Apple

macOS Sierra’s new system requirements

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Stephen Hackett presents the list of Macs that can run macOS Sierra out of the box, with an unofficial option if your machine just falls off the list.

Why Apple can take a bigger stand against Trump than its rivals

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Hayley Tsukayama, writing for The Washington Post:

[Apple] is arguably in a unique position among tech companies to take big political stands. Not only does its size insulate it against some backlash, but it is also protected because expressing political opinions does little damage to the reputation of its products.

That’s not true for many other tech titans.

Read the main post for the details. Interesting.

Intel and the end of Moore’s Law

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Howard Yu, writing for Fortune:

Just four months ago, Intel disclosed in a regulatory filing that it is slowing the pace in launching new chips. Its latest transistor is down to only about 100 atoms wide. The fewer atoms composing a transistor, the harder it is to manipulate. Following the existing trajectory, by early 2020, transistors should have just 10 atoms. At that scale, electronic properties will be messed up by quantum uncertainties, making any devices hopelessly unreliable. In other words, engineers and scientists are hitting the fundamental limit of physics.

Intel just announced that they will be providing chips for some of the next generation of iPhones.

Slither.io game goes viral, brings developer $100K a day

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Wall Street Journal:

Three months ago, Steven Howse struggled to pay rent. Now, the 32-year-old developer is trying to keep his hit videogame running smoothly as it pulls in more than $100,000 in revenue daily.

This is a pretty impressive story. The game is as simple as can be, and is free.

With Sierra, Apple lets the Mac be the Mac

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Dan Moren, writing for Macworld:

To me, the big message to take away from Monday’s presentation is that Apple is all too happy for the Mac to share features and technologies where it makes sense, but to still let it stand on its own two legs and be the best version of itself.

And:

Given the rapid success of iOS in the last almost decade, more than a few folks were worried that Apple might decide to shift the Mac towards a stronger resemblance to its mobile sibling. The company’s fall 2010 event was even described as “Back to the Mac,” the main thrust of which was bringing features from iOS to OS X, most notably a new Mac App Store and the changing of the scroll direction. That spurred fears of forced convergence among Mac fans, who didn’t want the peanut butter of iOS infesting the chocolate of their Mac experience.

This is a good thing. And a terrific read.

Apple Stores get green light in India

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Times of India:

It seems Apple CEO Tim Cook’s India visit didn’t go in vain. Decks have cleared for the setting up of Apple stores in India with the government announcing sweeping reforms to rules on foreign direct investment.

Apple is expected to be a beneficiary of a three-year relaxation India is introducing on local sourcing norms with an extension of up to five years possible if it can be proven that products are “state of the art”.

Solid news for Apple.

On App Store Search Ads

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Over the weekend, Apple sent out a wave of emails promoting Search Ads. Search Ads allow you to bid to place ads that appear when a user searches the App Store.

Does this help Indie developers? Here’s the scoop.

Apple Watch, watchOS 3, and the evolution of app launching

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By far, the biggest change that needed to be made to watchOS is to improve app launch speed/responsiveness and it looks like that has been done. The second change involves the actual application launch process itself. And that’s more of a complication (sorry).

Brief look at the new features coming to Apple Music

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Kirk McElhearn:

Apple has released developer previews of iOS 10 and macOS 10.12. There are major changes to Apple Music, and they show up in both iTunes and the Music app on iOS. It’s worth noting that Apple can roll out these changes whenever they want in iTunes; they don’t need to actually update the app. Elements such as the iTunes Store and Apple Music are merely web pages that display in iTunes, so, while the iTunes app hasn’t changed, the new display of Apple Music is visible.

Nice overview, take a look.

Apple unbundles its native apps like Mail, Maps, Music and more, puts them in the App Store

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Sarah Perez, writing for Tech Crunch:

Apple today has made a big change to its suite of native applications for iOS devices, like Mail, Stocks, Compass, Calculator, Watch, Weather and others: it’s now making these available as standalone downloads in the iTunes App Store. What that means for end users of iOS devices is that the majority of the stock apps that come pre-installed can be removed. This puts users in more control of their devices.

Yes: you can now remove the Stocks app from your iPhone, among others.

Apple’s disappearing iOS Apps

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Kirk McElhearn encountered a problem trying to find and update certain iOS apps on his Mac.

To see this for yourself, jump into iTunes on your Mac and do a search for:

Find My Friends

You’ll find no such app, though you will find the app if you search on your own apps, not on the App Store. Know why? Tweet at me.

It’s Tim Cook’s Apple now, helped out by two standout performers

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This is the new Apple, Tim Cook’s Apple. The keynote was jam packed, but not overstuffed. The presenters were polished, without the unnecessary fluff and with hardly a stutter. The machine felt oiled and hummed along nicely.

Key to it all? Two standout performances.

USB-C accessory landscape is a mess

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Jordan Kahn, writing for 9to5Mac:

It would be fine if all of those USB-C accessories you purchased for your 2015 MacBook were firmware upgradeable and received updates like Apple’s own products, but many of them are not.

This seems like a mess, and one that is not necessarily merging towards stability.

The app boom is over

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Peter Kafka, writing for Recode:

If you are an independent app developer or publisher, you have probably known this for a while, because you have found it very difficult to get people to download your app — the average American smartphone user downloads zero apps per month.