Apple

Jason Snell: 7 iPhone features I’d like to see in iOS 12

Written by

Thoughtful post from Jason Snell for Tom’s Guide, with some interesting suggestions for iOS 12.

One section focuses on Notification Center:

Notification Center on iOS is kind of a mess. It’s time for an overhaul. App notifications should be grouped together, with more opportunities to act on notifications directly from the notifications list. Clearing all notifications should be an obvious feature, and one that’s available even on devices without 3D Touch.

I’d add this: Consider requiring a longer tap to jump from a notification to the app tied to that notification.

Why? I frequently find myself going to tap on something toward the top of the screen and, just as I’m about to make contact, a notification appears and I end up tapping the notification instead, launching myself out of my app. If a bit of a long press was required to respond to a notification, my simple tap would be ignored by the notification and I could dismiss it and return to my tap-happiness.

These 299 macOS apps are so buggy, Apple had to fix them in AppKit

Written by

First things first, not sure “so buggy” is the right note here. Might be that, or might be more a combination of “so important” and taking advantage of a feature or bit of code that has been put out to pasture or has been replaced.

That said, this post from Worth Doing Badly is an interesting read, developer or not. The list of apps is long and familiar and, if you are a dev, there’s some depths to plumb.

Apple spotlights Animoji in dazzling ‘Taxi Driver’ ad

Written by

[VIDEO] Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac:

After releasing two Animoji-themed music spots just in time for the Grammy Awards earlier this year followed by another for the UK BRIT music awards in February, Apple has extended the series by featuring South Korean group HYUKOH‘s new single “Citizen Kane,” which was released yesterday on Apple Music ahead of an EP release on May 31st.

Nice find. I love this ad (embedded in the main Loop post). Love the music, love the dazzling neon-infused graphics. Enjoy.

“Apple to give Siri new voice at WWDC” – No. Old news.

Written by

Big wave of posts over the last day or so, all of them quoting this post, which says, in part:

With Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) inching closer, Siri has revealed plans for Apple to give the assistant a “brand new voice”, most likely as part of its iOS 12 release.

As discovered by Nathan Simpson when users ask “Hey Siri. Tell me about WWDC”, Siri responds with “La la la, Siri is getting a brand new voice!”.

And in this associated post, they say:

As discovered by The Apple Post on Monday, when users ask “Hey Siri. Tell me about WWDC” the assistant responds with a couple of different answers, however, the most interesting is when the reply implies of a new “meshey & matte” home for Siri.

First things first, these Siri responses are from the leadup to WWDC 2017, when the HomePod was first announced. Seems like Apple neglected to tweak Siri for this year’s WWDC, leaving those old responses in place, waiting to be rediscovered.

I gave Siri the exact same query, “Tell me about WWDC” and invariably got some form of “You can get all the details on Apple’s web site” with a button to take me there. So this seems fixed now.

Siri: Joanna Stern is 18

Written by

Over the weekend, this tweet appeared:

https://twitter.com/adriankovacs14/status/997881481325416448

First things first, Joanna Stern is one of the founders of The Verge and now writes a widely read tech column for the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s Joanna’s delighted response:

That’s it, I finally love Siri. Apple finally did it.

Here’s a link to Joanna’s Wikipedia page. This turns out to be important since this is the page Siri quotes in the response to the question, “How old is Joanna Stern?”, as shown in the embedded tweet.

I went to the Wikipedia page and did not find any reference to a birthdate. Birthdates are common for most biographical Wikipedia pages. So how did Siri come up with an age as a response to this request?

And to make matters even more confusing, when I posed the same question to Siri, I get the same link, but this response:

Joanna Stern is 32

Siri also helpfully provides a date of birth of December 5, 1985.

According to Joanna’s response on Twitter, both of these are wrong.

This anecdote made me think about the source of Siri’s information and how vulnerable Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google-person are to misinformation. I’m also interested in how Siri came up with that birthdate, given the link was to a page with no embedded birthdate field.

Steve Jobs and the bullet-hole T-shirt meeting

Written by

Jim Black, former technology evangelist at Apple, tells the story of legendary game developer John Carmack (Doom, Quake, lots more) coming to Apple to meet with Steve Jobs:

I never knew whether it was by design or not, but on that day John wore a T-shirt that featured a smiley face with a bullet hole in the forehead from which trickled a few drops of blood. After an hour of waiting for Steve in IL1, he marched into the room, and immediately mistook me for John Carmack, extending his hand to shake mine (we had never met). I locked eyes with Steve Jobs and looked down significantly at the Apple badge on my belt. Without missing a beat, Steve shifted his extended hand to John’s.

That’s when Steve noticed the T-shirt and the meeting, as soon as it had begun, took a turn for the worse.

I love a good Steve anecdote. I wonder if John was wearing a T-shirt with the Watchmen Comedian’s Badge logo.

I tried to watch a video of a puppy and accidentally sent every photo I’ve ever taken to Google

Written by

Jason Koebler, Motherboard:

When Google Photos was announced in 2015, I downloaded it. I had no intention of giving every photo I’ve ever taken to Google—which categorizes them, runs them through image recognition and facial recognition algorithms, makes weird algorithmic slideshows out of them, and adds them to its massive photo database—but I wanted to try it out in any case. I quickly realized it was not for me, but I did not delete the app.

And:

I texted him asking to see a picture. He responded with a video that he uploaded to Google Photos. Because I had Google Photos installed on my phone, it tried to open in the app. You cannot use Google Photos on iOS—even to view photos that have been shared with you—without granting the app access to all the photos on your phone. Because I was drunk, and because I wanted to see the puppy, I changed my app permissions. I watched the video (very cute, embedded below), the band started, I put the phone in my pocket.

You know what happened next. All his photos went up to Google’s servers, and went through the AI analysis that all photos go through.

Two sides to this. First, obviously, Jason made a mistake giving Google Photos permission to access his photos. Google Photos asked, as it should.

That said, this is the text of the alert Google Photos put up:

Google Photos needs access to your photo library to show photos in the app

Reading Jason’s piece, I don’t get any sense that Google Photos notified him that they were going to start uploading his photos to the Google servers, to start AI-analyzing them.

Should Apple require a finer grain notification when something like this happens? Or, at the very least, should Google recognize that this is a major change in the equation, let the user know that permission to show you a photo from another user gives them permission to suck up and analyze all your photos.

Strategy Analytics: Apple shipped 600,000 HomePods, Amazon smart speaker market share drops to 43.6%

Written by

According to Strategy Analytics:

  • Apple sold 600,000 HomePods last quarter.
  • Amazon sold 4 million smart speakers.
  • Google sold 2.4 million smart speakers.

Amazon’s marketshare dropped to 43.6%. Apple’s is at 6%, though without an entry level product, the percentage of unit sales doesn’t mean much.

I’d be very interested in:

  • The same chart, but showing percentage of revenue.
  • The same chart in one year.

Samsung Apple hating ad brings notch-guy back, this time with a kid

Written by

[VIDEO] This ad screams spite, taking on the iPhone 6 and “battery throttling”. Nothing in the ad makes a case for the Galaxy S9 being better than anything remotely recent from Apple. They also brought back the guy with the notch haircut, this time with a kid.

I just found the ad (video embedded in the main Loop post) puzzling and dark, not at all clever or entertaining. Just me?

Apple exploring North Carolina, Northern Virginia for new campus

Written by

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

The Washington Post says Apple has explored opening a campus for 20,000 employees in Northern Virginia, an area Amazon is also considering for its new campus.

And:

Separately, the Triangle Business Journal says that Apple is considering establishing its new campus in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. Research Triangle Park, a 22 million square foot research park, has become an attractive site for tech companies and is known as North Carolina’s technology hub due to its proximity to NC State, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University.

And:

North Carolina news site WRAL says that its sources believe Apple is close to announcing a deal that could bring up to 10,000 new jobs to North Carolina. Many of those jobs are “high-tech research and development jobs.”

This is me parsing here, but this is from Apple’s original announcement:

The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers.

And the WRAL North Carolina article mentions “high-tech research and development jobs.” Is it possible Apple will be pursuing two different campuses? Or will the campus host a blend of high tech R&D as well as tech support?

Regardless, I’d expect some housing speculation in the winning location.

Apple and Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Written by

Today is the 7th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (the third Thursday each May).

Apple customized their home page to embrace the occasion and, at the same time, announced that they are teaming up with leading educators for blind and deaf communities across the US to bring accessible coding to their schools.

From the official press release:

Beginning this fall, schools supporting students with vision, hearing or other assistive needs will start teaching the Everyone Can Code curricula for Swift, Apple’s powerful and intuitive programming language.

And:

“Apple’s mission is to make products as accessible as possible,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We created Everyone Can Code because we believe all students deserve an opportunity to learn the language of technology. We hope to bring Everyone Can Code to even more schools around the world serving students with disabilities.”

How to get rid of a persistent macOS Messages badge icon

Written by

This happens to me periodically, both on iOS and macOS. Lasts through restarts, eventually goes away all on its own. Read all the way to the end (it’s short) for the thing that solved this for Glenn. Tucking that away in my brain for the next time it happens.

[VIDEO] Test run of an in-glass fingerprint sensor

Written by

[VIDEO] Marques Brownlee shows off an in-glass fingerprint sensor and compares its performance side-by-side with an iPhone 8 and Touch ID.

There’s a lot to love about this video (embedded in the main Loop post) but, for me, the highlight is Marques explaining just how the OLED reflection process works, how it shines the screen at your finger and uses the bounced light to detect your fingerprint.

Beautifully done.

Microsoft plans low-cost tablet line to rival iPad

Written by

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Corp. is planning to release a line of lower-cost Surface tablets as soon as the second half of 2018, seeking a hit in a market for cheaper devices that Apple Inc. dominates with the iPad, according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft has tried this before. The software giant kicked off its consumer-oriented hardware push in 2012 with the launch of the original Surface RT. At the time, it was priced starting at $499. After the tablets didn’t resonate with consumers and product reviewers, Microsoft pivoted to the more-expensive Surface Pro, a line which has gained steam and likely contributed to demand for a pro-oriented iPad, which Apple launched in 2015.

The Surface RT was the first generation Surface and was hamstrung by performance issues. If Microsoft truly is going to build something to rival the 2018 education iPad and its $329 list price, performance has to be better than their first kick at the can.

I own and regularly use the $329 iPad. It is fast, I’ve never noticed a bit of lag with the Apple Pencil, and the screen is excellent. There’s nothing about the $329 iPad that says budget to me. If Microsoft is going to play at that level, they have to offer a similar experience.

Steve Jobs anecdotes from pioneering game dev John Carmack

Written by

First things first, from John Carmack’s Wikipedia page:

Carmack was the lead programmer of the id video games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Rage and their sequels. Carmack is best known for his innovations in 3D graphics, such as his Carmack’s Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes. In August 2013, Carmack took the position of CTO at Oculus VR.

And:

Carmack and Kang married on January 1, 2000 and planned a ceremony in Hawaii. Steve Jobs requested that they postpone the ceremony so Carmack could attend the MacWorld Expo on January 5, 2000. Both declined and made a video instead.

Carmack had a rollercoaster of a relationship with Steve. Follow the headline link and just dive in. I found it a fascinating read.

Another life saved by Apple Watch

Written by

South China Morning Post:

An alert from his smartwatch prompted 76-year-old Hongkonger Gaston D’Aquino to go to hospital, even though he was feeling fine. It turned out his coronary arteries were almost completely blocked.

And:

“I told the doctor I don’t know why I’m here, but my watch tells me I have an elevated heart rate. He says, ‘Are you feeling anything?’ I said no, I feel fine, I’m feeling all right, nothing’s wrong.”

Hooked up to an electrocardiograph machine – which records the heart’s electrical activity – he learned something was wrong. He was immediately referred to cardiologists.

“I told them about the Apple Watch giving me this reading, and they told me that the watch gives pretty accurate readings,” says D’Aquino. After batteries of tests over the next three days, “they told me that out of the three main coronary arteries, two were completely blocked, and one was 90 per cent blocked.”

Stories like this roll in on a regular basis. To me, this is just a taste of the health benefits that are coming down the pike. Apple’s combination of a massive ecosystem and customer base, along with massive R&D funding give it a distinct advantage in this space.

While people might complain about Siri, they will flock to Apple Watch and the Apple ecosystem if they recognize that the device on their wrist can actually save their life.

[VIDEO] Tim Cook on his meeting with Trump

Written by

[VIDEO] This is a snippet from a longer interview Tim did on Bloomberg’s The David Rubenstein Show. The full interview will be released in June. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.

Apple Music continues its #OneNightOnly campaign with free Shawn Mendes concert

Written by

Following up on their Dr. Dre event at the O2 Academy Brixton in London back in March, Apple Music announced a free Shawn Mendes concert for this Thursday evening:

https://twitter.com/AppleMusic/status/996049405294862336

The concert will be hosted by Zane Lowe at the Hollywood Ford Theaters in Los Angeles, with a live Q&A to follow.

California DMV: Apple self-driving fleet now up to 55 vehicles

Written by

Serhat Kurt, macReports:

Apple Apple now has 55 vehicles and 83 drivers under its permit to test autonomous vehicles, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said in an emailed response to questions.

And:

Apple has the second highest number of self driving cars after GM Cruise,which as 104 vehicles, as of now.

I find it surprising that Apple has more self-driving vehicles than Waymo. From the Waymo Wikipedia page:

In 2018, the company placed separate orders for “thousands” of hybrid-drive Pacifica minivans and 20,000 Jaguar I-Pace electric sedans. The vehicles are intended to help launch ride-hailing services in various cities, enough to accommodate hundreds of thousands of riders each day.

That aside, it is interesting to watch Waymo (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) roll out their vision, while Apple, per tradition, keeps its cards closely held.

Woz on the importance of HP in the creation of Apple

Written by

For many years, Woz has maintained a series of email lists to pass along news stories, technology he finds interesting, favorite jokes, things like that. A few days ago, Woz shared a link to a brilliant article about Hewlett Packard and the HP-35 calculator.

Jump to the main Loop post for Woz’s comments on this article (used with permission) and some nuggets about the creation of Apple. […]

A review from early 2008: “The Apple iPhone will only ever be a bit player”

Written by

This is just such a fun read, “claim chowder” (to borrow from John Gruber) at its best:

The geeks have all bought one and many have got theirs unlocked. The Nike wearing Soho crowd have splurged the cash. The wannabes and the I-must-have-that crowd have weighed in, swapped networks and got their devices. But that’s it. There’s a ton of people all sitting staring at the iPhone and — SADLY — (this is the bit that’s winding me up), turning their backs and walking away. I could name you 20 people, right now, that I know personally, who WOULD have an iPhone if they were marketed at a more reasonable price — 100 pounds maximum — and were unlocked to work on any network. But those 20 people won’t. They’re staying exactly where they are, back in the old world. Or, actually, back in the real world.

Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC (and, er, the Google offering) are safe. The iPhone, on the current trajectory, will only ever be a number 4 or number 5 device.

To be fair, Ewan MacLeod was not alone in that opinion. Steve Jobs saw what no one else could see. He knew. And he made it happen.

And Ewan clearly got on board, as evidenced by this tweet from last week:

https://twitter.com/Ew4n/status/993920014150447106

[Via Eric Jackson via Aaron Block]

Android has it, iOS needs it: Copy two-factor codes from text message

Written by

Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge:

If you use two-factor authentication to secure your accounts, you’re probably used to this process: type in your password, wait for a text messaged code to arrive, memorize the code, and then type it back into the login prompt. It’s a bit of a pain.

Absolutely. Happens a lot. And this describes the process pretty well. Android has a fix:

In the new update, Messages will detect if you’re receiving a two-factor authentication code. When it does, it’ll add an option to the notification to copy the code, saving a step.

This is a step in the right direction. When a two-factor text is received, a copy button appears at the same time. Tap it, then paste it into the prompt.

It’d be nice to see this in iOS. But even better, it’d be nice to avoid the codes in the first place. The purpose of the codes is to prove that you have access to a verifying device. The codes themselves exist purely to give you a way to “move” the verification from the second device back to the original.

But iOS already does such an excellent job communicating between devices. I can copy on my iPhone, paste on my Mac, for example. And if the code is coming in on the same device that made the request, well that’s even easier.

What I’m suggesting is that Apple/Google work to create a verification service that eliminates all the friction. If I request a code on my Mac, popup a verification text message on my iPhone and, worst case, just make me tap “Yep” on an alert to verify the code, or “Nope” to let them know I didn’t make the request.

No reason for me to copy/paste or type in a number. Tap “Yep” and I’m in. Let the verification handshake happen in the background. Any reason this can’t be done?

Apple ad blends everyone from Season 1 of Carpool Karaoke

Written by

[VIDEO] At first blush, this ad looks like it was filmed in a super stretch limo. But of course, that’d be logistically impossible. To me, this blending of scenes from each episode of Carpool Karaoke’s first season is seamless and impressive.

Worth watching the ad (embedded in the main Loop post), just to see if you can spot any clues on how this was all pulled together.

Pen and paint New Yorker cover illustrator on moving to iPad

Written by

Kif Leswing, Business Insider:

Even if you don’t know who Mark Ulriksen is, you’ve probably seen his work.

His “gracefully awkward” art has graced several magazine covers, including a widely praised New Yorker cover featuring Martin Luther King kneeling with Colin Kaepernick from earlier this year.

Here’s a link to that cover.

Ulriksen is a self professed “technological illiterate”. Fascinating to watch him discover the world of digital brushes, texture, splatter, etc., all courtesy of his new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate.

Apple announces joint venture for breakthrough carbon-free aluminum smelting method

Written by

Apple:

Aluminum giants Alcoa Corporation and Rio Tinto Aluminum today announced a joint venture to commercialize patented technology that eliminates direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process, a key step in aluminum production. This is a revolutionary advancement in the manufacturing of one of the world’s most widely used metals.

As part of Apple’s commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its products through innovation, the company helped accelerate the development of this technology. And Apple has partnered with both aluminum companies, and the Governments of Canada and Quebec, to collectively invest a combined $144 million to future research and development.

And:

[Apple Engineers] Lynch, Yurko and Sassaman learned that Alcoa had designed a completely new process that replaces that carbon with an advanced conductive material, and instead of carbon dioxide, it releases oxygen. The potential environmental impact was huge, and to help realize it quickly, Alcoa needed a partner.

Apple once again demonstrates its commitment to do what it can to minimize the environmental impact of its products.

Privacy, and a thoughtful plan to improve the outdated Contacts app

Written by

Ryan Gray:

Our current Contacts apps are full data we’ve collected about other people. It’s out of date and inaccurate. It has things people wish we didn’t have. Anyone can share the data they’ve collected with anyone else. App developers can easily ask for this information (and most people will give it to them).

This is a backwards system. You should be the owner of your contact information. You should grant access to others deciding who can see what specific pieces of information. Ironically the one company that seems to best share this view is the one people trust the least to handle this kind of data: Facebook.

Ryan brings up an excellent point. As is, my Contacts database is full of outdated information. And I have no way of telling whether that information is still valid. Everything is static, a screenshot of the moment in time when I first received the contact card.

From Ryan’s proposed replacement, which he calls “People”:

Of course, you can easily share one of your cards with anyone nearby (and get theirs). But a shared card is not just sent once. It’s a subscription. If you change your phone number or if you move you’ll be able to push the updates out to anyone who is subscribed. You’ll also be able to block anyone, revoke access, or prevent someone from sharing your card.

The more I think about this the more I love the idea. I’m not sure how easy an implementation this would be, but I do think it’d be doable, at least at a very basic level. But the privacy implications would be tricky to handle properly.

That said, this is an idea I hope gets some traction and, hopefully, a look from within Apple.

[H/T Dan Murrell]

Apple plans to sell video subscriptions through TV app

Written by

Bloomberg:

For the first time, Apple plans to begin selling subscriptions to certain video services directly via its TV app, rather than asking users to subscribe to them through apps individually downloaded from the App Store, according to people familiar with the matter.

And:

Right now, the TV app aggregates content from other providers, allowing people to locate shows from a wide array of apps and channels like ABC, NBA League Pass and HBO, rather than having to hop between different apps. But then Apple sends customers outside its app to buy access to those channels or watch shows. With the pending change, subscription purchasing would move to the TV app. Apple could eventually move the streaming to its own app, instead of sending users to third parties.

Is this an indicator of Apple’s plans for packaging their own custom content? Will everything sit under the TV app? If so, will Apple build a TV app equivalent for macOS? Will subscriptions be manageable from the web?