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Smartphone Makers Need To Make Delete and Report Spam Buttons A Priority
I’ve written about the changes Apple made to the Phone app before. I’m writing about it again. Apple, other smartphone makers, and the telecommunications companies need to make detecting and deleting spam calls and texts more of a priority. Yes, there’s been some progress but to call it incremental is to insult the idea of incrementalism.
Apple now sends unwanted calls to a sort of purgatory. If they’ve been already identified as spam you may never see them thanks to the new features, unless you check for them. If it’s a new phone call you will have the opportunity to banish it yourself.
It’s an improvement, but it still takes too much effort.
For example if you receive an unwanted call, you see this screen:
Unless you know to hit the delete button or to slide the number to the left for more options the design of the screen offers you only the two options, Delete and Mark as Known. Nothing on the screen gives you any indication on how to mark or delete the call as spam.
Tapping on the Delete button gives you the following options
Swiping to the left reveals the following icons with the orange one giving you the option to block the number.
My suggestion would be to design that first screen so deleting and blocking spam calls was a first page priority instead of having to make an additional tap or swipe to get rid of the number. If you asked me, in an age when spam calls are so prevalent I’d put a Block and Report screen on the main screen when a call comes in.
I also wonder why if I delete, block, and report a number as spam the number hangs around in a list, forcing me to use an edit function to actually get them off my phone. It feels very email like, reminiscent of having to check your spam folder if you think you haven’t received a message. But in these cases, the number as already been identified as such.
Apple has shown that it wants to help with the improvements I wrote about in an earlier post. Apple and other smartphone makers need to go further in helping us rid our phones of these unwanted annoyances.
Of course the telecommunications companies can do better here too. Spam filtering uses databases they maintain of phone numbers reported as spam. All well and good. But if you’ve already identified them as a spammer, don’t let the number make the call or send the text in the first place.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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The Little Prince Meets Artificial Intelligence
Every year, sometimes twice a year, I return to one of my favorite theatre gigs, directing a staged reading for The International Voices Project. IVP is a Chicago company that produces staged readings of plays translated from other countries and cultures. Throughout the years the plays I’ve directed have taken me on journeys with writers from Syria, Lebanon, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Ukraine, El Salvador, and now Romania.
The reason I return each year is one of the reasons I have pursued and enjoyed my life making theatre. I get to touch and explore worlds, cultures, and ideas I would never have had the chance to experience otherwise. It’s always an adventure into something new.My most recent gig with IVP certainly scratched all of those itches. The play is called Veronica’s Little Prince by Romanian playwright Dr. Catalina Florina Florescu. Yes, Antonie de Saint-Exupéry’s character of The Little Prince plays an important role.
The piece centers on Veronica, a former principal ballerina who has literally had her legs taken out from under her in a mysterious accident, leaving her in an institution, unable to move without the aid of a wheelchair and unable to speak. Unhappy with her fate Veronica is suspected of wanting to kill herself. Even before the mysterious accident she’s lived a life of self-destructive behavior.
The Little Prince arrives to help her examine and uncover the truth within her actions.
There’s another twist. I mentioned that Veronica can’t speak. In a technological twist she communicates via an AI robot by typing on her body. Via an implant those signals transmit to the robot who speaks her words and thoughts.
The play weaves in and out of Veronica’s mind and thoughts, her past and present, reality and fantasy, technology and humanity in very theatrical ways.
Creating an even more mysterious melange of tech and fantasy, the most frightening line to me is when Veronica’s Little Prince answers Veronica’s question about who told her to come by saying:
You see, they have programmed me to pop up whenever I hear certain words.
That may delight AI enthusiasts and those who keep suggesting we’re living in some sort of simulation, but given the rush to push us all deeper into a world run by Artificial Intelligence, it more than tweaks a nerve for those, like me, who may see benefits to AI in some forms, but think the pitfalls are more dangerous. Frankly, I prefer the characters in fantasy to spring from the minds of humans, not lines of code.
Given the sound and visual representations that give the script its many layers it was quite a challenge to present in a staged reading format without the benefit of theatre technology. But we managed to pull it off, letting the words weave their magic.
My thanks and kudos to the cast for doing such great work and especially to young Olive Popio who played our Little Prince.
(Photo by Scott Dray for The International Voices Project)
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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Elections, Government Shutdowns and Other Quick Thoughts
Just a few quick thoughts.
Without question I have to say I’m very pleased with the Democratic election victories across the country last night. Both the winners and the size of the margins in the headline races for governors, NYC mayor, and redistricting in California. I’m even more pleased to see some of the down ballot races yield Democratic victories as well.
Especially in my home state of Virginia where the Democrats took enough seats to have quite a majority in the House of Delegates. Here’s hoping that yields very positive results for the newly elected Democratic governor.
Obviously everyone is going to parse all of these election results and find ways to celebrate, castigate, and even dismiss what’s obvious. People are pissed off. They need to remain so.
Today also sets a record for the longest government shutdown in American history. Real people are being affected by this and that will only continue and get worse as long as the shutdown does. Of course when you have one house of Congress refusing to gavel into session and also refusing to swear in an elected member, who knows how long things will last.
In so many ways, the GOP and Trump’s tactics have been the biggest act of self-mutilation and self-humiliation by a political party I think the world has ever seen.
They will never acknowledge that.
Voters sure did.
Meanwhile the evil continues in Chicago and other places as ICE keeps ramping up its horror campaign. That’s not going to abate soon. I heard this morning that yesterday they were checking people’s IDs at the entrance to my local grocery store’s parking lot.
Perhaps those digging these holes that they will someday bury themselves in will keep ratcheting up their insidious actions to a point where events continue to outstrip the usual to and fro of politics. That’s a weird and painful thing to hope for, but it might just be our best hope at the moment.
And on we go.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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Slide Over In iPadOS 26.1 Returns Just In Time
Since I don’t run betas on any of my devices, I’ve been somewhat anxiously waiting for the release of iPadOS 26.1 which returns the Slide Over multi-tasking feature to the iPad. It got here just in the nick of time.
iPad OS 26.1 arrived yesterday afternoon, about 2 hours before rehearsal began and I quickly set things up for the evening’s rehearsal, using Notes in Slide Over to quickly jot down notes as rehearsal went along.
I use an 11 inch iPad Pro in my theatre work as my primary device. It contains the script I’m working on and ever since Slide Over was available I would use that multi-tasking feature to keep one or more apps tucked away for quick access conducting rehearsals.
I do question why Apple only allows one app in this returning version as opposed to multiple apps as it did before. It was always handy to keep multiple apps available throughout rehearsal, given that I prefer to have my script open full screen on the 11 inch iPad Pro.
As a side note, I’m not a fan of the Liquid Glass border around the window in Slide Over. It waists screen real estate, almost begging you to look at the feature. Even switching Liquid Glass to the new Tinted version, now also available in iOS 26, doesn’t erase or lessen that border or its distracting impact.
In fact, setting the border aside, switching back and forth I don’t really see any significant difference in the apps I’m currently using between the Clear and Tinted versions of Liquid Glass. I won’t call that a complaint, but I will say it might all be much ado about nothing. At least on the iPad.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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Celebrating The Grandkids
Spent the weekend with the grandkids enjoying Halloween fun and my granddaughter’s 2nd birthday. Tons of fun. Tons of looking forward.
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Sunday Morning Reading
The frights of Halloween have passed us by, but real life horrors remain and expand. Never had more gut wrenching emotions this weekend than spending it with my grandkids costumed in their bountiful innocence, avoiding what’s out there in a life they’ll one day have to face, but in the present doesn’t exist beyond the edges of any joyful moment of wonder and exuberance they can conjure. This week’s Sunday Morning Reading won’t touch on too much of that, but then again, I think it just did.
David Todd McCarty thinks amidst it all We Can Be Heroes. Making my grandkids laugh uncontrollably makes me feels damn close.
Adam Gropnik visits the home of the poet Wislawa Szymborska and returns with How To Endure Authoritarianism.
Will Bunch says It Didn’t take A Reichstag Fire To Burn Down Congress. He’s correct. It didn’t even take a match.
Some interesting writing on Artificial Intelligence and the Internet this week that’s worth your while, first up Cory Doctorow tackles When AI Prophecy Fails.
Will Douglas Heaven explains How AGI Became The Most Consequential Theory Of Our Time.
Tim Chinenov wonders Who’s Creating The Rage Bait That’s Radicalizing You?
Decidedly not on the Internet Friday night while trick-or-treating with my grandkids, though not in my besieged town of Chicago, I witnessed not only kids howling with fun, but adults who joined in on the fun with their own costumes and decorated homes, some elaborate, some not so, all with love and honoring a tradition I’ve never seen in the communities I’ve lived in. Many families set up in their driveways, some with small fire pits, some with tents, tables full of food (and candy), welcoming all comers to their Halloween semi-tall gating front yards. I also noticed the adults who just sat in their cars and slowly followed their children down the block. The entire experience reminded me of this piece from the summer in which Joan Westenberg says every creator pays a tax while the rest stay spectators in The Unbearable Lightness of Cringe. Pay the tax.
And closing out this week, kudos to both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays for an excellent World Series, which the Dodgers won. Both teams played a splendid series and provided an incredible Game 7 finish to one of those contests you never want to see end, but know it must. Grown men over compensated for incredible talent, playing a kid’s game like kids, thrilling and heart breaking in the same breath. Too bad we don’t have any great, or even good, baseball writers to chronicle the moment these days.
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.
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Autumn Nights
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A Little Halloween Fun
Trick or treating with the grandkids. Better than a sugar rush.
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Late Arriving Fall Color in Chicago
Two things everyone in our circles are talking about. ICE raids and a late arriving Fall. As far as the usual colors we get every Fall, this year most of our leaves haven’t turned yet. We’re about to turn the calendar from October to November and most of the foliage is still quite green.
Many of the early turning golden leaves are gone and filling the gutters, and there’s the occasional burst of red among the green. But all feels late. It will be interesting to see how this season progresses.
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DeValuing The Myth of Anything Super
Super.
It used to mean bigger, better, bolder, somehow special. At least when it referred to humans, as in superheroes.
Now that we’re busy replacing humans with Artificial Intelligence, the rush to brand AI innovations as somehow superior or “super” is doing more to devalue the concept of anything “super” since the comic books and their movie spinoffs started examining all the collateral damage their superheroes caused in their efforts to save worlds, galaxies, universes and multi-verses.
Long time proofreading service Grammarly acquired the AI-native email app Superhuman this past summer and has now announced a sort of unusually reversed rebranding that rolls out these bundled services under the subsumed Superhuman brand.
You have to laugh at the decidedly and very human super-ego sized slug line that claim the new effort gives you “the power to be more human.”
The newly christened Superhuman certainly isn’t alone as Artificial Intelligence purveyors have been defining pursuing super intelligence as their goal for quite some time, which has always had an ironic appeal, even if chatbots and the like don’t understand irony.
In my opinion the entire thing is all very silly, far too easily unmasked as unhealthy hubris, yet also very dangerous. The promises continue to fall short, yet the hype continues to feed economic fires that will eventually burn out, even as AI invades everything associated with technology and business.
Super may have a definition that sets anything following the prefix as special and somehow superior to the ordinary. But it is also slang for supernumerary, which in show biz traditions means extra, unwanted, or unimportant.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 