Once or twice a year, it’s important to take a stroll through your settings and make sure nothing is going on that you aren’t aware of. It only takes about ten minutes to conduct what I refer to as a “digital health checkup”, and there are a lot of things that could go awry if your settings aren’t right, so follow along with this handy guide to make sure you’re doing everything you can to protect yourself from things like data loss, security concerns, and privacy issues. While this is an outline for people who have Apple products (I don’t have enough hands on experience with Android devices to offer a comprehensive guide), many of the settings I suggest modifying are found on Android devices as well, they may just be worded slightly differently. Without further ado, open up your settings app and let’s get started.

This guide was made using iOS 13.2.3, so you’ll want to make sure you’re at least on iOS 13.0 for this guide to make the most sense to you.

Apple ID

First things first, tap the big banner with your name on it to check all your Apple ID settings. This is a really important section, because your Apple ID is what makes 90% of the things on your device work to their full potential. Under this page, there are a few things to check.

• Name, Phone Numbers, Email — Here, you just want to take a quick peek and make sure that it has your correct name and contact info. If it doesn’t, update it.

• Password & Security — Your Apple ID is one of the most important things I’m going to tell you about. Make sure you know your password, and make sure it’s a strong one. If you aren’t good at remembering passwords, don’t worry. Just come up with a secure one for now, and write it down so you don’t forget. We’ll come back to a better way to store your passwords in a bit.

• Payment & Shipping — This tab is another quick check; just make sure the saved shipping addresses and payment info are correct.

• Subscriptions — This is where you can see things that Apple charges you for on a recurring basis and cancel any subscriptions you no longer want. For example, this is where you’ll see in-app purchase subscriptions like Apple Music, as well as your iCloud storage plan.

The next three headings are all organized under the Apple ID section, so get cozy.

iCloud

While you’re still under the Apple ID section, we’ll want to look at your iCloud settings. This is without a doubt the most important page of settings you’ll need to wrangle in.

At the top, it shows a bar with your iCloud storage. iCloud storage is how a lot of data is saved on your phone, and is what enables it to magically stay in sync across your Apple devices. If your iCloud storage is low or you’re out, its extremely important to upgrade your storage plan. This can feel a little nickel and dime-y of Apple, but they’re truly providing a useful service here (besides, your phone probably cost $700+, what’s another $12-$36 per year to keep it running optimally?).

Below the iCloud storage section is a big list of apps with toggle buttons. There are a few that lead to other menus, but we’ll cover those in a minute. The rule of thumb with the toggles is that everything should be turned on. Assuming you don’t share an Apple ID with anyone, go ahead and flip every toggle to the on position; this makes sure that even if you don’t have a backup of your device, that content will still be kept safe, as well as be kept in sync across your devices. The most important ones are obviously going to be contacts, messages, calendars, iCloud Drive, and notes. It’s worth pointing out that if you don’t have an iCloud email address, turning that switch on will prompt you to create one. We’ll talk more about email later, but it’s a good idea to have an iCloud email account, so go ahead and set one up.

• Photos — Of the few options that lead to menus, Photos is the first. Under this menu, you’ll want to make sure that iCloud Photo Library is turned on. This is what will save your photos if anything happens to your device, and it’s why it’s so important to make sure you haven’t run out of iCloud storage. You’ll also want to select “Optimize iPhone Storage” over “Download and Keep Originals”. This can save you a lot of storage space on your device, and you’ll still be able to see all your photos just like you always could, they just take an extra second to load the full resolution version. It’s worth enabling, especially if you don’t have a lot of extra device storage (local, on-device storage is different from iCloud storage — it’s a hardware component of your phone, and it can’t be upgraded — you can see how much local storage your iPhone or iPad has under General>iPhone Storage).

• Keychain — This menu just leads to a simple toggle. Turn it on. It may have you go through a short setup process, but this is well worth the minute it takes to do so. We’ll talk more about iCloud Keychain later and how it can remember all your passwords for you.

• iCloud Backup — As long as you have all the other toggles turned on, having a backup isn’t quite as important as everyone thinks, but still, having a belt and suspenders never hurts. Go ahead and turn iCloud backup on.

Find My

This is where you can control whether you’re sharing your location with your friends, update which device you share your location from, and temporarily (or permanently) disable sharing.

Family Sharing

If you want to be able to share your iTunes and App Store purchases, have a shared calendar and reminders list, all use the same iCloud storage plan, and share your location with your family, you can set up family sharing. This feature has a lot of benefits, but one drawback is that everybody’s iTunes and App Store purchases go through one person’s payment method. For more info on setting up family sharing, go here.

That’s all we need to do under the Apple ID section. All of the remaining settings you’ll want to check are found under the main settings page, so go ahead and head back there.

General

Another quick one. Under the “General” tab, check these few things.

• About — Make sure your iPhone is named something like “Broc’s iPhone”, rather than the default “iPhone”. This is important so people can recognize which device belongs to you when using features like AirDrop.

• Software Update — I’ve already mention software updates once, but they’re very important. If you have a pending software update, do it. Also, make sure you’ve enabled automatic updates so you don’t have to start them manually in the future; your device will take care of it for you in the middle of the night when new updates become available.

• VPN, Profiles — Scroll down to the bottom of the “General” tab, and if you see a button that says “VPN” or “Profiles”, tap on it. If you don’t recognize the profile or VPN that’s been installed, remove it immediately. Scammers will sometimes try to talk people into installing these because they can provide dangerous access to everything you’re doing on your phone. If you don’t see either of these tabs at all, that just means you don’t have any to worry about.

Face ID & Passcode, Touch ID & Passcode

Make sure you’ve set up a strong passcode and are using Face ID or Touch ID. Biometric data, including your facial recognition and fingerprint scans, are ONLY stored on your device in a Secure Enclave. They’re never shared with Apple, never sent to iCloud, and never shared with your apps. They make your device much safer from theft and unauthorized access, and the features are so fast and work so well that you hardly notice they’re there.

Emergency SOS

This is a relatively new, potentially lifesaving feature that allows your phone to come to the rescue if you’re in danger. It provides a fast way to call emergency services, as well as share your location and send an SOS message to designated emergency contacts when the feature is used. Just make sure you’ve taken a minute to designate those contacts and know how to engage the feature if you ever need help. It’s easy to set up, but if you need some guidance, here ya go.

Privacy

This is the section that will take the most time, but it’s because it’s one of the most critical. For each of the sections below, when you tap on that menu, you’ll be presented with the list of your current apps that have requested access to that particular hardware element or type of data. After adjusting these settings, you’ll be more aware when apps send those white pop up boxes asking for access to your location or camera, and be able to make more informed decisions about whether to allow that access or not.

• Location Services — First, you want to be using location services, but you want to be smart about it. Scroll through the apps that have requested access to your location, and decide which ones truly need that access to function. Apps can offer up to four location access options: never, ask next time, while using the app, and always. There are almost NO apps that need always on access to your location, and you should automatically be suspicious of any that request it. This comes down to your individual judgement, but almost all of my apps are set to “never”, while some are on “ask next time”. A handful of min are allowed access “while using the app”, but almost none are given “always” enabled access.

• Contacts — Apps like Facebook will ask for access to your contacts so they can create networks of everyone you know. This is obviously bad, so you should almost always turn off access to your contacts for every app.

• Photos — A lot of apps will abuse having permsission to your whole photo library. If they don’t need it, cut off their access.

• Bluetooth — If you don’t know why an app needs bluetooth, turn it off. Bluetooth can be used to track your location even if you’ve already denied that same app access to your location.

• Microphone — There are a lot of apps that ask for microphone permission, but very few actually need it to work properly. Scroll through this list and turn off everything that doesn’t have an obvious need to hear what’s happening around you when you use that app.

• Camera — Same deal here: a lot of apps abuse camera privileges (Facebook just got caught doing so). If an app doesn’t absolutely NEED access to your camera to work properly, turn it off.

• Advertising — Under this menu, make sure you turn on “Limit Ad Tracking”. This is a feature that Apple built to throw invasive advertisers off your trail, and make it harder for companies to spy on you and track your activity across apps. There’s no downside to enabling it, but there’s a huge upside.

Wallet & Apple Pay

I would encourage everyone to set up and use Apple Pay in stores, online, and in apps. It’s much safer than using a normal card because it requires authentication before allowing payments to be processed, and it doesn’t give merchants your real name or card number, so you would be totally protected from breaches like the one that affected millions of Target customers a few years ago. Plus, Apple Pay is a lot more convenient and the transactions process about four times faster than waiting on your chip card to sit in the payment terminal.

Passwords & Accounts

This is that bit I was promising about making it easier to keep up with your passwords. Since you’ve already turned on iCloud Keychain, this is where it becomes useful. Under the “Passwords & Accounts” menu, you can tap “Website & App Passwords” to view all the passwords you’ve saved to your iCloud Keychain.

• Autofill Passwords — Make sure this is enabled, and your device will automatically fill in your sign in information on apps and websites where you’ve told it to remember your login info. You’ll never have to memorize another password, besides your Apple ID password, which is the master password that protects all of the ones in your keychain (so again, make sure it’s very secure!).

Mail

I personally use a few different email services, but I use iCloud as my main account. It’s a lot safer and more private than services like Gmail or Yahoo!: those companies read through your emails and use the content to send you targeted ads, whereas Apple will never read or share the contents of your inbox. You don’t have to switch all at once, but it’s a good idea to get away from companies like that. In any case, there is one specific setting to adjust no matter which accounts you use.

• Load Remote Images — Ensure this setting is disabled. Having it turned on can allow people and companies who send you emails to know when, where, and how many times you opened their messages using a deceitful technology called “surveillance pixels”. If a sender sends you an email that includes images you DO want to load, you can enable them with one tap for that specific email, rather than having it on by default.

And thats it, your Digital Health Checkup is complete! This may have been more than ten minutes of adjustments for some folks if your device was particularly messy, but for most it’s a quick process of fine tuning that can make your device a lot safer, help it run better, and provide you with some useful features you may not have been taking advantage of. As a former Apple employee, I feel qualified to say that this is a comprehensive overview of the most important and sensitive settings your device has. If you’ve followed along with this guide, you can feel confident that you’re doing everything you can to protect yourself and your data. Should you have questions or run into any issues adjusting your settings, feel free to reach out!

Frozen is the type of iconic film that has such a strong cultural presence that it’s difficult to escape. Despite its near omnipresence in DVD players, Target toy aisles, and happy meals, it doesn’t seem like anyone really got sick of Frozen in the past six years since its release, which is a testament to just how charming it was. It was an absurdly likable film made by talented artists. It had an uplifting message, fun songs, a solid plot, and it was visually interesting.

While I certainly liked Frozen, I’m about a decade and a half removed from their target audience, so I probably wouldn’t have seen Frozen II in theaters if it weren’t for a gaggle of little cousins that brought me along, however, I’m glad I went.

Frozen II was a strong sequel, and the box office proves it; according to Disney, it had the biggest global animated debut of all time. Like the first, this movie also has a good message and enjoyable music, was created by the same group of gifted artists, and is even more visually appealing.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning

As far as the plot goes, I don’t want to give away too much, but suffice it to say that the story was complex and fast moving without being overly dense. I particularly enjoyed the whole “Avatar Elsa” twist. It also teaches kids the value of looking at history for yourself and making your own decisions about the truth, rather than blindly accepting what you’ve always been told.

The music was the first film’s greatest strength, and while no song in the sequel lived up to “Let It Go”, that was such an extremely high bar that I didn’t really expect them to clear it, and I don’t think they set out with the goal of outdoing themselves. However, there are more songs in this movie that could be enjoyed without immediately seeing the movie in your head.

Idina Menzel again has the strongest song in the movie, “Into The Unknown”, while Johnathan Groff’s 80s style “Lost In The Woods” is a close second, for me. If you’re checking out the album, Panic! At The Disco’s cover of “Into The Unknown” is solid, too. I wish they’d given Kristen Bell more songs because I really like her voice, but oh well. Also, the folky, Nordic sounding vocals throughout the film were terrific, and I’m glad they were able to finally explain the music from the first film’s opening credits in a way that fit the story.

Frozen II is a strong sequel. The two films each stand on their own but complement one another nicely. Should Disney make a third? Probably not. Should you drop what you’re doing and run to the theater to see this one? Also probably not. But should you tag along if you get the chance? For sure.

I’m sure this won’t be as predatory to users as their last few attempts were.

In case you aren’t caught up, Facebook has had multiple products lately which were designed to harvest data from those they conned into using them, including the “Onavo” VPN service and the “Facebook Research” app. Both of them used shady data collection tactics where they wedged themselves deep into the settings of the devices they were installed on, and then funneled information about almost every interaction that users had on those devices back to Facebook to be analyzed and sold.

Jay Peters, writing for The Verge:

The company also says it won’t share information from the app to third parties or share your Facebook Viewpoints activity on Facebook.

Facebook says a lot of things; you’d be an idiot to believe any of it. Only an absolute fool would install this new “Viewpoints” app.

Food for thought: if a company is willing to pay you to share data with them, especially if it’s data that seems benign, imagine how much that data must actually be worth. They don’t care about your individual answers, they care about being able to manipulate people at scale. There’s proof that it works, and they’re willing to pay for the data that enables that.

It’s rare that President Trump deserves praise, but I felt it was in order when he announced that he was banning flavored cigarettes. As it turns out, he isn’t banning them because it wasn’t politically popular and he doesn’t have a fucking spine. From the New York Times:

Under pressure from his political advisers and lobbyists to factor in the potential pushback from his supporters, Mr. Trump has resisted moving forward with any action on vaping.

I find this supremely annoying. Everyone with a brain can piece together how vaping isn’t good for you, and Trump’s proposed ban would’ve been an excellent way to dial down the attractiveness of the practice to those who aren’t using it as an alternative to smoking.

Trump’s supporters will probably try to play this as a win for civil liberties, but then why weren’t they expressing concerns about civil liberties in September when the ban was announced? I don’t think that’s where their concerns truly lie; the truth is that vaping is simply popular enough among Trump supporters that cracking down on it would lead to unavoidable political fallout:

[Trump] is concerned about his chances in 2020, and allies working for the vaping industry have told Mr. Trump of battleground state polling of his own voters that showed the issue costing him support. […] The poll, which surveyed battleground state voters who vape, showed negative results for Mr. Trump if he went ahead with a ban.

It’s pretty sad that this is the issue upon which Trump fans would be willing to withdraw their support. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s almost as if they’re easily hoodwinked by powerful people who don’t have their best interests at heart, and boy, do they have options.

There are many displays of patriotism that occur during a football game (which often border on nationalism and militarism), and I've always assumed they were the prerogative of the NFL and therefore funded by the league. I was shocked to learn that our military actually foots the bill for these demonstrations, such as when the flag is stretched across the field before games and during halftime, special events like flyovers, and most recently, all the desert brown “Salute to Service” hoodies worn by players on the sidelines of last Sunday’s games.

As a patriot, I was outraged upon learning this information; I’ve written to my legislators to express my disapproval of the practice, and I recommend that anyone who supports our troops do the same. I’m a big football fan and I love going to games, but we’ve got to be honest with ourselves — the NFL is frivolous compared to the military — there’s absolutely no reason for us to divert funds which could be used to improve facilities and increase pay for our service members to finance wasteful and unnecessary marketing ploys for an organization made up of millionaires. While this is obviously a case of mismanaged tax dollars, I believe it’s symptomatic of a deeper problem in our society.

Sport has always been closely associated with masculinity, and football — a very physical competition between men wherein success is dependent upon the team’s ability to work together using strength, agility, and strategy to accomplish a goal — can be seen as a manifestation of masculinity. 

Unfortunately, masculinity in America has recently been receiving a lot of criticism, because it’s become interwoven with a violent brand of militarism (see: Masculinity and Militarism). The NFL realizes this and they’re using it to their advantage: their marketing team is savvy enough to see that drawing on the militaristic aspects of sport and trumping them up through the aforementioned displays creates a spectacle capable of engaging millions of men for whom football fulfills a need to connect with a more deeply masculine side of their identity, further ensnaring them in the idea of a masculinity that is predicated on militarism, which in the current political climate, can be easily mistaken for nationalist aggression.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but in that case, I find it puzzling that sporting events (which, as mentioned previously, possess an inherent masculinity) are the only types of large public events where these overly patriotic displays occur. If they were truly about celebrating our country and reverence for those who serve, why would these displays not occur at other events that AREN’T inherently masculine, like fairs, concerts, or parades? The key here is that the NFL knows there is a financial benefit to taking advantage of the militarized perversion of masculinity that many have been hoodwinked into accepting.

I’m not arguing that it’s bad for men to engage with or celebrate their masculinity, nor am I arguing that patriotic displays have no place in sport. In fact, I think we should take more opportunities to elevate favorable manifestations of masculinity, as well as to participate in patriotic displays which serve as reminders that we're ALL Americans with a shared set of values. The two are not mutually exclusive: as an Eagle Scout, I feel qualified to say that Boy Scouting is a good example of a program that celebrates masculinity and incorporates mildly militaristic practices that instill a deep respect for country (and actually leads many young men to serve) without conflating the two or perverting either.

The bottom line is this: if the NFL wants to have these displays, they should have to pay for them. It’s not the tax payer’s responsibility to buy “salute to service” hoodies for the millionaire athletes on the sidelines of a football game, and if they’re going to capitalize on the sacrifices made by our troops, they should at least have the dignity not to take money from those same troops to finance their disrespectful and socially detrimental marketing ploys. 

I’ve said this before, but American men need to take a moment for some introspective analysis. For many American men, masculinity has become increasingly militarized in recent years, and that can be extremely dangerous. Let me start by clarifying that I’m not here to pedal the belief that masculinity is inherently toxic — though it can become perverse when left unchecked, such as in cases where men feel like violence is a useful way to assert their manliness; we all know that guy who brags about how many fights he’s been in — I think masculinity generally serves a useful purpose in how our society organizes itself and how individuals understand themselves, and allows for a certain level of cultural stability. Plus, it has had undeniable evolutionary benefits.

A common, positive aspect of masculinity is the man’s role as a protector, but that can be taken to an extreme, and I believe that’s what’s happening in cases where civilian men voluntarily adopt an arbitrarily militarized persona. Many men have bought into a sheepdog mentality where their masculinity is related to their ability or duty to defending others. The trouble comes in when these men don’t acknowledge just how boring everyday life is for most people in America. Rather than working to defend others from common, tangible threats, they spend their time obsessing over what they would do in various, wildly improbable scenarios to protect people (but importantly, only those whom they deem as worthy of their protection) from imagined threats of impending violence/warfare on American soil; it’s a self-aggrandizing exercise that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when they prematurely escalate situations, consciously or otherwise, to live out their grizzly, heroic fantasies (often in situations where violence could’ve been avoided entirely).*

These men aren’t difficult to spot. They have American flags, rebel flags, and “don’t tread on me” flags everywhere. They have camouflage on everything, and they typically drive obnoxiously large and boisterous vehicles. They’re probably ashamed of their attractions to men, their small wieners, or both. They have preoccupations with excessively deadly firearms and other weapons of war (I’m not talking about your uncle who hunts, I’m talking about that nut at the pawn shop who has a closet full of illegally obtained automatic weapons and hand grenades). Additionally, they may well be police officers or first responders. Whether they occupy one of those roles or not, they’re all but guaranteed to harbor an obsessive degree of respect for police officers (and armed service members), as well as fire and EMS workers, to a lesser extent.

One only has to look to Nazi Germany to see how a militarized idea of masculinity can lead to widespread violence. The notion of defending one’s country can easily be mistaken as being congruent with xenophobia: defending your country does not equate to opposition to anyone who is foreign or different. On the other hand, we can look to Boy Scouting as an example of a program that uplifts masculinity while toeing the line between instilling a deep respect for our country that actually leads many young men to service, without resorting to the dangerous notion that masculinity can ONLY be achieved through service (which many who haven’t served interpret as a call to nationalist aggression).

American men who have been ensnared by that perverse misrepresentation of masculinity need to realize that while defending loved ones is a desirable masculine quality, it is foolhardy to preoccupy ourselves with preparation for a war that will likely never come, especially while plenty of real threats exist which we could direct our energy toward neutralizing, from public health issues like vaping and obesity, to privacy issues like Facebook and others companies profiting from unethically collected data, to societal issues like intolerance and the lack of credible media sources. While we focus our attention on reinforcing our masculinity through displays of aggression and militarization, we allow the real threats that endanger our loved ones to flourish.

*Graeme Wood made this point first.

UPDATED: 08/29/20, 14:34

Erez Yalon, reporting for Checkmarx:

After a detailed analysis of the Google Camera app, our team found that by manipulating specific actions and intents, an attacker can control the app to take photos and/or record videos through a rogue application that has no permissions to do so. Additionally, we found that certain attack scenarios enable malicious actors to circumvent various storage permission policies, giving them access to stored videos and photos, as well as GPS metadata embedded in photos, to locate the user by taking a photo or video and parsing the proper EXIF data. This same technique also applied to Samsung’s Camera app.

In doing so, our researchers determined a way to enable a rogue application to force the camera apps to take photos and record video, even if the phone is locked or the screen is turned off. Our researchers could do the same even when a user was is in the middle of a voice call.

Android devices have always been user hostile, but this example is startling. If you have an Android device, it is truly time to switch.

I’ll admit, I’ve always had iPhones, so it’s easy for me to say that Android users should switch teams. I have friends who’ve always had Androids, and we occasionally rib each other over our loyalty to one brand or the other, but this is a lot bigger than that; I’m no longer suggesting that they switch out of jest, now I’m making those recommendations because I care about them and I don’t want to see them taken advantage of by devices they think they can trust.

I don’t care what team you picked, I don’t care what team I picked, the truth is that, at a technical level, one of these systems was built from the ground up in a way that prevents bad actors from gaining unfettered access to your device’s camera, microphone, and GPS, and the other was not.

President #DonaldTrump holds notes while speaking to the media before departing the White House for Texas 📷: Mark Wilson #QuidProQuo pic.twitter.com/9Ee3tqKL8Z

— Getty Images News (@GettyImagesNews) November 20, 2019

I just hope they’re giving him the washable Crayola markers.

Matt Egan, reporting for CNN Business:

Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven — one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you'd find on the surface of the sun.

The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution.

Seems like this could be a real game changer. I don’t mean to sound uneducated, but my only concern is that a fourth of the temperature of the sun’s surface sounds a bit warm; are we sure that’s not gonna cause any unintended global heating?

At $4.99/month, Apple’s new TV subscription is an interesting proposal. On one hand, it’s crazy cheap compared to other streaming services. On the other hand, you currently only get access to about a dozen shows, as Apple doesn’t have any sort of back catalog; it’s just their brand new, original content.

Don’t get me wrong, the shows I’ve watched so far were really well made, and they were engaging. I’ve really enjoyed “The Morning Show” and “For All Mankind”. Both shows have one hour episodes that are compelling enough that I remember to come back to the app every Friday to catch the new episodes. The Apple TV+ catalog seems to focus on dramas, but there is a variety of content, ranging from a nature documentary, to a thriller, to a “Snoopy” cartoon. I’m also pleased to see that Apple has taken a very hands off approach to regulating their catalog — it doesn’t seem that they’re censoring anything for the sake of maintaining a “family friendly” rating — by all accounts, they appear to have given the artists free range for creative expression.

Apple’s venture into original video content had a shaky foundation, though, let’s not forget. A moment of silence is due for Apple’s seemingly-forgotten, previous endeavors with original TV content, “Planet of The Apps” and “Carpool Karaoke”… These shows were released a couple years ago as an odd benefit for Apple Music subscribers, and they still exist in the music app, for better or for worse. While “Carpool Karaoke” without James Corden was a completely uninteresting flop, “Planet of The Apps” was actually a cool idea, and I wish they’d at least tossed it in with the available Apple TV+ content rather than leaving it to rot in the music app, which didn’t make a lot sense in the first place. Oh well, I’m glad they didn’t give up.

The bottom line is this: you should give Apple TV+ a shot. Maybe the shows that I really enjoyed won’t be the ones for you, but there is a lot of variety, and it’s all very well produced. On top of that, Apple is clearly committed to succeeding in this arena, because they’re dropping billions on producing this content, and have a lot of other cool shows slated for the coming months. You get at least a week for free, and anyone who buys a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV will qualify for a free year: there’s no reason not to try it.

Bonus points for Apple TV+: from a privacy perspective, Apple is leagues ahead of their competitors (I’m talking about you, Netflix), who pay very close attention to what you’re watching, use that data to profile you, and then sell you out to other companies that will use that data against you to hit you with targeted ads. Apple doesn’t do that.

I was hoping to write the opposite headline. If you’re not up to speed, last night the Steelers played the Browns, and with less than ten seconds remaining in the game (which wasn’t close enough to matter, with the Browns have 21 points and the Steelers 7), Myles Garrett delivered a late hit to Steelers QB Mason Rudolph. After exchanging words on the ground, Garrett ripped off Rudolph’s helmet and attempted to bash him in the head with it, making some degree of contact which, fortunately, didn’t result in a life-threatening injury for Rudolph. Watching it was enough to make my blood boil.

I don’t care what names Rudolph may have called him or what he could’ve said about his mother while they were on the ground, what Garrett did was disgusting. Sure, tempers can run high in any competition, but there’s absolutely no excuse for behavior like that which so callously endangers another player’s life. In my opinion, Garrett shouldn't have been suspended, he should’ve had his contract terminated and been banned from the NFL. If you wanna play bush league football, you don’t deserve to be in the big leagues. The act of removing someone’s helmet is indecent because the only reason to do so would be to cause them significant physical harm, and that move alone should be enough for a multiple game suspension, much less using it as a weapon to bludgeon the player’s then-unprotected head. This wasn’t just a case of poor judgement on Garrett’s part, it was criminal, and Mason Rudolph would’ve been well within his rights to pursue legal action for an unwarranted attack that amounts to assault with a deadly weapon. If not legal action or expulsion from the league, Garrett absolutely deserves to have his public perception indelibly tarnished.

Honestly, based on the several late hits and multiple instances of obvious charging on the Browns’ part in this game, I think the whole team should be suspended for the rest of the season. There is no excuse for any team to have such an irreverence for the safety of their opponents.

The Facebook app is recording everything your camera captures while you’re using the app, whether you’re using the camera or not. Do we really think this is a bug? I don’t. A few things to consider:

1. Facebook’s privacy policy leaves the door open for them to record data from the camera even when you don’t press the shutter button.

2. Guy Rosen, Facebook’s VP of Integrity (lol), said on Twitter that this “sounds like a bug”. Ahem, ‘sounds like’? Shouldn’t Facebook VPs know if this was a bug and be able to immediately give a negative or affirmative answer as to whether this is expected behavior for the app?

3. Facebook hasn’t made an official statement addressing this issue.

So, that sucks, but what can you do? You can delete your Facebook account, first and foremost. If you’re not ready to take that step, at least go into your device’s privacy settings and disable the Facebook app’s access to your camera and microphone.

#deletefacebook

This is my 100th post on CopyrightBro, so I wanted to do something a little bit special to mark the occasion. For those who may be wondering how this website was named, let me offer a brief explanation. I’m 23 years old, a recent college graduate, and a man; someone who fits those identifiers can be known colloquially as a “bro”. The “copyright” part of the name originates from the premise of the site: it’s a place where I can publish writing, photos, and other pieces of intellectual property for which I possess the copyrights. Also, if you move the “©” symbol to the end of the word “bro”, it spells “Broc” — clever, I know.

In any case, it should be obvious to anyone looking at this site that, despite my sometimes unperfect grammar and the occasional typi, I find words to be extremely important; they make effective communication possible, and sharing ideas is an essential aspect of the human experience. Therefore, I decided that for my 100th post, I wanted to share a collection of words that mean a lot to me. What follows is a small collection of quotes that I’ve found particularly profound, quotes which have influenced the way I perceive the world, quotes which have shaped the decisions I’ve made; hopefully you’ll find reading these words to be as exciting as I found the process of curating them (a process which is ongoing — this page will be updated). Without further ado:

No man is such a craven that the influence of love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born.

— Plato

Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth; sooner or later, that debt is paid.

— Valery Legasov

It ain’t about how fast I get there, ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side, it’s the climb.

— Miley Cyrus

Rocky Top, you’ll always be home sweet home to me, good ole Rocky Top, Rocky Top, Tennessee

— The Osborne Brothers

What does it say about the world we live in, if an adult man is told how and whom he should love?

— Unknown

Here's to the crazy ones. […]

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

— Rob Siltanen

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

— John F. Kennedy

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

— Mark Twain (or not?)

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

— C. S. Lewis

And you understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars, and why I’ve spent my whole life trying to put it into words

— Taylor Swift

What unites people?

Armies? Gold? Flags?

Stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.

— Tyrion Lannister

The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave.

— Ronald Reagan

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

— Ulysses S. Grant

While we have our eyes on the future,
History has its eyes on us.

— Amanda Gorman

“Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic”

— J. K. Rowling

UPDATED: 01/21/21; 10:04

Taylor Swift’s latest album dropped in August, and I’ve been sitting on my thoughts about it for a while, giving them some time to mature.

First, my general feelings:

I was extremely excited for this album in the months leading up to its release, but in the week or two right before it came out, I started to lose a little bit of hope. After all, despite my glowing initial reviews of the first two singles, “ME!” and “You Need To Calm Down,” neither of them had a lot of replay value; I soon got tired of hearing both of them. “ME!” was too simplistic and juvenile, and YNTCD was just too political. When “The Archer” was released, I was still extremely excited, and it got me thinking that the album would have a wide range of sounds, which turned out to be completely accurate. But when the “Lover” single came out, I was taken aback by how distinctly country the beginning of the song was, which turned out to be a hint that the whole album would be extremely sonically diverse. Listening to the “Lover” single made me happy, and I’m sure it made Joe Alwyn happy, but it’s not particularly relatable for fans who haven’t found their happily ever afters (in fact, quite a few songs ended up being too specific to be relatable).

When the album was finally released and I started listening to the first track, all of the hope that had been waning away in the weeks before was immediately restored. Unfortunately, it wasn’t too many tracks later before some of that hope began to wane again. Overall I like the album, but I’ll be the first to admit this isn’t her finest work. The album has a LOT of lyrics, and it’s frankly too long. At least two songs, if not three or four, could’ve been left out altogether and the album would’ve been better for it.

There were several recurring themes that I found quite interesting, yet they’re still largely unexplained. Examples include: the color blue, religion, and patriotism.

Also, Lover is not at all sonically cohesive. It has often been compared to Red on account of it’s strong lyrics, but this is another thing they have in common. The order of the tracks is astonishingly bad, especially given how well they could’ve been placed. Seriously, a couple of the transitions gave me whiplash.

Song by Song:

“I Forgot That You Existed”: 7.5/10

This song was fun and instantly revitalized my excitement for the album the first time I heard it.

“Cruel Summer”: 9/10

One of the strongest tracks, hands down. At this point on the first run through, I was convinced the album was gonna slap. It reminded me a lot of 1989, which was, in my opinion, Taylor’s strongest record.

“Lover”: 5/10

This song is sweet and the type of thing you’d write for someone you want to spend your life with, so I don’t think you can fault her for writing it, it just isn’t super relatable for a lot of people, as I mentioned before.

“The Man”: 0/10

Taking things a step further than “unrelatable” is “The Man,” which down right alienates half the people in the world, and soured the whole album, and to an extent, her entire discography. This song tries to make a political/social point, and it sucks for that reason alone, but the misandrous nature of this track is what makes it my least favorite Taylor Swift song ever. To hear her tell it, being a man makes life a breeze. Nobody will ever question your credibility if you have a wiener. Being a man makes you complex and cool. All men have unshakable confidence and are always socially dominant alpha males with no fear. Nobody ever criticizes a man’s sexuality or paints their virility in a negative light (which is especially false for same sex attracted men — did her ignorance simply allow her to overlook that demographic, or did she determine that the lyric doesn’t apply to that group because they’re not really “real men” — in any case, it’s very problematic). She seems to think that men don’t deal with real problems and that being a man makes life easy, which is a notion I find personally hurtful. She doesn’t owe me anything and she can write whatever she wants, but as a long time fan and vociferous defender of Taylor Swift, this song made me feel extremely unappreciated. If she wanted to comment on how the media portrays her, she should’ve referred people back to “Blank Space,” because that was the purpose of that song, it didn’t presume hurtful things about entire groups of people, and she’s never going to top it anyway.

“The Archer”: 6/10

I’d been hoping for a devastatingly sad song on this album, and this is as close as we got. I’m not mad, it’s extremely introspective which I think is terrific, but I don’t think anyone is crying their eyeballs out over it.

“I Think He Knows”: 8.5/10

This is one of the album’s high points, and it kicks off the strongest segment of songs in a row (roughly tracks 6-11). The song is just fun.

“Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince”: 5/10

I have an unfortunate feeling that this may be the “So It Goes…” of this album. They’re both track 7 and they’re both sonically dull and to my untrained ear. However, they couldn’t be more opposite from a lyrical perspective. “So It Goes…” was very flat and repetitive, while MAATHP has a ton of lyrics and metaphors, which certainly work in its favor.

“Paper Rings”: 5/10

This feels very mid 00s, kids’ movie montage-y. It reminds me a lot of Walking on Sunshine and Daddy Daycare. It has a few good lyrics and is fun and upbeat, but I just don’t love it. Half the time, I end up skipping it before the end. It’s like musical Splenda: sweet but fake.

“Cornelia Street”: 6.5/10

This is another track that almost feels too specific, but it is very sweet and has grown on me since I first heard it. I just can’t figure out if she wrote this song about a romantic or platonic relationship.

“Death By A Thousand Cuts”: 7.5/10

This song isn’t really fast, but it’s a little faster than I expected. I really like some of the lyrics though, particularly this one:

You said it was a great love, one for the ages, but if the story’s over, why am I still writing pages?

I don’t know enough about how music is produced to know if this is a possibility, but if so, I think a mashup with “All Too Well” would be incredible.

“London Boy”: 4/10

The song sounds fun, but its another very specific song that people who haven’t been to London won’t be able to appreciate as much. Also, the weird line about a “Tennessee Stella McCartney” seems like a corporate decision to sell more ugly, airbrushed-looking t-shirts that nobody asked for.

“Soon You’ll Get Better” (feat. Dixie Chicks): 2/10

This song might have people crying, but illness and death weren’t exactly the themes I was imaging when I said I wanted something devastatingly sad. I’m surprised this track made the album actually, it seems too private to belong. It feels like you’re witnessing something indecent, as if you’ve just walked into a room to find someone mourning the death of a loved one. Call me heartless, but… skip.

“False God”: 4/10

This song is interesting. It’s a lot more, uhh, sensual than anything Taylor has made in the past. I don’t love it and I don’t hate it, it just feels different.

“You Need To Calm Down”: 4.5/10

In regards to my statement that this song is too political: don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Taylor’s contribution to the fight for LGB equality with this track. Also, I see how YNTCD fits with the overall theme of the album being “a love letter to love itself.” It’s just that you can only listen to a song with such a strong political message so many times before that’s all you hear, and I don’t think that makes for great music, regardless of how catchy it is or even how you feel about the message.

“AfterGlow”: 6.5/10

A very solid track; introspective and entertaining.

“ME!” (feat. Brendon Urie): 2/10

As I said before, this song is a bit juvenile. It’s simplistic and just doesn’t really fit with the others on the album; not what I would’ve picked for the lead single.

“It’s Nice To Have A Friend”: 1/10

The beginning of this song sounds like it should be opening credit music for a day-in-the-life documentary about a resident of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. It only gets worse from there. It’s slow and boring, and I skip it without hesitation.

“Daylight”: 9/10

This is probably the best song on the album. It’s reflective and refreshing, it doesn’t try too hard, and it’s a great conclusion for the album that this could’ve been.

In Conclusion:

This album just doesn’t hit the same as her previous ones. There were a couple good tracks, but there were also some really bizarre choices made, and overall, the album wasn’t very relatable. As I mentioned earlier, it’s her prerogative to write whatever sort of songs she wants to, and it certainly seems that this album was written for herself, but in turn that makes for an album that’s far less relatable than any of her past records.

Had Lover been 3-4 songs shorter, more sonically cohesive, and had less of that “musical Splenda” vibe, it would be really good. But as things stand, the album lacks replay value. I’m already tired of it, and I don’t feel obligated to keep listening to it. In fact, Taylor is on a clear downward trend since 1989, and given the slap to the face dealt by “The Man,” I’ve decided to take a step back from TS. I’m still a fan, but I don’t feel the same level of emotional commitment I did before this album. At least we have “Beautiful Ghosts” to look forward to.

UPDATED: 11/9/19, 17:00

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s Cybersecurity Advisor, apparently had to go to the Apple Store to have his iPhone unlocked after he forgot his passcode. Giuliani confirmed this account, reported by NBC News’ Rich Schapiro, on his Twitter.

Forgive me for believing that nobody who is seventy five years old should be in any sort of IT or cybersecurity position. This gets right back to the issue of boomers not quite understanding what’s happening around them, yet remaining as cocky as ever.

As a former Apple Store Specialist, this was always the most annoying sort of customer to deal with, because in almost all cases, they knew nothing about the technology upon which they relied, other than that they could shuffle into an Apple Store to demand some person younger than them make it start working again after they’d forgotten something as elementary as a four-digit PIN. I can also vouch for the legitimacy of the photos presented by NBC: that really is what the internal system looks like on the iPad for technicians handling Genius Bar appointments.

Sahil Kapur, quoting Nancy Pelosi in a Bloomberg* article:

“What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan,” Pelosi said at a roundtable of Bloomberg News reporters and editors on Friday. “What works in Michigan works in San Francisco — talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.” […]

“As a left-wing San Francisco liberal I can say to these people: What are you thinking?” Pelosi said. “You can ask the left — they’re unhappy with me for not being a socialist.”

Pelosi has a good point here, that points to a larger problem in American politics. Yes, someone needs to get Donald Trump out of the White House, but we’re never going to heal the divide between the left and right if we don’t stop the pendulum of political power and public opinion from swinging so wildly, back and forth every few years. Installing an anti-Trump “savior” won’t necessarily make things better, it will just swap the roles of which group gets to be the indignant victims and which gets to be the vindicated idiots. We’ve got to collectively take steps toward one another, not run in opposite directions.

*Quick note to remind readers that last year, Bloomberg was the publication that put out “The Big Hack”, a sensational piece by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley which claimed that many American companies, including Apple and Amazon, were having data siphoned from their servers by a tiny, Chinese military unit designed chip which had made its way onto their motherboards during production in Chinese factories without the companies’ knowledge. All parties involved denied the claims made by the Bloomberg reporters after conducting internal investigations which yielded no evidence that such tampering had occurred. Bloomberg has offered no evidence to corroborate their “reporting”. By all accounts, it seems like The Big Hack was a big farce. Until Bloomberg retracts the story or corroborates it, their institutional credibility must be questioned.

I was extremely skeptical and vocally critical of the AirPods Pro when they were first announced, but after testing them for twenty-four hours, I’ve completely changed my mind.

I’ve never had a terrific experience with noise canceling headphones, and I’ve never really found the foam/rubber tipped, in-ear style headphones to be comfortable, so those were my two primary concerns with AirPods Pro. I’m pleased to report that those are both non-issues.

The silicone tips have been designed in such a way that they snap onto the AirPods, rather than enveloping a metal or plastic barrel with a cylindrical tube of rubber or foam on the inside of the tips, as has been the case with every other pair of rubber or foam tipped headphones I’ve used. This design change allows the tips to provide a more natural seal, and they’re much more comfortable because they omit the hard metal or plastic at the center of the tip.

In regards to the noise cancellation, Apple offers two, equally impressive modes: noise cancellation, and transparency. The noise cancellation mode works extremely well, blocking out almost all of the noise in a crowded Starbucks. The transparency mode is more interesting, because it uses the microphones to transmit some of the sounds from your environment through to your ears, while blocking other sounds, so that I couldn’t hear the noise from fans in the gym, but I could clearly hear the guys clanking beside me. Transparency mode is great for listening to music in cases where you still want to be aware of your surroundings, like crossing the street or in a busy gym with lots of heavy objects moving about. The noise cancellation mode is great when you want to really get in the zone or want to relax a bit. The work they’ve done here is remarkable, and as John Gruber quips on Daring Fireball, it really is audio AR.

The force sensor on the stem of the AirPod is also far more responsive and easier to use than the previous generation’s double tap option for controlling Siri and music playback. It’s a very Apple-y feature.

I’m giving these new AirPods Pro a 9/10, because $250 is a bit expensive, but I was very impressed by the functionality and fit.

UPDATE: 11/4/19, 12:50;

Time seems to agree with me. They make some really good points in their review, and even remark that the AirPods Pro are Apple’s best product since the iPad.

Geoffrey Fowler, writing for The Washington Post:

Fingerprinting happens when sites force your browser to hand over innocent-looking but largely unchanging technical information about your computer, such as the resolution of your screen, your operating system or the fonts you have installed. Combined, those details create a picture of your device as unique as the skin on your thumb.

This piece provides a good explanation of the predatory practice of online fingerprinting.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer on how to prevent websites from identifying you via fingerprinting, but some devices and web browsers are safer than others. As Fowler explains, Apple devices using the Safari browser are the most protected from this threat. If you have an iPhone, Mac, or iPad, you should definitely be using Safari — it’s already the fastest and most battery efficient browser for Apple products — because they’ve built in a lot of protections to keep users safe from fingerprinting. Fowler also points out that Google Chrome has almost no protections in place to prevent fingerprinting; if you use an Android phone or a Windows computer, you should use Firefox instead of Chrome as your default browser.

Also, props to Fowler for calling out his own publication for using fingerprinting on their website; that’s true, courageous journalism.