As with all World of Warcraft expansions, Blizzard ramp up an excitement with a "pre-patch" weeks before the launch, to get everyone ready for the changes, and have a sneak peek at the direction the game is going through. This time, the event is a "scourge invasion", which if you don't know basically means zombies, everywhere.

There are zombies that appear randomly in the world, and they can infect you, which turns you into a zombie. And in turn you can infect other players and some NPCs. It's turning out to be pretty enjoyable. I mean, it's like being asked to troll people, which can be very fun. And as you would expect, there's a lot of coronavirus related comments being made in the chat.

It's the not the first time they've done an event like this, with a similar (but more brutal) scourge event that happened in 2008 before the lauch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

While there are quite a few players in game spending hours moaning about the event, most of us are having a lot of fun. It's really cool that a game the size of World of Warcraft can have these types of events. It breaks up the sometimes monotonous grinding through the game, and allows people to interact and actually just relax and have some fun (Not everyone in-game seems to be a fan of that though).

If you've ever thought about trying World of Warcraft, or even just want to enjoy this event, I'd recommend it. There's a free trial always available, and it gets you pretty much the full experience.

As usual, I've come across another great Instagram account via Reddit. This time it's @the.itinerarium, and it's full of maps that have been rendered in 3D. I can't quite find the person/people behind the account, but nevertheless they are some cool maps.

Here are a few that I'm a fan of:

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Speaking of youtube-dl being available again, here is Abby Vollmer over on the GitHub blog on the matter:

Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project that enabled us to reverse a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown.At GitHub, our priority is supporting open source and the developer community. And so we share developers’ frustration with this takedown—especially since this project has many legitimate purposes. Our actions were driven by processes required to comply with laws like the DMCA that put platforms like GitHub and developers in a difficult spot. And our reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM), was inline with our values of putting developers first. We know developers want to understand what happened here, and want to know how GitHub will stand up for developers and refine our processes on these issues.In this post, we provide answers to common questions about the DMCA and why GitHub handled this case the way we did, describe why circumvention claims deserve special treatment, and share how we’re updating our policies and fighting to improve the law.

With all the attention being on the youtube-dl situation, it certainly is good to see GitHub be transparent about their processes regarding DMCA claims, and also anouncing some changes to their claim review process.

Good news! The youtube-dl repository is now back up on GitHub. If you weren't aware, it was removed due to the RIAA issued a DMCA takedown notice.

As much as I agreed that the use of youtube-dl spanned much further than simply downloading videos from YouTube, I don't think the name exactly helps.

If you're wondering what they had to change to bring youtube-dl back, then you'll be surprised. They simply removed any uses of RIAA member videos from the tests. The fact that this fixed the issue, makes the whole ordeal seem a little childish to me.

But who cares, it's back.

Romain Dillet, writing for TechCrunch:

Apple has updated a documentation page detailing the company’s next steps to prevent last week’s Gatekeeper bug from happening again, as Rene Ritchie spotted. The company plans to implement the fixes over the next year.Apple had a difficult launch day last week. The company released macOS Big Sur, a major update for macOS. Apple then suffered from server-side issues.Third-party apps failed to launch as your Mac couldn't check the developer certificate of the app. That feature, called Gatekeeper, makes sure that you didn't download a malware app that disguises itself as a legit app. If the certificate doesn’t match, macOS prevents the app launch.

A pretty embarrassing bug for such a big day.

The new iPhones are out, and therefore Matt D'Avella has decided to buy a flip phone. Not a fancy super-expensive flip phone that's still a smartphone, an actual original flip phone. To be honest, that screams "extra" to me. It sounds like a fun hipster idea that won't really last.

He points out that smartphones are designed to be with us on the go, giving us a mobile computer when we are out of the house. And with most people not leaving their houses for anything other than a walk or to go to a supermarket, there's not much use to them. Although, weirdly, I'm pretty sure people are just sat inside their houses on their phones anyway.In his video, he went over the reasons why he's decided to downgrade from his iPhone, and the potential upsides to having a less-smart phone. As usual, it's one of his 30 day challenges, so it will be interesting to see how he gets on.

I wrote a post a while ago about how I was trying to automate saving money by writing more, and the goal of that saving was to purchase an iPad Pro 12.9”. But I don’t think I actually need an iPad Pro. My mind was only set on the Pro because I want the bigger size.

In fact, this relates to what I said in my post about the M1 chip. Since I talked about how Apple designs products to fit a use case, and instead of just working out what the best device is, I need to work out what my use case is first. And the thing is, although I play some games on my iPad, what I’ll mostly use it for is writing, reading, browsing Reddit, etc. Nothing particularly taxing.

Sure, I want a machine to be powerful enough so that nothing felt slow, I don’t want to be constantly pushing the machine. But I’m pretty sure the new iPad Air is capable of everything I’d throw at it and more. The only problem being the screen size. I think my perfect iPad would be an iPad Air 12.9” (or similar). Maybe two USB C ports would be nice, so I could plug in a charger and monitor without using a cable, and even have space for more accessories. But the monitor I have can power an iPad with the same USB C cable, and I don’t actually use any accessories apart from a Bluetook Keychron K2 keyboard, and a cheap USB mouse. Although that’s going to be upgraded eventually.

To be honest, I can’t see Apple bringing out a bigger iPad Air. I think it would start to add just a bit more confusion between the Air and the Pro models. And also, if you look to the iPhone and MacBook, the larger size for both of those models are only available to the Pro. I’ll probably have to end up getting whatever 12.9” iPad comes out next, and I assume that will be a Pro model next year.

If you had any thoughts on how the MagSafe Wallet would like like on each iPhone, then Greg Morris has you covered:

Yeah, I'm that guy this year. I couldn't decide which iPhone size I wanted, so I got them all. It's a weird position to be in but also provides me with some deeper insights into the real differences. I am not talking about specs and all those kinds of figures that people get too caught up in, the real things that make a difference to actually using the device. One of the strangest ones I have had to think about this year is the MagSafe wallet — so here is how it fits with each size iPhone.

I think the MagSafe wallet pairs really well with the new iPhones. It seems to fit all sizes without looking out of place, and also it’s a perfect item to be used with MagSafe.

After seeing Greg’s article, and his video showing the unboxing and answering a few questions, I think I’ll hold off buying one for now. I use a very small card wallet right now anyway, and only use 2 cards, so it seemed like a good fit for me. But seeing as the magnets aren’t as strong as I expected, and you still need to detach the wallet from the iPhone to use it. I think I’ll just wait and see.

Here is Greg’s video on the wallet:

Castro has just announced over on their blog that widgets have finally arrived. They come in three different sizes, and they each offer a different level of information regarding your queue.

In the small size, you'll be able to see the number of episodes in your queue, along with the total duration, and if you tap anywhere on the widget it opens to your queue. With the medium size, it has the same idea, except you see the title and a short description of the next three episodes. And the large size is the same but bigger, and with one more episode.

These widgets look great, and they're already better options than the ones that are available in Apple Podcasts app. I use the small Podcast widget on my home screen, just so I can quickly go back to a podcast I was listening to. But it's definitely lacking any real detail. Whereas, with Castro's small widget, you can see how many episodes you have in your queue and even artwork for multiple upcoming shows.

Another cool feature is what you get when your queue is empty. With the medium and large sizes, you get the option to jump straight to Inbox or Discover if you've got nothing in your queue. That's pretty handy.

I think now I've gotten used to launching Podcasts via a widget on my home screen, I'm going to give Castro a good try with one of the new widgets. I've always liked the idea of a queue, and I think I prefer the design over Overcast. Overcast is a really good app, and I used it for years, but it doesn't seem "fun" to me, and when it comes to apps, I like it when the design has a bit of character.

Hopefully, I enjoy using Castro, because I'm a big fan of these widgets.

You can find Castro on the App Store, and you can read more about the widgets on their blog.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Macs transitioning to Apple Silicon today. I started focussing on the differences between Mac models, and also how they can improve the chips in order to transition higher-end Macs like the MacBook Pro 16” and even the Mac Pro.

It sounds like a mammoth task, especially when the Mac Pro has a configurable option for a 28-core Intel Xeon processor. And also that much larger memory options than 16GB exist, with quite a few people finding the sound of 16GB too low anyway.

However, as I’ve been using my iPad Pro 10.5”, I started to think about how well this performs. It came out in 2018, and iPads have come a long way since (which is also why I plan on moving to a 12.9” soon). But still, I have never experience a time where I feel like the machine was too slow.

When Apple announce a new iPad, they tell us what chip it has, and in relative terms how much more capable it is. But when it comes down to it, most people don’t really care what chip is in their device. They just want to use the device for the tasks that they want to achieve.

That’s something that I think Apple has really achieved with the iPad platform. With models being separated into the iPad, iPad Mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro, you don’t need to know the technical details, you just need a rough idea of what type of use you want to use the machine for. If you want to use it as a consumption device, maybe you just need the base iPad, or if you’re working with big video editing tasks, you may want to opt for the Pro.

All I’m saying is, with the iPad, you match the model to the job you want it to do. But with Macs, you also had to choose between processors, which is something the ordinary person probably doesn’t know too much about. So if Apple starts using the same line of thinking with the Mac lineup, maybe the choices will become even simpler?

I think if you break the lineup into three categories, laptops, workstations, and desktop computers, they can start to be easier to understand:

• MacBook Air
• MacBook Pro 13”
• MacBook Pro 16”
• Mac Mini
• Mac Pro
• iMac 21.5”
• iMac 27”
• iMac Pro

In most cases, you’ll know what type of Mac you want, you just need to pick which variant. For example, if you wanted to pick a laptop, you could be left with two questions, “Do I need a Pro model?”, and “Do I need the bigger screen and graphics capabilities?”

If each model comes with its assumed uses, Apple can design each model to fit. Which means the messaging to customers can be even simpler. You want a portable Mac for typical use? MacBook Air. You still want it to be as portable, but also need some more power? MacBook Pro 13”.

Apple would essentially be saying, no matter what your use case is, there’s a Mac for the job, and it just works.