A well done new support site from Apple for its products.

Today I Found Out:

Gary Gygax (pronounced GHEE-Gax) was an insurance underwriter living in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in the late 1960s. He made his living calculating the probabilities that an individual seeking to buy insurance would become sick or disabled or die, and he used these estimates to set the premiums and payouts on the policies he reviewed. Every policy was like a roll of the dice: If Gygax calculated correctly, the individual received sufficient coverage at a fair price, and the insurance company had a good shot at earning a fair profit. If he was incorrect, either the individual or the insurance company would lose.

In Gygax’s free time, he loved to roll dice of a different sort: He played war games in his home with fellow members of a club called the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association.

Many of us have a soft spot for Dungeons and Dragons, even if we don’t play it anymore and I always like reading stories about how it came to be. FYI, I was a 200lbs Dwarven Fighter-Thief with a drinking problem and a hatred of any humans over 6ft tall. Caused all kinds of problems. I still have my D&D dice.

“The next claim we hear is that we underpay compared to subscription services such as Spotify. But that argument confuses two different services: music subscriptions that cost £10 a month versus ad-supported music videos. It’s like comparing what a black cab driver earns from fares to what they earn showing ads in their taxi.”

This is a very interesting battle.

Some of these are very clever, indeed.

Rovi Corp, a provider of digital television guides, said on Friday it would buy video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc in a $1.1 billion deal that brings together two video software players with deep patent portfolios.

I could never figure out why TiVo, a company that everyone seems to love, could never do better in the market.

iMore:

The iPhone dominates Apple’s product sales and its balance sheet. And like a star exerting gravitational influence over its planets, many aspects of Apple’s business are perturbed by the existence of the iPhone.

When Apple reports its results, the iPhone stands center stage. When iPhone sales slip, as they did last quarter, the entire company is questioned. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the rest of Apple’s business, most notably the Mac and the iPad.

Remove the iPhone and iron out the seasonality, and what you see is a remarkably stable, successful business.

As some of we lonely voices in the wilderness keep trying to point out, Apple is a remarkably successful company even without huge iPhone sales numbers (and keep in mind, last quarter’s iPhone numbers, while lower than what Wall St wanted, are still on par with Apple’s most successful ones) and in particular when you keep in mind where Apple has come from. It really brings to the fore the fact that Apple Inc is completely different from AAPL.

But Icahn, who owned 45.8 million Apple shares at the end of last year, said China’s economic slowdown and worries about how China could become more prohibitive in doing business triggered his decision to exit his position entirely.

“We no longer have a position in Apple. Tim Cook did a great job. I called him this morning to tell him that and he was a little sorry, obviously. But I told him it’s a great company,” Icahn said. “In Apple today as opposed to six months or a year ago, in this one, there’s no need for activism because I think they have a great management. But you worry a little bit, maybe more than a little, about China’s attitude.”

Probably the best news Apple has had in a while.

Ten years ago, we launched Google Translate. Our goal was to break language barriers and to make the world more accessible. Since then we’ve grown from supporting two languages to 103, and from hundreds of users to hundreds of millions. And just like anyone’s first 10 years, we’ve learned to see and understand, talk, listen, have a conversation, write, and lean on friends for help.

I think we’ve all used Google Translate over the years.

“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of a young and talented coworker. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his family and friends, including the many people he worked with here at Apple.”

I can definitely relate.

My wife and I have a Windows laptop in our kitchen. First we were asked politely if we were interested in upgrading to Windows 10. Then we were reminded repeatedly. And, ultimately, we woke up one morning to see our machine taking matters into its own hands, whistling silently, while it upgraded us to what it knew we really needed.

Lauren Goode, writing (and filming) for The Verge, walks you through the differences between Siri and Alexa, Alexa being the voice of the Amazon ecosystem, most notably found on the Amazon Echo.

Watch the video below to get a sense of Alexa in action. Nice side-by-side effect there, Lauren.

David Pierce, writing for Wired:

It’s a beautifully designed two-pound, half-inch-thick slab of aluminum. The 12-inch, 2304×1440 screen feels small, even compared to a 13-inch laptop, but the panel is spectacular. The trackpad is of course wonderful, even if Force Touch is pointless and you’ll instantly forget it even exists. The keyboard … well, the keyboard takes some getting used to. It’s shallow and light, almost like typing on a touchscreen. But you get used to it, and it’s a usable full-sized keyboard. The speaker gets impressively loud, though it does rumble through the chassis. The low-res webcam sucks. Generally, the MacBook is a laptop. It’s not a crazy convertible hybrid fold-y thing. It’s a laptop.

And:

A few things have changed, though. You’ll only see one: the new don’t-call-it-pink rose gold color. Personally, I love it. The smooth, matte finish is clean, quiet, and somehow calming. You might hate it. (Lots of people at WIRED hate it.) No worries. You can also get it in gold, silver, and space gray. Pick your favorite.

And:

My typical workflow is masochistic: 30 tabs open in two windows, one of which I forget about. I also keep Slack, and TweetDeck, and Evernote, and maybe Word running. Last year’s MacBook faltered under the load, but this one does just fine. It’s still too slow to play anything more intensive than Badland (and it could barely handle Badland) or open Photoshop in a reasonable amount of time. But that doesn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t matter to most people.

The review makes me want one, but it also makes me long for an update to the retina MacBook Pro.

Two videos, taken by truck drivers as they make their way around the campus.

Time Magazine:

Photography company Getty Images is accusing Google of scraping images from third party websites and encouraging piracy, adding a new wrinkle to the Mountain View, Calif.’s ongoing legal battles in Europe.

In its complaint to the European Union’s antitrust commission, Getty says Google Images, which displays full-screen slideshows of high-resolution copyrighted images, has hurt the stock agency’s licensing business as well as content creators worldwide. Google first introduced the feature in Jan. 2013. Previously, the search engine only displayed tiny thumbnails of images.

And:

Getty argues that since image consumption is immediate, “there is little impetus to view the image on the original source site” once it’s seen in high resolution on Google. By making these images available to download, Google has “also promoted piracy, resulting in widespread copyright infringement, turning users into accidental pirates,” Getty claims.

On this date in 2003, Steve Jobs rolled out the iTunes Music Store. This is a good take on how it evolved over the years.

Economic Times:

A government panel has recommended exempting Apple from mandatory local sourcing norms, a move which would pave the way for Apple to open single-brand retail stores in the country.

To qualify for this exemption, a company’s product line must qualify as cutting edge technology. In order for a foreign company to own a business in India, they must seek permission if their stake is higher than 49%. This is in addition to the local sourcing exemption for products.

There are currently no Apple Stores in India, so this is an important step.

The FBI informed Apple Inc of a vulnerability in its iPhone and Mac software on April 14, the first time it had told the company about a flaw in Apple products under a controversial White House process for sharing such information, the company told Reuters on Tuesday.

And

Though he declined to provide technical details, the executive said the problem had been fixed by the company nine months ago, with the release of iOS9 for phones and Mac OS C El Capitan.

Apple doesn’t plan to release an update for older operating systems.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday began investigating a body found at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.

Damn.

Bloomberg:

Time Warner Inc.’s Turner division will introduce its first online-only channel, allowing film buffs to watch classic movies without a traditional TV subscription.

The service, called FilmStruck, will be developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection, which owns more than 1,000 arthouse films, according to a company statement Tuesday. Criterion’s movies, available now on Hulu Plus, will be exclusive to FilmStruck when Turner’s streaming service begins this fall.

FilmStruck will feature a library of arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films, including Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” Robert Altman’s “The Player” and the Beatles film “A Hard Days Night.” The price of the service, which will be commercial-free, is still being determined, a Turner spokeswoman said.

It’ll be interesting to see if the FilmStruck business plan calls for an Apple TV app right out of the gate.

If you make your way through iFixit’s Retina MacBook 2016 teardown, you’ll see some tamper evident screws holding the hinge to the aluminum body.

Tamper evident screws are treated with a compound, after assembly, that makes it obvious if anyone applies force to the screw.

Why do this?

From this ZDNet post:

My best guess is that these fasteners take a fair load from the hinge, but at the same time are only screwed down into soft aluminum. That leads me to believe that they need to be tightened down – or more accurately, torqued down – with a specific force that’s enough to hold them in place but not enough to strip the threads. As such, if a third-party messes with them, and the hinge later becomes loose because the threads have stripped because of improper torquing (which I’ve come across a lot over the years), Apple will know about it.

Interesting.

Update: A little birdie told me that the compound is Loctite, not an attempt to detect user tampering.

Anton Shilov, writing for AnandTech:

Audio receptacles on PCs and mobile equipment are virtually the last remaining analog interfaces of modern devices, requiring certain techniques to maintain a high audio quality and remove interference. Intel proposes to replace things like 3.5 mm mini-jack with USB Type-C which will help to add features to headsets and will simplify connections of multi-channel audio equipment to various gadgets.

And:

As phones and devices get thinner, or even to simplify some of the internal design, it gets harder to install multiple ports for various purposes. If there were to be a universal connector that does it all, including audio, Intel and some other players want USB Type-C to be that universal connector.

And:

Usage of digital audio means that headsets should gain their own amplifiers, DACs and various other logic, which is currently located inside smartphones.

People already have headphones and devices with 3.5mm headphone jacks. There will be a natural resistance to buy a new device that forces them to replace what already works. But this has happened several times already. Apple’s move to the iPhone lightning interface raised a fair amount of resistance but, ultimately, everyone moved over, bought all new stuff.

As Anton points out, the TV industry went through similar upheaval in the move from RCA and coax interfaces to HDMI. Now HDMI is ubiquitous.

One problem I see is for very small devices where the only output is the headphone jack. For those devices, the move to a USB Type-C would actually make them larger. Perhaps a mini-USB Type-C?

Fascinating article, full of technical detail.

From Nintendo’s press release:

Nintendo announced that its next two mobile apps would be based on the familiar and beloved Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing franchises. Nintendo plans to release both of these applications this fall.

And:

Nintendo confirmed that NX is scheduled to launch in March 2017. NX will not make an appearance at the upcoming E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles in June and will be unveiled later this year.

And:

The latest installment in this classic franchise is scheduled to launch simultaneously for both Wii U and NX, and both versions of the game have been in development in tandem. Because developers need more time to polish the game, it will launch in 2017, but it will be the focus of Nintendo’s presence at E3.

Finally, Nintendo of America tweeted this early this morning:

More #Nintendo apps are coming to smart devices, including Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing!

Can’t wait. Fingers crossed that in-app purchases don’t ruin some treasured game franchises.