The more you use Shortcuts, the more you the lack of shortcut organization smacks you in the face. Adam Tow, of Tow.com, has been an active Shortcuts user and community contributor for some time. He decided to take this problem on and has done so with the release of his LaunchCuts app.

LaunchCuts uses pulls in a list of all your shortcuts and then gives you a way to organize them with things like folders and smart folders. There are a bunch more user-friendly features, like an adjustable grid size and keyboard shortcuts. With this app, you have an alternative to Shortcuts for launching shortcuts. It’s superior for that purpose in every way I can figure. You’ll still need Shortcuts to create automations, but LaunchCuts makes the process of running them much less painful.

Apple has landed in the soup again with the U.S. Justice Department over its inability (or refusal?) to give access to the Pensacola shooter’s phone. This is a similar issue to that faced with the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone a few years ago. Apple makes the iPhone with the intention of securing user data, even from Apple itself. There is an ongoing cat and mouse game where hackers find vulnerabilities and Apple plugs them but the goal, on Apple’s end at least, is that the only people who see what’s on your iPhone is you.

I haven’t been able to confirm, but I suspect that with the Pensacola shooter, it is one of those issues where Apple can’t break its own encryption. The government folks that are tasked with prosecuting bad guys hate that. They want the ability to read accused criminal’s phones to do their jobs. This current conversation hasn’t run its full course yet but inevitably it will get to the concept of back doors.

Specifically, what if Apple built a back door into the operating system that only a few people had access to so they could get access when the case is made but otherwise protect our privacy. The problem is that the existence of a back door means it will inevitably be opened … on everyone. I simply don’t believe a back door would ever remain secret.

I don’t believe this is something where we just go along with the government’s desire for yet another privacy invasion for all of us. Such a back door in the hands of a bad actor, or an oppressive state, is something I don’t want to think about too long. Furthermore, if such a back door were installed, the terrorists and sophisticated criminals would simply move to some other platform and still have secured communications and data, while the rest of us no longer do.

I sympathize with law enforcement for wanting access to this data. I worked briefly in the criminal justice system and I know how maddening it would be to know you have a magic envelope with evidence in it and no way to open that envelope. I just think the sacrifice involved with creating a back door is too much to ask.

I do think this discussion isn’t over though. Apple sells into a lot of countries. Any one of them could require they install a back door as a condition of access to the market. Apple’s principals are on a collision course with a massive loss of income. Is it just a question of time before governmental regulation and market pressures make this period of time, where all citizens have relatively secured data and communications, only a temporary phase? I sure hope not.

It’s funny how everyone keeps thinking about the technology industry in terms of cars. Steve Jobs talked a lot about cars and trucks. Just this week, Ben Thompson wrote about the technology industry in general and his theory that it is similar to the formative years of the car industry. 

The argument goes that while there were a lot of companies started with the idea of building cars at the inception of the automobile industry when the dust settled, there were only a few left. By that time, those companies had such an extreme advantage that there simply was no room for new start-up car manufacturers to get any traction. Thompson then applies this to technology, arguing that the platforms and integrations built by Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon represent that same extreme advantage. How could someone that wants to make their own mobile phone platform (or whatever gizmo follows the mobile phone) get any traction without all the back end pieces the big four have spent ten years (and billions of dollars) creating? The more I think about it, the more I agree.

The reason this is important is because a lot of us (myself included) had always assumed that at some point, this phase of technology would come to an end by a brand new disrupter completely displacing the current leaders. Now I’m not so sure. Ben Thompson is one of the smartest people writing about the technology industry. If you don’t have Stratechery on your RSS feed, you should.

Benjamin Mayo did a fantastic job at 9to5 Mac of summarizing Apple’s run in the 2010s. Because Apple is such an iterative company, it is easy to forget how far they can move in 10 years.