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There are few things more challenging for a family than losing a loved one. Historically, that person’s digital existence was of lower importance relative to everything else going on during the painful transition. However, as more vital processes move online, the problem of a next of kin in the digital world will need a cleaner solution.

Right now, your best bet is to use a password manager and make sure your partner or chosen family member/friend has the master password. This isn’t the worst choice, but most people don’t even do this much. Furthermore, it does nothing to address the wishes of the deceased. Do they want accounts deleted? Ignored? Made into memorials?

Wealth is frequently mistaken for success because they often go hand-in-hand. So when I say “look to the wealthy people” I am not giving life advice on attaining success. I simply mean to look at the wealthy people in the world today and consider the fundamental advantages they have. If you’re able to distill these advantages and learn how to streamline them and decrease cost with technology, you might want to start picking stitching for the leather on your yacht. Still not following? 

I want to preface this that I hold Jony Ive in the highest regard and his work is what gave me an appreciation for beautiful things. These are just a few “what if’s” and thoughts that went through my mind on the news of Jony Ive being promoted from Senior Vice President of Design to the extraordinarily rare (for Apple) C-level Chief Design Officer.

Work and Family #

I don’t know Jony or his family, but if there is any family pressure to return to the U.K. then he is in a really tough position. The number of people that count on him, the number of people that directly benefit from his work, and the overall impact he has is profound. How do you balance that with a family who (hypothetically) want’s to move? Of course, this “move to the U.K.” is all rumor at this point. If the world is lucky, it is nothing more. 

The metric of choice for comparing iOS to Android is average revenue per user, or ARPU (spoken phonetically exactly as you’d guess). This is fine, it is certainly technically accurate, but it isn’t exactly relevant for most of the discussions where it is used as ammo. It’s like comparing the average revenue per user of all car buyers vs. only Ferrari* buyers – it tells you what you already know.

I am a firm believer in two factor authentication; I can’t imagine a better way to keep yourself secure than enabling 2FA on any service that supports it. Contrary to popular belief, there is minimal inconvenience. For any site or service that you care about, the benefits outweigh the cost by several orders of magnitude.

It’s worth taking a look at who all supports it and noticing the pattern that that so many “old dogs” (companies that are huge and have been around for a long time) don’t support it, but newer companies do. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but might help you decide who gets your business.

If you use iOS or OS X and missed the Mac Power Users podcast this week with Joe Caiati, I highly recommend checking it out. One highlight for me (as the default tech support for a growing circle of people) was the mention of The Safe Mac. The website is “retro” (to put it nicely), but the adware removal tool is top notch – and free (donations recommended). 

It is worth checking out as an option for your loved ones who find themselves installing Flash from some bogus website (something that’s shockingly easy to do).

Twitter’s growth numbers have been a disappointment among investors and a large group of the company’s enthusiasts. On one hand, having hundreds of millions of users is an incredible accomplishment. On the other hand, they are having tremendous difficulty bringing new users onto the service and keeping them there, especially for a company whose brand recognition is off the charts.

There are a handful of fundamental issues with both the perception of the service and the new user experience that will prevent this reality from changing. Make no mistake, I am bullish on Twitter and wouldn’t think twice about declaring it my favorite thing on the internet, but these roadblocks must be overcome to see any meaningful change. Twitter has the potential to be the central hub for how people experience the digital world around them. It is social, it is news, it is entertainment, it is educational, it is anything and everything you want it to be. So why aren’t more people signing up and sticking with the service if it is so versatile and powerful?

Messaging is king, especially text-based messaging. Voice is fine, video has its place too, but there is nothing today that can replace the rapid and highly private aspects of text-based messaging – no headphones required. Given this, it is no surprise that iMessage has been a hit, but other cross-platform apps have been even bigger hits (judging by user count). WhatsApp, Telegram, Hangouts, and others are all trying to be the go-to app for messaging.

There has been no shortage of coverage on drones lately, especially around the holidays when the cheap ones were selling fairly well as toys. I think the industry leaders have a very different view of why drone technology matters, or at least I suspect they do, because there is a drone revolution closer than many people think. The biggest hurdle in the United States is the FAA, but that’s outside the scope of this piece.

A few records have been broken today thanks to a little app called Acompli. That’s right, the app that Microsoft accidentally leaked their intent to purchase this week. So what do I mean by records?

• The first time I’ve promoted an app from the back page to my dock.
• The first time I’m strongly considering replacing the native iOS email client entirely.
• The first email client I’ve ever opened and been unable to find any glaring shortcomings.

I am picky with my email clients. I was not a fan of Google’s new Inbox and it only took me about half a day to download, adopt, then delete Dropbox’s Mailbox. Email doesn’t have to be terrible, and as surprising as many “power users” find it, I found the native iOS email client to be a top tier solution for my phone.