Apple announces all new 10.5″ iPad Air and 7.9″ iPad mini, both with Apple Pencil support

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Apple on the new iPad Air:

Apple today introduced the all-new iPad Air in an ultra-thin 10.5-inch design, offering the latest innovations including Apple Pencil support and high-end performance at a breakthrough price. With the A12 Bionic chip with Apple’s Neural Engine, the new iPad Air delivers a 70 percent boost in performance and twice the graphics capability, and the advanced Retina display with True Tone technology is nearly 20 percent larger with over half a million more pixels.

Apple on the new iPad mini:

Apple today also introduced the new 7.9-inch iPad mini, a major upgrade for iPad mini fans who love a compact, ultra-portable design packed with the latest technology. With the A12 Bionic chip, the new iPad mini is a powerful multi-tasking machine, delivering three times the performance and nine times faster graphics.3 The advanced Retina display with True Tone technology and wide color support is 25 percent brighter3 and has the highest pixel density of any iPad, delivering an immersive visual experience in any setting.

From what I can tell, both devices only support the first generation Apple Pencil. All the images show the first gen and the linked footnote specifically says, “The first-generation Apple Pencil sold separately.”

Both iPads are available to order right now and in stores next week.

One side thought: The iPad mini is the smallest iPad to support Apple Pencil. It does not have a magnet for charging and attaching the Apple Pencil. Seems achingly close to Apple Pencil support for the larger iPhone. Would you like Apple Pencil support on your iPhone?

New York Times previews Apple shows that have finished filming or close to wrap

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The list of projects is at the end of the article, which also includes these two nuggets:

People involved in the coming series also said that Apple executives had expressed squeamishness when it comes to the portrayal of technology in the shows — how exactly are you using that iPhone? Or that Mac laptop?

And:

Executives at the company bristled when they discovered there would be scenes involving crucifixes in Mr. Shyamalan’s new thriller for the service, as The Wall Street Journal reported in September. But Apple ultimately allowed the crucifixes to remain, according to two people familiar with the series.

The list of shows detailed in the article:

  • Untitled Series With Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston
  • “Amazing Stories,” a Steven Spielberg Reboot
  • “Are You Sleeping?” a Mystery Starring Octavia Spencer
  • “For All Mankind,” a Ronald D. Moore Sci-Fi Series
  • “See,” With the “Aquaman” Star Jason Momoa
  • A New Shyamalan Thriller
  • “Little America,” From the Writers of “The Big Sick”
  • A Comedy From the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” Duo
  • “Central Park,” a Cartoon Musical
  • “Home,” From the Documentary Filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer
  • “Dickinson,” an Emily Dickinson Comedy

Remember, this is a list of shows that are finished (or close to finished) filming. Still lots of work to do, but this is a substantive achievement.

Really looking forward to seeing this unfold.

MySpace lost all music uploaded from 2003 to 2015

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Reddit:

About a year ago, all music on MySpace from 2015 and older stopped working. At first MySpace said they were working on the issue, but they eventually admitted they lost all the data (and apparently didn’t have backups?).

From MySpace:

As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your back up copies.

And this screen cap.

Cautionary tale: Keep multiple offsite backups of anything you can’t afford to lose.

Interview with Dr. Sumbul Desai, Apple’s VP of Health, on the results of the Stanford study

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Men’s Health:

In an exclusive interview on the eve of the publication of the study, Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s VP of Health, said that during the conceptualizing and design of the product, Apple worked with the medical community, especially around the concern of how to ensure that it won’t drive unnecessary use of medical resources through false positives.

And:

“Before a notification is given to a person, the feature has to see five instances that look like Afib.” Notes Dr. Desai. “By doing that gating within the algorithm, Apple designed toward specificity and toward avoiding unnecessary alerts.”

And this from Dr. Christopher Kelly, cardiologist at Columbia University Medical Center, on whether early detection helps people who are risk of Afib:

“A successful screening test is not one that just detects something earlier; it detects it earlier at a time where earlier intervention improves outcomes,” he says. “Over time we’ll figure out how to best use this stuff.”

Another nugget:

Through the flow of the study, Apple learned other facts about participants’ health: 38 percent were obese based on body mass index, 21 percent had high blood pressure, 5 percent had diabetes, 1 percent had a prior stroke.

Feels like we are just getting started here. Can’t wait to see what Apple Watch 5 has in store.

Stanford Medicine announces results of unprecedented Apple Heart Study

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Apple:

Stanford Medicine today reported results of the Apple Heart Study, the largest study ever of its kind, which enrolled over 400,000 participants from all 50 states in a span of only eight months. Apple and Stanford created the study to evaluate Apple Watch’s irregular rhythm notification, which occasionally checks the heart’s rhythm in the background and sends a notification if an irregular heart rhythm appears to be suggestive of atrial fibrillation (AFib). As part of the study, if an irregular heart rhythm was identified, participants received a notification on their Apple Watch and iPhone, a telehealth consultation with a doctor and an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch for additional monitoring.

To me, this is Apple at its best, bringing change to the world that helps us all.

Add to this the incredible business win for the Apple Watch and the iPhone.

Watch Samsung’s brand new Galaxy S10 face unlock get defeated by a video on another phone

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[VIDEO] Lewis Hilsenteger, of Unbox Therapy, holds a video of himself up to the Galaxy S10. The video unlocks the phone.

I immediate thought of this scenario:

  • Bad actor takes video of victim’s face
  • Bad actor steals victim’s Galaxy S10
  • Bad actor unlocks the Galaxy S10

I can think of many more, but what’s the point of face unlock if it is so easily defeated?

The video is embedded in the main Loop post. Jump to about 2 minutes in to see this for yourself. Oh Samsung.

Apple forms team to pursue Emmys, Oscars, other awards for coming video service

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Bloomberg:

Apple is forming a team of people with awards strategy experience. In January, it hired one such person from Walt Disney Co.’s television group. The iPhone maker is also seeking a high-level candidate to oversee the process, one of the people familiar with the situation said. The company could be in the running for Emmy awards as early as 2020, according to people familiar with the process.

And:

Awards strategists arrange screenings and other publicity events for Hollywood insiders and others who vote on which movies and TV shows win awards. These promoters must work within strict guidelines while ensuring voters see the movies and even spend time with the actors and filmmakers.

No surprise there. But interesting to see how all this works. I am very excited to see Apple’s video efforts take form.

Apple: Addressing Spotify’s claims

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If you’re new to this fight, take a look at Spotify posts their specific gripes about Apple and the App Store.

Shots fired across Apple’s bow.

Spotify’s post was two days ago. Yesterday, Apple fired back:

What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. At the same time, they distribute the music you love while making ever-smaller contributions to the artists, musicians and songwriters who create it — even going so far as to take these creators to court.

Does Spotify pay Apple to be in the App Store? Try this exercise:

  • Launch the Spotify app
  • Logout (if you already have an account) and create a new account
  • Jump through a few hoops, then tap the Premium tab at the bottom of the screen
  • You’ll see a message that says “You can’t upgrade to Premium in the app”

So Spotify is complaining about a tax that they do not pay.

Add in the fact that Spotify is fighting the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board ruling that would increase payouts to songwriters by 44%. Notably, Apple is on board with the royalty increase.

To me, both of these things just get in the way of any valid points Spotify might be making. Not a good look.

Take the time to read Apple’s Addressing Spotify’s claims post. It’s well crafted and, to me, legitimate

Apple’s well-timed, charming, privacy ad

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[VIDEO] This is a charming ad. But it’s also a serious ad. Apple does a nice job of presenting the message with a spoonful of sugar.

From the writeup:

Your privacy matters. From encrypting your iMessage conversations, or not keeping a history of your routes in Maps, to limiting tracking across sites with Safari. iPhone is designed to protect your information.

I tweeted about Apple’s map route scrambling a few days ago.

The add is embedded in the main Loop post. For some odd reason, reminds me (just a tiny bit) of Apple’s “Unlock” Face ID ad, showing a student unlocking everything in her path.

Apple’s push to distinguish twins with Face ID

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Patently Apple:

Apple notes in a patent application published today by the U.S. Patent Office that when it comes to authentication using facial recognition, there are potential cases where a user attempting to be authenticated (authorized) by a device cannot be distinguished from another user with closely related facial features.

Twins fool Face ID. Been a thing since the beginning.

Apple’s invention states that “Subepidermal imaging of a face of a user attempting to unlock a device may be used to enhance a facial recognition authentication process”

Subepidermal means below the skin. Interesting.

Subepidermal images of the user may be used to assess subepidermal features such as blood vessels (e.g., veins) when the device is attempting to authenticate the user. The subepidermal features may be compared to templates of subepidermal features for an authorized (e.g., enrolled) user of the device.

Sounds like Apple is offering an extra layer of facial verification for folks with twins or other doppelgängers.

And this last bit, which I found most fascinating:

For example, illuminator 105A and/or illuminator 105B may include an array of light sources such as, but not limited to, VCSELs (vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers). A first set of light sources in the array may provide illumination at a wavelength for unlock attempt images while a second set of light sources may provide illumination at a wavelength for subepidermal images. The different sets of light sources may be turned on/off separately to allow a specific illumination (e.g., a specific wavelength of illumination) to be provided.

You had me at [Holds up fingers, makes air-quotes] lasers. Cool beans.

Spotify posts their specific gripes about Apple and the App Store

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Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify:

Apple operates a platform that, for over a billion people around the world, is the gateway to the internet. Apple is both the owner of the iOS platform and the App Store—and a competitor to services like Spotify. In theory, this is fine. But in Apple’s case, they continue to give themselves an unfair advantage at every turn.

And:

Apple requires that Spotify and other digital services pay a 30% tax on purchases made through Apple’s payment system, including upgrading from our Free to our Premium service. If we pay this tax, it would force us to artificially inflate the price of our Premium membership well above the price of Apple Music. And to keep our price competitive for our customers, that isn’t something we can do.

And:

If we choose not to use Apple’s payment system, forgoing the charge, Apple then applies a series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions on Spotify. For example, they limit our communication with our customers—including our outreach beyond the app. In some cases, we aren’t even allowed to send emails to our customers who use Apple. Apple also routinely blocks our experience-enhancing upgrades. Over time, this has included locking Spotify and other competitors out of Apple services such as Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch.

Read the whole thing. And don’t miss the timeline.

Add this for a bit of perspective:

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1105826992547684354

Feels like things are about to get quite messy.

Apple purchases machine learning startup Laserlike

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple last year acquired Laserlike, a machine learning startup located in Silicon Valley, reports The Information. Apple’s purchase of the four-year-old company was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson with a standard acquisition statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

And from the LaserLike web site:

We’ve built a web scale content search, discovery and personalization platform using advanced machine learning.

And:

Your interest search engine. Follow the topics you care about, with news, web, video, local, and more. Powerful content search brings you the full perspective in a feed you can control. Never miss what matters, with timely, relevant updates for your interests.

Keep this acquisition in mind as you watch the announcements on March 25th. This would certainly relate to the rumored news subscription service, potentially adding a significant level of personalization to a traditional news feed.

Facebook’s data deals are under criminal investigation

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New York Times:

A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, according to two people who were familiar with the requests and who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential legal matters. Both companies had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining broad access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users.

The companies were among more than 150, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Sony, that had cut sharing deals with the world’s dominant social media platform. The agreements, previously reported in The New York Times, let the companies see users’ friends, contact information and other data, sometimes without consent. Facebook has phased out most of the partnerships over the past two years.

And:

The disclosures about Cambridge last year thrust Facebook into the worst crisis of its history. Then came news reports last June and December that Facebook had given business partners — including makers of smartphones, tablets and other devices — deep access to users’ personal information, letting some companies effectively override users’ privacy settings.

The sharing deals empowered Microsoft’s Bing search engine to map out the friends of virtually all Facebook users without their explicit consent, and allowed Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends. Apple was able to hide from Facebook users all indicators that its devices were even asking for data.

That last sentence seems to imply that Apple acted in bad faith, purposely hiding data requests. Seems unlikely. Me just being naive? Am I misinterpreting the writing here?

How I made my own iPhone

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[VIDEO] This video is about two years old, but fascinating nonetheless. It’s embedded in the main Loop post.

Scotty Allen has a wonderful YouTube channel called Strange Parts that explores the back alley parts markets in places like Shenzhen, China, scrounging together the pieces to create, in this case, a working iPhone 6s.

This is not about creating a phone of your own. Rather, it’s a look at a remarkable parts market. Jump to about 4:03 and check out all those iPhone backs.

I’d wager that the parts market is even more varied and vibrant today. Kind of makes me want to hackintosh my own iPhone. Or, at least, replace the back with something unique and custom.

Steve Jobs and the upside down Apple logo

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Last week, I tweeted a pic showing an old Apple laptop. As was the case with all old Mac laptops, the Apple logo was upside down when open.

With a bit of help from Sérgio Miranda, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole to learn more.

From the linked Joe Moreno blog post:

The design group noticed that users constantly tried to open the laptop from the wrong end. Steve Jobs always focused on providing the best possible user experience and believed that it was more important to satisfy the user than the onlooker.

An interesting problem, one of competing interests. Should the user see the right side up logo, so they know which side to open? Or is it more important for the brand that the world see a right side up logo?

Obviously, Steve started with one opinion and then, when he returned to Apple, he flipped his decision. Possibly driven by shows that started putting stickers over the logo so the Apple would look “right” on screen.

Interesting bit of Apple history.

Apple races to get studios signed up for new streaming service

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Bloomberg:

Apple Inc., after teasing investors for months about its ambitions to become a services company, is getting ready to showcase plans for new video and news products. All it needs now is for Hollywood to sign up.

And:

But before the curtain goes up, Apple needs to complete deals. The company is racing to secure movies and TV shows to offer alongside its own original videos and is offering concessions to get deals done by a Friday deadline, according to people familiar with the matter. Pay-TV programmers such as HBO, Showtime and Starz have to decide whether Apple is an existential threat, as some now view Netflix, a potential partner or something in between.

When Apple did a similar dance to craft deals with record companies to build iTunes and then Apple Music, they were purely working through a distribution deal. They were not a threat (at least not an obvious one), but a partner. Apple had no ambitions to create music of their own.

The race to build partnerships now, to carry third party content on its rumored video service, has to deal with the fact that Apple has very public plans to build content of its own. Apple clearly wants a seat at the table, alongside existing partners such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video.

Of the group, Apple is the only one distributing the others. Less than two weeks ’til the beans get spilled.

A first look at Twitter’s new prototype

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Sarah Perez, writing for Tech Crunch, does a deep dive into Twitter’s new prototyping app, Twttr.

Twttr is designed as a parallel app to Twitter, gives Twitter a place to experiment with different takes on things like threads, color coding, and replies.

Worth a look. This is where Twitter is headed.

Apple’s legendary Clarus the dogcow

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[VIDEO] This really takes me back. Clarus was one of the elements that really showed the difference between Apple and the rest of the gray, gray world. I miss that particular brand of quirkiness.

Stephen Hackett does a nice job bringing this history to life in the video embedded in the main Loop post.

Moof!

Edison Research: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions

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Marketplace:

All the bad press about Facebook might be catching up to the company. New numbers from Edison Research show an an estimated 15 million fewer users in the United States compared to 2017.

15 million. Wow. That’s a big drop and, for Facebook, a worrying trend.

Interesting timing. This data follows hot on the heels of Mark Zuckerberg’s A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking.

Too little, too late? It certainly is for me.

Apple alone in not fighting raise in music royalty rates

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Variety:

Spotify, Google, Pandora and Amazon have teamed up to appeal a controversial ruling by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board that, if it goes through, would increase payouts to songwriters by 44%, Variety has learned.

Note one big name missing from that list. Apple.

Sources say that Apple Music is alone among the major streaming services in not planning to appeal — as confirmed by songwriters’ orgs rushing to heap praise on Apple while condemning the seemingly unified front of the other digital companies.

And:

Bart Herbison, executive director of the Nashville Songwriters Association International: “It is unfortunate that Amazon and Spotify decided to file an appeal on the CRB’s decision to pay American songwriters higher digital mechanical royalties,” he said in a statement. “Many songwriters have found it difficult to stay in the profession in the era of streaming music. You cannot feed a family when you earn hundreds of dollars for millions of streams.”

And:

Israelite did single out Apple for praise for not participating in an appeal. “We thank Apple Music for accepting the CRB decision and continuing to be a friend to songwriters,” he said. “While Spotify and Amazon surely hope this will play out in a quiet appellate courtroom, every songwriter and every fan of music should stand up and take notice.

Indeed.

The subtle sound difference between water and beer

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[VIDEO] It takes a true master to pull out these subtle sounds. Do try this at home. To no one’s surprise, Jim is quite good at this. Video embedded in the main Loop post. Worth it.

The MacStories shortcuts archive, an incredible resource

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If you’ve never taken the time to play with Shortcuts, dig into this archive. It’s a terrific resource for interesting shortcuts, but the process of downloading and running a shortcut is also a good learning experience.

To get started, first be sure you’ve got the Shortcuts app downloaded from the iOS App Store. Run it once, just to get the on boarding out of the way, then exit.

Next, follow the headline link on your iOS device, scroll down, pick a category, and pick a shortcut. One I particularly love is Music > Apple Music Wrapped, which creates a detailed report for the music you’ve listened to in any particular year.

Tap the “Get the shortcut here” link, which will bring you into the Shortcuts app, then tap the Get Shortcut button.

Lots of choices to make, interface to make your way through, all of which gives you a sense of what you can do with Shortcuts. It also shows the immense amount of work that Federico and the MacStories team put into this effort.

Once you jump through all the hoops, return to Shortcuts and tap the Library tab at the bottom of the screen. That’s where you’ll find the Apple Music Wrapped shortcut. Tap the ellipsis (…) to see all the steps that went into the shortcut.

And, apropos of nothing, my favorite artist of 2018 was Kevin Penkin. I listen to an awful lot of anime soundtracks.

The world’s last Blockbuster has no plans to close. Here’s why it’s still open.

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New York Times:

The second-to-last Blockbuster, a squat blue-and-yellow slab wedged next to a real estate agency in Western Australia, will stop renting videos on Thursday and shut down for good at the end of the month. Two stores in Alaska, part of the final group of Blockbuster outlets in the United States, closed in July.

That will make the Blockbuster in Bend, Ore., one of a kind: a corporate remnant, just off the highway, near a cannabis retailer and a pet cremation service.

And:

The store has several years left on its lease and a license agreement that its owners sign annually with Dish Network, which bought Blockbuster for $320 million in 2011.

I hope it never closes. A throwback to another time, when Back to the Future was still in the future.

But also, what an investment decision by Dish. $320 million, at just the wrong moment in time. Wow!

Painting along with Bob Ross using your iPad and Apple Pencil

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[VIDEO] Bob Ross taught generations of people how to paint. Gently.

In the video embedded in the main Loop post, iJustine watches Bob Ross step through his technique, laying paint on canvas, and replicates every step on her iPad Pro using Procreate.

I love this approach, especially the way the video is partitioned to show Bob Ross at work, Justine’s work in progress, all while keeping the big picture in the main frame.

The tutorial starts about 53 seconds in.

The worst time to trade in your iPhone and other depreciation info

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Two things I drew from this post (which came via this Cult of Mac post):

  • The Samsung Galaxy S9 is a pretty horrible investment, dropping about 60% in nine months, as compared to the iPhone X, which dropped about 30% in the same span.

  • The worst time to trade in your iPhone is in the 3 months following the September iPhone event. This from the headline linked article:

A massive 68.86% of the iPhone X and 8’s total yearly depreciation was seen in Q4 following the Sept 2018 Apple Keynote (31.14% of their value between Q1-Q3). The months after the keynote is a trade-in black hole consumers should avoid.

iPhone values trend upwards every January. Lots more info in the article. Interesting.

Some dark, dark marketing

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[VIDEO] This is part of an ad campaign for Halo Top ice cream. The ads are uniformly bleak. But I kind of love them. Not sure why.

Here’s one (embedded in the main Loop post), follow the headline link for more.