John Voorhees

5429 posts on MacStories since November 2015

John is MacStories' Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015, and today, runs the site alongside Federico. John also co-hosts four MacStories podcasts: AppStories, which covers the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, which explores the fun differences between American and Italian culture and recommends media to listeners, Ruminate, a show about the weird web and unusual snacks, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about the games we take with us.
@johnvoorhees@macstories.net
@johnvoorhees.macstories.net
voorhees@macstories.net

Apple Challenges UK’s Demand for iCloud ‘Back Door’→

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Apple has filed a complaint against the UK government seeking to overturn a secret order demanding that it create “back door” access to iCloud. Apple has not commented on whether it received an order because doing so would violate UK law. Instead, the company announced that it would remove Advanced Data Protection, the feature that enables end-to-end iCloud encryption, from the devices of UK customers. However, that move did not end the dispute because the UK order reportedly applies not just to the iCloud accounts of UK citizens but also anyone outside the UK that British security services have a judicial warrant to investigate.

The Financial Times’ sources say that Apple has appealed the British government’s order to the Investigatory Power Tribunal, a judicial body that handles disputes with UK security services. If accurate, the challenge is believed to be the first of its kind. The Financial Times further reports that a hearing on Apple’s challenge to the order may take place as early as this month, although it is unclear to what degree the hearing will be made public.

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Apple Announces the New iPad Air and Base Model iPad

The new iPad Air. Source: Apple.

The new iPad Air. Source: Apple.

Apple today introduced an update to the iPad Air featuring the company’s M3 chip and a new base model iPad with the A16 chip and more starting storage at 128GB.

According to Apple’s press release, the new Air is almost twice as fast as the model with an M1 chip and up to 3.5 times faster than the Air with an A14 Bionic chip. Apple elaborates:

The powerful M3 chip offers a number of improvements over M1 and previous-generation models. Featuring a more powerful 8-core CPU, M3 is up to 35 percent faster for multithreaded CPU workflows than iPad Air with M1. M3 features a 9-core GPU with up to 40 percent faster graphics performance over M1. M3 also brings Apple’s advanced graphics architecture to iPad Air for the first time with support for dynamic caching, along with hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing. For graphics-intensive rendering workflows, iPad Air with M3 offers up to 4x faster performance than iPad Air with M1, enabling more accurate lighting, reflections, shadows, and extremely realistic gaming experiences.

The new model is available in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray and in 11-inch and 13-inch screen sizes. The Air also has 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options.

The 11-inch iPad Air starts at $599, and the 13-inch model starts at $799 with education customers getting $50 off those prices. The cellular models add $150 to the price tag. The iPad Air can be preordered today for delivery and in-store pickup on March 12th.

The base model iPad. Source: Apple.

The base model iPad. Source: Apple.

As for the base model iPad, it comes in blue, pink, yellow, and silver, starting at $349 for the 128GB model. Cellular costs an additional $150, and education customers get $20 off. The other storage options for the iPad update are 256GB and 512GB. Like the iPad Air, the base model iPad can be ordered today for delivery March 12th.

AppStories - Ep. 425 - 32 minutes

The Missing Middle

FedericoJohn

This week, Federico and John examine the widening gap between consumer and enterprise apps, asking what happened to prosumer and small business app market.

On AppStories+, John doesn’t buy Apple’s explanation of why the iPhone 16e doesn’t have MagSafe and has an email-adjacent theory about task managers.

[Subscribe here.](https://staging.macstories.net/podcasts/appstories/plans)

Subscribe here.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 425 - The Missing Middle

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32:14

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This episode is sponsored by:

  • Incogni – Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code APPSTORIES with this link and get 60% off an annual plan.

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The Latest from Comfort Zone, MacStories Unwind, and Magic Rays of Light

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Comfort Zone

Chris has a first look at a new iPad stand, Matt is ready to drop out and have some fun, and a our Coldplay challenges pushes some of the gang to their limits.

MacStories Unwind

This week, Federico questions my character before discovering the joy of audiobooks, while I have been listening to more podcasts and have a question for listeners about which TV show he should watch next.

Magic Rays of Light

Devon and Jonathan highlight the premiere of German-language medical drama Berlin ER and go immersive arctic surfing on Apple Vision Pro.

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How I’m Learning Japanese 14 Days In→

Brendon Bigley, my co-host on NPC: Next Portable Console, is getting married soon and planning a honeymoon to Japan. Before leaving, he and his partner decided to learn Japanese together. In doing so, Brendon has done a ton of research, quizzing friends who have learned the language, and trying a long list of resources, which he’s published on Wavelengths.

I love the idea that one of the biggest steps in learning Japanese is to learn how to learn Japanese:

So there are about one million different ways to go from here, and because every person is different it means you’ll need to try a few different things to get going. Many people say the first step of learning Japanese is to learn how to learn Japanese, and I’d say that’s almost correct. The first step, once again, is to learn hiragana and katakana… second is learning how to learn Japanese.

The reason things get so wild here is that people will say that you need to start learning kanji, vocab, and grammar simultaneously and it’s not not true. Learning even the most basic grammar helps make sense of sentence structure, which enables you to discern kanji and vocab words in the context of real written language. Conversely, the more kanji and vocab you learn the easier it will become to intuitively parse new grammatical rules as they’re introduced.

Learning how to learn something is a crucial step to any new and complicated undertaking but often gets overlooked. That’s because, as Brendon points out, everyone’s path to expertise in anything is different. It pays to listen to the advice of people you trust, as he did, but it’s just as important to listen to yourself and understand how you learn.

Brendon’s story has great advice for learning anything, but in particular, it’s packed with resources for learning Japanese. There are Mac and iOS apps, web apps, Android apps, textbooks, and more. As someone who has a kid traveling around Tokyo and Kyoto right now, I immediately sent him the link. It’s a great one to file away if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Maybe I’ll try to learn Japanese some day.”

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