Transmit 5 Released

Jason Tate Jul 19, 2017

Panic at have released a great update to my favorite file transfer app:

Seven years after the first release of Transmit 4, our well-loved and widely-used macOS file transfer app, we sat down with an incredibly exhaustive list of ideas, and — this’ll sound like I’m exaggerating but I’m mostly sure I’m not — we did it all.
With one massive update we’ve brought everyone’s favorite file-transferring truck into the future with more speed, more servers, more features, more fixes, a better UI, and even Panic Sync. Everything from the core file transfer engine to the “Get Info” experience was rethought, overhauled, and improved.

It’s ten bucks off this week only.

Net Neutrality Is Important and It’s Kinda Stupid We Have to Keep Fighting for It

Jason Tate Jul 12, 2017

Net Neutrality is important for the future of the internet. For smaller websites like this, it’s absolutely vital. If you have a moment to check out this website and send a letter to the FCC and congress about its importance, that would be great:

Net neutrality is the basic principle that protects our free speech on the Internet. “Title II” of the Communications Act is what provides the legal foundation for net neutrality and prevents Internet Service Providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from slowing down and blocking websites, or charging apps and sites extra fees to reach an audience (which they then pass along to consumers.)

For those looking for more info, John Oliver’s segment is a good place to start and his follow-up from this year talks about how the new administration is making this a thing again.

On-Demand Audio Streaming Hits Record High

Jason Tate Jul 10, 2017

Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch:

A new report from Nielsen out this week paints a picture of the booming on-demand audio streaming business, pointing to a significant increase in consumers’ use of streaming services and record numbers of streams being served. According to the mid-year report, which focuses only on the U.S. market, on-demand audio streams surpassed the 7 billion figure for the first time ever during March of this year.
That’s audio streams, to be clear – not just music.
That is, the term “audio” also includes non-music streams like spoken word recordings and podcasts – the latter of which has also seen rapid growth.

SoundCloud is in Trouble

Jason Tate Jul 6, 2017

Bloomberg:

SoundCloud Ltd. is cutting about 40 percent of its staff in a cost-cutting move the digital music service says will give it a better financial footing to compete against larger rivals Spotify Ltd. and Apple Inc.
SoundCloud, which in January said it was at risk of running out of money, informed staff on Thursday that 173 jobs would be eliminated. It had 420 employees. The company’s operations will be consolidated at its headquarters in Berlin and another office in New York. Offices in San Francisco and London will be shut.

Guess I should start giving serious thought to where I’d host the podcast if they go under.

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Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment

Jason Tate Jul 3, 2017

Katie Benner, writing for The New York Times:

Their stories came out slowly, even hesitantly, at first. Then in a rush.
One female entrepreneur recounted how she had been propositioned by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist while seeking a job with him, which she did not land after rebuffing him. Another showed the increasingly suggestive messages she had received from a start-up investor. And one chief executive described how she had faced numerous sexist comments from an investor while raising money for her online community website.

How Instagram Uses AI to Block Offensive Comments

Jason Tate Jun 30, 2017

Nicholas Thompson, writing at Wired:

The algorithms that resulted were then tested on the one-fifth of the data that hadn’t been given to DeepText, to see how well the machines had matched the humans. Eventually, Instagram became satisfied with the results, and the company quietly launched the product last October. Spam began to vanish as the algorithms did their work, circling like high-IQ Roombas let loose in an apartment overrun with dust bunnies.

Tumblr’s Unclear Future

Jason Tate Jun 29, 2017

Brian Feldman, writing at New York Magazine:

The future of Tumblr is still an open question. The site is enormously popular among the coveted youth crowd — that’s partly why then-CEO Marissa Mayer paid $1 billion for the property in 2013 — but despite a user base near the size of Instagram’s, Tumblr never quite figured out how to make money at the level Facebook has led managers and shareholders to expect.

I haven’t read a Tumblr blog regularly since Property of Zack closed down. I haven’t even logged into my account in quite a while now. What’s the main Tumblr use case these days?

MarsEdit 4 Beta

Jason Tate Jun 29, 2017

Daniel Jalkut has announced the beta for MarsEdit 4:

It’s been over 7 years since MarsEdit 3 was released. Typically I would like to maintain a schedule of releasing major upgrades every two to three years. This time, a variety of unexpected challenges led to a longer and longer delay.
The good news? MarsEdit 4 is finally shaping up. I plan to release the update later this year.

I’ve used MarsEdit for quite a while and I used to use it to publish to my original Chorus.fm Tumblr blog. Once I moved to WordPress for Chorus, I’d made so many minor tweaks to the system and my workflow that it didn’t quite do all I needed to anymore. However, this update looks like it’ll be adding in a bunch of features that may let me use it again for posting. That’d be exciting.

Reports: Pandora CEO Tim Westergren Plans to Step Down

Jason Tate Jun 26, 2017

Peter Kafka, writing for Recode:

Pandora co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren plans to step down as the streaming music company’s leader, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.
Pandora hasn’t selected a replacement for Westergren, sources say; he will likely stay on at the company he founded 17 years ago until a new CEO is in place.

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Spotify ‘Sponsored Songs’ Lets Labels Pay for Plays

Jason Tate Jun 20, 2017

Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch:

Spotify is now testing a new “Sponsored Song” ad unit that a company spokesperson tells us is “a product test for labels to promote singles on the free tier.”
Instead of appearing as obvious ad banners like Spotify’s existing ads, labels can pay to have Sponsored Songs appear on playlists you follow or potentially elsewhere on the service. These can be targeted to appear to users with matching listening tastes so they fit alongside their other music. And these Sponsored Songs will be instantly playable and saveable instead of requiring an initial ad click first.

It’s an interesting idea. My first thought was that music listeners really fucking hate when people mess with their playlists/catalog, but I wonder how many of those die-hard music listeners don’t already subscribe to the paid tier of Spotify to begin with? (The paid tier doesn’t have these ads.) A few places are referring to this practice as “payola:”

This is the basic equivalent of payola, the old and illegal tactic where labels would pay radio stations to play their music. If the advertised songs are clearly labeled as paid advertisements, Spotify’s feature might be technically legal, but the effect will basically be the same.

I don’t think I’d go that far.

Apple Announces Podcast Updates

Jason Tate Jun 12, 2017

Apple has announced some new podcast updates. Jason Snell, over at Six Colors, has a good rundown:

The other big news out of today’s session is for podcasters (and presumably for podcast advertisers): Apple is opening up in-episode analytics of podcasts. For the most part, podcasters only really know when an episode’s MP3 file is downloaded. Beyond that, we can’t really tell if anyone listens to an episode, or how long they listen—only the apps know for sure.
Apple said today that it will be using (anonymized) data from the app to show podcasters how many people are listening and where in the app people are stopping or skipping. This has the potential to dramatically change our perception of how many people really listen to a show, and how many people skip ads, as well as how long a podcast can run before people just give up.

Apple’s Keynote is Full of Goodies

Jason Tate Jun 5, 2017

Apple kicked off their developer conference this week with a slew of announcements in their keynote. A bunch of the Macs got speed-bumps, the new iMac Pro looks lust-worthy, and iOS 11 has a whole bunch of new features specifically designed for the iPad.

Then there’s the new HomePod speaker. It’s pitched as a great speaker that includes Siri.

Some quick thoughts:

I’m glad to see Apple dedicated to updating their Mac line-up with new processors and little speed-bumps when available. This gives me faith in the Mac platform going forward.
While the name of the new macOS, “High Sierra,” is sure to be the butt of a lot of jokes, I like that it signifies a bug-fix and more small improvement release.1
That iMac Pro with the black accessories burns me at my core with envy. I want one. That price tag puts it outside of my grasp for now though. I’m sure a lot of “pros” will be happy to see these kinds of specs in a new machine.
The iPad specific updates to iOS 11 look fantastic. They look to be moving the iPad more toward to Mac in terms of what it can do productivity wise. Multi-tasking, file management, and drag and drop are all things we take for granted on a Mac, but I think bringing them to the iPad in a new way is far better than just trying to shoehorn a touch interface onto the Mac. It actually made me want an new iPad with an Apple Pencil. I yearned for something like this in college.2
The HomePod looks interesting. I think pitching it as a great speaker first is a smart marketing move. It sets expectations. A great speaker that works with Apple Music and does some Siri stuff? That’s enticing to me. I like my Amazon Echo, but the speaker isn’t great and it doesn’t integrate with my Apple Music account — that’s two great selling points for me right there. It’s on the pricey side (no shock there), but this feels like the kind of device I’d love to have in the living room to play music with, and if the multi-device syncing is as good as advertised, I think I’d look to this before a Sonos system. I’m intrigued. The sound quality will be the make or break moment for me.
The Safari browser will be shipping with the ability to stop auto-play videos. It’s interesting to me how much of Safari and Chrome are having to be devoted to basically “fixing” so much of the gross bullshit websites are being filled up with today. Not a good sign for the web.

Now let’s hope they fix some of the Bluetooth issues I see on a daily basis.↩
My laptop was so heavy I couldn’t even take it to class comfortably. Fuck I’m old.↩

Google Chrome Will Automatically Block Annoying Ads

Jason Tate Jun 2, 2017

George Slefo, writing for Ad Age:

Google’s Chrome browser will soon come with preinstalled technology that will block the most annoying ads currently marring the web experience, the company confirmed on Thursday.
Publishers will be able to understand how they will be affected through a tool Google is dubbing “The Ad Experience Report.” It will basically score a publisher’s site and inform them which of their ads are “annoying experiences.”
At the same time, Chrome will give publishers the option to force a choice on people running their own ad blocking software: whitelist the site so its non-annoying ads can display or pay a small fee to access the content ad-free.

I’m assuming Google’s annoyingly shitty ads will display just fine? I think I’m fine with the move to build this into the browser, but I think Google’s own ads, specifically their tracking capabilities, are just as big a problem as the ones that dance all over my screen on Alternative Press’ homepage.

Mossberg: The Disappearing Computer

Jason Tate May 26, 2017

Walt Mossberg has penned the last column of his career for Recode:

But just because you’re not seeing amazing new consumer tech products on Amazon, in the app stores, or at the Apple Store or Best Buy, that doesn’t mean the tech revolution is stuck or stopped. In fact, it’s just pausing to conquer some major new territory. And, if it succeeds, the results could be as big or bigger than the first consumer PCs were in the 1970s, or even the web in the 1990s and smartphones in the first decade of this century.

Thanks for everything Walt!

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Destroying Internet Freedom

Jason Tate May 24, 2017

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

The seventy-five-page document (PDF) released today by the FCC represents the clearest view yet of Ajit Pai’s point of view on what ISPs offer, how to regulate providers, and what he sees as the Commission’s role in making sure that the open web continues to thrive. And, in short, it’s a crock of shit.
I anticipate that Karl Bode and Jon Brodkin will explore this proposal — titled “Restoring Internet Freedom”, like a gigantic middle finger to anyone who truly cares about freedom on the internet — on a much deeper level than I can, but I’d like to present a few excerpts for your review.