How Apple hopes to win the streaming war

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Spotify is the big dog in this game, but Apple has significant resources from which to draw. One way Apple can up their game is by focusing on ways to improve both iTunes and the Apple Music app. Lots of room for improvement, and small changes there will leverage far more than any single exclusive content deal.

Exploring Apple Watch faces on your iPhone

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[VIDEO] Juli Clover, writing for Mac Rumors:

In iOS 10, there’s a new Face Gallery in the Watch app, which is designed to let users customize their Apple Watch faces in watchOS 3 right from their iPhones. Tweaking an Apple Watch face from an awkward angle on a wrist and on a tiny screen can be a hassle, making the Face Gallery a welcome addition to the Watch app.

This is a great idea. Watch the video embedded in the main post to get a sense of how this works.

Episode of French TV show shot on iPhones after studio power outage

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[VIDEO] Fantastic moment. Watch the video in the original post. I’d love a captioned version so I could follow along, but you’ll get the basics even if you don’t speak French.

From the 9to5Mac article:

The incident was reported by Pure Médias, which says that power was lost for three hours. Emergency lighting kicked in, but the TV cameras were still not able to function, so the decision was made to continue recording using iPhones.

This is reportedly the first time a broadcast TV show has ever been shot on iPhone in the country, though we have of course seen ads, documentaries and even movies shot entirely with iPhones – as well as Apple showing what amateurs can do with the iPhone through its Shot on iPhone campaign.

Twitter’s temporary follow feature

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Buzzfeed:

Twitter is built on a follow model, which is great for some use cases, but also means you’re going to miss a lot of great stuff from people you don’t follow. Unless you followed certain Democratic lawmakers, you likely missed lots of action from the House floor during the sit-in this week. But there’s a solution to that: A Twitter that temporarily inserts relevant tweets from the right people at the right moment into your timeline would be a much more useful Twitter. Amazingly, this Twitter already exists but is buried puzzlingly deep within the platform’s user interface.

This is, indeed, an obscure feature. It’s buried in the Moments tab and not presented consistently.

The new iOS Remote app for Apple TV

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[VIDEO] Terrific walkthrough of the newly updated Remote app that lets you use your iPhone to control your Apple TV.

On the down side, you won’t be able to control your TV’s volume using the app.

On the up side, you’ll have a much larger screen space, more precise control of playing content, and a much better keyboard for typing in passwords and the like.

Watch the video to see all this in action.

Credit card sized iPhone stand that fits in your wallet

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This well designed flat card slides out of your wallet and quickly unfolds into a stand for your phone, perfect for in flight entertainment. Originally released as part of a 2013 Kickstarter, this new version is updated to accommodate iPhones in cases as well as Android phones.

Great idea.

How to use Tabs in macOS Sierra

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A solid article that shows off the use of tabs in macOS Sierra, tabs that you’ve long used in Safari and, likely less often, in the Finder.

One of the best things about Sierra tabs is that developers get them for free, so you’ll be able to use tabs in all your favorite apps.

Safari 10 brings fast, native App Extensions

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Daniel Dilger, writing for Apple Insider:

On both macOS Sierra 10.12 and today’s El Capitan 10.11.5 (when Safari 10 is installed), Safari will support App Extensions built from a combination of JavaScript, CSS and native code written in Objective-C or Swift.

And:

More importantly, the new App Extensions architecture enables developers to distribute Safari Extensions as part of their app through the App Store.

watchOS 3 first look

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Serenity Caldwell takes you on a tour through Apple’s upcoming Apple Watch OS update.

What Apple’s new APFS file system means to you

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Michael Cohen, writing for TidBITS:

Among the tidbits Apple revealed to its developer audience at the recently completed Worldwide Developers Conference was a new file system for the whole range of its products. Dubbed “APFS” (an acronym that Apple doesn’t completely spell out even in its developer documentation), the file system is meant to replace HFS+, the file system that in turn replaced 1985’s HFS (Hierarchical File System) in 1998.

Important change, arcane acronym.

What to do when your iPhone or iPad is stolen

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Mikah Sargent, writing for iMore, with a heart-sickening tale:

On the night of Monday, June 13, someone stole my 12.9-inch iPad Pro from my bag during the annual Beard Bash event. I won’t go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say my valuables (as well as those of my colleague Serenity Caldwell) were in a secure location. Unfortunately, secure doesn’t always mean nothing bad will happen, and in this case, something bad did happen: My iPad Pro was removed from my bag, Serenity’s belongings were stuffed into my bag to make it look full (I guess), and the iPad Pro went bye-bye.

Terrible.

WWDC clues hint at Apple’s post-iPhone era

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Great read from Neil Cybart. He walks through three distinct business models, from the Mac as digital hub, to the no central hub model (with iPad, iPhone, Mac, and iPod being equals), to the iPhone as hub model.

Very interesting, all with some numbers to back up the logic and a peek at the Neil’s take on the post-iPhone future.

John Dvorak: Apple should spin off the Macintosh

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No.

The Mac is an incredibly valuable part of Apple’s ecosystem. If people were, en masse, leaving the Mac for iOS, that might make some (albeit small) amount of sense. But the Mac is an integral part of Apple’s big picture strategy.

Spin off the Mac? I don’t think so.

Links to macOS Sierra reviews

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Here are some posts worth reading, each with an individual take after spending some quality time with the macOS Sierra beta.

iOS 10 kernel breaks with tradition, is unencrypted

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MIT Technology Review:

Some security experts who inspected that new version of iOS got a big surprise.

They found that Apple had not obscured the workings of the heart of its operating system using encryption as the company has done before. Crucial pieces of the code destined to power millions of iPhones and iPads were laid bare for all to see.