an item across multiple documents. That’s really an aspect of iOS 11, however: OmniGraffle uses the same multi-finger approach that the system does.

 

Press and hold on an item you want to drag and then with a different finger, tap at the button to take you out of the current OmniGraffle document. That’s a Library icon which needs finding: rather than to the top left of the screen, OmniGraffle places it in the middle and just to the left the document title.

When you’re back in the Document Picker, as the Omni Group calls it, you can tap to open any other drawing. So long as you’re still holding that element you’ve dragged from the first document, you can now drop it anywhere in the new.

Once it’s in that new drawing, though, you can use exactly the same technique to drag it between different layers of the document.

We keep saying that you’re dragging elements of a drawing around but those elements can be text as well as shapes or re-used templates. You can drag text in from OmniFocus or OmniPlan, for instance. That’s not going to save you a lot of time unless you’re dragging a lot of text but it could be a way to make sure you’re consistent across many documents.

It’s the same process for dragging text or graphics out of OmniGraffle into other apps. We had most success doing it with the app’s stablemates OmniPlan and OmniFocus but even that success was limited.

When we drag to OmniPlan, any text in the item we’re dragging goes into that project management app’s list of tasks and a bar appears representing it in the Gantt chart. When we dragged the same item into OmniFocus, it was entered as a new task called “PDF document.pdf” with an attachment of that name which has the graphic item in it.

You’re not going to do that. Maybe you’d drag the elements from an org chart over to OmniPlan so that you had every member of staff listed but that’s a stretch. Project plans tend to start with what needs to be done rather than who you’ve got to give work to. So really the dragging out of OmniGraffle won’t become hugely useful until other drawing apps adopt iOS 11’s new features too.

OmniGraffle aims to be a complete drawing package. It also aims to make it quick for you to create detailed and technical drawings. So the ability to quickly re-use elements fits in perfectly with that.

It’s not the kind of update that you go wow at or that you know you will rush to use. What is, though, is the kind of update you’ll become so accustomed to that previous versions will seem slow. OmniGraffle is all about making clear, professional drawings with speed and without fuss, however. So this is an update that makes good use of the new iOS 11 features.

OmniGraffle 3.2 for iOS has a free trial version on the App Store and then costs $49.99 for the Standard version. A Pro version is a further $4.99 upgrade or you can go straight from the trial to Pro for $99.99.

 

Do you have a favorite technical drawing rule? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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App Of The Week: Path Guide

Microsoft’s new app guides you through indoor spaces without GPS

 

By Abhimanyu Ghoshal of The Next Web

GPS is great for finding your way around, except for when you’re indoors, where walls and ceilings make it difficult for satellite signals to accurately pinpoint your location. Thankfully, Microsoft has been thinking about a better way to help you navigate large malls, hospitals, office buildings and parking lots effectively.

Over the past two years, a group of specialists at Microsoft Research Asia have developed Path Guide, an indoor navigation app that doesn’t rely on GPS or Wi-Fi and radio signals to help you get around. Instead, it works by having a human ‘leader’ record paths through the indoor space to various destinations simply by walking with their phones in hand, and allowing other users to follow those paths with on-screen directions.

To achieve this, the app uses the sensors in your phone to trace your paths accurate down to the number of steps needed to get someplace. Path creators can also add text, audio and image annotations for things like getting past locks and entering room key codes. Once you’ve traced a path, you can share it publicly and make it available to others, who can look it up using Path Guide’s search tool. It’s a clever idea that works well enough for the most part, though the path tracing process could be simplified a bit.

The same goes for discovering paths around you; it’d be nice to see the app pop up a notification if you’re nearing a large building that has paths already charted out.

And in order to gain traction, Microsoft would have to work hard to drum up interest among users across the world to adopt Path Guide and use it. It’s not impossible, and it’s been done before: plenty of the data on businesses and public spaces on Google Maps is crowdsourced and fairly accurate. Naturally, the company will want to wait and see if this is something that people actually find useful on a global scale before embarking on such a mission.

Path Guide is currently available only for Android; you can give it a try by grabbing it from Google Play.

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How to: Automate Twitter To Get Attention and Grow Your Followers

Ladies,

This article has actually changed my workflow. I’ve bounced between several automation tools and hadn’t really loved any of them. After reading this article, I couldn’t wait to give Dvlr.it a try and so far, I’m impressed. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. Also, hit me up with your favorite Social Media Automators; if you use one…

By Jeff Bullas http://www.jeffbullas.com

The social web has amplified many truths about humanity.
Some of us will do anything to get noticed and build a brand. This even includes some new dubious tactics such as fake news and alternate truth. They have been used to both divert and attract scrutiny.

The reality is that most people love a bit of attention. It is how we are wired.

Attention seeking can come in many forms and constant posting on Facebook and other social networks has now become part of that routine and habit.

Too much sharing can see us being accused of being a narcissist. The question that it raises….. where does narcissism and a healthy self worth start and stop?
It is a question that I wrote about in the New York Times titled “On the Social Web, Everyone has a Voice, Everyone is Judged”

And your answer maybe different to mine.

5 reasons we share

I have always been intrigued by the power of social media and why we share so much. It was one of the first things I noticed about people’s online social media behaviour nearly 10 years ago. But there is more than one reason we share content on the social web and attention seeking is only one.

In a post on Co-Schedule based on the research from the New York Times Customer Insight Group  they reveal the top 5 reasons people share on social.

he first two on the list resonate with me.

To bring valuable and entertaining content to others
To define ourselves to others

At its simplest level this can be done two ways. By taking the big step of starting a blog and then publishing our opinions and thoughts online or just simply sharing other people’s posts and updates.
Curating content worth sharing is one way to scale your content.

Curating is time consuming

But manual curating is time consuming.

Another reality is that there is a lot of crap content on the web. So constant sifting and sorting is a time sink.

The flip side is that there are some sensational authors, bloggers and creators who publish content worth reading, viewing and sharing. The challenge is that we don’t have much time and spending all day just sharing is not efficient or productive time management.

So here is the thing….you can automate curation on Twitter.

How to automate Twitter content curation

For many years I was using Twitterfeed to automate other top bloggers and influencers new blog posts.

This app automatically shared on Twitter when it detected that their posts had been published. But this simple software tool was closed down last year.
I wrote blog posts on how to do it these included:

The Twitter Tool I Can’t Do Without
10 Smart Tips For Creating, Marketing and Sharing content on Twitter

And guess what?….people included my blog when they set it up. So after a while I noticed was getting 300 instant Twitter shares on auto pilot from my Twitter tribe after publishing a new post.

So I started looking for another tool to replace Twitterfeed. The tool I am now using is Dlvr.it.

So how do you set it up to share great content, attract attention from top bloggers and influencers, be effective and save valuable time?

Step 1. Identify your topic ecosystem

One of the biggest challenges as a blogger and content creator is coming up with new topics to write about. It’s also what you need to think about when looking for your sources of reading and inspiration.

So before setting up Dlvr.it you need to identify the topic subject categories that fit into your eco-system of interests.

For me these include:
Digital marketing of any flavour: Social media marketing, content marketing and email marketing
Blogging tips: This includes search engines and conversion strategies to grow traffic and revenue
Innovation: Some topics here include growth hacking that combines the art and science of marketing
Technology: Apps and and artificial intelligence and marketing automation tools
Entrepreneurship – The skills for building a business in a digital world

And a few others that include writing, personal development and publishing.
This can also be a good exercise while identifying your key phrases for search engines. It is really worth sitting down and getting clarity on this. It will drive your SEO strategy and content creation planning.

Step 2: Find trusted bloggers

There are many bloggers who publish regular quality content.

If they publish once a day that is  maybe optimal but once a week is fine too.

My aim is to find a few that I know all add value to my followers on Twitter. 
Personal brands are my first choice. Corporate blogs can be good but I like that hands on approach and tactical insights that you get from the blogger that shares their insights in a practical manner.

I am sure that most of us have our favourites.

How many should you select? This is completely personal and I have about 15 to 25 bloggers that publish regularly who I share on Twitter.

Step 3: Identify their blog feed (RSS)

This is quite straight forward and just put in the blog URL and Dlvrt.com will pull up the right RSS feed that will trigger the automated sharing of the blog post when a new post is published.

So enter the URL for the blog. In this example I am using Jeff Goin’s Writing blog as an example here.

You may see the description as being a bit strange so you can edit it later. Click on the “Plus (+) button at the bottom right corner. You have now added your first blog.


Step 4. Connect it to Twitter

Now you can use other social networks but I use Twitter most of the time because it is not strangled by algorithms that can hide your sharing.

 

Click on the Twitter account to connect it and start posting straight away.

 

Step 5: Add a suffix to the tweet

Now this is simple but important and should not be overlooked. Add the @mention Twitter name of the blog you are sharing.

When they scan their notifications stream they will see that you are sharing their content.

 

So how does it look after we have arranged the RSS automation and set it up in the platform?

Here is a tweet on my Twitter account that detected that Mark Schaefer had published a new post and includes the all important suffix with via @markwscahefer.


Wrapping it up

Automated curation sharing on Twitter is not complicated and is something I have done for years.

Using tools to increase your productivity and scaling your efforts should be part of your ongoing strategy.

It is a simple tactic but over time it will achieve a few goals.

Add value to your Twitter tribe
Attract more Twitter followers
Save you time. My estimate is about 20-30 hours a month
Alert you to the latest and best content from bloggers that you trust
Invite attention from influencers in your industry niche
Attract more blog and website traffic

So for me it ticks a lot of boxes.

It doesn’t mean that you stop looking for new content to share manually but automated curation of great content from bloggers that you know and trust is effective.

So give Dlvr.it a try and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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App of the Week – Fooducate

Ladies,

Not long ago, I was diagnosed with a severe Food Allergy after never having one before. I was overwhelmed with having to re-learn how to cook, shop, and live all over again. I did the only thing I knew to do….I had a pity party. My dad was the one who talked me off the ledge that day by telling me to get on my computer and find out what Apps were out there that could help me. ( Don’t you hate it when your parents are right…) Much to my chagrin, he was right. There were a plethora of Apps for Food Allergy sufferers and my favorite of the lot was Fooducate.

The marketing for Fooducate would lead you to believe that it’s just another weight loss App, but it’s so much more than that. It’s free to download and has paid upgrades for different diets and/or allergies. My favorite feature is a bar code reader that will scan the package and then give you a nutritional breakdown of the food in question, as well as, any allergens etc.

 

The shopping Cart feature is also great because it’ll make suggestions for substituting healthier foods on your list, which can then be emailed to someone else. Grocery shopping can take hours for someone who has to read every label, and this app took the agony out of grocery shopping for me. I highly recommend it. Here’s what the reviewers says:

IMore Says:

”Fooducate provides key information about products like artificial flavorings, colorings, and more. If you want to try a more specific diet like eating just whole grain products or going gluten-free, Fooducate will make the perfect companion as you can compare things you’re debating buying with other alternatives that users and dietitians have rated higher in quality and content.”

Download Fooducate

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Got a new iPhone 7 for Christmas? These are the Apps I recommend you check out.

Spark – Free
I have a habit of downloading and trying new Mail Apps quite regularly. I’m always on the lookout for an App to help tame the daily insanity that is my Inbox. This is the one that has impressed me the most.
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Macworld Says:

“Spark works with all of your favorite Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo email accounts, along with plenty of others supporting IMAP. There’s also built-in support for the most popular “read later” services, Evernote, OneNote, and cloud storage providers, which can be used to send file attachments or save them directly from messages.

The app features a unified inbox which can be viewed in two ways: Traditional mode, where inbound messages are displayed in threaded conversations similar to Apple Mail; and what Readdle calls a Smart Inbox that automatically organizes email into personal, notification, and newsletter categories to help focus on what’s important.”

Download Spark

ProCam 4 –  $4.99

I absolutely LOVE this App!! If your a shutterbug that loves digital photography, this App is worth every penny.
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Slashgear says:

 

“While iOS’ own camera app is OK for amateurs and instant captures, photography nuts will prefer one that takes them as close to DSLRs as possible. In that realm, ProCam 4 remains the crowd favorite.The app features all the knobs and buttons you can have in a digital camera and then some, with that “some” referring to the ability to shoot in RAW. And for iPhone 7 Plus owners, the app can also do 3D photos!”

 

Download Pro Cam

Launch Center Pro – $2.99

If you’re busy and love timesaving short cuts, this is the App for you.
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Slashgear says:

“iOS has had notification widgets since version 8, but iOS 10 really puts the spotlight on them, especially in how they’re now available right from the lock screen. With that new focus, it’s time to give widgets some serious thought.

Among power users, Launch Center Pro is thrown around the most. It practically gives you a mini launcher right on your notification panel. Paired with even more powerful apps like Pythonista, you can almost launch anything from anywhere. But don’t worry, Launch Center still respects security settings, so you won’t suddenly find your iPhone unlocking just because you launched an app from the lock screen.”

Download Launch Center Pro

 

Evernote: Free – Paid Upgrades
Evernote is my all time Favorite note taking app. I’ve used it from the beginning and have evolved into a Power User and Premium Evernote subscriber. The beauty of this app is that it adapts to your level of use.
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PC Mag Says:
“Evernote’s iPhone app continues to be a wonderful productivity tool. It’s one of those rare iPhone apps that critics have loved since the beginning.In terms of functionality, however, Evernote is the best note-taking and syncing service, which is the reason it remains PCMag’s Editors’ Choice. You can bend it to your will and use it for practically anything, from recording and sharing meetings, to searching for text inside PDFs, to keeping a daily diary.”
Download Evernote
Pixelmator – $4.99 
Who needs Photoshop? Not this girl with this great Photoshop Substitute that’s a third of the price.
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Stuff.tv Says:

“If your image-editing needs are more creative in nature than fine-tuning photos, Pixelmator’s where it’s at. Essentially a miniature Photoshop squeezed into your iPhone, this powerful, impressive app provides tools for working up complex multi-layered imagery comprising photography, digital paint and text.

Like desktop equivalents, Pixelmator is happiest when it can tap into plenty of power – which makes the new iPhones ideal partners (and especially iPhone 7 Plus with its extra GB of RAM).”

Download Pixelmator
Square Cash – Free
Money sharing Apps very fashionable right now and incredibly convenient. The most popular being, Venmo, PayPal, and Square Cash. Do you homework and find the one that works best for you, but I love everything about Square Cash.
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Life hacker Says:
“If you want the simplest money transferring option for friends and family, or to easily transfer money anonymously, go with Square Cash.”
Download Square Cash
1Password – Free
Hands down, the best Password Manager out there.
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MacWorld Says:
“If you’re looking for a secure way to store your passwords and credit card details that isn’t stored on someone else’s servers, but either on your own device or on your own Dropbox account, use 1Password. With Touch ID, it’s really easy to go into the app, and get the passwords.”
Download 1Password 
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How to Disable Press Home Button to Unlock in iOS 10

Ladies,

While there are many, many new features to LOVE about Apple’s mobile device software iOS 10, I have to admit the particular addition made me want to pull my hair out. iOS 10 has changed how we get into our iPhones. No longer does the fingerprint sensor on the Home Button give you entrance to the phone. It unlocks the phone, but you now have to press the home button to get past the lock screen. I’m sure there was a perfectly logical reason to justify this change, but after 4 weeks of testing the Beta version of iOS 10, I couldn’t adapt to the change. After doing some researching, I came across a fix that saved my hair.

It’s a pretty simple fix and I was a little ticked at myself for not figuring out on my own, but I’m gonna lay the Blonde card down and slowly back away…

This is from the original article by Paul Morris on Redmond Pie.

Step 1: As with most processes that involve changing, disabling, or enabling something in iOS, our journey begins in the native Settings application. Launch the app to begin the process.

Step 2: When in Settings, navigate to General > Accessibility.

Step 3: Accessibility is literally packed full of options and really excellent things that individuals can use to make the iOS system a nicer place to be. However, in this instance, we are concerned with the section titled Home Button. Tap on that cell to continue.

 

screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-1-31-37-pm

Step 4: At the bottom of the Home Button preferences is an option that’s titled Rest Finger to Open. Apple defines this feature as “open iPhone with Touch ID, without having to press the Home button.” So essentially, it takes the unlocking of the device back to the older method of simply resting the finger on the Touch ID/Home button. Toggle the Rest Finger to Open switch to the On position in order to enable this functionality and disable iOS 10’s default “Press home to unlock” / “Press home to open” feature.

screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-1-32-00-pm

 

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I Want You to Think Differently…

 

 

Ladies, throughout our history, we have fought for equal treatment by our government and the laws of our country. We have made monumental strides for Women’s Rights from Seneca Falls in 1848 to Philadelphia in 2016. We are poised to make history once again with our first female Presidential Nominee and there are more serious conversations about the wage gap than ever before.
Women are dominating fields once open only to men; Doctors, Lawyers, and Architects. We can drive, vote, and fight in our military’s combat missions. There are women who are firefighters, cops and truck drivers. And for the first time this season (2016), the NFL will have it’s first female coach after the debut of the first female referee last season.

Yet, with all this progress, there is still one arena where women still lag hopelessly behind men; technology. While 57% of occupations in the workforce are held by women, that figure drops to 25% when it comes to computing occupations. Only 12% of software developers are women compared to the overwhelming 92% that belong to men. Even the world’s most valuable Technology company, Apple, severely lacks in feminine influence in their senior leadership. Of the 19 people that make up Apple’s senior leadership team only three of them are women. It should be noted that those 3 women hold titles in Human Resources, Environment & Social Initiatives, and Retail. All of the titles relating to Apple’s hardware, software and user experiences belong to men. (The one exception to this “Men Only” rule in the tech field is Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer. Though she’s constantly belittled and criticized by her peers and our media.)

So, it should come as no surprise that most women feel disconnected from their technology. Our society has made technology an integral part of our lives while simultaneously alienating women from it. It’s a fascinating and ultimately, depressing study of our times.
The challenge then, is how do we fix this unique problem? Through education and training. With the right information and mindset, women will be able to challenge technology companies to respect us and our demographic. We will not be ignored, Tim.

Let me paint you a clearer picture… We’ve already established that it’s men who build these devices we’re addicted to, right? Hardware and software design are dominated by men. Then, it stands to reason that these devices are designed to think like men do. The idea of men and women’s brains work differently isn’t new. In fact, there is mountains of data to support the idea. Countless, books, talk shows, and infomercials promising to help one sex understand the mind of the other. Gals, these devices have been programmed to not communicate with us. I’ll give you an example: You are making a batch of peanut butter cookies for a bake sale and realize you don’t have enough peanut butter to finish the recipe. There’s one batch already in the oven so you can’t leave to go to the store, so you ask someone to go for you. If you ask a man, he’ll say, “Ok.”and will return promptly with the first jar of peanut butter he came across. It’ll probably be some generic, no name brand that was on sale and featured at the top of the aisle. Mission accomplished, right? Not necessarily. He brought you crunchy peanut butter and you wanted smooth. Well, you didn’t specify that when you asked him. Now, if you ask a woman to run the same errand, she’ll say, “What kind? Smooth or crunchy? Lower sodium or regular? All natural, sweetened with honey?” And so on until she knows exactly what brand, flavor, and texture you prefer before she even gets to the car. Computers, smart phones and tablets have been programmed to think just like men do. You have to be very specific when giving them a command. If you tell a computer to save a file, but not where to save it, good luck trying to find that document when you need it. As far as the computer knows, it did just as you told it and since you didn’t specify where that document needed to go, it put wherever it wanted.

Here’s another example: when I was working for Apple, I was once fortunate enough to be a part of a conference call with a group of software engineers for the Mac Operating System. (I can’t say if I was the only female on the call but, if there were other women present, they didn’t speak up.) We were tasked by the moderator of the call to speak about the features of the OS our customers were finding useful and what features were lacking. I listened as several of my male peers made suggestions that were either completely ridiculous ( Star Trek GIF’s for email) or just not possible at the time (voice recognition). When asked if any women on the call had suggestions, I spoke up and mentioned that several of my customers found Mac’s Address Book lacking. They asked me to explain and I told them that the user cannot print return address labels, nor could you create formal labels when you wanted to. I also told him I was confident there were no women on the Address Book development team. There was silence on the other end of the phone for a few seconds, then some laughter and then he asked me to explain. I told him I had quite a few women ask me about both of these features. Why couldn’t they print out return address labels to put on their Xmas Cards every year? Why couldn’t they tell the address book to print out 40 of the 350 contacts using the formal “Mr. & Mrs.” heading on labels meant for wedding invitations? And why did I have to find 3rd party solutions for these customers when Mac’s were supposed to be so intuitive? Now, I knew why those features didn’t exist; the programming architecture was too simplistic. If I wanted to print out 120 labels of my name and address for return labels, I’d have to have 120 contact cards with my name and address housed in my address book. I told them emphatically that no woman would design a tool to only work some of the time. The response I got from the moderator though, was one I will never forget. He said, “It never occurred to us that those were features were needed.” He then confirmed that I was right, there were no women on that team. A situation that would be corrected soon.

So Ladies, my mission is clearer than it’s ever been. I was put here to teach women to think differently when it comes to technology. And maybe we’ll teach the tech giants there is value in thinking like a woman… Fingers crossed.

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