Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:
If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming an app developer, the Apple Developer Academy is now open for applications. You could be one of 400 lucky students to win a year’s free training in Naples, Italy, completely free of charge.
To me, that’d be the experience of a lifetime. Here’s a link to the online application.
Airbnb press release:
A world-renowned leader in the retail space, Angela brings to the Board a profound creativity, enormous expertise in scaled services, and a passion for building community among customers. For the past five years, she oversaw global retail at Apple, creating a seamless customer experience designed to foster greater human connection by integrating the company’s physical and digital businesses across its online store, app and more than 500 retail stores in 25 countries. Under her leadership, the Today at Apple program turned stores into gathering places, reshaping Apple’s retail experience to inspire community and unlock creativity.
And this quote from CEO Brian Chesky:
“Angela has a reputation for pushing brands to dream big, and she told me that’s exactly what she hopes to bring to Airbnb’s Board. She has led global brands through transformation, completely redefined the retail experience, and has done it all while putting customers and communities first. I’m so excited for her to join our Board and know her innovative thinking will make us a better company.”
Clearly, joining a company Board is far different than a full time job as an executive. You can have seats on multiple boards, but you’d be hard pressed to have more than one full time job. Not being critical here, just an observation.
Came across this link on Jason Snell’s excellent Six Colors this morning.
It’s a story that appeared way back in 1984, a retelling of a seminal moment in computing history, the birth of the spreadsheet in the late ’70s.
A great read, especially if you are interested in the history of Apple. VisiCalc, the spreadsheet that started it all, came to life on an Apple II.
From the App Store writeup:
The Steam Link app brings desktop gaming to your iPhone or iPad. Just pair an MFI or Steam controller to your device, connect to a computer running Steam on the same local network, and start playing your existing Steam games.
Requirements: – iPhone or iPad using iOS 10 or higher – Computer running Steam – Windows, Mac, or Linux – iOS device must be on the same local network as the computer running Steam
This will definitely change the way I look at gaming. If the controls of a game translate to the flat glass of an iPad, I’ll definitely add it to my game roster.
Will this have any impact on subscriptions to Apple Arcade? Will Apple Arcade games, designed from the ground up for iOS, be significantly more pleasurable to play than Steam games?
New York Times:
Scientists have created a living organism whose DNA is entirely human-made — perhaps a new form of life, experts said, and a milestone in the field of synthetic biology.
And:
The bacteria are alive, though unusually shaped and reproducing slowly. But their cells operate according to a new set of biological rules, producing familiar proteins with a reconstructed genetic code.
The achievement one day may lead to organisms that produce novel medicines or other valuable molecules, as living factories. These synthetic bacteria also may offer clues as to how the genetic code arose in the early history of life.
The potential here is astonishing, both for good and for harm. This is not simply editing DNA, this is creating life forms from scratch. Truly a landmark.
First things first, chances are good that your Mac is not at risk in the first place. Want to check?
In the Hardware Overview section (it’s relatively short), look for the term hyper-threading. Don’t see it? You can ignore this issue.
If your Mac does support hyper-threading, you should take a look at this official Apple Support document.
Before you take any action, note:
Testing conducted by Apple in May 2019 showed as much as a 40 percent reduction in performance with tests that include multithreaded workloads and public benchmarks. Performance tests are conducted using specific Mac computers. Actual results will vary based on model, configuration, usage, and other factors.
And:
Although there are no known exploits affecting customers at the time of this writing, customers who believe their computer is at heightened risk of attack can use the Terminal app to enable an additional CPU instruction and disable hyper-threading processing technology, which provides full protection from these security issues.
No known exploits. Just the potential for exploits. Forewarned is forearmed.
A bit of a PR ding for Apple, but a mighty issue for Intel.
UPDATE: There is some question as to whether lack of hyper-threading support puts your Mac in safe harbor from the Intel vulnerability. The issue is, if you disable hyper-threading (and add that extra CPU instruction), you’ll be safe. But the question is, if your Mac doesn’t support hyper-threading in the first place, does that mean your Mac is not susceptible to the issue?
If anyone knows the definitive answer to this, please reach out.
A solid marketing campaign by the Indian government and a nice strategic move by Apple to ease their way into that market.
https://twitter.com/varunkrish/status/1128619867400167426
The iPhone 6s runs iOS 12, presumably will run iOS 13 as well.
From this Apple Insider post:
Using manufacturing partner Wistron, Apple has produced the iPhone 6S in India since 2018 and the iPhone SE since 2017, and has expanded to include the iPhone 7 for local sale. Current plans include tapping Foxconn for a trial run of production for the iPhone X, which may be a precursor to manufacturing the 2019 iPhones in the market.
Presumably, many of the parts for these iPhones are all sourced elsewhere, and the assembly and testing happen in India. Wondering what parts (such as the midframes and cases), if any, are actually manufactured in India.
[VIDEO] When I first started watching the video (embedded in the main Loop post), I just rolled my eyes.
But I kept going, and then got hooked. Not sure why this was built, but they sure put a lot of effort into this. I would pay big money to see a modern take on this, starring all the Apple folk we know and love.
Motherboard:
Hackers have been breaking into iPhones allegedly using a powerful spy tool sold to governments and taking advantage of a previously unknown vulnerability in the popular messaging app WhatsApp.
The hacking tool, as well as the WhatsApp exploit, were made by the infamous Israeli hacking and surveillance tool vendor NSO Group, according to The Financial Times, which first reported the story on Monday.
And:
“The simple reality is there are so many 0-day exploits for iOS,” Stefan Esser, a security researcher that specializes in iOS, wrote on Twitter. “And the only reason why just a few attacks have been caught in the wild is that iOS phones by design hinder defenders to inspect the phones.”
And:
As of today, there is no specific tool that an iPhone user can download to analyze their phone and figure out if it has been compromised. In 2016, Apple took down an app made by Esser that was specifically designed to detect malicious jailbreaks. Moreover, iOS is so locked down that without hacking or jailbreaking it first, even a talented security researcher can do very little analysis on it.
Not clear to me if that “0-day exploits” comment is true. After all, if you don’t have the tools to break in, how would you know. But the article does make interesting points. Are there exploit-detecting tools running behind the scenes on iOS, reporting back to Apple if anything is amiss? Or is it more like, the vault is so secure we don’t need guards?
The Verge:
It truly feels like we’re starting to reach peak dongle: Anker has released an adapter that allows Lightning earbuds to work with the 2018 iPad Pro, Apple’s USB-C MacBooks, and some recent Windows 10 laptops. This $29.99 accessory is available from Amazon now and is certified under the iPhone maker’s MFi program.
Add in this comment from Joanna Stern:
If this had a swappable or interchangeable 3.5mm headphone jack it would be the dongle to end all dongles
One dongle to rule them all. The mind reels.
Juli Clover:
Apple used to offer a maximum of $500 when doing a direct iPhone trade-in through its trade-in website, and just a few weeks ago, we tested trading in an iPhone X and were offered $500 by Apple. Today, Apple’s maximum price for the same iPhone X is $349.
And:
That same iPhone X that’s worth $349 when doing a direct trade-in with Apple is worth $450 if you trade it in while buying a new iPhone XR.
Wondering if there is a reliable web site that tracks best trade-in price for a particular iPhone model at the various trade-in web sites, including Apple.
Apple Weekly:
In the last few years, Apple stopped opening new stores and focused on rebuilding or renovating existing spaces. Apple has about 400 or 500 million of customers more in 2019 that they did in 2014 when Angela Ahrendts took over Apple Retail.
And:
By 2010, when the iPad launched and the iPhone took off, Apple had 280 stores, or 1.4 per million of devices in their installed base. Now that figure is close to 0.36, four times fewer.
Have we hit peak Apple Store? Have the Apple Stores learned to be more efficient, allowing a store to serve many more people?
It’d be interesting to see the data showing number of Apple Store “floor” employees per active device. I do find my local Apple Stores more crowded than in the past, but I also find the process to be more organized as well. That said, I do find the wait to get a genius appointment to be getting longer, though that’s anecdotal, not based on any rigorous analysis.
The Verge’s Adi Robertson pulled together an excellent explainer on this week’s Supreme Court ruling with potentially huge implications for Apple.
The biggest takeaway is that this is allowing a lawsuit to move forward and not a specific finding against Apple itself. That fight will likely take a long time, and Apple might still prevail.
But a good backgrounder, easy to follow.
Apple:
The all-new Apple TV app, which brings together all the ways to watch TV into one app, is available starting today in over 100 countries across iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and select Samsung smart TVs.
With the free iOS 12.3 and tvOS 12.3 software update, customers around the world can now subscribe to Apple TV channels within the Apple TV app — paying for only the ones they want — and watch on demand directly in the app. In the US, Apple TV channels include popular services such as HBO, Starz, SHOWTIME, Smithsonian Channel, EPIX, Tastemade and new services like MTV Hits, with more to be added over time around the world.
Not to be confused with TV+, this new rev of the TV app was part of yesterday’s massive run of device updates.
My favorite part of the announcement:
Through Family Sharing, up to six family members can share subscriptions to Apple TV channels using just their Apple ID and password. Subscribers can watch and download shows and movies both online and offline, making the Apple TV app the first and only place where HBO subscribers can download movies and shows such as “Game of Thrones” for offline viewing.
If I use my Apple TV app to subscribe to all my services, everyone in my family gets those services too, all under a single sign-in. This is how we use Netflix now, though with Netflix, you have a max of four simultaneous logins, unlike Apple’s six.
The offline viewing option and up to six simultaneous users does make this attractive. Looking forward to learning what TV+ adds to the equation, and what pricing model Apple settles on.
[VIDEO] Amazon just rolled out Alexa Guard (video embedded in main Loop post), a new feature that lets your Echo monitor all the sounds in your house while you are away. If it hears a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, or glass breaking, it will send you a smart alert, playing the sound on your phone.
On one hand, this is a clever idea and requires no extra purchase on your end. Just tell Alexa you are leaving the house and Alexa will vigilantly listen as instructed. This is great for Amazon, as I’m sure it’ll help them sell more Echo devices.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how I would feel about knowing that Alexa was always listening and, if the moment was right, always ready to record a sound for posterity, especially if you came home and forgot to turn Alexa Guard off.
This just strikes me as anti-privacy.
On the other, other hand, I can’t help but think this is a feature Apple could easily implement, if they so chose. Would I feel any different with Apple eavesdropping, vs Amazon? I’m not sure.
The Hustle:
On a warm night in May of 1969, a throng of awestruck gamblers crowded around a well-worn roulette table in the Italian Riviera.
At the center stood a gangly 38-year-old medical professor in a rumpled suit. He’d just placed a $100,000 bet ($715,000 in 2019 dollars) on a single spin of the wheel. As the croupier unleashed the little white ball, the room went silent. He couldn’t possibly be this lucky… could he?
But Dr. Richard Jarecki wasn’t leaving it up to chance. He’d spent thousands of hours devising an ingenious method of winning — and it would soon net him the modern equivalent of more than $8,000,000.
I love a good “smart rumpled underdog beats the bank” story, and this is a good one. Can’t help but think that, with all the machine learning power in the palm of your hand, this will happen again, albeit in a different way.
Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:
Apple debuted a brand new Pride face in the middle of the WWDC 2018 keynote last year, pairing a rainbow colored watch face with a matching band. Now Apple’s Pride face is getting a new design on the Apple Watch with an updated style option. There’s also a new Pride Analog version with full screen and circular versions.
To see these for yourself, launch your iPhone Watch app and tap the Face Gallery tab.
[VIDEO] Follow the headline link to the iFixit teardown page for the Google Pixel 3a. Lots of step-by-step images and details. This is one of the most easy to take apart phones on the market but, that said, it is still an incredibly complex puzzle to put back together.
Take a look if your inner nerd runs that way.
And, if video is more your thing, embedded in the main Loop post is the teardown of the Pixel 3a XL.
This is a breaking story. From Bloomberg:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that consumers can press ahead with a lawsuit that accuses Apple Inc. of using its market dominance to artificially inflate prices at its App Store.
The 5-4 ruling May 13 could add to pressure the company faces to cut the 30 percent commission it charges on app sales. Lawyers pressing the case have said they will seek hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of overpaying consumers.
Want to read the ruling, get the story straight from the horse’s mouth? Here ya go.
Before you check out Mark Linsangan’s Apple Insider post/video, take a quick look at this tweet, which shows the focus of Google’s iPhone bashing Phone X (not a typo, they compare their new phone to the mythical Phone X) campaign.
Google is, rightfully so, focusing on the availability of Night Sight on the Pixel 3a and the lack of a night mode on modern iPhones. Fair dinkum.
But if you really want to compare the Pixel 3a to an iPhone, do what Mark Linsangan does and run the gamut. Compare all the things. Like blazingly fast speed, fit and finish, and other features missing from the 3a entirely.
I think the Pixel 3a is a good enough smartphone. But compare it side-by-side with the low end iPhone if you want to truly play fair.
[VIDEO] The first ad (both are embedded in the main Loop post) focuses on the iPhone XR’s amazing battery life. That’s Julie Andrews singing Stay Awake from Mary Poppins.
That second ad is a bit of a puzzle to me. I love the laughs, just not sure it drives that privacy message home. Just me?
Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac:
“Music Skills: Creating Your First Podcast” is a 30-minute Apple Store session that uses GarageBand for iPhone to teach the basics of recording, editing, and refining a podcast trailer with music and audio loops. The session isn’t meant to be an end-to-end guide to publishing a show — Apple offers other resources for that — but it will help you decide if starting a podcast is something you want to pursue.
Currently only at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store, I’m hoping it’ll roll out to other Apple Stores over time.
Here’s a location free link you can check to see if it’s coming to your store anytime soon. I will definitely be signing up for this one.
Yesterday, we posted the latest flyover of Apple Park, highlighted by a new rainbow stage. What’s the story behind that stage?
Cult of Mac has the answer:
The mysterious, rainbow-colored stage erected inside Apple Park bears all the hallmarks of the company’s meticulous design, according to an Apple document provided to Cult of Mac.
It’s the latest creation by Jony Ive’s team — and it’s just as thoughtfully and intricately designed as you might imagine.
The Cult of Mac article is worth reading. But short answer (and don’t let it stop you from reading the CoM piece, it’s got much more):
Apple and its collaborators are supposedly rushing to complete the brightly colored stage prior to a May 17 special event for employees at Apple Park. That event reportedly will do double duty. It will serve as a celebration of the formal opening of Apple Park, the sprawling headquarters of the world’s most powerful tech company. And it will pay tribute to Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder whose vision drove the design of the unique Cupertino campus with the spaceship-like circular building.
Wish I could be there. I can only imagine it will be quite an event.
[VIDEO] This is the latest and greatest of the niche memes I call ranking races. Think you know who will win? Check out the video, embedded in the main Loop post.
Josh Ginter, The Sweet Setup:
For those who use their iPad with an external keyboard, we’ve put together a list of more than 30 helpful iPad Keyboard Shortcuts to save you time and be more productive on your device. We’ve also included a cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts to accompany some of our favorite iPad apps (such as Things, Ulysses, Lightroom, and more).
Use an iPad with an external keyboard? Have at it.
Don Norman:
Take the screen design for Apple’s phones. The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. Bruce Tognazzini and I, both former employees of Apple, wrote a long article on Apple’s usability sins, which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Once Apple products could be used without ever reading a manual. Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
When Don Norman says he wrote the book on user-friendly design, he’s not kidding. Don is a former Apple VP and his book The Design of Everyday Things is a seminal work.
If you care about design, take the time to read the linked article. This strikes me particularly, because my mom is legally blind and I’ve been unable to find a solution that she can master (voiceover and other accessibility features are just too complex for her to grasp).
I’d love to see a simpler interface as an option, one that lets me eliminate all the clutter and reduce her choices to a few large, customizable buttons (perhaps backed by Shortcuts). And I’d love for that interface to servive reboot, an accessibility kiosk mode.
[VIDEO] The flyover is fascinating, as always (embedded in main Loop post), but that stage just grabbed my attention. The colors are reminiscent of the old school Apple logo and, of course, the pride flag.
Wondering if there is an event planned for WWDC centered on this stage.
Motherboard:
In each of these muggings, the perpetrator allegedly held the victim up at gunpoint, demanded that they pull out their iPhone, and gave them instructions: Disable “Find My iPhone,” and log out of iCloud.
And:
A stolen iPhone which is still attached to the original owner’s iCloud account is worthless for personal use or reselling purposes (unless you strip it for parts), because at any point the original owner can remotely lock the phone and find its location with Find My iPhone. Without the owner’s password, the original owner’s account can’t be unlinked from the phone and the device can’t be factory reset. This security feature explains why some muggers have been demanding passwords from their victims.
And:
In practice, “iCloud unlock” as it’s often called, is a scheme that involves a complex supply chain of different scams and cybercriminals. These include using fake receipts and invoices to trick Apple into believing they’re the legitimate owner of the phone, using databases that look up information on iPhones, and social engineering at Apple Stores. There are even custom phishing kits for sale online designed to steal iCloud passwords from a phone’s original owner.
Fascinating read, especially the coverage of phishing. Incredible balance, with the makers who make valuable things on one end, and the people seeking to convert those efforts into illicitly gotten cash on the other.
[VIDEO] Every original Mac shipped with this cassette (see the video embedded in the main Loop post). So weird to think about it now, a cassette tape as guided tour, but this is the real deal.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I drove home from the computer store at warp speed, my brand new Macintosh in tow. Unpacked everything, amazed at the novelty of it all, thrilled to get started. MacWrite, MacPaint, the ImageWriter printer, and glacially slow floppy disks.
I was hooked from day one. Changed my life.
Jason Snell, Macworld:
Despite the fear that the introduction of the Mac App Store meant that Apple would eventually limit the Mac software market to App Store apps only, that has never happened. In part, this is because a huge array of important Mac apps have not qualified for inclusion in the Mac App Store, something Apple seems now to be dedicated to rectifying.
And:
With the introduction of Gatekeeper, Apple began differentiating between Mac App Store apps, apps that had been created by known Apple developers outside the App Stores, and apps with unknown provenance.
And:
Last summer, Apple introduced a new concept for Mac software distribution outside the Mac App Store, something called “notarization.” Just as the older approach allows Apple to recognize registered developers—and turn off their accounts if they’re creating malware—this new approach requires developers to pass their apps through an automated process at Apple. Apple gets the ability to flag any problems it sees, and retains the ability to shut off individual apps from a developer, rather than the entire output of an account.
Good stuff from Jason Snell.
One side note: Interesting difference between the Mac and iOS is the ability to download and run a Mac app without any involvement from Apple. While you can sideload an iOS app using Apple’s Mobile Device Management, Test Flight, or by building the app yourself, none of those offer the freedom the Mac brings.
Will Marzipan change that, even a bit? Will I be able to download a Marzipan app from a developer’s site and just run it on my Mac? Or will Marzipan restrict apps to the Mac App Store?