Apple

iPhone X trade-in value at record 68% of new price a week before new iPhones revealed

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Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

A tech trade-in site says that today’s trade-in value is still 68% of the original sales price even a week before this year’s models are revealed, in strong contrast to one of Samsung’s flagship phones.

With the latest report suggesting that this year’s iPhone X successor, expected to be called the XS or Xs, could start from $800, that could represent an opportunity for a very cheap upgrade to the new model if you have a spare phone you could use to span the gap.

A new iPhone X starts at $999. 68% of that is $679.32. Which, if true that the base price of an iPhone XS is $799, would give you an upgrade price of $119.68.

Interesting. Especially when you consider that Apple offers a max (according to their web site) trade-in value of $290 for your existing phone.

Malware takes advantage of specific Safari setting

Written by

Patrick Wardle, Objective-See (via Michael Tsai):

Once the target is visits our malicious website, we trigger the download of an archive (.zip) file that contains our malicious application. If the Mac user is using Safari, the achieve will be automatically unzipped, as Apple thinks it’s wise to automatically open “safe” files.

This is a pretty long read, but it all comes down to the way macOS Safari treats downloaded files, and one specific setting in Safari Preferences:

Preferences > General > Open “safe” files after downloading

Here’s a picture of that setting, a checkbox down at the bottom of the General tab. I’ve unchecked mine. You might want to take a look at yours.

Key to all this is the word archives at the end. That includes .zip files, which can contain, well, bad stuff.

Read the linked article. As I said, I’ve unchecked my setting, have not yet encountered a problem set that way. This as bad as it seems?

UPDATE: This issue has, apparently, been around since the dawn of time, but that the default is supposed to be unchecked. I just unboxed a new Mac, factory settings, no migration, and the setting was on/checked. Public version of High Sierra.

I invented the iPhone’s autocorrect. Sorry about that, and you’re welcome

Written by

Ken Kocienda:

When I started working with a small team of engineers and designers at Apple in late 2005 to create a touchscreen operating system for Purple—the codename of the super-secret skunk works project that became the iPhone—we didn’t know if typing on a small, touch-sensitive sheet of glass was technologically feasible or a fool’s errand. In those early days of work on Purple, the keyboard was a daunting prospect, and we referred to it, often quite nervously, as a science project. It wasn’t easy to figure out how software might come to our rescue and how much our algorithms should be allowed to make suggestions or intervene to fix typing mistakes. I wrote the code for iPhone autocorrection based on an analysis of the words we type most commonly, the frequency of words relative to others, and the errors we’re most likely to make on a touchscreen keyboard.

More than 10 years after the initial release of the iPhone, the state of the art now is much as it was then. Even with recent advances in AI and machine learning, the core problem remains the same: Software doesn’t understand the nuance of human communication.

Interesting piece. This is part of the publicity effort to promote Ken’s new book, Creative Selection, which went on sale yesterday. Looking forward to reading this.

Apple Park construction time-lapse, and a bit of map wandering

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[VIDEO] Came across this Apple Park construction time-lapse video yesterday (embedded in the main Loop post). The video is from last year, is relatively high resolution, but jumpy. Obviously, this is as many frame grabs as the source data allowed. It did make me wish for both an even higher resolution, and enough images to create a single smooth animation.

Pulled me down a bit of a rabbit hole. First, I went to Google Maps and searched for Apple Park, checked out that satellite imagery. I then searched for Googleplex, to check out the satellite imagery of Google’s headquarters.

Of course, I then had to do the same thing on Apple Maps. As you’d expect, the satellite captures were from different dates, but the image resolution was relatively high. As I explored, I also realized how much of the satellite and Google street view imagery continues to be updated.

To get a better sense of this, I took a look at a giant construction project that is still underway, a building in Philadelphia that will be the tallest building in the US outside of New York and Chicago. To find it, search for:

1800 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA

In Google Maps, you can see the building underway, already pretty tall. In Apple Maps, the site is still a parking map, the building not yet begun.

Not a slam at Apple Maps. I’m sure if I kept looking, I’d find major construction projects where the reverse was true. I just found this interesting.

This year’s iPhones likely to establish a lasting tech lead thanks to 7nm A12 chip

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Apple is likely to establish a technical lead over most smartphone brands as the company moves to a 7nm process for the A12 chip that will power this year’s flagship iPhones. That lead could last well into next year.

And:

This leaves only Apple chipmaker TSMC with 7nm process capabilities, though Samsung has announced plans to develop its own 7nm process in an attempt to win back some of Apple’s A-series chip business. Apple used to split its chip orders between Samsung and TSMC, but the Taiwanese chipmaker beat Samsung to a 10nm process, and has been Apple’s sole supplier since the iPhone 7.

Fascinating. A smaller gap between chip elements means more elements per chip, faster data flow, less heat, and more energy efficiency.

Being first in this particular space to 7nm seems a big deal. That said, Huawei has a 7nm-chip-based phone said to ship in October, and Samsung is hard at work on their own 7nm chip, said to ship in early 2019.

iOS 11 adoption rate hits 85 percent, Android Oreo approaching 15 percent

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As we move close to the official release of iOS 12, Apple has updated their official iOS adoption tracker. 85% of active devices, as measured by the iOS App Store, are using iOS 11, as shown in the pie chart below.

As we always do when Apple updates their numbers, let’s take a look at Android’s official adoption rate numbers. Here ya go:

The two most recent versions of Android are Android 9 Pie (officially released on August 6th) and Android Oreo (August 21, 2017). As you can see, Pie has not yet made a dent in the universe and Oreo is approaching 15% (when you combine Oreo 8.0 and 8.1).

What a difference between the two platforms. The largest issue caused by this fragmentation is the inability to get critical updates out to the masses. Apple is about to release a brand new OS, and it will work on the vast majority of iPhones in the wild. And there are no carriers or third party manufacturers that stand in between users and their updates.

Lyft driver finds Pixel 3 XL in car; No one cares

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Snarky headline, but Gruber has a point:

The almost complete lack of attention paid to this story exemplifies the niche status of Google’s Pixel phones — which is sad, considering that they’re indisputably among the best Android phones.

Short of posts like this, chances are you were not aware that this happened.

Chances are excellent that if one of the new iPhones was left in a Lyft, the internet would have exploded, and someone at Forbes would have written a headline connecting the event to a confirmation of Apple’s demise.

Here’s a link to the original Verge post. If you care.

An Android fanboy spends an enlightening week with an iPhone

Written by

C. Scott Brown, Android Authority:

When the opportunity came up here for a writer to switch to an iPhone for a week to see what it’s like, I jumped on it. I figured this would be a way to put my convictions to the test. Is Android really better for me than iOS, or have I just become complacent and comfortable with Android?

I like the premise. But the execution was flawed.

Take a few minutes to make your way through the article. Scott clearly likes a lot about the iPhone, highlighting lack of clutter, the rewrite of the iOS App Store, iPhone’s superior Bluetooth implementation, and the ease of use of the Camera app.

But one dealbreaker for Scott:

The horrible layout of the keyboard makes you need to do not one, not two, but three taps to insert a comma in a sentence. First, you tap the keyboard-swap button, then you type a comma, then you hit the button to go back to the main keyboard.

Three strokes to use probably the second-most-used punctuation mark in the English language.

But as I pointed out in this tweet this morning, there’s a quicker way to type a comma. Press and slide the number (123) key, release on the comma, and you remain in the alphabetic keyboard. Fast and, once you know about it, easy.

The issue here is low discoverability. And, to me, the flaw in Scott’s experiment was tweeting out his concerns, to see if there are shortcuts (like the comma shortcut) or other solutions with the issues he raised, before he published.

All that said, this was an interesting read for me. There are clearly things iOS does better and things Android does better. Another example Scott raised was the way Android groups Notifications. If only he’d asked. This is a feature Apple has in place in the iOS 12 beta, coming soon to iOS devices everywhere. And iOS’s lack of fragmentation means anyone with an iOS device can get it, either by trying the public beta or waiting a few weeks for the release. No need to wait for a carrier update that might never come.

And those keyboard shortcuts? They’ve been around a long, long time. But if that comma thing was new to you, check out this terrific post (from 2016!) chock full of gems like this.

Thieves hit 5th Bay Area Apple Store in a fortnight, grab $50k’s worth of products

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Thieves have raided the fifth Bay Area Apple Store in less than two weeks, grabbing around $50,000’s worth of display products in less than 30 seconds.

It’s also the fourth time than this particular store has been robbed

And:

Display devices are automatically rendered useless once they leave the store Wi-Fi, but it may well be that thieves are able to sell the devices to people who fail to check them, or that they are broken for parts.

First, I loved the use of the word fortnight in the headline. Made me smile.

Trying to wrap my head around the money trail here. Is there an iPhone parts black market? If so, there’s got to be a lab somewhere where they pull these phones apart. Are the parts that lucrative?

Is it possible the thieves have some way to defeat the Apple security measures and are reselling the devices?

And, finally, this is the fourth time this store has been robbed. Need someone watching the front door for people in cinched hoodies. Maybe some machine learning to watch the front door, ring an alarm if it can’t detect a face.

Apple’s official iPhone 8 logic board replacement program

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Apple:

Apple has determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 8 devices contain logic boards with a manufacturing defect. Affected devices may experience unexpected restarts, a frozen screen, or won’t turn on. Apple will repair eligible devices, free of charge.

Affected units were sold between September 2017 and March 2018 in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, and the U.S.

If you’ve got an iPhone 8 and you are experiencing these sorts of issues, follow the link and enter your iPhone serial number to see if your device qualifies for the program.

Apple discloses minor crash involving self-driving test vehicle

Written by

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. disclosed in a filing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that one of its autonomous test vehicles was involved in a crash.

This is the first time a collision involving an Apple autonomous vehicle has been reported by the California DMV. The car, a Lexus SUV in self-driving mode, was rear-ended by another vehicle when it was preparing to merge onto a highway.

The Apple self-driving car was rear-ended, so this is not a flaw or weakness in Apple’s Project Titan. To me, it is a reminder that Apple operates, as much as possible, in stealth mode.

Will Apple build their own Apple Car, or focus on building software and hardware technologies that can be incorporated by more traditional automakers? If this sort of thing interests you, take a few minutes to make your way through this excellent rollup of what we know about Project Titan.

How to use the extra features packed into Apple’s tiny AirPods

Written by

William Gallagher, Apple Insider:

Yes, AirPods are clearly for playing music but you can rapidly choose where that audio comes from —and just what happens when you tap on the AirPods. AppleInsider details all the options.

This article goes beyond simply listing all the options you can assign to taps to each ear. For example, there’s this little nugget:

Just opening the AirPod case tells the iPhone to pay attention and shows battery information. You get the current charge of the case and an average of that for the two AirPods. Put one AirPod in your ear and now you get the individual battery charge for each one.

It’s worth checking this instead of relying on that average, too, because very often the two AirPods will have different levels of charge. Even though you always charge them in the case together, one may be significantly lower than the other.

That’s because one of them may have been acting as a microphone when you’ve received phone calls.

That last bit is pretty interesting and does explain why I sometimes have wildly different charge in my left and right AirPods.

Good post, worth a read.

9to5Mac uncovers images of new iPhones and Apple Watch

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Before we get to the links, note that these are spoilers. If you don’t want to ruin the September 12th announcement, don’t jump to the articles.

Here’s the link to the article with the iPhones image.

Here’s the link to the article with the Apple Watch image.

This comment from John Gruber:

I’d love to hear the backstory on how 9to5Mac got these images. 9to5Mac offers no explanation for how they obtained them. Product marketing images and the names of new iPhones almost never leak from Apple. iPhone names sometimes get leaked in iOS builds, but not photos like these. These photos were almost certainly intended for the keynote. To my memory, this is unprecedented. My guess is that no one at Apple gave these images to 9to5Mac. I suspect Rambo, who is extraordinarily clever at finding things, somehow discovered them through a URL that was exposed publicly but should not have been.

This sounds feasible to me. I’d guess that some folks at Apple are having a very bad day.

How to turn your Mac into a Wi-Fi hotspot

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Back in the day, before my iPhone or iPad was usable as a hotspot, I used to use my Mac as a hotspot. I’d plug it into, say, a hotel’s ethernet cable, then open up my WiFi for the folks around me.

I haven’t done this in years, since my iPhone hotspot works pretty well and since WiFi is so easily found. That said, in general, the performance you’ll get from an ethernet plugged-in hotspot is much better than you’ll get from your sometimes spotty cellular service.

Nice walkthrough from Jonny Evans. Tuck this one away and pass it along.

Gene Munster: 19% of Android users surveyed indicated they plan on switching to an iPhone in the next year

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Lots of interesting nuggets in this survey. It’s a quick read, a single page. A few highlights:

19% of Android users surveyed indicated they plan on switching to an iPhone in the next year, compared to 12% last year.

The numbers were relatively small, so this might simply be a sampling issue. But if that number proves accurate, that’s a pretty big swing.

I’d be interested in a similar survey showing percentage of iPhone users who plan on switching to Android.

Another interesting point: The percentage of iPhone users who intend to upgrade to a new iPhone was 23% this time last year, and increased to a whopping 48% in the most recent survey. Part of that might be the perceived maturity of the iPhone X and Face ID (i.e., the kinks have been worked out), adding to a natural response to the waves of marketing.

Apple expanding pilot program allowing repairs of select vintage Macs

Written by

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple will add 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air models released in Mid 2012 to its vintage and obsolete products list on August 31, according to an internal document distributed to Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers and obtained by MacRumors from a reliable source.

But:

Normally, this would mean the 2012 MacBook Air is no longer eligible for hardware service, except where required by law. However, Apple has decided to include the notebook in its recently launched pilot program that allows for repairs to continue into the vintage period, subject to parts availability.

Apple says 2012 MacBook Air models will remain eligible for service at Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers worldwide through August 31, 2020, a full two years after the notebook is classified as vintage. Mail-in service will also be an option in the United States and Japan through that date.

I appreciate Apple making this available, helping keep select older models on the road for that much longer. They could easily have not done this, which would have pushed people to buying new machines instead of repairing their existing machines.

Apple buys AR lens startup

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Reuters:

Apple Inc has acquired a startup focused on making lenses for augmented reality glasses, the company confirmed on Wednesday, a signal Apple has ambitions to make a wearable device that would superimpose digital information on the real world.

And:

Apple confirmed it acquired Longmont, Colorado-based Akonia Holographics.

Here’s a link to the Akonia Holographics web site, in case you’d like to get a better sense of them. I’d imagine the web site will eventually be taken down as they migrate to Apple.

Interestingly, the most recent entries on the News page are from 2016.

2011 pocket camera vs. 2017 iPhone 8 Plus

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Rob Griffiths compares a pair of (nearly) identical photos, taken four years apart, one with a pretty good pocket camera and one with, arguably, one of the best smartphone cameras on the market. To be fair, the pocket camera was a 2011 model, so the pictures might as well have been taken six years apart.

The results were interesting, both to show how far our smartphone cameras have come, but also for the comparison of file size, ISO, f-stop and shutter speed.

[Via Michael Tsai]

Discovering good music on Apple Music

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From Reddit:

What does everyone do to find new good music on AM? I’ve been having to use Spotifys discover and recommendations to get good music.

I prefer Apple Music to Spotify interface and usability wise but I really wish they would just up their algorithm game for discovering new songs or getting good songs based off “stations” I create based off a song I’m listening to. I sometimes get songs I already have or very mainstream options like Justin Biebers “No Brainer” come up and it’s like wow Apple lol

Here’s one response:

You need to put in a LOT of work to get Apple Music to work for you.

What Apple Music would like is that you select the genres and artists that you like when you set your account, listen to the stuff from your library or tracks suggested by For You and have Music do the rest. This works well if you only listen to mainstream stuff but falters if you look for artists with smaller listener counts (i.e. most of my library).

To fix this, you have to “Love” and “Dislike” a lot of songs yourself. For example, Music kept recommending Hip Hop for me (it’s probably the most popular genre on the platform); I had to dislike every Hip Hop song it threw my way for it to stop doing that. I also like Midwest Emo Pop Punk; most artists in that category are relatively unknown, so I had to import my Discover Weekly playlists for a few weeks and upvote songs from that to train Music to find artists like this for me. Apple Music’s For You didn’t get “good” until I spent roughly two weeks doing this. My New Music Mix is almost on par with Spotify’s Discover Weekly now, and I’m even getting Artist Spotlights from artists I didn’t think they did Spotlights on (like The Descendants).

The only issue I’m having now is that I’m scared to listen to hip hop on Music since I feel like it will begin recommending all sorts of Trap if I listen to even one or two songs (which I do sometimes; I like to stay current on the genre even though I don’t like it much).

I agree with all of the above, but I have found one path to music discovery that works well for me.

Recently, Apple Music introduced the Friends Mix to the top of the For You page. When I first fired up the Friends Mix, it was a bland rehash of my favorites. It was fine, but there was nothing really new to discover.

The key was adding new friends. Once I started sharing my Apple Music name (I embedded it in a tweet, which I pinned) and started following everyone who followed me, my friends list grew and my Friends Mix started getting interesting, much more enjoyable.

SIDE NOTE: My Apple Music name is ZZDAVE and I make every effort to follow all followers. Follow me and help me grow my Friends Mix.

As to liking and disliking songs, one tip is to let Siri do all the heavy lifting. Hear a song you like? Fire up Siri and say “I love this”. Siri will tap that heart for you. Same for “I dislike this”.

Airport Express: I’m not dead quite yet

Written by

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac, via this post by Jason Snell:

Apple’s AirPort line may be discontinued, but AirPort Express got one heck of an update today. Firmware update 7.8 for the latest AirPort Express hardware (2012 2nd-gen model, no longer sold) adds support for AirPlay 2 and Apple’s Home app. The teaser for support has been present since iOS 11.4 beta, but support hasn’t been live before today’s version 7.8 firmware update.

A lot of people were excitedly tweeting about this yesterday, discovering new life for that long-serving AirPort Express they’ve had, seemingly, forever. Props to Apple for this update. An extended life for an excellent, under appreciated product.

And props to Jason Snell for the best headline of the bunch.

The death of the iPad mini

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From the very bottom of this Bloomberg post:

The iPad mini, which was last upgraded in 2015, and the 9.7-inch iPad, last refreshed in March, won’t be upgraded, a person familiar with the company’s plans said.

This seems to be… […]

An emoji that will not show in the Safari title bar

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Found this in a Reddit thread this morning:

A locked (closed) padlock, with a key shown next to it.In the Apple artwork, the text on the key previously displayed UM242, which is an actual type of key.

This emoji does not show in the title bar of Safari, presumably to prevent less-reputable sites pretending to be secure (encrypted using HTTPS) when they are not.

Fascinating.

Apple doesn’t do low budget

Written by

Shira Ovide, Bloomberg:

Like Apple’s 2017 iPhone editions, there will be three current year models but with even clearer product and pricing segmentation: good, better and best.

Here’s the thing, though: Apple has never done well selling the “good” phones in its lineup. That has hardly mattered because the more entry-level models effectively serve another duty: They push people to the more expensive versions that Apple increasingly relies on for its sales growth.

This article does a great job explaining Apple’s motivation in steering people to the top of the line models. As shareholders would rightfully expect, it’s all to maximize revenue.

Check out the first chart in the article, which shows Apple’s average revenue from each iPhone sold, on a yearly basis. Back in 2014, that number was $603. In only 3 years, that number skyrocketed to $758. Apple is good at this.

Think about the marketing you’ve seen over the last few years. Almost all of it is dedicated to pushing the top of the line iPhone X. When was the last time you saw a commercial for any other model, let alone the diminutive, in both price and form, iPhone SE.

Fire up Apple’s web site. There’s a gorgeous image of the iPhone X. Of course it makes sense that Apple would focus on the latest and greatest, but there’s also the flip side lesson, few people come to Apple for a budget phone:

This fits with a pattern of Apple’s relatively low-end iPhones not setting the world on fire. Remember the iPhone SE released in 2016? Apple said at the time that some people wanted a relatively smaller smartphone when most phones were getting supersized. It could have been the iPhone for the masses, but the $399 iPhone SE 2 has been relegated to a niche in Apple’s product lineup. The 2013 iPhone 5c was considered a budget alternative at $100 less than the $650 flagship model of the time. It is the Voldemort of iPhones. No one speaks of it.

“The Voldemort of iPhones”. Heh. I like it.

Tim Cook’s Apple

Written by

Rene Ritchie, iMore:

Tim Cook wasn’t and isn’t a product person, not like Jobs. He didn’t dream up the next world-changing device. What he did was make those dreams a reality. Famously, he didn’t invent the iPad. He figured out how to make it for $500.

It would have been easy for Cook and his cool, steady Southern charm, to have continued as CEO much as he had as COO — running things by the numbers. But, even early on, Cook showed signs of something more.

Apple has never simply been a technology company. Jobs was clear on that: Apple stood at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. Slowly, inexorably, Cook has added a third pillar to that foundation: Civil responsibillity,

Tim Cook has been in charge long enough now that he’s put his own stamp on the new, many orders of magnitude larger, version of Apple.

[UPDATE: OK, this is the new article. It shared a URL with an older article, so there was indeed some confusion. All should be good now.]

The iPhone’s original UI designer on Apple’s greatest flaws

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Another one of those interesting, readable articles with an unfortunate headline.

If you can get past the “Apple’s greatest flaws” sensationalism, this is actually pretty interesting.

Katharine Schwab, FastCompany:

It’s been a decade since the British designer Imran Chaudhri first imagined a user interface that would introduce millions of people to the smartphone. Chaudhri joined Apple in 1995, soon rising to become the design director of the company’s human interfaces group–where he was one member of the six-person team that designed the iPhone.

Credentials established.

Very early on, when we first started building prototypes of the phone, a couple of us were lucky enough to take them home… By using the phone and living with the phone, I had friends all over the world who were hitting me up all the time and the phone was pinging and the light was going on, so I realized for us to coexist with this phone, we needed to have something to act as a gatekeeper. Very early on, I designed what ultimately became Do Not Disturb.

And:

Inside, getting people to understand that [distraction] was going to be an issue was difficult. Steve [Jobs] understood it…internally though, I think there was always a struggle as to how much control do we want people to have over their devices. When I and a few other people were advocating for more control, that level of control was actually pushed back by marketing. We would hear things like, ‘you can’t do that because then the device will become uncool.’

And:

You might install about 10 applications on an afternoon and say, ‘yeah, you can use my camera, you can use my location, you can send me notifications.’ Later on down the road, you find out Facebook’s been selling your data. Later on down the road, you realize that you’ve developed a sleep disorder because these things are blinking every night and you actually don’t really care about them until the morning.

These are just snippets, just a taste of what I found to be a truly fascinating interview.

Everything new with Siri in iOS 12

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Nice little rollup and video from AppleInsider. My favorite new Siri things:

  • Being able to turn my flashlight on and off
  • Asking Siri to find my devices

That second one is more than simply a handoff to the Find iPhone app. It will give you instant feedback if your device is nearby, and will offer to play a sound on the device. This is a very efficient way to locate a misplaced device, all with a single command and a button tap.