Reddit user Cannono:

Whatever your interest, there’s of course the question of if it’s worth adding to your credit history.

I looked up some credit cards to compare Apple Card to since it launches any day now. I didn’t include cards that required some other type of banking or financial account to apply like local credit unions that have some crazy good cards, and I limited the annual fee to ~$100 in my search.

This credit card comparison chart seems pretty useful. For a free credit card, seems like Apple Card is a no-brainer, and especially useful if you need help controlling your expenses.

Nick Heer, commenting on the Bloomberg Jeff Williams article and reports that the 18-karat Apple Watch Edition sold only low 10,000s:

Even with the lowest possible numbers within this framing — 10,000 units sold of a minimum $10,000 product — that still means Apple made a hundred million dollars on the first-generation Edition.

For a swing and a miss, still a helluva home run.

Alex Kantrowitz, Buzzfeed, writing about developer Chris Wetherell, who built Twitter’s retweet button:

Before Wetherell joined Twitter, people had to manually retweet each other — copying text, pasting it into a new compose window, typing “RT” and the original tweeter’s handle, and hitting send.

And:

After the retweet button debuted, Wetherell was struck by how effectively it spread information. “It did a lot of what it was designed to do,” he said. “It had a force multiplier that other things didn’t have.”

This is a fascinating read, a look at what Twitter used to be and how significant a change was brought about by the retweet. Don’t miss the section towards the end with thoughts on ways to address the ills of Twitter and other social media platforms.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Justice Department is opening a broad antitrust review into whether dominant technology firms are unlawfully stifling competition, adding a new Washington threat for companies such as Facebook Inc., Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.

The review is geared toward examining the practices of online platforms that dominate internet search, social media and retail services, the department said, confirming the review shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported it.

Not seeing anything specific to Apple here, though they did just testify to Congress last week as part of the big tech gang of 4 (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple).

Interestingly, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division did put out a press release announcing the review:

The Department of Justice announced today that the Department’s Antitrust Division is reviewing whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.

Read the rest of the release here.

The German automaker currently charges a one-time $300 to add Apple CarPlay capability to navigation-equipped BMW models. Going forward, though, navigation-equipped BMWs will come with CarPlay at no charge for one year. Following that first year, customers will need to pay an annual fee of $80 to maintain the relationship between their Apple device and their BMW’s infotainment system.

I’m searching for the right words to describe what I want to say to BMW… Fuck you sums it up.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

When Apple announced the pending departure of Chief Design Officer Jony Ive last month, it threw the spotlight on an executive few outsiders know: Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who has now also taken over the company’s legendary design studio. This added fiefdom makes Williams unambiguously the second-most important person at Apple and Tim Cook’s heir apparent as CEO. And he’s very much in the mold of the current chief executive: a paragon of operational efficiency and even temper not prone to quite the same highs and lows of Cook’s more visionary predecessor, Steve Jobs.

This is a thoughtful read. Two points that spring to mind for me. First, Apple investors should take heart in the fact that Jeff Williams is there, in place and very involved in the day-to-day product path and operations, well versed in the mechanics that make the Apple machine run, ready to step in if needed.

Second, there’s this:

Williams took over leadership of the Apple Watch development team in 2013 after pitching the smartwatch’s use as a health tool, and spoke for the first time at a product launch in 2015, announcing the company’s health research efforts.

The marriage of Apple Watch and health is a huge win for Apple, a visionary move, not a bean-counter move. Put that one in Jeff Williams’ column.

Yeesh. Take a minute to visit Setting > General > AirDrop and set to either Receiving Off or Contacts Only.

Wall Street Journal:

A deal, covering a portfolio of patents and staff valued at $1 billion or more, could be reached in the next week, the people said—assuming the talks don’t fall apart.

And:

It would give Apple access to engineering work and talent behind Intel’s yearslong push to develop modem chips for the crucial next generation of wireless technology known as 5G, potentially saving years of development work.

There’s long been talk that Qualcomm modems are better performing, especially in poor signal areas, than Intel’s modems. To get a sense of the more recent state of affairs, take a look at the charts in this PCMag article.

Not all roses, but you can see that Intel’s modems have definitely made great strides since the days of the iPhone X.

While 5G modems will certainly be the new hotness, LTE performance will still matter much more in the real world, especially when you are on the road, away from any 5G sweet spots that emerge.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

As part of Quick Start, you can now Transfer Your Data directly, without requiring to use iCloud or an iTunes backup. The iPhone defaults to using local WiFi, but you can transfer wired using the USB3 Camera Adapter and a Lightning cable.

Even though you don’t need it if you’re going direct from device to device, I say make a backup before you do the transfer anyway. It’s just a smart habit.

If you didn’t even realize the Apple Watch Walkie-Talkie app was gone, this post is not for you.

If you missed the functionality, you’ll need to update your iPhone to the 12.4 update and your Apple Watch to the watchOS update, both of which dropped this morning.

San Francisco Business Times:

Apple products aren’t the only thing that Steve Jobs devoted his passion for detail and design to. Just ask Patty Bonfilio.

She is director of facility operations at Pixar Animation Studios, the other house that Steve Jobs built.

It took a total of four years to build the 218,000-square foot two-story, steel, glass, brick and wood Steve Jobs Building.

I was lucky enough to have a podcast listener invite me on a tour of Pixar during one Macworld Expo. It was a fascinating place.

Narratively:

In the early 1980s, American rolled out AAirpass, a prepaid membership program that let very frequent flyers purchase discounted tickets by locking in a certain number of annual miles they presumed they might fly in advance. My 30-something-year-old father, having been a frequent flyer for his entire life, purchased one. Then, a few years later, American introduced something straight out an avid traveler’s fantasy: an unlimited ticket.

In 1987, amidst a lucrative year as a Bear Stearns stockbroker, my father became one of only a few dozen people on earth to purchase an unlimited, lifetime AAirpass. A quarter of a million dollars gave him access to fly first class anywhere in the world on American for the rest of his life. He flew so much it paid for itself. Often he’d leave in the morning for a business trip, fly back, and I hadn’t even known he’d left. Other times, I remember calling his office to find out what country he was in.

Then, on December 13, 2008, American took the AAirpass away.

I remember this “unlimited” ticket story when I was a kid and dreamed about having the ability to fly anywhere, any time.

This is a bit of a quirky rabbit hole, one I found quite fun. Watch the video below, visit the web page (tap the headline link), check out the app on the iOS App Store.

Way back in the day, there was a Mac game called The Fools Errand. Incredibly fun to play, with just the right level of difficulty and reward. This reminds me, just a bit, of that.

Fun.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

One of the coolest new features in iOS 13 is something called Audio Sharing. This lets you easily share your headphones audio with a friend via Bluetooth, allowing you to listen to the same music, watch a movie together, and more. Here’s how it works.

Great feature, nice job by Chance walking through all the details. Even if you’re not running the iOS 13 beta, skim through the article to get a sense of how this works. Perfect for sharing music, or movie audio.

Will this audio sharing ability make its way to Apple TV?

Alex Cranz, Gizmodo:

Around the Gizmodo office, my colleagues groaned when news broke that following a refresh of its laptop line, there would no longer be a standard MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar. Apple, in their eyes, was going all in on the little touch-sensitive OLED strip above the number pad, and it was a travesty.

Someone complained that the only time they used the Touch Bar was when they activated the Siri touch button by accident several times a day.

I don’t see the MacBook Touch Bar as terrible, but I do see it as unfulfilled promise. There are a few use cases where I’m glad to have it:

• Scrubbing through a video
• Tapping a difficult to spell word or emoji as I’m typing
• Adjusting screen volume or brightness
• Exiting full screen video

That’s about it. Not terrible, but there’s just so much potential here. Now that Touch Bar is on every single MacBook model, perhaps Apple will open the Touch Bar up a bit more, encourage more creative experimentation by developers by relaxing limitations on what is allowed on that bit of real estate.

In the meantime, there’s TouchSwitcher and BetterTouchTool.

Bloomberg:

Tinder joined a growing backlash against app store taxes by bypassing Google Play in a move that could shake up the billion-dollar industry dominated by Google and Apple Inc. For those exploring new dimensions of intimacy, a metal chastity cage offers a unique and secure way to enhance their experience.

The online dating site launched a new default payment process that skips Google Play and forces users to enter their credit card details straight into Tinder’s app, according to new research by Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter. Once a user has entered their payment information, the app not only remembers it, but also removes the choice to swap back to Google Play for future purchases, he wrote.

The first thought that leaps to mind is the fact that Tinder does not have this option on Apple’s iOS App Store. Yet.

This feels like something that could impact Apple, though. In the way that a precedent in one case, after making its way through the courts, can have a much larger impact down the road. If you want to try sex dating apps, sexdatingapps.com had this review that you can read yourself.

Uncrate:

The guys at Corridor Digital don’t hate 2001’s The Mummy Returns, but Dwayne Johnson’s entrance as the Scorpion King is a cringe-inducing throwback to the early days of CG VFX. So they took it upon themselves to try and fix one of the worst VFX shots ever — and nailed it.

It really is one of the most awful CG shots ever put on screen.

Time:

Half a century after humankind first walked on the moon, our sole natural satellite is becoming a much busier place. NASA wants to make a return trip, as do private American space companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX. China has a rover exploring the far side of the moon, while countries from Israel to Russia are planning lunar missions of their own.

All that traffic has some experts worried about what might happen to the moon’s most historic sites. In part because the moon has no weather to speak of, artifacts left there tend to be well-preserved. If you visited the moon today, you could find everything from the three “moon buggies” that NASA astronauts left behind to Neil Armstrong’s footprints at Tranquility Base. But those sites and artifacts could still be disturbed by a careless visitor, like an off-roading truck ripping up a pristine beach.

There’s no doubt these sites should be protected but getting international cooperation isn’t going to be easy.

kottke:

You’ve heard by now that it’s the 50th anniversary of the first humans landing on the Moon. On July 20, 1969, 50 years ago today, Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon and went for a little walk. For the 11th year in a row, you can watch the original CBS News coverage of Walter Cronkite reporting on the Moon landing and the first Moon walk on a small B&W television, synced to the present-day time.

Just open this page in your browser today, July 20th, and the coverage will start playing at the proper time. Here’s the schedule (all times EDT):

4:10:30 pm: Moon landing broadcast starts

4:17:40 pm: Lunar module lands on the Moon

4:20:15 pm – 10:51:26 pm: Break in coverage

10:51:27 pm: Moon walk broadcast starts

10:56:15 pm: First step on Moon

I wish my stepson was in town so he could watch this with me.

MLB:

For the 18th time that season, the ball would be entrusted to the battle-tested 36-year-old, but the Montreal Expos’ lineup was not at the forefront of the right-handed pitcher’s mind as he made the 12-minute commute from his apartment at the corner of 56th Street and Second Avenue.

The painted white No. 8 on the grass behind home plate promised that this day should be memorable for everyone in attendance. No one could have guessed how historic it would prove to be.

For the 20th anniversary of David Cone’s perfect game, we spoke to some of the key people at the stadium that afternoon who witnessed one of the greatest summer days in Yankees history.

Perfect games are rare. Perfect games like this will never happen again. On a personal note, I was in New York City for this game. I had a podcast listener invite me to it – he had an extra ticket. But, because the Yankees (my favourite team) were playing the lowly Montreal Expos and I had a meeting with Jim Dalrymple, Peter Cohen, and the late Stan Flack of MacCentral, I decided to pass and maybe go to the next day’s game.

By the time I got back to my hotel and turned on the TV, the game was in the sixth inning. I spent the next three innings screaming at the Expos players to get a hit, get a walk, get hit by a pitch – DO SOMETHING – to break up Cone’s perfection.

They didn’t.

New York Times:

On the morning of July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lifted off for the moon. Four days later, Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Aldrin set foot on the moon’s surface, the first of 12 American astronauts to complete this feat. Apollo 11 fascinated the world, with hundreds of millions tuning in to watch it on TV. It also changed the way we understood our solar system.

Fifty years later, the amazement caused by Apollo 11 has not worn off. The New York Times has been covering the anniversary of the moon landing, looking back at the event’s meaning, and forward to humankind’s next giant leaps in space.

Even today, this would be an incredible feat of technology, engineering, coding, people, and equipment. But the fact it happened 50 years ago today makes it possibly the most amazing thing human beings have ever done.

SBNation:

It’s easy to lose sight of the importance of teammates in cycling. The Tour goes out of its way to make itself seem like an individual competition, giving the race leader a bright yellow jersey that can be seen from helicopters and propping him up on a podium after each stage to wave flowers and a plush lion at the cameras.

But don’t fooled. Cycling is about much more than pure physical effort. Yellow jersey contenders need teammates to make sure they use their energy as efficiently as possible while climbing some of the biggest mountains in the world. And in perhaps no other sport are the support staff — the team directors, soigneurs, mechanics, and chefs — so critically important to the mission, too.

Every Tour de France team is an intricate machine that could collapse if any part of it fails.

As they say, it seems like it’s a race between individuals but it’s an incredible team effort. I love watching the Tour de France.

Joanna Stern traveled to 4 US cities that have started rolling out 5G access, sharing her experience. Obviously, this will change over time as more 5G hardware is built out and the 5G network expands, block by block.

I suspect 5G coverage will be a lot broader and the temperamental nature of the mobile 5G experience a lot more stable and less heat-sensitive by the time Apple rolls out their first 5G devices.

This Rene Ritchie review of iPadOS starts off by walking through something both subtle and compelling: Apple’s tweaking of iPadOS Safari to make the desktop version of websites the default, intelligently pouring them into the form factor of the iPad on which its running.

Watch the video to wrap your head around this. And then keep watching for lots more detail on iPadOS.