HQ Trivia expands beyond mobile with new Apple TV app

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Variety:

HQ Trivia is taking a leap to bigger screens: The mobile quiz show startup has launched an app for Apple TV. The company announced the new app on Twitter Tuesday.

The new app makes it possible to both watch the daily quiz show as well as vote with the help of the Apple TV’s remote control.

HQ Trivia is a clever idea, a game show that comes to your iPhone, replete with entertaining hosts and witty patter. It’s got a social component and works well with a group of people.

Porting it to Apple TV is a good idea, but it could be even better. As is, it is simply one more device on which you can play. Instead of playing on your phone, you play on your TV. That’s fine.

But I’d love a version that brings the banter off-line, like the excellent Jackbox Party Pack games. If you’ve got a group of friends coming over, I’d suggest giving these a try. Fun will be had.

Apple is beefing up a team to explore making its own health chips

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CNBC:

Apple has a team exploring a custom processor that can make better sense of health information coming off sensors from deep inside its devices, job listings show.

Here’s an Apple job listing for a Sensor ASIC Architect (ASIC being Application-specific integrated circuit).

Building custom chips for narrow functions can help Apple add new features and improve efficiency of its hardware while protecting its intellectual property from would-be imitators.

Rene Ritchie just posted an excellent Vector episode that talks about Apple’s chip ambitions. Apple’s chip investments are paying dividends and they are slowly specializing, expanding their proprietary chips, bringing capabilities to future products that other companies cannot simply copy.

Verizon, 5G rollout, and partnership with Apple and Google

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Bloomberg:

Verizon Communications Inc. announced deals making Apple Inc. and Google its first video providers for a superfast 5G wireless service the company plans to launch in four cities later this year.

And:

With the introduction, Verizon will provide 5G customers either a free Apple TV box or free subscription to Google’s YouTube TV app for live television service, according to people familiar with the plan.

This partnership is a big, legitimizing win for Apple TV. But I’m still not sold on 5G.

5G has limitations. It requires major infrastructure, expensive network hardware to propagate the signal, meaning it will be prohibitively expensive to be able to serve rural areas, is ideally suited for dense urban areas.

Also:

High-frequency 5G radio signals are easily disrupted by rain and foliage and remain commercially unproven. But if successful, the technology could lead to as much as $200 billion a year in industry-wide development spending.

I have high hopes that some form of high speed wireless will eventually replace wired service, make broadband more widely available and, most importantly, bring competition to the marketplace, give consumers more choices.

Motherboard on the iPhone 7’s so-called Loop Disease

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Motherboard:

For the past six months, Cerva has been receiving large numbers of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus devices—often 10 to 15 per week—with a similar issue: one of the pads that connects the audio chip, which is located on the motherboard near the SIM card tray, has come loose.

And:

The early symptoms are a grayed-out Voice Memos icon, a grayed-out “speaker” button during phone calls, or intermittent freezing. Eventually, the phone can get stuck on the Apple logo instead of powering on. Cerva calls the issue “loop disease,” in reference to “touch disease,” a similar issue that affected thousands of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units starting around 2016.

And:

The fix, Jones and Cerva agreed, is straightforward: they remove the audio chip, then solder a small segment of wire underneath it to repair the connection. Cerva can complete the repair in just 15 minutes, he said; Jones said that a qualified shop should be able to carry out the repair for between $100 and $150.

If you have, or know someone with an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, read the article and check out the image (with the greyed out Speaker icon) towards the bottom of the article.

The iPhones 7 were released in September 2016.

New Samsung Galaxy watches are still much larger than Apple watches

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John Gruber, commenting on the new wave of big, clunky, Galaxy watches from Samsung:

Samsung is sticking with round faces — you certainly can’t call these ripoffs of Apple Watch. But I think that’s a mistake for a digital watch. At 42 and 46mm, both sizes are much larger (and heavier) than Apple Watches. Because Apple measures its watches vertically, they sound closer in size than they actually are. A 42mm Apple Watch is 36mm wide, and a 38mm Apple Watch is just 33mm wide. Apple remains the only company making smartwatches for women and men with small wrists.

I do wish my Apple Watch was thinner. The weight is not an issue for me, but I can imagine a thinner future Apple Watch, still rectangular, but with a gently curved body that matches the curved wrist surface on which it sits.

What I can’t imagine is ever moving to a bigger, clunkier smartwatch.

Millions of Android devices are vulnerable right out of the box

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Wired:

Security meltdowns on your smartphone are often self-inflicted: You clicked the wrong link, or installed the wrong app. But for millions of Android devices, the vulnerabilities have been baked in ahead of time, deep in the firmware, just waiting to be exploited. Who put them there? Some combination of the manufacturer that made it, and the carrier that sold it to you.

And:

“The problem is not going to go away, because a lot of the people in the supply chain want to be able to add their own applications, customize, add their own code. That increases the attack surface, and increases the probability of software error,” Stavrou says. “They’re exposing the end user to exploits that the end user is not able to respond to.”

This problem is an end result of Android allowing third party companies the ability to modify the source code. An example:

Take the Asus ZenFone V Live, which Kryptowire found to leave its owners exposed to an entire system takeover, including taking screenshots and video recordings of a user’s screen, making phone calls, reading and modifying text messages, and more.

This is a fascinating read. This loss of centralized security control is yet another thing that keeps me in the Apple ecosystem. I do recognize that macOS, iOS, et al have flaws, but the centralized security model (All the system software comes from Apple, not a third party) and the commitment to privacy do make me feel safer.

Secrets of the macOS System Preferences window

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Come on. What could be so secret? But yup, Sharon Zardetto, writing for TidBITS, reveals some stuff that, at the very least, is not well known. For example:

If an item has a dedicated function key—as do volume control and screen brightness, for instance—press Option and the function key to go to its preference pane. This trick also works with the Touch Bar.

Lots of detail here, terrific work.

Galaxy Note 9 benchmarked: iPhone X is still faster

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This from an article about Samsung’s latest and greatest:

We tested the 6GB model of the Note 9 with 128GB of storage, and we’ve run a handful of benchmarks so far with more to come. Spoiler alert: the iPhone X is still faster.

And:

The cream of the crop remains the iPhone X, which scored 10,357 with its A11 Bionic processor. And with an A12-powered iPhone X and iPhone X Plus on the horizon, Apple will likely widen its lead.

Doomed.

McDonald’s Is giving away a ‘Gold Card’ that gives you free McDonald’s for life

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Inc:

McDonald’s is giving away one McGold Cards away as part of a campaign to get people to download and use their McDonald’s mobile app. To enter you either download the app–or else just send the company an email, using the format we’ll show you below.

And:

A number of celebrities have claimed to have them, but it appears there may be only one true Gold Card that entitles the bearer to eat for free at McDonald’s anywhere in the world.

It’s owner: Bill Gates, who is the second-wealthiest person in the world, and who clearly can afford a Big Mac. Others apparently have gold cards issued by McDonald’s franchisees, which allow them to get free food but only at the restaurants owned by that franchisee.

The Gold Card giveaway is an odd marketing gimmick, but I suspect it will be effective. But what really pulled me in was the idea that Bill Gates has one.

I can’t help but wonder if Bill actually eats at McDonalds. I’ve heard that two more super-rich people do so: Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison both have a fondness for the Golden Arches. In fact, Warren Buffett is said to do a McDonalds drive through for breakfast every morning.

The mind reels.

Doug Field returns to Apple after leaving Tesla

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John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

Here’s some interesting hiring news I’ve heard through the little birdie grapevine: Doug Field — who left Tesla in May after overseeing Model 3 production — has returned to Apple, working in Bob Mansfield’s project Titan group. Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr confirmed with me only that Field has returned to Apple, but no one should find it surprising that he’s working on Titan.

Read Gruber’s post. Some fascinating and reasonable conjecture about Apple and a self-driving car of their own.

Apple Music launches new weekly ‘Friends Mix’ in For You

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This is a great new Apple Music feature, a weekly mix of 25 songs, culled from the folks you follow on Apple Music.

To find the Friends Mix:

  • On your iPhone, launch the Music app
  • Tap the For You tab
  • In the top row of playlists, tap and drag to the left. The Friends Mix is usually the second Mix.

If you don’t see the Friends Mix on your device, just wait a day or two. On my iPhone, it has come and gone a few times. I expect there is some tweaking going on on the server side and that it will settle in place after a bit.

On a related note, feel free to follow me, happy to follow you back. My Apple Music handle is zzdave. Here’s a link to my profile. To make your own profile link, substitute your Apple Music name for mine.

Searching for a friend? Try tapping the search tab in the Music app and either typing their name (for me, David Mark and not Dave Mark) or their Apple Music handle. Works well.

Rene Ritchie digs into the details of iPhone battery life

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[VIDEO] I love this video (embedded in the main Loop post). Rene Ritchie digs into all aspects of iPhone battery life, taking on various myths and habits, laying out the details and truths behind each. Worth your time.

Terrific real-life use case for ARKit

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Imagine writing out some personalized instructions on how to use a piece of tech, say, for your mom or dad, instructions that strip away the complexity. Now take a look at the video in the embedded tweet:

https://twitter.com/mortenjust/status/1027183855692931072

This is a terrific use case.

Excerpt from upcoming “Inside Apple’s Design Process” book

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This is a great intro from Benjamin Mayo, laying out the context of this excerpt from the upcoming book Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, by Ken Kocienda.

This is Ken demoing one of the early iPhone keyboard candidates for Phil Schiller and then Tony Fadell. I found it a compelling read, a first person account from someone who was in the room, at least part of the time, as the new iPhone came into being.

On my must read list. The book ships September 4th. You can pre-order it on Amazon and iBooks.

Marques Brownlee: The 2019 iPhone X Models

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[VIDEO] First things first, the appearance here (video embedded in main Loop post) is that someone leaked actual production cases of the soon-to-be-announced new iPhone models. If they are fakes, as opposed to leaks, they are damned good fakes.

Either way, take this video with a big grain of salt.

Fake? Real? History as our guide, we’ll know more in about a month.

Apple responds to US lawmaker concerns about location tracking, ‘Hey Siri,’ more

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Chance Miller, 9to5Mac, does a nice sum up of Apple’s response to official questions from the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

My favorite quote:

The customer is not our product, and our business model does not depend on collecting vast amounts of personally identifiable information to enrich targeted profiles marketed to advertisers.

That says it all.

Warner Music Group sells its entire stake in Spotify

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Interesting move. Warner Music Group comment on the sale:

This sale has nothing to do with our view of Spotify’s future. We’re hugely optimistic about the growth of subscription streaming, we know it has only just begun to fulfill its potential for global scale. We fully expect Spotify to continue to play a major role in that growth.

Odd to get out if their confidence is so high. I found the logic confusing. You can read more about the WMG earnings call here.

Spotify’s $30 billion playlist for global domination, comments from Tim Cook

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Robert Safian does a profile on the company and its leadership for Fast Company. Terrific read.

One side note: There are several quotes in the article from Tim Cook that have been making the rounds of the blogisphere. The quotes appear to be reworked from a long form interview Fast Company did with Cook back in February, called Why Apple Is The World’s Most Innovative Company. Also a terrific read.

Maniac

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[VIDEO] Maniac is a new series coming from Netflix, reuniting Emma Stone and Jonah Hill (you have seen SuperBad, right?)

This looks brilliant to me, full of promise, a painting of a future that seems plausible and, perhaps, even likely. Watch the trailer, embedded in the main Loop post.

TidBITS digs into USB Restricted Mode

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Josh Centers talks through USB Restricted Mode, the politics of opening a backdoor into iOS, and the mechanics of breaking into an iPhone via the Lightning port.

Bottom line:

If USB Restricted Mode isn’t causing you any trouble, leave it on. Although it doesn’t offer complete protection against an alert attacker who can get access to your device quickly, it’s not worthless. Once your device has been locked for more than 60 minutes, nothing we know of can crack it.

Apple Books: A love letter to readers

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Wonderful look at Apple’s iOS 12 rewrite of Books from MacStories’ Ryan Christoffel.

A personal note here: I have long purchased my books from Amazon’s Kindle Store, but this read, combined with my short-lived, unsatisfying dive into the Kindle Unlimited program has made me reconsider this habit.

One thing I look forward to, and not mentioned in the article, is the ability to share Apple’s Books with my family using iCloud Family Sharing. As a family, we often share books and we are already on this plan. [Amazon has something similar called Households, but it it is limited to two adults, so your kids will age out over time.] The family plan is a real boon for us. Something to consider.

One note on sharing from Ryan:

One thing Goodreads offers that Apple Books does not is a social component. An Apple Music-style social sharing feature would be a nice fit for Books, but there’s nothing of the sort here.

I love the idea here. I am constantly looking for new read recommendations, especially from friends who share my taste in books. And I see “reading the same book at the same time” as a very social activity, something rife with potential that rarely gets any treatment in the tech universe.

Who is Tim Cook? We investigate the Apple CEO who took over from Steve Jobs

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Nice backgrounder on Tim Cook from Emma Sims, Australia’s PC Authority. One highlight:

Under Cook’s stewardship, the firm has increased its donations to charity, something Cook has vowed to do himself; the CEO plans to donate his stock fortune in its entirety (thought to be in the region of $US120 million) to charity.

That’s commitment to one’s beliefs and yet another reason to admire Tim Cook.

[H/T Dman]

Why Apple is the future of capitalism

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Mihir A. Desai, New York Times:

Sure, Apple produces innovative phones and laptops, but look inside its sleek exterior and you’ll find an elegant financial machine that has become the ideal for corporate America. Without investing significantly in hard assets, Apple spins cash and returns it to shareholders at a stunning rate. It’s difficult not to admire.

And:

Six years ago, the company owed no debt and had never undertaken a share buyback or paid dividends. Pressured by a shareholder revolt in 2013, it is now transformed.

And:

Apple has conducted its buybacks responsibly: It bought shares when they were relatively cheap, rewarding the patient shareholder. Other companies have not been so prudent, taking on debt to make ill-timed purchases of expensive shares rather than investing in growth opportunities. In some cases, they have done so simply to push up share prices so that management can meet goals for quarterly earnings or metrics that trigger compensation.

Good read. Apple is truly a remarkable company.

“Apple still trades like a steel mill going out of business.”

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This is a fun read from Jean-Louis Gassée about Apple’s rise to the 13-digit club.

A few bits, just to whet your appetite:

While Apple employees deserve to bask in the market’s recognition of their good work, the thing that really counts is “making a dent in the universe”, as Steve Jobs memorably said. To name but a few, the invention of products such as the Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone; the creation of attractive and lucrative platforms for app developers (who deserve their own recognition for helping Apple reach the big T); an unrivaled supply chain management system… These are the things that have propelled Apple, occasional warts included, to the top of the industry.

And:

How did Apple get to $1T with such a poor price-to-earnings ratio (P/E)? As you no doubt already know, P/E is the result of dividing the share price by the earnings per share (EPS). The higher the ratio, the more willing investors are to pay a higher price for today’s shares, assured by the promise of substantially higher earnings (EPS) in the future.

This is where we get into some intriguing comparisons. Microsoft’s P/E is a solid 48 and Alphabet’s hovers around 50…but Apple’s is a meager 17. Caricaturing just a bit: “Apple still trades like a steel mill going out of business.”

Ah, Jean-Louis, always a pleasure making my way through your Monday Notes.