As noted by one of our readers, it’s no longer possible to buy an Apple USB SuperDrive online via the official Apple Store in the US. The product’s webpage says that it’s “Sold Out,” and given that it’s a product introduced in 2008, it seems very unlikely that Apple will ever produce new units again.
[…]
The MacBook Air was the first MacBook without a built-in CD drive, which led the company to introduce an optical drive sold separately. Apple completely phased out optical drives from its computers in 2013, when all the Macs available in the lineup no longer had a CD reader.
I still use mine now and then. It does work with Apple Silicon Macs. There are third-party alternatives, but I don’t know how reliably they work with macOS. The DiscRecording framework never got deprecated, but it’s been adding bugs for years. The documentation no longer shows up in Xcode or on Apple’s Web site.
Just burnt a blu ray with a phillips usb3 burner the other night. when the in-built functionality dies im sure an indie may pick up the mantle. burning is becoming less important, to the point that sony announced they were going to stop producing BD-R’s (fact check me, that was second hand to me), but still the best archival medium besides tape.
Apple has reached a provisional agreement with its first unionized retail store in Towson, Maryland, marking a significant development in the company's labor relations (via Bloomberg).
Apple has agreed to a tentative collective bargaining agreement with retail employees at its Towson store, the first of its kind for the company's operations in the United States. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (IAM CORE) announced the deal on Friday, detailing improvements in pay, work-life balance, and job security. This agreement is now pending a vote by the store's approximately 85 employees on August 6.
The proposed three-year contract includes an average pay raise of 10%, with increases in starting pay for 80% of job classifications. The agreement aims to improve work-life balance through enhanced scheduling protections for both full-time and part-time employees. The deal also includes limits on the use of contracted employees, a new transparency and accountability procedure for disciplinary action, and an updated severance clause to provide financial protection in the event of layoffs. The tentative agreement maintains all current benefits and includes a commitment to negotiate any future additions.
The Towson Apple store made headlines in June 2022 when its employees voted to join IAM, becoming the first Apple retail store in the United States to unionize. Since then, IAM CORE has been in negotiations with Apple management, with discussions starting in January 2023. Frustration over the slow pace of negotiations led to a strike authorization vote in May 2024. The Towson store agreement may set a precedent for labor negotiations at other Apple retail locations and could potentially influence unionization efforts across the company's 271 U.S. stores.
the part i want to know more about was how badly was this store managed without any repercussions from Apple that the employees were motivated to undertake this. getting >80 people to agree to anything at all, let alone taking a job risk by doing this is incredible.
Ryobi is coming out with a new 18V cordless LED tripod worklight, and there’s so much going on with it that I don’t know where to start.
At first glance, the new Ryobi cordless worklight, PCL691, looks fairly ordinary, and even boring. You can probably understand where I’m coming from; tripod lights have been around for a while, and besides, how innovative or pioneering can a new worklight be?
This is also Ryobi that we’re talking about, a brand that mainly caters towards budget-conscious DIYers and homeowners. I wasn’t expecting them to be so groundbreaking.
After skimming through the main features, I checked out Ryobi’s press kit media gallery for image selection, and that’s when it hit me – this is not an ordinary worklight.
At a glance, it’s a standard tripod workight, and not Ryobi’s first 18V cordless model.
The light panels can pivot, allowing users to aim light where they need it.
The Ryobi cordless tripod worklight be extended to a 7-foot height, and delivers up to 3,800 lumens of max brightness.
And you can also attach a Ryobi cordless fan on top.
Wait – what?
How did this image of a tripod-mounted fan get into Ryobi’s media gallery?
Oh. WOW.
So, the tripod base has a Ryobi 18V interface built into the top. You can remove the worklight head and attach different Ryobi “lifestyle and recreation” products.
Ryobi has a very long list of compatible LED lighting, radio and speaker, and fan options that can be used with the tripod base. If you forget, a QR code on the product itself will take you to the appropriate support page.
Some of the compatible products go back to Ryobi’s blue days, before they switched to a hi-viz yellow-green color for their tools.
If you have a different worklight you prefer for specific tasks, go for it!
The connection head can pivot 135°, adding versatility to any of Ryobi’s compatible cordless flashlights and worklights.
Or attach a Bluetooth speaker or jobsite radio. That seems convenient for placing your tunes or podcasts at ear-level.
The tripod looks a bit chunky when folded down, but still very portable.
It also features 3-way hybrid power options. The Ryobi TriPower tripod LED light can be powered by an 18V cordless power tool battery, 40V cordless outdoor power tool battery, or AC power via a standard extension cord.
What can you do with the light head once removed from the tripod base? Pop in a battery and use it as a separate worklight.
There are 4 brightness modes: low, medium, high, and single panel.
Grab the light and bring it with you when working in tight spaces, such as under a car.
There’s also a flip-up hook built into the side handle.
This lets you hang the light for added convenience and versatility, such as inside a camping tent.
The handle is also sized just right to clamp onto wood studs and standard construction lumber.
That’s a LOT of versatility and flexibility in what initially looked like an ordinary cordless tripod worklight.
Ryobi is packaging the tripod light with the base and worklight, and the worklight will also be available separately as model PCL632.
Key Specs
7′ max height
TriPower compatibility
Ryobi 18V battery
Ryobi 40V battery
AC power via extension cord
135° pivoting head
3,800 lumens max illumination
4 brightness modes
low: 1,300 lumens
medium: 2,300 lumens
high: 3,800 lumens
single panel: 800 lumens
Price: $199 for the tripod base and worklight bundle (PCL690) ETA: August 2024
The new tripod worklight will be sold exclusively at Home Depot.
Discussion
I wonder if some of my awe is due to my surprise. The tripod light came off as a solid but otherwise ordinary-looking worklight, and then it quickly demolished my expectations.
As a tripod worklight, I’m not very impressed, but I also don’t see any major compromises or “gotchas.”
The TriPower feature seems useful, and essentially means you can power the light – or any compatible Ryobi 18V cordless lighting, fan, or sound options – with any Ryobi 18V or 40V Max battery, or AC power if accessible.
The tripod base lets users aim lights or fans to better aim exactly where they’re needed.
Just these two features – being able to swap different power sources or different head attachments – provides enormous convenience and an abundance of possibilities. I think that Ryobi raised the bar with this one.
I think this is a great example of a brand that perfectly understands the needs and wants of their core audience and target users.
Ryobi says the new light provides “unmatched versatility,” and I think they could be right.
Is the worklight package lacking in any way? Can you think of features that should have been added? I can’t.
Pirate Ship is a shipping platform with an elegant interface that allows users to access discounted shipping rates from USPS and UPS with no subscription fee. I’ve used it a handful of times for mailing packages, and it has been brilliant.
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And, oh, what a lovely interface!
[…]
Pirate Ship has negotiated corporate-level discounted shipping rates of up to 89% off retail and passes most of those savings on to customers. For shipping something heavy, Glenn has seen international shipping prices that run about $200 on UPS’s site, while Pirate Ship’s rate was about $60.
That slight arbitrage allows Pirate Ship to avoid the monthly subscriptions that make no sense for all but high-volume shippers—Stamps.com charges $19.99 per month plus postage, for example.
how long before some PE fund backs up a Brinks truck to buy this out and completely fucks up the model by trying to BE Stamps.com instead of a niche competitor to Stamps.com?
Apple has been found to be in breach of sweeping new EU laws designed to allow smaller companies to compete and allow consumers to find cheaper and alternative apps in the tech business’s app store.
The European Commission, which also acts as the EU antitrust and technology regulator, said it had sent its preliminary findings to Apple after an investigation launched in March.
[…]
The company has 12 months to comply before it face fines of up to 10% of its global revenues but the EU hopes ongoing dialogue will lead to compliance rather than sanctions.
Because the ball is now in the gatekeepers’ court. They have to convince us that the measures they take will achieve full compliance with the DMA. And where this is not the case, we will intervene. Within a month of the compliance deadline, we opened no less than five non-compliance cases. Today, we are opening a sixth one: we will look into Apple’s new business model: the commercial terms Apple imposes on app developers who want to reach end users on the iOS platform. The criteria these app developers have to meet to even be allowed to operate as alternative marketplaces or make apps available via sideloading. And the complex user journey for those users who want to download and install alternative marketplaces and sideloaded apps.
We are concerned that Apple designed its new business model to discourage app developers and end users from taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by the DMA. The letter of the DMA is clear: gatekeepers have to allow for alternative app stores to establish themselves on their platforms; and for consumers to be fully informed about the offers available to them. So that they can freely choose where they want to source their apps, and at what conditions.
And there is more. Today, and after less than three months from opening, we adopt our first Preliminary Findings in a case of non-compliance. And it is again about Apple. About the many ways in which their new terms fall short of the DMA requirements regarding steering of users to options outside the Apple App Store. As they stand, we think that these new terms do not allow app developers to communicate freely with their end users, and to conclude contracts with them.
In a statement to AppleInsider, Apple said that it denies failing to comply with the DMA.
Throughout the past several months, Apple has made a number of changes to comply with the DMA in response to feedback from developers and the European Commission. We are confident our plan complies with the law, and estimate more than 99% of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created.
All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to utilize the capabilities that we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive rate. As we have done routinely, we will continue to listen and engage with the European Commission.
The Commission says Apple may charge a fee for facilitating “the initial acquisition of a new customer” via the App Store, but it essentially cannot charge for each ongoing transaction.
The Commission also said it was opening a new non-compliance procedure against Apple over concerns that its new contractual requirements for third-party app developers and app marketplaces, including its €0.50 Core Technology Fee, “fall short of ensuring effective compliance with Apple’s obligations under the DMA.”
Should the EC find Apple to not be in compliance in these areas, it would require a substantial reworking of much of Apple’s EU terms. As with the previous investigations, it will likely take some time for a final ruling to be issued, though we may get a preliminary ruling such as the one above in a matter of months.
This uncertainty is not good for anyone trying to build a business using App Marketplaces or Web Distribution.
This will bounce back and forth over the next nine months and will probably become even more contentious given quotes like this from Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner: “Apple’s new slogan should be ‘act different.’”
In the DMA, the ground rule is for sideloading apps to be allowed, and to only very minimally be reigned in under very specific conditions. Apple chose to take these conditions and lawyer them into “always, unless you pay us sums of money that are plainly prohibitive for most actors”. Apple knew the rules and understood the intent and chose to evade them, in order to retain additional income.
In the App Store Guidelines, as written and period appropriate, the ground rule was for in-app purchases to be allowed only through the App Store’s native in-app purchase system, at the penalty of removal from the App Store. Epic chose to take those conditions, break them and lawyer up. Epic knew the rules and understood the intent and chose to evade them, in order to retain additional income.
It is completely fair to look at what Epic did and say “that was kind of a dick move”. (I personally think it was kind of a dick move, even as I agree with some downwind consequences.) But any argument that what Epic did was wrong and what Apple did was right hinges on distinctions that do not make sense to me.
[…]
Apple has a significantly easier time silently assenting to the qualms of dictatorships than to simply stop reaching into the pockets of customers, many of which have funneled tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most consistently successful high margin product in the history of mobile telephony, or developers who have largely made those devices attractive in the first place.
This sounds like they’re going to insist that Apple make installing sideloaded apps and alternative stores a no-hassle experience. What critics see is Apple putting up obstacles to installing marketplaces or sideloaded apps just to be a dick about it and discouraging their use to keep users in the App Store. What I see are reasonable warnings for potentially dangerous software. We’ll see how that goes.
[…]
For sideloading, Apple requires that developers “Be a member in good standing of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS and/or iPadOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.” Apple’s requirements are an attempt to prevent fly-by-night scammers from opening marketplaces or offering nefarious apps for sideloading. But the EC sees that as a catch-22, where the only way to become a marketplace or offer sideloading is to already be a longstanding developer in Apple’s own App Store.
[…]
I complain as much as anyone about the aspects of the DMA that are vague (or downright inscrutable), but this aspect seems clear-cut. It’s a bit baffling why Apple seemingly sees notarization as an opportunity for content/purpose review, like with last week’s brouhaha over the UTM SE PC emulator.
We tried to warn Apple that rejecting UTM was illegal 😬
When we first met with the EC a few months ago, we were asked repeatedly if we trusted Apple to be in charge of Notarization. We emphatically said yes.
However, it’s clear to us now that Apple is indeed using Notarization to not only delay our apps, but also to determine on a case-by-case basis how to undermine each release — such as by changing the App Store rules to allow them.
For these reasons, we are no longer telling the EC we trust Apple to be in charge of Notarization. 🤷♂️
I’m confused as to why the answer was an emphatic yes to begin with. At best the answer should’ve been Apple hasn’t weaponized notarization on Mac, yet…
On Apple and the EU: if you take all of our EU revenue on iOS and move it to Android instead, it would be enough to make our Android revenue roughly even with our iOS revenue. In absolute terms it’s like 20% of iOS, but if you take 20% of iOS and move it to Android, Android ends up bigger than iOS, at least for us.
So from the standpoint of developer platform priorities, this is an extremely stupid game for Apple to play, and they stand to lose far, far more from it than from the DMA.
If you are somebody who believes it is only fair to take someone at their word and assume good faith, I am right there with you. Even though Apple has a long history of capricious App Review processes, it was fair to consider its approach to the E.U. a begrudging but earnest attempt at compliance.
[…]
That is, however, a rather difficult position to maintain, given the growing evidence Apple seems determined to evade both the letter and spirit of this legislation.
i think what bothers me most about this is that there’s significant technical challenges (read: code) that goes into implementing this crap, and Apple has spent a lot of developer cycles doing very targeted, arguably nasty things. they are purposely trying to ignore or circumvent what the EU is obviously trying to do, because martian bacteria could figure out what the hell the EU wants.
and all of that very valuable developer time is wasted on what they have to know is a losing fight, because even IF they manage to skate around what the EU wants, the US, Japan, and others are all watching this with rapt attention and won’t be plagued by this cat and mouse bullshit when it’s their turn to put the screws to Apple.
they are playing a stupid game and they are going to win a stupid prize.
ICQ was started in 1996 by Israeli company Mirabilis, which AOL bought in 1998. ICQ grew to 100 million registered users at one point, at least according to a 2001 release from Time Warner, which had combined with AOL in a famously doomed merger. AOL sold the service to Digital Sky Technologies, the firm that owned VK, then known as Mail.ru, in 2010.
ICQ really was something special to me. I was absolutely glued to it for most of 1998 in particular, although I used it for years and years. I made some great friends on there[…] ICQ was the first social media platform I ever made a home on, and the uh-oh! notification sound will be etched in my mind forever. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a quarter of a century since I was using it all day long; it’s even harder to believe that I’m still talking to some of those internet friends on a regular basis.
Pre-mobile, “instant messaging” had a surprising number of popular platforms.
[…]
They all worked more or less the same way, and using any of these protocols was a lot like messaging today with iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal. But there was one big difference: with the old “instant” messengers, you were only available while your computer was online. And even then, you could set your “status” — green for “sure, hit me up, I’m free”, and red for “I’m online, but don’t bother me right now”. And if you quit your messaging client or, you know, closed your laptop, poof, you were offline and unavailable.
If you wanted to contact someone asynchronously, you sent them an email. If you wanted to chat with messaging, you both needed to be online simultaneously.
The other key difference was that there used to be clients like iChat and Adium that worked with more than one service. It felt like you had some control and could use these services on your own terms. Now everything is all locked together. The only iMessage client is Apple’s. You can only use it on Apple’s platforms. And even then you can only log into one account at a time.
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