April 7, 2017
So I’ve been playing with Apple’s new Clips app, had a few thoughts.
First things first, I had zero expectations for Clips. My experience was almost universally positive. Clips is both easy to use and fun.
To get started, I downloaded Clips here. I launched the app, and immediately was in video creation mode, with the camera facing me. To start recording, press the big red “Hold to Record” button. Let go when you are done recording. Dead simple.
To add captions, tap the first of the four tool icons above the video pane (looks like a cartoon balloon). Drag up and down and select from 8 caption formats (bottom right is none). Now, as you record, your words are parsed and appear in your selected format, perfectly synced to your lips. This is really well done, perfect use of iOS’s speech-to-text engine.
The other tool buttons let you select a look (the video I post below was done using the Comic Book look), add a sticker (drag it around the frame), and a canned clip (I used The End in mine). You can also add music to the background and combine multiple clips into a single, exportable clip.
Here’s a quick sample I did, just to give you a sense of things:
Clips does a nice job packaging all this together in an easy to use format. I appreciate being able to share this to Twitter without having to render the video or stage it in some intermediary format or site. Of course, Twitter does impose a size limit here, so this only works with small videos, but I suspect we’re going to see a lot of these.
A few side notes:
Clips gained full access to my photos and videos without ever asking permission. Seems to me Apple is bypassing their own privacy rules here, though this might be standard for Apple’s own apps.
The Clips icon looks very similar to the FaceTime icon. Different colors, but close enough to make them hard to distinguish. My 2 cents? Apple should change one of them.
Bottom line, I love Clips and look forward to making more of them.
Written by Dave Mark
Dan Moren, writing for Macworld, starts with this Phil Schiller comment:
“The Mac mini remains a product in our lineup. Nothing more to say about it today,” Phil Schiller told reporters, according to John Gruber.
and then digs into the past and potential future of the Mac mini. Good read.
Written by Dave Mark
Jeff Benjamin, writing for 9to5Mac:
I’m currently in the process of building a new Hackintosh rig for 2017, so imagine how surprised and happy I was to hear that Nvidia is working on beta drivers for its GPUs with the latest Pascal architecture. Up until today, I had just settled on being relegated to a Radeon RX 480, or a Maxwell-era Nvidia card.
And:
With today’s announcement, the Hackintosh just got exponentially more appealing. Nvidia’s announcement is positive for a variety of reasons: there’s the prospect of using an eGPU setup with a MacBook Pro, along with future prospects of Nvidia cards powering future Mac Pro hardware.
As I’ve mentioned before, if you do decide to build a Hackintosh, start here.
Written by Dave Mark
YouTube Creator Blog:
> Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YPP videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel. It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators. And, of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10k views up until today will not be impacted.
YPP is the YouTube Partner Program. That’s the YouTube arm that gets you paid for your ad related views.
On the plus side, this is going to make it easier for YouTube to vet, to validate their channels. They won’t have to look at any content with less than 10K views. This should eliminate a lot of copycats and landgrabbers, making search easier for visitors. Visit Social Media Daily’s website to learn how to maximize viewer engagement. And then, you can purchase high quality and active YouTube subscribers from Zeru.
On the down side, this will make it harder for indie YouTube creators to make money any money before they grow their audience. VidIQ is what most Youtubers use to grow their following. But given that 10K views translates (very, very approximately) to about US$10, this seems a reasonable threshold.
Written by Shawn King
J.D. Power:
Microsoft ranks highest in overall satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2017 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study, doing so for the first time since the study’s inception. With an overall satisfaction score among tablet owners of 855 (on a 1,000-point scale), Microsoft’s achievement is largely due to its top rankings in the features and styling & design factors.
In features, Microsoft is the highest performer in three areas: variety of pre-loaded applications; internet connectivity; and availability of manufacturer-supported accessories.
This is actually very good news. It means there’s competition in the tablet space. Competition breeds better tablets for all of us. And, make no mistake, Apple’s iPad still ranks very high in this study.
Written by Shawn King
The Verge:
When a song is compressed, an algorithm removes bits from the track that it believes the human ear can’t pick up, which reduces the overall file size. So objectively speaking, there’s less audio there for your ear to interpret. Lossless audio cuts less bits.
But in actuality, the difference is very difficult to discern. Couple that with a range in the quality of soundcards and speakers, and it’s almost impossible for the average listener to pick which is which. Can you tell the difference?
Jim posted about this back in March but now Spotify has posted an actual audio test for you to try to see if you can actually hear the difference.
Written by Shawn King
Mic:
So, what does realistic healthy eating really look like? While eliminating entire food groups isn’t always necessary, we talked to nutritionists about the foods they never eat to give you a better idea of a well-rounded, nutritious diet. Ditch the soda and hop on the seltzer train and you, too, can be eating like a nutritionist in no time.
I don’t eat any of these of these except “processed meats”. No way I’m giving up bacon or sausage.
Written by Shawn King
Bloomberg:
All too often, and to the dismay of everyone who knows better, Jewish food gets boiled down to bagels, matzo balls, and brisket.
These are staples, to be sure, but they all hail from the same part of the world—Eastern Europe—while Jews have, at one point or another, populated almost every corner of the earth. Thanks to their historic roles as both merchants and, often, refugees, Jewish cuisine encompasses flavors from Tunisia to Toronto, India to Israel, Babylonia to Brooklyn.
I’m a big fan of food in general and a bigger fan of “ethnic” food and, while I haven’t had a lot of it, I really enjoy Jewish food, especially for the stories behind it.
Written by Shawn King
High Snobiety:
Several years ago I came across an interesting statistic: nearly half of all musicians that created a chart hit in the half-century in between 1955 and 2005 never did so again – 47.5 percent, to be exact.
This Hollywood Walk of Shame includes the likes of Los Del Rio (Macarena), A-ha (Take On Me), Nena (99 Luftballoons), Chumbawumba (Tubthumping) and, more recently, Psy (Gangnam Style,) not to mention countless other has-beens.
So what is it about pop stardom that makes it so difficult to sustain?
Is it because pop music is so ephemeral and music tastes change so rapidly?
Written by Dave Mark
Washington Post:
A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6.
The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university.
“There were some things that just didn’t quite add up,” Balthazor told The Washington Post.
The students began digging into a weeks-long investigation that would result in an article published Friday questioning the legitimacy of the principal’s degrees and of her work as an education consultant.
On Tuesday night, Robertson resigned.
Journalism! You can read the student’s article here.
Written by Dave Mark
Motherboard:
Last month, the CIA got a lot of attention when WikiLeaks published internal documents purporting to show how the spy agency can monitor people through their Samsung smart TVs. There was a caveat to the hack, however—the hijack involved older models of Samsung TVs and required the CIA have physical access to a TV to install the malware via a USB stick.
But the window to this sort of hijacking is far wider than originally thought because a researcher in Israel has uncovered 40 unknown vulnerabilities, or zero-days, that would allow someone to remotely hack millions of newer Samsung smart TVs, smart watches, and mobile phones already on the market, as well as ones slated for future release, without needing physical access to them. The security holes are in an open-source operating system called Tizen that Samsung has been rolling out in its devices over the last few years.
Got any Samsung devices in your house? Might want to read the details here.
[H/T, the Samsungistically Secure not Jony Ive]
Written by Dave Mark
From long time macOS and iOS developer Panic (the folks who produced the excellent Firewatch game, mentioned yesterday):
If you remember, 2016 was the year we killed Status Board, our very nice data visualization app. Now, a lot of it was our fault. But it was another blow to our heavy investment in pro-level iOS apps a couple years ago, a decision we’re still feeling the ramifications of today as we revert back to a deep focus on macOS. Trying to do macOS quality work on iOS cost us a lot of time for sadly not much payoff. We love iOS, we love our iPhones, and we love our iPads. But we remain convinced that it’s not — yet? — possible to make a living selling pro software on those platforms. Which is a real bummer!
The macOS marketplace is so much smaller than that for iOS, it’s much easier to stand out in the crowd, get the word out on excellent work. In addition, the smaller market allows for higher prices, so you can break even selling fewer copies.
Written by Dave Mark
Reuters:
The U.S. technology giant “bricked” – or disabled with a software update – hundreds of smartphones and tablet devices, and then refused to unlock them on the grounds that customers had had the devices serviced by non-Apple repairers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in a court filing.
And:
The regulator said that between September 2014 and February 2016, Apple customers who downloaded software updates then connected their devices to their computers received a message saying the device “could not be restored and the device had stopped functioning”.
Customers then asked Apple to fix their devices, only to be told by the company that “no Apple entity … was required to, or would, provide a remedy” for free, the documents added.
From the ACCC’s official post on the matter:
The ACCC alleges Apple represented to consumers with faulty products that they were not entitled to a free remedy if their Apple device had previously been repaired by third party, “unauthorised repairers”. However, having a component of the Apple device serviced, repaired, or replaced by someone other than Apple cannot, by itself, extinguish the consumer’s right to a remedy for non-compliance with the consumer guarantees.
“Consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law exist independently of any manufacturer’s warranty and are not extinguished simply because a consumer has goods repaired by a third party,“ ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
Tricky issue. Do I have the right to repair my own goods, or have them repaired by a third party of my choosing? If I do go the third party route, should Apple be able to void my warranty? Did Apple intentionally brick the iPhones in question? Core questions.
While you chew on that, consider the related controversy concerning John Deere’s tractor repair policies.
And, more recently, the account of the WiFi garage-door-opener seller who bricked a customer’s garage door after a bad review.
Interesting stuff. Welcome to the future.
April 5, 2017
Written by Jim Dalrymple
OmniOutliner now comes in two editions: Pro and Essentials. The Pro edition has all the power that we’ve always brought to OmniOutliner, with support for multiple columns, attachments, focus, automation, and so on—and for version 5 we’ve added even more, with advanced filtering, word count, typewriter mode, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and so on.
For the new Essentials edition, our goal was to introduce the joys and benefits of outlining to a much broader audience than our core Pro customers. Our focus for this edition was on making OmniOutliner much simpler, and much more affordable.
Ken Case and the folks at Omni are just great people and developers.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Here are the main features:
Live TV streaming from ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and popular cable networks
Cloud DVR with no storage limits
6 accounts per household included
It costs $35 a month and there are a lot of other stations available, but they are still missing some big ones. Not having storage limits on the cloud DVR is a great feature.
Written by Shawn King
Ars Technica: >For over 60 years, Formula 1 teams have developed, tested, and built the fastest and most technologically impressive cars the world has ever seen. An almost unending list of superlatives can be ladled onto F1 cars: they can accelerate from 0 to 190mph in about 10 seconds, fling around a corner at such speeds that the driver experiences g-force close to that of an Apollo astronaut during Earth re-entry, and then decelerate by 60mph in just 0.7 seconds thanks to strong brakes and massive downforce—the same downforce that stopped the car from spinning out around that corner. > >But the bit that’s really impressive is that these machines are designed and built from scratch every year.
Each Formula 1 car is made up of around 14,500 individual components*, and every item is bespoke, with Computer Aided Design (CAD) used to develop the parts and Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) or hand processing to build them.
From 2022, cars must run certain ‘standard’ parts and ‘prescribed’ parts such as wheel aerodynamics, wheel hubs and the front floor tea tray, which teams must build to a set design. There are also ‘transferable parts’ such as gearboxes and clutches, which can be bought and sold between teams.
The technical regulations define ‘rule boxes’ that limit the teams’ designs. That includes setting specific dimensions for wings and bargeboards, defining no-go aerodynamic areas and banning certain high-cost alloys in engines.
Unlike many racing series, cars are completely unique to each team – as opposed to F2, which has a standard car, or even Formula E, which has a standard chassis – but there has been a trend towards some parts like this Cummins Holset turbocharger in stock.
As a MotoGP motorcycle racing fan, I find Formula 1 to be sometimes boring from a racing point of view but these kinds of technical details are fascinating.
Written by Shawn King
Google: >Your own personalized solar savings estimator, powered by Google Earth imagery. We use Google Earth imagery to analyze your roof shape and local weather patterns to create a personalized solar plan.
Solar power has rapidly evolved, both in terms of affordability and ease of installation. Technological advancements, along with government incentives, have made solar energy more accessible and cost-effective than ever. As energy costs continue to rise, many homeowners are realizing the long-term benefits of investing in solar energy. With lower upfront costs and the ability to tap into renewable energy, switching to solar can significantly reduce monthly utility bills and provide environmental benefits. In fact, just like the roofing company in Stirling, many local experts can help homeowners integrate solar panels with their roof systems, making the transition seamless and efficient.
If you’re located in the US, this Google-powered tool will help you understand the financial implications of going solar in your area. Whether you’re considering solar for the first time or evaluating the potential for your existing home, this estimator takes the guesswork out of the equation. By calculating your potential savings, it allows you to make an informed decision about whether solar energy is the right choice for your home. Whether you want to lower your carbon footprint or save money, this tool offers a convenient starting point for exploring solar power options.
Firewatch is an excellent game. If you’ve never played it, consider carving out some time. It’s US$19.99 and available on Xbox One, PS4, and on Mac/Linux/PC via Steam. Here’s a link to the website.
If you are familiar to the game, you’ll appreciate this tweet from Cabel Sasser, co-founder of Panic, the folks who published Firewatch, upon encountering an iOS game called New Firewatch:
Watch the video. This sort of thing is like weeds in a garden. If there’s no attempt to get rid of them, they overtake and destroy the garden.
Written by Dave Mark
I dug into Christoph Kabisch’s new iBook with zero expectations. A look back at the original iPhone? How good could this be?
As it turns out, the book was a fascinating read with lots of detail, both in word and images. I owned the original iPhone, was there when it was announced and rolled out. I thought I remembered the details, but this book made it clear how much slipped out of my memory.
When you read it, be sure to tap on each image. Some move to a larger frame, others are 3D models that rotate.
The book is only 99 cents. Here’s a link. Worth it for the pictures alone. A terrific journey back in time.
UPDATE: Don’t miss the iPhone OS simulator on page 40. Incredible.
Written by Dave Mark
Patently Apple:
In the future, if Siri doesn’t recognize the voice of the owner of the device, accessing Siri or the computer associated with it will be impossible.
And:
Today a user will say “hey Siri” and Siri will respond. In the future, the command to call up Siri may be customized to your voice. For instance, a user sets up Siri to recognize the phrase “Hey there, Boss.” The customized phrase and the voice must match what’s in Siri’s database before the digital assistant will respond. The customized phrase is technically referred to in Apple’s patent filings as a “Lexical Trigger.”
And:
In the future, in order to access Siri, a person will have to know a passcode, use a fingerprint or be recognized by the system via face recognition. Unless your iDevice recognizes you on multiple security levels, Siri will remain unresponsive to commands or requests.
As long as I can turn this off via a setting, this seems like a natural evolution.
Written by Dave Mark
MIT News:
MIT Professor Tim Berners-Lee, the researcher who invented the World Wide Web and is one of the world’s most influential voices for online privacy and government transparency, has won the most prestigious honor in computer science, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) A.M. Turing Award. Often referred to as “the Nobel Prize of computing,” the award comes with a $1 million prize provided by Google.
Tim Berners-Lee changed the world as much as anyone else in the computing or business world. Folks like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk etc. all changed the world, no doubt. But all of them became incredibly wealthy in the process. Nice to see this announcement.
On a related note, here’s an interview with Tim where he discusses the Turing Award and what’s become of his beloved brainchild, the web.
Written by Dave Mark
Wall Street Journal:
The National Football League has reached a deal to stream 10 Thursday night games with Amazon.com Inc., the online retailer that is aggressively trying to position itself as a premier source of entertainment content.
The one-year agreement is valued at around $50 million, according to people familiar with the matter. That price tag represents a fivefold increase over the NFL’s agreement with Twitter Inc. for the same number of games last season.
To me, this deal makes much more sense than last year’s Twitter deal. The Twitter deal seemed like dipping a toe in the waters, an experiment with no real end goal. With Amazon, the deal seems more practical, a move to drive traffic, to increase Amazon Prime signups. Note that the games will still be available on TV via CBS and NBC.
Not sure this kind of move would ever make sense for Apple, unless buying an Apple TV was the only way you could watch Thursday Night Football.
April 4, 2017
This was a bizarre day to say the least. We woke up this morning to news that Apple is indeed working on new Mac Pros, but they won’t be ready this year. That is huge coming from Apple and its news that I welcome.
As John Gruber pointed out in his piece Apple was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they stay quiet, they continue to endure the thoughts from pro users that the company is abandoning them. If they speak up, they give away their plans and they also can’t release product in 2017.
What to do.
Apple made the correct choice. Pro users I’ve spoken with over the past few months were beyond frustrated with Apple, and I completely understand. Most of us kept holding on hope that the company was working on something, but it was increasingly difficult to explain why it had been so long since something was released.
At the very least we needed a bone—something to let us know that they heard us. Something more than the words that the pro market was important to them. We needed something substantial, something we could count on.
That’s exactly what we got. But we got a bit more too—here’s what Phil Schiller said about the Mac Pro:
With regards to the Mac Pro, we are in the process of what we call “completely rethinking the Mac Pro”. We’re working on it. We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we’re committed to making it our highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers.
As part of doing a new Mac Pro — it is, by definition, a modular system — we will be doing a pro display as well. Now you won’t see any of those products this year; we’re in the process of that. We think it’s really important to create something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro modular system, and that’ll take longer than this year to do.
Unless I’m mistaken, that is exactly what pro users were looking for in a Mac Pro. I know many of the people in the music industry I’ve spoken with are very happy. I know it is certainly more of what I’m looking for in a high-end music creation machine.
In the meantime, Apple is releasing updates to the existing Mac Pro lineup. They will also release new iMacs and the Mac mini is not dead yet either.
We asked Apple to give us new pro-level Macs or at least tell us what the hell was going on. They did that today.
I’m not excited to wait another year for a Mac Pro, but they need to get this right before it’s released. I’m not a hater of the existing Mac Pro—I think it’s a really cool machine. I just don’t think it fit with what many of the pros needed to get their work done.
The machine they announced today sounds like a winner. I can’t wait for next year.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Like the iOS version, Apple Music for Android features a bolder, cleaner look with reorganized sections: “Library,” “For You,” “Browse,” and “Radio.” Also included are iOS 10 features like song lyrics and a revamped For You recommendation section, plus with the redesign, there’s more of a focus on album art.
I could say something sarcastic like “I wonder if Android gets the iTunes Match feature that doesn’t work, or is that an iOS-only feature.”
But I won’t.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Music streaming service Spotify said on Tuesday it had signed a deal with Universal Music Group that lets artists release new albums exclusively on its paying premium service for two weeks.
And
The multi-year license agreement with Universal Music could make Spotify more attractive to Universal Music’s artists, who include Taylor Swift, Adele, Lady Gaga, Coldplay and Kanye West.
A couple of notable Apple favorites in there.
