Dr. Ian Cutress, AnandTech:

Every decade is the decade that tests the limits of Moore’s Law, and this decade is no different. With the arrival of Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) technology, the intricacies of multipatterning techniques developed on previous technology nodes can now be applied with the finer resolution that EUV provides. That, along with other more technical improvements, can lead to a decrease in transistor size, enabling the future of semiconductors. To that end, Today IBM is announcing it has created the world’s first 2 nanometer node chip.

Used to be, nanometer size had a very specific meaning related to transistor dimensions. That meaning is in the rear view mirror:

While the process node is being called ‘2 nanometer’, nothing about transistor dimensions resembles a traditional expectation of what 2nm might be. In the past, the dimension used to be an equivalent metric for 2D feature size on the chip, such as 90nm, 65nm, and 40nm. However with the advent of 3D transistor design with FinFETs and others, the process node name is now an interpretation of an ‘equivalent 2D transistor’ design.

Some of the features on this chip are likely to be low single digits in actual nanometers, such as transistor fin leakage protection layers, but it’s important to note the disconnect in how process nodes are currently named.

As long as one manufacturer’s 2nm is equivalent to another manufacturer’s 2nm in terms of performance, this seems fair.

Today’s announcement states that IBM’s 2nm development will improve performance by 45% at the same power, or 75% energy at the same performance, compared to modern 7nm processors.

Good to know. For comparison, Apple’s A14 Bionic and M1 are both 5nm.

A few days ago, we posted about MKBHD: Apple vs The Paradox of Choice!. If you’ve not watched the video, dig in, then press on.

With that as background, enter Gruber:

The problem for a company like Tile — to name one high-profile company that is not pleased by Apple’s entry into its market — is that location tags are inherently simple, and Apple’s Find My network is bigger and better than Tile’s device network. Everything about AirTags is better than Tile, if you’re an iOS user. So it goes. If the answer to the question “Would this add-on be better, and be useful to many users, if it were built into the system?” is yes, you should expect it to be built into the system sooner or later.

Perfect take. Tile’s complaint would have more teeth if they had built a product that was better than AirTag. You could argue that Apple has an unfair advantage, but Apple built that themselves, over the course of many years, with much effort and sunk cost. It’d be one thing if they made some corrupt side deal, bribing government officials or the like. But they did the work. AirTag is an ingenious product that takes advantage of a massive, R&D fueled, years in the making build-out.

Apple does, indeed have a built-in advantage. But they built it themselves.

Signal blog:

We created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses.

I love the idea behind these ads. Total transparency, sharing with you an up-to-the-moment picture of what Facebook is sharing with its advertisers.

And I love the execution of the ads. Follow the headline link, look at the examples. Easy to follow, devastatingly personal.

What I absolutely hate is that Facebook killed the ads. To me, this perfectly reflects Facebook’s fight with Apple. But Facebook can’t simply delete Apple’s transparency effort.

Props to Signal for these ads. Props to Apple for their transparency push.

William Hughes, AV Club:

As one of the most consistently thoughtful shows currently being made about the creative process that also happens to feature awful people doing fairly awful things to each other on a semi-regular basis, for fun, Mythic Quest excels at finding deeper and nastier ways at cutting its cast, and its fans, to their cores.

And:

It’s to that end that the show’s second season picks up right where its first (and two excellent, pandemic-themed inter-season episodes) left off, as visionary game designer Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and long-suffering chief engineer Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) try to figure out how to share authority in the wake of Ian promoting Poppy to be his equal on their massively successful online game.

Mild spoilers in the review, but looks like season 2 is not letting up on the gas pedal, which is a good thing. One of my favorite shows, looking forward to binging it.

Jennifer Daniel:

“WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE HANDSHAKE EMOJI?” It’s a good question and worth asking in all caps. Of our many body part emoji that have skintone, Handshake (🤝) appears to be left by the wayside. After inquiring with the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) it was clear there was a desire to address it and it was possible to fix but no one had yet proposed an appropriate solution to make it happen.

This is a well written, entertaining look at the process of moving from a need (handshakes did not represent multiple skin tones) to a reality in the emoji universe.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Yesterday saw Apple’s AirTags withdrawn from sale by Australian retail chain Officeworks, apparently over child safety concerns. Officeworks has more than 160 stores across the country.

While the issue is currently limited to a single chain, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) confirmed concerns over ease of access to the button battery used in the device.

And:

There has been a lot of concern in Australia about the CR2032 battery used in AirTag, many watches, and other small products. Since 2013, three children have died after swallowing them, and around 20 children a week are taken to ER for the same reason.

Perhaps Apple should add a “keep out of the hands of small children” warning on the box.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

On the face of it, sharing the location of an AirTag via Apple’s Family Sharing feature should be a no-brainer, since individual members in a Family Sharing group can use the Find My app to see the location of other family members’ Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, AirPods, and Apple Watches.

Seems a fair point. I can find my wife’s iPhone or Mac, but not her AirTagged item.

Is this intentional, some privacy aspect that Apple is protecting here? Or is it early days still, with the AirTag team still building out the various tracking mechanisms?

There’s an absolute torrent of things to read about Apple vs Epic Games, or Epic Games vs Apple (which is more proper, IMO, since Epic Games is the plaintiff here).

Here are three relatively short reads that bring up the major points at the heart of this case:

• From Protocol: 4 big takeaways from Epic v. Apple, day one

• From Seeking Alpha [free reg-wall]: Apple vs. Epic: Key takeaways from the first day of the antitrust trial

• From Michael Tsai’s blog: A terrifically curated rollup of tweets and quotes from the tech community

There’s too much to try to snapshot any of this here. But if you are interested in the blow-by-blow of this case, start with these three, and you’ll quickly get a sense of the major players, as well as the key issues in the case.

Before you dig into the article, note there are spoilers. Also, the reviewer did not see the original Harrison Ford movie, which I see as a good thing, since this show is such a different take on the original source material.

That said, this bit struck me:

After the first two episodes, it’s hard to say much more about the story because we don’t know that much. Allie did something in the past that got him in trouble with the feds, and now he and his family are on the run, and we honestly don’t know if Allie is in the right or the wrong. That’s it. That’s the show.

And:

But it’s an intriguing one. It’s an action thriller — the first two episodes are basically one continuous action sequence — but it’s engrossing and at times breathtaking. It comes from Neil Cross (Luther), so for a family-driven thriller, it’s surprisingly violent. Less surprising, however, is how intense it is.

It’s on my list. Though there’s a river of content on that list, and more coming every week. The equation is changing. It used to be, I needed access to a bundle to get enough quality shows to fill my available viewing time. We’re now at the point where just two or three services will do that. And given that I get Apple TV+ and Amazon for free (in effect), I am really starting to think about what other services are worth keeping around.

Just to complete the picture, here’s the latest explainer trailer for the show.

Deadline:

Apple Original Films won a very competitive weekend auction among streamers to land the Tom Hanks-starrer Finch, an Amblin Entertainment sci-fi film that previously carried the title Bios and was originally intended to be released by Universal. It will now be released on Apple TV+ later this year, likely in awards season, with a qualifying theatrical run at least in the cards.

And:

In Finch, a man, a robot and a dog form an unlikely family, as the man tries to ensure his beloved canine companion will be cared for after he’s gone. Hanks stars as Finch, a robotics engineer and one of the few survivors of a cataclysmic solar event that has left the world a wasteland.

This so reminds me of the 1975 film A Boy and His Dog, based on the Harlan Ellison novel and starring a very young Don Johnson. The tagline:

A young man and his telepathic dog wander a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

This will be the third Tom Hanks deal with Apple Original Films:

It becomes the second major Tom Hanks vehicle to transplant to Apple Original Films, after it acquired the World War II thriller Greyhound from Sony Pictures and saw it turn in strong viewing numbers as Apple TV+’s most watched film, and get an Oscar nomination. It’s actually the third Hanks deal if you count Masters of the Air, the WWII event miniseries developed at HBO and executive produced by Hanks and his Playtone partner Gary Goetzman, and Amblin Television. That miniseries, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, is currently in production.

Apple Original Films continues to build up critical mass.

David Flyn, Executive Traveller:

> While airlines have banned rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs from checked luggage (including so-called ‘smart luggage’), this doesn’t apply to the tiny single-use lithium CR2023 cells. Besides which, they’re already in millions of Tiles and key fobs sitting in cargo holds.

And, on tracking your luggage through the moving luggage belts:

> The first issue is that the AirTag’s “live here-I-am tracking” isn’t intended for objects that are moving, unless they’re doing so at the most leisurely pace. > > And while the average airport luggage belt is no threat to Usain Bolt, it runs too fast for the AirTag’s virtual hand-waving to be properly identified by your iPhone.

And:

> Even with an iPhone 12 to take advantage of Precision Finding, the only time the AirTagged bag appeared on my screen while being carried along the belt was when it was literally right in front of me.

That is worth knowing.

> What the AirTag might be able to do – if Apple’s willing to entertain this in a future software update – would be to send a notification to your iPhone once it comes within Bluetooth range, such as when your bag lands on the carousel.

And:

> AirTags have a clear application to help find anything you might travel with but also risk leaving behind or losing: your passport wallet, a briefcase or jacket, even the carry case where your noise-cancelling headphones reside when not in use

And:

> Putting the AirTag inside the bag instead of on the external strap made no discernible difference to the range or accuracy of tracking.

As a traveler, having a reliable and durable backpack is essential, especially when you’re carrying valuable items like your passport, electronics, and personal belongings. This is where custom manufacturers come into play, offering bespoke solutions tailored to the specific needs of frequent flyers.

Whether you need extra compartments for organization or reinforced stitching for added security, a custom-made backpack can elevate your travel experience. For instance, sewing military grade backpacks, ensures that your gear remains protected even in the most demanding conditions, providing peace of mind throughout your journey.

This post was jam full of useful info on what to expect when you stick an AirTag inside your luggage.

If you plan on ordering an AirTag, definitely read and bookmark this Apple support post.

It talks through opening your AirTag to get at the battery (super useful) and how to reset it. The way I read it, to reset the AirTag, you need to remove, replace, and press on the battery (until it makes a sound) 5 times.

Arcane, but not something you need to do often. But if you ever do need to reset your AirTag, you’ll be glad you have these instructions.

I recognize that the second half of the headline might make this seem like a golf tip, but no. The last bit of the iFixit teardown shows you where you can “safely” drill a hole to attach a lanyard or keyring to your AirTag without buying some sort of case.

The risk is relatively low if you are handy with a drill, and this is a fun little experiment to try if you are willing to possibly brick your AirTag. And no doubt you’ll be voiding any warranty.

I will definitely be doing this when mine arrives.

Scott Simmie, DroneDJ [H/T John Kordyback]:

Odds are, you’ve seen that amazing bowling alley FPV video that was released in early March. It was a phenomenal piece of piloting and timing, showing off various attributes in the life of a bowling alley in Minnesota – all in a single shot lasting 87 seconds.

You can watch that one here.

The bowling alley video was all shot in a pretty confined space, which created numerous challenges for the pilot. The new video is located in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s a massive mall, complete with an indoor amusement park. And Jay takes us through it all.

This is a lot of fun, especially if you’ve never seen the gigantic Mall of America.

Enjoy.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today released a new 3E751 firmware update for the second-generation AirPods and the AirPods Pro, updating them from the prior 3A283 firmware that was released back in September.

I’ve long believed that there was no way to force an AirPods firmware update, that you had to just be patient and wait for Apple to decide you were worthy.

But from this AirBuddy support document:

• Connect the AirPods to your iPhone or iPad and listen to music or any other content for at least 30 seconds.
• Put the AirPods in the charging case and close the lid.
• Connect the AirPods charging case to power with a Lightning cable and wait 30 minutes. Keep your iPhone or iPad and the AirPods case nearby.
• After the 30 minutes, reconnect your AirPods to the iPhone or iPad and check the version in Bluetooth settings. If they haven’t updated, repeat the process.

There’s also instructions for the AirPods Max.

Live and learn.

David Nield, Gizmodo:

One of the marquee features of Apple’s 12.9-inch Pad Pro for 2021 is its Liquid Retina XDR display, a screen tech that you might have previously seen mentioned in relation to the super-expensive Pro Display XDR monitor that Apple also sells. But what exactly do all these terms mean?

And:

Nowadays, just about every bit of Apple hardware qualifies as Retina, which is why you’ll now see extra words like “liquid” tacked on as well—the Liquid part of Liquid Retina on the iPad Pro listings just means even more pixels per inch, and even less chance of your eyes seeing any pixelation no matter how close you bring the screen up to your face.

And:

In the simplest terms, XDR is an enhanced version of HDR (High Dynamic Range) that extends its benefits.

And:

The key to HDR is having a very high contrast ratio, or the difference between the blackest blacks and the whitest whites that a display can put out. With XDR, Apple has pushed that range even further. The Apple Pro Display XDR can manage 1,000 nits of full-screen, sustained brightness, and a peak of 1,600 nits, resulting in a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

My current iPad (the 2018 “education” iPad) is 500 nits. My M1 MacBook Air display is only 400 nits. So the leap to 1,000 nits, with a peak of 1,600 nits is a bit mind-blowing.

There’s a lot more of this in the article. After reading it, makes me want to order the new iPad Pro just to experience this screen in my day-to-day iPad life.

Josh Centers, TidBITS:

tvOS 14.5 has introduced a new feature, called Color Balance, that can automate the process of correcting the colors on your Apple TV.

Note that this changes the video that your Apple TV generates, does not change your TV’s own settings.

The feature is available on all tvOS-compatible Apple TV models: the Apple TV HD, first-generation Apple TV 4K, and the upcoming second-generation Apple TV 4K. However, you need an iPhone that supports Face ID.

And, interestingly:

To get started, update your Apple TV and iPhone to tvOS 14.5 and iOS 14.5, respectively. Color Balance calibration will fail midway if you have HDR enabled, so you’ll want to disable HDR on your Apple TV in Settings > Video and Audio > Format.

Really well done walkthrough, worth exploring.

Kirk McElhearn pulled together a list of things you might want to track with an AirTag. While some might feel obvious, this is worth a scan, just to wrap your head around what’s possible, get you thinking about your own situation.

One thing on the list I did not think of is leaving an AirTag in my car. There’s theft tracking, which is not an Apple recommended use, but there’s finding your car in a crowded parking lot. I’m definitely in on that use case.

Sami Fathi, MacRumors:

Apple says that it will ban and reject apps on the App Store that attempt to offer users monetary incentives to enable tracking through App Tracking Transparency (ATT), one of many measures the company is taking to ensure developers follow through with the new framework.

From Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines:

Don’t offer incentives for granting the request. You can’t offer people compensation for granting their permission, and you can’t withhold functionality or content or make your app unusable until people allow you to track them.

Don’t display a custom message that mirrors the functionality of the system alert. In particular, don’t create a button title that uses “Allow” or similar terms, because people don’t allow anything in a pre-alert screen.

Don’t show an image of the standard alert and modify it in any way.

Don’t draw a visual cue that draws people’s attention to the system alert’s Allow button.

And:

If you display a custom screen that precedes a privacy-related permission request, it must offer only one action, which must display the system alert. Use a word like “Continue” to title the action; don’t use “Allow” or other terms that might make people think they’re granting their permission or performing other actions within your custom screen.

This seems fair. Everything about Apple’s approach to third party App Tracking feels loaded to provide perfect transparency to the user, to prevent an app from misleading the user.

Laura Bradley, Daily Beast:

But it’s not just the Oscars’ notorious default setting of awarding Pixar almost every chance it gets that makes Wolfwalkers’ loss to Soul so upsetting. It’s the fact that Wolfwalkers itself is a masterpiece—an imaginative and heart-rending story made all the more captivating by Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon’s meticulous and full-hearted embrace of its medium.

And:

With every frame, Wolfwalkers becomes more enchanting. The greenery of the forest is a glimmering watercolor wonder—as enchanting as a lovingly illustrated children’s book, and alluring enough to compete with the mysterious allure of any real-life forest. 17th-century woodcuts inspire the walled town’s animation, imparting a militant stiffness.

And:

But on top of its craftsmanship, Wolfwalkers’ story, with its carefully braided themes and folklore, merits recognition in its own right.

As much as I enjoyed Soul, I have to agree with Laura here. Wolfwalkers was a magnificent work, and in my opinion, should have won the top prize. If you’ve not seen it, add it to your list. It’s on my shortlist of the very best of Apple TV+, and of well told stories.

This was a four hour deposition and there’s a lot to read. It starts with 20 pages of redaction, so if you are interesting in exploring, jump to page 26, with the questioning of Phillip Shoemaker, who worked on building the App Store review team.

There’s an interesting nugget on page 29, discussing rules that are arguable:

Q: You also called the rules arguable. What did you mean by that?

A: Well, it’s objectionable material…Porn…I’ll know it when I see it. Those were a lot of the guidelines and you read them, you’ll see that most were written in a gray, a very subjective manner. And developers read them one way…spend time, spend money to build an app and submit it and we reject it because we interpret that line differently.

When they’re arguable, they’re really difficult to enforce and…it breeds a lot of anger, hence, my numerous death threats.

Death threats! Wow, had no idea. And they were numerous.

So much to process in this deposition. Here’s the big breakdown to help you navigate (the page numbers are the numbers at the very bottom of the document viewer, not the page numbers embedded in the document itself):

• Phillip Shoemaker starts on page 26
• Eddy Cue starts on page 49
• The discussion of whether or not to open iMessage on Android is on page 54
• Scott Forstall starts on page 67

Fascinating look behind the scenes at Apple.

Seeking Alpha:

The incentives for this are clear: a reduction of the App Store fee from 30% to 15% or even to 0% would make all of these would-be accusers immensely more profitable. In the case of Tile, Epic and Spotify’s victory would give legal precedent to pile on to the misleading claim that Apple engages in anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior.

And on the punishment of a monopoly:

The Sherman Act imposes criminal penalties of up to $100 million for a corporation and $1 million for an individual, along with up to 10 years in prison. Under federal law, the maximum fine may be increased to twice the amount the conspirators gained from the illegal acts or twice the money lost by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is over $100 million.

And:

Apple is not a monopoly. It does not produce necessity goods and it does not force consumers to use its products or the App Store. It does not force developers or competitors to use its products either – Fortnite or Spotify’s offerings do not constitute necessity goods and can be purchased elsewhere – not only through Apple’s App Store. At the end of the day, any company that chooses to sell its products through the App Store has a choice, as does the consumer.

There’s a lot more to this read. Hard to say whether this conclusion is valid, but it is an interesting take.

Also worth a look, the Sherman Antitrust Act Wikipedia page, a deep, deep rabbit hole of information.

Apple:

iOS 14.5 brings exciting new features to iPhone, including the ability to unlock iPhone with Apple Watch while wearing a face mask, more diverse Siri voices, new privacy controls, skin tone options to better represent couples in emoji, and much more. iOS 14.5 builds on the reimagined iPhone experience introduced in iOS 14, and is available today as a free software update.

Here are the major bullet points in Apple’s article:

• Unlock iPhone with Apple Watch
• Siri Enhancements
• More Privacy Controls
• New Emoji
• Report an Incident in Apple Maps

This is followed by a raft of additional features. Take a look, worth knowing what’s new.