Hardware

OWC introduces new all-in-one Thunderbolt 4/USB-C Cable to help solve confusion

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Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

The new Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C cable from OWC connects with USB-C on both ends and is certified for Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB 4, USB 3.2, USB 3.1, USB Power, and more. The company also says that you get 100% of both the maximum power allowed and the full data capability supported from/between any USB-C port-equipped device and host.

This is one of the things I dislike about USB-C and HDMI. Two identical looking cables can have wildly different innards, vary widely in the functionality they support, data they transport.

I wish the connectors supported some form of color coding (think RGBIV resistor color bands) that tell you at a glance what functionality the cable will support.

Your smartphone doesn’t have to be glued shut!

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[VIDEO] Think about replacing the battery on your iPhone. Or any other part. Then watch this video embedded in the main Loop post.

Part of this is about me being a tinkerer, with a long history of taking things apart and putting them back together again. Sure.

But I think anyone would benefit from the ability to swap out their iPhone battery in just a few minutes, without having to take/ship it in to the Apple Store, at considerable expense.

Watch the video, look at these examples. True, these folks aren’t making millions of phones, and Apple does cram a tremendous amount of tech into an incredibly thin package, but still, I can’t help but think there’s a path to making an iPhone easier/possible to repair.

A new way of charging your phone. Just be in the room with the charger.

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[VIDEO] Xiaomi blog:

Mi Air Charge Technology enables users to remotely charge electronic devices without any cables or wireless charging stands. Today, we enter a true wireless charging era.

And:

The core technology of Xiaomi’s remote charging lies in space positioning and energy transmission. Xiaomi’s self-developed isolated charging pile has five phase interference antennas built in, which can accurately detect the location of the smartphone. A phase control array composed of 144 antennas transmits millimeter-wide waves directly to the phone through beamforming.

To get a sense of what this looks like, watch the video embedded in the main Loop post. This seems like a remarkable achievement, though I have doubts as to its practicality. Not only is there a cost to the box itself, but there’s the sheer size of the charger, not to mention the question of charge inefficiency (how much power the charger consumes as compared to a traditional wired brick). And, of course, there’s the question of the reality of this as a product.

Taking this with a grain of salt, but will be fascinated to see this roll out, if it ever does.

Apple patent for Qi charger built into MacBook

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Follow the headline link and scroll through the images. The first one shows an open MacBook, with an iPhone and Apple Watch laid on either side of the trackpad. Both devices were wirelessly charging.

True, the devices would get in the way if you were trying to actually type on your Mac, but if you were doing something else and wanted a quick charge, your open MacBook would make a convenient Qi charger. And would mean one less thing to pack for a road trip (when road trips become a thing again).

The second image is even better. It shows a bunch of Apple devices stacked on top of a closed MacBook. Presumably all of them were charging, though I’d assume multiplestacked devices would slow down the charge time proportionately. But it looks like there are multiple coils, so maybe not?

It’s a patent, not necessarily something in the works, but I do think it’s an interesting idea.

Charger nerdery

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Start with this post from Joe Rossignol, MacRumors, titled HomePod Mini Now Works With Select 18W Chargers Following 14.3 Software Update.

Apple includes a 20W power adapter with the HomePod mini, but many customers may have an 18W power adapter from an iPhone 11 Pro or other device.

Point being, if you have an 18W charger and buy a HomePod mini, use the 18W for your HomePod, now you have a 20W for general use.

Moving on to the headline linked post from John Gruber:

The only way to tell Apple’s new 20W charger apart from their old 18W charger is to look at the hard-to-read small print (light gray text on a white background, a veritable crime against accessibility). And even when you read the small print, you have to know that Apple’s 20W chargers say “20W” on them and their 18W chargers aren’t labeled with a wattage. Seriously, Apple’s 18W charger doesn’t say “18W” — the only way to know it’s an 18W charger is to examine the even-harder-to-read smallest-of-small print and know that it’s stated maximum output of “9V × 2A” is 18W. (Their 20W charger is 9V × 2.2A, so it’s really a 19.8W charger.)

First, check that math at the end. Good to know the W=V*A equation.

That aside, amazing that it is so hard to tell the difference between a 20W and 18W charger. Read this, then go look at your chargers, maybe make some labels so you can easily tell which is which.

Moving on:

So on the one hand, because the HomePod Mini includes the 20W charger, it was fine that it didn’t work with the old 18W charger. But on the other hand, if you ever toss the 20W charger into a bag or drawer along with an Apple 18W charger, you needed an extraordinary amount of knowledge to be able to know which charger the HomePod Mini required. Not sure how much work Apple had to put into the 14.3 software update to make the HomePod Mini work with the 18W charger too, but I’m glad they did. It’s too confusing otherwise.

Lots of details here, but update to the latest HomePod OS and you’ll have the ability to swap out the 18W and 20W chargers.

Gruber’s post is worth reading, especially with details on what he discovered about his Magic Keyboard and Apple’s slightly older 29W USB-C power adapter, which looks exactly like Apple’s more recent 30W USB-C power adapter.

Understanding ProRAW

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Ben Sandofsky, writing for the Halide blog, presents an excellent explainer on how digital cameras capture and produce images, on the pros and cons of traditional RAW mode and, finally, talk through Apple’s new ProRAW image format.

So well written, very easy to follow.

Side note: Did you know that one of the primary inventors of the CCD (the light capturing device that makes digital cameras possible) became the CEO of Apple for a bit?

MKBHD: Hands on with the AirPods Max

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[VIDEO] This video from Marques Brownlee (embedded in the main Loop post) runs the gamut from unboxing to showing off the fit and finish to comments on the overall experience trying on the AirPods Max headphones. This is a fantastic review, though I’m still waiting for more technical, audiophile reviews to help me truly understand the value proposition here.

On AirPods Max foldability and Bluetooth sound quality

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There’s a lot to love about the AirPods Max. But two things that I struggle with are the lack of foldability and whether or not the audio quality lives up to the price.

On foldability: As a frequent traveler (this year aside), I value headphones you can fit in your pocket (the AirPods Pro are my constant companion) and, in the case of over ear headphones, those that can fold up into a relatively compact case, minimizing space in my suitcase or backpack.

Though the ear cups do swivel ninety degrees to reduce the height of the footprint, the headband does not fold over. Not a dealbreaker, but I am used to headphones that fold up, either into a ball, nesting the ear cups inside the band, or like the AirPods Max, turn ninety degrees, but then roll up inside the handle. As far as I can tell, the way the AirPods Max come in the box is as small a footprint as they get.

Next issue is the audio quality. Here are a few questions that I am digging into. I am not an audiophile, but if I was thinking about spending $549, these are things I’d want to wrap my head around:

  • Will AirPods Max do a better job isolating me from background noise than AirPods Pro?

Surely the answer here is yes, though I will wait for the technical reviews to come in to be certain. And I’ll be looking at both noise reduction (subtracting the sound picked up by the microphones from the sound coming through the wire/Bluetooth) and leakage (sound that escapes the ear cups and might be picked up by my podcasting mic).

  • Assuming AirPods Max use the AAC Bluetooth codec, are the AirPods Max as good as the highest end Bluetooth competing headphones?

I’m assuming that I’ll be listening to Apple Music on these headphones as my primary music experience. And my understanding is that AAC is the standard codec used by iPhone/Apple Music. So the max data transfer rate/cap is that of AAC, assuming I am listening via Bluetooth (I’m assuming wired listening offers me higher quality options, but I rarely plug in, I’m a Bluetooth listener).

There are a lot of articles on Bluetooth and codecs, but I found the headline linked article (H/T Saurabh Garg) particularly easy to follow. On AAC:

AAC is the audio standard for lossy digital audio compression. It also happens to be the license-free standard for YouTube, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and is preferred by Apple. If you have an Android phone, you won’t really benefit from AAC as its performance is unreliable: it’s a power-hungry codec that Android remains unprepared to handle efficiently. iPhone users do benefit from its higher-resolution playback though. It has a transfer rate cap of 250kbps, creating a file similar to that of a mid-quality MP3.

On that last phrase, “mid-quality MP3”: Will I notice the difference here, given how accustomed I am to listening to my AirPods Pro and my HomePod? Could I buy better Bluetooth headphones, of any stripe, to get better sound connecting to my iPhone?

I’ve been told that AAC is actually superior to MP3 (disagreeing with the article) and that, from an audiophile standpoint, AAC is very good. Also, Apple Music uses 256kbps. The combo of Bluetooth and AAC introduces that 250kbps cap. A very small difference, likely not noticeable.

And that “power-hungry codec” comment: Does not apply to an Apple device connecting to Apple headphones. They do the decoding in hardware, very power-efficient.

Again, I’m no audiophile. I’m eagerly waiting for reviews to come in, to get a sense of just how much Bluetooth listening bang I’d be getting for my bucks.

Per usual, if I’ve got anything wrong here, please do ping me.

Exposing the Apple Mini M1

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If you like teardowns, this is an interesting one. Lot’s of detail on the take-apart, ultimately landing here:

By leaving the flip chip SoC in place and using IR imaging through the die’s backside to acquire a die image, the product remains functional. Now, it is time to see what can be learned from monitoring the M1 while it’s put through its paces on the lab bench

Looking forward to part two of this process.

[H/T Om Malik]

Thunderbolt on the M1 Mac mini

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Tim Standing, OWC blog [Via TidBITS]:

Each pair of Thunderbolt ports on my Intel Mac is connected to a single bus powered by a dedicated controller chip. Since the two ports in a pair are connected to one bus, they share the Thunderbolt bandwidth. The total throughput of both ports together on a single bus is limited to 2,800 MB/sec.

And:

You can confirm the number of Thunderbolt buses in your Mac by viewing the System Report window (select About This Mac in the Apple menu and then click the System Report… button). Then click on Thunderbolt in the column on the left. Here is what I see on my 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro, showing the two Thunderbolt buses. (4 ports = 2 pairs of ports = 2 Thunderbolt buses).

Yup, confirmed, worth a look.

But on the M1 Mac mini:

System Report indicates that there are two Thunderbolt buses, one for each of the Thunderbolt ports!! This means that each port has its own dedicated bus and doesn’t have to share its bandwidth with any other port. Each one will have 2,800 MB/sec all to itself.

And:

The M1 Macs are the first Macs with support for the Thunderbolt hub feature found in Thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 4 requires computer makers to implement a whole set of features, most of which were optional in Thunderbolt 3. These features have actually been found in almost all Macs that Apple has shipped in the past four years, so the move to Thunderbolt 4 isn’t a huge change for Mac users.

These features include 40 Gb/sec Thunderbolt ports, support for charging laptops over Thunderbolt, and protection from malicious hardware that might try and snoop computer memory over Thunderbolt. The one feature in Thunderbolt 4 new to the Mac is the support of Thunderbolt Hubs.

The article goes on with some testing and details, along with a pitch for their own OWC Thunderbolt Hub. Hub needs aside, I found the bandwidth info worth knowing.

Apple M1 MacBook vs PC desktop workstation for Adobe Creative Cloud

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This is a very interesting article comparing four different machines on how they tackle specific tasks using Adobe software. Definitely a test on the Pro side of things.

The four machines:

  • Apple M1 MacBook Air with 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, 16GB RAM
  • Apple M1 MacBook Pro with 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU
  • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, 16GB RAM
  • AMD Ryzen 9 5800X, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, 64GB RAM

Note that second two machines are desktop machines, coming in at $2400 and $3500 respectively, with the last machine built with 64GB RAM. And those two desktop machines feature external GPUs.

In a nutshell, the desktop machines outperform the M1 Macs. Lots of reasons for this, and not really a fair comparison, since the Macs are laptops, and the desktop machines have discrete GPUs, and are much more expensive.

But I did find the comparison worth seeing.

From the conclusions:

From a performance standpoint, the new Apple M1 MacBooks do fairly well considering that they are using a complete processor based around the ARM instruction set and software that is likely not fully optimized yet. But compared to a typical desktop workstation from Puget Systems that is around 2-3x faster on average (albeit at a higher cost), they certainly can’t keep up.

These units only cost around $1,500 as configured, however, so the fact that they are half the performance shouldn’t be unexpected since they are also half the cost. What will be very interesting to see is how performance will shake out as Adobe improves support for native Apple Silicon and when (or if) Apple launches a higher-end laptop – or even better, a more powerful desktop variant than the Mac Mini.

That last bit sticks out to me. Will we see a higher end M1 laptop with more RAM? Will we see an M1 Mac Pro? If we do see a desktop Mac Pro, will it feature a discrete GPU?

[H/T Evadne W]

Comparing M1 vs Intel MacBook Air temps under heavy load

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[VIDEO] Does your Intel MacBook tend to run hot under heavy load? Like really hot? Well watch the video embedded in the main Loop post, and remember that the M1 MacBook Air does not have a fan.

To help folks who measure temps in Fahrenheit:

  • 26°C is about 79°F
  • 34°C is about 93°F

That’s a pretty big difference, especially for something sitting on your lap.

Apple. Details.

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Watch the video embedded below. It shows the iOS MagSafe animation when an iPhone is placed on different color MagSafe cases. Note the color of the case and the color of the animation.

Is this real? If so, that’s a great little detail. One of those things I love about Apple design.

How unified memory blows the SoCs off the M1 Macs

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Howard Oakley:

One of the major new hardware features of Apple Silicon Macs, including those launched on 10 November, is that they use “unified memory”. This article looks briefly at what this means, its consequences, and where the M1 and its successors are taking hardware design.

And:

GPUs are now being used for a lot more than just driving the display, and their computing potential for specific types of numeric and other processing is in demand. So long as CPUs and GPUs continue to use their own local memory, simply moving data between their memory has become an unwanted overhead.

And:

In this new model, CPU cores and GPUs access the same memory. When data being processed by the CPU needs to be manipulated by the GPU, it stays where it is. That unified memory is as fast to access as dedicated GPU memory, and completely flexible. When you want to connect a high-resolution display, that’s not limited by the memory tied to the GPU, but by total memory available. Imagine the graphics capability of 64 or even 128 GB of unified memory.

And:

Apple’s first M1 Macs are its first convergence of these features: sophisticated SoCs which tightly integrate CPU cores and GPUs, fast access to unified memory, and tightly-integrated storage on an SSD. Together they offer unrivalled versatility, what Apple sees as relatively low-end systems which can turn their hand and speed to some of the most demanding tasks while remaining cool, consuming little power, and being relatively inexpensive to manufacture in volume.

A great read, helps explain some of the speed increases in the M1 chip, and why 16GB of M1 RAM is not the same as 16GB of Intel Mac RAM.

AnandTech on Apple’s M1 chip

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Andrei Frumusanu, AnandTech:

The new processor is called the Apple M1, the company’s first SoC designed with Macs in mind. With four large performance cores, four efficiency cores, and an 8-GPU core GPU, it features 16 billion transistors on a 5nm process node. Apple’s is starting a new SoC naming scheme for this new family of processors, but at least on paper it looks a lot like an A14X.

And:

Today, we’re going to be dissecting the new Apple M1 news, as well as doing a microarchitectural deep dive based on the already-released Apple A14 SoC.

There’s a lot to digest here, tons of detail, some of it picking apart the specifics that Apple shared yesterday, some of it extrapolating from what is known about the A14.

If you care about the hardware side of things, I think you’ll find this an interesting, dense read.

Hands on video of Apple MagSafe Duo charger

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[VIDEO] Looks pretty cool. I like the foldability and the popup Apple Watch feature that makes it work with the Solo Loop band. Video embedded in main Loop post.

Apple MagSafe charger speed tests

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[VIDEO] Great video, embedded in main Loop post. I love that little charge meter. Really makes it clear what’s happening when you plug in to various chargers, what happens when you go wireless. Beautifully done.

MagSafe and iPhones 12, really fast wireless charging

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[VIDEO] How much faster is the combination of MagSafe and iPhone 12? Watch this unfold, or jump to 1:33 for the numbers. Keep in mind that plug-in charging is about twice as fast as the fastest of these results. Video embedded in main Loop post.

The iPhone 12, 12 Pro battery life takes a big hit over 5G

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Mark Spoonauer, Tom’s Guide:

Here’s how the Tom’s Guide battery test works. It surfs the web continuously at 150 nits of screen brightness, launching a new site every 30 seconds until the battery drains. For the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, we ran this test over 5G and 4G, and the difference was pretty dramatic.

And:

The regular iPhone 12 lasted just 8 hours and 25 minutes over AT&T’s 5G network. Last year’s iPhone 11 lasted a whopping 11 hours and 16 minutes over 4G. To compare, we switched the iPhone 12 to 4G-only, and it endured for 10 hours and 23 minutes.

Follow the headline link, scroll down to the chart for the details but, in a nutshell, 5G took about 2 hours off the battery life for both the 12 and 12 Pro.

This shouldn’t stop you from buying an iPhone 12, and it shouldn’t stop you from using 5G. Just keep this in mind and plan accordingly.

Gruber on real-life, Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband speeds

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First things first, this entire iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro review is chock full of detail, and entertaining to boot.

But this one bit struck me:

And — I’ll repeat — holy shit is Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband fast. Using Ookla’s Speedtest app for testing, my LTE service here in Philly is generally in the range of 50-120 Mbps down, 10-20 Mbps up. Not bad. With 5G Ultra Wideband, I typically saw 1,200-1,800 Mbps down, 25-70 Mbps up. At a few spots I consistently saw 2,300-2,700 Mbps down. Wowza. Apple’s and Verizon’s advertised maximum under “ideal conditions” is 4,000 Mbps. That’s gigabit speeds in real life over a cellular network.

But:

But these mmWave coverage zones really are like Wi-Fi hotspots in terms of range. At some spots, the coverage is literally just half a city block.

And there’s the rub. How often will you be in just the right spot to take advantage of these speeds?

That said, 5G will evolve, and mmWave coverage will continue to grow. If you buy into 5G now, you’ll get the benefit of that growth over time.

The special, anti-fingerprint finish on the gold iPhone 12 Pro

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Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch:

Most of the iPhone 12 Pro finishes still use a physical vapor deposition process for edge coating. But the new gold (which I do not have in person but looks great) uses a special high-power, impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) process that lays down the coating in a super dense pattern, allowing it to be tough and super bright with a molecular structure that mimics the stainless steel underneath — making it more durable than “standard” PVD. One side effect is that it’s easier to wipe clean and takes on less fingerprints, something that my blue model was, uh, definitely prone to.

From the HiPIMS Wikipedia page:

HIPIMS has been successfully applied for the deposition of thin films in industry, particularly on cutting tools. The first HIPIMS coating units appeared on the market in 2006.

The gold version of the Apple iPhone 12 Pro uses this process on the structural stainless steel band that also serves as the device’s antenna system.

There’s nothing I can find that says Apple’s other stainless steel colors can’t take a HiPIMS finish. I asked Panzer about this, his reply:

As far as I understand it, it should be able to be used with many different coatings — it is not a gold specific thing. My guess is that gold proved difficult or had fingerprinting issues.

I’m curious about Apple’s future use of HiPIMS. Will we see it applied in more places? Is the gold iPhone 12 Pro a one-off, or a test case for future stainless iPhones, Apple Watches?

MagSafe

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[VIDEO] Here’s a first look at MagSafe, with an unboxing, some magnet paper, metal things, and some previous model iPhones (video embedded in main Loop post). Looking forward to people’s iPhones 12 arriving so we can see how well the magnet sticks to MagSafe optimized gear.

The word “safe” in the word MagSafe has always meant something specific to me: Tug on a cable with a MagSafe connector and the connector comes off. It doesn’t pull your Mac off the table.

Is this still the purpose of the “safe” in MagSafe? If I accidentally tug the MagSafe cable, will it pop off my iPhone? Or will my iPhone go tumbling to the floor? Or is this new MagSafe about ensuring your phone is charging properly, with the magnet ensuring your iPhone is properly centered on the Qi charging coil?

Apple’s iPhone 12 can wirelessly charge twice as fast, but only with a MagSafe charger

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Nick Statt, The Verge:

Apple’s new iPhone 12 line will be able to access faster wireless charging speeds of 15W in line with the most up-to-date Qi standard, but there’s a catch: you’ll have to use Apple’s new MagSafe brand of charger or a MagSafe-compatible one from a third-party accessory maker.

Interesting. Hop over to the iPhone 12 technical specs page, then down to the Power and Battery section (about halfway down the page):

  • MagSafe wireless charging up to 15W
  • Qi wireless charging up to 7.5W

Yup, only MagSafe gets the full 15W. So if someone did come up with a magnet case for older phones, they’d likely solve the click-in-place problem, but not sure they could offer access to the faster charging.

The two types of 5G, explained

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

There are two kinds of 5G networks: mmWave, which is the super-fast 5G that most people are talking about when they talk about 5G speed improvements, and sub-6GHz, the 5G that most people are going to experience for the time being.

This is a great explainer, to help you wrap your head around what’s coming, the terribly named mmWave and sub-6GHz.

Apple employees that have been testing the 5G iPhones recently (and confidentially) told Bloomberg that the 5G speeds have been disappointing as the current 5G networks are not “improving connection speeds much.” Most people who are expecting their iPhones to deliver super-fast mmWave speeds will likely end up similarly disappointed when they find that mmWave networks just aren’t available in most places.

Set your expectations accordingly. At least in the US. The way I read it, this is about telecomm infrastructure rollout, not Apple’s hardware.

Apple iPhone 12: The 5nm process that makes it all possible

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Leo Kelion, BBC News:

The “five nanometre process” involved refers to the fact that the chip’s transistors have been shrunk down – the tiny on-off switches are now only about 25 atoms wide – allowing billions more to be packed in.

And:

Moving to smaller transistors helps because they use less power than larger ones, meaning they can be run more quickly. On this basis, TSMC has said that its 5nm chips deliver a 15% speed boost over the last 7nm generation while using the same power.

And:

Apple has already claimed its A14 chip will do machine learning tasks “up to 10 times faster” than the A13.

All of this is important, important across the product line, including the up and coming Apple silicon powered Mac, said to ship by the end of the year.

What makes this article so interesting is that it gets into the details on how the 5nm process was achieved, using a technique called “extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography”. Great read.

Google’s parallel path to Apple Watch

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[VIDEO] Google blog:

The heart of Jacquard is the Jacquard Tag, a tiny computer built to make everyday items more helpful. We first used this on the sleeve of a jacket so that it could recognize the gestures of the person wearing it, and we built that same technology into the Cit-E backpack with Saint Laurent. Then, we collaborated with Adidas and EA on our GMR shoe insert, enabling its wearers to combine real-life play with the EA SPORTS FIFA mobile game.

Project Jacquard was announced back in 2015, and Google has touted it as a smart controller you can wear to control various devices.

I can’t help but see a parallel to Apple Watch. Apple pushed their remote control capabilities into the Apple Watch (think answering the phone, controlling music/podcasts, curating notifications, etc.), Google is going in a different direction, splintering the control into a sprinkling of Jacquard Tag embeds.

The newest of these is the just announced Konnect-I Backpack series:

Whether it’s touch or movement-based, the tag can interpret different inputs customized for the garments and gear we’ve collaborated with brands to create. And now we’re sharing that two new backpacks, developed with Samsonite, will integrate Jacquard technology. A fine addition to our collection, the Konnect-I Backpack comes in two styles: Slim ($199) and Standard ($219).

While they might look like regular backpacks, the left strap unlocks tons of capabilities. Using your Jacquard app, you can customize what gestures control which actions—for instance, you can program Jacquard to deliver call and text notifications, trigger a selfie, control your music or prompt Google Assistant to share the latest news. For an added level of interaction, the LED light on your left strap will light up according to the alerts you’ve set.

Will we see a similar device (the rumored AirTags) from Apple? If so, will AirTags parallel the Jacquard tag in functionality?

While you think about all this, here’s a commercial (video embedded in main Loop post) for the new Konnect-I backpack. So very odd.

iPad execs talk 2020 iPad lineup, Touch ID on power button, with iJustine and Jenna Ezarik

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[VIDEO] Apple marketing and hardware execs Bob Borchers and John Ternus jumped onto the Same Brain podcast to talk about the 2020 iPad lineup. Video embedded in main Loop post.

Of particular interest to me was the detailed discussion (jump to about 7:22) of the fingerprint scanner on the iPad Air’s power button. I would love to see this tech on an iPhone. Not sure if the footprint is large enough to allow this.

A great achievement. Love this discussion.

Apple’s new iPad Air fingerprint sensor would be ideal for the iPhone 12

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Tom Warren, The Verge:

One of Apple’s surprise hardware announcements last week was the relocation of the iPad Air’s fingerprint sensor to a tiny power button on top of the display. It’s a change from the typical Touch ID Home button location at the bottom of the screen, and it allows Apple to place a larger edge-to-edge display on its iPad Air for the first time. It’s also an ideal location for a fingerprint sensor, and I’d love to see it on the iPhone 12.

YES! I’d love to see this addition, if Apple does not yet have under-screen fingerprint scanning ready for prime time. Perfect for these masked times. (In fact, I said as much while watching the keynote).

Practical on an iPhone? Only Apple knows, and we’ll find out soon enough.

How Microsoft built its folding Surface Duo

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If you are at all intrigued by Microsoft’s new, folding, Surface Duo, this is a terrific read. Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer, talks through the path that took him past the failed Surface Mini concept to what ultimately shipped.

I’d absolutely love it if Apple regularly shared its thinking on product design and evolution.