![]() It can be said that much of the reason why Apple builds such successful products is due in large part to both of these traits instilled in the company by its founder. ![]() ![]() This level of confidence/arrogance is also ingrained in the culture at Apple. Steve also had a high level of confidence, some might say arrogance, that led him to believe that he was absolutely right when others were wrong. Steve Jobs was a notorious control freak and he instilled that value in Apple from the beginning and the company still continues to exert control at every opportunity to this day. It wasn’t until I started discussing the problem with app developers and other people who follow Apple closely and have more understanding of their tendencies that I was able to form a clearer picture of their reasoning. I never bought into this theory, though, because even if Apple was going to put something like this in iOS, it wouldn’t be until iOS 9 a year from now, so why take it down now? Why would Apple remove an app that was beloved by users and wasn’t violating any published guideline? Many people suggested the theory that Apple wanted the functionality for themselves and that something similar to Launcher would appear in the next version of iOS. My family, friends and users who aren’t very aware of Apple’s past behaviors were completely shocked and confused. When Launcher was taken down, Apple did not provide a very clear explanation for exactly why it was removed. For those unfamiliar with the story, I ended up submitting a new version that I felt was a decent compromise based on my understanding of the problem that Apple had with the widget, but Apple didn’t feel it was valid, so they immediately removed Launcher from the App Store. It wasn’t until 6 days later that I got the dreaded call from App Review where they explained to me that the executive team had met and determined that Launcher needed to remove its widget or it would be taken off of the App Store. For the first 4 hours it was out, it was actually featured in the App Store and things were going really well. I met my goal and Launcher was approved and went out on the App Store on September 17, the day iOS 8 was released. As with any iOS app, there was a chance (perhaps this this case, more than most) that the app would be rejected by Apple, but I figured it was worth the risk once I determined that it was technically feasible and I found nothing in the App Extension Programming Guide that disallowed it. Since it took advantage of a new feature of iOS 8, the Notification Center widget, I figured if it was out first, that would help it be noticed by people looking for new iOS features and possibly featured by Apple. I came up with the idea of Launcher and made a plan to try my best to get it out on the day iOS 8 would be released in mid September. ![]() It didn’t gain much traction so I decided in July it was time to work on something else. But this time I decided to make a more concerted effort, start a company, and see if I could make some app (or apps) that could simply keep me employed and pay the bills.Īfter taking the leap, I spent about 8 months (6 part-time, 2 full-time) on my first app that I released this past May. None of them ever became anything that received much traction. These were websites or apps that I wished existed, but didn’t, that I decided to tackle myself. I’ve always had various side projects that I created during nights and weekends mostly for fun. During my 16+ year career, I had always worked full time for a company and the idea of working for myself and the flexibility it would provide was something that I was hoping to try out. I was working full-time, but was hoping to pursue a dream of being an independent app developer. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, but I also don’t want to skip the important and interesting parts, so it may end up a bit on the longish side. I wish this wasn’t the case and I believe that I have tried everything reasonable that I could do to try to get it back in some form.įor anyone interested in a more detailed answer, feel free to continue reading. It doesn’t appear that Launcher or anything even close to it will be making it back to the App Store anytime soon. Since I still receive a few emails every week asking me if Launcher is ever coming back to the App Store, I figured it would make sense to post a public update now that I finally have a pretty solid answer on it.
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Mac Gems newsletter for a weekly e-mail summary of Gems reviews sent directly to your inbox. Want to stay up-to-date with the latest Gems? Sign up for the ![]() Price It is among the best free Mac Preview alternatives for reading PDFs on macOS 12 System Support It is available for macOS 10. Cons It has limited Web-based and mobile app support making it functional on desktop systems like Mac only. It does one thing, does it very well, and you can’t beat the price. The suite is free for individuals and businesses. Simply toggling a change in DeskCover’s preferences, though, caused the extra row to be identified, and the background cover then expanded as necessary.ĭeskCover isn’t rich on features, but it doesn’t have to be. When I added all my hard drives, DeskCover didn’t recognize the newly-added row of icons. About the only thing that tripped up DeskCover was when I used the Finder’s preferences panel to change which icons were shown on the desktop. If you add an icon that creates a new column of icons on the desktop, the size of the background image automatically adjusts to the necessary width-and it does so with a subtle but nice animation. As you move icons onto and off of your desktop, DeskCover is always watching. ![]() Choose a color scheme you like, and that’s it.ĭeskCover isn’t just a static background, though. ![]() BBEdit has everything you need in a programmers editor for 49. Here you specify the color to fill behind the desktop icons, whether or not to use a gradient fade to that color, the color and thickness of a border line at the edge of the filled-in color, and against which edge of the screen you’d like to anchor the fill color. Currently on the Mac, the top two editors are BBEdit and Sublime Text 3. The preferences screen isn’t much more complex. When active, you’ll see a DeskCover icon in your menu bar click it to open the program’s preferences or to quit the program-and that’s it as far as the functionality in the menus. For safety reasons, the app doesn’t reveal the driver’s exact route. The map automatically gets updated every 2-3 minutes. The live map starts working when the delivery truck leaves the loading area and shows both the package’s final destination and its current location. The app sends an email to the recipient once their shipment is loaded to the transport truck and within the email there’s a yellow “Follow my delivery button” that opens a web page that shows the map of your local area. This is a free service that provides online package signing, package alerts and approximate delivery times. To monitor UPS deliveries on live map, business owners will have to sign up for a UPS My Choice account. The minute-by-minute tracking service works on both computers and smartphones. The location is updated every two to three minutes as the vehicle moves to its destination. With this UPS App, packages sent using UPS Next Day Air, UPS Worldwide Express, and UPS Worldwide Express Plus can be tracked on a live map. However, Follow My Delivery gives customers more access to their packages.įor small businesses with eCommerce, this service can give their customers an added value for important packages. The UPS My Choice app gives customers alerts for incoming packages as well as hold and authorize shipments for release. ![]() ![]() This service gives the more than 22 million UPS My Choice service members the ability to monitor their packages on a live map. The “Follow My Delivery” UPS app allows you to check the status of your delivery in near-real time. Except, when I tried that drill again (running (1) macOS, (2) then back to Windows, (3) then fidgeting with Vertical Settings), the smooth scrolling is no longer happening. Of course, I had mentioned that since there wasn't enough storage, so I had to re-install Windows by partitioning it this time with more storage (so that I could install basic apps like Chrome and Solidworks), so I re-installed Windows using Apple's article, and surely, the issue returned. There must be a way to enable such smooth scrolling in Windows Bootcamp because the first time I installed Windows Bootcamp, I had the same issue, however, miraculously, I got the smooth scrolling to work (what I did was that (1) I returned to MacOS, (2) then back to Windows, and (3) then fidgetted with the Vertical Scrolling settings and ended up with the settings below). Now, I tried going to Control Panel under mouse settings and changing the Vertical Scrolling settings, but changing the settings doesn't seem to get that smooth scrolling to work. Instead, as I scroll, the moment I take my fingers off the trackpad, the scrolling abruptly comes to a stop (instead of continuing for 1 second at a decreasing rate) and, in effect, doesn't scroll as much as I'd wanted it to. However, this isn't happening in Windows Bootcamp. Smooth scrolling is when you take two fingers, drag them across the trackpad, say downwards, and indeed, the page will scroll downwards, but then the moment you let your fingers off the trackpad, the scrolling would continue for 1 more second and decelerate (slow down) to a stop. When scrolling (such as through articles in any web browser or application), I notice that the scrolling isn't smooth. Have you tried disabling inertial scrolling? Try it now to remind yourself of the pre-iPhone days, then come back here to share your thoughts with fellow readers in the comments.I recently re-installed Windows 10 using Bootcamp (the first time, I didn't partition it with enough storage, so I deleted that partition and re-installed Windows Bootcamp using Apple's article). Realizing the importance of inertial scrolling, Jobs warned Samsung not to rip off the feature as it quickly became a lovable part of the original iPhone software and, later, of macOS. ![]() Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs claims that inertial scrolling for multi-touch screens was created by Apple’s interface designer Bas Ording. Mice that have a scroll wheel or lack a multi-touch surface like that found on Magic Mouse don’t support inertial scrolling on macOS. To turn off scrolling, untick the box next to Scrolling.ĭisabling inertial scrolling makes content manipulation on your Mac akin to Windows PCs in that content stops scrolling right after your finger has stopped moving on a trackpad or Magic Mouse. ![]()
Its supply is thought to be rapidly diminishing. Terrestrial helium is a non-renewable resource because once released into the atmosphere, it promptly escapes into space. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations as great as 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation. ![]() Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements ( thorium and uranium, although there are other examples), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. On Earth, it is relatively rare-5.2 ppm by volume in the atmosphere. In scientific research, the behavior of the two fluid phases of helium-4 (helium I and helium II) is important to researchers studying quantum mechanics (in particular the property of superfluidity) and to those looking at the phenomena, such as superconductivity, produced in matter near absolute zero. As with any gas whose density differs from that of air, inhaling a small volume of helium temporarily changes the timbre and quality of the human voice. A small but well-known use is as a lifting gas in balloons and airships. Helium's other industrial uses-as a pressurizing and purge gas, as a protective atmosphere for arc welding, and in processes such as growing crystal to make silicon wafers-account for half of the gas produced. Liquid helium is used in cryogenics (its largest single use, consuming about a quarter of production), and in the cooling of superconducting magnets, with its main commercial application in MRI scanners. ![]() In 1903, large reserves of helium were found in natural gas fields in parts of the United States, by far the largest supplier of the gas today. The formal discovery of the element was made in 1895 by chemists Sir William Ramsay, Per Teodor Cleve, and Nils Abraham Langlet, who found helium emanating from the uranium ore, cleveite, which is now not regarded as a separate mineral species, but as a variety of uraninite. Lockyer was the first to propose that the line was due to a new element, which he named after the sun. Janssen recorded the helium spectral line during the solar eclipse of 1868, while Lockyer observed it from Britain. Janssen is often jointly credited with detecting the element, along with Norman Lockyer. Pogson, and Lieutenant John Herschel, and was subsequently confirmed by French astronomer Jules Janssen. Helium was first detected as an unknown, yellow spectral line signature in sunlight during a solar eclipse in 1868 by Georges Rayet, Captain C. Large amounts of new helium are created by nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars. The most common isotope of helium in the universe is helium-4, the vast majority of which was formed during the Big Bang. This helium-4 binding energy also accounts for why it is a product of both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay. Its abundance is similar to this in both the Sun and in Jupiter, due to the very high nuclear binding energy (per nucleon) of helium-4, with respect to the next three elements after helium. It is present at about 24% of the total elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. It is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe, after hydrogen. Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements, and it does not have a melting point at standard pressure. ![]() It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Helium (from Greek: ἥλιος, romanized: helios, lit.'sun') is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. ![]() Together, they put together the perfect crime, orchestrated so magnificently that each set piece builds to the final, glorious reveal at the end of the film. A playful and cleverly constructed heist film, The Sting stars Robert Redford as a young grifter who enlists the aid of an aging con man (Paul Newman) to seek revenge on an Irish gangster, played by Robert Shaw. It’s rare that you come across a film that has a perfect script, but if any movie fits that bill, it’s The Sting, directed by George Roy Hill (who was also responsible for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, if that says anything about how much he was knocking things out of the park in the late 1960s and early 1970s). Stars: Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Kila Lord Cassidy.Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Ari Wegner, The Wonder is a fascinating historical drama that examines the tensions between conflicting belief systems in 1860s Ireland. Lib expects to find a reasonable explanation for the girl’s strange behavior, her faith in science and medicine flying in the face of the religious fervor that otherwise grips the small rural community. A local board has been assembled to assess whether or not this little girl is a saint in the making, and to that end, they’ve hired the nurse and a local nun to watch her every hour of the day and report back on their findings. Anna O’Donnell, an Irish child, allegedly hasn’t had a bite to eat in months, yet she still survives. Science and religion are two warring philosophies, and they come into abrupt conflict in The Wonder, when a young nurse, Lib Wright, (played by Florence Pugh) is sent to Ireland to observe a bona fide miracle. Stars: Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Scarlett Johansson.What’s a guy to do? Clever and engrossing with a deep love for the period, Hail, Caesar! deserves so much more credit than it gets. Among the many problems on his plate are an unmarried aquatic star with a baby on the way (Scarlett Johansson), a Western up-and-comer who is in way over his head after being committed to a sophisticated drawing room drama (Alden Ehrenreich), and a movie star who just so happens to have been unceremoniously kidnapped by Communists. Josh Brolin stars as a studio fixer, deftly handling any number of potential Hollywood scandals just waiting to be broken by the relentless gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (both played by Tilda Swinton). Set in the golden age of Hollywood, it's one of Joel and Ethan Coen’s more underrated films, with a razor-sharp sense of humor that often goes unappreciated. ![]() Hail, Caesar! walked so that Babylon could run. Stars: Viola Davis, Thuso Mdebu, John Boyega. ![]() Viola Davis may have missed out on an Academy Award nomination for her performance in The Woman King, but that doesn’t make this film any less worthy of praise. The fight sequences are bold and energetic, aided by vivid costumes and a powerful score. The Woman King examines the power dynamics of African empires before European colonization, and it does so without sacrificing an ounce of thrilling action along the way. This army is led by the fierce Nanisca (Viola Davis) as she trains a new cohort of soldiers, including the strong-willed Nawi (Thuso Mbedu). Set amidst the 19th-century African kingdom of Dahomey (located in present-day Benin), The Woman King revolves around the Agojie, a group of female warriors who have pledged to protect their people and their king (played by John Boyega). This article is frequently amended to remove films no longer on Netflix and to include more original films that are now available on the service. Some titles may not currently be available on international platforms. It also features another great turn from Channing Tatum, a true movie star.Please note: This list pertains to U.S. It’s a smart movie that understood things about the gig economy and making it in any business before other films. These are films that came from outside the Netflix pipeline to subscribers, and it will be regularly updated as flicks come and go from the Netflix catalog, starting with our pick of the week.Ī massive hit at the theaters back when people went to the theaters, this middle chapter of what is now a trilogy with 2023’s Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a raucous, joyous time at the movies, but it’s also a bit underrated given its subject matter. With hundreds of films from around the world on the streaming giant that changed the game, how does one even know where to start when they’re looking for something to watch? Start here! We have gone through the massive catalog of films available on Netflix and pared down the selection to an essential 30 titles, including action films, comedies, horror flicks, and even stuff for the whole family, with Netflix Originals peppered in throughout, alongside its licensed films. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk. ![]() This post is updated regularly as movies leave and enter Netflix. ![]()
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