iMore has once again put together a transcript of today’s Apple earnings conference call with analysts. If you don’t get a chance to listen to the call, it’s always worthwhile to read Tim’s comments.

Amazing. If this headline didn’t mean anything to you, this from the Steve Bartman incident Wikipedia page:

The incident occurred in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS), with Chicago ahead 3–0 and holding a three games to two lead in the best of seven series. Moisés Alou attempted to catch a foul ball off the bat of Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo. Bartman reached for the ball, deflected it, and disrupted the potential catch.

That moment was seen as a huge turning point in the Cubs fortunes. Instead of holding on to the lead and moving on to the World Series (at the time, the Cubs had the longest World Series draught in baseball), the Cubs went on to give up 8 runs in the inning, lose the game, then lose the next game, ending their World Series hopes.

This was a huge story at the time, with Bartman’s life being turned upside down. Huge blame was heaped on him by an entire city. Remarkable and terrible.

The Cubs giving Steve Bartman a World Series ring is a terrific act of forgiveness.

The Independent:

Apple and Google have removed hundreds of trading apps from their online stores after an intervention by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to crack down on online fraud.

In a statement on Tuesday, ASIC said it had conducted a sweeping review of mobile app stores focusing on those associated with so-called binary options trading. It said that the review highlighted over 330 apps that were offered by entities and individuals that appeared to be unlicensed.

Terrible scam, some reports of people losing their life savings.

A few months ago, I posted a link to an article with a small series of vector speed runs, animated GIFs showing how to use a drawing program, like Adobe Illustrator, to quickly create various icons.

The author, Marc Edwards, has since significantly increased his portfolio and gathered them on a single page. If you are interested in learning how to draw in this way, or if you spend any time creating icons, bookmark this page and spend some time watching Marc’s technique.

This is a wonderful contribution to the community. Please pass it along.

Motley Fool:

Apple is also the only major smartphone manufacturer left that uses standalone modems. Other smartphone vendors use either integrated applications processor and baseband solutions from third parties (e.g., Qualcomm) or make their own integrated parts (e.g., Samsung and Huawei).

And:

On Apple’s job board, the company says it’s looking for a “Sr. Digital IC (PHY) Design Engineer.” Under the “job summary” section of the listing, Apple says the individual chosen for this position “will be part of a silicon design group responsible for digital baseband logic design in state-of-the-art wireless ICs.”

That’s not the only related listing on the company’s job board. Apple also has multiple positions related to RFIC design and layout. RFIC stands for “radio frequency integrated circuit.”

In another listing — this time for a “Sr. RFIC Design Engineer” — Apple says whoever fills the position “will be at the center of a wireless SoC [system-on-a-chip] design group.”

Tricky business, but follows the pattern of Apple trying to own as much of the stack as possible.

Horace Dediu:

The evidence suggests that Apple prefers to keep average pricing for all products constant. Individual variants are priced so that, as the category matures, the changing mix leads to consistency in price ownership.

Thus the iPhone can be seen as controlling the $650 point, the Mac $1200, the iPod $200 and the iPad $450. This pricing signals the product’s value and the value of the brand.

The signaling is not just to buyers but also to competitors. Ownership of price forces competitors to occupy adjacent brackets.

And:

The overall pattern looks like a staircase with a widening price range where the lowest price remains constant and the upper price rises every three years by $100.

The “floor” of the range is a consistent $400 while the “ceiling” has expanded from $700 to about $950.

This year’s ceiling is due for the fourth leg up and if the pattern persists, we should expect it to reach $1100.

Interesting look at Apple’s pricing models.

Apple announces their third quarter financial results, via converence call, today at 2p PT, 5p ET. You can listen live on Apple’s official earnings call page.

For your reading pleasure:

• Dan Frommer for Recode: Today Apple will reveal its confidence in this year’s iPhone launch timing

And:

• Mike Murphy for Quartz: The most important numbers in Apple’s earnings this quarter won’t be iPhone sales

Key is Apple’s forecast for the fourth quarter. From Dan Frommer’s post:

It’s the mid-year trough of the current iPhone cycle, so expectations are modest. Wall Street expects Apple to report $44.9 billion of June quarter revenue, representing 6 percent year over year growth. That’s somewhere around 40-41 million iPhone shipments for the quarter, with some analysts — notably, Above Avalon’s Neil Cybart, at 38.8 million — expecting fewer.

But the real question is how Apple will forecast its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in September — and carries some clues for this year’s iPhone launch timing.

Most years, the new iPhone launches in late September, with a nice, big launch weekend or two of shipments to end the quarter. This year, however, there’s buzz that the anticipated super-high-end flagship iPhone might not launch until October or later, and could ship in limited quantities.

Some big fourth quarter clues coming today.

Now you can gain even more valuable feedback by inviting up to 10,000 users to beta test your apps before you release them on the App Store.

That’s great.

Ben Bajarin:

The key behavior usages between both assistants is not a surprise since Google is, and will always be, better than Siri at searching the web. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s data and they will do that better than anyone. Therefore their AI agent will always be the best at search. The challenge we have today with consumer sentiment around Siri is with its weakness for general Internet search. If consumers do this regularly and want to use a voice assistant for searching and general information queries, Siri is not going to beat Google. Apple’s challenge is to help consumers understand the jobs where Siri is best.

I agree with Ben with everything in this article. My problem is that I tried to use Siri to schedule appointments and do some of the life duties that it’s supposedly so good at. The problem is, it didn’t work that well, and when something doesn’t work well, I stop using it. That’s what happened with Siri for me.

The new Siri could be the most amazing assistant at managing my life that AI has ever seen, but I’ve lost so much confidence in using it, that I may never find out. Instead of fighting with Siri to get something done, I’ll just manually add an appointment or reminder myself.

My most used Siri command these days is: “Set a timer for 5 minutes.”

Siri does that really well.

“As most of you have probably heard by now, there has been a cyber incident directed at the company which has resulted in some stolen proprietary information, including some of our programming,” HBO Chairman Richard Plepler wrote in a message to employees, which the company shared with reporters.

I haven’t had a chance to use these amps, but it looks really nice. Fender has some of the most iconic amps ever made, so if you’re looking for a way to try out some digital models, you should take a look at these.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled late on Friday that iPhone 4 and 4S users can pursue nationwide class action claims that Apple intentionally “broke” FaceTime to save money from routing calls through servers owned by Akamai Technologies Inc.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Times change, technology moves forward.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Last week, Apple released the first build of the upcoming HomePod’s firmware, allowing curious developers to unpack the code and learn a few additional details about the smart speaker. Now, developer Steve Troughton-Smith has discovered code that seemingly confirms that the upcoming iPhone will support face unlock…

Smith explains that the code indicates the existence of infra-red face unlock in BiometricKit, which is the framework responsible for Touch ID. The code further suggests that Apple’s face unlock feature will be able to detect partially occluded face and faces from various angles. The codename for the project Pearl ID.

Here’s the Tweet that confirms infra-red face unlock:

I can confirm reports that HomePod’s firmware reveals the existence of upcoming iPhone’s infra-red face unlock in BiometricKit and elsewhere pic.twitter.com/yLsgCx7OTZ

— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) July 31, 2017

And this one shows off the bezel-less form factor:

Me too. New bezel-less form factor as well pic.twitter.com/Y0RrSOk2OO

— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) July 31, 2017

Very interesting. The reaction to this seems to be, the release of this specific information was not intentional. Hope this doesn’t cost someone their job. None of this is truly new information, more slightly more of a confirmation of what was already known.

Great two part series from Ars Technica. Here’s part one. Here’s part two.

Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:

Weeks ago, Walt Mossberg, arguably the most influential, most respected for his integrity (not the same thing) tech columnist announced his retirement at a young 70. Today, I salute his exemplary career, and remember the “good old days” of traditional newspapers. And I also wonder what led to his decision.

And:

Mossberg rose to the pinnacle of his profession through a deft mix of technical competence and keen understanding of business issues. His unintimidated scrutiny of tech titans and thoughtful analyses of budding entrepreneurs and their toys won him the respect (some say fear) of the technocracy…but the tech ‘players’ were never his audience. Mossberg was driven by his advocacy for the common computer user.

And:

“Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn’t your fault.”

That last really sums it up well. Terrific read. Miss you, Walt.

ExpressVPN blog:

> We received notification from Apple today, July 29, 2017, at roughly 04:00 GMT, that the ExpressVPN iOS app was removed from the China App Store. Our preliminary research indicates that all major VPN apps for iOS have been removed. > > Users in China accessing a different territory’s App Store (i.e. they have indicated their billing address to be outside of China) are not impacted; they can download the iOS app and continue to receive updates as before.

And:

> We’re disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China’s censorship efforts. ExpressVPN strongly condemns these measures, which threaten free speech and civil liberties.

Apple’s notice to VPN developers in the China App Store says, in part:

We are writing to notify you that your application will be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China.

For those searching for the best cheap VPNs for streaming, the best cheap vpn reddit can be a goldmine of information. Contributors often share their experiences with affordable VPN services that effectively unlock content without overspending. The reddit thread on the best cheap VPNs offers good speed, reliability, and support for various streaming platforms.

From ex-Google Senior VP Vic Gundotra’s Facebook post:

The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7 using computational photography (portrait mode as Apple calls it). Hard not to call these results (in a restaurant, taken on a mobile phone with no flash) stunning. Great job Apple.

And:

Here is the problem: It’s Android. Android is an open source (mostly) operating system that has to be neutral to all parties. This sounds good until you get into the details. Ever wonder why a Samsung phone has a confused and bewildering array of photo options? Should I use the Samsung Camera? Or the Android Camera? Samsung gallery or Google Photos?

It’s because when Samsung innovates with the underlying hardware (like a better camera) they have to convince Google to allow that innovation to be surfaced to other applications via the appropriate API. That can take YEARS.

And:

Also the greatest innovation isn’t even happening at the hardware level – it’s happening at the computational photography level. (Google was crushing this 5 years ago – they had had “auto awesome” that used AI techniques to automatically remove wrinkles, whiten teeth, add vignetting, etc… but recently Google has fallen back).

Apple doesn’t have all these constraints. They innovate in the underlying hardware, and just simply update the software with their latest innovations (like portrait mode) and ship it.

And:

Bottom line: If you truly care about great photography, you own an iPhone. If you don’t mind being a few years behind, buy an Android.

Music Business Worldwide:

Pandora’s run in Australasia has come to an end.

The digital radio company, which launched in Australia and New Zealand in 2012, is officially closing down its app and website in the territories on Monday (July 31).

Approximately 5m registered customers in the region will be locked out of their accounts, having received a message from Pandora which tells them: “We’re honored to have connected so many listeners with the music they love these past few years. Thank you for your loyalty and the opportunity to serve you.”

The cost-cutting move will undoubtedly have a detrimental effect on Pandora’s global active monthly listener count, which was last officially pegged at 76.7m in Q1.

Pandora is shifting all their resources to focus on the US market.

PRNewswire:

With sales per square foot viewed as a major component of retail success, according to industry data provided by eMarkter, the #1 retailer in sales per square foot is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which did a staggering $5,546 per square foot. Having launched the first iPhone 10 years ago, it’s speculated that this next milestone iteration of the iconic product could produce Apple’s strongest sales to date.

To paraphrase The Talking Heads, “Same as it ever was.” Apple has been the leader in this metric almost since the first store opened and it hasn’t even been close for years. Remarkable numbers.

A steeper-than-expected drop in quarterly profit rattled some Amazon.com investors, but Wall Street analysts remained largely bullish about the company’s aggressive spending plans.

This remains one of the most amazing trends in the tech industry. No matter what happens to Amazon, analysts stay bullish. Any other company would be trying to explain that everything is okay, but Amazon gets a free pass every quarter.

Not sure how Gruber got ahold of this footage. A real coup.

Another sign of the times. Sadly, Kirk McElhearn has just turned in his last Ask the iTunes Guy column for Macworld. Another sign that the publishing market is shrinking, the indie publishing market more than most. Feh.

Side note: Kirk is a great writer with deep Apple knowledge and is looking for work. If you’ve got a gig, give him a shout.

Jordan Smith:

A few days ago my wife expressed an interest in learning how to code. ‘Really..? Sure!’, I said. ‘You should check out an app called Swift Playgrounds’.

And:

I hadn’t tried the app myself, but Apple made a big deal of introducing it last year, and I had heard positive things – so it seemed like a good suggestion.

It didn’t take long to get the app installed, and as Joelle (my wife) started the first lesson, my curiosity turned to fascination. Yes, the app was fun, exciting, and engaging, but that wasn’t it. Despite a few rough edges, Swift Playgrounds made coding seem approachable, perhaps even ordinary. As if by magic, coding had become something that everyone can do.

Read on. What follows is a detailed post mortem and analysis of Joelle’s experience and Jordan’s take on what worked and what might be improved.

Interested in songwriting? Check out the Chasing Sound review of an app called Tab Bank. Tab Bank uses plain text and Chord Pro formatting to make it easy to lay out lyrics, chords, and tabs.

This looks great.

Neil Cybart:

All of the pieces are coming together for Apple to sell glasses. Using fashion and luxury lessons learned from selling Apple Watch, Apple will enter the glasses industry and in the process launch its first product category designed specifically for the augmented reality (AR) era. While ARKit has taken the world by storm, the development platform is already making it clear that new form factors are needed to take full advantage of AR. It is no longer a question of if, but when, Apple will use AR to rethink glasses.

And:

It cannot be overstated how clearer vision is one of the most value-add items a product can provide to its user. There aren’t too many gadgets or devices that would be selected over a smartphone in terms of its importance in our lives. However, corrective lenses would certainly be at the top of the list for many people.

And:

Glasses also provide a different kind of utility than clearer vision. A growing number of people are wearing glasses despite having perfect vision. Glasses are increasingly becoming accessories for the face, a fashion item complimenting a particular outfit, haircut, or even social occasion.

That last bit is critical to the logic chain here. Apple knows how to make good looking accessories, they understand the value of design and know how to marry that design with the practicality of mass production and the necessity of the highest technology.

Apple glasses, combined with AirPods (or some combination of both) will be an interesting and, perhaps, market changing force.

Thoughtful writing from Neil Cybart, well worth your time.

Bloomberg:

Twitter Inc. failed to attract more monthly users in the second quarter, spooking investors looking for evidence that the company is on a sustainable long-term growth path. The shares tumbled the most in nine months, even as quarterly revenue topped analysts’ projections.

A long-term turnaround depends on Twitter expanding its audience. That number stands at 328 million monthly active users.

Twitter has 328 million users. That’s a huge audience, by most standards. If you are an investor, the desire for growth is understandable.

But if you are a Twitter user, does growth matter? Does revenue matter?

As long as Twitter makes enough money to keep paying their bills without completely bastardizing the user experience, neither should matter. The question is, how will Twitter management react to pressure from these spooked investors. Will advertising creep upwards? Will the basic mechanics change in a quest to make Twitter pay?

I hope not. Personally, I’m a fan of the existing model.

Apple has finalized terms with Events DC, the official convention and sports authority for the District of Columbia, to lease a portion of the Carnegie Library at at Mount Vernon Square, described as a newly transformed convention and entertainment district in downtown Washington D.C.

That is going to be a beautiful store.