2021 was a roller coaster of a year for Apple when it came to privacy. The company hit highs with new privacy features like Hide My Email and Private Relay. Unfortunately, it also took a beating on the privacy front in two instances. When it announced plans to detect images of child sexual abuse on iPhones, privacy experts called the technology “dangerous,” and one that could possibly be exploited by authoritarian governments. (Apple ultimately stopped talking about
The best way to install apps from outside Apple’s App Store was only made possible because Riley Testut wanted to play Pokémon on his iPhone. Testut was still in college when he started building an emulator for playing classic Game Boy games on an iPhone. But when Apple wouldn’t allow the app in its store, he started looking for workarounds. The result was AltStore, which allows iPhone and iPad users to install Testut’s own Delta emulator for old Nintendo games along wi
For years, people have wondered how Apple does it. How does the company innovate the way it does? How does it create such insanely great products that surprise and delight? Few people know the struggle that it’s faced to get there. Like the great Michelangelo, Apple might say, “If people knew how hard I worked to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.” When I joined Apple in 2015 as an HR business partner, I marveled at the technical depth of its genius-leve
In 2010, Kevin Tancharoen shot a short fan film that reimagined the Mortal Kombat franchise for YouTube audiences, hoping to catch the eye of executives at Warner Bros. After a disappointing pair of big-budget cinematic adaptations of the franchise, here was a look that matched the dark feel of the popular video game. Fans loved Tancharoen’s vision, and the internet went wild. Studios, however, basically balked at the project. Sure, Tancharoen landed a minor web series, but tha
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Lilly Singh has had a chip on her shoulder. The YouTube star was one of the earlier successes on the platform, amassing a following of 14 million subscribers who would tune in for her take on social mores and Indo-Canadian culture. Singh parlayed her online success into book deals, world tours, acting roles, and her short-lived late-night talk sh
A trio of tech giants want you to phone in your next password. No, not by falling back to some easily-memorized password, but by using your smartphone to log you into another nearby device of yours, such as your laptop. Google has announced that it would support a passwordless sign-on system in the Android and Chrome operating systems. In addition, Apple and Microsoft said they will do the same in their operating systems and browsers. That will allow you to mix and match platforms&#
The fashion retailer Express, a mall-culture staple, is on a mission to transform itself for the digital era. It manages a flock of social-selling influencers and is using data to personalize the experience of browsing its hot-pink crop tops and sequined statement blazers. The finishing touch on this brand makeover? A partnership with the buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Klarna to cobrand digital ads and offer Klarna’s “Pay in 4” product—which splits shopping-spree e
Phrases like “visualize success,” or the importance of having a “winning attitude,” have been thrown around so much that they’ve almost become parodies for team-building office culture. Because they are so cliché, and often used as an excuse for unfair situations (corporations like to distribute the book, Who Moved My Cheese? whenever they lay off staff), it can be easy to forget the truth at the heart of these phrases: We are fundamentally in contro
Like so many other things, electricity from the power grid is getting more expensive, jumping 4.3% last year. But sun-based power keeps getting cheaper. Residential solar costs are now around 8 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) versus a national average of 10.6 cents per kWh for grid power. And some states’ grid power is far more expensive. Solar power also offers another kind of savings: It’s far less harmful to the planet. For many consumers, doing the right thing can also be the eco
Kevin Love entered the NBA in 2008, around the same time the social media revolution fully took hold in the U.S. “I was right at the tipping point where it all became massive within our culture,” he tells Fast Company. Fourteen years and one league championship later, Love, who plays the power forward position for the Cleveland Cavaliers, has seen firsthand how social media can be both a blessing and a curse for athletes. On the one hand, social platforms have helped form communiti