A global leader in high end automotive design is urgently seeking a Senior Liferay Developer.

You will be required to work on Greenfields projects and exposure to develop software for self-driving machines and electric powered vehicles.

We need an individual who views code as a passion and not just a job so that we can take his/her career to the next level. You will join a team of cloud certified in order to develop the next generation of exciting system software using the latest technology and trends taking a lead role into the fourth industrial revolution.

Requirements:

• 5+ years
• Bootstrap
• Angular JS
• Ajax
• js
• Jenkins
• Sonar
• Glassfish Server
• Liferay 7
• Java Enterprise Development
• Java Persistence Framework
• Gladle
• Flyway
• GlassFish
• Payara
• JUnit
• HTML

Reference Number for this position is MK53402 which is a long-term contracting position based in Centurion / Semi remote offering a contracting rate of between R460 and R600 per hour negotiable on experience and ability. Contact Mojo on [Email Address Removed] or call him on [Phone Number Removed]; to discuss this and other opportunities.

Are you ready for a change of scenery? The e-Merge IT recruitment is a specialist niche recruitment agency. We offer our candidates options so that we can successfully place the right developers with the right companies in the right roles. Check out the e-Merge website [URL Removed] for more great positions.

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Desired Skills:

• HTML
• JUnit
• Ajax
• Angular JS

Desired Work Experience:

• 5 to 10 years Software Development

Desired Qualification Level:

Learn more/Apply for this position

Apple this week began allowing developers to apply for a Vision Pro developer kit, which Apple plans to loan out to some companies and individuals for the purpose of app development. Developers who are approved for a headset will need to go through a customization process, which will provide a tailored fit for the lead person on the team.

As shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and a MacRumors reader, Apple will use an app to help developers find the correct Head Band and Light Seal fit for the Vision Pro. The "W" could perhaps refer to width, while the "N" may reference the size of the nose bridge, which are measurements used for fitting glasses and other optical devices.

Developers who wear glasses and need optical inserts will be put in touch with Zeiss to send Zeiss prescription information.

Information on Apple's developer website also mentions a workflow for unpairing an AirTag when returning a kit, which suggests Apple is using its item trackers to keep tabs on the headsets. Vision Pro developer kits are shipped in a lockable Pelican case that needs to be kept locked when the headset is not in use, and developers must keep the headsets in a secure location. An AirTag could perhaps be included in the storage case to allow it to be tracked down in the event of a theft.

Each developer that receives a kit will have the testing process overseen by a partnership manager, and developers will receive extra help with app development. Apple plans to prioritize developers who are creating apps that take advantage of the visionOS features and capabilities.

While Apple has been accepting applications since earlier this week, there is no word yet on whether any developers have had their applications approved. It is not yet clear when developer kits will be shipped out, and we may not know because Apple is overseeing the testing process so closely.

One of the most existential questions of the modern web is how online companies should generate revenue. The web of today reflects primarily one answer to that question: that of a web where everything is free, but we pay for it through our privacy. The web has become a dystopian surveillance state in which companies stalk their unsuspecting victims across the web, extracting maximal profit from removing any shred of privacy or dignity and socializing the risk of data breach or damage to the user, while privatizing all the monetary benefit of exploiting them. Social media platforms often generate the majority of their revenue through selling hyper targeted advertising based on algorithmically mining every second of their unwilling and unwitting users’ lives. Yet those same companies go to great lengths to argue that they are not “selling” their users’ data. What does it mean for companies to “sell” our data in today’s data hungry world?

The question of whether social media companies “sell” their users’ data was thrust back into the spotlight last week when a trove of internal emails from Facebook’s senior executives was released by the British Parliament. Among them was a chain featuring none other than Mark Zuckerberg himself proposing the idea of actually charging a monetary fee for developers to access user data, which they could repay either by purchasing advertising, selling items or simply writing Facebook a check. While the company took great pains to emphasize last week that it never ended up following through with the proposal, the mere fact that the company’s founder had openly discussed quite literally charging a per-user fee to access user data really drove home how the company views its users as monetizable entities being exploited by a for-profit company, rather than a benevolent company trying to connect the world and generating revenue only where it would not conflict with its public good vision.

Moreover, Zuckerberg’s equivalency between advertising revenue and writing a check demonstrates that the company sees little difference between selling access by advertising and selling access by check.

It is worth noting the stark difference between Facebook’s internal descriptions of its two billion account holders compared with how it describes them in its public materials. In public statements about commercializing account holders, Facebook goes to great lengths to use humanizing language like “people,” “person” and “anyone.” Yet in the 250 pages of internal emails released last week that show the unvarnished genuine language used by Facebook’s executives internally to describe account holders, the word “customer” shows up only once, in the context of the Royal Bank of Canada’s “customers.” The word “people” shows up in only two brief passages, both in the context of account holders providing content (whether posts or engagements) of value to Facebook. The word “human” never makes a single appearance. In contrast, the word “user” appears throughout the 250 pages, most notably when Zuckerberg himself refers to Facebook’s two billion account holders as “users” when proposing that the company could directly charge developers a fee of “$0.10/user per year.”

It seems that Facebook’s account holders are not “customers” since that would afford them a certain level of dignity and a relationship based around the company providing them a valuable service in a mutual transaction. They are only “people” when it comes to public statements and in the context of extracting monetizable behaviors from them. The rest of the time they are dehumanized through the term “user” to remind us that we are merely datapoints and login accounts to Facebook, not real human beings whose lives are being exploited and monetized for its benefit.

Over the last two weeks the company’s executives have sought to draw a distinction between monetizing users through advertising and monetizing them through boxing up their data for download like the data brokers they formerly purchased from.

Zuckerberg offered that “we’ve never sold anyone’s data” while Facebook’s Vice President of Advertising Rob Goldman argued “we don’t sell peoples’ data. Period. That’s not a dodge or semantics, it’s a fact. We don’t sell or share personal information.”

Of course, it is important to caveat that Facebook has previously argued that providing access to outside companies did not constitute “sharing” so long as it considered them to be “partners.”

Are Zuckerberg and Goldman right that Facebook does not “sell” user data? The answer revolves around what it means to “sell” data.

When we think about “selling” user data we typically think of a company boxing up the personal information of its customers and selling them as downloadable ZIP files with per user and flat rate pricing. Indeed, the enormous world of data brokers exists to do precisely this. Many companies we do business with, from the grocery stores and brick and mortar stores we shop at to the newspapers and magazines we subscribe to, box up their subscriber information and sell those lists for a profit.

Verizon reminded us this summer that even paying a subscription fee doesn’t mean a company won’t turn a side profit by further monetizing its customers by selling ads and even outright selling their data. For all the naïve talk about how a fee-based Facebook would end surveillance, Verizon reminds us that even those companies that charge a fee for their services will still monetize their users on the side.

Walgreens offers a useful comparison to Facebook’s definition of “selling” user data. While most Americans likely believe that their drug prescriptions are protected from any form of exploitation under medical privacy laws like HIPAA, it turns out that those laws permit pharmacies like Walgreens to monetize their users through advertising. Specifically, pharmaceutical companies can pay Walgreens to send an advertisement for a drug trial to all its customers that suffer from a particular medical condition. The pharmaceutical company itself is never given a list of patients, it merely hands the ad over to Walgreens and pays a fee and Walgreens sends the mailers itself.

For all intents and purposes, Walgreens has created an offline physical mail advertising model that mimics the hyper targeted digital ads that clog the online world. Like Facebook, the company is careful to argue that it does not “sell” its customer data, it merely sells access to those customers to show them advertisements. To a Walgreens customer that receives a mailer on behalf of a third-party company they’ve never heard of targeting them because of a prescription they filled at Walgreens and thought was confidential, the distinction between “selling data” and “selling access” is likely unimportant. As far as they are concerned, Walgreens sold their data. Notably, when asked why the company does not explicitly inform customers at purchase time that it will use their prescriptions to sell access to them, the company noted that under HIPAA, selling access to customers does not “require patient authorization.”

Facebook is therefore in good company when it comes to businesses drawing a distinction between selling access to their users for advertising versus boxing up their data and offering downloadable ZIP files.

Just what is Facebook selling? In his statement last week, Zuckerberg compared Facebook to a cloud computing company like Amazon and Google. Yet, developers turn to cloud vendors to purchase access to unique hardware and software environments, not data. As an Amazon or Google or Microsoft customer, you are renting empty computers to fill with your own data, the cloud companies don’t offer any access to their customer data of any kind.

In contrast, Facebook is in reality renting access to data. Its sole value proposition to developers is access to its two billion users. A giant manufacturer building solar power arrays doesn’t turn to Facebook to rent petabytes of storage and tens of thousands of processors and GPUs to run simulations and neural models. It turns to an real cloud computing vendor.

The developers that turn to Facebook are there for one sole purpose: to reach Facebook’s two billion users.

Does that count as Facebook “selling” the data of two billion users? It certainly constitutes “selling access.”

To put it another way, if Facebook genuinely believes that developers view it as a traditional cloud computing vendor and that it is not “selling” its users’ data, then it could simply shut down all of its user APIs and allow developers to run their applications on Facebook without any ability to publish, consume or otherwise interact with its users. If access to users is genuinely not any part of Facebook’s value proposition to developers, then this would not have the slightest impact on usage of its platforms.

After all, Amazon has a robust cloud computing business without offering its cloud customers any access to the personal private information of its Amazon.com customers.

In arguing that Facebook’s business model does not count as “selling data,” the company offered the defense that “It’s how the internet works, not just how Facebook works.” In short, when asked whether its business model was morally defensible, the company responded not by arguing that it was, but rather by arguing that “everyone else does it” so it is ok for it to do it too.

This is noteworthy because it is exactly the same defense it offered me when I asked about its former practice of purchasing intimate data about its two billion users from commercial data brokers. Asked about the ethics of doing so and especially the opacity around its practices and its failure to provide users with more information about what was happening with their data, the company argued that everyone else does the same thing so it is ok for it to do it too.

Of course, the idea that Facebook does not “sell” its data belies the fact that it is often compelled by governments to “provide” its users’ private intimate data under court order.

In addition to merely “selling access” to advertisers and developers to reach its two billion users, Facebook also makes data available in other ways. Demographers wishing to create maps of specific combinations of traits and interests or understand their temporal changes can use advertising campaigns to create population scale insights.

Similarly, advertisers running ads that link back to their sites know that every person following that link possesses the specific traits the ad targeted. An ad targeting Catholic women 25-30 interested in football will result in click throughs of precisely those individuals to the advertiser’s site.

A New York Times editorial this week argued that such click throughs constitute a form of data sale in that advertisers can pay Facebook to receive traffic from specific demographics and that the resulting IP addresses that visit their site are thus known to be users with those traits. The author argues that this in effect constitutes a form of external data sale.

In other words, if Facebook considers giving a data broker a phone number and getting back demographic selectors about that person to be “buying” data, then a company paying Facebook to get IP addresses and demographic selectors would seem to fall under a similar category of a data transaction.

Facebook pushed back against the editorial, arguing that because advertisers only have an IP address and not the person’s name or contact details, that such data is in effect “anonymous.” In essence, as long as a person’s name and contact information are not attached to a record, that their IP address alone is not a unique identifier in Facebook’s view. As Goldman put it, “what makes it anonymous is that you won’t know who those people are,” only their IP address.

In reality, there are countless ways outside companies can reidentify an IP address to a specific user. There are numerous data brokers that sell the most exact IP address used by each person in their database, tying IP addresses to the address information those users enter into sites across the web, such as ordering products or entering surveys. Though, as with all data broker datasets, it is unclear how updated or accurate this information is.

Larger advertisers, including data brokers themselves, already track their customers across the web using cookies and know the most exact IP address each of their customers used to access their website or mobile app. They can run tens of thousands or even millions of ad campaigns on Facebook targeting each demographic of interest and simply cross reference the IP addresses of the clickthroughs from each campaign against their own records of which IP address is associated with each customer. While imperfect, such linking is no more error prone than the processes data brokers and companies use already.

Even if a clickthrough is not an existing customer, the demographic information implied by that clickthrough can be used to vastly enrich the customer’s website experience and purchasing record.

Imagine a user visits the site of a consumer products company out of the blue. The company knows absolutely nothing about that user other than inferring their geographic location from their IP address and estimating their rough demographics and purchasing power from the kind of computer and browser they are using. Now, imagine instead that that user came through a referral from the company’s Facebook ad targeting female millennial Bernie Sander supporters in New York City who rent, have a dog, work in the financial industry and love luxury coffee. The company now knows quite a lot about that person and can tailor the landing page to present a hand selected set of extremely relevant products. If the person purchases a product, they can then append all of those demographic selectors from Facebook to the customer’s profile to use for future customization and marketing.

Does the fact that this third-party company received demographic selectors from Facebook that it used to customize its site and enrich its customer record mean that Facebook “sold” it that data? The company would not have received that demographic information from Facebook without paying for it.

At the same time, Facebook’s argument is that since the data they sent to advertisers is identified by IP addresses rather than mailing addresses, phone numbers or person names, it should be considered “anonymous” data and thus doesn’t count as “selling” data.

Under this justification, Facebook could box up the totality of two billion users’ personal data and sell it at $0.10 a user per year as downloadable ZIP files so long as those ZIP files have the person’s name, address and phone number stripped out and uses only their IP address as their identifier.

As any data scientist or privacy expert realizes, however, the wealth of online data available means that an IP address is frequently enough to connect an “anonymized” record back to a real person.

Arguing that a customer record is “anonymous” and thus does not constitute “selling” data merely because it uses an IP address instead of phone number as an identifier is simply an absolute falsehood in today’s data drenched world. Facebook of all companies knows this.

Even if a record was stripped of all identifiers, including its IP address, unique combinations of characteristics could be used to readily reidentify customer records by comparing them against other holdings like data broker archives. In essence, the unique pattern of our behaviors acts as the equivalent of a digital fingerprint that can be used to reidentify us merely from our behavioral traces.

Facebook’s stance that stripping common identifiers is sufficient to render data “anonymous” even with an IP address attached helps explain its view towards its academic research initiative Social Science One and that it is acceptable to make its two billion users’ private intimate information available to academics across the world so long as they are “anonymous.”

Asked last month about its perspective on data sales, the company did not respond. It also did not immediately respond to a request as to how it views the threshold of anonymity of user data.

Putting this all together, in the end companies like Facebook may attempt to draw legal differences between “selling data” and “selling access” and that IP addresses still constitute “anonymity” but the reality is that the general public sees all of these monetization behaviors as the same exploitation of their personal privacy for monetary gain. Instead of arguing semantics, companies should take genuine steps towards regaining the trust of their users, starting with coming clean about all of the ways they exploit their users’ data and all of the ways they have considered using their data and no longer hiding behind arcane legal definitions. In the end, companies that ask the public to trust them must earn that trust.

Doug Compton wants a Wal-Mart at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

But not just as a shopper, Lawrence resident, or an interested observer of the unfolding debate about development in the northwest corner of town.

The Lawrence developer owns the land where the retail giant wants to open a second Lawrence store, adding to its stable of 4,750 worldwide.

With neighbors fighting the proposal and city officials circling the wagons to battle it in court, Compton finds himself in an all-too-familiar position — at odds with many in a town he professes to love.

“We’re usually attracted to projects that other people don’t want, the more difficult projects,” said Compton, whose 6Wak Land Investments LLC partnership bought the 52-acre site that includes 17 acres for Wal-Mart after a Kansas City-area developer backed out. “There are a lot of deals out there, but the ones that take a lot of patience, and long-term care are usually the ones that we do …

“It’s definitely more interesting, and it definitely tests your patience and your desire to be in the business we’re in.”

As president of First Management Inc. and managing partner of a handful of other companies, Compton leads a growing business empire that has branched out of Lawrence and into four states.

The sheer size of his holdings — nearly 2,300 apartment units, more than a dozen commercial centers and buildings, a handful of farms and hundreds more acres of land ripe for development — have focused the eyes of an often-skeptical public on his dealings. And while the developer generally tries to avoid the limelight, he is not afraid of controversy.

Offending sensibilities

Charles Jones, a Douglas County commissioner, recalled that Compton once uprooted a state-champion bald cypress tree from a vacant lot in east Lawrence to make way for new construction. And a dilapidated home next to a historic mansion once fell victim to an unexplained fire before it could be incorporated into one of Compton’s new apartment complexes.

Lawrence developer Doug Compton, behind a push to put a second Wal-Mart in Lawrence, says he takes criticism as part of his business. Compton says he tries to find a happy medium with neighbors whenever developing properties in a new town.

“He seems to have a talent for offending the public’s sensibilities,” said Jones, who is reviewing Compton-led plans for opening 800 acres of vacant land southeast of town for new homes and businesses. “Doug always seems to be at the heart of controversy. Whether that’s his nature or the nature of his projects, I’m not sure.”

Compton said it was simply the nature of his work that sometimes makes him a lightning rod.

“Being in the real estate and development business, that means change,” he said. “And nobody likes change.”

Friends and business associates said they consider Compton among the hardest-working and most conscientious people they know. Critics don’t discount his energy, but often question his ways of getting things done. Both sides agree on this: Compton has had a large hand in shaping the face of the community.

“He’s had a big impact,” said Bobbie Flory, executive director of the Lawrence Home Builders Assn. “As we look around Lawrence, we can see Doug’s fingerprint.”

Compromise

A Lawrence city commissioner from 1993 to 1995, Compton has shown a willingness to compromise, if that’s what it takes to get a job done.

A classic case began early last year, when Compton proposed rezoning agricultural land on the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Folks Road.

Nearby residents wanted the land to remain open space or, if it were to be developed, single-family homes. But Compton wanted to build apartments — 120 of them.

For nearly a year, both sides dug in, unwilling to bend.

“Doug certainly has an image that precedes him,” said Steve Wilson, treasurer of the Quail Run Neighborhood Assn., which was formed to challenge the project. “The neighborhoods around Lawrence are very suspicious of developers in general, but Doug specifically because he’s one of the biggest.”

And Quail Run residents were able to block Compton’s project because surrounding landowners signed a “protest petition” that required the Lawrence City Commission to muster a 4-1 “super majority” vote for approval. At the time, a 3-2 vote was the best Compton could hope for.

‘Anger on both sides’

Then-Mayor Sue Hack tried mediating — to no avail.

“There was a fair amount of anger on both sides,” Hack said.

But over time, Wilson said, the combatants began to wear down.

“I think both sides realized we weren’t going anywhere,” Wilson said. “It didn’t benefit either side to continue digging in. The neighbors were certainly not going to provide in. And Doug’s not the kind of businessman who backs down.”

The final proposal called for about three dozen single-family homes around the periphery of the property, transitioning to fewer than three dozen apartments on the interior — away from the neighbors.

In June, members of the neighborhood association appeared before the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission to support the project they once bitterly opposed.

“It was a rather lengthy process and it was certainly frustrating for both sides,” Wilson said. “In the end, I think Mr. Compton was genuine in his interest to work with the neighbors.”

Lawrence developer Doug Compton feeds one of his two zebras at his home. Compton's family is host to many animals, including bison and camels.

Value of compromise

Compton saw the value of such compromises years earlier, when he served as a city commissioner. And he heard plenty about the effects of ill-advised developments as he led city efforts to create a comprehensive drainage policy to prevent the rise of flooding problems across the city.

But such lessons from his past don’t make it any easier. They certainly didn’t for the project at Sixth Street and Folks Road.

“We went through 16 different site plans on that 20 acres — 16 in two years before we finally found one that I think’s acceptable to all the neighbors and to us,” Compton said. “We had to find a middle ground, and that’s probably the toughest thing we do every day.”

The issue went down as a mixed grade for Compton in the eyes of city neighborhood organizations.

“All I know is what I’ve heard from people in Quail Run: It started off rough, but ended up better than they expected,” said Caleb Morse, president of the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods. “I wish it had started that way.”

Bottoms Up

Compton got his start in Lawrence as a student at Kansas University, earning a bachelor’s degree in general studies in 1982. Soon after graduating he bought a bar, the Bottoms Up, from former KU basketball star and NBA stalwart Paul Mokeski.

“I got a loan — $20,000 from a bank back home,” said Compton, who grew up working on farms around Wellington.

It wasn’t long before Compton — son of a Boeing engineer — would see his business career take off. He bought a second bar, The Mad Hatter, before opening a Benetton apparel shop on Massachusetts Street.

By the end of the 1980s, Compton had started what would become a thriving real estate and development business, one that would allow him to shed his retail holdings. He closed the decade by teaming up with former KU basketball coach Larry Brown to open Park Plaza, a shopping strip at 27th and Iowa streets that includes Marling’s Home Furnishings.

The company slowly grew to include about a dozen employees, and Compton — who had slopped hogs, run combines and baled hay on family farms to get through school — wasn’t about to hide behind a desk.

“When I first started, Doug was the one out there running the snowplows to clear all the parking lots,” said Sheryl Krzanowsky, now regional manager for Compton’s property-management and construction businesses. “He’d work every piece of equipment. He was always out in the middle of it.”

Compton said if he had his way, he’d still be doing it.

“Now I can’t,” he said, sitting in an office conference room surrounded by drawings, blueprints and plans for more than a dozen projects. “So much of my time is consumed by all this, I just can’t.”

Growing portfolio

Compton’s holdings — either on his own or through a handful of partnerships — include 2,297 apartments, townhouses and rental homes, most of them in college towns. His Lawrence complexes include Highpointe Apartments, Chase Court and Parkway Commons, which account for 460 of the 1,034 units he has in town.

Even critics of some of his most contested projects provide Compton the nod on his follow-through.

“In his favor, he does landscaping,” said Marci Francisco, a former Lawrence mayor and longtime member of the Oread Neighborhood Assn., which represents neighbors near the KU campus. “The project on 11th and Mississippi is a reasonable one. It does look nicer than some other apartments.”

Compton’s commercial properties include several strip commercial centers and free-standing buildings, including four in downtown Lawrence and a couple of car washes. Among his partners are Larry Brown and Danny Manning, who led Kansas University’s basketball team to its last national championship before moving on to success in the NBA, then returning to KU basketball this year.

His only hobby

Such basketball connections — Compton is a fixture behind the KU bench at Allen Fieldhouse and often follows the team on the road — allow the longtime booster to escape the pressures of the business world.

“It’s like the only hobby that I have,” Compton said. “I don’t play golf. I don’t really play any other sports. I don’t gamble. … (The basketball) kind of gets in your blood.”

Through Brown, Compton became friends with Quin Snyder, basketball coach at the University of Missouri. Compton is godfather of Snyder’s son, Owen.

Compton has a basketball hoop outside his house — and a larger, southern-style mansion still being built — on a 40-acre lot north of Free State High School. The image of a Jayhawk is burned into the pavement.

Inside his horse stables, Compton hangs vestiges of KU’s 1988 title run — signed photos and mementos from Brown and Manning, back when they were just friends, not business partners.

The mansion is in Bauer Brook, a 160-acre residential subdivision that has seven lots, including Compton’s own at the end of the cul-de-sac. His 40-acre site already includes a guest house, garages, stables, barn, buffaloes, zebras and other exotic animals.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” said Maryan Tebbutt, whose family once owned the land. “When this place was first built years ago, it was the biggest and grandest of any of the farms in the area. I knew he would do something special, but I wasn’t so sure it would be as magnificent as this.”

The main house, a southern-style mansion, remains a work in progress more than two years after construction began. Compton keeps a close eye on everything his name touches, whether its the progress of craftsmen bending rails for the home’s grand staircase or the attorneys fighting to get Wal-Mart’s plans approved.

Looking ahead

Compton says he aims to slow down in the years ahead.

“I think the easiest thing we’ve done is to get where we’re at,” he said. “I think one of the hardest things we have in my business right now is to take care of it. And that’s what we focus on more than anything every day is to take care of what we have.”

During the past six months Compton has sold 550 apartments, including Gateway, Heatherwood Valley, College Station and Regency Place complexes in Lawrence. He said he planned to focus more on out-of-town projects, such as the 201-unit Grindstone Canyon complex recently built in Columbia, Mo.

In Lawrence, Compton said he intended to concentrate on projects already in the works:

• Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive, where he’s pushing to start construction of a Wal-Mart store.
• Sixth Street and Folks Road, where the homes and apartments are pending.
• Vacant land southeast of Lawrence that formerly was owned by Farmland Industries. His 180 acres, most of it southeast of Kansas Highway 10 and O’Connell Road, is expected to include a grocery store and other “neighborhood” shopping opportunities, plus apartments, duplexes and several hundred single-family homes.

Compton, 43, said the three projects would keep him busy for the next five to seven years — and put him in position to retire within 15 years.

“I’ll be sitting at home with my wife and kids, and I’m going to be enjoying what I’ve done the last 15 years,” he said. “I think I’ve been blessed and I’m very fortunate. Sometimes it’s overwhelming how well things have gone, and I would say we’re lucky to be where we’re at.”

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Developers have come to expect a flexible work schedule when it comes to their career. In a new report, 86 percent of respondents revealed they currently work remotely in some capacity. Thirty-three percent work from home full time while 28 percent split their time between working remotely and going into the office.

The report comes from DigitalOcean’s sixth and latest release of its Currents research series, which gathered responses from more than 4,500 developers.

“Today, it is critical that companies offer remote work flexibility, or they risk seeming behind the times. In fact, over half of respondents noted that they think less highly of a company that doesn’t offer remote work options,” Al Sene, VP of engineering at DigitalOcean, wrote in a post.

While many companies fear allowing employees to work from home could result in disengagement or isolation, 71 percent of developers working remotely find they are still able to connect to the company’s community through workplace communication tools and collaboration software. In order to connect to the larger developer community, developers often attend meetups or local events, contribute to online forums, attend developer conferences and contribute to projects on GitHub, the report found.

However, 29 percent of developers do state they feel excluded from offline team conversations or don’t feel integrated into the company’s culture.

“Of these respondents who were aware that their company had a remote-employee programs, 88 percent said they have a positive impact. This disparity highlights a valuable opportunity for companies to invest in connecting their employees,” the report states.

The report also found working remotely can positively impact a work-life balance, with 77 percent believing working remotely reduces the stress of commuting. Seventy-five percent stated working remotely gives them the ability to work wherever they want to live, and 70 percent cited it provides time to run personal errands. Other reasons included ability to balance work and passion projects, ability to care for children and/or family members, and the ability to attend family events easily. A quarter of respondents found working from home had no impact on their work-life balance while 11 percent of developers who work from home said their work-life balance actually worsens because they end up working longer hours and the expectation that they should contribute more.

Other findings of the report included: two-thirds of respondents report stress levels related to work cause them to feel burnt out or fatigued regardless of being in the office or working remotely, and remote workers rate their work-life balance only slightly higher than in-office workers.

“While remote work options have become increasingly popular and more widely accepted among developers, companies must continue to support these workers to ensure they feel included, avoid burnout, and maintain a positive work-life balance,” according to the report.

Every June at WWDC, Apple announces and demonstrates the next version of iOS for your iPhone, but the final version doesn’t actually launch until the fall (usually around September). What if you don’t want to wait that long to try out the new features? You need to install the beta!

During the months between June and September Apple works on the upcoming version of iOS (which in 2023 is iOS 17) with help from developers and public testers. If you want to try out the new operating system it’s easy to get on board.

If you become a beta tester you can continue to receive early software updates even after the final version launches. Development of iOS continues after the September release with a number of “point releases” (e.g. iOS 17.1, iOS 17.2, etc.) that add additional features that weren’t available at launch and fix bugs/address security flaws.

iOS 17 beta release date and latest version

The first version of the developer beta of iOS 17 arrived on the day of the WWDC 2023 keynote on June 5, 2023. It is normal for Apple to release the first beta following the keynote so that developers can immediately start testing to make sure their apps work.

• June 5: iOS 17 is announced at WWDC, and the first developer beta is released.
• June 22: iOS 17 developer beta 2 released. 
• July 5: iOS 17 developer beta 3 is released. 
• July 25: Fourth developer beta is released. 
• July 31: Apple releases updated version of fourth developer beta.
• August 8: Developer beta 5
• August 15: Developer beta 6
• August 22: Developer beta 7

Normally the Developer Beta is tied to a paid-for developer account (which costs $99/£79 a year). However, in 2023 Apple changed this so that if you have any developer account, even if you aren’t paying for it, you can get the developer beta of iOS 17. For this reason, people who have a basic free developer account are seeing the iOS 17 developer beta already.

Foundry

However, we don’t recommend you install the developer beta if you aren’t a developer. The Public Beta, while not bug-free, is less problematic.

iOS 17 public beta release date and latest version

The first public beta version of iOS 17 was released on July 12, 2023.

• July 12: Apple releases the first public beta of iOS 17.
• July 31: Apple releases the second public beta of iOS 17.
• August 9: Public beta 3 is relased.
• August 16: Public beta 4 is released.
• August 22: Public beta 5 is released.

How to get the iOS 17 beta

However, the public beta is more stable than the developer beta, so our advice is to run that, if you are hurry to try out the new features. Just beware that any beta, public or developer, is likely to be buggy and cause issues with your iPhone, so our advice is not to run it on your main handset. If you do want to revert back to iOS 16 read: How to remove an iOS beta from your iPhone.

Anyone with an Apple developer account can get access to the developer beta—it is no longer necessary to be a paid-up member of the Apple Developer Program. You can join Apple’s beta programs on Apple’s website. Read this for more information: How to become an Apple beta tester.

We will run through the various ways you can get the iOS 17 beta on your iPhone below.

How to get a free developer account

If you want a free Apple Developer account so you can access the developer beta you can get this via Xcode or the Apple Developer app in iOS. Here’s how to do it via the Apple Developer app:

1. Download the Apple Developer App from the App Store.
2. Open the app.
3. Tap on Account.
4. Sign in using your usual Apple ID. 

If you want to sell applications to the App Store and sell them you’ll need to pay $99/£79 per year for a paid account. Sign up to the Apple Developer Program (here) or through Apple’s Developer App. You can register as an individual or a company. You will be required to add various bits of information and agree to the program license agreement, then enter your payment details (it’s an annual subscription that you can end up to a day before it renews). It can take a few days to verify you and make the account live.

You can compare the free and paid accounts here.

How to install the iOS 17 Developer Beta

Each stage of iOS’s development cycle is rolled out to developers first, and then to public beta testers afterwards. If you’re a developer and need to test your apps against the most up-to-date version of the OS possible, this is the version to run.

You no longer need a paid membership, any Apple developer account will do. You can create a free Apple Developer account using your Apple ID.

All set with your Apple developer account? Okay! Here’s how to install the iOS developer beta:

1. Back up your iPhone (because this is a beta you are testing!)
2. Open Settings app.
3. Tap General.
4. Tap Software Update.
5. In the Beta Updates section, select the iOS Developer Beta.
6. Now wait a while while the beta installs.

Foundry

Developers can choose to get the Public Beta instead by selecting iOS Public Beta in the Software Update screen.

Prior to iOS 16.4, it was necessary to download and activate a beta profile to your device. From iOS 16.4 onwards, Apple will simply check to see if your Apple ID is a registered developer and provide access in the Software Update menu. You may need to restart your iPhone for the option to appear.

Some developers have an Apple ID registered for developer access that is different from the Apple ID associated with their personal Apple account and data. To use a different Apple ID for beta access than is used throughout the rest of iOS, open Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates and select the Apple ID at the bottom of the screen.

How to install the iOS 17 Public Beta

The developer beta is, as the name suggests, is intended for developers only, but Apple does offer a beta testing program for members of the public who would like to test out the new features. The public betas always lag behind the developer ones. Beginning with iOS 16.4, you no longer need to download and activate a profile to get the beta. You simply need to enroll and select the beta from the software updates section in Settings.

You can install the iOS public beta using the following instructions.

1. Click Sign Up on the Apple Beta page and register with your Apple ID.
2. Log in to the Beta Software Program.
3. Click Enroll your iOS device.
4. Open the Settings app, tap General, then Software Update.
5. In the Beta Updates section, select the iOS Public Beta.

Prior to iOS 16.4, you had to download and activate a beta profile. Now, Apple’s servers will simply check your Apple ID to see if it is registered for the Public (or Developer) beta before providing access. You may need to restart your iPhone for the option to appear.

Some users have an Apple ID registered for beta access that is different from the Apple ID associated with their personal Apple account and data. To use a different Apple ID for beta access than is used throughout the rest of iOS, open Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates and select the Apple ID at the bottom of the screen.

If, on the other hand, you want to uninstall the beta and stop receiving beta updates read this: How to remove an iOS beta from your iPhone.

What’s a beta?

Betas are pre-release testing versions. Every iOS update goes through the beta phase before it’s officially launched, from small tweaks such as 15.5.1 to full-version game-changers like iOS 16.

There are developer betas (for registered software developers only), and public betas (for anyone who’s keen). Both types go through multiple versions—probably half a dozen—before a major launch.

Risks and precautions

Note first of all that betas are test versions of upcoming software. They are by definition unfinished, and while they should include most or all of the features in the finished product, there will be cosmetic differences and, inevitably, some glitches and problems that will need to be fixed. The glitches and problems are why Apple bothers to beta-test iOS in the first place.

In other words, don’t expect a perfect user experience. In particular, don’t expect existing apps (including ones that you may rely on) to work perfectly with the new version. In extreme cases, you may even find that your device is bricked by the beta, and cannot be used until the next beta comes along and hopefully fixes the problem. It’s not uncommon for early beta software to exhibit problems like excessive battery drain, too.

The closer we get to the final launch and iOS version, the more polished and feature-complete we can expect the available betas to become. The counter to that, of course, is there will less time left to wait for the official launch, so you won’t be gaining so much by installing a beta.

Assuming you decide to go ahead, we can’t stress enough how important it is to back up your iPhone before you install an iOS beta, or better still, use a secondary device rather than your main iPhone. You won’t lose everything if something goes wrong while the beta is installing, and you’ll be able to go back to the last version should you find that you don’t like the new software after all, or that it’s too buggy.

A draft rendering of the proposed Hotel Wailuku is pictured. The six-story, 156-room hotel would be located at the corner of Market and Main streets. — Hotel Wailuku rendering

Members of the Maui Redevelopment Agency felt that the draft environmental assessment for the proposed six-story, 156-room Hotel Wailuku “was very lacking in information” but the group generally supported the plans.

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