Shortly before I left the Civil Service in 2023, I made a complete fool of myself. Someone on Slack was discussing their department's app and I (rather snidely) asked why it was an app rather than a website. After all, one of the seminal blog posts of GDS was about not building apps. In response, I was given an eye-roll and told "because that's how most people get their information, grandpa!" Last week, I saw this job advert and I got an involuntary shudder. But I am wrong. Time moves on.…
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The news has just broken that Google's Authenticator App can have its codes stolen by malware. I doubt Google will ever release a fix for this issue - their 2FA app hasn't been updated since September 2017. Update! 3 months after I published this post, Google updated their app For two-and-a-half years, Google hasn't touched their 2FA app's code. Perhaps it is perfect? Perhaps there are no more UI improvements or security enhancements that can be done? Or, more likely, it joins a long…
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I have a lot of smarthome gadgets - but my favourite is the Tado° Thermostat. I think it might be the most boring gadget I've ever used - and that's why I love it! We spend far too much time staring at our screens. We obsessively tend to our digital gardens and rarely spend the time to enjoy them. Our smart watches constantly buzz with news from the social media service du jour. Where are the apps that respect our time? Tado° is the most boring app on the planet. I used it once to set up …
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BlackBerry have drawn scorn from the technology world with their calls for Network Neutrality to apply to app developers. The CEO thinks that NetFlix - and others - should be forced to provide apps for BlackBerry's minority platform. Is he serious? It sounds like an insane and bureaucratic solution to BlackBerry's woes - but I'm not so sure that it's necessarily a bad idea. Yesterday, I was quoted in The Guardian saying: But web developer Terence Eden argues that Chen is “right, but for t…
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Update 2013-07-13 I've just received this email from Nate Tyler at Google. Hope you're enjoying the weekend. I work on the Google Maps team and just saw your post on Google Maps navigation. Thank you very much for the concern. Wanted to be sure you and your readers are aware that we have pushed an update to the latest release of Maps for Mobile to fix this issue. If there's any chance to update your story with this information we would very much appreciate that. And if you have any questions…
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Before Cadbury's inaugural hackday began there were a number of rumblings on the blogs about the extact nature of Cadbury's intentions. See Thayer Prime's and Emma Mulqueeny's thoughts on the subject. As it happens, after a bit of gentle poking, some of the terms were clarified. The event itself went rather well, but I'd like to point out a few points where it didn't quite live up to the Hack Day Manifesto. Registration - due to some confusion with the registration form, some entrants were …
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Last night I went to the NESTA's "What's App?" discussion. You can watch the event at NESTA's website. .social-embed {all: unset;display: block;}.social-embed * {all: unset;display: revert;}.social-embed::after {all: unset;}.social-embed::before {all: unset;}blockquote:not(*) {all: unset;}.social-embed a {cursor: pointer;}blockquote.social-embed {box-sizing: border-box;border: .5px solid;width: 550px;max-width: 100%;font-family: sans-serif;margin: 0;margin-bottom: .5em;padding: …
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So, RIM have finally released their Application Store (hereafter called AppWorld) Let's take it for a spin on a BlackBerry Bold (9000 running 4.6.0.237 for those who care about such things). All screenshots taken with the magnificent CaptureIt from The Tech Mogul.You can grab it by pointing your 'Berry at http://blackberry.mobi/appworld.First off, it's very good looking. A good layout showing featured apps. Underneath are links to Categories, Top Downloads, Search, and My World (where you can …
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