But. My chief frustration—and what keeps me from using more of the service’s functionality—is that the only way to get at the features is via my computer or iOS apps. I can’t stream any of this content where I watch most things: my TV.
That may be changing, though.
I read Dan’s piece with a lot of interest. This could be a great app for a lot of people on Apple TV. Comcast seems to want to do something to get the FCC off its back, and this could be it.
While a good search-ad system could benefit the App Store, customers, and many of us, nothing in Apple’s track record suggests that they’re willing or able to do this well.
But a bad search-ad system, on top of bad search, will only further damage the App Store, funnel more of our already slim margins back into Apple like a massive regressive tax, and erode customers’ confidence in installing new apps.
I’ll be honest: I can’t imagine a scenario where this would go well.
The paywalled report claims that the fighting is holding back Apple from fixing “technical problems that have plagued iCloud and iTunes,” while at least one key engineering manager is said to have departed the company over the ongoing conflict.
FY 16 Second Quarter Results Apple’s second quarter earnings announcement has been rescheduled to Tuesday, April 26, at 2:00 p.m. PT/5:00 p.m. ET out of respect for the friends and family of Bill Campbell, whose memorial service will be held Monday. Apple executives and employees will be attending the service to remember Bill and his many years of friendship and service to the Apple community.
Reviews in the tech industry are hit or miss at best—we can all agree on that. Sometimes a review comes out that I just don’t get at all. Mashable’s review of the latest MacBook is one such review for me.
I should say that I don’t have one of the new MacBooks, so I haven’t used it, but I do use the last generation every single day and love it.
The most upsetting news is the new MacBook still has a single USB-C port.
That’s not the least bit upsetting—that’s the best news of all. MacBook appeals to a lot of different people, me included, that don’t need more than one port. I don’t want the laptop any bigger just to fit another port or two.
I don’t plug my iPhone into the computer, I don’t plug my iPad into the computer–I don’t plug anything into the MacBook other than the power cord.
If you need a computer with multiple ports, Apple has those. Perhaps the MacBook isn’t for you, but it’s perfect for me.
The reviewer shows a picture of trying to plug a keyboard, mouse and an iPhone into one USB-C to illustrate why he needs multiple ports. He’s either being deliberately obtuse, trying to misled his readers, or he’s never heard of Bluetooth.
Besides, most people wouldn’t need to plug an external keyboard into laptop that already has a keyboard, although I understand some do.
Though I would have liked to see a bigger boost in performance than just a 20% faster processing, 25% faster graphics and extra hour of battery life, I also would have liked it if the laptop was capable of editing 4K video. Why is it the iPad Pro can edit multiple streams of 4K footage, but the MacBook can’t? It’s embarrassing.
And I want a fucking unicorn. 20% faster processing, 25% faster graphics, and an extra hour of battery? Sold!
I’ve run Pro Tools on a MacBook Air from a couple of years ago, so I’m not sure what kind of processing power he’s looking for. This MacBook is plenty powerful.
I’ll admit, I don’t know why the iPad Pro can edit multiple streams of 4K video and the MacBook can’t.
I also don’t understand why the 12-inch MacBook is still so damn expensive. $1,300 is far too much for the base model that’s slower and less capable than both the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air. The high-end (non-custom) MacBook Airs are both cheaper than the entry-level MacBook at $1,100 and $1,200, respectively.
Go buy Dell.
If the MacBook is what the future of laptops looks like, it needs to be affordable as well. And for the vast majority of potential buyers, it’s not.
No, it doesn’t. It needs to be the best, and I’m pretty damn sure there is not much out there that can outlast Apple’s equipment. I wonder if he’s seen the PC sales numbers for the past few quarters—they’re all down, except Apple.
I also don’t understand…
No, you clearly don’t. That is the most intelligent thing he said in the entire review.
Microsoft Corp’s quarterly adjusted profit missed analysts’ estimates as a continued slump in personal computer sales hurt the company’s core Windows business, sending its shares down 4 percent in extended trading.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.
According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey’s annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.
The auto industry has seen a number of disruptive events. For example, big gas guzzlers were pushed out of the way by rising gas prices to make room for smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
But the auto industry remains pretty much intact. They are still mostly sold in dealerships, still a mostly poorly designed capsule that is not particularly easy to reconfigure. Gas mileage is better, but still not nearly as good as it could be. Replacement parts are custom and exorbitantly priced.
Tesla has done a lot to open the door to disruption. They’ve made a retail electric car that people crave. They are bringing that car to the masses with their latest effort. They’ve done an incredible job helping build out an “on the road” charging infrastructure. And their sales model is closer to Apple’s than it is to any traditional automobile manufacturer.
But their cars are still recognizably cars. The major disruption is still to come.
Neil Cybart does a really nice job digging into some of the major elements that make a car a car, exploring ways in which each element is open to change.
Personally, I suspect the thing that will disrupt the auto industry into something truly brand new is the autonomous vehicle.
For the first time, the box on wheels can become a first class compartment, catering strictly to the needs of the passenger, without the need for a front seat dedicated to the driver. That single change is a before and after moment, a chance for a company with a pristine design sense to truly disrupt the auto industry.
Apple certainly has the design sense to create a uniquely beautiful, fantastically functional vehicle. If they throw their lot in with Tesla, together they can make vast (and sorely needed) improvements to the charging infrastructure. I’m looking forward to placing my order.
You may have seen a viral headline floating around over the last few days: Apple recycled $40 million worth of gold last year, which was extracted from iPhones. Almost none of what was reported is true.
A bold claim. But he backs it up with some pretty solid reasoning.
Every year, I put together a list of the changes I’d like to see in the next version of iOS. I’ve been doing this for several years now. This year, I wanted to prepare something bigger. The tenth version of iOS due to be released later this year will be a major milestone for Apple and iOS users. It only felt appropriate to celebrate the occasion with a different take on my annual iOS wish list.
For the past few months, I’ve been collaborating with Sam Beckett (author of a fantastic Control Center concept we linked to a while back) to visualize my iOS 10 wishes with a professional concept video and static mockups. Sam and I discussed my ideas for a couple of months, and he was able to visualize2 what I would like to have in iOS 10 – both for the iPhone and iPad – with a style and attention to detail I’m extremely happy with.
Below, you’ll find a collection of my iOS 10 wishes, organized in tentpole features (the ones also shown in the video) plus additional sub-sections. Some of these wishes have been on my list for years; others are a consequence of the features Apple shipped with iOS 9.
I absolutely love this piece. Take a minute to watch the video, embedded below. Federico and Sam Beckett did an amazing job visualizing iOS elements that do not exist in real life, making them seem as if they did exist. Incredible.
As you watch, keep in mind that these are just some of Federico’s concepts. The article lays them all out. What a mind.
In recent WatchOS releases, Apple made the decision to remove all functionality from Apple Watch’s accessory port thereby blocking Reserve Strap’s ability to charge the Apple Watch. This was a deviation from how the port functioned in all previous WatchOS releases and appears to have been a deliberate effort to block development of third party smartbands.
This action was surprising given that prior to this WatchOS update, Apple had been an advocate of our product–going as far as inviting us to Cupertino to show them early prototypes as well as placing pre-orders for many Reserve Straps. Additionally, Apple continues to run old versions of WatchOS on their in-store kiosks in order to utilize the functionality of the accessory port.
This is an old anecdote, but it’s been making its way around the internet the past few days and it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
Tomas Higbey:
I worked at NeXT the summer of 94. I was in the break room with 2 colleagues when Jobs walked in and started making a bagel. We were sitting at a table eating ours when he out of the blue asked us “Who is the most powerful person in the world?” I said Mandela since I had just been there as an international observer for the elections. In his confident fashion he stated “NO!…you are all wrong…the most powerful person in the world is the story teller.” At this point I was thinking to myself “Steve, I love you but there is a fine line between genius and loco..and I think I am witnessing this right now”. Steve continued, “The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come and Disney has a monopoly on the storyteller business. You know what? I am tired of that bullshit, I am going to be the next storyteller” and he walked out with his bagel.
The story takes place in 1994. Toy Story was released in 1995. Is this true? Apocryphal? No matter, it is a good story.
Bob Iger, Disney Chairman and CEO, wrote the appreciation piece for Tim Cook:
Apple is known for elegant, innovative products that change the world by transforming how we connect, create and communicate, as well as how we work, think and act. Its continued success requires a leader of great courage and character who demands excellence, upholds the highest ethical standards and routinely challenges the status quo, including encouraging vital conversations about who we are as a culture and a community.
Tim Cook is that kind of leader.
Behind his soft-spoken demeanor and Southern manners is a focused fearlessness that comes from deep personal conviction. Tim is committed to doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time and for the right reasons. As CEO, he’s led Apple to new heights, and he continues to build a global brand that is universally recognized as an industry leader and widely respected for its values.
This is all fine but, to me, does not come close to expressing the kind of appreciation that Tim Cook deserves. Not being critical of Iger or Time. It’s just hard to capture, in so few words, the kind of person Tim Cook is.
The NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs are upon us, and every hockey fan’s favorite time of year is here. Hockey is a sport that’s been often misunderstood and much maligned by those who don’t follow it, but, despite its underdog status in the North American hierarchy, it’s been the basis of some of the best sports movies ever made. In honor of the toughest championship to win in all of sports, here are the 10 best hockey movies to get you in the right mindset for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
All of Canada is in mourning because none of our NHL teams managed to make the playoffs this year. You can sooth the pain with some of these. The number one movie is obvious but I highly recommend the surprisingly sweet “Goon”, shot partially in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Each April thousands of music fans flock to the Southern California desert for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Now in its 17th year, the event has expanded to eight booming stages and tents where musicians perform. We visited on the first of the event’s two weekends—the second weekend kicks off on Friday—for a look at the personal effects and habits of musicians and others helping to make the festival happen.
This was a fun article by Leah Latella at WSJ. Lots of pics too.
I’m still having a lot of fun with Apple Pencil and Adobe Illustrator Draw (see what I made with them last week). Here’s a new drawing, of a young Elvis Costello. I’m not sure if I got the likeness really right, as portraits are not really my thing. But I do know I had a lot of fun doing it.
Khoi is a talented guy and I have a lot of respect for him.
Ergonis Software today announced the release of Typinator 6.9, a new version of their popular text expander. The new version offers improved import of TextExpander snippets, an extended DOuble CAps exceptions set, support for the Sogou input method for Chinese, and more.
If you order a Typinator license from the Ergonis Online Store during April 2016 and enter the coupon code “TE1604P”, you get Typinator at 25% off. All Typinator purchases made from now on include the major upgrade to Typinator 7 (scheduled for later this year) for free.
For those of you thinking about making the switch, this may help. Typinator is a well regarded piece of software.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has an affectionate nickname for Apple: The ‘Tesla Graveyard‘. “They have hired people we’ve fired,” Musk said. “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple”.
And:
Electrek, in collaboration with our sister-site 9to5Mac, has exclusively discovered and confirmed respectively that Apple hired former Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering and former Aston Martin Chief Engineer, Chris Porritt, to work on “special projects”, and we know that “special projects” is where Apple’s Titan car project lives.
Hard to say this hire fits in with the Tesla Graveyard analogy.
Porritt was a former Chief Engineer at Aston Martin (DB9 anyone?), said to be a favorite car brand of Sir Jony Ive.
Amid the low gray cubicles, clustered desks, and empty swivel chairs, an impossible 8-inch robot drone from an alien planet hovers chest-high in front of a row of potted plants. It is steampunk-cute, minutely detailed. I can walk around it and examine it from any angle. I can squat to look at its ornate underside. Bending closer, I bring my face to within inches of it to inspect its tiny pipes and protruding armatures. I can see polishing swirls where the metallic surface was “milled.” When I raise a hand, it approaches and extends a glowing appendage to touch my fingertip. I reach out and move it around. I step back across the room to view it from afar. All the while it hums and slowly rotates above a desk. It looks as real as the lamps and computer monitors around it. It’s not.
This is a massive peek inside the current state of Virtual Reality and Magic Leap’s so-called Mixed Reality. I found the whole thing fascinating, especially the insider info on how VR tricks your brain into believing what you are seeing is really happening.
Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge, took the new MacBook for a small test drive. From his writeup:
Apple gave us the 1.2Ghz Intel Core m5 version to test, and though I can notice the difference, it’s small enough that it’s not an easy or automatic upgrade from the previous MacBook. I ran a few benchmark tests and have been poking around for the last twenty minutes or so — nothing too crazy — and here’s the long and short of it. Geekbench 3 pegs the speed improvements on raw processor operations at around 20 percent, but disk-write speeds using Blackmagic saw bigger improvements, as much as 80 or 90 percent faster (reading speeds look like smaller, incremental improvements). Overall, the thing feels about 25 percent faster to me.
Dieter tested the faster of the two new models (the other is 1.1Ghz). Apple advertises this model with a Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz. My understanding is that Turbo Boost is an overclocking mode that automatically kicks in (not something you can control) when the processor gets loaded.
For comparison sake, the high end MacBook Pro has a 2.9Ghz processor with a Turbo Boost up to 3.3Ghz. That’s about a 13.7% boost, compared to the new MacBook’s huge jump from 1.2Ghz to 2.7Ghz Turbo Boost, a rise of 125%. Someone check my math on this.
Obviously, the MacBook Pro starts at a much higher clock speed, so perhaps the big rise is due to a much lower starting point. But still, that’s a big difference. And looking at my shopping cart, I see that for an extra $150, I can upgrade to a 1.3Ghz processor with a 3.1Ghz Turbo Boost.
From the European Commission fact sheet (Emphasis theirs):
The Commission’s investigation showed that Google obliges manufacturers, who wish to pre-install Google’s app store for Android, Play Store, on their devices, to also pre-install Google Search, and set it as the default search provider on those devices. In addition, manufacturers who wish to pre-install Google’s Play Store or Search, also have to pre-install Google’s Chrome browser. Thereby, Google has ensured that Google Search and Google Chrome are pre-installed on the significant majority of devices sold in the EEA.
And:
Google’s conduct has had a direct impact on consumers, as it has denied them access to innovative smart mobile devices based on alternative, potentially superior, versions of the Android operating system. The Commission has found evidence that Google’s conduct prevented manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices based on a competing Android fork which had the potential of becoming a credible alternative to the Google Android operating system. In doing so, Google has also closed off an important way for its competitors to introduce apps and services, in particular general search services, which could be pre-installed on Android forks.
And:
Google has granted significant financial incentives to some of the largest smartphone and tablet manufacturers as well as mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
The letter was also sent to Alphabet, as Google’s parent company.
Apple has begun rolling out web links and iTunes web previews for Apple TV apps. The change, first noticed by Jeff Scott and which we were able to confirm via Safari on OS X, allows users to link to tvOS apps in a web browser, which will show an iTunes Preview with screenshots, app description, and other information.
The mystery is why it has taken so long for tvOS to get the same capability that has been such a staple of the other app stores.
At the moment, it’s not clear for how many apps Apple has rolled out the ability to view them with an iTunes web preview. According to our early tests, links to Apple TV-only apps showed a web preview with Apple TV screenshots in the browser; Universal iOS apps with tvOS support didn’t show any Apple TV information in the current iTunes web previews.
This was also confirmed by Kevin MacLeod of AfterPad, who told us that while the iTunes API is now returning screenshot metadata for tvOS-only apps, that metadata is absent for iOS apps with tvOS support.
Also puzzling is why this process isn’t laid out to developers, why it is left to self-discovery.
