I Caught the Thief Who Stole My iPhone →

Good PSA piece by Sam Sheffer, writing for The Verge:

We exited the bar and ran across the street. As I was crossing, the blip moved again, appearing to be on a sidewalk corner a block away. My phone was near, but I didn’t see anyone at the exact location Find My iPhone was directing me to.

I then noticed group of people on the street — a man waving a handkerchief at a cab, perhaps trying to flag one down, and three younger guys. The man didn’t get in the cab and instead walked back onto the sidewalk. Something came over me. I cannot explain exactly what, but I knew this was the guy.

Everyone should have Find My iPhone enabled on their iPhone. It's such a life saver when you need it. I told the story about Alex losing her iPhone earlier this year and how we got it back. Sheffer's story is one of dealing with the suspected thief directly. Ours was a little different, in that someone bought the phone on the street within minutes of someone else finding it on the sidewalk. Since I had turned on Lost Mode, the phone's new owner called me and we were able to meet up and retrieve the phone. 

Also, Find My iPhone is pretty easily disabled—if the thief has any idea what they're doing—if you don't have a passcode or Touch ID enabled on your iPhone. Make sure to take that extra step too. iPhones are not cheap to replace.

Overcast 1.1 With iPad Support, Rotation, CarPlay →

Overcast, which is by far my favourite podcast app for iOS, just got its first major update. If you haven't already tried it out, I strongly suggest you download it and take it for a spin. Smart Speed alone makes it a totally worthwhile purchase. 

Pet Peeve of the Week: It's Not a 'Mute' Point, It's a 'Moot' Point!

This one is so bad—but also more rare—I'm not even going to bother looking up what any grammar "experts" have to say about the mistake. It's just straight up wrong. I hear it occasionally, and I just heard someone at work say it last week.

Mute means silent, and nobody has any excuse for not knowing what it means. Everyone sees the word mute in writing every single day on their TV remote, and should directly understand what it means. 

Moot is usually used in the context of a discussion, argument or debate. Here are Dictionary.com's top two results for moot:

adjective

1. open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful: "a moot point."

2. of little or no practical value or meaning; purely academic.

It usually goes a little something like this:

Two or more people are debating some mostly irrelevant point, when someone in the group pipes up and says, "It doesn't matter anyway. It's a moot point."

It is not, however, a mute point.

Lenovo Launches a Blatant Copy of the iPhone 6 →

This one has been making the rounds. Some companies are absolutely shameless. 

Amazon Canada Brings Same-Day Delivery to Shoppers in Toronto and Vancouver →

$6.99 for unlimited items in your cart if you're an Amazon Prime member.

Chris Hadfield's Space Oddity Is Back →

Chris Hadfield:

And now, we are so happy to be able to announce that my on-orbit cover of Space Oddity is back up on YouTube. This time we have a new 2-year agreement, and it is there, for free, for everyone. We’re proud to have helped bring Bowie’s genius from 1969 into space itself in 2013, and now ever-forward. Special thanks to Onward Music Ltd, to the Canadian Space Agency and NASA, to musicians Emm Gryner and Joe Corcoran, to videographer Andrew Tidby, to my son Evan, and mostly to Mr. David Bowie himself. For the countless others who have helped work to bring about a new era of exploration, the art of it sings to us all.

So good.

Costco Now Sells iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, Time Capsule, and AirPort Express →

Small discounts and a 90-day return policy that is much better than Apple's 15-day policy.

'Star Wars: Episode VII' Is Called 'The Force Awakens'

There you have it. I'm pretty pumped. 

Jawbone's New Up3 Is Its Most Advanced Fitness Tracker Ever →

Very interesting to see all these new fitness trackers getting launched now. I assume it has more to do with the holiday shopping season, but I can't help but think that others are trying to maximize sales before the Apple Watch is launched in early 2015. 

I love my Jawbone UP24 in spite of having a few defective units replaced by Jawbone. Hopefully they've got all the QA kinks worked out in advance this time. 

Rogers and Shaw to Launch 'Shomi' On-Demand TV Service Today →

Jane McEntegert, writing for MobileSyrup:

Announced last month as a Canada-only streaming service, Shomi is part of Rogers partnership with Shaw and will be available to Rogers and Shaw customers exclusively. The service offers on-demand access to more than 12,000 hours of content and is launching in beta. It will offer past season of popular TV shows in addition to movies from 20th Century Fox, ABC and Universal Pictures and more via tablets, smartphone, the web, and set top boxes.

I have really mixed feelings about this one. I don't think I'm a fan of my cable company charging my an additional $8.99 per month to watch shows that I've technically already paid for as part of my cable subscription, or might get for free as part of their on-demand offerings. The good news is that you only need to be an internet customer of a certain minimum tier, and not a cable customer to get it. And, they're offering it for 30 days free starting today. 

I'll check it out and let you know how it compares to Netflix. I'm guessing you'd be way better off just using Netflix with a VPN service to unlock the full Netflix library from around the globe.

Stephen Colbert Takes on Gamergate With Anita Sarkeesian →

Stephen Colbert is very funny, as always, and Anita Sarkeesian is very impressive. But, she has a hard time keeping a straight face while Colbert does his thing.

Pet Peeve of the Week: You Mean 'Jibe', Not 'Jive'!

Here we go again. This week's irritating English language mistake is jive. When you say the phrases, "that doesn't jive" or "our numbers don't jive", what you really mean to say is jibe. I'll admit that I made this mistake a bunch of times myself up until about 5 years ago. It's extremely common. In fact, I'd bet well over 50% of the population has no idea that it should be jibe. Seeing as it's so common, I should probably let it slide, right? Nope. Unfortunately, that's not how my brain works. Now that I know the right way to say it, the wrong way bothers me. Sorry.

I guess the real reason it's such a common mistake is that it's something that you really don't see written down very often. It's one of those sayings that is way more common in speech than in writing. And, if you've never seen the phrase written, I could understand how it's pretty easy to mishear the word jibe as jive, and then for that mistake to be perpetuated. So, I'm doing my part to set the record straight in the written form.

Here's what Grammarphobia.com has to say:

However, “jibe” has another meaning that’s not etymologically related to the nautical usage: to agree or be consistent with, as in, “Those figures don’t jibe.” The Oxford English Dictionary describes this usage as “chiefly U.S.”

The word “jive” can be either a noun or a verb, as in “Don’t give me that jive” or “Don’t jive me.” It’s a Jazz Era slang term that usually refers to deceptive or nonsensical talk, though it can also mean jazz music.

There you have it.

Thank You, Tim Cook →

Casey Newton, writing for The Verge:

And that’s the thing. It is one thing for the media to whisper to one another, or to post on their blogs, that the CEO of America’s most valuable company is a gay man. And it is a quite another for the man himself to step up to the microphone, with confidence and grace, and tell us himself. We knew Cook was gay; what we didn’t know is how he felt about it. Or, at a time when being gay is still very much a political act, what he planned to do with it.

Now we know.

There was a time when I struggled to come to terms with myself; when I felt alone; when I scanned the horizon looking for someone to point the way forward for me. There was a time when the only other gay men I knew were the ones I saw in TV and movies, and they seemed nothing like me. It feels embarrassing to say now that what I wanted back then was a role model — someone confident in himself, powerful, a real leader — to give me permission to be myself. But I very much did.

Definitely read the whole thing.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Says He Is Proud to Be Gay →

This was all over the web on Thursday and I'm shamefully late in linking to it.

Tim Cook's op-ed for Bloomberg Businessweek is absolutely fantastic. The CEO of the biggest and most successful company in the world coming out as gay is a huge step to help so many people. 

Tim Cook:

I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.

My reaction to the fact that this even makes news is strangely mixed. I'm so happy that Tim Cook has taken this step because I think it will help many others. But then, I'm also a little disappointed that this would make such big news, because I really wish it didn't matter. It shouldn't matter, and I hope one day sooner than later it doesn't. This is one step closer to that day.

Retina iMac With Retina 5K Display Review →

Today is the day of The Verge links. Check out David Pierce's great video review of the new iMac. It looks amazing.

Tim Cook: Apple Pay Is Already the Leader in Contactless Payments →

John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

One week, and Apple is already the market leader — using the same systems that Google Wallet and whatever else is out there have been using for years. And in retail locations (as opposed to within apps) it only works with one-month-old iPhone 6 devices.

Google Announces Google Fit to Challenge Apple's HealthKit →

This is one of those areas that Google is typically better than Apple out of the gate. I would guess that Google Fit works better from day one. 

Levar Burton Reading 'Go the F**k to Sleep' is the Best Thing Ever

Mr. Reading Rainbow himself. This is just too good. 

[via The Verge]

Fitbit Announces Surge Fitness 'Superwatch' and Two New Fitness Bands →

I've had a couple of Fitbit devices and they're great. I like my Jawbone UP 24, but it is very convenient to have a screen like on a Fitbit to see your steps and other metrics without having to look at an app on your phone.

These new devices look good. We'll see how the watch does once the Apple Watch is out.

'Avengers: Age of Ultron' Trailer

Looks pretty crazy.