Since 2012 I have been publishing a set of books each year for Apple's new operating systems. At first there were two separate books, one that focused on the iPhone and iPad, and another that focused on the Mac. Starting in 2021 this changed from two books, down to a single book that covers the new features for all of Apple's operating systems. I have written another book for this year and this year's book is macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and watchOS 11 for Users.

Last year I made a slight change to the availability of the book, by making only one digital version available. This was from Apple. The same is true for this year as well. There is no digital right management (DRM) on the ePub from Apple, so you can use read the ePub on any compatible device. However, there is one other minor change to this year's book.

It is possible that you may not have noticed the subtle change in the title. The end now has the phrase "for Users". This is a switch from last year, where it was "for Users and Developers". This year's book does not have a developer section. There are a couple of reasons for this change. The first is because there has not been any feedback regarding the developr section. The second, and more important reason, is that developers typically do not use books to find example code. Instead they use sites like Apple's developer site, Stack Overflow, and Hacking with Swift in order to learn about the new features. So, this year there is no developer section.

Even without a developer section, there is still quite a bit of information within the book and here is the blurb describing the book.

Each year Apple releases new versions of its operating systems. This year’s releases of macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and watchOS 11 are full of features including customization options, a new way to manage passwords, and some changes for messages.

On iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 there are new customization options for your Home Screens, including placing apps wherever you would like, a new dark mode for icons, and you even have the ability to tint all of your icons. Within Messages you can add some effects to your text, including adding bold, italics, underline, or strikethrough. But that is not all. You can also add motion effects that will give even more animation to your text. For those that communicate with those on another platform, RCS is now supported as well.

watchOS 11 adds some new features, like time and location-based widgets appearing on the Smart Stack. Along with this, there is now a Vitals app that you can use to get a quick glance at some overnight metrics like heart rate, blood oxygen, and sleep duration. Fitness is an import aspect of the Apple Watch, you can now pause your rings and maintain your streaks. This is a good addition for those times when life gets in the way and you want to keep your streaks going.

Apple has introduced their take on artificial intelligence and this can help you create your own emoji, rewrite text, and even generate images. For anything that needs to be sent to the cloud, it will go to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute platform.

These are just some of the topics covered in macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and watchOS 11 for Users. There is bound to something for everyone, no matter what your level of expertise.

You can pre-order it from Apple. You can pre-order it today and it will be available when iOS 18 is released to the public. A paperback and hardcover version are forthcoming as well.

Since 2012 I have been publishing a set of books each year for Apple's new operating systems. Since 2021 I have written a single book that covers the new features for all of Apple's operating systems. I again have written another book for this year and this year's book is macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and watchOS 10 for Users and Developers.

This year is a bit different for the book. There is only one digital version and it is available from Apple. Just as with previous years, there is no digital rights management (DRM) on the book. Therefore, you can use read the ePub on any compatible device.

Apple continues its cadence of yearly releases for its operating systems. macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and watchOS 10 are chockful of features.

Widgets are becoming na increasingly important part of Apple's entire ecosystem. Widgets come to new places on all of Apple's platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS and watchOS. Widgets are now available on the Lock Screen of the iPad and on the desktop of macOS Sonoma. Health continues to be a big focus with a few new features like Time in Daylight, Screen Distance, State of Mind logging, and a new Journal app.

watchOS 10 is a big release with new interaction methods, a new design language, full screen backgrounds, and a couple of new watch faces, Palette and Snoopy & Woodstock. If you a cyclist, there are some new enhancements just for you, like Bluetooth sensor connectivity and a Live Activity on your iPhone while cycling.

Developers get a bunch of new features as well, like Swift Macros, which power features like SwiftData, a new @Model macro, improvements to both Xcode and Documenation Catalogs, and even some additional Swift Packages, including Foundation. Beyond this there is a new Push Notification Console for developers to test and debug their push notifications, which includes some generation and validation tools.

These are just some of the topics covered in macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and watchOS 10 for Users and Developers. There is bound to something for everyone, no matter what your level of expertise.

You can pre-order the book from Apple Books. The price for the book is $4.99. It is available for pre-order today and will be released when iOS 17 is released.

Just about 5 years ago now, I purchased a 4.2GHz 27-inch iMac with a 3TB Fusion Drive. I opted for the Fusion drive due it being the most amount of storage that I could get at the time and besides that SSD prices were, and still are, a bit much for the same amount of storage.

With a Fusion Drive it is actually two physical drives. In my case a 128GB Solid State Drive and a 3TB 7200 RPM traditional spinning hard drive. These two drives are logically connected to be presented as a single drive to macOS. The SSD portion would store the operating system files as well as the most commonly used files and data, to provide it the fastest access possible, meanwhile everything else would be stored on the traditional spinning hard drive.

Back in April I purchased a Mac Studio and the Mac Studio is now my primary computer. I opted to get the Mac Studio after the screen on my iMac began to crack. It started as a small 1-inch crack but it since expanded quite a bit, to be 18-inches. As a side note, the crack has not expanded at all, which I find interesting. Since the iMac has been replaced, I was only being used as a device to test out the macOS Ventura betas.

I went to install macOS Ventura developer beta 3, but the update never installed, at least I do not think it did. When I went to check on it the screen was entirely black. The machine was still running because the backlight of the iMac screen was on. So, I held down the power button to force the iMac to turn off. I waited a bit, turned it back on and let it boot. Once at the login screen I went to login, but as soon as I attempted to actually login, the entire system just froze giving the infamous beachball.

Knowing that there was obviously something wrong, I rebooted into Recovery Mode and ran First Aid on both drives and their APFS containers. If I scanned each one of them on its own, they would both pass. Having both of them passed, I figured it might just be a software problem and re-installing macOS should fix it. I attempted to re-install macOS Ventura, but it presented me with an error that stated that the drive failed with some S.M.A.R.T errors. Typically, when drives have S.M.A.R.T. errors, that means that the device is failing.

This left me with a bit of a quandary. I have an external SSD that has macOS Monterey on it. So, I attempted use that to run Disk Utility and received the same results. It passed the First Aid checks. I thought it could be an issue with the Ventura beta, so I attempted to re-install macOS Monterey. But that also failed with the same S.M.A.R.T. error message. No matter what I did nothing would install. I was still able to access all of the data, which was all on the spinning hard drive.

Ultimately, what I ended up doing was erasing the spinning hard drive and re-partitioning it. After it was partitioned I re-installed macOS Monterey. This worked, because the spinning hard drive did not show any S.M.A.R.T. errors. After it finished the macOS Monterey install, I did the initial setup then I attempted to upgrade to macOS Ventura, but it sat there on 48 seconds remaining for who knows how long. So, I rebooted the iMac and restarted the installation.

The Ventura beta installation did complete and my 2017 iMac is back to working condition, albeit a bit slower than before. That is to be expected though, given that it is a 7200RPM hard drive that is now being used, even for system files. The slowness is acceptable though since it is just for testing and not my daily machine.

Regardless of type of drive, is that they will fail eventually. With that, the one thing I find interesting is the fact that SSD failed before the spinning hard drive. If the spinning hard drive fails, I will likely just hook up the external SSD again and use that. I briefly thought about possibly opening up the iMac and replacing both drives with a single SSD, but it is a lot more work than it is worth, and the procedure to do so, while possible, seems rather daunting.

There have been some stories lately about Apple's AirTag and how they can be used for malicious purposes. Some of these include Silent AirTags on sale online, AirTags being used to steal cars, and AirTags being used to stalk women.

I am not going to argue that they are not being used for these purposes, because clearly they are. Despite these malicious uses, an AirTag can be used for its intended purpose, to find a missing item. The is not a super long story that involves things like diving into a river or anything like that, but it is still an example of their intended use case.

Last May I posted a review of Apple's AirTags. When I wrote the review I was not sure how I would use them and decided to put them on my various keys. At the time it seemed somewhat strange to do so, because my keys normally never leave my sight and are always put back into the same place when I am done with them. Despite this I have kept the AirTags attached to my keys, and I am glad that I did. I have not really had any case when I needed to actually try and locate one of the keys. However, that changed last week.

Living in the northern hemisphere in February means that it is likely that you will see snow, and we definitely have seen our share of snow this season. In particular we had a storm last Tuesday into Wednesday. Two things that typically go with snow are cold and wind. There's a Midwestern saying that goes "It wouldn't be so bad without the wind", and it is 100% true in the winter in the Midwestern United States.

My normal routine is to go grocery shopping at the end of my work week. It being the day after the storm, there was still a lot of snow on the ground, and it was windy and cold. I was returning to my car and pulled the remote to unlock my car out of my pocket. I unlocked the door, put the groceries into my car, and put the cart back in its proper spot. I removed the items from my pocket to find the key that starts my car, I realized that it was missing.

Now, I was at the grocery store, so obviously I had it and I put it in my pocket when I got out of the car to go into the grocery store. I panicked for a second and then realized that I had an AirTag attached to that key, so I should be able to find it.

I started by looking at the "Find My" app to see where the app said the key was. It indicated that it was last seen on the street next to grocery store. I then tapped on the "Items" tab to start locating it.

At first it said that it could not find the key. I started to backtrack to where I had been, so I went back to the cart that I put back, nothing there. As I began walking back towards the car, the app showed a weak signal for the AirTag. At this point I started to play a sound to see if I could locate the AirTag by sound while I walked back to the store. As I was walking back the App started showing that I was getting close and I found the key laying on the ground.

Within 2 minutes of it first finding the signal I was able to find the key. I had dropped it out of my pocket when I pulled the remote out of my pocket to open the car.

Suffice to say I am glad that I did buy the AirTags and that I put them on my keys, because it definitely came in handy.

2007 was a big year for everyone technologically, but a lot of other things happened that year for me as well. Some of these items include:

• Announcement of the iPhone
• Windows Vista
• Joining Twitter (This article)
• Purchase of a 21.5-inch iMac
• Bought the original Apple TV
• Bought a 4GB original iPhone
• Purchased a Black 13-inch MacBook

I thought it would be interesting to go back and look at how those events have had an impact, mostly on me, but on the wider technology world. I did not initially think about writing this post, because it did not occur to me, but in reality it should have. That topic is Twitter, so let us start with Twitter early on.

Early Twitter

Twitter is not that old in terms of social networks. In fact Twitter itself is almost 16 years old. The first tweet written by twitter c-founder Jack Dorsey was written on March 21st, 2006. Twitter began as a service that you could use via text message. In fact, this was why Twitter was originally limited to 140 characters, to take into account any sort of difference in cellular carriers. The idea was to publish what you were doing while out and about, via text message, and then read what others had written on the web. Twitter starting in 2006 meant that this was before the iPhone, before smart phones becoming common place, and definitely before unlimited data on cell phones. However, this was right when many had unlimited text messages, so it was a good time to start such a service.

Twitter started out as a place that comprised of mostly people into technology. This is because the service was shown off at South by Southwest, which is a combination technology and music conference. Twitter was conceived in the era of text messaging. This meant that Twitter was designed with text messaging in mind, and therefore was limited to 140 characters, which is the same as many SMS services provided by carriers.

I happen to join Twitter on January 28th, 2007 at 7:59pm, so just about 15 years ago as this is posted. The time I signed up is well before the service really took off. I heard about it from Justine Ezarik on a podcast, and she was talking about the service. She has been on Twitter since July of 2006. Once Twitter had started to become popular, it began to encounter some issues. In particularly, Twitter had some issues with scaling and early twitter users remember, sometimes fondly, the 'Fail Whale".

Twitter has since improved on this and the times that twitter has failures are few and far between these days, but it still does happen from time to time. Typically it is due to a larger problem, like DNS issues, and often affects many sites not just Twitter itself.

Early in twitter's life you could send and receive tweets via text message. This was a great way of interacting with the service while on the go, because some users did have unlimited texting plans, particularly after June of 2007 in the United States. This is because a new device, the iPhone, was finally available for sale.

The iPhone increased the desire for third party apps. While there would not be any official app support until 2008, that did not stop people from creating apps.

Third-Party Apps

As mentioned earlier, Twitter was also accessible via text message, but Twitter has always had a website where you could see your timeline, send tweets, and send direct message to other users. The website was primary method of using the service early in its lifetime. While Twitter's popularity was increasing over 2007 and 2008, it was not until the official release of the iOS Software Development Kit, or SDK, that third-party clients began to be created.

While the web interface was the most popular way, there was a contingent of users who wanted to use Twitter while on the go and on their iPhone. In order to accommodate this desire, a bunch of third-party twitter clients were created.

Om Malik had a blog post from December of 2008 that had a number of the third-party clients. Having looked at this list there were some that I completely forgot about.

The ability to have third-party clients were made possible through Twitters APIs. This is because Twitter itself did not have its own app and actually wanted developers to create applications to access the platform. Some of the other early Twitter available at the time included:

• Tweetie
• Twitterific
• Echofon
• La Twit

I remember purchasing Tweetie and using that for a while. Tweetie was such a good Twitter client that Twitter acquired Tweetie in April of 2010 to be used as the official Twitter client.

While the early days of Twitter thrived on third-party Twitter clients, the service changed over time to put a lot more emphasis on the official Twitter app. Lately though, that approach has changed again that allows third-party to build comparable clients. No, they are not feature for feature the same, but many of the things that used to be exclusive to the official Twitter client have now become available for third-party apps to adopt if they so choose.

Clients and services are not the only things that have changed, my usage of Twitter has significantly changed over the years.

My Usage

Twitter has changed significantly over the years, both visually as well as how I use it. Twitter initially began as a way of posting things about my day, Over time though that has changed to be more of a place where I get my news. That is not to say that I do not use Twitter for communicating with certain people, I definitely still do use it for that, but it not the primary focus.

As time has gone on though, I ended up building some friendships with those on twitter. Some of those that I have followed early in my time on Twitter I still follow today. Beyond this, I have built up some friendships with those on Twitter. Some of these relationships are more recent than others, but none are more important than others.

Conversely, with Twitter being around so long there have been those that are no longer around. Some because they passed away, but also some left of their own accord due to harassment, or just due to non-usage.

In the early days of Twitter it felt a lot more like a giant group chat. The is because it was primarily used by early technology adopters, so you would be able to keep

There are two features that came about organically, but are absolutely essential on Twitter today. These are mentions and retweets. Mentions on twitter were easily done by putting someone's twitter handle somewhere in the tweet, typically at the beginning. If they were following you they would see the fact that you mentioned them and would be able to respond. Eventually Twitter added official support for mentions and Twitter would not be the same without them.

Early in the life of twitter you could easily be a Twitter completionist, meaning that you would read all of the new tweets from everyone that you followed. There are some that still do this, but even I no longer do this. I do have a list where I try to read every tweet, but sometimes that is too much and I ma not able to do so.

My usage has significantly shifted, particularly within the last few years. I used to be on Twitter a lot more than I am now, constantly interacting and keeping up with the latest developments around the world. Recently though, my twitter experience has been more of a "pop in see what is going on and pop out again". It is no longer my "go to" when I pick up my phone or use my computer. I am not sure why this has changed, but it has.

I have spent a lot of time talking about the early days of Twitter, let us look at where Twitter is today.

Twitter Today

Twitter is no longer primarily a place for just people interested in technology. Now it encompasses a whole range of interest in topics and Twitter has definitely become more mainstream.

If you can think of a topic of interest to yourself, I am sure you can find people who share the same interest. This could be something like the NFL, College Basketball, current news, video games, a tv show, or just about any topic, there is a group interested.

Each social network has its own unique function. Twitter's function is where you can find information about breaking news. Some of the information may not be 100% accurate, but there is a lot of accurate information surrounding the news as well.

Mentioned earlier is that Twitter began to move away from supporting third-party clients and instead opting to focus on their own app, to the extent that there was a great disparity between what features offered to third-parties and what the official Twitter app was capable of offering. The disparities were not just because third-parties did not implement features, but because they could not do so.

Within the last year, at least as of this writing, Twitter has begun changing their stance on third-party clients and has started to offer a whole new API that provides many of the same features that are available in the official Twitter app. There are still some things not offered to third-parties, but this is slowly changing. I suspect there may eventually be feature parity between what third-party apps can offer and what the official Twitter app has, but it will take time.

Closing Thoughts

I am not on that many social networks. I have a Facebook account but I hardly use that anymore. I also have Instagram, but I just view stuff on there and do not post a lot. I also have a Mastodon account and have been trying to use that more, but I do not have many people that I follow, nor that follow me, on there.

I do not have TikTok, nor Snapchat, nor any others. Twitter is by far the social network I use. It's the one I have used the most and also the one that I get the most benefit from. As mentioned earlier, I have built up some really good relationships through Twitter, some of them are local, but most are not. It is not likely that I will stop using Twitter anytime soon, but it is possible that the way I use it may change, but only time will tell. You can, of course, follow me on Twitter if you want.

There are times throughout our lives when particular years tend to be more important than others. For me, one of those years was 2007. A lot of things happened that year, at least for me technologically speaking. Some of these include:

• Announcement of the iPhone
• Windows Vista (this article)
• Purchase of a 21.5-inch iMac
• Bought the original Apple TV.
• Bought a 4GB original iPhone
• Purchased a Black 13-inch MacBook

Over the course of the year, I will look back at each of the events fifteen years after they occurred. Each of the posts will look back at my thoughts, and what has happened in the intervening time.

The first one, previously covered, was the announcement of the iPhone. It was a significant turning point for me in terms of phone platforms. There are instances where a new device can bring complete joy, awe, and inspiration. The original iPhone was that.

However, the iPhone was not available for sale until the end of June 2007. There was a other pivotal, at least to me, item that came out on January 30th, 2007. That product, was Windows Vista. Now, you might be confused given that I only use Macs, why I would be talking about Windows Vista. In fact, Vista was the catalyst that caused me to switch to the Mac.

If you were steeped in technology or even tangentially aware, Windows Vista was not the best release of Windows that Microsoft has released. Vista was an operating system that was released five years after its predecessor, Windows XP.

Windows Vista made some significant changes, like User Access Control, or UAC and Encrypted File System, and including support with the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM.

Windows Vista to this day still has the reputation of being one of the worst, if not the worst, version of Windows every released. While it did improve as the years went on, it could not outlive that reputation of not being a good product.

Along with these was a new Windows Display Driver Model, or WDDM required device driver manufacturers to re-work their device drivers. However, many drivers were not optimized for Windows Vista. Because of these non-optimized drivers, the device drivers would crash constantly, like every 5 or 10 minutes, without fail.

This caused nothing but headaches because the entire system to basically be unusable. The system would not blue-screen, but with the graphics drivers crashing consistently, it would not allow you to effectively do anything on the computer.

I cannot be 100% certain what I did to mitigate the issue. If I recall correctly, I think I ended up changing the theme to be the basic theme, which would disable the advanced graphics features and would allow Vista to actually run. Even with this mitigation in place, I think this entire event put the seed of doubt in my mind about whether or not to continue to use Windows.

It turned out, that less than two months later, in March, I ended up buying the 21.5-inch iMac, but more on that closer to the time that I bought the iMac.

Every year I tend to watch a bunch of Halloween movies, or at least Halloween adjacent movies. I have actually written about the list previously in 2014, 2016, and 2018. If my update schedule held, I would have updated them last year in 2020, but last year was well, not a normal year. So, instead I have updated the list again. There have not been many changes.

Below is the list of movies that I watched this year, in the order that I watched them. The last two items on the list will actually be watched tomorrow, Halloween, because they are family friendly and it is not a problem to have them on if any Trick or Treaters come by.

It is possible that you may be able to find these streaming on one of the available streaming services. However, the links below are for Apple TV and Amazon.

Disclaimer: The links below will provide a bit of a commission if you purchase anything.

The way that we consume media has greatly changed over the last twenty years. At the turn of the century, which seems just like yesterday, we listened to mix-CDs on our Sony Walkman CD players or had MP3s that were either ripped from CDs or obtained via other means. Movies were on DVDs, as Blu-Ray would not come to market until 2006. And there was no streaming media to speak of due to lack of bandwidth, both on the server and consumer sides. Basically, we purchased our media or borrowed it from others.

There were some who had high-speed internet, but this was likely using a desktop that was not equipped with Wi-Fi. One of the most ubiquitous items that everyone has today is a cell phone. Yes, cell phones were available and had just started to become more and more popular, but they were still not as commonplace as today. If you did have a cell phone, you actually used it as a phone and if you were lucky you could possibly have a very basic game or two. Life has changed significantly in a mere twenty years.

Today we have streaming media and subscription services. There seems to be a subscription for just about everything these days. Some of the types of subscriptions available include games, music, movies, apps, and tv shows. The two types of services that most users have a subscription to are for Music and Movies/TV Shows. For music, there are options like Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, among others. For Movies and TV Shows, you can subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu, and Disney+, along with other options.

The shift that we have had over the last twenty years means that we have gone from owning our own media to merely being renters. Having a subscription can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, we are able to see shows that we may not have purchased. This results in us being able to consume more media, which creates more demand, which means more content will be created. Being able to subscribe to a service means that you can dip in and out, and you do not need to make a significant commitment to the service. To provide some perspective for the amount of content available, according to Variety, in 2019, Netflix alone had more new shows than the entire television industry did in 2005. And that is just one streaming service, so you can imagine how many new shows were created in 2019.

With having subscriptions, on an intellectual level, we all know that we do not have perpetual access to media, yet is not always something that we fully understand. We have all had a show that we enjoyed on a service disappear because the rights for that program with that service have expired. This is quite common with movies and TV Shows. Whereas it is not as common with music. However, I have experienced, first hand, a song that gets pulled from a service, yet it does happen from time to time.

I am one who subscribes to fewer streaming and subscription services than most. I have Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Apple Music, and This Old House. I used to subscribe to Apple Arcade, but I cancelled it, but that is another story. The service I use the most is Apple Music. This is because I listen to music throughout the work day.

Now I have had songs that have not been playable, because they were singles and the album that contains the single has been released, so access to the single is removed. In these cases, I just re-add the song and continue one. However, I have not had a song just become completely unavailable before. I went to listen to the song "Never Told a Lie" by Noah Smith using Apple Music and I could not. At first I thought, maybe an album has been released with it on it, but that is not the case.

Next, I was thought, I will go and buy the song. I searched the iTunes Store, could not find it. I then searched Amazon Music, could not find it in the U.S. It is not available on Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, or any other streaming service in the U.S. Even the YouTube video has been pulled. When I did some searching it is possible to purchase, just not in the U.S. You can purchase the song in the UK, Germany, Italy, and many other countries.

While I am generally in favor of streaming services, the times when media is no longer be available, can be inconvenient. Suffice to say, if you want to be sure that some media remains available you will need to purchase it. You will likely want to purchase the items before it is too late.

I do this with movies and some TV shows, but not as often with music. Due to not being able to listen to "Never Told a Lie" anymore, I have taken my own advice and purchased a number of songs that I did not own, but had added to my iTunes library from Apple Music. In all, I ended up purchasing 39 songs. Some of these songs were just singles, so I purchased the entire "album", while others were just songs on albums, so I purchased them individually.

I understand that this is very much a first-world problem, but it is one that you may experience at some point and it is easily avoidable. If you would like to see the list of songs that I purchased, you can do so by browsing the Apple Music playlist.

A millennial is defined as someone who is born between 1981 and 1996. I am a millennial, albeit an early one. If you ask someone to provide one thing that would define a "millennial" it is possible that they will respond with something like "they are constantly jumping from job to job". If you were to look the resume for what one might call a "typical millennial", you would likely see them jumping from job to job typically every two or three years. In this respect I am not a typical millennial.

I got my first job when I was 16 and I stayed with that employer for almost 17 years. This clearly is not typical behavior of a millennial. During my tenure there I did just have a single position, I had four of them. I wrote up a whole post about it when I did change jobs.

During my tenure with my second employer I have managed to automate a number of things so they no longer require direct staff intervention, which has freed up staff time to handle other projects. Along with this, I have created many internal applications that have allowed for more streamlined workflows. Friday was my last day with my second employer.

I was not planning on leaving my second employer, but sometimes the right job comes around at the right time; this is one of those cases. I think my second employer is in a much better position than they were before I started three and half years ago.

Tomorrow I start a new job with my third employer. Similar to my last two jobs, this one is is still related to libraries. I will be doing many of the same things as my previous job, but there is one big addition. I will be working on an iOS app. It will not be a public app, as it will be for internal use. The idea of doing an iOS app was one of the big factors in taking the position.

This new job will be a new adventure for me. While it does have with a bit more of a daily commute, each job has tradeoffs. It is the next logical step in my career. Having been a web developer for my day job, as well as doing an iOS app on the side, I am excited to be able to work on an iOS app for my day job.

Over the past couple of weeks there has been some discussion, and consternation, about Apple rejecting, allowing, and then subsequently pulling the HKMap Live app from the Hong Kong App Store. The controversy stems from the fact that the Apple ultimately pulled the app due to information received from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau. The information provided to Apple is that the app was being used not only to avoid Police, as the makers of the app intend, but also to target police and other protesters. My thoughts on whether or not Apple should have pulled the app are mixed.

Apple cannot just ignore the will of the Chinese government. This is due to Apple's reliance not only on China for sales, but also because their manufacturing relies heavily on China. China has one of the most advanced and integrated supply chains in the world. China's skill not only with manufacturing but also being able to source the quantities needed by Apple are unparalleled.

One day Apple may be able to reduce their dependence on China, and they are making in-roads into being able to do so, but right now it is not currently something that is feasible. Due to their reliance on China, Apple is limited in how it can challenge their will and authority. This is not limited to just China, but China is one of the largest economies in the world and Apple must comply with all laws, including those in China and the Hong Kong territory.

The whole situation has gotten me to thinking about my own apps and books. In particular, whether or not to continue to have them available in the stores of countries that do not meet with my own personal morals.

Because of this I have come to the decision to remove my apps and books from sale within certain territories. These territories are ones that do not meet my personal moral standards. Which countries I have pulled my apps and books are listed below.

• Bahrain
• China (Mainland)
• Colombia
• Laos
• Qatar
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Tajikistan
• Turmenistan
• Uzbekistan
• Venezuela
• Yemen

If additional countries warrant the removal of my apps and books from sale, or if the countries listed above warrant me allowing the sales of my apps and books to continue, I will add and remove the countries as needed.

I take stances in many different aspects of today's society. These include which stores I will purchase from, which websites I will visit, and which company's products I use (You may be able to guess one of the companies in the last category quite easily). One area where I did not necessarily take a standard, was when it came to where I will sell my creations.

I had physical goods, then it would be less likely that my products would not be available in all countries. This is the case with my paperbacks, since they are only available from Amazon in select markets. Most can be ordered through a book store. Because my products are available digitally, I have always wanted to reach the largest possible audience. Therefore, my books and apps have always been available in all countries. But that is changing. I have decided to take a stance and not provide my apps and books for sale in some countries.

This is a moral stance for me, one that I am able to take because it comprises 0.32% of my app sales ($6.14 over the lifetime of my apps) and 0.075%, or $5.60, of my book sales. Removing the apps and books from sale in these countries will not meaningfully affect my income. This is particularly true since the income from my apps and books is not my primary source of income, but I have decided to take this stance. If you do not agree and decide not to support me by purchasing my apps and books, then that is your decision to make.