Apple

Jony Ive talks about the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar

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From the beautifully laid out CNET interview:

“Doing something that’s different is actually relatively easy and relatively fast, and that’s tempting,” says the man who’s had a hand in every major Apple product design — from the colorful iMac and iBook to the iPod, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch.

“We don’t limit ourselves in how we will push — if it’s to a better place. What we won’t do is just do something different that’s no better,” Ive said in an interview earlier this week to explain the design of the MacBook Pro, a major reboot of Apple’s most powerful laptop line.

And:

Our starting point, from the design team’s point of view, was recognizing the value with both input methodologies. But also there are so many inputs from a traditional keyboard that are buried a couple of layers in. We have that ability to accommodate complex inputs, mainly out of habit and familiarity.

So our point of departure was to see if there was a way of designing a new input that really could be the best of both of those different worlds. To be able to have something that was contextually specific and adaptable, and also something that was mechanical and fixed, because there’s truly value in also having a predictable and complete set of fixed input mechanisms.

Read the interview. Some great insights into the birth of Touch Bar and Jony’s way of thinking. Kudos to the CNET team that pulled this together.

[UPDATE] Apple Pay arrives in Switzerland, Swiss bank nightmare becomes reality

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Finews:

The worst nightmare of Swiss banks has become a reality: starting Thursday, a heavyweight outsider begins offering a payment service in their home market. Apple has brought its payment app, Apple Pay, to Switzerland.

In June, finews.ch reported the imminent launch of Apple Pay in Switzerland. The introduction of the service is now being announced by Apple Pay’s partners in Switzerland, for example the kiosk operator Valora. Also on board from the financial world are the Ticino Corner Bank with the Cornercard, as well as the credit card operators Visa, Mastercard and Swiss Bankers.

And:

Apple Pay’s main local competitor, the payment app Twint, which is backed by banks like UBS, Credit Suisse, Zuercher Kantonalbank, Postfinance and Raiffeisen, as well as the retail giants Coop and Migros, will only be available in its new form in the autumn.

Twint faces another significant disadvantage against Apple Pay: Apple blocks NFC (Near Field Communication) technology in its smartphones for other payment operators. With a 50 per cent share of the smartphone market, that is a serious obstacle. It was already enough to cause the Swisscom payment app Tapit to fail.

In the meantime, Apple Pay can connect with the payment terminals of most Swiss retailers. The Bluetooth technology, which Twint relies on, is not yet widely used in stores.

The banks rolled their own payment app, Apple brought the phones and Apple Pay. Looks like Apple Pay’s tech is proving the winner here.

Apple’s new MacBook Pro may be the world’s fastest stock laptop

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At the core of the article is Apple’s choice to adopt the speedy PCIe SSD bus technology along with the NVM Express device interface.

By adopting the PCIe/NVMe standard, Apple has been able to deliver higher performance in terms of read/write speeds and latency when compared to traditional SATA-based PC designs.

And:

It’s not a surprise, Handy said, that Apple settled on PCIe, as the price for the controllers are already approaching those of SATA controllers.

“If they both cost the same, then why use SATA?” [industry analyst Jim] Handy said in an email reply to Computerworld.

Interesting.

Ask Siri to “Speak screen”

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OS X Daily:

Siri has the ability to read anything on the screen of an iPhone or iPad to you. And yes, that means Siri will quite literally read aloud whatever is open and on the display of an iOS device, whether it’s a web page, an article, an email, a text message, anything on the screen will be read out loud by Siri, and you’ll even have controls for speeding up and slowing down speech, as well as pausing and skipping sections.

Pretty cool. To enable this feature, you’ll need to enable the Speak Screen switch in Settings > General > Accessibility. Once you do that, you can get Siri to speak your screen by telling Siri:

Speak screen

You can also get the same result by using two fingers to swipe down from the top of the screen.

Try this out. I think this is a fantastic accessibility feature. Try tapping the rabbit/turtle on the control panel that appears to speed up/slow down Siri’s voice. Nicely done. Note that this will only work in iOS.

Goldman Sachs pushes Apple to make rival bid for Time Warner

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The New York Post:

Goldman is trying to persuade Apple to make a rival bid for Time Warner, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said.

“They are freaking out trying to convince Apple to come in,” the source said. Goldman has been left on the sidelines in advising on AT&T’s $85 billion agreement to acquire Time Warner.

And:

Cook’s company has expressed interest in buying Time Warner in the recent past, and there is some belief that judging from his comments this week, he will not let AT&T carry the day.

To me, this would be a dizzying purchase, one that would dilute Apple’s and Tim Cook’s attention, steer focus from their core business. True, there’d be a lot of new elements with which to experiment, but there’d be an awful lot of cleanup to do.

My two cents? Buy Netflix.

Apple and Netflix

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Thoughts on the idea of Apple buying Netflix.

Apple Campus 2 – latest drone footage

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[VIDEO] This is starting to feel like it is edging toward completion. Still lots to do, but noticeably fewer cranes on the site.

A tip of the cap to Matthew Roberts. Looks like he’s polishing his dronecraft with each passing month.

How Apple could have avoided much of the controversy

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Chuq Von Rospach, writing on his blog:

Here’s a basic reality: criticizing and second-guessing Apple is a hobby for many of us, and a profession for more than is probably healthy for the Apple ecosystem. That is a basic reality that isn’t going to change any time soon.

And:

A lot of it boils down to this concept: We demand Apple innovate, but we insist they don’t change anything.

And:

I think these computers are taking some valid criticism, but much of that criticism is ignoring a lot of the positives that these new computers have, including nice improvements in CPU and GPU speed and faster RAM, all indicating nice bumps in overall performance.

But having said that, the fact that so much of the Mac product line is such a cluster and Apple didn’t acknowledge that makes the criticism understandable and deserved. What we got from Apple was good; what we needed from Apple was that and more — and it didn’t happen.

This is a long read. Chuq captures a lot of the thoughts that have been flying around in response to the new MacBook Pro reveal. Thoughtful, and well worth the read. Great job, Chuq.

Apple restores star ratings to iOS 10 Music App

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Kirk McElhearn shows you how to re-enable the star ratings in the Music app (Settings > Music > Show Star Ratings) and how to actual rate your songs (which is more complicated than it used to be).

This change just appeared on the just-released beta of iOS 10.2.

MacBook Pro reviews: The flip side of the coin

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On Friday, we ran a post titled There’s all kinds of love for the new MacBook Pro.

To balance that out, spend some time reading Machael Tsai’s blog post, which gathers a long list of negative comments about the new MacBook Pro and Apple’s Mac direction in general.

If this were simply a bunch of curmudgeonly complaints, we’d have skipped the post entirely. But there are a lot of fair complaints in this list, insights that are worth paying attention to.

More detail on the reason the MacBook Pro is limited to 16GB

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A bit more detail on why the new MacBook Pro is limited to 16GB. There’s an email exchange with Phil Schiller, then a Reddit post that talks about the limitation being tied to the choice of CPU. Read the main post for details.

Jason Snell, hands on with the new MacBook Pro and Touch Bar

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Jason Snell, writing for Six Colors:

My first impression of the Touch Bar is that the “keys” looked… like keys. It didn’t feel like I was looking at a screen, but at an extension of the keyboard. That was an intentional choice on Apple’s part. Unlike the display and the keyboard, the Touch Bar’s brightness is not manually adjustable.

Instead, the Touch Bar’s brightness varies based on lighting conditions, using the light sensor. I wasn’t able to try and trick it or confuse it, but the entire time I was using it—in a dark room and in a much more brightly lit one—it seemed to match the keyboard well. This is not a bright, glowing screen above a dark keyboard—it’s an extension of the keyboard.

And:

The trackpad on the 13-inch model is more than half again as big as on its predecessor, and on the 15-inch model it’s doubled in size. As Phil Schiller said on stage Thursday, Apple can make the Trackpad bigger now that it’s a Magic Trackpad rather than an older hinged model because even at large sizes the entire surface is clickable.

And (this next one answered a big question for me):

The trackpads are large enough that Apple has had to build in more palm-rejection intelligence, because when you’re typing on these things, you’re going to inevitably slide your palms across them. In my experience writing this article on a 13-inch MacBook Pro, the palm rejection worked well—I never felt that I had to change my typing approach just to avoid weird mouse movements.

And:

Well, it’s my sad duty to report that the MacBook Pro keyboard has the same key travel as the MacBook. Apple says the stainless steel dome switch beneath each key has been honed to give you a more responsive feel, but to me it feels just like the MacBook’s keyboard.

Plenty of divisiveness on the keyboard feel. Many people like it, many don’t. Your mileage may vary.

Lots more chewy goodness in Jason’s review. Read it.

Steve Jobs on product people being driven out of the decision making process

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[VIDEO] This video is short, less than two minutes long, but, if you haven’t seen it, take the time to watch. Steve Jobs talks about the natural process that drives product people out of the decision making forums.

To me, Steve nails why it is so hard to maintain innovation over the long haul.

How do I use my new lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?

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Here’s a puzzling question, posed in this tweet from Rudy Richter:

@pschiller how do I use my Lightning headphones with the new MacBook Pro?

Think about this for a moment. The headphones that ship with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus end with a lightning connector. The phones also ship with a lightning to 3.5mm adapter that let you plug 3.5mm traditional headphones into a lightning port.

Still with me?

OK, so how do folks plug their lightning headphones into the new MacBook Pro? Is there any dongle that lets you plug in a lightning end and converts it into 3.5mm mini, or USB-C? What’s needed here is the reverse of the adapter that ships with the phone.

An interesting problem. Not sure there’s a solution. If I hear of one, I will definitely update this post.

UPDATE: Got this suggestion, about using the Apple Pencil adapter to solve the problem. Requires an Apple Pencil, so the idea is not for most, I think. But it did lead me to this adapter. Think it would work? Would also require a USB to USB-C adapter, which I suspect most buyers will buy or have.

Apple’s Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, others sit down to talk MacBook Pro

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This long form piece by Shara Tibken and Connie Guglielmo, for CNET, wraps a sit-down with Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi in an exploration of the history and future of the Mac, sprinkled with observations from other Apple and industry folk.

There’s a lot to absorb here, but it’s well worth the time. It helps that the story design is nicely laid out, a pleasure to explore.

Well done.

Videos of the all new MacBook Pro

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Part of today’s reveal were three new videos that showed off the brand new MacBook Pro. Take a look.

From top to bottom, we’ve got Reveal, which takes the Mac laptop through 25 years of design. Next up is the Jony Ive narrated design video. And finally, there’s the new So much to touch MacBook Pro ad.

Enjoy.

Mixpanel shows iOS 10 adoption up past 73%

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With iOS 9 adoption at 22.3%, that means that more than 95% of iOS users are at iOS 9 or later. Those are numbers that Android can only dream of.

Apple said to develop car operating system in BlackBerry country

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Mark Gurman and Gerrit De Vynck, writing for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. has dozens of software engineers in Canada building a car operating system, a rare move for a company that often houses research and development projects close to its Cupertino, California headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Many of the engineers working in Canada were hired over the past year and about two dozen came from BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX, a leading automotive software provider, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing details of a secret project.

And:

The most notable Apple hire from QNX was its chief executive officer, Dan Dodge. Since joining Apple’s Project Titan car initiative early this year, he’s taken on a larger role overseeing the car operating system, splitting his time between Canada and California, the people said. Another notable addition is Derrick Keefe, who left QNX last year after more than a decade as a senior engineer, one of the people said.

They are all busy skating to where the puck is going to be.

Transcript of Apple’s earnings call, and one vexing question

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Shoutout to the community-minded Jason Snell and Serenity Caldwell for capturing the transcript of the earnings call, as they do. Thank you both.

On the call, one particular question that is getting a lot of discussion:

Steve Milunovich, UBS: Some investors are antsy that Apple’s not acquired new profit pools or introduced a financially-material new product in recent years. The question is: A, does Apple today have a grand strategy for what you want to do? I know you won’t tell us what it is, but do you know what you want to do over the next three to maybe five years? Or is it more a “read the market and quickly react”? And B, do you have any sense of — we’re kind of in a gap period where the technology and, arguably, what we’d call the next job to be done, haven’t yet aligned, and maybe in a couple years we will see this flurry of new products and it’ll sort of match what people want to do, but it’s not quite here yet.

And Tim’s response:

We have the strongest pipeline that we’ve ever had and we’re really confident about the things in it, but as usual, we’re not going to talk about what’s in it.

Steve’s followup:

But in terms of your approach, I guess, to new products? Do you have a strong sense of where the technology’s going and where you’re going to play, or is it still enough up in the air that you’re willing to react fairly quickly, which, arguably, your organization allows you to do for the size of the company you are?

Tim:

We have a strong sense of where things go, and we’re very agile to shift as we need to.

Everyone, including Apple’s competitors, wants to know what Apple has up its sleeve. On one level, there’s doubt being expressed as to whether Apple has anything significant up their sleeves at all (as always, Apple is doomed). And on another level, there’s curiosity as to the specifics of what’s coming.

Why ask? Either way, Tim is not going to tell you. And in my opinion, it’s foolish to read anything into Tim’s answer. I believe that Apple has much more in the works than a car and TV content, more than anyone outside the company has seen. I believe that Apple, behind the scenes, is rapidly skating to where the puck is going to be, not reacting to existing market conditions.

Thanks again to iMore, Serenity, and Jason for pulling together this transcript. It makes excellent reading.

Read, search, annotate PDFs with PDF Viewer, free on the iOS App Store

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This is a no-brainer. PDF Viewer is built by the team behind PSPDFKit, the top mobile PDF framework incorporated into apps like Dropbox, Box, HipChat, Evernote and Ulysses and used internally by companies such as IBM, SAP, United Airlines, BMW, Audi and many more. In short, these folks really know the ins and outs of PDF.

PDF Viewer is free on the iOS App Store. Here’s the iTunes link. Go get it.

UPDATE: PDF Viewer was just added to the “New Apps We Love” list in the iOS App Store. Well that didn’t take long!

John Gruber on iMessage’s stickiness

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John Gruber, reacting to this post from Lauren Goode about iMessage stickiness:

There’s a split between iPhone users who are primarily part of the Apple ecosystem (iCloud, Safari, Apple Mail, …) and those who are part of the Google ecosystem (Google Drive, Google Calendar, Chrome, Gmail, …).

iMessage is an exception. With iMessage you get to connect both with iPhone users in the Google ecosystem and iPhone users in the Apple ecosystem. For a lot of us here in the U.S., that’s just about everyone we know. It’s no coincidence that two of Google’s major Android initiatives this year are Allo and Duo, their answers to iMessage and FaceTime. I don’t think it’s going to work.

And:

As an iOS/MacOS exclusive, iMessage is a glue that “keeps people stuck to their iPhones and Macs”, not the glue. iMessage for Android would surely lead some number of iPhone users to switch to Android, but I think that number is small enough to be a rounding error for Apple. Apple wins by creating devices and experiences that people want to use, not that they have to use.

Both Lauren Goode’s original and Gruber’s reaction posts are interesting and worth reading.