Tag: History

Categories
Bisnis Industri

iPad 2 is the sequel fans hoped for: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 11: Today in Apple history: iPad 2 is the sequel fans hoped for March 11, 2011: How do you follow up your biggest product debut ever? That’s the question Apple needs to answer as it releases the iPad 2.

Apple’s second-generation tablet boasts a faster dual-core A5 processor inside a lighter build. It’s also the first iPad to feature VGA front-facing and 720p rear-facing cameras.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

iPad 2: A worthy upgrade

Although iPad sales today pale in comparison to the iPhone, the original iPad came out of the gate as one of Apple’s biggest successes. When introduced in January 2010, it immediately became the most exciting new gadget in the world.

When the original iPad went on sale, it took less than a month to sell 1 million units — half the time it took Apple to sell that many iPhones at the time.

In its first year, Apple sold around 25 million iPads, making the tablet the most successful new product category launch in Cupertino history. After six months, it already outsold the Mac.

Second Apple tablet brings advances in form and function

The iPad 2, therefore, had a lot to live up to. Did it succeed? In a word, “yes.”

Apple’s second-generation tablet maintained its predecessor’s display size, price and capacity, but packed more power into a one-third thinner body. Measuring just 0.34 inches thick, it even came in slimmer than the then-current iPhone 4.

The iPad 2 lineup also added a new color: It now came in black and white options. The speaker grille also wrapped around the back of the device, providing users with better sound quality.

Apple’s new magnetic Smart Cover arrived at the same time as the iPad 2, instantly making the bulky, rubber, third-party cases for the original iPad look terrible by comparison.

In the end, the iPad 2 hung around for an impressively long period. It outlasted both the iPad 3 and iPad 4. Apple sold the iPad 2 until 2014.

Sound off on iPad 2

Did you own an iPad 2? What was the first model of Apple’s tablet that you bought, and what were your initial impressions? Let us know in the comments below.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

App Store hits 25 billion downloads: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 5: Today in Apple history: The App Store hits 25 billion downloads March 5, 2012: Apple reaches a staggering milestone, with 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with a giveaway titled the “25 Billion App Countdown.”

The lucky 25 billionth app downloader wins an iTunes gift card worth $10,000.

Apple’s 25 Billion App Countdown

Just four years after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs relented and opened the iPhone’s App Store, the genius of allowing third-party developers to create iOS apps was undeniable. Hitting the 25 billion downloads landmark in such a short time showcased just how smart — and lucrative — the move was.

Developers dreamed up apps that made the iPhone more useful and fun. Apps that became hits made devs rich, and Apple took a cut of the sales. The App Store became a major profit center for Apple.

“We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, in a statement. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.”

At the time, the App Store offered more than 550,000 apps for download. Apple had doled out more than $4 billion to developers for their 70% share of revenue from paid downloads.

The winner of the gift card in Apple’s 25 Billion App Countdown is Chunli Fu from China. The app is Disney’s Where’s My Water?, a free puzzle game released the previous September.

App Store continues to grow

By comparison, today the App Store peddles nearly 2 million apps, and clocks more than 100 billion downloads a year. The App Store’s reach and influence continue to grow, although Apple’s management of the store faces increasing scrutiny from international antitrust regulators.

“Apps and games have become the essential source for the world’s most innovative and timely entertainment,” Apple said in a 2022 press release. “The efforts, innovation, and creativity of the developers who leverage Apple technology to build these incredible experiences, coupled with the power of the App Store’s global platform to connect businesses of all sizes with over 600 million people each week across 175 countries, has led to developers selling digital goods and services earning more than $260 billion since the App Store launched in 2008.”

Apple continually touts the benefits of the App Store to both consumers and third-party developers. However, the company’s strict control over the app marketplace and the overall iOS ecosystem have landed Apple in hot water. Changes coming soon in iOS 17.4 will open the iPhone to sideloading and third-party app stores in the European Union. And Apple faces a $1.8 billion fine for its allegedly abusive treatment of streaming music rival Spotify.

Apple loved the milestones

Just a few years ago, Apple liked celebrating milestone events with promotions like the 25 Billion App Countdown. In fact, a 2004 contest to mark 100 million iTunes song downloads made the 2012 app download contest look meager.

The winner of the 2004 contest received a personal phone call from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod and a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs.

These days, Apple mostly avoids making a big deal of these kinds of landmark events. When Apple passed the 1 billionth iPhone milestone, the company did little to commemorate the occasion. The same held true when Apple’s market cap surpassed the $1 trillion valuation. And $2 trillion. And $3 trillion.

Similarly, Apple avoids sharing too many details about the usage of services like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness+. The company also stopped revealing the number of iPhones sold each quarter.

While I understand the logic behind this less-bombastic strategy, I miss the excitement of such old-school Apple events. It was fun when Apple eagerly (and publicly) counted down to its next gigantic sales record with events like the 25 Billion App Countdown.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Today in Apple history: Apple reconsiders the Newton?

[ad_1]

March 10: Today in Apple history: Apple reconsiders the Newton MessagePad? March 10, 2004: Apple sends out a survey to select Apple customers, claiming that it is considering relaunching the Newton MessagePad.

“We need to determine why the Apple Newton was not a commercial success and whether there is an interest in re-launching a new version of the Newton,” Apple’s survey says. “Your comments will help understand why the Newton failed and if there is interest in re-launching a new, improved Newton.”

In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that this apparent “interest” in launching another personal data assistant was a way of doing some undercover market research for the still-in-development iPhone.

Newton MessagePad and the new thing

Apple launched the Newton MessagePad in 1993 with the goal of creating one of the world’s first PDAs. Apple engineer Steve Sakoman, a passionate advocate of handheld computing, drove the project early on. While at Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s, Sakoman developed the HP 110, the world’s first battery-powered portable MS-DOS PC.

The MessagePad project took place entirely during the decade-long period while Steve Jobs was away from Cupertino after his boardroom coup attempt failed. Many viewed the Newton as Apple CEO John Sculley’s answer to the Mac. It was his first attempt to launch a game-changing new product line during his tenure as CEO.

Newton flaws make it a joke

Unfortunately, the Newton technology did not initially work as well as hoped. The press piled on, printing numerous jokes about the Newton and painting the device as a failure.

Ironically, once Apple actually got the technology right with later devices like the MessagePad 2100 — which perfected the handwriting-recognition system the Newton included as a central feature — Jobs had returned to Apple. He decided to cancel further development of the PDA.

Apple officially ended the Newton experiment on February 27, 1998, with Jobs issuing a statement.

“This decision is consistent with our strategy to focus all our software development resources on extending the Macintosh operating system,” he said. “To realize our ambitious plans we must focus all of our efforts in one direction.”

Apple’s stealth iPhone survey

However, by the mid-2000s, Apple’s Mac business was booming. The company successfully moved into other areas as well, such as the enormously popular (and profitable) iPod music player. It only made sense, therefore, that Cupertino would consider other mobile devices — with the Newton the obvious reference point.

Inside Apple, two simultaneous iPhone research projects got underway: the so-called P1 and P2 projects. Right from the start, it became clear that both would need to offer PDA-style functionality. But Apple needed to work out exactly why the Newton MessagePad failed to click with customers.

It’s not known how much attention Apple paid to the feedback from the customer survey it sent on this day in 2004, just three years prior to the original iPhone launch. Still, as with the various patents Apple filed over the years, it’s fun to look back later and see how some of the company’s decisions make perfect sense in hindsight.

Were you a Newton MessagePad user? Leave your comments below.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Macintosh Portrait Display launches: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 7: Today in Apple history: Macintosh Portrait Display goes large (and vertical) March 7, 1989: Apple introduces the Macintosh Portrait Display, a 15-inch vertical grayscale monitor designed to show full pages on a single screen. Intended for word processing and desktop publishing, the $1,099 monitor (plus $599 for an additional video card to run it) works with any Macintosh.

Something of a rarity today, the Macintosh Portrait Display is an early example of the supersized displays Apple would release years later.

Macintosh Portrait Display launch

The need for portrait-oriented vertical displays grew out of Apple’s popularity with creatives. Macs generally took a backseat to IBM PCs running Windows. However, Apple computers became ubiquitous in the publishing industry within a few years of coming on the market.

Macs proved especially good for magazine layouts due to the WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) interface, which let users see the end result of a document or layout before printing it. This stood in stark contrast to many PC programs at the time. Apple also benefited from innovative software like early desktop publishing program Aldus PageMaker.

A vertical monitor that, like the iPad today, could present the display equivalent of an A4 sheet of paper — only larger — became an obvious next step for Apple. The first company to develop such a screen was Radius, a startup founded by various Macintosh alumni. (Radius later became a manufacturer of Mac clones in the mid-1990s.)

The Radius Full Page Display shipped in 1988, a year before the Macintosh Portrait Display. Radius dropped the price of its monitor to $895 when Apple’s alternative arrived the next year.

Macintosh Portrait Display launch: Radius set the precedent with its vertical monitor
Radius set the precedent with its vertical monitor.
Photo: Radius

Macintosh Portrait Display specs

The Macintosh Portrait Display offered a resolution of 640 by 870 pixels at a pixel density of 80 dots per inch. It boasted antiglare technology and an impressively crisp flatscreen form factor.

It wasn’t perfect, though. The vertical display could prove temperamental. In fact, Apple’s troubleshooting manual noted that “environmental influences” could cause the monitor to glitch.

What kind of environmental influences?

Try close proximity to metal desks, file cabinets or bookshelves. Or being situated near fluorescent lights, other monitors or electronic appliances such as coffee makers or copy machines.

“These objects cause dynamic raster distortion — that is, movement or jitter of the image,” Apple noted.

The Macintosh Portrait Display was one of the best Apple displays of its time
The Macintosh Portrait Display was one of the best Apple displays of its time.
Photo: Apple

Apple retires its vertical display

The Macintosh Portrait Display lasted until December 1992. At the time, people viewed it as a quirky experiment from Apple with only limited applications. Today, it appears very clear that an elongated display was an innovation very much worth pursuing — seen most notably through the way we vertically view web pages on our iPhones.

Do you remember the Macintosh Portrait Display? Leave your comments below.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Today in Apple history: eWorld closes its virtual doors

[ad_1]

March 9: Today in Apple history: eWorld closes its virtual doors March 9, 1996: Apple confirms that it will shut down its eWorld online service at the end of the month.

Part messaging service, part news aggregator — and all with Apple’s customary premium prices — the short-lived eWorld proved ahead of its time. Apple tells disappointed eWorld subscribers they can switch to America Online instead.

Apple eWorld closes

Apple launched eWorld on June 20, 1994, less than two years before shuttering the service. It represented Apple’s first deep dive into providing internet services. It came several years before Steve Jobs returned to the company and embraced the importance of going online with devices like the iMac G3 and iBook.

The impetus behind eWorld was a proto-social network called AppleLink that connected Cupertino with its dealers and support centers. In the early 1990s, when John Sculley still ran Apple, the company decided to transform this concept into a consumer-facing service.

To pull it off, Apple acquired a data center in the San Francisco Bay Area from banking giant Citigroup. It also came to a licensing agreement with AOL, the company that built the basic technology eWorld was based upon. This was years before Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, iCloud and other internet-based services.

Now, of course, Apple’s services division alone is worth more than most countries. A 2022 Wall Street estimate pegged the value of Apple services at $1.5 trillion — more than a third of the company’s total market cap.

Apple’s first go at the internet

Apple eWorld: The electronic village comes to life, with virtual buildings the user clicks to "enter."
The electronic village comes to life.
Photo: Apple

Typically for Apple, the idea was for eWorld to be a “walled garden” so Cupertino could totally control the user experience.

Today, Apple’s carefully moderated approach to running the App Store makes it something of a rarity. (But change, forced by EU antitrust regulators, is here.) In the 1990s, however, this perspective basically proved the norm. AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe all attempted to do similar things.

Still, nobody seemed quite sure what the internet would ultimately turn into.

eWorld didn’t just contain material written by Apple. A bit like the Apple News app, it served as an aggregator of news and entertainment from other sources, all filtered through a familiar Apple interface.

Why Apple’s eWorld failed

Eyeing eWorld now, the big surprise for a lot of people will be how cartoonish it looks. The notion of turning the internet (or, at least, a version of it) into a SimCity-style settlement, with different buildings representing different services, seems very unnecessary — and non-workable — today.

It makes sense, though, when you consider that eWorld narrativized an abstract idea. In fact, the approach worked much the same way the graphical user interface borrowed the metaphor of a physical desktop to explain computing concepts to a new audience. Full web-browsing support didn’t arrive in eWorld until 1995.

The other massive shock for modern audiences will be how expensive eWorld was. Two off-peak hours with eWorld’s dialup service cost $8.95. (That’s the equivalent of more than $17 today.) Hourly costs beyond that (or during the day) set people back $4.95.

These days, Apple typically gauges the right moment to leap into new technologies. Sadly, in the 1990s the company did not seem to possess such perfect timing. eWorld only attracted 147,000 users at its peak.

Do you remember eWorld? Leave your comments below.

 



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Entertainment

Valve’s strange history of talent acquisitions

[ad_1]

For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to follow their hearts.

This has all resulted in an incredibly rich studio that doesn’t produce much. It may be a tired joke that Valve can’t count to three in its games, but we’re not talking about Half-Life today. We’re talking about Valve’s history of buying exciting franchises and talented developers, playing with them for a while, and then forgetting they exist. Real fuckboi behavior — but it’s just how Valve does business.

Let’s take a look at Valve’s history of talent acquisition. One of its oldest franchises, Team Fortress, started as a Quake mod built by a small team in Australia, and Valve bought its developers and the rights to the game in 1998. Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007 and it received a few good years of updates and support. Today, the game has a devoted player base, but it’s riddled with bots and it’s unclear whether anyone at Valve is consistently working on TF2.

Portal began life as a student project called Narbacular Drop, and Valve hired its developers after seeing their demo in 2005. Portal officially came out in 2007, Portal 2 landed in 2011, and both were instant classics. There hasn’t been a whiff of another Portal game since, even though one of the series writers, Erik Wolpaw, really, really wants Valve to make Portal 3.

Of all the Valve franchises that have been left to wither and die, I miss Left 4 Dead the most. Turtle Rock started building Left 4 Dead in 2005, and by the time that came out in 2008, Valve had purchased the studio and its IP outright. Citing slow progress and poor communication, Turtle Rock left Valve before helping the company make Left 4 Dead 2 in 2009. Turtle Rock went on to release Evolve in 2015 and Black 4 Blood in 2021, and is now owned by Tencent. Meanwhile, I’m here, dreaming of that third Left 4 Dead game.

In 2010, Valve secured the rights to the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, and hired its lead developer. Dota 2 came out in 2013 and became an incredibly successful esports title. Now, eleven years later, Dota 2 players are complaining about a lack of support and communication from Valve, especially in comparison with games like League of Legends.

Counter-Strike has received the most attention from Valve in recent memory, with the rollout of Counter-Strike 2 late last year. The original Counter-Strike was a Half-Life mod, and Valve acquired it and its developers in 2000. Counter-Strike 2 is the fifth installment in the series, released 11 years after its predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. After this recent attention, it’s about time for Valve to start ignoring the Counter-Strike community again.

Valve has quietly continued to make acquisitions. In 2018, Valve hired all 12 developers at Firewatch studio Campo Santo, who were at the time working on a very-rad-looking new game, In the Valley of Gods. This could turn out to be another spectacular, genre-defining franchise for Valve’s resume of acquired IP, but there have been no updates from that team in nearly six years. In April 2018, Campo Santo said they were still building In the Valley of Gods at Valve, and promised regular blog posts and quarterly reviews. And then, nothing.

Matt Wood worked at Valve for 17 years, where he helped build Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO and both episodes of Half-Life 2. He left in 2019 and is now preparing to release his first independent game, Little Kitty, Big City. Wood told me in 2023 that Valve was “sitting on their laurels a little bit, and it’s like they weren’t really challenging themselves, taking risks or doing anything. Steam’s making a lot of money so they don’t really have to.”

Of course, Little Kitty, Big City is coming to Steam.

Steam’s unwavering success has helped turn Valve into a senior resort community for computer science nerds, where game developers go to live out their final years surrounded by fantastic amenities, tinkering and unsupervised. It’s a lovely scenario. At least developers there aren’t getting laid off — and I mean that sincerely. Steam is a great service, and Valve seems at least temporarily committed to the Steam Deck hardware, which is very cool. Still, I miss the games that Valve devoured. I have to wonder if the developers there do, too.

Valve’s treatment of legendary franchises and developers raises questions about its commitment to… anything, including Steam. What happens if Valve decides to pivot, or sell, or Gabe Newell retires and blows everything up? What would happen if Steam shut down? As a service with native DRM, all of our games would instantly disappear. Just like all those game devs.

This week’s news

Playdate update

Playdate is one of my favorite gaming gadgets of the past decade, not only because it has an incredibly cute crank, but also because its low-res screen belies a buffet of strange and beautiful experiences pushing the boundaries of traditional play. Panic held a showcase for new Playdate games last week and the headliner was Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight, which is coming out on March 12. Pope is the developer of Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, two incredible games, and Mars After Midnight is set in the doorway of a crowded alien colony. Pope’s games were made for Playdate, this time literally.

Yuzu and Citra are gone

A week after Nintendo threatened to sue the creators of Yuzu into oblivion, the popular Switch emulator has been pulled off the market as part of a $2.4 million settlement. To make matters worse for the emulation community, the lead developer of Yuzu announced that they are also killing the 3DS emulator Citra. Both emulators were open-source, so it’s likely we’ll see Citra at least maintained by the broader community. It’s not clear whether anyone is willing to take on a fork of Yuzu and risk a lawsuit.

Bonus Content

  • Ghost of Tsushima will hit PC on May 16. It comes with all of its DLCs, and Sony says it’ll run on anything from high-end PCs to portable PC gaming devices.

  • Capcom’s Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is apparently coming out this year on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. It debuted at Summer Game Fest and looks pretty unique.

  • Hades hits iOS as a Netflix mobile exclusive on March 19. There are currently no plans for an Android version, which sucks for me.

Now Playing

I found This Bed We Made while doing research for the GLAAD Gaming report I covered a few weeks ago, and I’m incredibly pleased about it. This Bed We Made is an exploration and narrative-driven game set in a 1950s hotel, and it’s absolutely oozing drama and mystery. The writing is fantastic, the characters are complex, and there’s a thrilling storyline running through the whole thing. It’s available on PC and consoles now.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Mac OS 8 ends Mac clone era: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 8: Today in Apple history: Apple outwits clone-makers with Mac OS 8 March 8, 1997: Apple renames the forthcoming Mac OS 7.7 update, calling it “Mac OS 8.” It’s more than just a name change, though: It’s a sneaky sucker punch that ultimately knocks out Mac clones.

Unfortunately for Mac users, the updated operating system does not deliver the total top-to-bottom rewrite promised by Apple’s Project Copland. However, the renaming strategy turns out to be a brilliant (if underhanded) way of getting Apple out of terrible licensing deals.

Mac OS 8 and the attack of the Mac clones

Early 1997 wasn’t a good time to be an Apple watcher. Despite the return of co-founder Steve Jobs, Apple continued losing money hand over fist, suffering through some of its worst financial quarters ever.

One big challenge Apple faced at the time was the existence of clone Macs, which the company originally viewed as a way to save itself from Microsoft’s Windows 95 juggernaut. Starting in December 1994, Apple signed a number of licensing deals with companies like Power Computing and Radius to produce Macintosh-compatible computers.

The goal? Make Mac competitive with Microsoft.

As Apple’s market share fell, long-time rival Microsoft steamed ahead, thanks to its software-licensing strategy. Cupertino execs envisioned clone Macs as a good way to secure Apple’s future.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work like that.

Mac OS 8 ends a bad deal for Apple

Apple CFO Fred Anderson worked out that the clone Macs strategy actually cost the company money. The $50 fee Apple received for every clone Mac sold proved far too low. The company failed to even recoup the money lost when a person chose a clone over an actual Mac.

Cupertino could not get out of the disastrous agreement if it kept updating System 7, the Mac OS licensed to clone-makers. However, if Apple released Mac OS 8, it could argue that the deal became null and void.

Apple made the switch, calling the new operating system Mac OS 8. Then Cupertino began negotiating new, more favorable terms with third parties licensing the Mac operating system.

Mac clone-makers fight back

This inevitably led to consternation from Apple’s licensees. On August 5, 1997, Apple became locked in a standoff with Power Computing after the official launch of Mac OS 8. (You can read more about the feature set of Mac OS 8 here.)

Apple eventually agreed to acquire Power Computing’s customer list and Mac OS license for $10 million and an additional $100 million in AAPL stock. That covered all of Power Computing’s outstanding debts and costs. The clone-maker closed shop for good in early 1998.

Putting an end to Mac clones was one of the first major moves Jobs made as Apple’s new CEO after his 1997 return, along with shutting down the Newton MessagePad division.

System 8 proved a hit in the marketplace, even though it fell short of expectations. Mac fans had to wait for OS X to see a major update, but System 8 marked the start of Apple’s turnaround.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
News

How to Delete Your Google Bard History

Google Bard History.

This guide is designed to show you how to delete your Google Bard History, this can be done on a range of devices. Navigating the digital landscape can often feel like an intricate dance, especially when it comes to managing your online data. In the case of Google’s Bard, understanding how to control your activity data is crucial for maintaining your digital privacy. If you’re looking to manage your Bard activity, you will be pleased to know that Google has made it quite straightforward. This guide will walk you through the steps to review, delete, and pause your Bard activity, ensuring you stay in control of your digital footprint.

Reviewing Your Bard Activity

First things first, accessing your Bard activity is a breeze. If you’re using an Android device, simply open your browser and head to bard.google.com. For those who prefer direct navigation, the Menu icon, typically found at the top left corner, is your gateway. Clicking on it reveals the option ‘Bard Activity’, where all your interactions with Bard are neatly listed. As an alternative, myactivity.google.com/product/bard also leads you directly to your Bard activity page.

Deleting Bard Activity: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. For Total Erasure

Perhaps you want to wipe the slate clean. To delete all your Bard activity, navigate to bard.google.com on your Android device. Tap the Menu icon, select ‘Bard Activity’, and then choose ‘Delete → All time’. This action will erase all your Bard interactions from your account.

2. For Recent Activity

If you’re looking to delete only the most recent entries, such as the last hour or day’s activities, the process remains similar. After accessing the Bard Activity section, simply tap ‘Delete → Last hour’ or ‘Last day’ as per your requirement.

3. Custom Time Frames

Sometimes, you might need to delete activities from a specific time period. In such cases, select ‘Delete → Custom range’ and specify the dates to tailor your data deletion accordingly.

4. Specific Day or Activity

To delete all activities from a particular day or a specific Bard interaction, locate the day or activity in question and tap ‘Delete activity item’ next to it.

Pausing Bard Activity

Google defaults to saving your Bard activities if you’re over 18. However, you have the power to pause this. Visit bard.google.com, access the Menu, and navigate to ‘Bard Activity → “Bard Activity” card’. From there, simply turn off the Bard Activity setting. It’s important to note that even with Bard Activity paused, conversations are still temporarily saved for up to 72 hours to facilitate service delivery and feedback processing. However, this data won’t appear in your Bard Activity log.

Auto-delete Settings

By default, Google auto-deletes Bard activities older than 18 months. To adjust this setting, visit the Bard Activity section on bard.google.com, and tap ‘Auto-delete’. Here, you can change the auto-delete period to 3, 18, or 36 months, or choose not to auto-delete your activity at all. Follow the on-screen instructions to finalize your preferences.

The Deletion Process Explained

Understanding how Google processes your deletion request adds an extra layer of assurance. When you opt to delete Bard activities, either manually or through the auto-delete function, Google initiates an immediate removal process. The aim is to first remove the data from view and then securely and completely erase it from their storage systems.

Navigating Your Digital Footprint

Managing your Bard activity is not just about deleting history; it’s about understanding and controlling your digital presence. With these steps, you can confidently navigate your interactions with Google Bard, knowing you have full control over your digital history.

Remember, staying informed and proactive about your digital footprint is key to maintaining your online privacy. If you ever find yourself wondering how to manage your data on other platforms, similar principles usually apply: access, review, delete, or pause. You can fgind out more details about how to delete your Google Bard History over at Google’s website.

Filed Under: Android News, Guides





Latest timeswonderful Deals

Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, timeswonderful may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Categories
News

Clear the history, cache, and cookies from Safari on your iPhone

clear history safari

This guide is designed to show you how to clear the history, cache, and cookies in Apple’s Safari browser on your iPhone. Every time you browse the web on your iPhone using Safari, the browser stores various information, such as the sites you visited (history), website data for quicker loading (cache), and small files from websites (cookies). While this data helps in quicker access and personalized experiences, it can also take up space and potentially compromise privacy. Therefore, periodically clearing this data is a good practice.

Understanding the Terms

  1. History: This is a log of sites you’ve visited. Clearing it can help maintain your privacy, especially if you share your device with others.
  2. Cache: Safari stores parts of websites in the cache to load them faster during your next visit. Over time, this data can accumulate and take up significant storage space.
  3. Cookies: Cookies are small files that websites use to remember your settings and login details. Clearing cookies can log you out of sites and reset website preferences.

If you’re looking to keep your iPhone clean and protect your privacy, it’s important to clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies from Safari from time to time. This will help to free up space on your phone and prevent websites from tracking your online activity.

Here’s how to clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies from Safari on your iPhone:

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap on Safari.
  3. Scroll down and tap on Clear History and Website Data.
  4. A pop-up will appear asking you to confirm that you want to clear your history and website data. Tap on Clear History and Data.

Your browsing history, cache, and cookies will be cleared.

What is a browsing history?

A browsing history is a record of all the websites that you have visited on your iPhone. This information is stored by Safari so that you can easily go back to the websites that you have visited recently.

What is a cache?

A cache is a temporary storage area on your iPhone that stores copies of web pages. This can help to speed up the loading of web pages.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your iPhone by websites. These cookies can be used to track your online activity and to tailor ads to you.

Why should I clear my browsing history, cache, and cookies?

There are several reasons why you should clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies from Safari on your iPhone:

  • To free up space on your phone.
    To protect your privacy. Websites can track your online activity using cookies. By clearing your cookies, you can prevent websites from tracking you.
    To fix problems with websites that are not loading correctly. Sometimes, clearing your cache and cookies can help to fix problems with websites that are not loading correctly.

How often should I clear my browsing history, cache, and cookies?

It is up to you how often you want to clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies. However, it is a good idea to do it at least once a month.

What happens when I clear my browsing history, cache, and cookies?

When you clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies, the following happens:

  • Your browsing history is deleted. This means that you will no longer see a list of the websites that you have visited recently.
  • Your cache is cleared. This means that the copies of web pages that are stored on your iPhone are deleted. This can speed up the loading of web pages, but it can also make some websites look strange.
  • Your cookies are deleted. This means that websites will no longer be able to track your online activity.

What is the difference between clearing browsing history and clearing website data?

Clearing browsing history only deletes the list of websites that you have visited recently. Clearing website data deletes the list of websites that you have visited recently, as well as the copies of web pages that are stored on your iPhone and the cookies that are stored on your iPhone.

What if I want to clear my history for a specific website?

You can’t clear your history for a specific website in Safari. However, you can clear your browsing history completely and then only visit the websites that you want to keep track of.

What if I want to block cookies?

You can block cookies in Safari by going to Settings > Safari > Block All Cookies. However, this will also block some websites from working correctly. If you want to block cookies from specific websites, you can do that by visiting the website’s privacy settings page.

Additional Tips

  • Regular Maintenance: Clear your history, cache, and cookies periodically to keep Safari running smoothly and protect your privacy.
  • Impact on Website Performance: Note that clearing this data might mean some sites take longer to load initially and you may have to re-enter login details.
  • Backup Important Information: Ensure any important information or bookmarks are saved elsewhere, as clearing history will remove them.

Summary

Regularly clearing the history, cache, and cookies in Safari on your iPhone can help maintain the browser’s performance and protect your privacy. By following these steps, you can manage your data effectively while enjoying a seamless browsing experience. You can find out more details about how to clear your history, cookies and cache on your iPhone over at Apple’s website.

Image Credit: Amanz

Filed Under: Apple, Apple iPhone, Guides





Latest timeswonderful Deals

Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, timeswonderful may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Categories
News

A Brief History of Chickenpox

Chickenpox is a common virus that most of us will experience at least once in our lifetime. It is usually associated with children but can also be contracted by adults. The symptoms include small, itchy, spot-like rashes that turn into blisters. Believed to have been around for centuries, the earliest descriptions of a disease that resembles chickenpox date back to ancient civilisations. While there are references believed to describe chickenpox in ancient Chinese medical texts and writing from the 16th century, it wasn’t until the 19th century that it was distinguished as a separate virus from smallpox.

It all started in 1658

The first piece of known documentation containing the term chickenpox dates back to 1658. However, there is much debate as to how the virus came to have such a name. Although the virus is not spread by chickens, some believe the name comes from the small blisters that look like ‘chicken pecks’. Similarly, others believe that the name originates from the resemblance of the blisters to chickpeas. Another theory suggests that there are many types of pox (a disease characterised by pustules) that are much deadlier, and in comparison, the word ‘chicken’ comes from the lack of severity.

The Symptoms

While chickenpox may be a mild illness compared to small or monkeypox, the symptoms can be unpleasant, and it is highly contagious, which has historically led to widespread outbreaks. An airborne virus, chicken pox is spread from person to person by directly touching infected blisters, saliva or mucus or through coughs and sneezes. Lasting one to two weeks, the chickenpox virus does not require medical intervention and rarely leads to severe complications but can be dangerous in older people and high-risk groups, including pregnant women and those with a weakened immune system.

The Vaccine

By the 1950s, the cause of chickenpox was identified as the varicella-zoster virus. The isolation of this strain of virus led to the development of a chickenpox vaccination. A chickenpox vaccine was first introduced in Japan in the 1970s and later became available in the United States in 1995. The vaccination has led to a decrease in prevalence and is routinely administered to children in the US and Australia, among other countries, usually combined with the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

Recently…

A more recent discovery has been the relation of chickenpox to shingles. Shingles is usually characterised by a blotchy, painful rash on one side of the body. Now known to be caused by the same virus, once someone has recovered from chickenpox, the virus can lay dormant and return later in life as shingles. Shingles cannot be spread to other people; however, if someone has not had chickenpox before, they can catch it from a person who has shingles, as it is the same virus.

The long history of chickenpox highlights the enduring presence of this virus and the advancements made in understanding its causes, preventing the spread of infection and managing it through treatments and vaccination.