Steve Jobs once said that Apple almost went bankrupt because it focused too much on making a profit

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Reddit:

In light of all the recent price hikes to Apple’s products I was reminded by a quote I read once from Steve Jobs. He was talking about why Apple started failing and almost went bankrupt before they brought Steve back into the company.

And the quote:

What happened at Apple, to be honest, over the years was the goal used to be to make the best computers in the world. And that was goal one. Goal two, we got from Hewlett-Packard actually which was “we have to make a profit”. Because if we don’t make a profit we can’t do goal one. So, yeah, I mean we enjoyed making a profit, but the purpose of making a profit was so we can make the best computers in the world. Along the way somewhere those two got reversed. The goal is to make a lot of money and well, if we have to make some good computers well ok we’ll do that… ’cause we can make a lot of money doing that. And, it’s very subtle. It’s very subtle at first, but it turns out it’s everything. That one little subtle flip… takes 5 years to see it, but that one little subtle flip in 5 years means everything.

To be clear, I’m not posting this as a comment on the current state of Apple. To me, Apple then and Apple now are two completely different beasts. But I did appreciate the quote, thought it worth sharing.

Losing health data when upgrading an iPhone

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From this tweet by Ryan Jones:

https://twitter.com/rjonesy/status/1059802579734011911

And this from the linked post by Michael Tsai:

The Health app can’t import its own data, so you need to use (and trust) a third-party app. Also, chances are you’re going to use iCloud (or some even less secure means) to transport the export file, so why not just include it (optionally) in the iCloud backup. This is a pattern we see from time to time with Apple. You run into the limits of Apple’s idealized solution and then it’s sort of your fault if something goes wrong with the more pragmatic solution that you resort to. But it’s also sort of Apple’s fault for only solving part of the problem that it was in the better position to address.

If you are at all invested in your health data, read the whole post.

What can you connect to the new iPad Pro with USB-C?

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Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

The new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro features a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port. However, just because a device features a new port, it does not mean anything with a USB-C connector will suddenly work with the iPad Pro. There are still some limitations but USB-C makes it even easier to connect to external displays, cameras, and other accessories.

Here’s what you can do with your new iPad Pro and its shiny new port.

First things first, nice job by Benjamin Mayo laying all this out. Terrific read.

But I have to say, while I applaud USB-C’s reversibility (like a Lightning plug, there’s no upside down, no wrong way to plug it in) and ubiquity (a wave of adoption, making their way onto devices in the same way as USB-A), I struggle with the wildly different functionality offered by identical looking cables and ports.

Ben covers a few examples, but here’s another one:

https://twitter.com/viticci/status/1060321637076271105

There’s no way to tell from just looking at a cable what functionality it supports. And while you might just try all the cables in your cable drawer until you find one that works, there might be trouble down that road as well. From this Gizmodo post, courtesy of Stefan Arentz:

All cables are not created equal: some will charge most efficiently, others might just fry your battery. Google Chromebook engineer and Caped Cable Crusader Benson Leung has been testing USB-C cables off Amazon, and it’s not just the no-brand products that have been failing.

I’ve had some personal experience with this, especially where USB-C dongles are concerned. Though all those USB-C ports look identical on the outside, some pass through power, others not as much, and some not at all. Yeesh.

Apple says battery can be replaced individually in New MacBook Air with Retina display

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More good news as far as Apple products and repairability:

Big news for repairability and environmental responsibility: the battery can be individually replaced in the new MacBook Air, according to Apple’s internal Service Readiness Guide for the notebook, obtained by MacRumors.

And:

In all other MacBook and MacBook Pro models with a Retina display released since 2012, when a customer has required a battery replacement, Apple has replaced the entire top case enclosure, including the keyboard and trackpad. This is because the battery is glued into the top case in Mac notebooks with Retina displays.

The battery in the new MacBook Air is still glued into the top case, the aluminum enclosure that houses the keyboard and trackpad, but Apple will be providing Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers with tools to remove the battery and reinstall a new one with no top case replacement required.

Glue is the bane of repairability. I wish Apple would develop a version of the 3M Command strips, the ones that stick to walls, strong enough to hold up a framed picture, but come off by stretching them. They’re even reusable.

Would love to be able to remove a battery by pulling on the adhesive tab to loosen it, replace the battery with the same adhesive strip, all without that gooey mess of melted glue.

UPDATE: Apparently, Apple does use something akin to these Command adhesive strips in some iPhone models, though they are not reusable. More of this! And H/T Gabriel Jordan.

Here’s how to replace the memory on the new Mac mini

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This is a relatively easy thing to do. It’s all screws, no glue or other messy bits to deal with.

If you are considering a Mac mini purchase, check the replacement RAM costs before you order.

UPDATE: As the linked post says, the images are from the 2014 Mac mini, thought the steps are the same. Thanks to Patrick McCarron, here’s a link to another post that accomplishes the same thing, but on the actual 2018 Mac mini.

[VIDEO] The new iPad Pro: An artist’s review

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[VIDEO] If you are considering laying out the bucks for one of the new iPad Pros, take the time to watch Ian Bernard’s video, embedded in the main Loop post. It is a thoughtful, rich piece, told from an artist’s perspective. [H/T Tim

The new iPad Pro and Laptop Magazine’s video transcode test. Wow.

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Lots and lots of numbers in this review, packed with easy to read comparison charts. This iPad Pro comes out on top all the way through.

There’s a battery life comparison (based on continuous web surfing), with the iPad Pro lasting more than 13 hours, compared with the Surface Pro 6 at a bit over 9 hours. Same with GeekBench 4 numbers, with the iPad Pro multi-core at 17995 and the Surface Pro 6 at 13,025.

But scroll down to that video transcoding chart. Whoa. The Surface Pro 6 took 31 minutes to transcode a 12-minute 4K video clip. The MacBook Pro fared a bit better, just under 26 minutes. But the new iPad Pro? 7 minutes, 47 seconds.

That is one blazingly fast machine.

Gorgeous low-angle satellite photo of San Francisco

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Follow the link, check that second photo. Stunning. Simply stunning. Amazing to me that this picture was taken from a satellite.

Lots of links to explore in the linked Kottke.org piece.

The elephant in the room at last week’s Apple event was Intel

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Though we did include this review in yesterday’s list of the new MacBook Air reviews, I wanted to link to John Gruber’s review separately, for his take on Intel.

The elephant in the room at last week’s Apple event was Intel.

Apple introduced two products based on Intel chips — the new MacBook Air and new Mac Mini — but barely mentioned the company’s name. The word “Intel” appeared on a single slide during VP of hardware engineering Laura Legros’s presentation of the new MacBook Air. She also spoke the word once, saying the new Airs have “the latest Intel integrated graphics”. In the presentation of the new Mac Mini, “Intel” never appeared in a slide and wasn’t mentioned.

And:

Apple is not going to throw Intel under the bus — they’re taking an “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” approach, as they should.

Push is slowly coming to shove here. As John points out, the new iPad Pro simply crushes the Intel-powered MacBook Air in GeekBench score, especially that MultiCore score (18,051 to 7,847).

As products, the Mac and the iPad are still on different tracks, not plug replaceable. But it does seem highly likely (a “when”, not an “if”) that Apple will eventually ship a Mac powered by their own bionic chip.

Apple’s AirPods surge to top of Best Buys’ October best-seller list

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AirPods have long flirted with the top spot on Best Buys’ monthly sales list but this report is the first time they’ve made it all the way to the top.

Why now? Could be the new iPhones, Macs and iPads, combined with the approaching holiday gift-giving season, a bit of a perfect storm.

Number three on that list? Apple’s Lightning-to-3.5mm headphone adapter. Interesting counterpoint.

Three year old Freddie Mercury fan belts out Bohemian Rhapsody

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[VIDEO] This is just impossibly cute. And I’m thinking she learned this from watching Wayne’s World. Why? Cause of the bit at about 1:20 in, in which young Holly Lee proceeds to head-bang, like a boss. Video embedded in the main Loop post.

The T2 chip physically disconnects the mic when your Mac lid is closed

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Interesting snippet from this TechCrunch post:

Buried in Apple’s latest range of MacBooks — including the MacBook Pro out earlier this year and the just-announced MacBook Air — is the new T2 security chip, which helps protect the device’s encryption keys, storage, fingerprint data and secure boot features.

Little was known about the chip until today. According to its newest published security guide, the chip comes with a hardware microphone disconnect feature that physically cuts the device’s microphone from the rest of the hardware whenever the lid is closed.

And from the T2 Security Chip Overview itself:

All Mac portables with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that ensures that the microphone is disabled whenever the lid 
 is closed. This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed. (The camera is not disconnected in hardware because its field of view 
 is completely obstructed with the lid closed.)

Good to know.

Rene Ritchie interviews Apple’s Sr. Director of Mac Product Marketing Tom Boger

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[VIDEO] If you watched Apple’s event last week, you’ll know Tom Boger as the person who introduced the new Mac mini.

This is a subset of a longer interview (here’s a link to the longer version, a podcast) that focuses on Apple’s Mac product grid (Steve Jobs famously introduced the Desktop/Portable vs Consumer/Pro grid back in the day) and the MacBook Air’s place in the product line, as well as how Apple decides which parts to make user serviceable.

This is absolutely worth a watch/listen. I found Tom’s explanation of where the MacBook Air fits to be interesting, but it still doesn’t click for me. Listen for yourself (video embedded in main Loop post). Nice work, Rene.

It’s not your imagination: Phone battery life is getting worse

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Geoffrey A Fowler, Washington Post:

If you recently bought a new flagship phone, chances are its battery life is actually worse than an older model.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been performing the same battery test over and over again on 13 phones. With a few notable exceptions, this year’s top models underperformed last year’s. The new iPhone XS died 21 minutes earlier than last year’s iPhone X. Google’s Pixel 3 lasted nearly an hour and a half less than its Pixel 2.

Phone makers tout all sorts of tricks to boost battery life, including more-efficient processors, low-power modes and artificial intelligence to manage app drain. Yet my results, and tests by other reviewers I spoke with, reveal an open secret in the industry: the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can’t keep up.

In a nutshell, the case being made here is that battery efficiency is growing very slowly, while screen technology (and other) power draw is growing somewhat faster than that.

When a musician on the cusp of fame dies, what happens to all the music on their laptop?

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Jon Caramanica, New York Times:

Lil Peep died of an accidental drug overdose last November at 21. Afterward, attention turned to his computer. First, it went to London, where the files were backed up by First Access Entertainment, the company that helped guide his career.

Then it went to his mother, Liza Womack. In an interview in her cozy Long Island home, sitting on a nondescript couch that belonged to Peep and was shipped cross-country after his death, she calmly recalled walking into an Apple store, handing the laptop to a clerk, and saying: “My son died. This is him. Take this and put it on a new one.”

Sometime after that, in London, the producer George Astasio and Peep’s longtime musical collaborator Smokeasac finally set out to catalog its contents. What they found were Lil Peep’s complete recordings — some finished, some in fragments; some heard and familiar, many not.

This is an interesting story. Lil Peep was just starting to break out. With his death, what would, and should, become of all his songs and song snippets?

Google to work with iRobot’s robot vacuums on mapping the inside of your house

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The Verge:

Google and iRobot have announced they’re working together to improve smart home technology using mapping data collected by iRobot’s robot vacuums. The two companies say the aim is to make smart homes “more thoughtful” by leveraging the unique dataset collected by iRobot: maps of customers’ homes.

And:

“Much like assigning smart lights or other smart devices to rooms in the home, the Assistant only learns what names people have given to areas of their homes, so that it can then deploy the iRobot i7+ to that area,” said Google in a statement. “We do not receive any information on the layout of the home or where the areas are, respectively.”

Very interesting read. AI continues its creep inside your home. Though Google says they do not receive the mapping info, I am skeptical that that info won’t eventually find its way outside, even if it’s via the work of hackers.

And if you find yourself asking, who cares about room data? It’s an avenue, a path to a future where all your data is visible to outside agencies, a pinprick in the balloon of privacy.

Chris Cornell, doing a solo acoustic of Black Hole Sun

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[VIDEO] This was a bit tough for me to watch. Chris Cornell was an immense talent who took his life last year. This is a chance to see him up close, talking about and playing his signature song. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.

Apple devices, ranked by thinness

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From Reddit, a list of the thinnest Apple devices:

  • iPod Nano 7th gen – 5.4mm thick
  • iPad Pro 2018 – 5.9 mm
  • iPod Touch 5/6th gen – 6.1 mm
  • iPad Air 2 – 6.1 mm
  • iPad Pro 10.5inch 2017 – 6.1 mm
  • iPad mini – 6.1 mm
  • iPhone 6 – 6.9mm (thinnest iphone)

If accurate, this makes the new iPad Pro the second thinnest device Apple has ever made.

The folding phone, come to life

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Take a look at the FlexPai folding phone product page. This is the first folding phone concept I’ve seen that made me see a path to the future.

If you scroll about 3/4 of the way down the page, you’ll see the phone folded in half (sort of), showing three displays, with an interior and exterior display as well as one for the spine.

The design feels clunky to me, the folded phone too bulky for my pocket, but I can absolutely see the value of a phone thin enough to fit in my pocket that unfolds into a full size tablet. Best of both worlds.

I can’t help but imagine such a device from Apple. Someday.

New iPad Pro Geekbench scores, compared with MacBook Pro 2018

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Here’s the link to the iPad Pro Geekbench page. Note that this testing was done with the high end, 1TB model.

  • iPad Pro single core score: 5020
  • iPad Pro multi-core score: 18217

Here’s the link to the MacBook Pro 2018 Geekbench page.

  • MacBook Pro single core score: 5344
  • MacBook Pro multi-core score: 22552

Granted, these comparisons are not apples-to-apples, but still, these iPad Pro results seem impressive. They are both top of their respective line machines and, obviously, the iPad Pro is much less expensive.

If my math is right, the MacBook Pro single-core score is about 6.5% faster than the iPad Pro. That’s not much.

The video of Apple’s Brooklyn Mac/iPad Pro event

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[VIDEO] I started watching this again (embedded in the main Loop post), just to see those cool animations at the beginning. I do hope Apple continues down this creative path, even if there’s no direct payoff in the presentation itself.

Paint it Black, on a weird guitar/harp hybrid

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[VIDEO] I’ve heard other songs played on this instrument, but somehow, this guitar-harp hybrid seems made for Paint it Black. Video embedded in main Loop post.

iPhones are allergic to helium

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Kyle Wiens, iFixit:

This is the kind of tale that you don’t hear every day. Erik Wooldridge is a Systems Specialist at Morris Hospital near Chicago. During the installation of a new GE Healthcare MRI machine, he started getting calls that cell phones weren’t working. Then, some Apple Watches started glitching.

This is just an incredible read. Don’t want to give anything away, just dig in. Great story, well told.

Rene Ritchie hands-on with the new iPad Pro

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[VIDEO] Terrific, densely detailed, hands-literally-on look at the new iPad Pro from Rene Ritchie, part of his excellent Vector series. Lots to absorb here, 5 minutes well spent. Video embedded in the main Loop post.

Surgery students ‘losing dexterity to stitch patients’ due to too much screen time

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BBC News:

A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients.

Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical.

Fascinating. My kids all grew up as makers, crafters. They grew up sewing, soldering, painting and, in one case, learning how to sew a proper medical stitch.

I believe in teaching these sorts of skills. I wonder if future surgeons will have to take basic craft classes to qualify for medical school.

There is no reason for the MacBook to exist with the new MacBook Air

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Reddit:

The baseline MacBook costs more than the MacBook Air and is a downgrade in literally every way. Smaller screen, older generation keyboard, 480p camera, no thunderbolt 3, only 1 port, worse CPUs that are from last generation, no Touch ID.

The MacBook no longer makes sense, and it didn’t even make sense compared to the baseline MacBook Pro.

Jim and I spent some time discussing this on yesterday’s Dalrymple Report. I do find the relationship between the MacBook Air and the MacBook a bit confusing.

Two comments from the linked Reddit thread:

I always thought that the Macbook was replacing the Macbook air, similar to what they did with the iPad

And:

You thought correctly. This new laptop is just a bigger MacBook (Retina). It’s not an Air. Apple is just calling it an Air for marketing purposes. It has the same screen type and Y-series CPU as the Retina, not the U-series as the Air uses.

Instead calling the product lineup the MacBook 12″ and MacBook 13″, they’re calling it the MacBook and the New MacBook Air.

One possible motivation for this move, aside from giving the (MacBook Air) people what they want, is addressed in this thoughtful Op-Ed piece from Ben Lovejoy:

When Apple launched the iPhone X, it did more than just change the design language of the iPhone: it also offered a whole new pricing level. Not just for iPhones, but for any smartphone. It was a move that has significantly boosted the average selling price (ASP) of the iPhone range as a whole.

This is a trick Apple is now repeating with the 2018 MacBook Air

Interesting. Is this ASP ladder-climbing, an effort to raise the price of the entry level Mac? Though I do find the branding a bit confusing between the MacBook and MacBook Air, there’s no doubt that Apple is genius when it comes to product pricing.

Apple passes 100 million active Mac users

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Emil Protalinski, VentureBeat:

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced during the company’s “More in the Making” event in New York City that Apple has hit a new milestone: 100 million active Mac users. He added that 51 percent of Mac buyers are “new to Mac” and noted that in China that figure is 76 percent, highlighting growth in the world’s most populous country.

And:

By comparison, there are about 1.5 billion active Windows PCs.

Consider this point, made on Twitter by Horace Dediu:

40% of all Macs ever sold are still in use.

I wonder if you ignored the first 10 years of Mac purchases, if that 40% number would drop, even to 39%. To me, this says a ton about the impact the success of the iPhone and the evolution of the Apple ecosystem has had on the Mac.

Using a Mac Photos smart album to tell how often you use your iPhone’s telephoto lens

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The iPhone XR, famously, does not have a telephoto lens. David Smith worked out a way to see how often he’s used the telephoto in the past, with his iPhone X:

https://twitter.com/_davidsmith/status/1056924594869862400

In a nutshell, he jumped into Mac Photos and created a smart album based purely on focal length, which eliminated all but images taken with the telephoto lens. Very smart.