Business

Apple Park: March drone footage

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[VIDEO] Apple’s new headquarters is looking tantalizingly close to completion. Some lovely footage here. Can’t wait to tour it. Video embedded in the main Loop post.

The future of Steve Jobs’ iPad vision for Post-PC computing

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Daniel Eran Dilger, Apple Insider:

In 2010, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad as a new product category between the smartphone and notebook. It ended up dramatically shifting demand in the PC industry, but sales have since plateaued. Here’s what Apple can do, has done and is doing to build iPad into the Post-PC future of computing.

And:

The reason Apple is now increasingly targeting PCs in its iPad advertising–rather than other tablets–is that there’s little value left in the outside “tablet market” to grab. Not even the second place tablet maker Samsung is doing well in tablets.

Interesting, thoughtful piece. A bit of a long read, but if you are interested in the business side of the iPad and Mac, worth your time.

BeatsX review: For real? Just pick up some AirPods

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Jordan Novet, VentureBeat:

When I picked up a pair of Apple’s wireless AirPods a few weeks ago, I thought the included charging case was a clever touch.

But the case wound up being so useful that it spoiled me for Apple’s other wireless earbuds, the BeatsX. After two weeks of testing a pair of BeatsX headphones, I’ve found they also fall short of the AirPods in one make-or-break area: battery life.

And there are other drawbacks, too, The AirPods case, with its satisfying clasp, is an instant Apple design classic, whereas the included BeatsX silicone case doesn’t always completely protect your headphones — sometimes parts of the cable end up sticking out. And it gathers lint. Just look at it.

If you are trying to decide between BeatsX and AirPods, this take is worth reading. The difference between the two carrying cases is just one small piece of a larger puzzle, just a taste of each respective product’s approach to design, but in my opinion, a telling taste.

If nothing else, take a look at the image of the BeatsX case in the linked post, then imagine wrestling a rubbery, springy, coiled BeatsX headset into that case. Compare to the plop, plop of dropping your AirPods into their case. Then add in the take on battery life.

If that matters to you, you’re likely an AirPods customer.

Apple to investigate iPhone 7 that smoked, melted

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Mashable:

Brianna Olivas says her rose gold iPhone 7 Plus exploded and began smoking Wednesday morning when her boyfriend grabbed his phone and began recording. The video, which Olivas shared on Twitter later that day, shows smoke pouring out of one side of the phone and the iPhone’s case melting away.

Here’s the tweet, embedded video:

https://twitter.com/briannaolivas_/status/834556234166448128

While the dramatic video may bring to mind the now infamous Samsung Galaxy Note7, which was recalled after handsets began bursting into flames, there is no evidence what Olivas experienced is tied to a wider problem.

And:

Olivas says she has since turned the phone over to Apple. Reps have told her they are conducting tests and expect to know more within a week. For its part, an Apple spokesperson says the company is aware of the video. “We are in touch with the customer and looking into it.”

We need safer battery tech. Lots of smart minds are working full-time on this problem.

Twitter is locking accounts that swear at famous people

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The Verge:

Last night, developer Victoria Fierce had some harsh words for Vice President Mike Pence. Incensed over the Trump administration’s recent rollback of transgender protections, Fierce let loose on Pence. “Fuck you,” she tweeted. “I gotta piss, and you’re putting me — an American — in danger of assault by your white supremacist brothers.”

Almost immediately, she got the notification. Twitter had detected “potentially abusive activity” on her account, and put her in temporary timeout as a result. For the next 12 hours, only followers could see her tweets — which meant she wouldn’t be able to lobby the Vice President.

Still chewing on the implications here. Victoria’s account was temporarily firewalled (the range of her tweets was limited), not suspended. Not sure I would use the word locked, as The Verge did in their headline. But that nit aside, this is part of Twitter’s new anti-abuse campaign that started rolling out last week.

For the average recipient of abuse, that’s good news: when a troll quote-tweets you with an insult, you simply won’t see it. But the limits are raising new questions in light of the political speech that is often hosted on Twitter. The average person has an expectation that their account will not receive insulting tweets on a regular basis. But what about, say, the president of the United States?

Interesting question, difficult problem to solve.

How to restore data from iCloud

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Michael E. Cohen, TidBITS:

iCloud, however, much like real clouds, is notoriously opaque. It’s hard to see just what you have stored in it. Nonetheless, Apple has made it easy, at least, to fix some truth-related issues in iCloud, and you can do it with a readily accessible tool: a Web browser on any Mac or PC. With it, you can revert to backups of your contacts, calendars, reminders, and shared bookmarks, and even restore files deleted from your iCloud Drive.

If you have an iCloud account, this is worth a walk through, just to get a sense of the available options.

Apple fan finds stack of Apple security docs from 1979-80 in goodwill bin, scans/uploads them

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Ben Vandermeer:

I was at the Seattle Goodwill outlet recently and noticed the Apple logo on letterhead sticking out from a bin of books, so I started digging. What I found were the 1979-1980 files of Jack MacDonald, manager of system software for the Apple II and /// at the time.

They tell the story of project “SSAFE” or “Software Security from Apples Friends and Enemies.” This was a proposal to bring disk copy protection in-house to sell as a service to outside developers. Inter-office memos, meeting notes and progress reports all give a good idea of what a project life cycle looked like. Different schemes and levels of protection are considered, as well as implementation primarily on the Apple II+ and the upcoming SARA (The Apple ///) and Lisa computers. Randy Wigginton is featured prominently throughout, along with mentions of Woz, distribution lists including “S.Jobs” and many other familiar names.

The documents were all a jumble so I’ve put them in chronological order and scanned the collection.

Pretty interesting collection of documents. Here’s a link to the PDF if you want to browse. You’ll definitely see some famous Apple names in there.

An iOS app that never runs out of memory. Why is this great idea necessary?

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Jake Underwood, MacStories, reviewing Moment, an iOS app that takes video, but only keeps either the last 5 or 10 seconds and never runs out of space:

I set my phone up, pressed record, and after a couple of minutes ended the recording. When I opened Photos, the video was there immediately as a clip of the last 5 seconds I recorded.

First, this is a clever idea. It solves a real problem, that of capturing 5 to 10 seconds of video when space on your iPhone is low.

But to me, this raises another issue. Why is this app necessary? Surely Apple understands how frustrating this is. After all, Google built an entire ad campaign around never running out of space when that critical moment comes.

At the very least, why doesn’t the camera app warn you that space is low when it launches? Even better, why not reserve some emergency space and warn the user when they first dip into that reserve. They can still take that critical picture or video, but then they’ll know enough to delete or offload pictures or videos to make more space.

In the short term, we have solutions like Moment.

Here’s a link to Moment in the App Store.

Tim Cook, location, and the image of a corporate HQ

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Wendy Lee, San Francisco Chronicle:

Cupertino is so populated by Apple employees that some people have jokingly called it “Appletino.” Later this year, Apple will open a visitor center, cafe and store to the public at Apple Park, which the city estimates could could draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

In addition to the campus, Apple will continue to have engineers at its buildings on Infinite Loop. Chief executive Tim Cook will move his office to Apple Park.

That last bit has been making the rounds. Seems obvious to me. Where else would Tim Cook keep his office?

More from Wendy:

Apple hasn’t revealed the total cost for the project, but Bloomberg estimated in 2013 that it could be near $5 billion. The design will help the company recruit, and also reflects how Apple is always pushing the envelope on technology, said Mina Chow, a senior lecturer at University of Southern California School of Architecture.

“Corporate headquarters are all about making a statement,” she said. “Even when you had the period of emperors and kings, it’s all about making a statement. Architecture is the identity of a culture. We build what we believe we are.”

And that last bit is the most fascinating to me. We build what we believe we are. And this particular “we” is really Steve Jobs, no?

The New York Times headline broadside on Apple AirPods

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What the hell was the New York Times thinking with this headline:

How to Decide Which Headphones to Buy (Hint: Not Apple’s AirPods)

If you only saw the headline, which is the case for many people, there’s an obvious conclusion: Apple AirPods are not worth considering, not worth even a look.

From the article itself, here’s Wirecutter’s headphone editor (Wirecutter is owned by the NYT) Lauren Dragan:

Ah, the AirPods. The current working term for those kinds of headphones is “true wireless.” Aside from not having a cord to tangle and being decent at taking phone calls, the AirPods didn’t improve much over the corded EarPods. The sound quality is the same (which is to say, meh, with no bass). Plus the battery life is less than a full day at work, so you had better remember to charge them at lunch time. And this for $130 more than a replacement pair of EarPods? I don’t think they’re fully cooked yet.

Ai-yi-yi.

This whole thing smacks of click-bait journalism. The New York Times ran that headline based on an interview with an owned site, without vetting those details. The opinion of the piece is one thing (I disagree with the battery conclusion, and it misses things like range, ease of pairing, and inserts bass bias, which is subjective) but the headline seems handcrafted to create controversy, pull in eyeballs.

Apple reports iOS 10 adoption up to 79%. Android Nougat? Barely 1%.

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From Apple’s developer site:

Interesting to compare that pie chart to the official Android adoption pie chart:

That little bitty sliver on the right? That’s Nougat, the most recent version of Android. To get to more than half of that pie chart, you have to include Nougat, Marshmallow and Lollipop. Lollipop was released in 2014.

It’s tough when you don’t control all the hardware.

Every New York Times front page since 1852

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[VIDEO] Video on the main Loop post. Best viewed on a large screen. Wish there was a timeline on the screen so you could see the year. But that nit aside, fascinating to watch the paper’s design evolve, very subtly. Amazing how late in the game color made its appearance.

Autonomous racing cars also crash

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The Verge:

The world’s first self-driving robot racing series took a big step toward reality this weekend. For the first time ever, both of Roborace’s prototype autonomous racecars ran against each other on a track.

And:

The two Roborace prototypes — which the company refers to as DevBots — “battled” each other around the same Puerto Madero street circuit in Buenos Aires that hosted the third race of Formula E’s third season. The cars’ Nvidia-powered brains handled 20 autonomous laps across the race weekend, according to Roborace, and topped out at about 115 miles per hour.

115 mph (185 km/h) is pretty slow for race cars, but fast enough to enjoy. At Monza last year (the Italian Grand Prix), the top speed was 225 mph (360 km/h). Once the bugs are all worked out, I expect we’ll see autonomous cars hit those speeds and, since the AI drivers will not have those pesky human flaws, even pass those speeds.

One of the two DevBots successfully dodged a dog who wandered onto the track, while the other eventually smacked the wall in one of the turns — a “racing incident” that was the result of a “pushing the boundaries of AI,” according to Roborace.

Wait. A dog got on the track? Is that real? Yup:

https://twitter.com/roborace/status/833030665608249349

Facebook in talks to live stream one Major League Baseball game per week

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Reuters:

Facebook Inc is in talks with Major League Baseball to live stream one game per week during the upcoming season, which could be a key win as the social media platform works to offer more live sports, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Facebook has pushed to sign deals with owners of sports rights to live stream their games, going after an audience that competitor Twitter Inc is also trying to capture, according to sports media consultants.

For social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, live streaming sports is key to attracting people since sports is one of the few types of content that people still watch live.

Streaming live sports is still an experiment searching for a business model. It’s not clear that Twitter made money on last year’s Thursday Night Football stream. No doubt, their engagement numbers went up, but did they sell enough ads at a high enough price to pay the NFL’s asking price?

If Reuter’s story proves true, Facebook will be competing with Major League Baseball’s various subscription services, already in place. Baseball already does streaming very, very well. Tough to see what Facebook adds to the equation.

And then there’s the question of Apple TV. Major League Baseball subscriptions are already on Apple TV. Will a Facebook deal impact game availability? Will there be new blackout dates?

Will Apple pursue live sports in a deeper way than hosting apps? Put another way, will Apple lock down games as exclusive streaming events? They certainly have the cash to make that happen. But as they do, Apple might be waiting for the business model to mature.

Apple quietly bought iCloud.net domain, shuts down eponymous social network

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Tech Crunch:

It looks like Apple has finally picked up one of the last remaining pieces of internet property linked to one of its key service brands: the iPhone and Mac giant has quietly taken over ownership of iCloud.net, TechCrunch has learned. Subsequent to that, the small-time Asian social network that existed at the site has informed its users that it will be shutting down by the end of this month.

And:

The icloud.net domain — which is now controlled by Apple — was one of the last major iCloud-based web addresses that was not owned by the company. (Perhaps the last major one? not quite, there is also iCloud.co.uk, owned by Dennis Publishing.)

In 2011, just before officially unveiling its own iCloud storage service (but after there had been leaks about its imminent arrival), Apple acquired iCloud.com from Swedish software company Xcerion, which had launched its own cloud-based storage service under that name in 2007, and in 2011 rebranded it to CloudMe. It was later confirmed in Xcerion’s accounts that Apple paid about 47 million Kroner ($5.2 million) for the domain.

This is like buying houses to assemble a real estate parcel so you can build something large, like a 20 story building. The first purchases are done quietly, without raising awareness of the value of the individual properties. Once the cat is out of the bag, the price goes up. And that last holdout reaps the big reward, the largest price tag.

Though sometimes, the project falls apart and the value plummets, making it better to be second to last.

Overcast 3: Marco’s walk through a huge design update

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Marco Arment, on the design remake of Overcast:

Overcast 3 is now available, and it’s a huge update, mostly in the design and flow of the interface. I’ve been working on it since last summer, informed by over two years of testing, usage, and customer feedback.

I designed Overcast 1.0 in 2014 for iOS 7, and it was a product of its time: it used ultra-thin text and lines against stark, sharp-edged, full-screen white sheets and translucent blur panes, with much of the basic functionality behind hidden gestures. That fundamental design carried through every update until today.

Marco clearly went over every inch of this app with an interface updater. The app still feels familiar, but there are a ton of nuanced changes.

If you are a podcast fan, take a few minutes to make your way through this post, learn about the tweaks, bells, and whistles.

Weird Al releases rare Beatles cover as a sneak peek at his late 2017 boxed set

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[VIDEO] Weird Al has a career-spanning boxed set in the works, due for release this November. One track in the set is a never-commercially-released Beatles cover (video embedded in the main Loop post). I’m told that Weird Al recorded this in his garage, sent it to Dr. Demento, but Beatles’ lawyers sent him a cease and desist to prevent him from releasing it. Not sure what’s changed.

If you like Weird Al, this is some excellent work. Enjoy.

GoWatchIt tracks Netflix, HBOGo, etc., lets you know when a show or movie you want to watch is available

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GoWatchIt tracks all the major sites (Netflix, Amazon video, HBO Go, Hulu, iTunes, etc.), along with DVD, Blu-ray, in theater, and on demand. Add shows you want to watch to your queue and GoWatchIt will email you when your show or movie is available.

As an example, I wanted to watch The King of Comedy (very obscure Martin Scorsese, Robert Di Nero movie), but it never seemed to hit on cable. Just got an email that it is showing on Starz. DVR set. Would have missed this. Thanks, GoWatchIt.

Here’s why Apple isn’t building an Amazon Echo rival

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Tim Bajarin, writing for Time:

Despite Amazon’s success, Apple has no apparent interest in copying the Echo. After talking with Apple executives, I’ve come away with the impression that they’re more interested in turning Siri into an omnipresent AI assistant across devices, rather than designing a single device specifically to serve as a Siri machine.

Interesting point. The Amazon Echo exists simply to listen for, and fulfill, Alexa requests. Every other Apple device serves many purposes and also serves the ecosystem. More bang for the buck.

Apple’s new iPad Pro campaign

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[VIDEO] These four spots (embedded in the main Loop post) started running on Friday. As Rene Ritchie points out, these spots have that “I’m a Mac” feel to them.

The difference is that there is no character carry, no one who appears in all the ads. The design and tone is what carries from spot to spot.

See what you think.

Samsung chief Lee arrested as South Korean corruption probe deepens

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Reuters:

Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was arrested on Friday over his alleged role in a corruption scandal rocking the highest levels of power in South Korea, dealing a fresh blow to the technology giant and standard-bearer for Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

The special prosecutor’s office accuses Lee of bribing a close friend of President Park Geun-hye to gain government favors related to leadership succession at the conglomerate. It said on Friday it will indict him on charges including bribery, embezzlement, hiding assets overseas and perjury.

Samsung’s leadership has failed them. Thanking the stars above Apple has Tim.

Samsung files for “Bixby Reminder” trademark in Europe

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Android Headlines:

Samsung Electronics filed for a “Bixby Reminder” trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The filing was made on Thursday and seemingly describes one feature of Bixby, the company’s upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that’s heavily rumored to debut with the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus this spring.

Add Bixby to your list of the major digital assistants you’ll hear people talking with on the street.

Apple to kickstart Indian dream with the iPhone SE

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Economic Times:

Apple will kick off its India manufacturing plans by initially assembling 3-4 lakh units of its iPhone SE model at the Karnataka plant being set up by contract manufacturer Wistron, as the maker of the iconic iPhones looks to take a deeper bite of a key market amid slowing global smartphone growth.

The Cupertino-based tech giant is likely to go ahead with the Bengaluru assembly plan without waiting for the government’s nod for the list of tax concessions that it had sought along with other demands. The company wants to “experience manufacturing in India”, a person familiar with the company’s plans told ET.

And:

The iPhone SE, launched amidst much fanfare in April 2016, was widely anticipated to be aimed at emerging markets, including India, as it was priced lower than all other iPhone models. But even the lower price tag of Rs 39,000 for a basic model of SE was too much for the mass market.

The handset is currently retailing at less than Rs 30,000 in India and would become cheaper still if produced here.

Makes sense. Start with the SE, get a sense of response, tweak follow-on models aimed to grow that market.

Google and fact checking the news

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Last October, Google introduced something called the Fact Check tag. The idea is, publishers include the tag in a story for it to be considered for the tag. When the story is posted on Google News, a fact check-approved story will appear with the Fact Check label.

Here’s the original post about the Fact Check tag. And here’s an update from Google on the current state of Fact Check.

This is a great start. But it is far too limited. We need fact checking to spread beyond the Google News bubble. We need a Fact Check standard to spread to every single source of news, across the political spectrum.

When you go food shopping, you know you can check the standardized ingredients label to see how much sodium or fat is in a product. We need a reliable, verifiable label like that for the news. Sites could achieve an “All Fact” label if they achieve a set minimum percentage of fact checked stories.

Apple has an opportunity here. Join with Google to spread the fact check concept to Apple News. And beyond. My two cents? This is incredibly important.

Heroic driver sacrifices his Tesla to save unconscious man in runaway Volkswagen

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Jalopnik:

Near Munich, Germany, a man in a Tesla Model S saw a Volkswagen Passat swerving erratically on the Autobahn, slamming against a guardrail multiple times. When he noticed that the person behind the wheel was unconscious, the Tesla driver sprang into action.

Muenchner Merkur reports that this “action” involved the 41 year-old driver in the Tesla calling the fire department, and then pulling his Model S in front of the out-of-control Passat.

He then tapped the brakes so the Passat was contacting his rear bumper, and slowly, the two cars came to a halt. Shortly thereafter, the fire department came to assist the unconscious driver, who, the German daily newspaper says, likely suffered a stroke.

Great, selfless action.

Elon Musk got wind of the story and tweeted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/831969536584806400

And then:

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/831972613912080384

Good stuff all the way around. Going out on a limb, I assume that a driverless car would do the same thing. At least, I hope that’s the case.