Since the AirPods are notoriously leaky due to their open-air design, that got me to thinking: what if I could close the air gap to simultaneously block ambient noises while increasing the bass response? That’s when I found this video on the PoltergeistWorks YouTube channel.
I’ve embedded the video below, will dig through my gear to see if I can get my hands on a pair of foam covers that will fit over the AirPods, give this a try.
I do get the premise. The foam covers will make for a better fit and a tighter seal. The big work is poking the holes in the covers to allow the sensors to work properly. Will that improve the sound? Maybe for some.
Regardless, I found it interesting, thought it worth a share.
It happens every year: Apple releases new iPhones, and then hordes of people groan about their older iPhones slowing to a crawl.
And:
The phenomenon of perceived slowdowns is so widespread that many believe tech companies intentionally cripple smartphones and computers to ensure that people buy new ones every few years. Conspiracy theorists call it planned obsolescence.
That’s a myth. While slowdowns happen, they take place for a far less nefarious reason. That reason is a software upgrade.
And:
Tech companies make it simple to upgrade to a new operating system by pressing an “update” button, which seamlessly migrates all your apps and data over. While that’s convenient, it isn’t the best way to ensure that things will continue running smoothly.
A better practice is backing up all your data and purging everything from the device before installing the new operating system. This “clean install” works more reliably because the engineers developing operating systems were able to test this condition more easily, Mr. Raiz said.
The premise is that a clean install will clear cruft from your iPhone, make your phone run faster with a newer version of iOS.
Read the article, see if you agree. Is there any truth to this recommendation? Is a clean install going to yield enough of a speedier phone to be worth the effort?
Anecdotal, but I’ve run lots of betas, all via the update mechanism, have never (ok, maybe once or twice in ten years) felt the need to do a clean install.
Interesting article, looking forward to reading the comments.
“Silicon is unforgiving,” Mr. Srouji said. “My team is already working on the chips you’re going to see in 2020. You make bets. We have the system and the software. We have better knowledge versus external chipmakers about where things are going to end up. Since we own the silicon, we own the software, the operating system and everything else, we deliver, always. We deliver for the exact specification of iOS and nothing else. We don’t have to worry about other operating systems.”
And:
In 2013, Apple acquired PrimeSense, an Israeli company developing hardware for 3D sensing, and many industry observers speculated about the Apple reasoning for the investment. Mr. Srouji said the team from PrimeSense was involved in the development of Face ID as well as other new features for Apple devices.
“The team in Israel is a key part of the overall engineering team in the U.S. and other areas of the world – wherever we have our R&D,” he said. “The things they do are key to any device we ship, to all devices.”
I found every bit of this interview fascinating, especially the insight into incorporating the work being done in Israel with the main body of R&D being done in Cupertino.
If you’re running macOS 10.12 Sierra or earlier, and do not want to upgrade to 10.13 High Sierra right now, be careful because Apple has started pushing High Sierra to older Macs and making it all too easy to upgrade inadvertently. In short, if you get a macOS notification asking you to install High Sierra, click the Details button to launch the App Store app, and then quit it.
I am not a fan of the TidBITS headline here, but I do get the point. Though the update notification does call out an upgrade to macOS High Sierra, it does look like most other updates. And as many users do when they are confronted with a license agreement or privacy policy, it is very easy to click Install without reading the details.
This is good to know, worth passing along to folks in your community running older Macs.
How does Apple decide when it’s time to move on? It’s not a decision to get rid of an existing technology as much as it’s a willingness to accept that what’s familiar isn’t always what’s best.
“I actually think the path of holding onto features that have been effective, the path of holding onto those whatever the cost, is a path that leads to failure,” says Ive. “And in the short term, it’s the path the feels less risky and it’s the path that feels more secure.”
I haven’t always agreed with Apple’s (and therefore, Ive’s) design decision but I always enjoy hearing from Ive and parsing out how his sometimes veiled explanations of his design philosophy informs Apple’s products.
We have all, at some point, recorded the perfect vocal, acoustic guitar or drum track only to discover an audible click has split into the microphone from the performer’s headphones.
This is one of the most annoying things ever when recording. There are a few decent tips here to help solve the problem.
Airbnb said on Thursday it acquired London startup Accomable to expand home-renting opportunities for people with disabilities, the latest expansion as Airbnb grows its global travel business.
With Airbnb’s money, they should be able to build out the Accomable business.
Apple started using deep learning for face detection in iOS 10. With the release of the Vision framework, developers can now use this technology and many other computer vision algorithms in their apps. We faced significant challenges in developing the framework so that we could preserve user privacy and run efficiently on-device. This article discusses these challenges and describes the face detection algorithm.
The newest post from Apple’s Machine Learning Journal.
Oh wow ? I put some stickers on the sensors but it’s still working — only using the camera. Is it supposed to be like that? // @davemarkpic.twitter.com/h8z8GG7IvC
on his iPhone X. But Animoji still worked without them. Portrait mode stopped working. Face ID stopped working too. So the stickers were doing their job.
Some confusion has cropped up about whether or not Animoji really requires iPhone X-specific hardware. It does, but it’s easy to see how some people have come to think otherwise. After all, you can cover the IR system and it keeps working but, if you cover the RGB camera, it stops.
The reason for the misconception comes from the implementation: The IR system only (currently) fires periodically to create and update the depth mask. The RGB camera has to capture persistently to track movements and match expressions. In other words, cover the IR system and the depth mask will simply stop updating and likely, over time, degrade. Cover the RGB, and the tracking and matching stops dead.
Matt Birchler compared the time it took to charge an iOS device using:
Stock wired charger
Apple 29W charger
Wireless charging (available on iPhone 8, 8 Plus, iPhone X)
Accelerated wireless charging (New with iOS 11.2)
Follow the link, check out the graph. To really get a sense of the difference, look how many minutes it takes each to get to a 40% charge (the second horizontal gray line).
The 29W charger took just under 30 minutes. Accelerated charging took about an hour and 40 minutes.
I don’t know how rigorous this analysis was, but wow, what a difference. We could be seeing the limitations of inductive charging, or we could see these numbers improve with each new release.
Important to note that Matt used a Samsung wireless charging pad. So it is certainly possible we’d see better numbers when Apple releases their branded pad.
But as is, what price convenience?
UPDATE: Had a lot of conversations about this post, about the value of the convenience brought by wireless charging. Add to that the fact that the latest iPhones have plenty of battery life, and the use case comes into focus. Instead of placing my phone on my desk while I type away, if I simply place it on the charging pad, I’ll get a nice little power top-off without the hassle of plugging in.
Conclusion? Wired is clearly a faster charge than wireless, but that’s just fine. Wireless does the job it was designed to do and brings great convenience to the process.
Rene Ritchie is a smart cookie. Vector is a daily podcast (I don’t know how he keeps this up), full of interesting detail on some (usually) Apple-related topic.
Start with the latest one, Face ID FUD. Here’s the link.
The idea is that the watch and the paired gym machine have better knowledge about different aspects of the workout. GymKit allows that data to be shared back and forth, as appropriate.
At the end of the session, the watch saves all the relevant data to its local database (no iPhone required) and the gym equipment is wiped of any personal data.
Walk up to a GymKit compatible machine, tap your Apple Watch (pairs via NFC, similar to Apple Pay), and the machine automatically loads the appropriate workout data from your watch. When your workout is finished, your results are saved back to your Apple Watch.
Twitter is full of bots and trolls. Facebook is full of your family, fake news, and photos of kids and pets. RSS is the only place you can go to read news from the sources you want peacefully.
Feedly is one of the best RSS services, out of the many that rose from the ashes of Google Reader. So with that in mind, we set out to find the best ways to use Feedly on the Mac for your RSS fix.
This is exactly why I use Universal Audio in my recording and mixes. What they do is so exacting, it’s difficult to tell the plug-in from the actual hardware unit. Watch this video.
I can tell you that I’m really excited about the latest release from Universal Audio. They have always been the top plug-in maker for me, but this one goes above and beyond. Here’s what’s included:
Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor
Dytronics Tri-Stereo Chorus
Gallien-Krueger® 800RB Bass Amp
Ocean Way Microphone Collection
Marshall Plexi Classic (FREE for Apollo owners)
Excuse me while I go download and play for the rest of the day.
Kinder Eggs, also known as Kinder Surprise, are egg-shaped chocolates with a small toy prize inside, and they’re wildly famous and popular treats in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Unfortunately, they’re banned in the U.S. because it’s illegal to sell candy with non-edible objects inside it, on the grounds that the object is a choking hazard.
But starting this month, Kinder Eggs will finally be available legally in the U.S. They’re not exactly the same toy-containing Kinder Surprise Egg that’s been banned, however. It’s a newer variety called Kinder Joy.
This is one of those things we Canadians have always held up as a reason why Canada is better than the US. We’ll have to find something else now.
Apple Inc has agreed to give limited help to the Indian government to develop an anti-spam mobile application for its iOS platform, after refusing to do so based on privacy concerns, according to sources and documents seen by Reuters.
Apple didn’t want the government to have its customer’s call and text logs. Apparently the app they are helping to develop will have limited capabilities.
Chris Davies did a great review of Google’s new wireless headphones, Pixel Buds. He went through all of the main features and compared them to Apple’s AirPods, a product I know much more about.
This morning, I dug around and found the video embedded below, which shows off the gestures available on the latest BMWs (they’ve been available for a few years, but the sensors/gestures have evolved each year, getting better and better).
Think about the idea of having a similar set of gestures available on the Mac. The idea of tech on your phone or Mac sensing your presence, attention, or movements, clearly add value to the user experience.
The idea of a touch screen Mac is different than a gesture-aware Mac. I think the gestures on the BMW would work well on a Mac. Not necessarily the same gestures, but similar gestures. Especially if the gestures could be subtle.
Imagine an incoming phone call, while you are typing away at your Mac. You lift your hand from the keyboard, make a quick swiping gesture, and the call is dismissed. Or you make a c’mon gesture, and the call is answered.
