On Sunday I ran my very first half marathon race equipped with just my Apple Watch and AirPods. Apple Watch Series 3 includes a built-in GPS and optional cellular so you can map your run and wirelessly stream music without strapping an iPhone to your arm. And AirPods, which can play music from the watch, are totally wireless so there’s no cable to manage during the race. Here’s how my experience went:
No iPhone. Just an Apple Watch and AirPods. And his AirPods stayed in his ears the whole time.
After the race, my Apple Watch still had 14% battery left, and my AirPods had enough battery left to keep playing music. I used Scribble to jot out my official run time in a message to my wife and respond to Apple Watch friends who saw my results with Activity Sharing.
This is a fantastic, real world example of Apple technology at its best. Congrats, Zac!
Terrific piece from CNBC breaking down Shazam’s real value. In a nutshell, it’s loyal users, recurring revenue, a staggering amount of data (and data helps your AI learn), and intellectual property.
Apple today increased its trade-in values for select Mac models released in 2009 and later. In partnership with buyback company Phobio, Apple now offers customers up to $2,500, compared to up to $1,500 previously.
Want to get a sense of the trade-in value for your old Mac? Head over to the Phobio site (that’s Apple’s trade-in partner).
We’ve made it easy to create a thread by adding a plus button in the composer, so you can connect your thoughts and publish your threaded Tweets all at the same time. You can continue adding more Tweets to your published thread at any time with the new “Add another Tweet” button. Additionally, it’s now simpler to spot a thread – we’ve added an obvious “Show this thread” label.
Twitter is rolling out their new interface over the next few weeks. To get a sense how to use them, take a look at this animated GIF.
In a nutshell, Twitter is adding a plus sign (+) on the right side of the tool bar. Compose a tweet, then press the plus to start a second tweet. Keep building your thread and, when you are done, tap the Tweet All button to tweet the thread.
Over the last five years, Bruce Armstrong has walked thousands of miles through the corridors of an empty manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas, keeping the lights on. Since the plant closed in 2012, he’s been its caretaker, always holding out hope it would come alive again. Thanks to new business from Apple, that hope is about to become a reality.
Great story about a town that is becoming the VCSEL capital of the US.
VCSEL? That stands for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers:
VCSELs power some of Apple’s most popular new features, including Face ID, Animoji and Portrait mode selfies made possible with the iPhone X TrueDepth camera, as well as the proximity-sensing capabilities of AirPods.
Apple invested $390 million in a VCSEL manufacturer in Finisar, allowing it to build out a VCSEL facility in Sherman, Texas.
As a result of Apple’s commitment, Finisar will transform a long-shuttered, 700,000-sqare-foot manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas, into the high-tech VCSEL capital of the US. Apple’s award will create more than 500 high-skill jobs at the Sherman facility, including engineers, technicians and maintenance teams. When combined with the company’s nearby plant in Allen, Texas, Finisar’s payroll in Northern Texas is expected to be $65 million.
And:
One hundred percent of the VCSELs Apple buys from Finisar will be made in Texas. Consistent with Apple’s commitment to the environment, the company intends to procure enough renewable energy to cover all of its Apple manufacturing in the US.
Apple today announced that it is working with the city of Chicago to bring coding opportunities to Chicago’s nearly 500,000 students through a citywide expansion of Apple’s Everyone Can Code program.
The initiative in Chicago was designed in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, local businesses and non-profit organizations.
I absolutely love these types of initiatives from Apple.
Apple has hired two business affairs execs — Philip Matthys from Hulu and Jennifer Wang Grazier from Legendary Entertainment — for key roles on its expanding original entertainment team, Variety has learned.
All of these video-related hires are great news for Apple and its customers. My only question is will Apple allow all of these talented people to make great shows or will they interfere to the point where the shows just suck. We’ll see.
Net neutrality advocates said they are gearing up for a legal fight after abandoning attempts to convince the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to keep 2015 rules aimed at maintaining an open internet.
I haven’t heard from anyone that thinks net neutrality rules should be abandoned. I hope they win this fight and keep the rules in place.
Marques Brownlee has had the new iMac Pro for about a week. In the video embedded below, he shows it off, shares his first impressions.
If you are in the market, this is absolutely worth your time.
Couple of notes here:
Important to note that the new iMac Pro is not user upgradable. So if you are ordering, future proof best you can.
Marques priced out a home built PC using the iMac Pro parts (or similarly specced parts where the actual parts are not yet available) and came up with a price of $5100. Comparing that to the iMac Pro base price of $4999, my take is that the iMac Pro is fairly priced.
The fact that I cannot upgrade over time is an issue for me, though I suspect iFixit will eventually sell a kit to get me inside and 3rd parties will sell parts to upgrade. Eventually.
The iMac Pro is very quiet, runs cool. That’s impressive, given the high end workstation grade parts jammed in to that svelte enclosure.
There’s a pretty straightforward reason you should attach a clip to your Apple Pencil: it lets you treat it like a traditional writing implement. The Apple Pencil’s completely rounded design means it is more prone to roll around your desk, or right off your table and onto the ground. In addition, adding a clip lets you, of course, clip it anywhere you’d stick a regular pen.
Have an Apple Pencil? Check out this clip for the Fisher Space Pen. $2, plus shipping (maybe buy a few at this price), and stick one on your Apple Pencil.
The first one, Adapts to Your Face, shows what happens if you emulate Jim and grow out your inner beard. iPhone X still knows it’s you.
The second, Opens with a Glance, is a bit generic, a collage of faces.
The third, Introducing Portrait Lighting, is easily the most powerful of the new spots, showing off the powerful Portrait Lighting effects, with the tagline: “Studio-quality portraits without the studio.” Well done.
> The news was announced Monday by Verizon as it sealed a deal with the NFL for an estimated $2 billion over the next five years. The move highlights the telecom giant’s pivot toward digital media and online advertising amid massive changes in the TV and Internet industries. > > Monday’s deal makes it possible for Verizon to hook customers of even rival Internet providers with must-see content hosted on websites that Verizon owns — such as AOL, Yahoo, Yahoo Sports and go90, the telecom giant’s proprietary online video app. > > The agreement between Verizon and the NFL will let football fans stream their local teams’ games, as well as nationally televised games and league highlights. Games that air on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays are covered under the deal. Even the Super Bowl will be widely streamed to anyone with an Internet connection, Verizon said. For those interested in betting on these games, it’s essential to choose reputable online betting sites and watch out for 먹튀사이트 to ensure fair play and secure transactions.
Even if you have no interest in the NFL, this is an important move. Verizon has managed to throw enough money at the NFL to make the games you normally watch in your cable package available in your browser, and that’s no small thing.
First things first, this is a big enabler for wannabe cable cutters. It legitimizes the concept, makes it practical for a reasonably sizable audience to break free of a cable package, as long as they have access to either WiFi or an unlimited data plan.
Second, it provides a big test case for net neutrality. Will other cable companies throttle Verizon NFL packets to throw a monkey wrench into Verizon’s plans?
At the very least, I see this as a rip in the fabric tying us to cable packages. In my view, the cable disruption just got closer.
In addition, if you are having problems with your ISP in Los Angeles, you might want to compare the internet providers in Los Angeles so that you can select the best internet provider. You may visit the Compare Internet webpage and start comparing now. And if you are planning to upgrade your AT&T plan, then you may consider visiting their web page to learn more about their product offerings that will suit your needs.
From the T3 interview with Phil Schiller, starting with the creation of iPhone X:
“At the time, at the beginning, it seemed almost impossible. Not just almost. It seemed impossible. And to pull off what feels impossible and make it possible – and not only that, but just something we love using – is just a great achievement.
“Clearly there was a point in the process where we had to commit to the fact that it would be a full top-to-bottom screen on the front with no home button, which means you’re counting on Face ID working as we’d hope, and being as good.
“That’s an exciting moment, when you have to sort of… the old saying: ‘Burn the boats. Leave the past behind, and commit.’ Knowing that the team was willing to make that gamble was a key point early enough in the process..
And:
“Most people are comfortable with it within minutes – 30 minutes, whatever. It’s not the kind of thing you have to live with for a week or two to get used to.
And:
We say to Schiller that we’ve been surprised at how good Face ID is for Apple Pay. “Yes. That was on a long list of things we knew we had to deliver. The home button, at the beginning, really did one thing. Maybe two. It woke up your screen, and then it let you go to the home screen from any app. And then over the years, we’ve layered on many, many uses – the multitasking capabilities, evoking Siri, you being able to use it for Apple Pay, creating Touch ID for your fingerprint. So Face ID had a much harder job for its first version than the home button had for its first version.”
And:
“Products [like] AirPods and Pencil could not work were it not for hardware and software and chip teams and radio teams, all working together to make something happen. And I think the latest feature that’s the result of this collaboration is Face ID.”
“Other companies certainly have had the vision of ‘can you unlock something with someone’s face?’ but no one [has] actually delivered technology as advanced and capable and ubiquitous and consumer friendly as Face ID. And that is the direct result of this collaboration, and how these teams work for years together on a simple powerful idea with all that technology.
And:
Is the iPad Pro really the PC replacement it was touted as? Or is it really a supplementary device to the Mac?
“What we’ve learned, truthfully, is that it’s both, and that depends on the user,” says Schiller. “For some people, iPad Pro is a replacement for their computer. Not that you throw away your computer. People don’t often do that.
“But that it becomes your primary computing device. The way you mostly hear about this is people say, ‘I use a computer at my desk’ or ‘I use a notebook at my desk, but when I travel, I travel just with my iPad Pro’. It is so great in that situation.”
This is a terrific interview. There is just so much more to it. Great insight into Apple’s corporate product thinking.
Shazam’s main strength is music identification, and that fits well into Apple’s current strategy. It’s not just Siri on our phones: AirPods, HomePod, and Apple Watch could benefit from Shazam’s uncanny ability to name that tune.
And:
On the new Pixel phones, Google has implemented a feature that displays the name of a song playing nearby even if Assistant hasn’t been asked. It’s a neat feature that’s all done locally, and I use far more often than I thought I would. A similar feature would be great on the iPhone, and with Shazam’s massive library at Apple’s disposal it would be far superior to Google’s.
And:
We will already be able to ask Siri to play things like the most popular song in 1986, but Shazam could amplify its knowledge considerably. It would be great to tap your AirPods and ask “Play the song that goes like this …” or “Play that Ed Sheeran song about Ireland.” Shazam might not be able to do that now, but the groundwork is certainly in place, particularly when paired with Apple’s own AI musical capabilities.
Read the rest of Michael’s article. Lots of interesting speculation. As you read, think about Apple’s dive into TV and movie production. Imagine saying/playing a line of dialog, or tapping a still from a movie and asking Siri what movie it’s from.
With ownership of Shazam, Apple can turn that tech loose on the entire ecosystem.
Today, we’re launching the first installment of a series of photography appsperiments: usable and useful mobile photography experiences built on experimental technology. Our “appsperimental” approach was inspired in part by Motion Stills, an app developed by researchers at Google that converts short videos into cinemagraphs and time lapses using experimental stabilization and rendering technologies. Our appsperiments replicate this approach by building on other technologies in development at Google. They rely on object recognition, person segmentation, stylization algorithms, efficient image encoding and decoding technologies, and perhaps most importantly, fun!
I know many photographers love to try new things, so you may want to check these out.
New apps on all Apple platforms can be made available for pre-order when you submit your app and metadata for review in iTunes Connect. When you opt in, you’ll choose a download release date that’s two to 90 days in the future. Once your app is released for download, customers are notified and it will automatically download to their device within 24 hours.
“This is NOT US,” MyEtherWallet said on Sunday from its official Twitter account.
The statement was a response to a tweet by someone identified as @ChrisLundkvist, who posted an image of the $4.99 app, dubbed MyEtherWallet, showing it was the third-most popular finance app in Apple’s App Store.
Good for Apple for removing the app so quickly. Clearly the developer tried to sell an app based on the reputation of another company. It’s awful when people do that.
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple,” Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it’s used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms.”
Apple must have big plans for the technology. There are obvious uses, but I have a feeling we’ll see some cool things in the future.
Apple founder Steve Wozniak was in Australia to speak at the Pivot Summit in Geelong, Victoria. Woz was asked his feelings about the iPhone X. What spun out of that short talk was a series of headlines, like:
“Woz Slams The iPhone X, Confirms Google Is Taking Advantage Of Consumers”, from ChannelNews, and “Apple iPhone X not what Steve Wozniak wants” from the The Australian.
At the same time, 9to5Mac ran this take on the exact same event:
Speaking at the Pivot Summit in Geelong, Victoria today, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shared a few new tidbits about his experience with the iPhone X so far and his thoughts on Face ID vs. Touch ID. Woz also offered up a few anecdotes about his years working with Steve Jobs. Wozniak is one of several speakers at the one day conference focused on providing insight about emerging technology.
And:
Speaking prior to the launch of the iPhone X, Wozniak expressed that he wasn’t interested in picking up the phone on day one, offering little explanation as to why. Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to remedy the situation himself and personally sent Woz an iPhone X to try out. His verdict? “I kinda like it.”
So which take is accurate?
Here’s Woz, via email, referring to the 9to5Mac article:
“This article is on the mark. Another article was like typical Australian sensationalism saying that I didn’t like my iPhone X. How ridiculous.”
I found this whole thing interesting, thought it worth posting. Straight from the horse’s mouth.
My iPhone 6S has been very slow these past few weeks, and even after updating multiple times, it was still slow. Couldn’t figure out why, but just thought that iOS 11 was still awful to me. Then I used my brother’s iPhone 6 Plus and his was… faster than mine? This is when I knew something was wrong. So, I did some research, and decided to replace my battery. Wear level was somewhere around 20% on my old battery. I did a Geekbench score, and found I was getting 1466 Single and 2512 Multi. This did not change wether I had low power mode on or off. After changing my battery, I did another test to check if it was just a placebo. Nope. 2526 Single and 4456 Multi. From what I can tell, Apple slows down phones when their battery gets too low, so you can still have a full days charge. This also means your phone might be very slow for no discernible reason. Check your Geekbench scores and see what you get if your phone is still slow!
I would love to get an official response from Apple on this issue. Be sure to read the updates to this post, especially the second one.
UPDATE: Two things:
Via Bryan Lee on Twitter, if you are having issues with your iPhone 6s, Apple does have a battery replacement program for certain devices, manufactured in Sept or Oct 2015. Go to this page to check to see if your device is eligible.
As mentioned in the linked Reddit thread, there’s a free app, called CpuDasherX, you can use to check your clock speed, see if it’s running full speed. According to this comment thread, 1848 Mhz is the factory CPU speed for the iPhone 6s.
UPDATE 2:
As noted in this tweet and some of the comments, the A9 does vary its frequency based on load. So a different frequency is not indicative of a battery issue. It’s possible this Reddit thread is a red herring. Again, would love an official Apple comment.
This is Apple’s official how-to video on using Apple Pay and Messages to send and receive cash. It’s short and focused. Learn how Apple Pay Cash works in just about a minute.
Schiller has a quick answer to the commentary that other smartphone makers had a face or iris recognition before Apple did: “They all stink.”
He nuances: “They don’t work in all the ways we need Face ID to work. We’re very aware that through the years this simple thing, the Home button, that started as the way you click to get to the Home screen, grew into doing so many things for us. We added Touch ID, it took you to the multitasking screen, paged Siri, activated Apple Pay. All through this one mechanical button.
So for Face ID we needed the best way we know of to enable us to easily unlock our device with our face, in a protected way with the Secure Enclave, and support all these other things. We had to solve all of that. Other things that people have tried with face haven’t been anything like that. Face ID is a very unique implementation.”
And:
“I think we’ve worked really hard to maintain the trust we have with users about how this information technology is and isn’t used. First of all, no Face ID data goes to third parties. So what you enroll with Face ID, what you use to unlock your phone, that’s an algorithm that is created and encrypted by the Secure Enclave. No third party that uses the iPhone camera has your Face ID data. We did create an API so developers can use the cameras to track facial movements, to do things like wrap stickers on your face (like Snapchat, ed.) That’s different than Face ID. They don’t have all the access to the data that Face ID has for that.
And:
“We feel bad we aren’t able to deliver Homepod for the holidays. We’re going to take the time to do it right and make sure it’s great when it comes out. We need more time to make it right.”
There’s a lot more. I found the whole thing worth reading.
There’s a lot to process in these two posts. Some of the comments reflect someone new to the iPhone X and new to iOS. But all in all, solid takes, both the negative and positive.
A couple of highlights from the most recent post:
When I first started using iMessage, I immediately appreciated how much it modernized my texting experience (I do a fair bit of SMSing) when chatting with my iPhone-using friends and family.
And:
I would use an iMessage client for Android in a heartbeat if Apple were to release one. Even if it were terrible, I’d probably seriously entertain paying a subscription for such a thing. It’s not about iMessage being amazing or revolutionary or even an especially good messaging client – it’s just about using the same platform as my friends and family and being able to have those conversation move seamlessly across devices and operating systems.
And:
I know a lot of people turn off haptic feedback on their smartphone. That is because, I have now learned, essentially every Android smartphone has absolutely awful haptics. Your $930 Galaxy Note8 has haptic feedback that is, frankly, bad. So does every other Android phone. Yes, the difference is that clear after going to the iPhone X.
Apple’s Taptic Engine doesn’t just buzz – it clicks, it taps, it knocks. And it can do so with an incredible range of intensities and precision.
And:
I do miss intelligent package tracking being pulled directly from my Gmail (versus now just getting Amazon tracking, which is a bit of a downgrade).
This last was an interesting core difference between iOS and Android. I do see the Android advantage in reading all my emails and understanding that I’ve got a package coming, weaving intel about the package into my notifications.
But the issue is privacy and what is done with my private information. Google profits off the shared details of its users, in the form of steered and focused advertising. That is the price you pay for more informed device intelligence. That price makes me uncomfortable.
As Spotify continues to inch towards a public listing, Apple is making a move of its own to step up its game in music services. Sources tell us that the company is close to acquiring Shazam, the popular app that lets people identify any song, TV show, film or advert in seconds, by listening to an audio clip or (in the case of, say, an ad) a visual fragment, and then takes you to content relevant to that search.
We have heard that the deal is being signed this week, and will be announced on Monday, although that could always change.
The deal is said to be worth about £300 million ($400 million).
Apple Inc.’s Jony Ive, a key executive credited with the look of many of the company’s most popular products, has re-taken direct management of product design teams.
Ive, 50, was named Apple’s chief design officer in 2015 and subsequently handed off some day-to-day management responsibility while the iPhone maker was building its new Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California. “With the completion of Apple Park, Apple’s design leaders and teams are again reporting directly to Jony Ive, who remains focused purely on design,” Amy Bessette, a company spokeswoman, said Friday in a statement.
Is this much ado about nothing? Was there a plan for Sir Jony to step away, a plan that’s now changed? Or was this more a shift of focus, first to getting Apple Park to completion, then back to work as usual?
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg made a bold claim about his company’s chances to put a human on Mars before Elon Musk, who has high-profile plans of his own with SpaceX.
On CNBC Thursday morning, host Jim Cramer asked Muilenburg whether he or Musk would “get a man on Mars first.”
“Eventually we’re going to go to Mars and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg responded.
Now comes my favorite part. Here’s the reply tweet from Elon Musk:
Apple’s iPhone remains the most popular camera used by the Flickr community, the photo-sharing site revealed today in its annual review of camera rankings and top photos. This year, the iPhone beat out other camera makers – like Canon and Nikon, the number two and three respectively – by accounting for 54 percent of the top 100 devices used on the site, the company found. In addition, all top 10 devices of 2017 were iPhone models, Flickr says.
Amazing. All top 10 cameras on the list were iPhones.
