[VIDEO] Treacly snarky. Cloyingly awful. Includes the line “Grandma don’t run out and buy an iPad”. I kid you not.
Microsoft, you can do so much better.
And don’t miss that shot, right at the very end, showing Grandma and our star in the Microsoft Store. They are the only customers at that end of the store. This rang true to me. Do you ever see a shot of an open Apple Store that is not crowded?
Video embedded in main Loop post.
Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:
The feature is part of Apple’s Do Not Disturb at Bedtime mode, which prevents notifications from being displayed on your iPhone’s Lock Screen when you’re supposed to be sleeping.
Many users don’t realize you can get the weather forecast to show on the Lock Screen because of the odd way that Apple has implemented the feature. Regardless, here’s how to get it working.
Coincidentally, I posted this on Twitter this morning:
https://twitter.com/davemark/status/1070673135215763456
As is, getting the current temp on your lock screen is a bit of a one-off. I’d love something like an Apple Watch complication on my lock screen, something I can feed from one of my apps, something I can customize.
Some might argue that with the advent of Face ID, the lock screen is dead. Perhaps, but I would argue for the usefulness of the lock screen as a status page before you move on to the busy, populated Springboard interface. And the lock screen requires no gestures, it is effortless. Just raise to wake.
John Gruber, on the iOS App Store story about Procreate Pocket:
The whole story is only seven paragraphs long, and one of them is devoted to explaining how to invoke Undo and Redo. This is — inadvertently on the part of the App Store editorial team — a scathing indictment of the state of iOS’s user interface standards.
Not sure scathing indictment is quite right, but I do get the point. Part of what makes a Mac a Mac is that dogged consistency that has held up over many years of evolution. Command-Q to quit an app, Command-P to print, Command-C and Command-V to copy and paste and, in this instance, Command-Z to undo.
John’s point carries much further than undo. Look at the way iOS gestures have evolved from generation to generation. As we move from a home button to none, from typing a passcode, to Touch ID, and on to Face ID, the bedrock gestures have changed as well. Move from one generation of device to another and the basic interactions have changed.
Part of this is, Apple is still tinkering with some foundational iOS underpinnings. But part of this is also a testament to the genius of the designers who crafted that early Mac interface. Such insight, such vision.
From Apple’s official product page:
Thin, light, and easy to grip — this case lets you enjoy the look of iPhone XR while providing extra protection. It’s also crafted with a blend of optically clear polycarbonate and flexible TPU materials, so the case fits right over the buttons for easy use. On the surface, a scratch-resistant coating has been applied not only to the exterior, but also to the interior. Need to wirelessly charge? Just leave the case on your iPhone and set it on your Qi-certified charger.
Puzzling why it took this long. Available for delivery Monday December 11, for pickup Tuesday December 12.
[VIDEO] From this Reddit post, watch the video (embedded in the main Loop post), see if you think one copied the other (hint, one of these product videos made its first appearance last month).
For me, the big “wow” moment was at about 1:20 in.
Another one of those tip lists where you’ll likely know most of what’s presented. But there’s that one tip that makes the read worthwhile. Take a look.
Gimlet Media:
Twenty years ago, Steve Jobs had an idea: he wanted to build an Apple store. Something sleek and iconic and unlike anything else in retail. But he had no idea how to do it. So he called someone who might: retail genius Ron Johnson. Ron tells Alex the story of what it was like to work with Steve and help transform Apple into a household name. And Ron talks about life after Apple—which included a huge and humbling failure.
And:
The story of how Ron Johnson built the Apple store into the iconic institution it is today is a fascinating one. First, because of the way Ron Johnson came to Apple. It wasn’t the usual route, through computer engineering and Silicon Valley. He came by a very different path, and nevertheless ended up forming a deep, and fascinating partnership with Steve Jobs, which he talks in very candid detail in our interview. But I also wanted to talk to Ron because of what he did after his time at Apple.
Terrific interview, lots of Steve Jobs sprinkled throughout.
You can listen to the interview via the embedded Megaphone stream, or read the transcript embedded below that.
Side note 1: I am a big fan of Gimlet Media. If you are interested in starting a business, or just startups in general, I’d strongly recommend the StartUp Podcast. StartUp is both the first Gimlet podcast and the actual story of how Gimlet came to be. A fascinating listen. If you’ve ever heard of This American Life, you’ll be surprised at the origin story.
Side note 2: The link to this interview came from Michael Tsai’s blog. I check this one every day. Terrific.
Patently Apple:
There’s a common misunderstanding among business owners that songwriters are only compensated by the purchase of their CDs, so that a business owner can freely play copyrighted music for customers. Not so, and Apple’s new trademark filing for ‘Apple Music for Business’ indicates that Apple will be entering this new business avenue for Apple music in the future as the company seeks to expand their services businesses.
An Apple Music for Business subscription, assuming it turns out to be reasonably priced, would be good for small businesses, give them an easy way to play music for their customers that is properly copyrighted.
And, presumably, it would be good for artists, who would be compensated by the service, getting something, rather than the nothing they get when a business plays a playlist.
Fraser Speirs, in a post titled On Switching from an iPad Pro and a Macbook to a Pixelbook (via Michael Tsai’s excellent blog):
Fast forward to 2018 and virtually all of the work I do at school is now in Google Docs. I don’t think I’ve created anything new outside Google Docs for a couple of years now.
I do use Google Docs, and most of the simple documents I create live either there, or in some form of Markdown editor (almost always in BBEdit).
But I do a lot more creating than simple documents. I take lots of photos, mark them up, screenshots, too. I share these images in all sorts of social media. I draw pictures, though quite inexpertly, and share those as well. And there’s programming. Most of that is done on a Mac in Xcode.
And most of my communication is via apps. And a lot of that communication involves “creating”, since I consider writing to be creating. And, of course, there’s music, via Garage Band or Logic.
I find it interesting that though Google Docs does own a ton of mindshare for simple documents, once creativity enters the picture, the more I rely on my Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
I really miss the custom holiday cards (iCards) and photo books the Apple used to offer. They made some very special gifts.
If you are looking for a special gift idea for this holiday season, 9to5Mac’s Michael Potuck has your back. Be sure to check out the ratings for each solution. Some of these solutions seem much better than others.
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
Apple now offers a way to view and download all of the data it has collected from you over the years. Australian developer Pat Murray has created an incredibly interesting tool that is able to visualize your Apple Music year in review.
Interesting article. And the tool to which Chance refers is web-based. Follow the instructions, download your music history, submit the file to the web tool, dig into the results.
Apple:
The typical audio environment for HomePod has many challenges — echo, reverberation, and noise. Unlike Siri on iPhone, which operates close to the user’s mouth, Siri on HomePod must work well in a far-field setting. Users want to invoke Siri from many locations, like the couch or the kitchen, without regard to where HomePod sits.
This is both a detailed and fascinating look at how Apple uses machine learning to get your HomePod to recognize that Siri trigger phrase (which I would love to be able to change, someday.)
Yes, there’s a lot of detail, but if you just skip through the dense stuff, I found some interesting nuggets, like:
The corruption of target speech by other interfering talkers is challenging for both speech enhancement and recognition.
And:
When “Hey Siri” is detected, each stream is assigned a goodness score. The stream with the highest score is selected and sent to Siri for speech recognition and task completion.
And on testing HomePod:
We evaluated the performance of the proposed speech processing system on a large speech test set recorded on HomePod in several acoustic conditions:
- Music and podcast playback at different levels
- Continuous background noise, including babble and rain noise
- Directional noises generated by household appliances such as a vacuum cleaner, hairdryer, and microwave
- Interference from external competing sources of speech
Bottom line, HomePod is ever-vigilant, constantly solving, in real-time, an incredibly difficult problem, and doing it really well.
These are some great lists. There’s truly something here for everyone: Great music, apps, movies, games, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
I’m bopping to the Song of the Year, I Like It by Cardi B, and downloading the Mac Game of the Year (The Gardens Between) and the iPhone Game of the Year (Donut County).
[VIDEO] Apple:
Step into the world of decotora, Japan’s lavishly decorated trucks, where drivers’ livelihood and passion meet in one extravagant machine. Shot on iPhone XS.
Interesting that Apple commissioned this work. I love the video. Embedded in main Loop post.
A few tricks you can try:
Spin your Apple Pencil (can you go more than twice around?)
Flip your iPad Pro and keyboard case on its back to get a 15° drafting angle
All of these are folded together in this video by Chris at DailyTekk. Nice.
It’s May, 1985. Jean-Louis Gassée is Apple’s newly appointed VP of Product Development.
May, 1985: Apple ][ sales are falling; the Mac has yet to take off. We need to make some changes, pronto, that will attract new customers and keep the old ones coming back.
This is Jean-Louis’s take on the path from the Apple ][ and the early Mac to the first open Mac, the Macintosh II.
Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:
Despite Apple’s strict review process for software distributed through the App Store, it’s still possible for malicious actors to take advantage of loop holes in the system to scam customers.
The latest example is a rather sophisticated and devious trick used by an app that claims to read your heart rate through your fingertip using Touch ID. In reality, the app (which is currently on the App Store) uses your fingerprint to authorize a transaction for $89.99 while dramatically dimming the screen to fool you.
And:
Apple requires approval for in-app purchases during app review, but not for changing the amount (from 99¢ to $89.99, for example). The malicious app may also be flying under the radar as it largely targets Portuguese speaking customers, but does support English as well.
The app has been removed, but you have to wonder how the app made it past the app review process. Even if the app charged 99¢, to me that’s no less devious. This feels like it slipped through the cracks.
I’m assuming Apple will refund any fraudulent charges and will use this example to harden that review process.
A Reddit poster was considering buying an Apple Watch and posted this question. The response was very interesting, with useful tidbits to pass along when you get asked that question.
A few highlights, all from one comment (sort comments by “best” and this should rise to the top):
There are a lot more, not to mention the people who are now exercising regularly thanks to Apple Watch.
New York Times:
Just a few years ago, Microsoft was seen as a lumbering has-been of the technology world.
It was big and still quite profitable, but the company had lost its luster, failing or trailing in the markets of the future like mobile, search, online advertising and cloud computing. Its stock price languished, inching up 3 percent in the decade through the end of 2012.
It’s a very different story today. Microsoft is running neck and neck with Apple for the title of the world’s most valuable company, both worth more than $850 billion, thanks to a stock price that has climbed 30 percent over the last 12 months.
So what happened?
Interesting analysis. In a nutshell, this is a combination of Satya Nadella’s vision when he came on board in 2014 (dump the old stuff that wasn’t working, hyper focus on the new, like cloud computing) and Apple’s iPhone-sales-centric valuation.
Lots of detail on the re-invention of Microsoft. Terrific read. Wonder if Intel can find this path.
That headline is from Amazon’s blog post. Just a few weeks away:
We’re excited to announce that Apple Music will be available on Echo devices beginning the week of December 17.
Strong motivation to spur a wave of Echo purchases for the holidays.
Interesting to see Amazon embrace Apple Music. Feels like they’ve given up trying to compete with their music offerings. Smart, and good for both Amazon, and Apple.
Matthew S. Smith, Digital Trends:
Differences do appear when you dig deeper. Here’s the big one; Windows 10’s dark mode only applies to Universal Windows Platform apps. It doesn’t change older, legacy interfaces. That includes Explorer, Task Manager, and all the old Control Panel menus, some of which still don’t have their function replicated in Windows 10’s Settings Menu.
And:
We must again nitpick Microsoft’s approach, though, for a reason that’s as simple as it is silly. Edge opens an MSN home page by default. It’s a web page, not part of the application interface, so it doesn’t get the dark mode treatment. This also applies to the “blank” page that you can choose to select instead of MSN. You’ll always be greeted with a grayish-white page in Edge, unless you manually change the home page to a website with a dark background.
Safari has no such problem. Its default new tab page, which has a list of featured websites, will change its background to slate gray when dark mode is turned on.
Attention to the tiny details. When done right, it does show.
Fascinating piece by David Barnard that, in part, lays out ways that bad actors game the iOS App Store, making life harder for indie developers to make a living.
Here’s a taste:
Find a keyword that drives a decent amount of organic search traffic. Obvious ones are keywords like “weather”, “calculator”, “solitaire”, etc, but those keywords are so competitive, and the rest of the tactics so powerful, you could get away with 2nd tier keyword targets. Now go to App Store Connect and name your app that exact keyword. “Weather” is already taken, and Apple doesn’t allow duplicate app names, so you’ll need to add a symbol. Let’s go with “Weather ◌”.
And:
The App Store search algorithm gives a massive boost for an exact match to what the user searched, and the algorithm ignores symbols, so “Weather ◌” will get a huge search advantage, which will help to drive organic instals of the app.
That one example, the “Weather ◌” app, has more than 9,000 ratings. And the “Calculator'” app has more than 86,000 ratings.
Read the article. There’s just so much more.
CNBC:
Google Fi (formerly known as Project Fi) is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means that instead of just using one of the “big four” carriers, it automatically jumps between several cellular networks depending on which has better service. Fi hops between Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular, and also favors Wi-Fi whenever possible, including for calls and texts.
And:
It costs $20 for unlimited calling and texting, and $10 per gigabyte of data. Users get money back for whatever data they don’t use, and data usage over 6 GB is free (though Google will throttle speeds after users hit 15 GB). It also has no roaming fees in more than 170 locations.
This something Apple could do? Is there some contractual agreement that prevents this? Interesting development.
Rebecca Keegan, Hollywood Reporter:
In a Viacom earnings call on Nov. 16, Paramount Pictures CEO Jim Gianopulos described a new, multipicture deal his studio had set — not with a producer or star, but with Netflix.
And:
Movie studios are no longer making films just for themselves, but for the deep-pocketed technology companies that have become Hollywood’s latest conquistadors.
Fascinating article. Makes me wonder if this will be the undoing of the traditional studio model, one where the studios choose the people to make into stars, then feed the distribution system that provides revenue for movie theaters.
Will Netflix, Amazon and, eventually, Apple, be the new movie star makers? Will movie theaters be shut out of this new supply chain, forced to watch as people consume content without them?
From the complaint:
Apple’s computers, including its iMac desktops and MacBook laptops (“Computers”), contain a critical defect that has led to at least two deficiencies in the performance of the Computers (the “Filter Defect”). The components in Apple’s Computers generate a great deal of heat during use, and Apple installed fans and vents to cool them down. But Apple did not install any filters for the vents. As a result of this Filter Defect, the fans suck in dirt and debris that get stuck behind the screen, causing a permanent dark smudging to appear in the corners of the screens. If brought in for repair outside the warranty period (or if Apple refused to honor the warranty), Apple told customers that they must pay upwards of $600 to replace the entire screen. In reality, there is a simple and cheap fix for many of the Computers: the screen can be removed by a suction cup, and then cleaned with a soft rag. Despite the existence of this inexpensive fix, Apple continues to charge non-warranty customers $600 to replace the entire screen.
One part of this is the design decision, a “lack of filters”. But another part is charging $600 to remove and clean a screen. That second part seem egregious, if true.
Looking forward to seeing Apple’s response on this.
Andrew O’Hara, Apple Insider:
There are two primary issues with the port on the new iPad Pro — one that can be at least partially overlooked, and the other is going to be a show-stopper.
And:
The biggest criticism of the case was the requirement of having a full back cover that added unnecessary bulk and weight on an otherwise slim device. I’d have preferred a two-piece design that allows for a removable keyboard with an optional back cover.
As it stands, you are stuck with both a keyboard and a back cover, or neither. If you wanted to remove the keyboard but keep the back, sorry, that’s too bad.
And:
Second is the poor adoption we’ve seen from outside companies, which the shift will not help. Apple touted at launch that third-parties could make use of the port, and they even reiterated strong support with products in the pipeline just last year. Now that the port has completely moved, anything in the works based on the previous port location is dead-on-arrival.
Tough investment for a peripheral company to deal with a complete redesign of a hardware interface. Not just moving a port/connector, but completely changing the way it works.
And I’d add to this issue the problem of putting any sort of case over the Apple Pencil magnet/charger. You have to find a way to convey that functionality with your case, no easy task. And, given the likelihood that Apple is not done innovating here, it may be some time before the functionality of these ports stabilize.
Wholesale change is tough business for a peripheral maker.
[VIDEO] Yesterday, we posted a video interview of top music producer Henny Tha Bizness and top audio engineer Ken Lewis talking about the value of using an iPad to produce music.
This video (embedded in the main Loop post) goes a bit deeper, actually showing the iPad screen as Henny teaches Ken the basics.
Lots to love here, but my favorite is watching their heads bob in unison as soon as the music kicks in.
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
When you go through the normal trade-in process on the trade-in site, Apple offers $150, but if you use the trade-in option during the checkout process of purchasing a new iPhone XR or XS, the bonus trade-in credit is displayed.
See the chart in the article for specifics. Nothing you need to do to get this bonus trade-in money, but if you are considering whether to sell your old phone or trade it in, this will help with the math.
Michael Tsai gathered some thoughtful takes on the App Store antitrust case.
Reminder, this is all about “standing”. That is, does an App Store consumer have the right (the standing) to sue Apple under antitrust statutes.
This tweet from Mike Rundle struck a nerve:
https://twitter.com/flyosity/status/1067108399169576962
This happens to me all the time. I’m in an app that’s attached to my home WiFi and I walk (or drive, as a passenger) away from my house. As I move further from my house, the signal gets progressively weaker and whatever app I’m in just hangs, stuck waiting for a reply from my home WiFi that’s never coming.
If you follow down the Twitter thread, you’ll see this response:
I’ve been using Shortcuts for that. Shortcut that drops wifi, calculates time to destination (Home), texts wife the ETA and then re-enables wifi (after x amount of seconds).
While I do applaud this effort, this feels like a kluge to me, a hack that should just not be necessary.
My preference? Set a threshold that automatically drops WiFi when my signal drops and I am getting further away from my WiFi router. The key is the word “automatically”.
This could be a setting, since this might not be an issue for everyone. But given the enthusiastic response to the Shortcut, it’s certainly an issue worth addressing.
UPDATE: Some time ago, Apple added the setting Cellular > Wi-Fi Assist (scroll down below that long list under CELLULAR DATA) that someone suggested might help with this, though I believe the intent was to help with poor WiFi, not specific to this problem. As it turns out, this is on for me. Does not make a difference.