It's spring for most people, which is typically a time of enjoying flowers, the trees budding, the warm sun air, and the promise of summer. Unfortunately, my city never got the memo. Yes, up here in my part of Canada we've been dealing with a blizzard this week — it's Winter 2: Winter with Vengeance.
Still, while I tried to keep warm this week, plenty of interesting news in the tech sphere in general, and of course, some rumors about Apple's upcoming plans. Let's dive in.
Focus better with improved Focus in iOS 16?
Focus was one of the standout features from iOS 15, and it's something that I have come to use a lot in my life. And, apparently, it may be getting some big changes in iOS 16.
While the report didn't really speculate about what those changes might be, it did seem to shed some light on what software will run the new Focus modes. It seems that Focus modes in iOS 16 won't run on IOS 15, meaning you'll need to update to the new software to take advantage of the feature.
Seems crazy that a feature that just launched is already being gatekept to the newest software — I can only hope this means big changes are afoot.
I use Focus all the time on my best iPhone. Every day while working, I have my work Focus running which blocks notifications from most things except work-related apps and a few select people in my life. When I sleep I have a Focus to block calls, and when I need some zen time I have one that only lets my partner's message get through. I'll be really interested to see what Apple's planning for Focus in iOS 16.
The Twitter apocalypse of 2022?
Love it or hate it, Twitter is an extremely important and popular social media app, and it's been making headlines for over a week since Elon Musk amassed quite a large amount of shares in the company.
Just this week, Elon has made an offer to buy Twitter for over 40 billion — with a "b" — dollars. " Being the world's wealthiest person clearly has its perks.
In a letter filed to the SEC Musk told Bret Taylor, Chairman of the Board:
"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company."
He went on to say that Twitter has potential and that he will unlock it, which is exactly that big chest-beating talk I expect to hear from the man. I've seen his Tweets — he doesn't really hide his ego.
Depending on what you think of Musk, his politics, and Twitter's current handling of its services so far, it seems like you either see this news as devasting or fantastic. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Musk, and with Twitter being my favorite and most-used social media, I worry if he does buy 100% of Twitter, what might happen. But, he's teased the addition of being able to edit Tweets, so maybe I should try to look at the glass as half full.
TikTok adding dislikes — I hope it helps spam
In yet more social media news, TikTok is testing out the ability to allow users to dislike comments. The move, TikTok says, will mean that it will be able to use the additional data as a way to proactively remove abusive content.
If you've ever been on TikTok — or any social media, really — inappropriate and abusive content is a huge problem, and trying to collect more data from users is a good way to get additional input from the community about content that shouldn't be on there in the first place.
According to TikTok, only the person who dislikes the comment will see that they did, which I suppose is its way of getting around the "dislike bombing" issue that causes YouTube to remove dislikes altogether.
Honestly, I hope this feature not only helps with abusive content but also helps deal with spam. Spam on social media has been getting horrendous and it's a massive problem that not only is annoying but actually hurts people. Just watch this video from the popular tech YouTuber, MKBHD, to see a first-hand account of how spam is affect his channel and YouTube as a whole.
Scroll through any popular video on TikTok and you'll see the exact same kind of stuff that Marques is talking about. Of course, no system will ever be perfect, but hopfeully TikTok can use this new data to help combat the issue more than they are now.
Thanks for reading,
- Luke
