Jeff Geerling commenting on the apparent loss of the escape key (Shawn called this out yesterday in this post) on the recently leaked MacBook Pro image, with a suggestion on replacing it.

Mark Gurman and Gerrit De Vynck, writing for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. has dozens of software engineers in Canada building a car operating system, a rare move for a company that often houses research and development projects close to its Cupertino, California headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Many of the engineers working in Canada were hired over the past year and about two dozen came from BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX, a leading automotive software provider, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing details of a secret project.

And:

The most notable Apple hire from QNX was its chief executive officer, Dan Dodge. Since joining Apple’s Project Titan car initiative early this year, he’s taken on a larger role overseeing the car operating system, splitting his time between Canada and California, the people said. Another notable addition is Derrick Keefe, who left QNX last year after more than a decade as a senior engineer, one of the people said.

They are all busy skating to where the puck is going to be.

Ron Amadeo, writing for Ars Technica:

The most interesting tidbit comes from David Pierce, a senior staff writer at our sister site Wired. Speaking on the Wired Podcast, Pierce said he was told that the Pixel phones had a mere nine months of development time. After asking Google why the phone didn’t have the same level of water resistance as other high-end flagships, Pierce said, “their answer was essentially ‘We ran out of time.’ There apparently had been this plan for a long time, and at the end of 2015, they blew it all up and started over. So they essentially went from nothing to launch in nine months and a week.”

And:

Let’s examine this timeline. Why would Google “blow everything up” at the end of 2015? We can fill in the blanks with a report from Android Police, which claims that Google’s 2016 smartphone lineup was originally going to be built by Huawei.

“Shortly after the Nexus 5X and 6P launched, Google began talks with Huawei to produce its 2016 smartphone portfolio,” the report reads. “Google, though, set a hard rule for the partnership: Huawei would be relegated to a manufacturing role, producing phones with Google branding.” According to the report, Huawei balked at the lack of branding, and “CEO Richard Yu himself ended negotiations with Google right then and there.”

If we put these two accounts together, it’s easy to conclude that Google and Huawei’s talks ate into the development time of the Google/HTC Pixel. When the decision to go with a self-branded phone came down, Huawei walked away, which led to—as Pierce said—Google “blowing everything up” and switching to HTC.

To some, the Ars Technica headline might imply that the Pixel is less than excellent. I’ll leave that to others to judge, but the Pixel certainly has a lot of fans. To me, getting there with only 9 months of dedicated engineering calendar time is incredibly impressive. The backstory is interesting, though.

Shoutout to the community-minded Jason Snell and Serenity Caldwell for capturing the transcript of the earnings call, as they do. Thank you both.

On the call, one particular question that is getting a lot of discussion:

Steve Milunovich, UBS: Some investors are antsy that Apple’s not acquired new profit pools or introduced a financially-material new product in recent years. The question is: A, does Apple today have a grand strategy for what you want to do? I know you won’t tell us what it is, but do you know what you want to do over the next three to maybe five years? Or is it more a “read the market and quickly react”? And B, do you have any sense of — we’re kind of in a gap period where the technology and, arguably, what we’d call the next job to be done, haven’t yet aligned, and maybe in a couple years we will see this flurry of new products and it’ll sort of match what people want to do, but it’s not quite here yet.

And Tim’s response:

We have the strongest pipeline that we’ve ever had and we’re really confident about the things in it, but as usual, we’re not going to talk about what’s in it.

Steve’s followup:

But in terms of your approach, I guess, to new products? Do you have a strong sense of where the technology’s going and where you’re going to play, or is it still enough up in the air that you’re willing to react fairly quickly, which, arguably, your organization allows you to do for the size of the company you are?

Tim:

We have a strong sense of where things go, and we’re very agile to shift as we need to.

Everyone, including Apple’s competitors, wants to know what Apple has up its sleeve. On one level, there’s doubt being expressed as to whether Apple has anything significant up their sleeves at all (as always, Apple is doomed). And on another level, there’s curiosity as to the specifics of what’s coming.

Why ask? Either way, Tim is not going to tell you. And in my opinion, it’s foolish to read anything into Tim’s answer. I believe that Apple has much more in the works than a car and TV content, more than anyone outside the company has seen. I believe that Apple, behind the scenes, is rapidly skating to where the puck is going to be, not reacting to existing market conditions.

Thanks again to iMore, Serenity, and Jason for pulling together this transcript. It makes excellent reading.

This is a no-brainer. PDF Viewer is built by the team behind PSPDFKit, the top mobile PDF framework incorporated into apps like Dropbox, Box, HipChat, Evernote and Ulysses and used internally by companies such as IBM, SAP, United Airlines, BMW, Audi and many more. In short, these folks really know the ins and outs of PDF.

PDF Viewer is free on the iOS App Store. Here’s the iTunes link. Go get it.

UPDATE: PDF Viewer was just added to the “New Apps We Love” list in the iOS App Store. Well that didn’t take long!

Macrumors:

macOS Sierra 10.12.1, released yesterday, includes hidden Apple Pay images that depict the brand new MacBook Pro with an OLED touch panel that’s set to be announced by Apple on Thursday, October 27.

In addition to confirming that such a product is in the works, the images give us our first full look at the redesigned MacBook Pro ahead of its launch. An OLED touch panel is located on top of the keyboard, where the function keys would normally be placed, and it very clearly supports Touch ID, as it is seen used with Apple Pay.

No Escape key.

Nobuyuki Hayashi:

The event was reported on uncountable number of media outlets, from radios, TVs and web news (Blog was still new back then, and there were virtually no social media). But not many of the coverages talks about the story of the 20 CDs.

After announcing the original iPod, Steve Jobs’ said Apple has prepared about 250 prototypes of the original iPods which the invited journalists can take away (but later return). The iPod was loaded with music from 20 CDs, so the journalists can try iPod out on the way back home.

Steve Jobs insisted that Apple has no intention of stealing away the sales of the music industry; remember this was way before iTunes Music Store. What Apple did to keep its word is buying same number of 20 CDs sets and gave it along with the iPod prototypes to the journalists.

The clever folks at Reddit have created an Apple Music and Spotify playlist of the above mentioned CDs.

Atlas Obscura:

Thanks to all of you, there are now more than 10,000 incredible hidden wonders shared in the Atlas.

To celebrate, we’ve put them on all one map. The possibilities are vast, from the Icelandic witchcraft museum to the tree goats of Morocco, to Galileo’s middle finger, to the Skeleton Lake of India and thousands of other strange wonders across the world’s continents and oceans.

Next time you go traveling, check out this map to see what is in the area you’ll be visiting. Next year, I’m (hopefully) heading to Portugal and Southeast Asia to teach beginning photography workshops and I’ve already picked out some of these extraordinary places to visit.

Vulture:

There’s a reason we wait in line outside the theater for big movie releases: because where you sit matters. A prime, central location will not only ensure the most direct view and best surround experience, it will also save your neck and keep you out of the path of mid-movie bathroomgoers. But what’s the best spot to plant your flag when those doors swing open?

About two thirds of the way back, as close to the center as possible.

At 6’3″, I generally sit on the aisle for legroom but I’m going to try this “trick” next time I go to a theater.

Austin Mann:

As photographers, we’re always looking for new ways to direct the eye of the audience throughout our images.

Our eyes are generally drawn to color, clarity, brightness, and contrast. We can adjust and manipulate each of these parameters to direct the viewer’s eye to different points in our images.

Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus allows us to radically adjust the “clarity” parameter, giving us a whole new capability on the iPhone camera platform.

Notice the difference in these shots from a professional photographer, in particular, the background elements. Something I teach my students all the time is to look behind your subject to see if there are elements there that don’t add to or even subtract/distract from your subject.

John Gruber, reacting to this post from Lauren Goode about iMessage stickiness:

There’s a split between iPhone users who are primarily part of the Apple ecosystem (iCloud, Safari, Apple Mail, …) and those who are part of the Google ecosystem (Google Drive, Google Calendar, Chrome, Gmail, …).

iMessage is an exception. With iMessage you get to connect both with iPhone users in the Google ecosystem and iPhone users in the Apple ecosystem. For a lot of us here in the U.S., that’s just about everyone we know. It’s no coincidence that two of Google’s major Android initiatives this year are Allo and Duo, their answers to iMessage and FaceTime. I don’t think it’s going to work.

And:

As an iOS/MacOS exclusive, iMessage is a glue that “keeps people stuck to their iPhones and Macs”, not the glue. iMessage for Android would surely lead some number of iPhone users to switch to Android, but I think that number is small enough to be a rounding error for Apple. Apple wins by creating devices and experiences that people want to use, not that they have to use.

Both Lauren Goode’s original and Gruber’s reaction posts are interesting and worth reading.

Here’s a link to a brochure describing the ranking process.

Interesting to view the list with Brexit in mind. As is, 3 of the top 10 (As noted in the comments, Switzerland is not part of the EU), including #1 Oxford, are in the EU. After Brexit, 0.

John Markoff, writing for the New York Times:

Imagine receiving a phone call from your aging mother seeking your help because she has forgotten her banking password. > > Except it’s not your mother. The voice on the other end of the phone call just sounds deceptively like her. > > It is actually a computer-synthesized voice, a tour-de-force of artificial intelligence technology that has been crafted to make it possible for someone to masquerade via the telephone. > > Such a situation is still science fiction — but just barely. It is also the future of crime.

Being accused of a cyber crime can be very complex to deal with so it is advised that you protect your rights by hiring legal experts. The unpredictable nature of legal challenges demands a proactive and informed approach to potential complications. The intricate interplay between personal circumstances and legal frameworks creates a landscape fraught with potential misunderstandings and critical decision points. Navigating these challenges requires not just legal knowledge, but a deep understanding of individual contexts and potential long-term implications. Many find crucial guidance by exploring https://www.newjerseycriminallawattorney.com/.

Very believable to me. If they can stick a perfect simulation of Audrey Hepburn in a modern TV ad, it’s not a far stretch to imagine them simulating my mom’s voice.

Scary.

An explainer from the Washington Post on the AT&T Time Warner deal. Two points that stick out:

AT&T, the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier, is buying Time Warner, the storied media titan that owns HBO, CNN and TBS. In an unprecedented step, the deal is going to combine a gigantic telecom operator — which also happens to be the largest pay-TV company — and a massive producer of entertainment content.

It means that for millions of Americans, AT&T will control both the pipes of distribution and much of the shows, movies and other content that travels through the pipes. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this move, both in terms of scale and in terms of the ripple effects this will have on Hollywood, the cable industry, the cellular industry and the broadband industry.

In other words, AT&T may be about to own a huge trove of some of the most recognizable names in media. This is a big moment, because anytime you watch anything owned by Time Warner, that’ll be money in AT&T’s pocket. It’ll put AT&T in direct competition with companies such as Netflix and Amazon, giving it a big incentive to use its content and distribution platform as leverage against them. And it could spur a frenzy of other acquisitions, driving even more consolidation in the industry.

And:

The deal is already drawing loud protests from politicians on both ends of the ideological spectrum, at a time when national conversations about inequality have made critiquing large businesses a matter of populist appeal. U.S. lawmakers are already calling for an antitrust hearing on the issue.

The reaction from business analysts seems mixed; while many agree that buying up content is a natural move for telcos in an era of rapid convergence, some, such as Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson, say it has only a 50-50 chance of succeeding with regulators.

This is far from a done deal. And Apple is still there, waiting in the wings.

Matt Richtel, writing for the New York Times when the original iPod was announced:

Apple Computer introduced a portable music player today and declared that the new gadget, called the iPod, was so much easier to use that it would broaden a nascent market in the way the Macintosh once helped make the personal computer accessible to a more general audience.

And:

But while industry analysts said the device appeared to be as consumer friendly as the company said it was, they also pointed to its relatively limited potential audience, around seven million owners of the latest Macintosh computers. Apple said it had not yet decided whether to introduce a version of the music player for computers with the Windows operating system, which is used by more than 90 percent of personal computer users.

And:

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, disputed the concern that the market was limited, and said the company might have trouble meeting holiday demand. He predicted that the improvement in technology he said the iPod represented would inspire consumers to buy Macintosh computers so they could use an iPod.

Think they’ll sell any? I love the reference to that “relatively limited potential audience”.

The AE600 is the next generation of active equalization. New and unique EQ modes, independent control of fixed and active EQ bands, and an ultra low latency algorithm make the AE600 the perfect solution for any audio production.

McDSP makes some quality software.

The Guardian:

These days, no one requires a Swiss watch to tell the time – or a watch from any country. The time displayed on our mobile phones and other digital devices will always be more accurate than the time displayed on even the most skilfully engineered mechanical watch, yet the industry has a visual presence in our lives like few others. The storefronts of the world’s big-money boulevards glow with the lustre of Rolex and Omega; newspapers and magazines appear to be kept in business largely by watch adverts; airports would be empty shells without them.

But why do we continue to buy these over-engineered and redundant machines? Why do so many people pay so much for an item whose principal function may be bought for so little? And how does the watch industry not only survive in the digital age, but survive well enough to erect a 16,000-litre salt‑water shrine to its continued mastery of an outmoded art? Far beyond the telling of time, watches tell us something about ourselves. And so the answers to these questions lie within our propensity for extreme fantasy, our consumption of dazzling marketing, our unbridled and shameless capacity for ostentation, and our renewed reverence for craftsmanship in a digital world.

I don’t know how improbable it is. After all, rich people have and will always want rich people products, won’t they?

Mountain Duck – based on the solid open source foundation of Cyberduck – lets you mount server and cloud storage as a disk on your desktop. Open remote files with any application and work like on a local volume without synchronising files.

Use coupon code “THELOOP” to get a 20% discount this week.

The New York Times is buying The Wirecutter, a five-year-old online consumer guide.

The Times will pay more than $30 million, including retention bonuses and other payouts, for the startup, according to people familiar with the transaction.

Wow, congrats to Brian Lam. He built a great business with The Wirecutter.

The iPod turned 15 yesterday. The Verge takes you on a visual tour of all of them, from the FireWire port, rotating click wheel first version through the so-called sixth generation with the A8 chip and 8MP iSight camera you can still buy today.

Adrian Hanft, writing for Medium:

A design education begins with a zen-like challenge: place two black squares on a white background.

The professor explains that some arrangements will be dull and lifeless. Those assignments will fail. Other submissions will be dynamic and interesting. Those assignments will pass.

As you set yourself to the seemingly simple task you realize the complexity of the challenge. There are an infinite amount of ways to arrange the squares and you have no crutches because all the other elements of design have been forbidden.

No gradients.

No variation of line weight.

You can’t use the manipulative properties of color.

No shades of gray.

No room for your unique style and personality.

Having never gone to design school, not sure if this challenge is typical, but I definitely found it interesting. Take a look at some of the examples. Some of them clearly “click” more than others. Why?

Design remains an enigmatic mystery to me.

Venturebeat:

Fifteen years ago today, on October 23, 2001, Apple cofounder and former chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod, nine months after Apple introduced the iTunes music software. Speaking at an event at Apple headquarters, Jobs was his confident self, showing how he thought he had what it would take to outdo other companies with its latest product.

“In this whole new digital music revolution, there is no market leader,” Jobs said. “There are small companies like Creative and Sonicblue, and then there’s some large companies like Sony that haven’t had a hit yet, they haven’t found the recipe. No one has really found the recipe yet for digital music. And we think not only can we find the recipe, but we think the Apple brand is going to be fantastic, because people trust the Apple brand to get their great digital electronics from.”

The 6.5oz iPod, Jobs said, could hold 1,000 songs at a 160,000 bitrate on its ultra-thin hard drive, with 20 minutes’ worth of skip protection, FireWire connectivity that could download songs from a CD in five to ten seconds, and 10 hours of playback. The price: $399.

Younger readers may not realize just how insanely cool the iPod was.

Daring Fireball:

Let me add here a note about something that’s been bothering me for months: the notion that Apple is going to do something “special” next year to commemorate the iPhone’s 10th anniversary. I would wager heavily that they won’t. Apple under Tim Cook is a little bit more prone to retrospection than it was under Steve Jobs, who was almost obsessively forward-thinking, but only slightly. They made a 40-years-in-40-seconds video to commemorate the company’s 40th anniversary this year, for example, but it was only 40 seconds long. Blink and you missed it.

Apple is not going to make a special edition of any product — let alone the iPhone, their most important product — just to mark an anniversary. Don’t tell me about the 20th Anniversary Macintosh — that was a product from the old Apple that was heading toward bankruptcy, and a perfect example of why they shouldn’t do something special to mark something as arbitrary as an anniversary.

While I agree with Gruber’s sentiment that Apple won’t be doing anything “special” for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, I disagree with this line:

No one — no one — is going to buy any new iPhone just because it’s the 10th anniversary edition.

I think thousands would.