Sir Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer of Apple, Inc., is sitting across from me at a seamless white oak table. We’ve met a few times before, and I know he cares about watches. He must, right? But I’ve never actually asked him. So I do. And thank God, he does – he recounts a tale of buying an Omega Speedmaster Professional in the early ’90s.
I exhale, because the hypothesis of this interview, at least in my mind (likely not in Apple’s), is that the watch industry and its all-too-vocal supporters have got it all wrong. Jony, the creator of what is, by at least one definition, the number one watch on Earth, is a friend, not a foe. But, like any great question of power and influence, it’s not so simple.
Ive can be obtuse in interviews sometimes but it’s still interesting to read his thoughts about design.
Apple and Bandai soon entered into an agreement. Sirkin returned to Cupertino and put a team of engineers onto the project to help him design the device internals. They codenamed the project Pippin, after the type of apple, because the name was already registered by Apple and it hadn’t been used yet.
The core technology would come from the Macintosh—specifically the new PowerPC line. To keep costs down, they opted for the low-end PowerPC 603 rather than the more powerful but much more expensive 604 processor. The Pippin, then, would be a low-cost Macintosh designed for the living room. A clone by a different name, for a different purpose.
Immediately, things got complicated.
I remember when this was announced thinking, “Well, that’s never going to work…” We’ve posted about this before and both pieces give a good overview of what happened and why the Pippin failed. The Pippin went along with the proposed “Apple Internet Cafes” around the same time as projects that showed the dysfunction of the company just before Jobs came back.
“Do you have a better idea?” replied Hendrickson, apologetically.
Poindexter didn’t, and when the California Clipper took to the sky that afternoon he was sitting at its radio desk next to Hendrickson. With the late afternoon sun glinting off her metallic grey hull, the flying boat turned and headed towards Pearl Harbour.
Somewhere out there in the Pacific, a Japanese battle fleet was doing exactly the same thing.
What an incredible story. Thanks to my friend John Welch for the link.
Today we announce Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone. The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.
You can jump to that page and click on examples of Google Assistant using Google Duplex to make phone calls, interact with real-world people.
But the best thing to do is jump to this Verge page and watch the video of Google CEO Sundar Pichai actually running those demos. It’s incredible.
I’ve encountered two waves of thinking about this. On one hand, there’s the thinking that robots are coming for our jobs, that this technology will displace human assistants, human call centers, and that we’ll have an even larger wave of junk calls to deal with.
But on the positive side, consider this tweet:
People who have difficulty speaking, people who have difficulty hearing, people who get anxiety when speaking on the phone, people who are not native language speakers. All are going to have their lives significantly improved by AI-driven calling. https://t.co/QvYLkPBfpZ
— Steve Streza ? (he/they) (@SteveStreza) May 8, 2018
Well worth considering the good that can come from this technology.
Watch the video below (courtesy of The Verge) to get a sense of Google’s state-of-the-union in terms of augmented reality and object identification. The big move Google made is promoting this technology to the Camera app, giving up precious screen real estate to a Google Lens button.
Augmented reality is one area where Apple has held its own, perhaps even moved ahead of Google in some ways. But this exposure of the Google Lens platform at the highest level is a strategic move by Google.
If you love games, follow the link and search for your favorite. If nothing else, click through to your favorite old-timey platform (the Mac OS Classic page, say), and check out the huge wave of titles. Fun.
In the iOS 11.4 Beta, Apple introduced a new called USB Restricted Mode. In fact, the feature made its first appearance in the iOS 11.3 Beta, but was later removed from the final release. This is how it works:
“To improve security, for a locked iOS device to communicate with USB accessories you must connect an accessory via lightning connector to the device while unlocked – or enter your device passcode while connected – at least once a week.”
And:
In other words, law enforcement will have at most 7 days from the time the device was last unlocked to perform the extraction using any known forensic techniques, be it logical acquisition or passcode recovery via GreyKey or other services.
It will be interesting to see if this mode survives through to the actual public release of 11.4. A chess move. Will the GreyKey folks have a follow-up? Or will all those $30K GreyKey devices become useless against updated phones?
Starting later this year, consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and purchase your application.
That’s a huge drop from the 70/30 split they had up to this point.
When Microsoft delivers you a customer through any other method, such as in a collection on Microsoft Store or any other owned Microsoft properties, and purchases your application, you will receive 85% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application
Note that this structure does not include games, which stick to the 70/30 split.
Does this apply any pressure to Apple to make a similar move? Windows is not quite a direct competitor to iOS, but the Windows market is massive.
Regardless, I like this move. Anything that helps improve the lot of the indie developer.
One thing Apple can do to one-up this move that would be even better for indie devs? Create a free tier, where up to, say the first $1,000 in sales goes 100% to the developer. Just a thought.
At the 97th annual ADC Awards, which honors the best work in design, advertising, motion, and other commercial creative arts, Apple’s “Barbers” ad for the iPhone 7 Plus won a Best of Show award.
And:
“Barbers” was awarded a 2018 Motion and Film Craft Gold Cube, a Black Cube for Best of Show, and a 2018 Advertising Merit Award. Furlined, the agency that produced the spot, also won Production Company of the Year.
From the first wave of Portrait Mode ads, back in May 2017. Terrific ad.
Dave and I take a look at the the iMac’s introduction and what it meant for Apple, even today. We also talk about this year’s Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame inductees and guitar players.
Simple Contacts: Renew your prescription and take your vision test online. Order your favorite lens from anywhere, anytime. Save $30 on your first order using code “dalrymple” at checkout.
Boston Public Library’s collection shows the broad range of Escher’s talent as a printmaker. Escher worked in a number of printmaking techniques, including lithography, drypoint, and mezzotint. However his preferred print techniques were woodcut, wood engraving, and linoleum cut.
Escher is my favorite artist. The level of detail of these scans is remarkable. Thanks to Jason Kottke for the link.
If you’ve never played the guitar, this is a fun way to learn a bit about tuning. And if you play the guitar, make your way down the page and try your hand at tuning by ear.
The iMac debuted 20 years ago this week. It’s not hyperbole to say that it’s the computer that saved Apple and set the stage for Apple’s ascendance to becoming the biggest tech company in the world. All that said, Apple’s lost something in the translation – while the iMac is still a fixture in Apple’s product line, it lacks some essential qualities of that first model. Its personality has changed. The iMac has gotten harder. It’s lost the sense of whimsy, fun, and wonder that made the first iMac such a joy to use.
This is an interesting point. In my mind, it’s very difficult for a company to grow to massive size and maintain the joie de vivre of their smaller self.
I hope that Apple finds an opportunity to go full circle with the Mac yet again. It probably won’t be the iMac, but I hope that some future Apple device, whether it’s a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop machine, or some hitherto unimagined gadget, regains that sense of whimsy and wonder we’ve seen before. Something to help us emotionally connect with it and that essential Apple user experience in a way that’s different, and less invisible, than how we do today.
Part of the issue is growth but, as Peter points out, part is the focus on minimalism, ascetic design. Will that pendulum ever swing back to bright colors, skeuomorphism? I kind of miss that.
I’m a big fan of Austin Mann’s photography blog. He loves Apple gear and puts it to great use.
This post is about a trip he took to South America and Antarctica. The pics were taken with a range of cameras, one of which was his iPhone X. His workflow included the iPad and MacBook Pro, but all the heavy lifting was done back in the studio on the iMac Pro.
Lots of interesting comments, including some insight on traveling with an iMac Pro, buying a travel case, and checking it as luggage. And, of course, some great pictures.
Fascinating to look back at these specs, representing Apple’s state-of-the-art 20 years ago. Fun.
Interesting that the note’s publication date is July 26, 2017. Wonder if this was part of a mass update, or was created as part of the planned publicity push for the iMac 20th anniversary.
A terrific find by Stephen Hackett and 512 Pixels.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (two of the three wealthiest people on the planet), along with Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, talking about Apple.
Short, to the point. Don’t miss that very last line.
Silicon Valley self-driving startup Drive.ai said on Monday it will launch a pilot program for an autonomous ride-hailing service in July in Frisco, Texas, with safety drivers present.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. I know that autonomous vehicles are here to stay and will become more prevalent in the coming years, but sometimes I think it may be too soon. That said, riding in an autonomous vehicle is probably safer than a human driver in a lot of ways. I think it would be fascinating to get in a car and just have it drive away.
My thanks to Bare Bones Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. Do you sling code or compose with words? Whether you’re an app developer, web developer, systems admin or just want a powerful writing tool that stays out of your way, BBEdit is worth checking out.
BBEdit is crafted in response to the needs of writers, web authors, and software developers, providing an abundance of high-performance features for editing, searching, and the manipulation of text. An intelligent interface provides easy access to BBEdit’s best-of-class features, including grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, project definition tools, function navigation and syntax coloring for numerous source code languages, code folding, FTP and SFTP open and save, AppleScript, Unix scripting support, text and code completion, and of course a set of robust HTML markup tools.
It’s hard to believe today that a Steve Jobs product presentation would be met with indifference, but there was a huge amount of skepticism about Apple’s product announcements back in early 1998. Though there were definitely signs that the company was turning it around, I also recall being summoned to Apple product events where nothing much at all was announced. Regardless, only the editor in chief of Macworld, Andy Gore, even bothered to go to the announcement at the Flint Center that day.
As soon as the event ended, I got a phone call—I was working at home that day—and was told to immediately get in to the office, for an all-hands-on-deck meeting, because Apple had announced a new computer that was going to change everything. I have to give Andy credit—the moment he saw the iMac he knew it was going to be huge. We tore up our magazine issue in the matter of about a day in order to get first word about the iMac out to people in the days before instant Apple news was a thing.
And:
Apple’s bold choice to rip out all of the Mac’s traditional ports—Mac serial, Apple Desktop Bus, and SCSI—and replace it with the USB standard that was just starting to emerge in the PC world, was also helpful. It made all of us longtime Mac users cringe—you think the iPhone losing its headphone jack was tough?—but in a stroke it made the iMac compatible with a huge range of peripherals previously only designed to be used on PCs, and it made accessory manufacturers happy because with a low amount of effort the stuff they were making for PCs could now also be sold to new iMac users.
Before unveiling the new iMac, Jobs outlined how it would be different. For starters, Apple was using a modern 233MHz G3 processor, the same chip it had used in its entry-level Pro Power Mac G3 just six months prior at a price $300 higher.
That new generation Power PC chip boasted a performance edge “up to twice as fast” as Intel’s Pentium II processors at similar clock speeds, a line promoted by Apple in commercials portraying Intel’s chip as a snail and its chip designers dancing in “toasted” bunny suits.
And:
Jobs at the time noted that about “ten percent of homes in Silicon Valley were already being wired up for Cat 5,” while also poking at consumer PCs, few of which had any provision for networking built in.
Interesting to see how little built-in ethernet matters now. But at the time, the Cat 5 wave was in full force.
I was briefly struck with the sinking feeling that perhaps Apple had done something too risky. A translucent, rounded computer? A one-piece design that included a monitor? Don’t people want to open up the side of their PC and plug-in expansion cards, and won’t they want to replace the PC components faster than their monitor?
This moment of “oh no Apple… this is not conventional thinking” was one of the first times in my life where I had to step out of my comfortable understanding of What Had Always Worked Before and consider that maybe instead of being afraid of this new and different future unfolding in front of me, I could freshly evaluate whether it might actually be a big improvement over the status quo. Maybe the world was indeed ready for iMac’s bright candy-colored translucency that could distinguish Apple from all of the look-alike PCs running Windows.
I love all three of these writeups, from folks who were huge Apple fans at the time, and are still around covering the beat, still passionate all these years later.
One last bit to check out. Jump to this tweet by Horace Dediu, charting “units shipped” of all the major computing devices over the years. Pinch to zoom in on the chart. Lots of interesting data there.
The iMac inflection point is highlighted, but check out the performance of the Windows PC, the overall Mac performance, Android, iPhone, iPad. Fascinating to see this overlaid over time. Nice job, Horace.
In late 2005, tech visionary and MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte pulled the cloth cover off a small green computer with a bright yellow crank. The device was the first working prototype for Negroponte’s new nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, dubbed “the green machine” or simply “the $100 laptop.”
And:
The $100 laptop would have all the features of an ordinary computer but require so little electricity that a child could power it with a hand crank. It would be rugged enough for children to use anywhere, instead of being limited to schools.
Rugged. Cheap. And powered by a crank. Got it.
Then, Negroponte and Annan rose for a photo-op with two OLPC laptops, and reporters urged them to demonstrate the machines’ distinctive cranks. Annan’s crank handle fell off almost immediately. As he quietly reattached it, Negroponte managed half a turn before hitting the flat surface of the table. He awkwardly raised the laptop a few inches, trying to make space for a full rotation. “Maybe afterwards…” he trailed off, before sitting back down to field questions from the crowd.
The moment was brief, but it perfectly foreshadowed how critics would see One Laptop Per Child a few years later: as a flashy, clever, and idealistic project that shattered at its first brush with reality.
I do remember this moment of idealistic promise, the $100 laptop that would change the world. I remember a thought of how, if this dream shipped in quantity, it would disrupt the entire laptop market.
Maybe my favorite bit of the story:
A Linux-based operating system would give kids total access to the computer — OLPC had reportedly turned down an offer of free Mac OS X licenses from Steve Jobs.
Though automated calls have long plagued consumers, the volume has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching an estimated 3.4 billion in April, according to YouMail, which collects and analyzes calls through its robocall blocking service. That’s an increase of almost 900 million a month compared with a year ago.
It’s not just your imagination. There is, indeed, a surge.
In one tactic, known as “neighborhood spoofing,” robocallers use local numbers in the hope that recipients will be more likely to pick up.
I’ve noticed this a lot. My general habit is to not pick up calls from numbers I don’t recognize. But what if the auto-shop calls to tell me my car is ready? Or any local business that doesn’t have a branded caller-id? This just plain sucks.
As Ben Bajarin noted on Twitter, “There is a special place in hell reserved for those who sell our cell phone numbers.”
Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that its new MBUX infotainment system will feature support for wireless CarPlay in future vehicles.
And:
The all-new 2019 A-Class will be Mercedes-Benz’s first vehicle equipped with the MBUX system when it goes on sale later this year, according to a spokesperson for the automaker’s parent company Daimler in Germany. Wireless CarPlay will expand to other new Mercedes-Benz vehicles in 2019, the spokesperson told MacRumors.
And:
Barring announcements from other automakers, Mercedes-Benz will likely become the second to offer vehicles with wireless CarPlay functionality, after BMW rolled out the feature starting with its 2017 5 Series a few years ago. Apple first introduced wireless CarPlay in 2015 alongside iOS 9.
I find it remarkable that it has taken so long for automakers to adopt this technology. Wired CarPlay is rolling right along, but requires you (as the name implies) to plug your iOS device in using a Lightning to USB cable.
Wireless CarPlay kicks in with no cable. That’s a huge drop in friction. It has been years since I last plugged my iPhone into my car, other than to charge. I get in my car, my iPhone connects via Bluetooth. I don’t have to think about it. Why is it taking so long to adopt wireless CarPlay? Is there a cost component? A technical obstacle of some kind? Supply chain issues?
UPDATE: OK, the issue seems to be the WiFi requirement. From this post:
At its core, Apple CarPlay just mirrors your iPhone display onto your car’s in-dash screen. For this to work it needs to display video for the user interface as well as features like maps for navigation. While Bluetooth works for audio, it cannot handle the bandwidth that video requires. As such a Wi-Fi access point is needed to transfer the data needed for video.
A machine designed for consumers dubbed the iMac (only Apple would dare to lowercase the “I” in Internet). The crowd in Cupertino, Calif.’s Flint Center–site of the historic Mac launch 14 years ago–largely consisted of Apple employees. But due to an industrial-strength cone of silence shrouding the new product, few had been aware of its existence.
As distinctively curvy as the Beetle, dressed in retro-geeky, translucent plastic, the iMac (due to ship in August) is not only the coolest-looking computer introduced in years, but a chest-thumping statement that Silicon Valley’s original dream company is no longer somnambulant.
Ten months ago, when 43-year-old Jobs temporarily assumed control of the company he cofounded in a garage in 1977, the move was widely seen as a last-ditch effort to inject excitement into a barely breathing corporate husk.
How bad were things at Apple a year ago? “This company was in a death spiral,” says chief financial officer Fred Anderson.
While the iMac wasn’t a guaranteed success (there was a lot of Sturm und Drang over its design and technology decisions), it was a Hail Mary that turned into an incredible product for the company.
It seems hard to believe that it was 20 years ago when Steve Jobs introduced the world to iMac. For me, that first iMac computer changed the history of what Apple was to become—one of the most significant, most innovative companies in ever.
The original iMac popularized technologies like USB in computers, and help end others like the floppy drive. I remember being so happy to see Apple go back to its all-in-one roots with the iMac, but they did so much more than copy an old idea.
Apple reinvented what it meant to have a computer. It wasn’t a beige box you hid under your desk; it was an atheistically pleasing piece of your home or workplace that people were eager to show off. That philosophy has been with iMac for the last 20 years.
Of course, technology has changed a lot since that first iMac, but the principles of design and functionality have remained, especially for that line of computers. Every iteration and significant design change brought its moments, but all were well received.
I remember when Jobs introduced the “Lamp” iMac in 2002. He showed a picture of the original iMac and said they wanted to make it thinner, but it wasn’t possible to just cut the back off the iMac and have it just be a screen. Of course, years later, that’s precisely what happened. That is the iMac we have today.
People have asked me over the years what is my favorite iMac. I have to say its the original because I believe it saved the company. That gave Apple the room to invent iPod, iPhone, MacBook and all of the other products. Without iMac, Apple would not be the company it is today.
Tim Cook tweeted this morning:
20 years ago today, Steve introduced the world to iMac. It set Apple on a new course and forever changed the way people look at computers. pic.twitter.com/GbKno7YBHl
In my opinion, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of this announcement. I’ve long maintained that the iMac saved Apple. Without it, the company would not exist today.
Texture, the magazine subscription service that Apple purchased back in March, plans to shut down its Windows app at the end of June. Users were informed of the discontinuation this week through emails and a note inside the app, which said that after June 30th, “this app will stop working and will no longer be available in the Microsoft Store.” Texture’s Android, Amazon Fire, and iOS apps will still be supported.
In further debunking of the notion that the iPhone X was a “flop” or a “failure” —which was conventional wisdom as recently as the end of April —the flagship Apple device is now the world’s best-selling smartphone model, according to a release from the research firm. In addition, the top four models in the world, both in terms of shipment amounts and market share, are iPhones.
Sadly, this news won’t stop the pundits from predicting the “death of the iPhone X” over the next 6 months or prevent the Tech Media from slavishly repeating those stupid predictions ad infinitum.
Today’s smartphones are packed with megapixels and ever-more sensitive sensors, meaning that even photographers dedicated to using DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are relying more and more on them. Phone cameras do, however, have their limitations, which makes a lot of creative photography difficult.
Cue a raft of apps that allow you to get more out of your smartphone, and do more with the results. Here are just a few that can help you get the best from your smartphone’s already-brilliant camera.
Good list of apps, both free and paid and there are even a couple I’m not familiar with.
