Media

Apple’s upcoming TV service to launch in 100+ countries in 2019, starting with the U.S.

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

According to The Information, Apple’s original content will be made available for free to Apple device owners, a rumor we heard earlier this month from CNBC.

While Apple’s content will be available at no cost, Apple will encourage users to sign up for television subscriptions from other cable networks such as HBO or STARZ.

And:

By making third-party content available via the streaming service and launching it in most countries around the world, Apple will be able to better compete with Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, both of which are available in 190+ countries.

What will the service be called? How will it be delivered? Looking forward to all the details rolling out.

But one point stands out to me: By rolling their own content and by limiting the possibility of any controversial content, Apple has no legal/political/licensing limitations on where they can roll out that content. Very smart.

A compelling pitch for working at Apple

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[VIDEO] From Apple’s newly redesigned Jobs at Apple site:

We bring amazing people together to make amazing things happen.

We’re a diverse collective of thinkers and doers, continuously reimagining our products and practices to help people do what they love in new ways. That innovation is inspired by a shared commitment to great work — and to each other. Because learning from the people here means we’re learning from the best.

This is a love letter, calling to creative people who want a place to work that channels their best, gives them an opportunity to create innovative products.

The video embedded in the main Loop post does a nice job bringing this all home. Really well done. [Via MacRumors]

“Harry Potter” homecoming assembly

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[VIDEO] This is just insane. Not sure what school this is, but they have really set an impossibly high bar for any other school to match.

Love Harry Potter or not, just watch these skills unfold. Respect. Video embedded in main Loop post.

Robot dog dancing to Uptown Funk

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[VIDEO] Remember, if a robot dog ever comes after you, just play some Uptown Funk. Apparently, they just can’t resist that beat. Video embedded in main Loop post.

‘Halloween’ at 40: Their ‘horrible idea’ became a horror classic

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Bruce Fretts, New York Times:

John Carpenter had only shot and scored two semi-obscure features when the executive producer Irwin Yablans came to him with a proposal: make a low-budget movie about babysitters being murdered. “It was a horrible idea,” Mr. Carpenter said in a recent telephone interview. “But I wanted to make more movies, so I said, ‘Great!’”

And:

Mr. Carpenter, Ms. Curtis, four of her co-stars and others spoke about their memories of making the original film. “It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had professionally,” Ms. Curtis said. “It gave me everything in my creative life.”

A new version of Halloween, also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, is hitting theaters next week, just in time for, well, Halloween.

If you’ve got any love for horror films, and for this movie in particular, take a read of this New York Times interview. It’s scary good (sorry, not sorry).

The moment last night’s Soyuz launch went bad

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[VIDEO] Some heart pounding moments last night for space aficionados around the world, as the two-person crewed Soyuz rocket took off from the Kazakh launch base and then had to abort high above the Earth.

Follow the headline link and scroll all the way to the bottom to follow the launch from the start, scrolling up to reveal the sequence.

And watch the video embedded in the main Loop post to see the moment when everything went bad.

Both astronauts are back and safe on the ground.

Apple plans to give away original content for free to device owners as part of new digital TV strategy

Written by

Alex Sherman, CNBC:

Apple is preparing a new digital video service that will marry original content and subscription services from legacy media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Owners of Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV will find the still-in-the-works service in the pre-installed “TV” application, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details of the project are private.

The product will include Apple-owned content, which will be free to Apple device owners, and subscription “channels,” which will allow customers to sign up for online-only services, such as those from HBO and Starz.

Paralleling Amazon Prime Video, if you buy into the Apple ecosystem, you get Apple’s original content for free. This seems a reasonable strategy, as it reduces the pressure for Apple to have to produce content worth paying for, à la Netflix.

Seems to me, this is Apple easing their way into a market they have no experience with, reducing their chance of failure to almost zero. Over time, if they find the path to creating truly compelling content, they can ease into another business model.

Trailer for season two of Apple’s Carpool Karaoke

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[VIDEO] I wonder what Apple’s business model is here. They made a second season, so the show has got to have some value to Apple. Is this purely filling the content pipeline, in preparation for the eventual launch of Apple’s media service? The trailer is embedded in the main Loop post.

Jeff Benjamin’s Apple Watch Series 4 video

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[VIDEO] The beginning of the video (embedded in the main Loop post) is all about unboxing. If you want to skip ahead to the actual features, jump to about five minutes in.

One thing Jeff does that really shows off the difference between Apple Watch Series 3 and Series 4? He puts both on his wrist at the same time, so you really get a sense of how much more screen real estate you get with the Series 4. Nicely done.

Oddly satisfying videos

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[VIDEO] These videos (the first one is embedded in the main Loop post) really click for me. There’s a sense of the real world about these objects, a sense of gravity-obeying mass.

Every Apple TV screensaver: 4K, 60FPS, and 20x speed

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[VIDEO] If you are at all a fan of the Apple TV flyover screensavers, this video (embedded in the main Loop post) is terrifically fun to watch.

Here’s the order of the clips, from the video info section:

  • 00:00 China – 6 clips (3 clips 4K, 3 clips 1080p)
  • 01:29 Dubai – 6 (4K)
  • 03:33 Greenland – 3 (2x 4K, 1x 1080p)
  • 04:48 Hawaii – 6 (1080p)
  • 06:00 Hong Kong – 5 (4K)
  • 08:23 Int’l Space Station – 13 (4K) ⭐️locations below⭐️
  • 10:57 Liwa – 1 (4K)
  • 11:18 London – 4 (1080p)
  • 12:16 Los Angeles – 6 (4K)
  • 14:17 New York City – 5 (1080p)
  • 15:15 San Francisco – 11 (1080p)

ISS Locations:

  • 08:23 Africa (night)
  • 08:35 Africa and the Middle East
  • 08:52 California to Vegas
  • 09:01 Caribbean
  • 09:12 Caribbean Day
  • 09:30 China
  • 09:32 Iran and Afghanistan
  • 09:37 Ireland to Asia
  • 09:47 Korea and Japan (night)
  • 10:01 New Zealand
  • 10:12 Sahara and Italy
  • 10:29 Southern California to Baja
  • 10:44 West Africa to the Alps

Enjoy!

New iPhone ad: Growth Spurt

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[VIDEO] Hard to wrap my head around this one. Watch the commercial (embedded in the main Loop post), then read on.

Watched it? OK. To me, the ad had nice special effects, was humorous, but seemed to be about the zoom lens, as if when you take a picture, things will appear larger. The focus was on the camera.

But check the text at the bottom of the ad page:

Everything you love just got bigger. Introducing iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. Super Retina in two sizes, including the largest display on an iPhone ever.

So it’s about the display being bigger, not about the camera. Confusing message.

The holy grail of art crime

Written by

WBUR:

The heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is something like the holy grail of art crime — and remains so even 28 years after it happened. In a little under an hour and a half, two thieves stole 13 irreplaceable artworks from the Boston institution.

And:

In the early hours of March 18, 1990, the city of Boston was still celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Two thieves dressed up in police uniforms and, at 1:24 a.m., simply rang the bell. The night security guard on duty, Rick Abath, let the two men in the Palace Road entrance. Abath called the second security guard on duty that night, Randy, back down to the desk. (Randy spoke to us on the condition that we only use his first name.) Then the would-be police officers handcuffed the two guards, and tied them up in the basement of the museum.

And:

“It was overwhelming to see what had been done. I mean to trash a museum like that. It was just like the barbarians had been through. I mean, to pull frames off the wall and shatter the glass, it was clearly not people that loved art that did that. I mean, cutting paintings out of frames. I mean, it’s unspeakable.”

Read the article, then watch the video. Fascinating.

iPhone XS Max: Jeff Benjamin’s excellent unboxing and feature walkthrough

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[VIDEO] I’ve long been a fan of Jeff Benjamin’s videos for 9to5Mac. In this one, Jeff unboxes his brand new iPhone XS Max, then takes us on a visual tour (video embedded in main Loop post), highlighting lots of features along the way.

Lots of new shiny, well presented, worth watching.

Robotic, self-solving Rubik’s cube

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[VIDEO] This is astonishing to me. Scramble up the Rubik’s Cube, set it down (or hold it still), and the brain and motors inside will twist and turn until the puzzle is back to its perfectly solved self. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.

Follow the headline link for lots of images and detail on the construction (that looks to be C++ code driving the whole thing).

This felt like a glimpse into the future, where objects are self aware and know the way they are supposed to exist, using their motors and sensors, and self-awareness, to return back to normal when disturbed.

Enjoy. [H/T Mr. E]

Better You – A new Apple Watch ad that hits all the right notes

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[VIDEO] I absolutely love this new Apple Watch ad (embedded in the main Loop post), appearing in heavy rotation over the weekend. The ad cleverly tells a story, that of a person whose Apple Watch adds to their life, both in usefulness and in fitness.

Terrific work.

Pictures of the Moon, taken by an iPhone through a telescope

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Follow the headline link, then click on an image to step to the next one.

I’d be interested in hearing about the equipment Tom White used to take these images. I know he used an iPhone 7, but which telescope, and how did he connect phone to telescope?

And I wonder if he would get significantly better results if he used an iPhone XS.

I am a sucker for a good moon shot.

[H/T Oliver Thomas]

11 year old plays a masterful Classical Gas on ukulele

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[VIDEO] The fact that this kid is only 11 years old just knocks me out. Fantastic performance. Hard to believe this sound is coming out of a ukulele. Bravo, kid, bravo. Video embedded in man Loop post.

The making of the Apple Watch Series 4 fire, water, and vapor faces

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[VIDEO] Josh Rubin, Cool Hunting:

I vary between this info-dense watch face and the new ultra-minimal and very hypnotic Fire, Water, Liquid Metal and Vapor faces. And these faces are more special than Apple let on during their keynote. They’re not rendered—each face is high resolution video shot in a studio using real fire, water and vapor elements.

This is yet another example of the tremendous effort Apple puts into design detail. Check out the behind-the-scenes making-of video embedded in the main Loop post.

What’s in the Apple Watch box

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Zac Hall, 9to5Mac, pulled together a bunch of unboxing videos, and some insight into the Apple Watch packaging.

Two things that stuck out:

First, Apple Watch Series 3 without LTE will no longer include the 5W USB charging brick, although the charging cable is still included. You can buy these separately of course, but a lot of customers probably also have spare bricks from iPhones and other devices.

This change strikes me as similar to not including a headphone to Lightning adapter in the iPhone box. A practical decision, no doubt fueled by market research. Not an issue for most folks, I suspect.

The second thing that stuck out to me was the pure beauty of the Apple Watch Series 4 packaging, enthusiastically shown off by iJustine in the video embedded in the main Loop post.

Tim Cook on Good Morning America: The full interview

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[VIDEO] Tim Cook was on Good Morning America yesterday, talking about the new iPhones and Apple Watch. The video is embedded in the main Loop post. The whole thing was very watchable, but two notes:

First, it’s interesting to watch Tim doing a somewhat spontaneous interview. Granted, he’s practiced his talking points and knew the questions going in, but he’s gotten terrific at sharing his enthusiasm with just the right tone, not an easy thing to do.

And second, jump to about 3:05, where Robin Roberts asks Tim about the cost of the new iPhone. Tim’s response is both deft and interesting.

Shot on iPhone XS — Apple’s experiments in 4K, slo-mo, and time-lapse

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This is a marketing piece from Apple, showing off the iPhone X?. Note that the headline on Apple’s YouTube page uses iPhone XS. Capital S, not lower-case. As I said in this post, I do think Apple will settle on iPhone Xs, with a lower-case s.

That aside, the video embedded in the main Loop post is a bit of fun, with the real payoff (at least for me), in that last planetary bodies slo-mo shot. Pretty good for a phone camera.

You’re in a golf cart and a lion wants in. A lion.

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[VIDEO] People are in a golf cart, making their way through a Crimean safari park (video embedded in main Loop post). And then they come across a lion.

I mean, even if the lion is best friends with everyone on the golf cart, it’s a lion. A lion.

Apple Watch films and ads, and a buried warning

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Buried in Apple’s official Apple Watch Series 4 site is this page of videos, all worth a look.

One interesting bit, buried about 47 seconds into that last video, in a faint grey font. Take a look:

There’s a reference to the 5s, which might suggest that this is sourced from older video. And I don’t see the “not a medical device” warning in the other videos, even those that talk about heart rate and the ECG sensor.

That nit aside, these are fantastically produced videos, just gorgeous. Give ’em a look.