Hawaii is the most recent state to add support for ID cards in Apple Wallet, joining Arizona, California*, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, and Ohio. With several other states rumored to be coming soon, it seems like this feature might finally be gaining steam.
Thomas Barrabi, reporting for The New York Post:
The protesters have demanded that Google pull out of a $1.2 billion “Project Nimbus” contract — in which Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services provide cloud-computing and artificial intelligence services for the Israeli government and military.
Critics at the company raised concerns that the technology would be weaponized against Palestinians in Gaza.
Reasonable.
“This evening, Google indiscriminately fired 28 workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,” the workers said in the statement.
Unreasonable.
“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers — the ones who create real value for executives and shareholders.”
Fuck israel (an illegitimate country made up of land gifted by actual world powers to the biggest losers of any war in history, who now want to act like big shots).
Oh and also, fuck these google execs. Eat the rich.
From CNN’s coverage of the conflict in the middle east:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday the US has spent the past 36 hours “coordinating a diplomatic response to seek to prevent escalation” following a retaliatory Iranian attack on Israel this weekend.
“Strength and wisdom need to be different sides of the same coin,” Blinken said in a seemingly implicit call for Israel to exercise restraint in its response. Blinken noted he has been in contact with counterparts in the region “and will continue to do so in the hours and days ahead.”
“We don’t seek escalation but will continue to support the defense of Israel and protect our personnel in the region,” Blinken said in his first public comments about the attack this weekend.
Why? We shouldn’t. They attacked another country’s sovereign territory, we defended them completely (for some reason) when that country shot back, and now they act like they’re the tough guys, even though they always come crying to daddy for more money.
As CNN reported, President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would not participate in offensive moves against Iran.
GOOD.
But, he added that "what this weekend demonstrated is that Israel did not have to and does not have to defend itself alone when it is the victim of aggression, the victim of an attack."
Couldn’t care less.
israel is a shit ally and an illegitimate nation, and we shouldn’t support them in any way, much less continuing to support their arrogant, dehumanizing, dictatorial antagonization of their neighbors.
This all really makes me wonder why the U.S. (or any developed nation) cares so much. Can we just hurry up with the transition to clean energy and leave the caveboys to fight in the sandbox alone? The whole conflict, for decades if not centuries, has been a waste of the world’s time.
Patricia Mazzei, for The New York Times:
The Florida Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedent on Monday in ruling that the State Constitution’s privacy protections do not extend to abortion, effectively allowing Florida to ban the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.
But in a separate decision released at the same time, the justices allowed Florida voters to decide this fall whether to expand abortion access. The court ruled 4 to 3 that a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion “before viability,” usually around 24 weeks, could go on the November ballot.
Florida taking away people’s rights isn’t the interesting part here: the thing to watch is the ballot measure that could guarantee abortion access in the state. Across the country, abortion access has consistently driven turnout, even in very red states. The fact that this is on the ballot this fall should be a boon to democrats. There’s no way to know if it will be enough, but coupled with the fact that Florida also has a ballot initiative to legalize recreation marijuana… Man, wouldn’t it just be delectable if Trump lost the election (again) because his home state of Florida (shout to to DeSanctimonious, who seems like the biggest high-heel-wearing loser in the country) voted to legalize weed and protect abortion access after his stacked court overturned Roe.
I’m really not a Beyonce fan, but I liked this album more than any of her others. She’s got an undeniable set of pipes, but I’ve never connected much with her lyrics or style. “Halo” is probably my favorite song of hers, and one of the only ones I listen to with any frequency. Recently though, she hasn’t really appealed to me at all. “Lemonade” nor “Renaissance” did nothing for me, unfortunately: literally not a single song. But “Cowboy Carter,” while I think it suffers from being too long and having too many transitional tracks, does have a few that I can’t get out of my head, and I wanted to give credit where it’s due.
Before I get into the specific songs I liked — a fairly brief list —I did want to talk about the record as a whole for a moment. To me, the album doesn’t really sound like country; while some songs do, the overall sound doesn’t lend itself to being classified as a country album. That said, I do like how she incorporated artists with country backgrounds, even if some of the songs felt a little off and their contributions at times seemed like they were just there to perform country music fan service (though I doubt many typical country music fans are listening to this album). Including icons like Dolly and Miley was a fun choice, but some fell a little flat for me: Beyonce’s cover of “Jolene” just felt a bit unnecessary.
I did really love the song with Post Malone (“LEVII’S JEANS”) and the one with Miley (“II MOST WANTED”). They’re still in my head, and I’ve played them many times since I first listened. Those were the highlights of the album for sure, but I did enjoy “YA YA” and “AMERICAN REQUIEM” as well. When it comes to the singles, “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” was alright, but “16 CARRIAGES” really seemed like a swing and a miss, especially for a lead single.
After reading three or four bullshit, AI-written articles (the sort which detail the specifics of your question ad nauseam without ever answering it) while searching for the answer to what I thought was a straightforward query (‘can I read books on my Kindle through the digital library service ‘hoopla” (the answer is ‘no,’ btw)), I stumbled upon this gem of an “article.” Note that there are as many gaudy ads above the fold as there are words of actual content, and this is AFTER dismissing a full-screen popup ad.
The web developers who build these sites not only have no capacity to balance profit with design, they seem to genuinely loathe their readers. Web hosts, CDNs, and ISPs should really start looking into sites like this and refusing to service them, for the sake of their own reputations. I’m surprised Cloudflare would support such undeniable web litter like this in any manner.
Seems like it would be a real miss for Apple not to name the new macOS release “Ojai,” assuming the rumors about the massive AI advancements are true and they’re still going with California-inspired names.
Jennifer Henderson, reporting for CNN:
Porcha Woodruff, 32, was home around 8 a.m. on February 16, helping her 6- and 12-year-olds get ready for school when six Detroit police officers arrived at her door with an arrest warrant for carjacking and robbery, the complaint states.
“Are you kidding, carjacking? Do you see that I am eight months pregnant?” she asked them, the lawsuits says. Still, she was handcuffed, taken to jail and booked, it states.
Woodruff later learned she was implicated in the alleged incident after the facial recognition software hit as well as the carjacking victim allegedly identified her in a lineup of six photos that included her mugshot from a 2015 arrest, the complaint states. Police had access to her current driver’s license photo issued in 2021, but used the older photo, according to the complaint.
This is seriously concerning, especially for black people. We know that police officers go out of their way to respect the rights of black Americans /s, but photography companies have long been biased towards taking photos of white people, often making black people appear far too dark and featureless in photographs, which necessarily makes artificial intelligence models less capable of identifying them accurately in images.
Aside from that, ALL citizens of the world should have strong concerns about governments using technology like this for law enforcement purposes. It’s chillingly dystopian.
The last time I did a pre-WWDC post was in 2021. I’m going to be recycling a good bit of what I had on my wishlist then, because some of it still, unbelievably, hasn’t happened.
Here are the lists of things I’m hoping to see, and then some things I’m expecting to see.
Wish List:
[Recycled from 2019’s list.] Fix the atrocious Apple Music app. Get rid of the useless Browse, For You, and Radio tabs at the bottom, and replace them with Playlists, Artists, and Albums. Work in better sorting. Streamline the search feature.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I’m still sick of Apple Music. All of those problems are still there, and they’ve brought some of the issues from the Music app to the Podcasts app. I’ve recently switched to using Overcast as my podcast app, but as an One subscriber, I'm stuck with the shitty Music app.
I didn’t stick with Overcast long for podcasts. I had just switched, and found its playlist system to be terrible. Not long after that, I switched to Castro, and have never looked back. As far as the Music app goes, idek bro. It’s shit and almost everything they do to it makes it worse, so maybe the best we can hope for is that they’ll just leave it alone forever.
[Recycled from 2019’s list.] It is HIGH TIME for some Siri improvements. We have been waiting and watching for years, every year expecting this to be the keynote where Apple rolls out a badass new Siri. They’ve teased us a few times with things like Siri suggestions and other minor voice improvements, but at the end of the day, I don’t give a shit about having Siri tell me hockey scores. I’m talking Iron Man-style, JARVIS-level intelligence. I know that Apple is behind the curve on this as a result of their focus on privacy, but they’ve gotta figure out a way to at least get Siri up to speed with the Google Assistant.
[Recycled from last 2020’s list.] Please. Please, please. Puhleeeaaaazeee. PLEASE. PLEASE make this the year that Siri gets a major boost. I would honestly be completely content, nay, happy, if this were the only change they announce this year. It’s so overdue. Siri was the first voice assistant on the scene, and now she’s in last place for speed, accuracy, and general capabilities. There’s so much potential here to make a truly intelligent voice assistant that would really set the iPhone apart from its competitors.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] What do you have to do to get a decent virtual assistant around here? My god. As John Gruber has pointed out, if you hired a personal assistant and she was as stupid and contextually unaware as Siri is, you’d fire her within a week.
This is truly an evergreen wishlist item because they apparently just refuse to acknowledge that the Siri sucks ass. It’s going to look a little odd if they don’t announce anything on this front, given the insane advancements in AI over the past 12 months, but fortunately for them, they’ve got something in store big enough to keep that from being a focus anyway.
More privacy stuff, always. More, more, more; gimme, gimme, gimme. Given the state of the digital surveillance industry, I will never not have this on my wishlist.
[Recycled from 2020’s list.] In my opinion, macOS just deserves some bug fixes and attention to detail.
Definitely still the case. It feels like it’s getting messier, and the settings app really is bad.
[Recycled from last 2020’s list.] As I mentioned in my Apple Card review, I would really like for them to expand the capability of the Cash card to function more like a typical checking account.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I would really like this. A lot. Give me a nice, black titanium debit card, and then Apple can truly take all my money.
Still want this, a lot.
[Recycled from 2019’s list.] I would really like for them to revamp the Apple Watch UI in a meaningful way, and finally give the side button a distinct, useful role in controlling the device.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I think it’s also time for third party watch faces. Apple’s offerings just don’t scratch the itch, anymore.
I’ve about given up hope here and permanently settled for the built in ones. But they’re allegedly really revamping watchOS this year, so we’ll see what happens.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I can’t put my finger on what exactly has been wrong with tvOS the past few years, but I think it needs some attention.
Yeah still accurate.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I think we’re also getting to the point where it’s safe to say the rollout of Look Around on Apple Maps is way too slow. Only a handful of cities in the US support it. It’s a really useful feature that I think is way better than Google’s street view, but not nearly enough people can benefit from it.
Wow I forgot this feature existed. It’s definitely WAY too slow.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] AirPlay has been a bit less stable lately. I hope they iron out those kinks.
This is definitely in need of attention. I’m hoping they’ll announce some new, rock solid AirPlay 3 standard and a new interface for controlling HomePods via an iPhone.
Predictions
Apple unveils some sort of virtual/augmented reality headset device (a completely unique and original thought that there have been no rumors about).
[Recycled from 2019’s list. Again.] I predict that Apple will, once again, disappoint me by leaving the Music app practically untouched.
[Recycled from 2021’s list.] I think a lot of the updates we’ll get for macOS are going to be performance improvements and bug fixes. It’s hard to imagine them revamping the UI or introducing a bunch of new features this year. For the name, I’m going to throw my hat in the “macOS Monterey” ring.
When they announced OS X Mavericks, they said they were switching to names of iconic locations in California because they ran out of big cats and needed something else that could get them a decade worth of names. We have now had ten releases under the new naming scheme, so I wonder if they’ll switch to a new approach this year, or maybe just use numbers going forward. The various releases of their different OSes are all on different numbers, so between “iOS 17” and “iPadOS 17” just sounding clunky, the watch going to its tenth OS version, and the Mac having exhausted ten “iconic” California place names”, and the fact that they are most likely introducing a new operating system, maybe they’ll rename ALL their OSes to get them on the same number/system and save people some confusion.
They’re not going to meaningfully fix iPadOS.
I think we could see some more health features for the Apple Watch. The blood oxygen sensor on the Series 6 seems like it could have a few more tricks up its sleeve, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they added something like blood alcohol level measurements through a WatchOS update.
I’m sure we’ll get something in the way of privacy, but I don’t think it will go as far as ATT from last year.
Regarding the headset, it’s really hard for me to believe they’re going with a name as bad as “Apple Reality Pro” or “Apple Reality.” What does that even mean? I hope they’ll call it “Apple View” or something else that doesn’t include the word “reality.” It doesn’t seem likely to me that they launch a new product and haven’t come up with a slick name for it.
WELL. We had our first rain show of The Eras Tour. And it was SO MUCH FUN. The dancers, band, crowd and I all pretty much turned into little kids joyfully jumping in puddles all night. I wanted to thank the crowd again for waiting for the weather to clear. And my amazing crew for keeping the stage, lighting and equipment all dry and working so we could play. That was a late, great night I won’t forget. 🥹
“It was rare, I was there”
Monica Potts, writing for The Atlantic:
In Clinton, sex—and the question of whether we were allowed to have it or talk about it—was related to how people viewed girls’ futures. The idea that we might become fully realized adults, experiencing sexual freedom and fulfillment, was not fathomable. We could become helpmeets for our future husbands, or we could be ruined.
The girls who got pregnant were stigmatized—until their babies were born. Then they were revered as mothers. Our school was full of young moms who were still students, and those newly graduated would come back for ball games and other events, babies on their hips. It was an endless churn, baby after baby, raised in families that spanned five or six generations because so few years separated grandmothers and mothers and daughters—and because the girls couldn’t take care of their newborns without help. […]
The message at church was that we had to keep ourselves pure for our husbands, and the message at school was that sex would either kill us or leave us pregnant, and there was nothing we could do to prevent either scenario except abstain.
Despite the sermons, my friends were still having sex at about the same rates as teenagers elsewhere in the country. They were keenly aware that it was frowned on, and if a crisis resulted, they hesitated to seek help from an adult. In some cases, it kept them from breaking up with their boyfriend and made them vulnerable to exploitation and assault […]
When it came to liquor, there were two modes in Clinton: alcoholism or abstinence. This paralleled the bifurcated morality I saw everywhere: Girls were either virgins or whores; students were either geniuses or failures; you could go to church or you could be a sinner. The town seemed to operate in two modes—the buttoned-up propriety of the churchgoers, who held power in the county, versus the rowdy hillbillies in families like my dad’s. The rigid divide allowed no room for subtleties or missteps.
This is a truly sagacious piece; its analysis and anecdotes perfectly describe Gaston County, North Carolina, where I grew up. Except, this article was written about a place almost 500 miles away from the county I was raised in. This article was written about Clinton, a city in Van Buren County, Arkansas.
A particularly insightful anecdote:
Our friend Vanessa Allen, who was maybe the most boy crazy of us all, suffered the most. Vanessa had long, curly black hair and was the oldest of four kids. Her mom, Susie, had gotten married as a teenager and had Vanessa at 18. Vanessa wore a promise ring in middle school, but she liked attention from boys and had a reputation for being a flirt. I remember her wearing a tight-fitting bodysuit at a football game. When she walked past a group of grown men, they whistled at her, and one of them said admiringly, “Someone’s been eating her beans and cornbread!” She was 14.
Adults had taught us girls to keep boys from touching us before marriage, but no one ever told us what to do if we wanted to touch them. In that space between Vanessa’s desire and her shame, other girls smelled blood. The first time Vanessa had sex, she asked her boyfriend to stop, and he didn’t. Later, with other boys, Vanessa sometimes felt like she couldn’t say no to their advances, because she’d already lost her virginity. Only many years later did Vanessa recognize some of these incidents as sexual assaults, she told me when I visited her in 2017. She didn’t blame the boys, necessarily; they were just doing what everyone expected them to do […]
This really pulls back the curtain on the generational cycle of poor parenting by barely educated individuals reproducing in rural America, and showcases the true toxicity of the sexually regressive culture that evangelicals have imposed upon the south. It’s hard to blame the teenagers and young adults for their poor choices, because its the only thing they know and have seen demonstrated by their own too-young parents, but at some point, you have to start blaming them for perpetuating these harmful beliefs and destructive habits as adults in their mid/upper twenties, because by that point they're subjecting their own children to the same environment that failed them, and then a new generation is forced to pick between striving towards a life of nearly unattainable white-picket-fence holiness or settling for impulse driven, don’t-give-a-fuck redneckery.
This is just such a great piece of personally informed journalism. Potts’ commentaries on and summations of southern teen life and the whole culture that simultaneously shames and offhandedly excuses teen sexuality as something to be expected yet not addressed (particularly as experienced by girls and young women, in relation their young male peers, but also by those young men) as informed by the dichotomy of evangelical versus redneck social classes is just so astute.
It impresses upon me that perhaps it would be worth my time to take a stab at expounding upon the experiences of the young men raised in this environment, particularly the ones who wrestled with attractions largely aimed towards their male peers, rather than young women. Lord knows they faced similar struggles, if not often more taboo and personally detrimental. We’ll see, I think there’s an interesting story to be told there as well.
Frankly, this piece reminds me a bit of Idiocracy.
Zachary Cohen and Jennifer Hansler, reporting for CNN:
Russian paramilitary group fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Vladimir Putin attempted to buy weapons and equipment from an unlikely source: NATO member Turkey, according to a leaked US intleaked US intelligence document that was obtained by CNN.
Does this surprise anyone? Of course it was Turkey. Why are they still in NATO? They been antagonistic towards the democratic goals of the rest of the NATO members for years. Fuck Turkey, and fuck the fascistic piece of shit Erdogan.
Veronica Stracqualursi, Gregory Krieg, and Kaanita Iyer, reporting for CNN:
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has announced that he’s running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, launching a challenge to former President Donald Trump, who remains the front-runner despite his looming criminal indictment.
“I’m convinced that people want leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts,” Hutchinson, 72, said in an interview on ABC News that aired Sunday. He will make a formal announcement on April 26 in his hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, according to a news release.
I must admit this was unexpected.
But also: another white male septuagenarian, but this time from the state that gave us Walmart. Also worth noting, this dustbag endorsed Trump-admin alum Sarah Huckabee Sanders to replace him as Governor of Arkansas.
JUST what we all wanted. I’m sure he’ll impress us in the primaries and really capture that Republican base, which is so clearly tired of their politicians appealing to their worst instincts.
Facebook parent Meta said Wednesday it will restore former President Donald Trump 's personal account in the coming weeks, ending a two-year suspension it imposed in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
This is good news for now, but don’t count on the decision from this “independent oversight board”* to last for very long. I’d bet a thousand dollars that Zuckerberg comes up with some bullshit excuse to allow him back on the platform before 2023, and probably by the end of this year. The only thing that drives Zuck is profit, engagement drives profit, and Donald Trump drives engagement.
Missed it by 25 days.
Joesph White, reporting for Reuters:
General Motors plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle's infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles.
[…]
GM's decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs.
Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay.
“It’s a must-have feature when shopping for a new vehicle,” Schubert said
Given that Android has 47% of the smartphone marketshare in the US, that stat doesn’t seem right. But when you consider the fact that wealthier people are the ones buying most of the new cars, and wealthy people tend to prefer iPhones, I don’t think this stat is too far off at all.
Given that, this move by GM sure sounds like they’re shooting themselves in the foot for.. what? Data collection? Hubris? Unclear.
Barbie Latza Nadeau, reporting for CNN:
Italians who use English and other foreign words in official communications could face fines of up to €100,000 ($108,705) under new legislation introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.
Fabio Rampelli, a member of the lower chamber of deputies, introduced the legislation, which is supported by the prime minister.
While the legislation encompasses all foreign languages, it is particularly geared at “Anglomania” or use of English words, which the draft states “demeans and mortifies” the Italian language, adding that it is even worse because the UK is no longer part of the EU.
[…]
The move to safeguard the Italian language joins an existing bid by the government to protect the country’s cuisine.
It has introduced legislation to ban so-called synthetic or cell-based cuisine due to the lack of scientific studies on the effects of synthetic food, as well as “to safeguard our nation’s heritage and our agriculture based on the Mediterranean diet,” Meloni’s Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said in a press conference.
Italy on the fascism fast-track, what could go wrong?
Nicole Chavez and Justin Gamble, reporting for CNN:
A film about a Black first grader who integrated an all-White elementary school in the South is under review in a Florida school district after a parent objected to the movie[…]
Two weeks before the movie was shown to second graders at North Shore Elementary, permission forms were sent to the students’ parents along with a link to the “Ruby Bridges” trailer, Mascareñas said. The parent who filed the objection was among the two families that opted to not have their students watch the movie, she said. […]
The 1998 film’s screenwriter, Toni Ann Johnson:
“If children are old enough to be called the N-word and learn what it means, then it’s my opinion that second graders who are 7 and 8 years of age can and should begin to learn about the history of racism in this country,” Johnson said.
Such a salient point. The people trying to prevent this movie from being shown are the same people whose parents were in school when Ruby Bridges was integrating William Frantz Elementary School, and their grandparents were the ones hurling slurs at a six-year-old girl.
It’s a truly succinct summary of the Republican Party’s evolution: a generation of outspoken and violent racists, followed by a generation of stereotype-prone assholes, followed by the generation who “just asks questions” and wants to “protect the children”.
The ignorance is unparalleled. If a six-year-old is old enough to be vilified like Ruby Bridges was for simply daring to go to school, then your fragile, tender eight-year-old babies are not too young to learn about the transgressions and atrocities their immediate relatives committed against her.
First and foremost, I want to point out that the shortcut I’m about to reference only works for people using Apple Music (right now, at least; if you have Spotify or something else, pressure them to add support for Apple’s Shortcuts app).
Basically, what I’ve done here is create a series of custom wallpapers using photographs that I took myself that I feel match the vibe of some of my favorite albums. I then created a shortcut to change the wallpaper to the corresponding image when a particular album plays using automations.
I posted about this on reddit a couple months ago. At the time it was just for Taylor Swift's ten albums, but I’ve since expanded it to others, and you can expand it as much as you like, to work for whichever albums you care about.
Step one: decide which albums you want to change your lock screen for. This is a very personal set of decisions, and I can’t decide for you. Choose an album, then find a photo from your photo library and make a Lock Screen that evokes the vibe of the album you’ve chosen.
Step two: set up a shortcut to tell your phone to switch the wallpaper automatically when a song plays. Here’s a link to a basic version of the shortcut made to work with ONE album/wallpaper set. If you want multiple, you’ll need to go into the guts of the shortcut and add a couple steps for each additional album you want to create a wallpaper for. For each additional album you want to change your Lock Screen for, add an “If” statement to the shortcut. Then tap the first item that says “Input” and select “Album”. Then, where it says “Condition”, tap “contains”. Then, where it says “text”, type the name of the album you’re referencing EXACTLY as it appears in the Music app (spelling, symbols, and capitalization matter). After you’ve added and set up the “If” statement, you need to add the “Switch Wallpaper” action. After adding this action, it will prompt you to select a wallpaper; choose the one you created to match the album you’re currently working on.
Step three: create an automation to run the shortcut automatically. Go to the Automations tab of the shortcut app, and tap “create new personal automation”. Then, when presented with trigger options, choose “App”, and then make sure “Is Open” AND “Is Closed” are both selected. Then, where it says “App”, tap “Choose”, and select some of your most frequently used apps. I selected about twenty of my most frequently used apps.
Step four: after you've set up the automation, you’ll want to prevent it from telling you it’s running, since it’ll happen any time you open or close your most used apps (all those notifications will get annoying pretty quickly). Go to the automation you just made in step three, then turn off the toggle for “Ask Before Running”, and then turn make sure then toggle for “Notify When Run” is also turned off.
And that’s it! Now, any time you open or close any of the apps you designated in step three, your phone will check to see what song is playing (if any), and will change your wallpaper to match the album the song belongs to.
Here’s a short video of the shortcut in action using Taylor Swift inspired wallpapers.
Shortcuts can be notoriously difficult to set up, so if you have any questions, feel free to reach out through our contact page for support!
David Remnek, writing for The New Yorker:
It’s not even clear that the most vociferous of the pro-Trump groups such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, which have endured intense investigation and legal charges for their roles in the Capitol insurrection, will be eager to take to the streets again in Trump’s name. Recently, Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal rallies that followed the 2020 election, posted on social media, “Previously, I had said if Trump was arrested or under the threat of a perp walk, 100,000 patriots should shut down all routes to Mar-a-Lago. Now, I’m retired. I’ll pray for him though!”
I suppose it’s difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your favorite criminal when he keeps losing elections.
If you’re going to the tour and don’t want to know the setlist, then:
⚠️ Spoiler Warning
Like right now.
Seriously.
Look away, DON’T glance down.
At all.
Okay, you’re still here.
Onward!
The setlist:
Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince
Cruel Summer
The Man
You Need To. Calm Down
Lover
The Archer
Fearless
You Belong With Me
Love Story
‘tis the damn season
willow
marjorie
champagne problems
tolerate it
…Ready for it?
Delicate
Don’t Blame Me
Look What You Made Me Do
Enchanted
22
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
I Knew You Were Trouble
All Too Well (10 Minute Version)
seven
invisible string
betty
the last great american dynasty
august
illicit affairs
my tears ricochet
cardigan
Style
Blank Space
Shake It Off
Wildest Dreams
Bad Blood
surprise song
surprise song
Lavender Haze
Anti-Hero
Midnight Rain
Vigilante Shit
Bejeweled
Mastermind
Karma
I have so many thoughts but first of all: how fucking insane is it that she’s doing FORTY FIVE SONGS per night!?!? In my wildest dreams, I was hoping for a count in the low thirties. This woman truly goes FAR above and beyond for her fans. I can’t imagine how physically taxing this tour will be for her, doing a three hour long show two or three nights a week until September.
Given that number of songs, it feels supremely disrespectful and unappreciative to suggest that anything about it isn’t good enough, but I do find the lack or representation for two albums in particular a bit striking. Speak Now has only ONE song on the permanent setlist, and the debut album has NONE. While Taylor may supplement the representation for these albums using the two surprise songs, that still doesn’t really do much to close the gap between these neglected albums and most of the others, which on average gave at least five songs each.
My expectation going in was that the more recent, untoured albums would be favored, but not quite this extensively. I expected there to be about thirty songs on the setlist, with a decent number of mashups/medleys. I expected each album to get at least two songs, but for some to get up to four or five. What I didn’t expect was for ANY album to get seven or eight, which is what happened. Folklore got the most, at eight, then was Midnights at seven, followed by Lover at six, and Evermore at five. 1989 also had five, while Red and Reputation both got four. That left Speak Now with one, and the Debut album with NO songs on the recurring setlist. Very curious, especially given the strong hints that Speak Now would be the next rerecorded album to be released.