Technology - Google News

Windows preview brings Android notifications to your PC - Engadget
Phil Schiller says Apple pulling third-party screen time apps due to privacy abuses, as Tony Fadell calls Screen Time ‘a rush job’ - 9to5Mac
Nintendo has 'nothing new to announce' when it comes to first-party 3DS titles - GoNintendo

Windows preview brings Android notifications to your PC - Engadget

Posted: 28 Apr 2019 05:28 AM PDT

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Microsoft has fulfilled one of the larger promises behind its Your Phone software -- if you're willing to experiment a bit. The developer has released a Windows Insider Preview that displays Android notifications on your PC. If you allow apps to display alerts, you can find out about an important message or status update without reaching for your handset. You can clear notifications one at a time or all at once, and anything you dismiss on your PC will be reflected on your phone.

The feature is gradually rolling out to Windows Insiders using at least the 1803 (RS4) build. You'll also need a phone running Android 7.0 Nougat or newer and a minimum of 1GB of RAM. You can't respond to notifications (at least not yet), but this could be particularly vital for Snapchat and other apps that don't really have a presence on the desktop.

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Phil Schiller says Apple pulling third-party screen time apps due to privacy abuses, as Tony Fadell calls Screen Time ‘a rush job’ - 9to5Mac

Posted: 28 Apr 2019 02:02 AM PDT

Apple has systematically removed many time-tracking / parental control over the last year, leading to a bevy of upset developers whose businesses have been crippled, and even an antitrust lawsuit.

In an email to a MacRumors reader, Apple's Phil Schiller explains that Apple is pulling third-party screen time apps that abused the MDM (mobile device management) system to track all data and activity on a children's device to be able to present that information to parents who have downloaded these apps. Schiller says this is a privacy issue which cannot be left to continue, and Apple will not reject apps that use alternative methods other than MDM.

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The timing of Apple discovering the MDM abuse does line up almost too conveniently with the launch of Apple's own Screen Time features in iOS 12, but realistically Apple has no real incentives to push Screen Time over third-party offerings.

However, there is a nuance to Schiller's words. He welcomes developers to continue making parental control apps that are not based on MDM profiles. The problem is, making such a service results in a significantly limited user-experience. The iOS app sandbox prevents a normal app from gathering phone-wide data like which apps were opened and for how long, or support 'downtime' behaviours like blocking an app from working after a timeout.

Schiller names an app called Moment – Balance Screen Time as an example of a great app for parents. This app relies on user's manually screenshotting their Battery screen every day to upload to the Moment app, which uses optical character recognition to read the rows of most used apps. It's a big hack and nowhere near as seamless as the always-running-in-the-background, official, Screen Time.

At the end of the email, Schiller says:

Protecting user privacy and security is paramount in the Apple ecosystem and we have important App Store guidelines to not allow apps that could pose a threat to consumers privacy and security. We will continue to provide features, like ScreenTime, designed to help parents manage their children's access to technology and we will work with developers to offer many great apps on the App Store for these uses, using technologies that are safe and private for us and our children.

To enable third party apps to offer the same kind of features as Screen Time, Apple would need to offer sanctioned an iOS API framework that let third-party apps read the device logs of time spent in apps, notification counts, pickups, etcetera. Usage of this framework would be walled of by the standard iOS Privacy permissions system, a la Location Services dialogs, requiring the user to explicitly allow access for the third-party app to get this information.

This may be what Schiller is referring to when he says 'we will work with developers to offer many great apps on the App Store for these uses, using technologies that are safe and private for us and our children'. However, officially, Apple is yet to announce any such features.

In the midst of this debacle, former Apple exec Tony Fadell has tweeted about the state of Screen Time on Apple's platforms, calling the feature 'a rush job'. Fadell also wants Apple to release a sanctioned API for access to the digital health data.

2/ Apple's Screen Time still has many holes & deficiencies. Their v1.0 solution was a rush job & it's very non-intuitive to use. Apple should be building true APIs for Screen Time so the "privacy" concerns are taken into account instead of limiting users App Store choices. https://t.co/rGRwB6HT4r

— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) April 28, 2019

9to5Mac previously reported that Apple would be bringing Screen Time to macOS with 10.15, the next version of Apple's desktop OS set to be announced at WWDC in June.

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Nintendo has 'nothing new to announce' when it comes to first-party 3DS titles - GoNintendo

Posted: 26 Apr 2019 03:04 PM PDT

All of these "problems" are of Nintendo's own doing. And the worst offender, which you failed to mention, was their absolute and utter lack of ANY good marketing for the damn thing in NA. At any point. It is mind boggling how the same company that was able to market the DS and Wii SO well, suddenly can't advertise properly to save their (system's) life.

It cannot be argued that, from a sales perspective at least, the Wii U was Nintendo's biggest failure of a console. And as a gamer, for whom the Wii U was (unfortunately) the ONLY system I've ever pre-ordered and got Day 1, yeah, I wound up feeling pretty badly burned by the thing. It didn't even wind up getting it's own, exclusive, original Zelda. That wound up getting the Twilight Princess treatment and moving to Switch. BotW still coming out on Wii U was an afterthought, and far far too late, when the system could have used a "system seller" like that, years prior.

And that's the other major issue that you failed to mention. The Wii U never, at any point, had a single game that was a MUST HAVE "Killer App", that made people NEED to own it. Not even Mario Kart. You're right, Wii U did have some very good games. But it was lacking Wii Sports, or a Mario that really drove sales, or that big exclusive Zelda that people just HAD to have. Even with Smash Bros., Nintendo sabotaged themselves, also releasing a lesser version for DS for no good reason. I don't think Smash Bros. is THE "killer app" that would have pulled the Wii U out of the ditch, but as a system exclusive, that you could get NOWHERE else, in any other form, it at least could have helped.

Frankly, as a system owner, it felt like Nintendo basically gave up on Wii U fairly quickly. Yes, they kept making games for it. But they put minimal effort, it certainly seemed, into actually making the console a success. So yeah. ALL of that is on them. 100% of it. I was one of those who was initially mad at third parties bailing on the Wii U back in 2013/2014. But honestly, who could blame them? If your games aren't selling on the system because the system itself isn't selling, what are you going to do, keep losing money?

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