Apple’s system of annual releases leaves it with the worst of both worlds: siloed updates that come too infrequently for minor features while still not having enough major features to be worth the hype. If Apple can’t make macOS and iOS updates more substantial, it might be time to leave the annual release cycle behind.

I would go even further. Annual releases are just not what they once were. We used to pay $129 for the newest OS to run with 100’s of new features. 10.4 “Tiger” was out up to 10.4.11, almost 3 full years, and was the OS version in the PowerPC to Intel transition. These OS’s made a lot of progress over the years, including drastic changes, and sweeping update.

But no more. I propose MacOS and iOS go to rolling releases. What’s that? Do you know what version of Chrome you’re on? Do you know the most recent version? I doubt you even care. Chrome, Firefox, and a lot of other software do small constant releases. That is was Apple should transition to. They straddle that line now. Lots of the new iOS “features” are released in a point update rather than first x.0.

On top of that untether the default apps from the OS. There is no reason why Safari, Mail, and others have to wait around for a full OS release to be updated. It makes absolutely zero sense today.

“The system might work well for health plans and these middlemen, but it creates difficult access barriers for vulnerable patients,” Koziara said. “We’re concerned about the emerging issue of ‘pharmacy deserts’ where patients, particularly among communities of color, cannot readily access a community pharmacy for their medications.”

The healthcare system is broke, broke, broke.

Amid touting unproven and experimental treatments, Rodgers cast aspersions and spread misinformation on highly effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines. He repeated the falsehood that the vaccines can affect fertility—there’s no evidence of that. Regardless, he also claimed he simply couldn’t take the vaccines even if he wanted to. He says he is allergic to ingredients in the mRNA vaccines, though he didn’t identify those ingredients. He also declined the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, citing concerns about blood clots—even though clots are extremely rare and mainly affect women.

I say suspend Rodgers for the season. Purposely misleading his team and league about is vaccination status puts others at rise. And deserves equally serious consequences.

While some days I create new things with cutting edge technology and revel in the latest Beta or Daily Build and push the limits with an untested specification, other days I take to remember the Dark Matter Developers. I remind my team of them. They are out there, they are quiet, but they are using our stuff to get work done. No amount of Twitter Polls or Facebook Likes or even Page Views will adequately speak for them.

This particular paragraph really resonated with me.

“The bipartisan infrastructure deal will deliver $65 billion to help ensure that every American has access to reliable high-speed Internet through a historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment,” the White House said Friday. “The legislation will also help lower prices for Internet service and help close the digital divide, so that more Americans can afford Internet access.”

A meaningful impact? Given the amount of lobbing done by ISPs and cutting from the original $100 billion proposed, I hope it has meaningful impact. But am pessimistic. 🙁

This year, we’re pleased to continue accepting submissions in App Store Connect throughout the upcoming holidays.

This is a welcomed change of tradition. Up til now, the store submissions and reviews shutdown entirely and your app was ‘locked’ into that version for the holidays, there was no way to get an update out. My hope is these are automated and not taking people away from their families durning the holiday times. 🎄

“Sideloading is a cybercriminal’s best friend, and requiring that on the iPhone would be a gold rush for the malware industry,” he said to a large audience. “That one provision in the DMA could force every iPhone user into a landscape of professional con artists constantly trying to fool them.”

I in no way think that Apple’s biggest concerned is with the safety of iPhone users in this case. Their number one concern is App Store revenue. Period. They believe in their bones that they are owned a % of every transaction that happens on their device. Regardless of what or how it occurs. The simple conclusion they draw is, if it happen in any way on an iPhone you owe Apple a cut.

Federighi also never mentioned Apple’s likely other motive for fighting against sideloading: Sideloading would further hinder the company’s ability to ensure it gets a slice of every app’s revenue, after a US judge already chipped away at that capability by deciding that Apple must allow links to third-party payment systems in apps downloaded from the App Store.

That’s not necessarily bad news for New York. Underwood’s brief makes a persuasive argument that the right to bear arms was historically understood to permit greater gun regulation in cities than in less-populated areas. It cites everything from a 1328 English law banning guns in “fairs” and “markets” to a colonial New Jersey law making it unlawful to “ride or go armed with sword, pistol, or dagger” except when traveling over long distances.

I struggle to think that any decisions about guns and the right to bear arms not taking into account the constant and damage of gun violence on the public.

Consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge said it is “disappointed that Congress did not provide funding to keep students connected as they study from home” but that the “broadband subsidies will still benefit students and families at risk of losing their connectivity… No American should be forced to go without food, water, electricity, or essential communications over broadband.”

Pretty much sums up my feelings. Broadband is essential in every use of the word. It’s time to handle ISPs as that, a utility, regulated and subsidized until every farmhouse and outhouse has gigabyte speeds. There is no “free market” at work here. To pretend is to signal you can afford whatever your ISP is charging without a second thought.

The most recent FCC broadband deployment report said that, as of year-end 2019, 95.6 percent of Americans had access to fixed broadband with speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. Deployment at higher speeds is more limited, especially in rural and tribal areas. For example, the report said that 250/25Mbps speeds are available to 87.2 percent of people nationwide, 55.6 percent of people in rural areas, and 49.6 percent of tribal residents.

3/25Mbps is can simply not be called standard or minimum, it’s unusable. Anyone who believes that speed is sufficient has not spend any reasonable time trying to use speeds like that in their day to day. I get that infrastructure is expensive. That’s why it’s an investment, it’ll take years to get there, but it’s worth it. There is no excuse not to have 250/25Mbps in 98% nationwide, 90% rural, and 100% tribal. The ONLY obstacle is the will to get it done.

From Pai himself

We find that the current speed benchmark of 25/3Mbps remains an appropriate measure by which to assess whether a fixed service is providing advanced telecommunications capability. We conclude that fixed services with speeds of 25/3Mbps continue to meet the statutory definition of advanced telecommunications capability; that is, such services “enable[] users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications.”

While I doubt you could do all those things on 25/3Mbps. You can definitely not do any two of those at the same time.

The scenes we saw yesterday were outrageous and extremely disappointing to those of us who cherish American democracy, one hallmark of which is the peaceful transition of power. To answer your question, I think it was a terrible mistake to suggest that the results of the election, and particularly the process that culminated yesterday in the Senate and the House, could in any way be changed. That was a terrible mistake and one that I do not think in any way should have been indulged.

A terrible mistake? No. This has been a calculated, purposeful perversion of power. It is now only a ‘mistake’ to subvert the election and hold on to power failed. Weeks and months of supporting blatantly false narrative of a “stolen” election can simply not be washed away with ‘a mistake’, ‘condemnation of their actions’, or other notions of separating those who continue to perpetuate the lies and those who storm federal buildings.

Pai is just another in a long list of FCC Chairmen, from both sides of the aisle to come and can from the very companies they are suppose to regulate. 😤

The cable industry’s biggest lobby group, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, is led by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell. The wireless industry’s biggest lobby group, CTIA, is led by former FCC member Meredith Attwell Baker. Baker also spent time as a lobbyist for Comcast.

Pai isn’t the only former FCC chair to join a private-equity firm shortly after leaving the commission. William Kennard, a Democrat who chaired the FCC during President Bill Clinton’s second term, went to the Carlyle Group investment firm in 2001. Powell joined Providence Equity Partners in 2005. Democrat Julius Genachowski, Obama’s FCC chair from 2009 to 2013, joined the Carlyle Group in 2014.

Those challenges involve lack of accessibility to mobility options, areas underserved by public transit, parking challenges, and terrible drivers with high collision rates. As you might expect, a lot of startups are involved in solving those challenges; Here’s who’s involved and what they bring to the table. 

Every city should be investing in connecting technology and transportation. I would love to take the bus in my area, but they run so infrequently it would take 5x as long to get where I’m going! What are my other options? I don’t know it’s a Where’s Waldo of services that I have to decipher myself. ☹️

calling citizens “customers” implies the only thing that matters is self-interest: What am I paying, and what am I getting for it? Ideally, citizenship involves something beyond self-interest. We all want to benefit from good government, but citizenship should have a collective dimension that transcends narrow cost-benefit calculations.

It doesn’t that sound far off from the tone I feel from a lot of people. Things like, “… the government should do x for me, and should stop doing y for those people.” I have put Ethan Porter’s book on my reading list, and hopefully I’ll get to it before it’s too late.

Consumer Citizen by Ethan Porter

For nearly four decades, we’ve been hearing about the trickle-down economy, which promised that returning our tax money to the investors and job creators would trickle down to the rest of us. And that’s how it was sold to us, as if getting a trickle of the success of this country is something to celebrate. We need to end it and build a trickle-up economy, benefiting our people, families, and communities, on up.

There is so much here that I really really enjoy. Worth a read at least twice.

Although the legal history of creationism in schools is available to anyone with a working Internet connection, the bill passed with 72 representatives, all Republicans, voting in favor. Of the chamber’s 22 Democrats, 21 voted against it, and one other didn’t vote.

It’s not clear whether these legislators are simply unaware of the legal precedents or if they are simply using this bill as an opportunity to signal their cultural affiliations. We’ve contacted its two sponsors to find out. As of publication time, neither had responded.

I know there are more important things that legislators in AK could be working on. 🙄

A man who has been an AT&T customer since 1960 has a message for CEO John Stankey about the company’s failure to upgrade DSL areas to modern Internet service. Aaron Epstein, 90, is so frustrated by his 3Mbps Internet plan that he took out a Wall Street Journal ad in today’s print edition in order to post an open letter to Stankey.

It is both fascinating and ridiculous that this gentleman feels he has to take out an WSJ add to get the attention of his ISP. But I ask, what other choice does he have?

“Across the predominantly rural counties in AT&T’s national footprint, only 5 percent of households (217,284 out of 4,442,675) have access to fiber,” the report said. In urban areas, the situation is better but not problem-free. “Seventy percent of households in urban counties still lack access to fiber from AT&T because the company has made fiber available to only 14.7 million households out of 48.4 million total households in these counties,” the report said.

Just 5% have access to real high speed data.

In today’s report, the CWA and NDIA said that “AT&T should commit to capital investment in fiber deployment that would double the number of households passed by fiber in two years. If AT&T invests one quarter of its annual free cash flow (projected to be more than $25 billion) into rapid fiber deployment, it could deploy to more than 6 million locations per year.” That figure assumes a cost of $1,000 per household, which it said “should be realistic as an average cost, given the widespread fiber backbone already deployed.”

Just a one quarter of it’s annual cash flow can reach 6 million with an “M” every year. It is frustrating that everything is there for this to happen. Customers willing to pay, the technology and workforce to make it happen, but it goes because the profit margin isn’t high enough. Not that it’s not profitable, simply that it isn’t profitable enough for AT&T’s time.

AT&T says it will now offer a prepaid 5G data-only plan with up to 100GB of data for $55 per month — a big upgrade from its previous offering of 40GB for $75

I tend to be hard on ISPs, and for good reason. So I figure I should call out when they do something good too. I’ll leave the argument for data caps on a consumable that is not a finite resource for another day 😉.

While 3 million locations is a substantial buildout, there are tens of millions of homes without fiber in AT&T’s 21-state wireline service area. There were 52.97 million households in AT&T’s home-Internet service area and 14.93 million of them had fiber-to-the-home access, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union told Ars in October 2020 when AT&T announced the discontinuation of legacy DSL services over copper phone lines.

Every house, every adult, every child, everyone has a right to high speed Internet access. In the same way you expect power and clean drinking water to be affordable and readily available, the same for fast internet access on a multitude of devices anywhere.

A good start, but only the beginning Accessible Affordable Internet for All Act

That “commitment to serving entire communities” is important because private providers focus on building in the most profitable areas while municipal providers strive for universal service. City and town governments that build their own networks often take that action because private providers failed to give everyone affordable high-speed service.

Won’t service everyone with high speed, doesn’t want anyone else to either.

“As part of Automattic, Pocket Casts will continue to provide you with the features needed to enjoy your favorite podcasts (or find something new),” the post states. “We will explore building deep integrations with WordPress.com and Pocket Casts, making it easier to distribute and listen to podcasts.”

A good home for a good app.

rebounding economy is headed for its best year since 1984, according to the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. economy likely expanded in the first quarter at an annual rate of 6 percent and should accelerate in the months ahead, economist Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics told clients this week. More than 1.3 million jobs have been added since the election.

Shocking

Biden’s plan immediately drew opposition from Republicans and private ISPs such as AT&T, which has argued that the US should not subsidize fiber-to-the-home deployment across the US and that rural people should be satisfied with non-fiber Internet service that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds. AT&T John Stankey called Biden’s plan to fund municipal networks “misguided” and said he was confident that Congress would steer legislation in the more “pragmatic” direction that AT&T favors.

So, don’t subsidize fiber-to-the-home, not because the market will take care of it, but because those people should be happy 10Mbps! Who could possibly need more than that? 🤷‍♂️

😤