OK, so I’ve mixed two things together in that headline. But still.
From Reuters:
Germany’s Volkswagen is not concerned by any Apple plans for a passenger vehicle that could include the iPhone maker’s battery technology, its chief executive Herbert Diess said.
And:
“The car industry is not a typical tech-sector that you could take over at a single stroke,” Diess was quoted as saying an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
“Apple will not manage that overnight,” he added.
Of course, the headline referred to the mother of all Claim Chowder, this Daring Fireball post from 2006, where Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously addressed the upstart iPhone’s entry into the smartphone space. Worth a re-read.
Scam and fake apps are upsetting developers, so Dave and I take a look at what Apple is doing and the pitfalls on both sides of this situation. We also talk about the new Waze-like features in Apple Maps and Dave tells an hilarious story about Phil Collins and George Harrison.
Not counting the two Steves, any guess as to the name of Apple’s employee number one? Follow the headline link for the answer and an interview from back in 2016.
And for a fun little rabbit hole, follow this link, which will take you to a list of other interviews from the Hacker News Employee #1 series, including interviews with folks from Amazon, Tumblr, and Airbnb.
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object’s resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object. The concept suggests that humanoid objects which imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.
In a nutshell, fake people that are close to real, but still clearly fake, are creepy.
Watch the video embedded below. This is remarkable work. For me at least, the uncanny valley has been crossed. But that said, this terrifies me as much as it fascinates. Yet another sign of the deepfakes to come.
Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google’s “Safe Browsing” service used in Safari through its own servers instead of relying on Google as a way to limit which personal data Google sees about users.
And:
Apple relies on Google’s “Safe Browsing,” a database/blocklist of websites crawled by Google of websites that it deems to be suspected phishing or scam.
And:
While Google doesn’t know which specific URL you’re trying to visit, it may collect your IP address during its interaction with Safari. Now on iOS/iPadOS 14.5, that’s no longer the case. As confirmed by the Head of Engineering for WebKit, Apple will now proxy Google’s Safe Browsing feature through its own servers instead of Google as a way to “limit the risk of information leak.”
Helping Intel stay in the semiconductor manufacturing game should be among one of the highest priorities for all US-based technology companies. While TSMC is the leader in manufacturing process technology, they remain a geo-political risk should China decide to enforce its will on the region. Samsung is not far behind, but being a Korean company, again, future politics guarantee no safe bets.
And:
I don’t want to dismiss the technological achievement of TSMC by being the first foundry to 7nm, 5nm, and likely the first to 3nm. Anyone who knows transistor designs knows how hard it is, at a micro level, to keep shrinking silicon. However, Apple helped make it easier for TSMC to justify the RND and CapEx costs and to continually invest in leading-edge process technology by being their largest customer, always committing to the latest node. I am not convinced TSMC would have the clear lead they do in process tech without Apple.
Most importantly:
Having a leading semiconductor company founded and based in the US is incredibly strategic given how critical semiconductors are to our digital future. Apple may be one of the only companies that can help Intel right the ship.
This seems a perfect match for Apple. Political gains by bringing more technology leadership and high-tech jobs to the US. A joint venture that helps ensure processors on demand to keep their supply chain healthy.
Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac, with a good read if you’ve got AirPods that work well, but suffer from aging batteries.
What I found most interesting:
PodSwap is a relatively new service, and it looks like a great option to get your AirPods batteries replaced at a nice discount. You can swap in your gen 1 or gen 2 AirPods with dead batteries for a refurbished and sanitized pair with “restored battery life.”
The company has indeed found a way to replace AirPods’ batteries with “specially developed equipment.” You’re not getting an official Apple battery here, but PodSwap says it’s done independent testing to make sure “The batteries we use are similar in performance to your original ones from Apple.”
The caveat:
PodSwap gives your AirPods new life for just $59.99 (the same would run $99 from Apple). The trade-off here is this service is mostly compelling for AirPods gen 1 owners since if you send in AirPods gen 2, you’re getting back gen 1 earphones.
Worth bookmarking PodSwap, especially if you’ve got gen 1 AirPods. And hopefully, they’ll work out fixes for gen 2 AirPods and AirPods Pro as well.
After four years of driving in parts of fifteen countries, Apple announced in June 2019 that its imagery collection vehicles had driven “over four million miles”.
And:
What makes this number interesting is that Google has made similar statements about its Street View vehicles over the years. Google first started collecting imagery in 2006 and by mid 2012, its Street View vehicles had driven more than five million miles.
And:
Five million miles over six years (Google) is slower than four million over four (Apple)—and it suggests that Apple has been driving the world faster than Google originally did.
But when it comes to releasing this imagery, Apple has been releasing it much slower.
What follows is an interesting, and quite detailed look at Apple’s imagery rollout in southern Canada and the US. If nothing else, check out the map showing the sparsity of US Look Around coverage (about halfway down the page) vs the map showing US places visited by Apple Maps vehicles vs the map of robust Look Around coverage in southern Canada.
If you swipe up on the Apple Maps interface where maps details are available, you can tap on a “Report” button that lets you flag an accident, a hazard, or a speed check, similar to other mapping apps like Waze.
Interestingly:
Tapping automatically flags your location with no confirmation window, so it shouldn’t be used except in a valid situation.
That does open the door to accidental flagging, but this is crowdsourcing, so it’s not likely a single report will trigger the flag.
You can also say “Hey Siri, there’s an accident” and Siri will send in a report to Apple Maps, and presumably, if enough people file reports, an accident site will show up in the maps app through the crowdsourcing.
The third-generation Apple TV, last made available in 2013, is slowly losing support from third-party app developers. YouTube recently announced that the YouTube channel will disappear in March, and now the CBS All Access channel is also being removed.
And:
The timing coincides with an upcoming shift that will see CBS All Access rebranding as Paramount+. ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish said in September that CBS All Access was being rebranded because the Paramount brand is more recognizable. The rebrand will be accompanied by original content designed to lure new subscribers.
And:
Though there will be no app on the third-generation Apple TV, Paramount+ content will be able to be streamed from an iOS device to a third-generation Apple TV.
CBS All Access and Showtime have a bundle deal. Will that deal continue under Paramount+?
On a related note, will we see a new Apple TV this year?
There’s been a steady drumbeat on Twitter recently, a river of tweets about fake/scammy apps on the App Store.
From the headline linked post:
I have spent the last four years of my life working on my very successful app only to have it ruined by scam apps with very obvious fake reviews as well as false advertising claims that Apple does not take action against. I can literally prove they are fake but Apple refuses to take action for undisclosed reasons, allowing thousands of more people getting scammed by these apps day by day.
Follow the link, read the post. This is a detailed breakdown of one developer’s experience, a very specific example that is one of many.
When you’ve read that post, hop over to this Michael Tsai rollup page with comments on another, perhaps more well circulated example.
App Store folks, spend some time reading through the linked comments on Michael Tsai’s page. There are links to examples, stories, and specific thoughts on small ways to address the problem. As is, one might think Apple is looking away. This has got to stop.
Shine on you Crazy Diamond is a seminal Pink Floyd song. There are many, many videos out there showcasing performances by Gilmour, by Floyd, and by other guitarists/performers.
For me, this one is the cream that rises to the top. Gilmour’s guitar sound is clean and pure, the audio capture and mix is excellent, and those background vocals by Crosby and Nash an understated rarity.
Joe Biden had a question for Tim Cook: Why, the then-vice president wanted to know, couldn’t Apple make the iPhone in the U.S.? It was January 2012, during President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and three months after the death of Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs.
And:
As everyone at the dinner well knew, the idea of mass-producing an iPhone, or any advanced consumer electronics, in a domestic factory was an exceptionally tall order. The big Asian contract manufacturers, especially Apple Inc.’s main partner, Foxconn, had built city-size factories in China with armies of hundreds of thousands of skilled laborers. None of that scale existed in the U.S. Chinese factory employees generally worked much longer hours, for a fraction of what even the lowest-paid American workers make.
And:
Biden’s question put Cook, who’d become Apple’s CEO the previous August, in an awkward position. He was the architect of the strategy to outsource Apple’s production to China, a trend of increasing concern for the Obama administration. But Cook was also, as it turned out, extremely effective at deflecting political pressure.
This is just a tiny taste of a fantastic, detail-filled profile of Tim Cook’s Apple stewardship. Great read, worth every minute. Riveting.
Andy Hertzfeld is at the root of the Macintosh tree, part of the small team that brought that original Mac to life. He was also a friend of Steve Jobs and his site Folklore.org is a keeper of the old stories and a rabbit hole that is well worth your time.
Andy recently did an episode of the DNext podcast. It’s not a look back, so much as a sharing of thoughts. I enjoyed every minute of it, thought you might too. You can find DNext in your favorite podcast app as well as by following the headline link.
I’ve been trying to get a handle on this issue for over a month now. The first signs that this is becoming a larger issue came after the macOS Big Sur 11.2 update was made available. People would say that their Big Sur Upgrade failed and found no way to recover.
And:
If you installed the macOS Big Sur Upgrade and you are now stuck in boot loop ending with the error – An error occurred preparing the software update – you are affected by this issue.
Bottom line, make sure you have a good amount of free space on your Mac before you start the install. Personally, I’d make sure I had at least 50GB free. But follow the headline link and scroll to the section titled, How can I prevent this from happening to me?
Struggling to stay on top of client follow-ups and projects by relying on Apple Contacts, Calendar, spreadsheets, Siri reminders and your memory? Daylite to the rescue for all Apple lovers!
Daylite is a native Mac CRM and project management app for teams. Keep track of communication with clients and the status of projects and deals all in one place, even when you are working offline. Sync with your iPhone and iPad when you’re on the go (or on the couch). Compatible with Big Sur and M1-powered Macs, plus enjoy the new sleek look of Daylite in dark mode.
Daylite is designed to work seamlessly with all the Apple features you love:
Integrate with Apple Mail on Mac
Share your Apple Contacts and iCal
Leverage features like Siri & Caller ID on your iPhone
FaceID and TouchID support
Unlike other Web based CRMs that just focus on customer relationships and sales, Daylite takes you through the full customer lifecycle. From meeting prospects & winning business, to managing the moving pieces on projects, all the way through following up for referrals and repeat business, it’s all done in Daylite.
Wayne Goodrich was the producer for every keynote Steve gave after his return to Apple. Before that, Wayne helped him create presentations at NeXT and Pixar. He is writing a book about what it was like on the inside.
A fascinating Q&A with pics and “working with Steve” anecdotes. Great read.
For those unfamiliar, Dolly Parton created a new version of her hit song 9 To 5, cleverly named 5 To 9, as part of a Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace. The country music artist tweeted this evening that if you use Shazam to identify 5 To 9 during the Super Bowl tonight, you’ll unlock a “special surprise” as well as up to 5 free months of Apple Music.
Not sure what the “special surprise” was, but here’s a link to that free 5 months of Apple Music promo. New subscribers only, and it’ll be less than five months if you already have tried a free trial of Apple Music.
I can verify that the five month free trial worked as of this post. If you are interested, best get to it, thinking it will expire at some point.
After being unable to locate one of his AirPods, a Massachusetts man’s trip to the emergency turned it up in an unlikely place.
And:
I went back out in the morning and shoveled [snow] for an hour,” he told WWLP News 22. “When I came in, I tried to drink a glass of water again and couldn’t,” said Gauthier.
Gauthier’s family joked that maybe he’d swallowed it, but the idea felt “too coincidental.” A trip to the emergency room lead to an x-ray, which lead his doctor to discover the AirPod lodged in his esophagus.
I can’t imagine doing this. But there it is, on the X-Ray. Crazy. I wonder if this will impact his warranty.
In the middle of all this misery, you have a group of the most cancerous rent-seekers on earth, aligning to destroy this company GameStop, because they decided it shouldn’t exist anymore.
And it was GameStop! It’s such a visceral symbol for people in my generation. Even for me, in all those bad times growing up, it was always a nice memory just to go to a strip mall, go in the store, check out a game or two. I like GameStop. Everyone remembers going to GameStop. It’s part of what made it such an obvious rallying cry.
That was it for me. I found myself thinking, I didn’t care if I lost every last dollar doing it, I was going to put it on GameStop, just to see them panic for once. Even if for just one moment they have to think about how they’re going to make their payments for their Manhattan apartments, that’s worth it. They’re playing these games while there are people out there who can’t afford Christmas presents for their kids, can’t afford food. What are these families supposed to do?
Follow the headline link, it’s a bit of a long read, but there’s a lot of insight there into how this all unfolded and its seeds in the fund collapses and bailouts back in 2008.
“Hyundai Motor is getting requests from multiple companies for cooperation in joint development of autonomous, electric vehicles but nothing has been decided since it’s in early stage,” the company said, according to a CNBC translation of a regulatory filing.
More specifically:
“Hyundai Motor is not in talks with Apple on autonomous vehicle development,” it added.
And:
Kia Motors also said it was not in talks with Apple.
I’m fascinated by the secrecy of Apple’s auto efforts. Part of this is how long this has been going on, how many people have come and gone on this project, how much attention it has received from the media and, after all this time, how little is known.
I would love to see Apple’s detail-focused design skills applied to a car. But between internal combustion engines vs EV, driven vs driverless, and the move away from car ownership, the evolution/disruption of this space seems to still be a future event. And this is an expensive space to set up in, especially if you buy in and the space changes underneath you.
If you use Apple products, privacy is probably a big issue for you. Apple does everything it can to protect us from companies like Facebook. While Facebook is fighting back the Harvard Business Review looked at how they aren’t being completely honest. Dave and I also talked about Apple and the Golden Globes, and Jeff Bezos decision to step down from Amazon.
On iOS, if you turn on “Limit Adult Website” under Screen Time->Content Restrictions, Safari blocks any website URL containing the word “asian”. Seriously, go try it, it’s unbelievable.
This can’t be true, can it? Give it a try yourself:
Go to Settings > Screen Time
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions
Enable Content & Privacy Restrictions switch
Tap Content Restrictions
Scroll down, tap Web Content
Tap Limit Adult Websites
Now fire up Safari and search for, say, Asian Food. Here’s the screen shot I got. In a nutshell, it says, “You cannot browse this page because it is restricted.”
Apple needs to fix this and figure out how this happened so it doesn’t happen again.
When Apple announced the transition from Intel processors to Apple Silicon chips, the company offered a custom Mac mini with the A12Z Bionic chip so that developers could update their macOS apps to support the new ARM platform. The company is now asking developers to return these DTK Mac minis as the M1 Macs were introduced in November last year.
And:
As developers had to pay $500 to get the custom Mac mini with A12Z Bionic chip, Apple will offer a $200 credit for each DTK returned. This credit can be used as a discount to buy a new M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Mac mini.
Apple made the Developer Transition Kit available so folks could test and update their Mac apps and be ready when the M1 Macs started shipping. Developers paid $500 for the kit and knew when they signed up that they’d have to return them at some point (returning the DTK was specified in the agreement, no surprise there).
Apple is easing the sting of having to return the “rented” DTK with a $200 “one-time use code” credit towards the purchase of an M1 Mac.
One wrinkle: The $200 expires at the end of May. Presumably, WWDC will be virtual again and will occur in June. And if new Macs are announced at WWDC, this means the $200 will not be usable for those Macs. Some developers are notably unhappy.
All in all, I think Apple could have avoided this PR bruise if they would have clearly laid out the specifics when they released the DTK in the first place. You pay us $500, we’ll give you a $200 credit that expires at the end of May when you return the box. As is, I got the sense that people were expecting Apple to send everyone an M1 Mac. An unfair expectation, true, but Apple could have controlled this from the beginning.
The walls of his highly compartmentalized empire have been crumbling for some time. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to be Jeff Bezos (at least by Bezos’s standards). He presides over a collection of properties that spans not only Amazon but The Washington Post, several philanthropies and a space company, Blue Origin LLC, that lags far behind its chief rival, Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
This is a great take on Bezos stepping down and the freedom that offers Amazon without the political weight of The Washington Post and the fractured attention pull of Blue Origin.
“Without personalized ads,” [Facebook] says in its ads and on its website, “Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend.”
Hmm. Really?
It’s an eye-popping figure, and one that suggests that Apple’s pro-privacy policy is poised to deal a devastating blow to small businesses. But where does the data for this apocalyptic claim come from? And does it hold up under scrutiny?
And:
To properly evaluate this claim, you first need to understand the popular metric that Facebook used here to quantify advertising success: return on ad spend, or ROAS. The metric indicates the amount of revenues associated with advertising — but it does not indicate the amount of revenues caused by advertising.
And:
In its campaign against Apple’s new policy, Facebook is claiming that when it compared the ROAS for campaigns that leveraged personalized information with campaigns that didn’t, it found that small businesses would suffer a 60% cut in revenues if they were deprived of personalized advertising.
That scary-sounding number, however, is almost certainly too high. Randomized controlled trials that compare personalized advertising with no advertising tend to reveal much smaller differences.
Follow the headline link for more of this takedown. I’d be quite happy with a much smaller version of Facebook that allowed me to keep in touch with friends and family without all the privacy busting. I’d even pay for the privilege so I stopped being the product.
