This is a great walkthrough of the “Time to Walk” setup. Clears up so much. Really well done, worth the watch.

Start off with Apple’s official announcement:

Apple today announced Dan Riccio will transition to a new role focusing on a new project and reporting to CEO Tim Cook, building on more than two decades of innovation, service, and leadership at Apple. John Ternus will now lead Apple’s Hardware Engineering organization as a member of the executive team.

John Gruber’s take (headline linked):

This is not an easing-out-the-door of Riccio: he really is taking over something big and new.

And:

I still don’t know which project Riccio is heading, but my guess is that it’s the headset, not Titan, simply because I’m certain the headset is closer. I think it’s a sign that the headset is ready to get real, and Apple wants someone as capable as Riccio to lead it with nothing else on his plate.

This really clicks for me. Mostly because of something Horace Dediu said in this post about Apple entering the highly competitive car market:

The reason Apple’s market revenue shares are so much greater is because it largely created the markets in which it participates. Rather than hacking out share from incumbents, it created its own and iterated to sustain.

Apple Watch and AirPods are perfect examples here. Folks weren’t wearing smart watches or Bluetooth EarPods (at least not in great numbers) before Apple entered the market and, in doing so, expanded the market considerably.

With Apple Glass (or whatever branding such a product might use), Apple would be entering a failed and tiny market. With a vehicle, Apple would be entering a massive market with many competitors. Like night and day.

I’m with Gruber on this.

Ben Zotto:

Apple’s second computer — its first to have a case — launched in 1977, and that boxy beige Apple II was soon everywhere: in classrooms, living rooms and offices. At the vanguard of a generation of personal computers to come, it featured a particular and carefully-chosen beige. But what did that look like? Those first machines — the ones that have escaped landfills anyway — have shifted in color over 40 years. The documented public record is sketchy and confused. But I stumbled upon a way to investigate what Apple Beige was like.

The article itself is interesting, but what drew me in (via kottke.org) was the photo, there at the beginning, of that bottle of official Apple beige touch-up paint.

That shade of beige was Apple’s color for a long time, from that first Apple II case, through the first generation of Macintosh. Since then, we’ve seen shades of gray, returns to platinum, wild runs of neon acrylics, then experiments in aluminum.

But that particular shade of beige is with me forever.

Mark Gurman:

The upcoming MacBook Pro is an example of Apple’s renewed focus on Mac loyalists. The company is planning to bring back an SD card slot for the next MacBook Pros so users can insert memory cards from digital cameras. That feature was removed in 2016, to the consternation of professional photographers and video creators, key segments of the MacBook Pro user base. The heavily criticized Touch Bar, the current model’s touchscreen function row, is also going.

The potential disappearance of Touch Bar and the rumored return of a specialized port have rampaged around Twitter this weekend.

I’d love to see lessons learned lead to an evolution of Touch Bar, perhaps into a smaller footprint scrub-bar or some other specialized hardware add-on that did not do away with the escape and function keys.

The return of the SD card slot is another matter altogether. I, for one, miss all the ports on my older MacBook Pro. It was a great mix, a Swiss Army Knife of ports I always had with me, no dongles required. The SD card slot is the most sorely missed, for sure, but the USB-A ports are certainly next.

I’d posit that if you own a modern USB-C Mac, you own at least one, if not multiple USB-A adapters, if not a complex hub with multiple USB-A ports. The universe continues to prioritize USB-A over USB-C for low cost devices.

And if you travel and forget one of your dongles, you either do without the functionality or head to an electronics store to buy another.

I’d love to see the return of the SD card, a bit of a fight back against the all the unified port regimentation.

All that said, I do appreciate the massive improvements we’re seeing in the Mac.

Joe Cieplinski, on Mac advancements:

M1, for starters. Thunderbolt 3/4, a massive leap forward in speed. Touch Bar (for me, though it should probably be optional.) Vastly superior battery life. Lighter weight. True Tone, P3 Display. Support for driving 6k displays.

Well said. These gains are massive, indeed, well worth carrying my baggie of dongles.

Om Malik:

I peered over the edge and saw a group of off-duty paramilitary servicemen taking selfies with their backs to the scene. They were capturing the moment using nothing but the cameras on their smartphones. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, standing high above, with a camera rig that cost as much as a second-hand sedan, waiting for the perfect light as I took great care to keep my own shadow out of the frame. And there they were, recording the same moment with faint regard for the quality of the light or the image itself. Instead, they were letting the chips figure it all out as they strained to document their own presence.

And:

In many ways, the iPhone reminds me of another groundbreaking camera: the Brownie. Launched at the turn of the last century, the original Brownie was the catalyst of change that helped us record our own history — exactly what those servicemen were doing more than a century later as I labored at my art.

This essay took me down memory lane, thinking about my very first camera, an Olympus OM-1, a camera I took everywhere with me, through college and my first trip overseas.

That original iPhone sacrificed quality but put a camera in everyone’s pocket. It changed the world.

This is a lovely read, all the way through.

Follow the headline link, start zooming in. I’d start zooming in on the lips. At some point, the almost invisible cracks in the paint become crevasses in some alien landscape.

Once you’ve marveled at all that detail, tap the 3D button in the tool bar. Once the sample loads, zoom in some more and glide across the actual surface of the painting.

Some remarkable work here. To me, this goes well beyond the museum experience, brings an appreciation of a classic work in a way that is only possible on your device’s screen.

Apple:

Each Time to Walk episode is shaped by the guest’s personal, life-shaping moments and includes lessons learned, meaningful memories, thoughts on purpose and gratitude, moments of levity, and other thought-provoking topics, recorded while walking outside or in locations that are meaningful to them. The narrative comes to life through photos that appear on Apple Watch, perfectly timed to amplify a corresponding moment the guest shares. Following the guest’s stories, the experience extends with the guest introducing a short playlist of songs that has given them motivation and inspiration, so the listener can continue their walk to a soundtrack intimately connected to each guest.

The first four walks launch today. New episodes launch each Monday through end of April.

This is a fantastic idea. Get people walking, make the walks interesting, expand the Fitness+ user base and connect yet another thread to Apple Watch and Apple Music.

Not exactly sure how this was pulled off, but this is a pretty cool hack. Apparently, this is running via x86 emulation. Just imagine how this would fly if Apple opened up the ability to run the M1 native version of macOS Big Sur on an iPad.

The video is long, mostly because of how slow the process is, so best bet is to scrub through it and look for screen changes. There are major changes at about 3:48, 5:46, and 18:33, just to get you started.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Ming-Chi Kuo, a reliable supply chain analyst for TF International Securities, predicts a bold new class of MacBook Pros this year with MagSafe charging and I/O ports that won’t require dongles. What Kuo doesn’t forecast is a future for the Touch Bar, the strip of touchscreen panel Apple added to the MacBook Pro in 2016. Love or hate the Touch Bar, that’s a bad thing.

What follows is some fascinating discussion of the Touch Bar, including this bit quoted from John Gruber:

You’ve got this little ARM computer running on your keyboard, and it communicates with the Intel side. One of the things that the iOS device on the Touch Bar doesn’t have is a GPU. So the Intel side does the GPU rendering and has to go back, but it’s all done securely and there’s a whole bunch of electrical engineering going on there and you’d never know it. It’s 60 FPS just like iOS and it’s instantaneous touch.

And:

To me, it’s example number one of whatever else is going on with the Macs, and some of the machines that have gone way too long without being updated, it’s clear that Apple is invested in the Mac. I really think that Touch Bar is proof of it

And back to Zac:

Now the Touch Bar appears to be dead, and the Mac couldn’t be more alive.

I’ve been living on my M1 MacBook Air for some time now, all without a Touch Bar. I don’t miss Touch Bar terribly, but I do miss it.

I suspect if I lived in an app that actually made extensive use of the Touch Bar, I’d miss it even more. But as is, I miss the autocorrect/emoji suggestions, and I miss the video scrub bar (which actually lets you scrub through YouTube ads).

I think the Touch Bar was an interesting concept, and I hope it will continue to appear, in some evolved, more customizable form, in future Macs.

This is a bit of a rabbit hole, but if you are interested in the details, here’s a link to the full Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report Trump filled out prior to his departure, courtesy of the New York Times.

As to the Mac Pro:

Tim Apple, as Trump once called him, didn’t just give Donald Trump the opportunity to lie about bringing an Apple factory to the United States. He also gave him a $5,999 Mac Pro, according to Donald Trump’s final financial disclosure report today.

The line in question, highlighted in this tweet, says:

Mac Pro Computer, The first created at the Flex Factory in Austin Texas

The gift is valued at $5,999 and as given by Tim Cook.

Lots of interesting discoveries here, along with the raft of images including X-rays. Don’t miss the X-ray video in Step 4 which is a 360 degree revolving look at the AirPods Max, showing off an amazing number of screws that hold everything together.

Here’s an image showing what’s under the earcups, including the Apple logo and lots of printed detail, like the model number.

And this bit from the conclusions:

The headband detaches from both earcups with a simple poke from a paperclip or SIM card tool—no wires and no fuss.

Could we see completely customizable versions of the AirPods Max in our future, where you can mix and match headbands and earcups, as you like?

New York Times:

Facebook was going to compete with Google for some advertising sales but backed away from the plan after the companies cut a preferential deal, according to court documents.

And:

Facebook never said why it pulled back from its project, but evidence presented in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 state attorneys general last month indicates that Google had extended to Facebook, its closest rival for digital advertising dollars, a sweetheart deal to be a partner.

And:

The agreement between Facebook and Google, code-named “Jedi Blue” inside Google, pertains to a growing segment of the online advertising market called programmatic advertising.

And:

In the milliseconds between a user clicking on a link to a web page and the page’s ads loading, bids for available ad space are placed behind the scenes in marketplaces known as exchanges, with the winning bid passed to an ad server.

And:

A method called header bidding emerged, in part as a workaround to reduce reliance on Google’s ad platforms. News outlets and other sites could solicit bids from multiple exchanges at once, helping to increase competition and leading to better prices for publishers. By 2016, more than 70 percent of publishers had adopted the technology, according to one estimate.

Seeing a potentially significant loss of business to header bidding, Google developed an alternative called Open Bidding, which supported an alliance of exchanges. While Open Bidding allows other exchanges to simultaneously compete alongside Google, the search company extracts a fee for every winning bid, and competitors say there is less transparency for publishers.

This whole piece is riveting, and highlights the utter lack of transparency in the advertising market. Google called Facebook’s potential adoption of header bidding an “existential threat”. Sound familiar? That’s the same term Facebook used when referring to Apple’s push for transparency in ad tracking. Tiny sympathy violins here.

Losing Alice is a new Apple TV+ series that launches this Friday, January 22nd. Like the series Tehran, which Apple TV launched last year, if you don’t happen to be conversant in the series’ main languages, subtitles will be required.

Personally, I found Tehran brilliantly written, riveting start to finish, and well worth the investment. From what I’ve read, Losing Alice looks to be every bit as well crafted, albeit in a slightly different form of thriller.

Here’s a link to Apple’s official trailer, which is crafted from English-language moments in the series.

And here’s a link to the CANNESERIES trailer, which gives a bit more of a sense of the interweaving of languages.

Bare Bones Software, makers of BBEdit, is one of my favorite software companies — in fact, I’ve been using BBEdit for more than 20 years. BBEdit has been updated to version 13.5, and is available in the Mac App Store as a subscription! Same great features. Same user experience. You can subscribe in the Mac App Store or purchase perpetual licenses directly from Bare Bones Software. Also, you can still get great merch, including Classic and Rebus T-shirts, enamel pins, and more in their merch store!

This amazing documentary was broadcast on NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting service. No spoilers, but it is a gorgeous take on Steve Jobs’ passionate connection to Japan.

Typically, I’d embed the video, but NHK has specifically prevented that, so follow the headline link to watch it on YouTube.

[H/T @rwintheiser]

Follow the link, start spamming the keyboard. Such code!

Don’t forget to tap the option key 3 times to gain access.

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld:

In macOS 11.0 Big Sur, Apple added full-blown management and visualization, similar to what appears in iOS and iPadOS. The algorithm generally keeps the laptop charged to about 80 percent of capacity. Charging above 80 percent, and particularly to “full,” can put premature wear on a battery, as lithium-ion batteries run hotter the closer they are to their hardware-derived full charge.

However, one reader noted that their battery was always being charged to 100 percent, and wanted to set it to charge no more than 80 percent as a preventative measure. Owners of new M1-based Apple Silicon laptops have found battery life is so remarkably long that they may feel the same way: why risk wearing out the battery when 80 percent gives them more than a full day off the plug?

When I finally managed to get my M1 MacBook Air down to the point where it hit “charge or die”, I noticed that it only charged up to 80%. Glenn Fleishman’s article laid out the why of this.

Still not clear to me why charging sometimes stops at 80% and sometimes goes all the way to 100%. As Glenn mentions, with this exceptional battery life, 80% is plenty for most days, and an acceptable upper limit if it means an extended lifetime for my battery.

Apple’s latest gallery, showing off the iPhone 12 series camera. Follow the headline link and scroll through these photos. Some beautiful work there.

There’s a lot of gear here, but what grabbed my attention was the look at that new 31.5″ OLED LG display right at the beginning of the video.

LG has been steadily improving their display lineup, with each new generation seemingly custom made with the Mac in mind. Take a look.

OSXDaily:

Have you received audio files or audio messages from any of your contacts on iMessage? If so, you may sometimes want to store them permanently on your iPhone or iPad so that you can listen to them later at your convenience, and save the audio attachment as a file directly. Fortunately, you can do this pretty easily, and we’ll show you how you can manually view and save audio attachments from iPhone and iPad.

As advertised, follow the sequence. Pretty low discoverability there, but not a widely used feature, I’d suspect.

William Gallagher, AppleInsider:

In theory, Apple offers the same AppleCare+ insurance for Macs that it does for iPhones, yet the details are so different that it’s harder to determine the value to you.

Once you understand just what AppleCare+ actually offers, and what it costs, then in principle the decision is straightforward.

The value of this post is not so much in answering the headline question, but in walking through the differences between AppleCare+ for Mac and iPhone.

Take a read through, note the costs involved in repairing the various Mac models.