Apple sits atop Interbrand’s yearly Best Global Brand list

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There’s Apple, at number one. No big surprise. Google, Coca Cola follow at number 2 and 3. And there’s Samsung at number 7. Wondering what impact, if any, the Galaxy Note 7 debacle will have on the Samsung brand value.

Emergency SOS: How to set up and use this new Apple Watch feature

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Anthony Bouchard, writing for iDownloadBlog:

To access Emergency SOS, all you need to do is press and hold the side button on your Apple Watch, and you’ll see a new red “SOS” slider at the bottom of the slider list. Sliding this slider initiates a 911 call and fires off text messages to your emergency contacts within seconds.

But there’s more to it than that. Read the article and learn about auto-call and how to set up your emergency contacts.

Tim Cook meets Nintendo’s legendary Shigeru Miyamoto during Japan visit

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I can only imagine how cool this must have been for both sides. If you are unfamiliar with Shigeru Miyamoto, here’s a bit from his Wikipedia Page:

Miyamoto originally joined Nintendo in 1977, when the company was beginning its foray into video games, and starting to abandon the playing cards it had made since 1889. His games have been seen on every Nintendo video game console, with his earliest work appearing on arcade machines in the late 70s. Franchises Miyamoto has helped create include the Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, and Wii series. Noteworthy games within these include Super Mario Bros., one of the most well known video games; Super Mario 64; and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time.

I love that Nintendo changed their mind, allowing one of their biggest franchise characters to migrate to an iOS game. Looking forward to taking Super Mario Run for a spin. And hope that Link and Zelda follow soon after.

Hidden Mac tricks in macOS Sierra

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[VIDEO]: Lots of good customization tips here.

One of many: To launch Siri, press the command key and press and hold the space bar (as opposed to command-space, which brings up Spotlight).

[Via iHeartApple2]

The circles in Apple’s new Apple Music video

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[VIDEO]: This video is a walk through the Apple Music interface, highlighting various features. Feels like it belongs on the official Apple Music page. It’s certainly too long for an ad.

One thing worth noticing are the not-quite-transparent circles that stand in for a finger tap or drag. Watch the video with that in mind. There are a lot of them.

The circles are used both for touches and to highlight sections of the interface. My guess is, these circles are part of some third party screen recording app and were placed there frame-by-frame.

I would love it if Apple would expose the technology that made those circles as part of the QuickTime Player’s iPhone screen recording interface. There are ways to capture touches in a video but, in my opinion, none come close to matching these.

Why the Supreme Court asked if the iPhone design is like a Volkswagen Beetle

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Jeff John Roberts, writing for Fortune:

In trying to make sense of the design patents’ value, the judges repeatedly invoked the body shape of Volkswagen’s iconic Beetle model, noting that consumers will pay extra for a cool-looking car. But they drew back at saying a company, in cases of complex products, should be able to use a patent for exterior appearance to collect for the whole thing.

And:

Justice Stephen Breyer contrasted simple products like wallpaper to cars and smartphones, which are often covered by hundreds or thousands of patents and design decisions.

“For wallpaper, you get the whole thing. A Rolls Royce with the thing on the hood? No, no, no you don’t get profits on the whole car,” said Breyer.

This likens Samsung copying the iPhone look and feel to building a car that looks like the VW Beetle. Interesting point.

Inside macOS Sierra’s purgeable space and optimized storage

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Mike Wuerthele, writing for Apple Insider:

Purgeable space is data on the drive that Sierra has determined is superfluous, and not necessary to be stored on the drive. Examples are files in the trash, videos that have already been watched, music downloaded from Apple Music (but not rips from CD), and other data synchronized with iCloud.

In a nutshell, if you run out of space, purgeable space is the set of files that are backed up in the cloud and can be safely deleted. This post takes you through the basics of enabling this feature and doing the initial setup. If you are running macOS Sierra, it’s worth a read.

CarPlay: The best incarnation of Apple’s ecosystem

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Carolina Milanesi, writing for Tech.pinions, on buying a new vehicle with CarPlay installed:

Having CarPlay made me rediscover Maps and features like where I parked my car, the suggested travel time to home or school or the office, suggestions based on routine or calendar information — all pleasant surprises that showed me what I had been missing out. It also showed me how, by fully embracing the ecosystem, you receive greater benefits. Having the direction clearly displayed on the large car screen was better and, while there is still a little bit of uneasiness about not using Google Maps, I have now switched over. Maps on Apple Watch just completes the car experience as the device gently taps you as you need to make the turn. It is probably the best example I have seen thus far of devices working together to deliver an enhanced experience vs. one device taking over the other.

I have heard this same opinion from a number of people. I’ve long used Apple Maps combined with my Apple Watch for directions and it works well for me. But it is obvious to me that having the turn-by-turn directions on my vehicle’s built in screen would be a significant step up from my current setup.

I also find that Bluetooth is a bit finicky in certain situations. Built in CarPlay would eliminate those times when Siri can’t seem to hear me, or when turn-by-turn directions sometimes turn on my music when Siri calls out a turn.

I get the sense that CarPlay has very quietly become one of the Apple ecosystem’s shining lights. I know one thing. CarPlay has become a must-have feature in the next car I buy.

Jimmy Iovine on the future of Apple Music and why everyone is getting everything wrong

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Great interview. Jimmy speaks from the heart. One quote in particular struck me:

I met [Apple executives] Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue in 2003. I realized, okay, the future of music is going to be intertwined with distribution through technology companies. It just looked like that to me, and I realized how far behind I personally was. So I set out to really understand. So I worked with those guys for about two years, and I said to Steve, “I’d like to do headphones with Apple with [Dr.] Dre,” about two or three years later. He said, “Do it yourself, you can do it.” So I tried it myself.

Made me hungry for more detail on how this merger evolved.

Amazon’s full on-demand streaming music service launches today

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Dan Seifert, writing for The Verge:

Amazon’s long-rumored on-demand music streaming service is now available. The company is launching its new service as Amazon Music Unlimited, a on-demand competitor to the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. Amazon has done a number of things to differentiate Music Unlimited from its competitors, but the most notable one is its price: the service will be available to Amazon Prime members for $7.99 per month or $79 per year, which is cheaper than the premium options from Spotify or Apple Music. In addition, owners of one of Amazon’s voice-controlled Echo devices will be able to get the service for just $3.99 per month.

Key to me:

And while the Echo-only plan is limited to only one device (you cannot use it on your phone, PC, tablet, or even more than one Echo device), it still offers the same content library, recommendations, and other features that the full service provides.

This means, with the Echo-only plan, there’s no way to take this music on the road with me, either by car, plane, on my bike or for a run.

I find it interesting that folks who buy into the Echo-ecosystem can get a discount, but one with some significant omissions.

iPhone 7: Computer from the future

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Federico Viticci:

After nearly two years spent using a 5.5-inch iPhone, I’m accustomed to not having a compact phone anymore. The iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus have reshaped my iPhone experience for a simple reason: they give me more of the most important device in my life.

Thus, I was a little skeptical – even surprised – when Apple gave me a gold 256 GB iPhone 7 review unit (with a leather case) two weeks ago. I didn’t think I would be able to enjoy a smaller iPhone, but, despite my initial resistance, I set up a fresh install of iOS 10 and used the iPhone 7 exclusively for two weeks.

I’m glad I did. While I’m still pining for a 7 Plus, using the iPhone 7 showed me that there’s more to this year’s iPhones than the lack of a headphone jack.

In many ways, the iPhone 7 feels like a portable computer from the future – only in a tangible, practical way that is here with us today.

If you are on the fence about the iPhone 7, read Federico’s take. It’s a deep, thoughtful dive into the iPhone 7, as well as the wonderfully efficient pairing process between the iOS 10-powered iPhone and the new Beats Solo3 headphones:

  • Turn them on;
  • Bring them close to your iPhone;
  • Tap ‘Connect’ on a dialog that appears, and you’re paired.

That’s it.

All of Bluetooth should be this simple. Nice job, Federico!

Samsung’s “explosion proof” Galaxy Note 7 return kit [VIDEO]

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[VIDEO]: Yeah, not sure I buy the explosion-proof part. But Samsung has gone to great lengths to try to bring their devices home without further incident. The kits include a thermally-insulated box and safety gloves (“some individuals might be sensitive to the ceramic fiber paper lining the Recovery Box”).

Interestingly, the box itself is marked as “forbidden for transport by aircraft”. Looks like a long boat ride is in store for these returnees. Also interestingly, the UK’s Royal Mail has taken their own stand and won’t ship the Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung, the Galaxy Note 7, and trust

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New York Times:

When several Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously exploded in August, the South Korean company went into overdrive. It urged hundreds of employees to quickly diagnose the problem.

None were able to get a phone to explode.

Next step?

Samsung, which announced a recall of the Note 7 devices in September, decided to continue shipping new Galaxy Note 7s containing batteries from a different supplier.

As we now know, that approach did not work.

Reports soon surfaced that some of the replacement devices were blowing up too. Company engineers went back to the drawing board, according to a person briefed on the test process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the internal workings were confidential. As of this week, Samsung’s testers were still unable to reproduce the explosions.

This is a serious blow to Samsung. Trust is everything to a brand.

An editorial in South Korea’s largest newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, said: “You cannot really calculate the loss of consumer trust in money.”

Just so.

Phish’s Things People Do recorded completely on an iPhone

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Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Ezrin gave the band members specific instructions: Learn and play 10 folk songs, then start writing, beginning with a folk song. Mr. McConnell’s effort, “Things People Do,” not only made the final cut, but the version included is his demo. Phish made multiple versions of the song before agreeing that nothing topped the original low-fi version, recorded on Mr. McConnell’s iPhone, sitting atop a Wurlitzer piano in his living room.

Cool. To paraphrase an aphorism, sometimes the best recording device is the one you have with you.

The last design patent case (from 1885) to make it to the Supreme Court lays precedent in Apple Samsung case

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BBC News:

To find context ahead of Tuesday’s showdown between Apple and Samsung in the US Supreme Court, you need to go back over a century to a row over some rather attractive carpets.

It’s 1885, and John and James Dobson stand accused of nicking designs from other carpet makers and selling them off as their own.

A couple of companies, Hartford Carpet and Bigelow Carpet, were so incensed they took the Dobsons all the way to the highest court in the land.

The firms were quite right to be upset, the Supreme Court agreed, but then it got more complicated. The court hit a stumbling block over the amount of money the firms deserved in damages.

Read on for the details. Interesting.

In Switzerland, you can now buy a bus ticket with your Apple Watch

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[VIDEO]: Cominmag, via Google Translate:

In late April 2016, the company FAIRTIQ SA has radically simplified the purchase of tickets by launching the application that bears his name in conjunction with public transport Fribourg (TPF) and Lucerne and the Rhaetian Railway. Until then, to get a ticket, users were faced with sometimes complicated tariff systems.

The FAIRTIQ innovation has transformed this event into a breeze: the passenger signals the start of his journey with a click before boarding the vehicle and terminates in the same way once arrived. Thanks to the GPS, the system calculates the distance traveled and the corresponding ticket most advantageous. If the user makes several trips in a day and a day pass would have proved a more economical option for him FAIRTIQ not charge him the amount of the daily chart in question. Also, if you forget the part of the user, the application automatically calls to end the trip.

In the main post is a video showing the app at work. I find this sort of 3rd party integration of Apple Watch and Apple Pay a sign of thing to come and of critical mass in the adoption of both.

Big Pokémon Go update

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Just one taste:

Following the update, trainers will now earn a catch bonus when capturing more of a specific Pokemon type, so for example, capturing Abra multiple times will now increase your chances of encountering the rarer, evolved Kadabra.

If you are a Pokémon Go player, read the article and grab the update when it hits in your region.

The Samsung Note 7 is officially dead

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Bloomberg:

Samsung Electronics Co. is ending production of its problematic Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, taking the drastic step of killing off a smartphone that became a major headache for South Korea’s largest company.

Samsung had already recalled the Note 7 once last month after early models exploded and the latest move comes after customers reported that replacement phones were also catching fire. Samsung will be without its highest-end smartphone that was supposed to compete against Apple Inc.’s iPhones and other premium devices during the holiday shopping season.

This is a remarkable turn of events. Can you think of another major product that went through testing and release and was then completely killed off before it finished its first wave of shipping?

Two different iOS 10 adoption rates

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Apple’s official App Store measurements put iOS 10 adoption at 54%.

Mixpanel’s version of iOS 10 adoption is, obviously, not measured by App Store internals. According to the latest Mixpanel trend numbers, the iOS 10 adoption rate is 67.21%.

Both sets of numbers are reasonably up to date and, also obviously, pulled from different sources. Apple pulls data from App Store visits on a specific day (in this case, October 7th), and Mixpanel pulls their data from web site visits, sort of like Google Analytics, though with a deeper embedding in applications.

Interesting to see such different measures of adoption. Regardless, iOS 10 has a significantly higher adoption rate than Android Marshmallow (about 20%). As a reminder, Android Nougat is the latest and greatest, but it is limited to a few devices at this point, so Marshmallow owns the largest slice of the Android pie.

Finding recently listened to tracks in iOS 10’s Music app

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Kirk McElhearn, writing for Macworld, on finding your listening history in iOS 10:

There’s no way to do that in the iOS 10 Music app. In the Apple Music For You section, you can see your Recently Played music, but it only lists albums and playlists, not the songs in the order you heard them. And that’s only for Apple Music, not for your music.

But there is a path:

Interestingly, there is one way you can find this, and you have to enter Apple’s new Byzantine Messages app. Create a new message to yourself or to a friend. Tap the gray arrow to the left of the text field, then tap the App Store icon. Tap the grid icon at the bottom left (the one with the four ovals), then tap Music. When you do this, Messages displays a list of your 30 most recently played tracks.

The fact that this info was available made me dig a bit further. In the Music app, as Kirk suggested, I tapped the Library tab, then tapped Playlists. Down a bit was a playlist labeled Recently Played that, sure enough, had a nice long list of my recently played music, complete with a Shuffle All option at the top of the list.

My Recently Played list was indeed a list of songs and artists, in order. Not sure what Kirk experienced, but seems like there must be a setting somewhere that customizes the look of that list. I’ll ping Kirk on this, see what he thinks.

Most interesting to me is the TERRIBLE selfie iOS chose as the icon for that list. Really curious about the logic that led to that choice. But it did make me laugh.

UPDATE: Spoke with Kirk, his take is that my Recently Played playlist was inherited from my Mac via a past iTunes sync. Has to be this, since you can’t make smart playlists in iOS. Interesting.

Apple Watch Series 2 review, 3 weeks in

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Rene Ritchie has lived with his new Series 2 Apple Watch for three weeks. His review is realistic and well worth the time if you are thinking about buying one.

One quote on performance:

watchOS 3, unsurprisingly, runs great, as well. Scratch that. On the original Apple Watch, it runs great. On Series 2, it flies.

That’s thanks to the new S2 system-in-package (SIP), which now includes a dual-core central processor and an amped up graphics processor. A fresh app launch is still count-the-spinner-wheel-seconds slow, but way better than before. And given how recent and favorite apps are now kept in memory, it’s also rarer than before.

The S2 also includes GPS. It is assisted GPS in the most assisted sense of the word — it only fires when you’re tracking an workout route and your iPhone isn’t around to piggy-back on. As a result, power drain is minimal.

Combined with the new, bigger battery and more efficient processor, it’s so minimal that I’ve done two workouts in a day and still been well over 50% by sundown.

The difference between the original and the Series 2 is ridiculous.

Read the whole review.