Even over half a decade after its introduction, it stands as one of the most reviled pieces of hardware around.
The failings of the Apple TV remote don’t just stem from a bad touchpad (and don’t get me wrong: it is bad) but from a larger misunderstanding on Apple’s part of what makes a good remote and the fundamental purpose of those devices.
Amazing to me that Apple has stuck with this design after all this time. I do appreciate the elegance of the solution, but the functionality continues to fall short and fail, both in its accidental upsidedownness, and in the frequent miscues of the touchpad.
With the explosive growth of new streaming services, I’m finding problems with the remote growing proportionately, as different services offer their own special spin on interacting with the remote. This is especially problematic watching shows that force ads into a stream, where an accidental wrong remote press can force you to endure a replay of a non-skippable full minute of ads.
I really hope there’s a new Apple TV in the works, and a redesigned remote along with it.
In honor of Black History Month, 32 of the country’s most visionary Black photographers show us their hometowns. Phillip Youmans, the youngest ever director to win at the Tribeca Film Festival, follows a number of our image-makers as they each celebrate the Black experience, Black excellence, love, and imagination.
Set aside a few minutes when you can both watch these videos, but also listen to the compelling stories these artists are telling. Big fan of this work.
That son of a biscuit actually did it! Titular Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis scored Best Actor in a Comedy Series honors at Sunday’s 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards for his work in the Apple TV+ comedy.
That son-of-a-biscuit!
Best part of the night, for me, was Jason’s acceptance speech, embedded below. Everything about this felt so 2021.
This week, Dave and I discuss whether Apple needs to include the option for lossless audio with Apple Music. We also talk about spy pixels in emails, somethings that been around for a long time, and what Apple can do about it. Dave gives us his thoughts on Apple’s movie, WolfWalkers.
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The Computer History Museum pulled together a Clubhouse visit with some Apple luminaries, all on the occasion of Steve Jobs birthday:
Chris Fralic, Steven Levy, Esther Dyson, Mike Slade, John/Diane SCULLEY, Seth Godin, Andy Cunningham, Dan’l Lewin, Doug Menuez, Regis McKenna, Andy Hertzfeld, and Steven Rosenblatt share their “Steve Jobs Stories” in honor of what would have been the Apple cofounder’s 66th birthday.
That’s quite a list.
Watch the avatar outline to get a sense of who is talking.
Target wants to give shoppers another reason to skip trips to the mall: It’s adding mini Apple stores to some locations, with more space devoted to iPhones and other popular gadgets.
The retailer said Thursday that the shops will open in 17 Target stores this month, and it plans to expand to more locations in the fall. Target already sells Apple merchandise, but the shops will double the tech company’s footprint inside of each store, include more accessories and have staff with specialized training from Apple.
Interesting experiment, reminiscent of Apple’s BestBuy partnership.
Ted Lasso is way more than just a (quite good) cult TV show. It’s also a window into a handful of pop culture trends that have swirled together into one unassuming little package. Ted Lasso isn’t just a show about a coach who cares about his players more than wins and losses. It’s also a show about the way we wish the world would be.
And:
I would argue “comfort food TV” goes beyond shows that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, because it’s relatively easy to pour on the saccharine sweetness and much, much harder to evoke the feeling of safety that comfort food TV inspires.
The phrase “comfort food TV” captures Ted Lasso perfectly. And Ted Lasso succeeds brilliantly in a category that is incredibly difficult to pull off.
But Emily’s article dive’s much deeper than a discussion of comfort food:
Ted Lasso also presents an idealistic view of how the powerful rich white cis straight men who our American system so privileges could and should carry themselves. Ted Lasso overcomes everybody’s resistance through being a genuine and nice man. But that, perversely, speaks to the privilege he has within the system he is part of.
And:
When Parks and Recreation tried the same with Leslie Knope (a powerful and eventually affluent white cis straight woman), it always had to couch her persistence in tones of “Sure, she’s annoying, buuuut …” Ted Lasso takes a few faint stabs at “people roll their eyes at Ted!” but by the middle of its first season, he’s won over even the press that taunted him mercilessly when he took over the team. It’s a bit wild, and again, it’s clearly a fantasy. But it’s a fantasy that speaks to something people long for right now.
If you are a Ted Lasso fan, or a TV nerd (like me), carve out a bit of time to read the whole thing. Does a great job explaining the genius of Ted Lasso.
Apple ignited the legal music-download revolution with iTunes, led again by dropping copy-protecting DRM from its music downloads, and in 2007 led a major upgrade in digital-music quality with the launch of iTunes Plus.
But more than a decade later, the company finds itself as a music-streaming laggard, to borrow a term that Steve Jobs used to throw around a lot. When it comes to music quality, Apple’s not streets ahead—it’s streets behind.
And:
This week Spotify became the latest music service to jump on the high-quality audio bandwagon, joining Amazon, Tidal, and other services in offering lossless audio to subscribers.
I would definitely pay extra for a lossless Apple Music. The majority of my music listening is done via my AirPods Pro and the inherently bitrate limited Bluetooth AAC codec. So lossless audio would not have real value in that particular listening mode.
BUT:
I also listen to music through my HomePod, through my Apple TV, and through my Mac speakers. Those modes are not inherently limited by codec.
No doubt, Apple knows how many people would pony up for lossless audio (they’ve gone down this road before). Question is, is there enough revenue out there to justify the expense of bringing it to market.
Interesting read from Jason Snell, especially the discussion of “Going beyond lossless”.
The tried-and-true copy/paste combo is a staple of productivity but that can grind to a halt when you need to quickly grab text from the real world or existing screenshots and pictures. Read along for how to convert iPhone images to text available right on your clipboard.
This is one of those things that is a wonder once you add an app like this to your stable.
Take a look at the screenshot in Michael’s article to get a sense of how you might use something like this. It really is a nice tool to have.
A nit, but I would change the headline, since this is more of a here’s a great iPhone app, here’s a great Mac app, not so much a rundown of iPhone apps. But that aside, worth a look.
In my piece yesterday about email tracking images (“spy pixels” or “spy trackers”), I complained about the fact that Apple — a company that rightfully prides itself for its numerous features protecting user privacy — offers no built-in defenses for email tracking.
A slew of readers wrote to argue that Apple Mail does offer such a feature: the option not to load any remote resources at all.
And:
What Hey offers — by default — is the ability to load regular images automatically, so your messages look “right”, but block all known images from tracking sources (which are generally invisible 1×1 px invisible GIFs).
Consider Apple Mail’s nuclear option vs HEY’s nuanced, researched approach.
More from Gruber:
Apple should do something similar: identify and block spy trackers in email by default, and route all other images through an anonymizing proxy service. And, like Hey, they should flag all emails containing known trackers with a shame badge.
People with an M1 mac, please run `brew install smartmontools && sudo smartctl –all /dev/disk0` and report back (and what kind of usage you make of the machine, especially RAM).
Just to be clear: This is definitely a bug. It’s software. It’s macOS behavior. It can be fixed.
Folks have reported encountering the problem on Intel Macs as well. So clearly not an M1-specific issue. To me, feels more like a Big Sur issue. And it might be an issue with the reporting system, not with the SSD. Big grain of salt required.
Worth surfacing, for sure. Hopefully, Apple can address this, offer up an explanation and a patch, if required.
After nearly 36 years in business as the one-stop-shop and online resource for high-tech professionals across nine states and 31 stores, Fry’s Electronics, Inc. (“Fry’s” or “Company”), has made the difficult decision to shut down its operations and close its business permanently as a result of changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
And:
The Company ceased regular operations and began the wind-down process on February 24, 2021.
Folks on the east coast might be wondering what this is all about. Fry’s Electronics was at the heart of Silicon Valley itself, a big box electronics retail wonderland for entrepreneurs that opened its doors in Sunnyvale, California back in 1985.
As to the cause of their door-closing, seems to me COVID-19 was the final nail, that Amazon was the driving force.
A HomePod could potentially help save lives without getting into contact with other people, with Apple looking into 360-degree radar systems that can detect vital signs and medical conditions of individuals.
And:
In a patent granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday entitled “Electronic device with circular radar-antenna array,” Apple envisions a system that could potentially provide more accurate positioning data, as well as other information.
This is fascinating. Not clear just how sophisticated a system this patent might yield, but definitely feels like HomePod might evolve into a sensor, providing intel to HomeKit and HealthKit.
Apple has acquired about 100 companies over the last six years, the company’s chief executive Tim Cook has revealed.
That works out at a company every three to four weeks, he told Apple’s annual meeting of shareholders on Tuesday.
And:
Most often, Apple buys smaller technology firms and then incorporates their innovations into its own products.
And:
Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than those of many of its tech rivals. Microsoft paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp.
Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than any of those deals.
Not big news, but if you follow the headline link and scroll, you can scan through a list of some of those acquisitions/aquihires.
The internet will get a chance to remotely control one of Boston Dynamics’ $75,000 “Spot” robots this week thanks to a mysterious startup company. Not only that, the robot will even come equipped with a paintball gun for added mayhem.
And:
On Wednesday at 1pm ET, MSCHF will unleash Spot inside a small art gallery at its headquarters in Brooklyn. Users who visit the campaign’s website will get a chance to commandeer Spot for two minutes before another user somewhere in the world takes over.
There’s a picture of Spot with paintball gun attached via the headline link. The world wants this. I guess?
This is a nice little resource, built and maintained by Michael Steeber, worth a moment of your time. In a nutshell, it’s a deep dive into all the elements that make up the Apple Store.
For example, follow the headline link, tap on Boardroom, you’ll go to a page that introduces the concept of an Apple Store’s Boardroom (have you ever seen one?), with a few images, and a link to a detailed Boardroom article.
Hellman talks about ‘Discovery Mode’ – the feature where artists or labels can pay to have songs surfaced in Spotify’s radio and autoplay features, in exchange for a lower royalty rate. That caused some controversy when announced, so it’s interesting to hear Hellman’s claim today: labels taking part in the tests have “been able to find new listeners and grow audiences for artists on their roster: during pilot testing, on average Discovery Mode has helped these labels grow streams by 30%, resulting in higher royalty payments for artists opted into the test”.
“Hellman” is Charlie Hellman, part of Spotify’s artist tools team.
Discovery Mode sounds like a great deal, on the surface. Take a lower royalty rate, and you’ll get more plays. Even if you get more money in the short term, this seems like a bad thing for artists.
Here’s why: As artists take the lower royalty rate, especially if they get a lot of plays, the overall royalty rate will go down. This hurts artists as a whole. And saves Spotify money. Their total payout pool for artists goes down.
And what if an artist takes the chance, opts in to the lower royalty rate, and they end up not getting more plays. Will Spotify move them back to the higher default royalty rate in that case?
One more concern here is a lack of transparency to the listener. If you are listening to a Spotify stream, will you hear a disclaimer on a playlist for songs that take the lower royalty rate for the promotion of Discovery Mode?
We today got a more detailed report about what to expect in terms of 2021 MacBook Pro ports, with noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying we should expect both an HDMI port and an SD card slot. Coupled to his earlier report of a new MagSafe power port, that’s a pretty dramatic change to the current models, which have just USB-C ports and a headphone socket.
If Apple adds any/all of MagSafe, SD Card slot, HDMI to the rumored 2021 MacBook Pros, I can imagine they’ll sell more units (rumor mill says 25%-30% expected sales increase). And I can’t imagine someone turning away from the new MacBook Pros because they have too many ports.
Back to Ben:
But whether that’s an IO dream or nightmare depends on how Apple plans to implement the change.
Where’s the down side?
So one very real possibility, as raised by my colleague Benjamin Mayo earlier, is that the new ports come at the cost of reducing the number of USB-C ones. In which case I and others like me will be unhappy, as we’d be swapping out one or more multifunction ports – whose abilities include power and video connections – for single-function ones.
That’s a fair concern. But I think that ship has already sailed. I’ve been living with a 2020 MacBook Air with only two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports. While I would like more ports, I’ve gotten used to living with two. I’ve got a hub that adds more ports that I rarely touch (mostly comes up when I want a peek at an SD card or flash drive). When I plug in my external display, I use the display’s built-in ports instead of a hub.
I can live with two USB-C ports. As long as Apple doesn’t go lower than two, but adds in extra ports, I’ve got no complaints. Though that does add more places for spilled coffee to go where it shouldn’t, but that’s on me.
Would I pay more for four USB-C ports, plus the extra ports? Not sure. An embarrassment of riches, that.
One document every serious Mac user should read and refer to repeatedly is the Platform Security Guide, which Apple has just revised to give all the gory details of how M1 Macs start up. In the course of doing that, it reveals that these new models have a boot mode which doesn’t appear to be documented anywhere else, but which could prove a Mac-saver: Fallback Recovery OS.
If you need your M1 Mac to enter 1 True Recovery (1TR), Recovery Mode, but that fails, there’s a second copy of the software required for 1TR “for resiliency”. To boot into that, instead of just holding the Power button until 1TR starts loading, you should “double-press and hold the power button”, according to the guide.
In practice, I’ve found this requires you to press the Power button twice in rapid succession, and on the second press, instead of releasing the button, hold it pressed until recovery options are reported as loading. This works reliably on an M1 MacBook Pro, but I’ve so far been unable to get it to work at all on my M1 Mac mini, but maybe I’m just not doing it right.
If you are responsible for the maintenance of an M1 Mac, this is worth a read and a bookmark.
Starting today, the Apple TV app, including Apple TV+, is now globally available on the new Chromecast with Google TV, with more Google TV devices to come.
And:
With Google TV in the U.S., you can browse Apple Originals in your personalized recommendations and search results. And with Google Assistant, you can also use your voice to ask Google to open the Apple TV app or play an Apple Original title. If you aren’t ready to watch right away, you can add Apple Originals to your Watchlist for later. These features will roll out globally in the coming months.
This does raise the question: Is there still a reason to buy an Apple TV?
One clear reason, for me, is trust. Do you care what Google does with your tv viewing habits? Do you trust them with your access credentials? If trust is not an issue for you, take a read of this Twitter thread from Steven Aquino, one of the first takes I’ve seen on the move from tvOS to Apple TV on ChromeCast.
Mythic Quest was the first Apple TV+ series that really grabbed me. This series and Ted Lasso are two of my favorite comedies of any streaming service. Looking forward to seeing what they do with season 2 (drops May 7th).
The new Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C cable from OWC connects with USB-C on both ends and is certified for Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB 4, USB 3.2, USB 3.1, USB Power, and more. The company also says that you get 100% of both the maximum power allowed and the full data capability supported from/between any USB-C port-equipped device and host.
This is one of the things I dislike about USB-C and HDMI. Two identical looking cables can have wildly different innards, vary widely in the functionality they support, data they transport.
I wish the connectors supported some form of color coding (think RGBIV resistor color bands) that tell you at a glance what functionality the cable will support.
High stakes, shocking twists, and a new adventure. Get a first look at the newest Apple Original series The Mosquito Coast, starring Justin Theroux and Melissa George and coming April 30th to Apple TV+
Adapted from the best-selling novel, The Mosquito Coast is a gripping adventure following the dangerous journey of a radical idealist and brilliant inventor, Allie Fox (Justin Theroux), who uproots his family for Mexico seeking a safe haven.
Watch the trailer, embedded below. This looks like it could be a ripping ride. As mentioned, the series premiere drops April 30th.
Dave and I discuss some of the changes rumored to be coming to the MacBook Pro and if they signify Apple is admitting it was wrong with some features. We also talk about a new Apple Music feature that allows you to share lyrics and snippets of songs with a friend. A surprising $922,000 pizza and Dave’s braided loop Apple Watch band.
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