Ben Lovejoy: I suspect Apple limits Face ID to one person because it would otherwise be too slow

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Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac, pulled a quote from this Mashable iPhone X review:

One important limitation of Face ID: It only lets you register one face. That may strike many as unnecessarily limiting since Touch ID lets users register up to 10 [sic] fingerprints, but Apple says it found the number of people who register more than one person’s fingerprints is miniscule.

Ben continues:

The idea that hardly anyone registers more than one person’s fingerprint didn’t ring true to me, and our poll shows that it’s not true for 9to5Mac users at least.

At the time of writing, the majority of our readers have more than person’s fingerprints registered for one or more of their iOS devices. Almost half (48.98%) have one other person registered, and a further 6.85% have more than two people.

I would certainly agree with this. I have my entire family “fingered” on my iPhone 6s, and the Touch ID performance is still very fast.

Ben’s take on adding a second face to the Face ID registry:

My guess is that doing all these checks for more than one person would make face-recognition noticeably slower than Touch ID, and Apple was concerned that reviewers and consumers alike wouldn’t respond well to that. That, I think, is the real reason Apple limits Face ID to a single face.

Interesting perspective.

The iPhone X can’t tell the difference between identical twins

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First things first, this is not news. Apple has been very up front about the Face ID edge cases.

That said, I did find this interesting, was wondering how long it would take before someone verified this theory.

From the linked Mashable article:

With both sets of twins, the other twin unlocked the iPhone X, even though neither one had registered his face with Face ID on the iPhone X. With the Franklin twins, we had both brothers remove their glasses and had the other brother register. Again, Face ID failed to tell the difference.

Look, Apple never claimed Face ID was perfect and, in my tests, it could not be fooled by photos or videos of my registered face.

But also interesting is the claim that Windows 10’s facial recognition tech was able to distinguish between twins.

Not much of an issue. Unless you are a twin. Especially an evil twin.

UPDATE: I’m told that the Windows facial recognition tech is iris scanning, not true facial recognition. Requires facing the camera with head aligned, just so. Does pick up the difference between twins, but clearly loses in convenience to Face ID.

The era of easily faked, AI-generated photos is quickly emerging

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Dave Gershgorn, Quartz:

Three years ago, after an argument at a bar with some fellow artificial intelligence researchers, Ph.D student Ian Goodfellow cobbled together a new way for AI to think about creating images. The idea was simple: one algorithm tries to generate a realistic image of an object or a scene, while another algorithm tries to decide whether that image is real or fake.

The two algorithms are adversaries—each trying to beat the other in the interest of creating the final best image—and this technique, now called “generative adversarial networks” (GANs) has quickly become a cornerstone of AI research.

The term GAN is worth remembering. It is one of the new shinys in AI research.

But more importantly, jump to the article and scan through the images, watch the embedded video. The generated images are remarkably good. I cannot tell the difference between generated images and real ones.

This is fascinating and scary, all rolled into one.

View from on-board the fastest RC jet ever built

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[VIDEO] This video (embedded in the main Loop post) is really cool. Note that this is a point-of-view shot, lots of rolls, steep turns, so don’t watch if that sort of thing bothers you.

And if you have animals, turn the sound down, some pretty high pitched engine whine.

I love the setup at the beginning, priming the turbine, getting the jet started. Terrific fun.

Tech Crunch iPhone X review

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Before you read on, spend a few minutes reading Jim Dalrymple’s iPhone X first take.

With that as a foundation, read Matt Panzarino’s Disneyland-based iPhone X review. It’s fun, informed, and interesting.

Too much to excerpt the whole thing, but here’s a bit on Face ID:

Going in to this review, my threshold for “success” was whether Face ID worked as well or better than first-generation Touch ID. I didn’t expect it to nail the speed of the second-gen sensor, which is incredibly fast. As long as it landed between the two I would be happy.

Face ID works really well. First, it’s incredibly easy to set up. You choose to enable it and then rotate your nose around the points of a clock twice. That’s it. Second, it worked the vast majority of times I tried it, it never once unlocked using a picture of myself or another person’s face and the failure rate seemed to be about the same as Touch ID — aka almost never. As hoped, it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen.

The “slightly slower than second gen” comment is interesting. I wonder if that will improve as users develop the swipe up timing muscle memory. Certainly, the timing should improve with next generation processors.

I experience failure with Touch ID at least once a day or so, almost always due to sweaty fingers from a workout or, perhaps, dirt of some kind on my fingers. Face ID eliminates that issue (my only complaint about Touch ID).

At several points, the unlock procedure worked so well in pitch black or at weird angles that I laughed out loud. You get over the amazement pretty quickly, but it feels wild the first few dozen times you do it.

So important. Really glad to read these reviews, hear the positives on Face ID in the wild.

Twitter thread reader

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TTTthreads (that’s 4 T’s in a row) takes a link to any part of a Twitter thread and puts the whole thread on a storified page.

Spend a few minutes playing on the home page, just to get a feel for the mechanics.

I like the concept, wish this was built into the official Twitter client.

UPDATE: As Robert Davey pointed out, if you like this idea, take Twitterrific for a spin.

iOS 11.2 introduces ‘SiriKit for HomePod’

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Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Apple has detailed an upcoming feature included in the new iOS 11.2 developer beta called SiriKit for HomePod. When HomePod launches in December, SiriKit for HomePod will allow developers to use the smart speaker as an access point to sending commands to their apps on iPhone and iPad.

No way to test this yet, as far as I know. Will Apple ship a HomePod simulator for Xcode before the HomePod itself ships?

The iPhone 8 review, lost in a sea of iPhone X reviews

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Jason Snell, Six Colors, on the iPhone 8:

This is the fate of the iPhone 8. It will be ignored by many of Apple’s most committed followers, who see it as a speed bump on the road to the release of the iPhone X in early November.

The iPhone X is stealing the iPhone 8 thunder, no doubt. But there’s a lot to appreciate here, especially if you have an older phone:

Instead, it will soldier on, doing its job as the latest iteration of the existing iPhone line, providing a substantial upgrade to people who haven’t bought an iPhone in two or three years and aren’t interested in paying $999 for the very first generation of a new iPhone, if they could even find one in stores. These people are ready for a better version of their existing phone, and the iPhone 8 will deliver that to them.

If you are considering an update, but stuck on the fence between an iPhone 8 and iPhone X, spend some time digging through Jason’s detailed iPhone 8 review. It just might change your thinking.

Chopsticks

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[VIDEO] This is super old, but ran into it yesterday, thought it was worth a share (watch the video on the main Loop post).

  1. Spiderman as Emcee? Wonder what that was about.
  2. That’s a pretty solid list of musical borrowings. Scroll down in the comments for a liszt (sorry).

Enjoy.

The first first impression of the iPhone X

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Steven Levy, Wired:

I’ve had this phone since last Tuesday. Apple had given me this early peek in part because I was one of the first pre-release reviewers of the original iPhone. Given that history, we all thought it would be interesting to get my impressions of what the company clearly believes is the next milestone in a journey that has pretty much altered our relationship with technology. Sure, with every single iteration of the iPhone, Apple has claimed that it’s the best one the company has ever made. But for this anniversary edition—coming at a time when critics are griping that the company had tumbled into an innovation trough— they’re pushing for something higher. Tim Cook calls the iPhone X “the future of the smartphone.”

This is a great read, all the way through. I love the open, with Steven choosing what feature to show people who see his phone, ask what it can do. Lovely writing, makes me want an iPhone X, which is exactly what this pitch is supposed to accomplish.

Remember, as cool as the original iPhone was, it didn’t really begin changing the world until Apple let third-party software developers take advantage of its innards—stuff like the camera, GPS, and other sensors. Maybe something similar, albeit not on such a grand scale, will happen with the iPhone X. Those who shell out the cash for this device will enjoy their screen and battery life today. But the real payoff of the iPhone X might come when we figure out what it can do tomorrow.

I see the iPhone X as the very beginning of a brand new product line. I think the payoff will come as those future iPhones X evolve.

The iPhone X gestures guide

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Getting (or dreaming of getting) an iPhone X? This is a terrific summary of the various gestures built into the phone.

Only thing that would make this better would be a video of same. Nice job, Jonny.

Forget the iPhone X, Apple’s best product is something you can’t buy

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John Patrick Pullen, Time:

There’s this photo of my kids in the bath that, well, I’d rather not tell you about. I mean, it’s incredibly cute and I’d love to show it to you, but I’m also a private person, so it wouldn’t be right to go into details. But I will say this: though it’s one of my favorite possessions, this picture doesn’t physically exist.

And:

As precious as this image is, I don’t have it stored on a flash drive attached to my keychain, or in some other ultra-safe place. Instead, it’s housed on a server in some unknown probably dank and sunless location. That’s no casual decision. I’ve put considerable time and thought into how I store my photos in general, as well as how I back up my information overall. Despite all the bottomless storage features offered by tech giants like Google and Amazon, I default to keeping my most valuable data with Apple. Why I chose this matters, so let’s talk about it.

Spot on. Apple’s commitment to privacy is a critical discriminator. Not only for the reasons spelled out in this Time article, but as a foundation for protecting things like information flow between doctors and patients. Good read.

Doctor diagnosed his own cancer with iPhone and ultrasound device

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Technology Review:

Earlier this year, vascular surgeon John Martin was testing a pocket-sized ultrasound device developed by Butterfly Network, a startup based in Guilford, Connecticut, that he’d just joined as chief medical officer.

He’d been having an uncomfortable feeling of thickness on his throat. So he oozed out some gel and ran the probe, which is the size and shape of an electric razor, along his neck.

On his smartphone, to which the device is connected, black-and gray images quickly appeared. Martin is not a cancer specialist. But he knew that the dark, three-centimeter mass he saw did not belong there. “I was enough of a doctor to know I was in trouble,” he says. It was squamous-cell cancer.

How many stories have we seen where an Apple Watch notifies someone of an abnormal heart rhythm? That’s just the start.

The iPhone, add-on devices like this ultrasound unit, Apple Watch and, of course, HealthKit, are changing the health care landscape.

Apple grows by 40% after six consecutive quarters of decline in China

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Canalys:

Apple’s declining streak in China has come to an end, as shipments grew 40% from 8 million in Q3 2016 to about 11 million this quarter. This makes it Apple’s best performance in China in the last eight quarters, where its growth has slowed considerably since the launch of the iPhone 6S. The mix of the iPhone 8 series at launch is also higher than the corresponding mix of the iPhone 7 series at launch last year.

But:

“Apple’s growth this quarter is only temporary. The high sell-in caters to the pent-up demand of iPhone upgraders in the absence of the iPhone X. Price cuts on earlier models after announcing the iPhone 8 have also helped. However, Apple is unlikely to sustain this growth in Q4,” said Canalys Research Analyst Mo Jia.

And:

Despite being touted as widely expensive, excitement for the launch of the iPhone X is building in China.

Good info.

Apple iPhone X screen repairs: $279, other non-warranty repairs: $549

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Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

In the United States, Apple will charge flat rates of $279 for iPhone X screen repairs and $549 for any other damage to the device, unless it is a manufacturing defect covered by Apple’s standard one-year limited warranty. The fees vary in other countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

These prices do not apply to customers who purchase AppleCare+ for the iPhone X, which costs $199 upfront in the United States.

Is it just me, or is it getting pricy in here?

The iPhone X is sold out, currently offering delivery 5-6 weeks out

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The iPhone X opened for pre-orders early this morning (just after midnight PT).

In the first few minutes, folks were getting November 3rd ship dates. I’ve gotten feedback from folks who used the online Apple Store, as well as AT&T and Verizon. Some international reports as well, obviously via other carriers. No reports of T-Mobile orders delivering on Nov 3, though that could simply be the small sample size.

About 15 minutes in, the ship dates slipped first to 1-2 weeks, then 2-3 weeks. By this morning, delivery was 5-6 weeks out.

From this Bloomberg article, from yesterday afternoon:

Given reported production bottlenecks, iPhone X delivery times will be four to six weeks by 8 a.m. New York time and should remain largely unchanged in the following days, said Gene Munster, a veteran Apple analyst and co-founder of VC firm Loup Ventures.

IPhone X demand and supply should sync about three to four months after launch, while it typically takes two to three months for a new iPhone to reach global supply-demand equilibrium, Munster added in a note to clients on Thursday.

Take that with a grain of salt, but an interesting projection.

And, if you have plenty of cash and don’t mind soiling your soul a bit, there’s always eBay, Craigs List, etc., with no shortage of locked in price gouging iPhone X pre-orders for sale.

JFK Files: British reporter got call about assassination 25 mins before shots fired

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The Guardian:

A reporter on the UK’s Cambridge Evening News received an anonymous call telling him to ring the US embassy for some big news, 25 minutes before the murder of John F Kennedy in Dallas, newly released documents say.

I realize this is off topic for me, but this hits me deep. The call was local, meaning someone in Cambridge knew of the assassination before the shots were fired. And in all the years since, this significant detail was kept under wraps.

Conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But this comes from MI-5, and is a startlingly new and major development in a story that has been scraped to the bone in the press for many years.

UPDATE: Of course, this was a big leap in logic, from “big news” to “the assassination”, no doubt. Just hits a nerve for me.

The iPad Pro as main computer for programming

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Jannis Hermanns explores the idea of using an iPad Pro as his main computer for backend development. He’s not doing iOS development, nothing that requires Xcode. But there are a lot of developers for whom this model would work perfectly.

I love the portability, but even with the larger size of the iPad Pro screen, would feel cramped without my large screen second display. Nonetheless, well worth the read.

Google officially addresses Pixel 2 issues, doubles warranty to 2 years

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From the Google Forums:

Since launch, we’ve also received reports of suspected issues related to the Pixel 2 XL display. We take these reports very seriously and wanted to provide an update. First, there’s been some feedback about the Pixel 2 XL displays not appearing as vibrant as other phones, and in the past few days, there have been a small number of reports of differential aging (also referred to as “burn-in”) on the Pixel 2 XL’s pOLED screen.

And:

Regarding differential aging, we put all of our products through extensive quality assurance before launch and in the manufacturing of every unit. Thorough testing of the Pixel 2 XL display shows that its decay characteristics are similar to OLED panels used in comparable products. Our current investigation of burn-in, which started as soon as we received the first user report on October 22, confirms that the differential aging is in line with that of other premium smartphones and should not affect the normal, day-to-day user experience of the Pixel 2 XL. Regardless, we use software to safeguard the user experience and maximize the life of the OLED display, and we’ll make ongoing software updates to optimize further.

And:

We’re very confident that the Pixel 2 delivers an exceptional smartphone experience, and to give users peace of mind, every Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL will now come with a 2-year warranty worldwide.

Hard to know how to react to this. The way I read it, the burn-in is being sold as normal, nothing to see here, move along. If this is the case, there should be reports of burn-in on all OLED displays, no?

As to the Pixel 2 color issues, there’s a detailed explanation in this Google Forums post. It focuses on the Pixel 2 XL using wide Display P3 color gamut, white point temperature settings, and old school sRGB being translated into that space.

Lots to process, props to Google for doubling the warranty.

Twitter pulls “election tampering” advertising

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Official Twitter blog:

Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately. This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government. We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter.

As the blog mentions, Twitter is taking those funds and redirecting to external research “into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation, with an initial focus on elections and automation”.

The absolute fastest way to preorder iPhone X

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If you are planning on ordering an iPhone X at just past witching hour tonight, this is worth a read. Lory Gil walks through the process, highlights things you can do to squeeze every second out of the purchase process, make sure you maximize your chances of success.

The iOS privacy loophole

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Felix Krause:

Once you grant an app access to your camera, it can:

  • access both the front and the back camera
  • record you at any time the app is in the foreground
  • take pictures and videos without telling you
  • upload the pictures/videos it takes immediately
  • run real-time face recognition to detect facial features or expressions

Have you ever used a social media app while using the bathroom? ?

All without indicating that your phone is recording you and your surrounding, no LEDs, no light or any other kind of indication.

The point is that when you grant an app access to your camera, you grant complete access. There is no granularity, no access limitation for a single task.

Is this paranoia? Perhaps. But seems like this is worth some thought.

Face ID FUD

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John Gruber deconstructs yesterday’s Bloomberg article that accuses Apple of downgrading its Face ID technology to make it easier to meet production goals.

Read Gruber’s detailed post, then consider the damage done by Bloomberg’s article. Will people accept Apple’s official response? Will the accusation of a weaker Face ID shift the thinking of potential buyers? It’d be interesting to see a poll of buyer thinking.

Gruber brings up some really interesting food for thought. In these days of fake news, is it possible Apple is the victim of a disinformation campaign here? Or is there a nugget of truth at the core of it all?

Angela Ascendent: The Buzzfeed interview with Angela Ahrendts

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If you haven’t already, take a few minutes and watch this quick interview with Angela and Tim Cook. As the title suggests, Angela Ahrendts is ascendent.

The Buzzfeed interview covers a lot of ground. A few highlights:

In 2013, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted, “I just saw Future Apple CEO @AngelaAhrendts on her farewell Burberry tour! The most important hire Tim Cook has ever made!” (Both Cook and Ahrendts batted down “future CEO” rumors in an interview with BuzzFeed News at the recent opening of Apple’s Chicago flagship store: “Fake news … silly,” the retail chief said immediately, shaking her head. Cook, smiling, responded: “I see my role as CEO to prepare as many people as I can to be CEO, and that’s what I’m doing.”)

And:

This year, Toys ‘R’ Us, RadioShack, and a dozen others filed for bankruptcy and closed a number of locations, as more and more consumers turn to online storefronts to shop.

That previous statement is a key challenge for Apple retail. An Apple Store is often a flagship store in a mall. If the Apple Store fails (an extremely rare occurrence), the mall will pay the price. If the mall is failing, that Apple Store can prop it up. The Apple Store is more than a shop, more than simple brick and mortar. There’s value beyond the sum of its parts.

By adding communal features (including free Wi-Fi and outdoor tables) and offering classes (that extol the features of Macs and iOS devices), Ahrendts is hoping to persuade customers to spend more time in Apple Stores. Maybe they’ll even want to buy something. You can now go to the Apple Store to learn how to code in a schmancy new theater, or watch a performance by an Apple Music–featured singer-songwriter, or sit under a tree with a Genius to figure out why your iPhone doesn’t charge anymore, or watch as an illustrator doodles live (on, of course, an iPad). Ahrendts-era Apple Stores are commerce engines, expertly designed to sell you a $1,000 iPhone (made more affordable with a $50-per-month interest-free leasing plan!) in a beautiful glass dome anyone can walk into.

The new Michigan Avenue Apple Store in Chicago, placed just so on the riverfront, is its own destination. It brings its own foot traffic. And foot traffic is one of the holy grails of retail.

With all that in mind, read the interview. Angela Ahrendts is one of the keys to Apple’s future success.

All the face-tracking tech behind the iPhone X’s Animoji

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Elizabeth Stinson, Wired:

A COUPLE YEARS ago, Apple went on a shopping spree. It snatched up PrimeSense, maker of some of the best 3-D sensors on the market, as well Perceptio, Metaio, and Faceshift, companies that developed image recognition, augmented reality, and motion capture technology, respectively.

And:

Perhaps the most important feature in the new flagship phone is its face-tracking technology, which allows you to unlock the phone with your face or to lend your expressions to a dozen or so emoji with Animoji. Apple thinks the iPhone X represents the future of mobile tech, and for many, that’s true. But if you trace most of consumer technology’s most impressive accomplishments back to their origins, more often than not, it’ll lead you to a drab research lab full of graduate students. In the case of Animoji, that research happened to have taken place nearly a decade ago at a pair of Europe’s most prestigious technical schools.

And:

Algorithmic facial tracking is notoriously difficult pull off. Li calls the human face “one of the holy grails in computer graphics” because it’s so difficult to work on. Unlike a static object, the face is constantly deforming; there are no simple rules for a computer to follow.

This is a fascinating article. Animoji is not the goal, but rather a playful implementation that shows what is possible, how far Apple has come down this road.

Safari uses much less memory under macOS High Sierra

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Kirk McElhearn:

It’s time to tip a hat to Apple for a major change they’ve made in their latest desktop operating system, macOS High Sierra. Last year, I wrote about how Safari was a memory hog. At times, it would be using 5,6, even 8 or 9 GB of memory. I would have to quit it every few days to get it to stop being sluggish.

Since the release of High Sierra, I have noticed that Safari’s memory usage has dropped a great deal. Right now, with my iMac running for more than four days, Safari is only using about 3 GB of RAM. And this with more than a dozen tabs open.

  1. I’ve noticed the same thing on my setup.
  2. Notice Kirk is using iStat Menus, a nice little utility, wraps a lot of information in a tiny interface, all under a single menu bar icon. Check it out.

Collection of Google Maps tips

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If you are religious about Apple Maps, avert your eyes. Me, I use Apple Maps and Google Maps pretty equally.

With the exception of the “OK, Google” tip at the beginning, this is a useful list. Ignore the upper-left, lower-right sorts of references, as this seems written primarily for Android. But the tips work in the iOS Google Maps app.

Worthwhile read.

Bloomberg: Apple told suppliers they could reduce face recognition accuracy to ease manufacturing

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UPDATE: As you’d expect, Apple responded:

Customer excitement for iPhone X and Face ID has been incredible, and we can’t wait for customers to get their hands on it starting Friday, November 3. Face ID is a powerful and secure authentication system that’s incredibly easy and intuitive to use. The quality and accuracy of Face ID haven’t changed. It continues to be 1 in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID.

Bloomberg’s claim that Apple has reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false and we expect Face ID to be the new gold standard for facial authentication.

There’s no room for interpretation here. The Face ID accuracy remains the same. Nothing has changed. Calling out Bloomberg’s report as completely false is a strong, necessary statement. A black eye for Bloomberg.

Alex Webb and Sam Kim, Bloomberg:

As of early fall, it was clearer than ever that production problems meant Apple Inc. wouldn’t have enough iPhone Xs in time for the holidays. The challenge was how to make the sophisticated phone—with advanced features such as facial recognition—in large enough numbers.

As Wall Street analysts and fan blogs watched for signs that the company would stumble, Apple came up with a solution: It quietly told suppliers they could reduce the accuracy of the face-recognition technology to make it easier to manufacture, according to people familiar with the situation.

And:

The company’s decision to downgrade the accuracy of its Face ID system—if only a little—shows how hard it’s becoming to create cutting-edge features that consumers are hungry to try.

If the facial recognition tech still works, this is not an issue. If facial recognition works well enough to not be fooled by all but the most unique situations (twins, for example), this is not an issue.

If reducing accuracy allows Apple to ship, this (if true) is a logical decision. It’s what businesses do. The key is to compromise without reducing quality to the point where it breaks. I think Apple would eat the delay before they shipped an iPhone X that didn’t meet their security standards.

We’ve seen plenty of examples of iPhone (and other Apple product) shortages that lasted months, with demand outstripping supply. I don’t believe Apple would risk the iPhone X reputation by shipping an iPhone X with less-than-effective facial recognition.