Last week, Trump announced that the United States would place a 10 percent tariff on another $300 billion worth of goods imported from China, starting September 1st.
And:
Kuo writes that Apple has likely made “proper preparations” for such a tariff, and he predicts that Apple will “absorb most of the additional costs” in the mid-short term. Thus, Kuo believes that “prices of hardware products and shipment forecasts for the U.S. market will remain unchanged” despite the tariff.
Obviously, the cost of any such tariff needs to be paid. If Apple eats the tariff cost, rather than passing it along to consumers, that will impact their bottom line.
Starting next year, Google will prompt users to make a choice between Google and three other rival options as their default search provider. Google invited search providers to bid as part of an auction on the new choice screen, which will appear when a user sets up a new Android smartphone or tablet in Europe for the first time.
This is all about avoiding big EU antitrust fines. To get a sense of what the “choose your search provider” interface looks like, check out the pic in the Google blog post announcing the change.
Not clear if this change will be limited to the EU. Also not clear if this will impact Apple. Google pays for that default search provider spot. Will Apple be forced to open that spot up to similar competition?
If you’ve been experiencing withdrawals since the Women’s World Cup ended last month, we’ve got some good news: The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo are less than a year away. Even more reason to be excited is that there will be six brand new sports coming to the 2020 Olympics, and two returning favorites to watch.
While gymnastics, swimming and track and field usually steal the show, there are even more events to watch in 2020. Get excited: Here’s what’s on tap.
I’m a complete Olympics junkie so the more sports, the better. New events are Karate, Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, and Surfing.
A teenager from Ireland may have found a way to rescue our oceans from the growing plastic pollution problem.
A walk on the beach led Fionn Ferreira to develop his project on microplastic extraction from water for the annual Google Science Fair. The project won the grand prize of $50,000 in educational funding at this year’s event.
For his project, Ferreira added oil and magnetite to water and mixed in a solution emulating plastic waste in the ocean. When the microplastics latched on to the ferrofluids, Ferreira dipped a magnet into the solution three times to remove both substances, leaving clear water.
This young man has come up with a brilliantly simple solution. Whether it can be used commercially is the question.
When it comes to film soundtracks, it’s tough to top music tied to Quentin Tarantino movies. On the heels of Tarantino’s newest film: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the famed director has curated a playlist for Spotify that walks through some of the best songs from his 9 film discography.
The “takeover” is comprised of 66 songs that stretch for around three-and-a-half hours and includes classics like Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man, Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) by The Delfonics, David Bowie’s Cat People (Putting Out The Fire), and many more.
Like his movies or not, his musical selections are almost always spot on.
Apple on Thursday said it is suspending a program called grading that helps the company improve Siri for its users. The process uses snippets of audio files to determine whether Siri heard the command correctly or whether it was invoked by mistake.
“We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.”
To be clear, Apple never hid the fact it was using snippets of audio to improve Siri, but a piece from The Guardian quoting stories of sex and crime was enough for Apple to reevaluate its process.
I understand Apple’s point of view, and something had to be done to quell any fears from its users about privacy. I think they have the best solution by allowing people to opt-in to help the company improve Siri.
I will be one of those people.
I believe that if I’m going to point out the flaws and mistakes that Siri makes—and I often do—I should also be willing to help improve the service if allowed to do so. Apple is giving me that opportunity.
Sharing those snippets with Apple doesn’t concern me in the least, especially when you consider what they use.
Here is what Apple told The Guardian:
“A small portion of Siri requests are analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.” The company added that a very small random subset, less than 1% of daily Siri activations, are used for grading, and those used are typically only a few seconds long.
I understand that a lot of people will not want to send Apple their data, even under those conditions. That’s their choice.
I also understand that it’s oversimplifying the matter to say, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” However, what I don’t want to see is people complaining about Siri when they have no interest in helping to fix it.
Apple has always been doomed, even when they’re not. The media always finds a way to report the bad about Apple, and sometimes the bad is really hard to find. We also take a look at the improvements to Apple Maps in iOS 13.
Apple Music has rebranded its The A-List: Alternative playlist as ALT CTRL, spotlighting new music across the broad spectrum of alternative music, Billboard can exclusively reveal. The playlist will be handpicked by the company’s staff curators.
ALT CTRL’s playlist art will feature a new artist each week, with the first cover stars being Haim, the Los Angeles pop-rock trio who just released the new single “Summer Girl” on Wednesday.
Other artists featured on ALT CTRL this week include Death Cab for Cutie, Billie Eilish, Fitz and the Tantrums, Twenty One Pilots, White Reaper and Clairo. The playlist will be constantly updated with new songs.
If you love hearing stories about Steve Jobs and Apple, carve out some time and immerse yourself in master storyteller Scott Knaster’s one-man show, Adjacent to Greatness.
Ignore the production values and just listen to tales from someone who was in the room, a fly on the wall, at some very interesting moments in time.
911 dispatchers in Nebraska say an Apple upgrade is to blame for a rise in the number of unintentional calls.
Sarpy County Communications in Papillion said it has received 7,000 abandoned calls so far this year, taking up valuable time and resources that could used for true emergencies.
As you might have guessed, these hangups are due to accidental 911 calls triggered by fall detection and Emergency SOS.
“My Apple watch, while [I was] wrestling with the grandchildren, called 911. All of the sudden my watch was talking to me and asking if everything was OK,” he said. In a panic, he hung up.
Is this a design problem? A user education problem? Both?
Officials say if you do misdial 911, please stay on the line to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
If you stay on the line, you can let the 911 operator know it was a misdial, save them trying to track you down in case the emergency was real.
In response to concerns raised by a Guardian story last week over how recordings of Siri queries are used for quality control, Apple is suspending the program world wide. Apple says it will review the process that it uses, called grading, to determine whether Siri is hearing queries correctly, or being invoked by mistake.
In addition, it will be issuing a software update in the future that will let Siri users choose whether they participate in the grading process or not.
And:
“We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.”
So opens Apple’s latest Behind the Mac ad, officially called “Test the Impossible”.
I love great writing and, to me, this is a great open. It speaks to me. Gives me permission to fail. Addresses the same soft call to genius as Here’s to the crazy ones.
I’ve always felt Macs were different. Special.
Nice writing, Apple.
UPDATE: Turns out this is from a speech Neil Gaiman gave in 2012. Here’s a link to Neil’s tweet laying this out. Yeah, he can write. [H/T Jon Alper]
During its third quarter earnings call earlier this week, Apple delivered good news as it beat estimates and saw revenue reach a new June quarter record. Chief among the reasons it did so was its services category which continues to grow exponentially. In fact, the services category is now bigger than Apple was as a whole ten years ago according to Horace Dediu.
What an incredible rise for services. Apple is still bullish on what services will make for the company over the next few years, which says a lot about what they expect to happen.
The Federal Trade Commission is probing Facebook Inc to check if the social media company’s acquisitions were aimed at snapping up potential rivals before they could become a threat, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
That’s one way to look at it. I see Facebook buying up companies they think will be the next popular social media thing allowing it to continue expanding into “what’s cool.”
Apple is hosting a new Music Lab that will allow attendees to create their own unique remix of Billie Eilish’s song “you should see me in a crown.” The sessions will be held in every Apple Store worldwide, starting tomorrow, according to Apple.
“In this session, you’ll deconstruct Billie Eilish’s song “you should see me in a crown,” find out what inspired her, and create your own version of the song using GarageBand on iPhone. Devices will be provided,” according to Apple’s web site.
According to Apple, Labs dive deeper into a creative approach by getting you started on a project that you can take further. Labs build on your existing skills.
The Labs session is part of a series that will see a Remix with Madonna and other artists in the future, Apple said.
I really like posts like this one: Very visual, easy to make your way through, focused on a single topic.
In this case, it’s a series of GIFs showing the key gestures your want to master to get the most out of iPadOS. Worth your time, if only to make sure you are aware of all of these.
Are you a bit of a gym rat? Perhaps a circuit all laid out with different days for, say, chest, back, and legs, with some cardio in there for good measure?
If this sounds like you, take the time to check out the newly released SmartGym 4. SmartGym 4 is a gorgeous solution to your exercise routine tracking. It’ll help guide your workouts and is closely integrated with your Apple Watch.
When the opening riff of Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” came through the radio in 1969, everything changed. Jimmy Page altered the course of popular music with a single guitar: his 1959 Fender Telecaster. Co-designed with Page, the Fender Jimmy Page Telecaster is an homage to that legendary instrument, which created some of the most iconic riffs of the 20th Century.
I remember Jimmy playing mostly Gibson guitars, but any instrument co-designed by Page is worth a look.
Timed with the spread of its first-party mapping data, Apple is giving the Maps app a big upgrade in iOS 13 that represents the company’s biggest push yet to overtake Google Maps as the world’s most trusted, go-to mapping service. Apple Maps in iOS 13 represents – if you’re in the US at least – Apple’s purest vision to date for a modern mapping service.
I really like Apple Maps these days. Yes, it had a difficult start, but that was years ago and Apple has been doing a lot of work to make Maps the best.
If you spent any time looking into which Mac desktop or notebook to buy before you paid out for a shiny new machine, you’ll have seen Apple’s website extolling the fact that many of them have T2 security chips. That’s nice. Only, it’s more than nice, it’s more than a way to invisibly secure your Mac, it is a process that has a dramatic and visible effect on just about everything you do.
And:
It sits there to ensure, first of all, that nothing can ever get loaded onto your machine without you explicitly wanting it to. The T2 chip provides a secure boot, which means that the only things that can run at start up is trusted, approved macOS software.
And:
Built into it is a dedicated Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) hardware engine. This makes sure the data on your storage drives is encrypted and because it’s done in hardware, there’s no hit to the speed of your Mac as macOS reads and writes data.
And:
There’s one more security feature the T2 chip brings that doesn’t get appreciated because it doesn’t tend to get noticed. If you have a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with a T2 chip and you close the lid, the T2 chip switches off the microphone.
Just a few highlights. Read the whole thing. Terrific stuff.
One thing that Apple has always been good at is being doomed. They were doomed when the Macintosh was only a year old, when they didn’t sell as many Macs as the market analysts thought necessary.
Doomed when Windows exploded on the marketplace, even as Apple cultivated a growing set of lifelong passionate followers.
Doomed when Jobs left (Michael Dell famously said, “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”)
Doomed when the iPhone was a few years in, and the big players entered the market (there was even a funeral).
Click through the link and take a look at the chunk of the pie chart labeled Services. Year over year, that’s up about 13%. This is Apple shifting focus, recognizing the difficulty of sustaining iPhone’s explosive growth and sliding into other sources of revenue, a model started years ago.
While Services is still growing rapidly—it was up 13 percent over last year’s quarter—it’s not the fastest mover in Apple’s portfolio. That’s the category formerly known as Other, and recently relabeled as Wearable/Home/Accessories. The home of Apple Watch and AirPods has seen 10 straight quarters of double-digit percentage growth. After seven straight quarters with growth percentages in the 30s, the category revenue shot up 48 percent this quarter.
The doomed line used to bother me. But now I find it a valuable clue as to the level of understanding shown by the doomsayer. Crying doom is easy, but it missed the forest for the trees.
Apple continues to amaze me. Yes, there are flaws, unavoidable for a company this large, with products this complex. But one thing Apple ain’t, is doomed.
Amazon is so new, and so dramatic in its speed and scale and aggression, that we can easily forget how many of the things it’s doing are actually very old. And, we can forget how many of the slightly dusty incumbent retailers we all grew up with were also once radical, daring, piratical new businesses that made people angry with their new ideas.
The linked piece by Ben Evans shows both how everything old is new again and how systematically Jeff Bezos is scouring the old for ideas to repurpose to keep Amazon growing.
One example:
In Émile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames, a tremendously entertaining novel about the creation of department stores in 1860s Paris, Octave Mouret builds a small shop into a vast new enterprise, dragging it into existence through force of will, inspiration, and genius. In the process, he creates fixed pricing, discounts, marketing, advertising, merchandising, display, and something called “returns.” He sends out catalogs across the country. His staff is appalled that he wants to sell a new fabric at less than cost; “that’s the whole idea!” he shouts. Loss leaders are nothing new.
Meanwhile, the other half of the story follows the small, traditional shopkeepers in the area, who are driven out of business one by one. Zola sees them as part of the past to be swept away. They’re doomed, and they don’t understand—indeed, they’re both baffled and outraged by Mouret’s new ideas.
“In terms of exclusions, we’ve been making the Mac Pro in the U.S.,” Cook said. “We want to continue to do that. So we’re working and investing currently in capacity to do so, because we want to continue to be here. And so that’s what’s behind the exclusions. So we’re explaining that and hope for a positive outcome.”
It’s reassuring that Apple is going to continue Mac Pro production in the U.S. It makes perfect sense considering they have been making the current model here.
“This was our biggest June quarter ever — driven by all-time record revenue from Services, accelerating growth from Wearables, strong performance from iPad and Mac and significant improvement in iPhone trends,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “These results are promising across all our geographic segments, and we’re confident about what’s ahead. The balance of calendar 2019 will be an exciting period, with major launches on all of our platforms, new services and several new products.”
Revenue for all of Apple’s product categories including Mac, iPad, Wearables, and Services were up in the current quarter over the same period last year. iPhone revenue was down this year over last.
According to Apple, international sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
