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.
The coalition is called Reform Government Surveillance (RGS). From the letter, posted yesterday on the RGS Tumblr page:
Any mandatory decryption requirement, such as that included in the discussion draft of the bill that you authored, will to lead to unintended consequences. The effect of such a requirement will force companies to prioritize government access over other considerations, including digital security. As a result, when designing products or services, technology companies could be forced to make decisions that would create opportunities for exploitation by bad actors seeking to harm our customers and whom we all want to stop. The bill would force those providing digital communication and storage to ensure that digital data can be obtained in “intelligible” form by the government, pursuant to a court order. This mandate would mean that when a company or user has decided to use some encryption technologies, those technologies will have to be built to allow some third party to potentially have access. This access could, in turn, be exploited by bad actors.
Being in San Francisco for WWDC is getting expensive. Really expensive. For many people airfare + hotel in 2016 will cost twice as much as it did in 2014: upwards of $2,000 USD. That’s more than the price of getting into the event itself (assuming you’re lucky enough to win a ticket)! Already tons of our friends have said they have to skip this year and might not be back.
But it’s OK: the iOS and Mac community isn’t limited to San Francisco once a year.
The high cost of hotels, etc. certainly isn’t Apple’s fault, but it’s nice to see some of the independent conferences come together and offer users an alternative.
Europe’s antitrust chief is expected to hit Google on Wednesday with anti-competitive charges concerning its Android mobile phone operating system, two people familiar with the matter said.
Google is already in a battle with the EU over promoting its shopping service in search results.
Hacking the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone has produced data the FBI didn’t have before and has helped the investigators answer some remaining questions in the ongoing probe, U.S. law enforcement officials say.
Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn’t make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers’ whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said.
The phone didn’t contain evidence of contacts with other ISIS supporters or the use of encrypted communications during the period the FBI was concerned about. The FBI views that information as valuable to the probe, possibilities it couldn’t discount without getting into the phone, the officials said.
A question many outside security experts will ask is, what took the FBI so long? Supposedly, the phone had been unlocked a couple of weeks ago.
Apple confirmed that the Chinese government has sought access to its source code, the confidential programming underlying the iPhone, but that it rebuffed the demands.
“We have been asked by the Chinese government,” Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell said on Tuesday at a subcommittee hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We refused.”
Apple will continue to get these request from both foreign and domestic governments which is why they are working hard at locking down security in iOS so these requests become moot.
Apple has agreed to pay $24.9 million to settle a years-long lawsuit alleging that its Siri voice technology violated a patent licensed to a Dallas company by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The lawsuit alleges Siri was developed at Rensselaer before Apple introduced it in 2011 with the iPhone 4S. The Dallas company, Dynamic Advances, was the exclusive licensee of Rensselaer’s patent.
Under the terms of the agreement, Dynamic Advances’ parent company Marathon Patent Group will receive $5 million from Apple immediately after dropping its case. The remaining $19.9 million will come after some conditions are met.
Is it just me (and this feels weird to say) but does $25 million seem like not a lot of money to settle this lawsuit?
While making the company more efficient, Intel plans to increase investments in the products and technologies that that will fuel revenue growth, and drive more profitable mobile and PC businesses. Through this comprehensive initiative, the company plans to increase investments in its data center, IoT, memory and connectivity businesses, as well as growing client segments such as 2-in-1s, gaming and home gateways.
These changes will result in the reduction of up to 12,000 positions globally — approximately 11 percent of employees — by mid-2017 through site consolidations worldwide, a combination of voluntary and involuntary departures, and a re-evaluation of programs. The majority of these actions will be communicated to affected employees over the next 60 days with some actions spanning in to 2017.
The press release is typical marketing speak. Bottom line is a lot of good people lost their jobs today.
Announcing the app, McKellen claimed too many people experience Shakespeare’s plays for the first time when they read the scripts, and are therefore not enjoying them as they were intended.
Giving a talk at the BFI in London, the actor said Shakespeare’s works are “meant to be heard”, explaining: “It’s always a bother to me that so many people meet Shakespeare not in the theatre, not even on the screen, but on the page.”
He continued: “I think to give somebody unfamiliar with reading the text a Shakespeare play to enjoy is as daft as giving them the score of a Mozart piano concerto. You can read it, but you can’t hear it.”
McKellen makes a great point. I read Shakespeare in High School English and, while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t until I heard it on stage and in film that I really appreciated the beauty of Shakespeare’s language. Looking forward to seeing this on the App Store on April 23 – the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Lester is a British calligrapher who shares video snippets of his impeccable penmanship on YouTube and Instagram. Take, for example, the video above. It’s a weekly shopping list in which the word “Pop Tarts” somehow conjures images of gleaming silverware and starched tablecloths.
Sadly, this kind of incredible penmanship is a dying art in the age of keyboards and iPhones (I literally can’t remember the last time I wrote more than a few words on a piece of paper) but it is fascinating to watch a master calligrapher create.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a challenge to Google’s digital library of millions of books, turning down an appeal from authors who said the project amounted to copyright infringement on a mass scale.
The Supreme Court’s brief order left in place an appeals court decision that the project was a “fair use” of the authors’ work, ending a legal saga that had lasted more than a decade.
Extinguishing that brief hope. It’s over. Google won, authors nothing.
