Jack Dorsey Twitter Alternative Live; Google Makes Chrome Less a Battery Hog; iPhone 16 Will Use Apple Modem; China Warns Musk

Bluesky, the Twitter alternative app being built by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, is now live on the iOS app store. You will need an invite to use it, though. 9to5mac.com reports that if you signed up to be notified, look for an email with your invitation in it soon. Bluesky so far looks like a simplified version of Twitter. It uses a decentralized protocol like the one behind Mastodon…another widely touted Twitter alternative. Now that is is up on Apple’s App store, it seems likely that Bluesky will be live to everyone without an invite very soon.

If you use Google Chrome on a Mac, which I do pretty often, you probably have noticed that it is a major battery and resource hog. Well Google has noticed, too…or gotten enough complaints to do something, anyway. According to mashable.com, Google has now made a number of optimizations to the Chrome browser that should make it a lot less battery shredding on Macs. Google now says running a 13 inch M2 MacBook Pro, you ought to be able to get 17 hours of battery using Chrome for browsing, and 18 hours viewing on YouTube. Google has made energy saving optimizations over the last couple years, but this is the first one which is Mac specific. all Chrome users should see improvement on Macs by the end of this week. 

There’s been lots of buzz about it, and now it’s official…Apple will be using its own in-house 5G modems in iPhones for the iPhone 16 due out in September 2024. Bgr.com says the word has come from the CEO of Qualcomm, who says he’s not expecting Apple to continue using his company’s chips as the Cupertino firm is moving to its own modems by 2024. It’s expected that iPhones using Apple designed modems should see a bump in battery life when on a 5G network. 

While Elon Musk and Mexico have announced that the next Tesla Gigafactory will be built in Monterrey, Mexico, China has given Mr Musk a stern warning not to bite the hand that feeds him. According to CNBC, The Global Times…the English-language subsidiary of the CCP-controlled People’s Daily…warned Musk that he could be “breaking the pot of China” after the Tesla and Twitter CEO responded to tweets that asserted that the Covid pandemic originated in a Wuhan research laboratory. Tesla has an expansive factory campus in Shanghai, and China is the electric vehicle manufacturer’s second largest market. Elon had best reign in his remarks concerning this hot topic with the Chinese government…even if that Mexican Tesla plant was up and running, and angry enough China could just step in and nationalize his plant there, and start selling the cars under their own new brand name, and he would be helpless as he loses his #2 market in the world.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.