President Supervillain

Today is Earth Day. Whatever the fuck that means.

Over at The Verge, Barbara Krasnoff shares with us some ways to celebrate Earth Day online while were in the middle of COVID-19 sheltering-in-place.

I’m skipping Krasnoff’s recommendations. Instead I’d like to celebrate how much less damage we’re doing to the Earth and how much less we’re depleting it’s resources right now. Oil production has dropped, manufacturing has slowed, and many fewer cars are pumping out exhaust (what website is this again?).

At LA Magazine, Jason McGahan reports L.A.’s Air Quality Is Better Than It’s Been in Decades:

The March 2020 air quality index compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency confirms what millions of Angelenos can see just by looking out the window: ‪the brownish haze that customarily settles atop the city on weekday afternoons has lifted and visibility has cleared for miles in every direction since the “safer at home” order was imposed.

‪Last month, Los Angeles experienced the longest stretch of days of “good” air since at least 1980. The federal agency’s online data goes back no further, but one expert suspects that L.A.’s air hasn’t been this clean since around the time the United States entered the Second World War. Cody Hill, an energy company executive based in the Bay Area, posted a graphic of the EPA data to his Twitter account and wrote that, in terms of air quality, March may well have been “one of the best months at least since the 1940s, when there was huge migration as we ramped up aircraft production in the L.A. basin to fight WW2.”

So I say, Happy Earth Day, Earth! Enjoy this brief reprieve. We’ll be back soon, unfortunately.

Tom Maxwell, reporting for Input Magazine, says Apple may lose the digital crown on next year’s Apple Watch:

While most rumors corroborate the idea that Watch Series 6 will be an iterative update, there’s also been talk of Apple making big changes with the next iteration, Series 7. It’s been reported by several outlets that Apple is considering bringing Touch ID to the Apple Watch so that users can unlock their Watch and authenticate purchases without an iPhone nearby. In one mock-up published by EverythingApplePro, the new Series 7 even sees Apple drop the iconic Digital Crown in favor of a touch-sensitive strip that accepts fingerprint scans and can also be swiped for navigation. With the Series 7 likely still a full generation out, though, we’re not going to hold our breath on that one.

Input Editor-in-Chief, Joshua Topolsky, tweeted out on April 13th, “Horrible”, in reference to the above article. Of course disgust, confusion, and anger are common responses to things people don’t (yet) understand.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Topolsky decried the removal of the Home button on the iPhone X. If Twitter had search functionality worth a damn I’d look.

The point is, don’t knock it ’till you try it. Until then, shut the fuck up.

Quibi, the newest video-streaming kid on the block launched yesterday:

Quibi, the oddly-named mobile streaming service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, was downloaded over 300,000 times on launch day, according to preliminary data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That’s only 7.5% of the approximately 4 million installs Disney+ saw when it launched in the U.S. and Canada on November 12, 2019. However, it was enough to send Quibi’s app to nearly the top of the charts on the App Store. Today, Quibi is the No. 3 app on the Apple App Store, but only No. 29 on Google Play.

The disparity once again highlights iOS’s mindshare versus Android’s marketshare. Sure, Android’s install base towers over iOS’s but iOS users spend more. How many millions of shitty, budget Android pocket computers are out there, not being used by people because they’re not fun to use?

Related news: This morning, Philip Elmer-DeWitt referenced a Piper Sandler survey revealing (not surprisingly), “A record 85% of U.S. teens own an iPhone, a record 88% want one.”

UFC 249 could still be happening on April 18th.

That is, if Dana White secures a private island:

As other sports search for solutions on how to carry out events in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, UFC president Dana White believes he has come up with a creative resolution.

The upcoming UFC 249 event on April 18 was originally scheduled to take place in New York City but was forced to move because of the spread of Covid-19 and bans on public gatherings.
After much speculation about whether the event will go ahead, White told TMZ Sports on Monday that he is a “day or two away” from securing a private island which will host the upcoming event, and subsequent fight nights.

“We’re getting the infrastructure put in now so I’m going to start doing the international fights too,” he said.

UFC Fyre Island, anyone?