New York Intelligencer: Fifth Avenue Version 1.0 was, despite its success, an imperfect retail space. The above-ground cube was beautiful, but the there was often a line at the door, because the staircase and the elevator could take only so many people at a time. That was especially true on, say, a holiday-season Saturday, when the store itself reached capacity. Once you made your way in, you were—despite the light coming down through the glass cube—pretty clearly in a subterranean space. Not awful; just kind of basement-like. Subtle upgrades like beige marble flooring could have helped soften that underground feel, adding warmth and elegance to the environment.

The principal changes, in this renovation, address that dramatically. Most significantly, the floor has been lowered, items like a ceramic tile has been installed, and the roof elevated, adding about 8 feet to the ceiling height. (Most of the clearance was reclaimed from a parking garage below.) The newly raised plaza has been perforated with a grid of round skylights that will bring sunlight down into the store. Eighteen of them, which Apple’s people are calling “sky lenses,” have stainless-steel bezels, mirror-finished, and they’re raised above the plaza, sort of like shiny mushrooms. Chris Brathwaite, senior director for Apple retail and design, tells me that they’re meant to foster “sitting, selfies, and reflection,” which seems extremely likely to pan out.

The Fifth Avenue Store will always be my favourite. I spoke to Steve Jobs and his wife outside the location five years before Apple opened it. He was looking at the plaza and pointing things out to his wife. He knew then what the store would look like. I hope I get to revisit this store in the near future.

If you are interested in Apple’s new Apple Watch Series 5, here’s a bit of fun.

Follow the headline link, scroll through all the eye candy, until you get to a section labeled Apple Watch Studio.

Tap that pride-outlined button labeled “Create your style”. This is the latest and greatest take on stepping through the cases and bands (don’t miss the Side view button) to get a sense of all the styles and colors, to home in on your custom Apple Watch.

Next up, open the link on your iPhone, scroll down again, this time stopping at the section labeled “See Apple Watch Series 5 in AR”. Go ahead and tap the “View in AR” button.

You can drag the virtual Apple Watch to a new location, and walk around to get a better view. If you’ve got long enough arms, you can even get the Apple Watch onto your arm and take a screenshot.

Have not yet figured out a way to change the model. Ping me if you figure that one out.

Apple, keeping the whimsy alive.

Jessica Dolcourt, CNET:

One day, 5G will become the new standard for data speeds, but for now, growth is slow and the coverage sporadic and limited. While Samsung says it already sold 2 million 5G phones, roadblocks litter the way between early adoption and mass use.

5G isn’t even close to ready for prime time. The current rollouts require you to be physically near (within feet) of a transceiver to get the top speeds. Move away from the transceiver and your speed drops significantly. And, obviously, if you live in the suburbs or beyond, it’ll be years before those transceivers make it out to your neck of the woods.

As Apple has shown time and again, they are patient, waiting until they can deliver a superior experience before they release a new product. 5G is just not there yet.

Apple has time. And they’ve got plenty of work to do, both in absorbing Intel’s modem business (which they acquired in July) and in incorporating that technology into a carrier-agnostic 5G modem that won’t overheat in the hot summer sun.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

At its event last week, Apple previewed a new version of Filmic Pro running on the iPhone 11 Pro. It was a compelling demo with the app able to record from multiple cameras simultaneously, like recording the front and back camera together.

If you haven’t seen this demo, take a minute to watch that part of last week’s Apple event. The demo starts at about 1:27:06. It’s short.

What really struck me, and the subject of Benjamin’s post, is the ability of Filmic Pro to record both the front facing camera and the selfie camera at the same time. A very specific use-case, true, but if you have that need, this is a big deal. And, I suspect, there are movie makers who will add this to their bag of tricks and we’ll start to see the double-camera effect make its way into indie features.

The multi-cam recording relies on new API introduced in iOS 13. At the WWDC session on the subject, Apple stressed that this required significant reworking of the hardware pipeline of their devices, but that the necessary changes have been made in the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and the new iPad Pro models.

If you have one of those existing models, take a read through the linked article.

Lots of great hooks. RIP, Ric.

AV Club:

Nearly 25 years after bringing his iconic The Far Side strip to an end, Gary Larson seems to have come around on this whole “internet” thing. The cartoonist has previously pushed back against any digital reproductions of his work—presumably because he was single-handedly keeping the calendar industry alive and the big, hardcover Far Side collections have become family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation—but now the official Far Side website has been updated with what appears to be new art and a message about a “new online era of The Far Side” coming soon.

This is the best news I’ve read all year. I’m one of those who have the big, hardcover Far Side collection books (literally, 20lbs of funny!) and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with after so long away.

New York Times:

Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive and chairman, has resigned from the board of Apple, whose growing Hollywood operation would have made it harder for him to fully engage as one of its directors.

Mr. Iger, 68, resigned on Tuesday, according to an Apple filing on Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Apple called Mr. Iger an “exemplary” board member, one of Apple’s “most trusted business partners” and “a role model for an entire generation” of leaders. “More than anything, Bob is our friend,” Apple continued.

Everyone will read this as being due to to the competition between Apple TV+ and Disney+ but as Tim Bajarin said on Twitter, “Iger resigning is to avoid any possible conflict of interest since they both now have streaming services. They actually co-exist well but this takes any potential threat from Wall Street over conflict of interest out of the picture.”

CNBC:

Apple disputed the negative call by Goldman Sachs on Friday, which hit the stock, taking issue with the firm’s negative characterization on how Apple would account for its new TV+ service.

Goldman said that the one-year free trial of the TV+ service would have a “material negative impact” on earnings by showing lower hardware profit margins. Goldman believes that this issue will send the stock significantly lower, so the firm cut its 12-month price target.

“We do not expect the introduction of Apple TV+, including the accounting treatment for the service, to have a material impact on our financial results,” the company said in a statement to CNBC.

Interesting that Apple felt the need to respond to the Goldman Sachs call.

Hollywood Reporter:

After a nearly year-long courting process that saw J.J. Abrams and his wife and Bad Robot partner Katie McGrath take meetings with tech giants and traditional studios, the duo ultimately opted to take less money than they could have earned to stay with WarnerMedia.

Sources say the tech powerhouse came close to paying more than $500 million for Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, which wound up taking less money from its eventual home.

I can’t even imagine being in a position where I could turn down half a billion dollars but given the details in the article, you can kind of understand why Abrams did it.

Reddit:

I live about 15 minutes away and once I was home, I slid open the plastic seal, lift the box and immediately had a moment of shock. I’ve purchased many iPhones before so am quite familiar with Apple’s packaging and what not. There was a phone in the box that resembled the size and shape of an actual XS Max and had a decent weight to it. However, I immediately noticed something was wrong.

Grain of salt here. Personally, I’ve never bought an iPhone from an Apple Store and not opened it at the Apple Store.

That said, it could be true. If so, a pretty shocking experience.

UPDATE: Since this was originally posted, the Reddit post on this topic has been deleted.

Stephen Hall, 9to5Google:

It’s a sad reality, but if Apple made the Watch compatible with Android, it would be bar-none the best smartwatch for Android phones. It already is the fastest, most useful, and most technically impressive wearable you can buy.

And:

As it is, Android users are limited to Samsung’s Tizen-running watches (arguably the best Apple Watch alternatives) and the countless Wear OS options from Fossil Group, Mobvoi, and others.

It’d be interesting if Apple could find a way to integrate Apple Watch with Android just enough to whet the Android user’s appetites, just enough to get them to give an iPhone a try.

Jason Snell:

Something strange happened at Apple’s iPhone 11 event on Tuesday: the Apple Watch stole the show.

And:

Before the Apple Watch first came out, I spent a couple of years wearing the Pebble, a proto-smartwatch. When people asked me how it was to use, I always responded by saying, “it tells the time.” Yes, that was me poking fun at the tiny feature set of the Pebble, but it was also highlighting what is fundamentally the most important part of a watch — displaying the current time on its face.

And:

Thanks to some clever redesigned display technology and a bunch of other upgrades, the Apple Watch Series 5 will show the current time on its face, no jiggling required.

I do get Jason’s point, and the always-on display is a welcome add-on, no doubt. But star of the show? For me, it was the camera.

Grain of salt, but from a reasonably reliable source:

Reliable sources are saying iPhone 11 and 11 Pro do include the hardware for bilateral charging, but that it is software disabled. Uncertain whether this was removed prior to final production run.

— Sonny Dickson (@SonnyDickson) September 13, 2019

This is the number one thing I will look for in the forthcoming iFixit teardown. Second is the battery size, as compared to the last generation models.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today announced a new billing grace period for subscriptions, which will let subscribers who experience unsuccessful auto-renewals continue to use an app’s paid content while Apple attempts to collect payment.

This will be a useful feature for developers as customers who do not immediately update their billing when a subscription fee becomes due can currently lose access to premium features right away.

Excellent move.

Heh. Nice collage.

Funny, but I actually love the look of the new camera bump. Might be purely anticipation of the updated camera functionality.

There’s been a lot of discussion about Apple being late to the 5G game. I get it, 5G is incredibly fast compared to both LTE and even your home WiFi. And Samsung has it now.

But.

From the headline linked PC Mag article:

On a hot Las Vegas morning, my two Galaxy S10 5G phones kept overheating and dropping to 4G. This behavior is happening with all of the millimeter-wave, first-generation, Qualcomm X50-based phones when temperatures hit or exceed 85 degrees. We saw it with T-Mobile in New York, with Verizon in Providence, and now with AT&T in Las Vegas. It’s happened on Samsung and LG phones, with Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia network hardware.

AT&T and T-Mobile both said they’ll have phones with Qualcomm’s second-generation 5G modem, the X55, later this year. This persistent overheating behavior just makes me more confident in recommending that consumers wait to buy a 5G phone.

If you’re interested in 5G, read the entire article. But one takeaway is that 5G and the rollout of the equipment that makes 5G possible is just not ready for prime time. It’s not nearly in enough places, and the first generation modems are prone to overheating.

Apple has long had a strategy of entering a market only when they could deliver brilliant performance. If Apple rolled out a 5G phone now, they’d have to raise the cost of their phones, and deliver a less than stellar experience to their customers. Lose-lose.

Will 5G be ready for Apple by September 2020? Only one way to tell. Watch next years keynote.

Scroll down. There’s Jony, with a bit of scruff, and a few other folks you might recognize.

I’m surprised no one has built a Tumblr dedicated to closeups of well known people at various Apple events.

Follow the headline link, hit play to get the video loaded. Hit pause again if you’d like.

Notice the tiny vertical lines in the scrub bar. Each one marks one of the key announcements in the video. Hover over a line to see a bit of text appear with details of that announcement.

Here’s a pic showing this.

Brian Roemmele:

“Hey Siri, we lost Spot the dog, do you know where he is?”

Siri:”Spot is located 87 feet forward and down 2 feet from the height of the iPhone. Please hold up your phone and follow the Balloon to Spot’s location”

It’s all about spatial awareness.

The “U” in the U1 chip relates to the Ultra-Wide Band Radio Technology (UWB) [1] technology it uses. UWB can be used for many application and use cases. One use case that will become very large for Apple as they move to AR/MR technology and Apple Glasses is to be able to track spacial relationships of objects. One way to do this is using lasers and IR systems, and Apple is already doing this to some degree with FaceID and Animoji. The other way to do this is via the radio spectrum.

Lots of detail here on a chip that is an important addition to Apple’s custom chip arsenal.

Interesting explainer. Note that the Series 4 Apple Watch also has an LTPO display.

Glad to see the 3% Daily Cash list growing for Apple Card.

As this list grows, it’d be nice to have some signal that a merchant I’m about to pay is part of the 3% club. That will definitely get me to use my Apple Card, instead of my default card that offers better benefits, at least for me.

My rule of thumb:

• 3%: Apple, Uber, Uber Eats, Walgreens, Duane Reed
• 2%: Any Apple Pay purchase
• 1%: Everywhere else

And it’s that last category that has me reach for my default credit card. 3% is compelling to me. As the list grows, I might be tempted to promote my Apple Card to the top spot in my Wallet.