A visit to the Infinite Loop company Apple Store has long been a pilgrimage for me. Unlike what has emerged as a standard Apple Store, the company store was more of a hand-curated boutique, full of a blend of clothing and chachkas, but almost absent of computers and iOS devices.
I’m looking forward to my next visit, though I’m hoping the company store still carries something unique, something that makes it different, special.
When Apple updated the Music app in iOS 8.4, the company added Apple Music. This streaming service is tightly integrated into iOS (and iTunes, on the desktop). In fact, it’s so well integrated that you can’t turn it off.
There’s a setting in Settings > Music that lets you toggle Apple Music’s visibility. But there’s nothing that turns Apple Music off entirely. You can see this by asking Siri to play some music. As long as you have an Apple Music subscription – trial or paid – and you’re signed into your account, Siri will play music from Apple Music, sometimes even when you already have music by the same artist on your iOS device.
I wonder if that’s why the Settings switch is labeled Show Apple Music instead of Enable Apple Music or some such. I also wonder if that behavior will continue with iOS 9.
Transferring files from your old iPhone to a new iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus isn’t difficult, but after a reader emailed about the many, many hours he expected to wait for the old-to-new iPhone transfer process to complete, I realized that his experience has become more common — even though it’s not necessary. Years ago, iTunes was the only (and fairly straightforward) way to transfer one iPhone’s contents to another. But now, between iCloud, larger device capacity sizes, and iTunes encryption options, there are certainly ways to turn a simple process into a day-long ordeal.
This quick How-To guide is designed to save you a wasted day by helping you select the best options in iTunes and get most of the work done ahead of time. I’ve used this process more times than I can count, and beyond working perfectly each time, it requires far fewer hours than relying on iCloud…
As far as I can tell, this advice extends to all new iOS devices. Tuck this one away til your new device gets here.
Barring unseen developments, tomorrow should see the official release of iOS 9. Macworld put together this short take on getting ready for the upgrade.
The article starts with the expected advice to back up your devices before you start on the upgrade. Sage, if not obvious, advice.
But the thing I found most interesting was this take on making sure you have a way back if things go south:
Here’s the deal: Apple “signs” versions of iOS. This tells the device that the version you wish to use is OK to use with that device. While that version is signed, you can install it on your iOS device—even if it’s a version of the operating system that’s earlier than the one you just installed.
However—and this is very important—Apple traditionally stops signing old versions of iOS just a day or two after releasing major updates (such as iOS 9). If you were to update to iOS 9 say, a week after it ships, you might find that you can’t go back to iOS 8.
Read the post to find out how to locate the old updaters on your hard drive and, failing that, find them online.
We have some sponsorships available on The Loop, including a last minute cancellation for this week that I’ll sell at a great deal. If you want to get your product or service in front of the wonderful readers of The Loop, get in touch with me.
I understand that Macminicolo is looking for your business, but this article brings up some good alternatives if you want to get away from Google and its tracking.
When Apple redesigned the MacBook Air in 2010, it created one of the best machines to ever carry its Mac label. That new laptop was a revelation: extremely thin and light, like the original Air, yet also powerful enough for most tasks and equipped with a long-lasting battery.
When it was released, the MacBook Air was absolutely groundbreaking.
For years, the MacBook Air has been a standard-bearer, the role model for every Windows ultrabook, but 2015 has not been so kind to its leadership position. Apple introduced the new 12-inch MacBook and updated the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, both directly competing with the Air, and for those not umbilically attached to OS X, Dell’s XPS 13 offered a compelling Windows alternative. And this week there’s the looming threat of the iPad Pro on the horizon.
When the new 12-inch MacBook was announced, I saw that as the death knell for the MacBook Air. But I did not see the iPad Pro as a MacBook Air threat until I read this.
Apple is not a company that can be accused of doing things thoughtlessly, and the decision to leave the Air’s display at the lower quality and resolution must be taken as a deliberate one. In other words, Apple is comfortable with keeping the Air as a technological straggler in its lineup. That leaves us with a choice of two most likely scenarios: either the Air is destined for a future overhaul and its first redesign in five years or it has no future at all. There’s not enough room in Apple’s lineup for a MacBook, a MacBook Air, and a MacBook Pro — the MacBook is Apple’s ultraportable machine of the future and the MacBook Pro is the do-it-all laptop of today. The MacBook Air’s position seems tenuous already, and if the alleged iPad Pro does indeed materialize, then we may as well bid adieu to the Air entirely.
That’s when I noticed the difference between the Pencil and just a stylus: It felt great. Perfect. Better than any stylus I’ve ever used by a wide margin. Not because the thing itself is so terrific—I like holding FiftyThree’s Pencil better, and there are lots of good styli out there—but because it’s the first time I’ve ever written on a screen and actually felt like I was writing on the screen. There was almost zero latency, meaning the ink appeared to flow out of the Pencil and not trail half an inch behind. With the tiniest added pressure, the line became the tiniest bit thicker. I tapped on the No. 2 pencil mode, and it wrote and shaded just like all the pencils I used to sharpen with that wall-mounted thing you had to crank.
It’s all about the latency. Make the latency disappear and then developers can really go to town.
“Customer response to iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus has been extremely positive and preorders this weekend were very strong around the world,” the company said in a statement. “We are on pace to beat last year’s 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale September 25.”
Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5mac, on why this upgrade from 1 GB to 2 GB on the iPhone 6s and Plus matters:
RAM upgrades for the iPhones has been somewhat overdue, with many complaining apps have to relaunch too frequently on current hardware, especially on the iPhone 6 Plus. RAM affects how much app data the device can keep in memory at once. This is often seen through the number of tabs Safari can open before having to reload a website. More RAM (obviously) provides a better experience across the system. The iPhone has been stuck on 1 GB RAM since the iPhone 5 in 2012.
Read on if you are interested in how this was discovered.
Note that the onboard RAM (actually onboard the 64-bit A9 chip) is what is used by iOS to run your apps, move your data around.
This RAM is not the same as the long-term storage that holds your photos/music/etc. A 16 GB iPhone 6s has the same amount of onboard RAM (now 2 GB) as a 128 GB iPhone 6s.
A variety of gaming sites are reporting that the Apple TV limits its apps to a total of 200 MB. For example, there’s this bit from a post on well known gaming site IG:
The 200 MB limit is something of a head-scratcher, given the unveiling of a new 32 GB and 64 GB version of Apple TV today during Apple’s special live event. That storage space is earmarked exclusively for other uses, the most obvious of which being video and music files.
The reality is, 200 MB is purely the limit for the initial game load. Need more than that? No problem. Serenity Caldwell lays the details out in this post for iMore:
Let’s say you, the developer, make a side-scroller app for the Apple TV with 50 levels. All together, your app bundle comes out to be something like 4GB—too much for the Apple TV’s App Store to properly host. Instead, you can take avantage of a new tvOS/iOS feature called On-Demand Resources to slice up your app and deliver it in parts to the user.
Instead of making the user download 4GB off the bat, you slice up your app into a bunch of sections, called tags. You include the essential parts of the app—loading and launch screen, scores, settings, and the first five levels—in that 200MB bundle.
Other levels and assets are split into multiple tags that range in size from 64MB to 512MB. If you sliced up tags that all sized out to 100MB for your game, for instance, you’d have 38 additional items for download once a user installs the game, which might be just as fun as 해외토토사이트. Those don’t come all at once, however: They’re called on-demand, when a user needs them.
The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus went on sale in the wee hours this morning (just after midnight Cupertino time) and demand is already making a pretty large dent in availability.
If you order on-line for delivery, the waiting time for some phones is already at 2-3 weeks (for delivery between September 26th and October 3rd).
The in-store pickup program is for September 25th only. If you go that route, note that the 128 GB iPhone 6s Plus is already unavailable in many markets, no matter the color or carrier. In my area, the 128GB 6s is only available in a few stores, and in a single color.
In a nutshell, you agree to pay a monthly fee, to Apple (actually to Apple’s bank partner, Citizens Bank, N.A., doing business as Citizens One), for a minimum of 24 months. The fee is based on the phone you choose. As an example, if you buy a 128 GB iPhone 6s Plus, you’ll pay $44.91 a month. If you bought that phone outright, you’d pay $949, plus $129 for Apple Care+.
Some math:
Upgrade Program price: $44.91 x 24 months = $1,077.84
Pay Up Front price: $949 + $129 = $1,078
As you can see, these prices are pretty much the same. But the Upgrade Program has a terrific side benefit. Let’s say Apple comes out with a new phone in a year (not a lock, but a reasonably safe bet). After 12 months, you are free to switch to any other phone that Apple sells. You trade in your phone (straight trade, no money changes hands) and get your new phone, start a new Upgrade Program agreement at the price associated with that new phone.
With the Pay Up Front program, you keep your old phone, which you can pass along to someone else, or trade in or sell when you are ready to buy a new phone.
With the Upgrade Program, you don’t get any money for your trade-in, but if you trade in after a year, you no longer continue to pay for that old phone. In our example, with a trade-in after one year:
Upgrade Program price: $44.91 x 12 months = $538.92
If you swap phones every year, this is definitely worth considering. When you do your own math, don’t minimize the value of your used phone. After all, Apple will no doubt take that same phone and refurbish/resell it. Selling a used iPhone is relatively easy to do.
Also, consider how important AppleCare is to you. If you are very careful with phones and willing to chance going without insurance, that should factor into your decision. With the Upgrade Program, AppleCare is included and is not optional.
Thanks to SVALT for sponsoring The Loop this week. The SVALT D Performance Cooling Dock is for anyone requiring the best performance from their Apple laptops, and wanting to create the ultimate professional laptop workstation.
You’ll notice that there is no longer a Toslink (optical audio) output on the back of the Apple TV. The only option you have is HDMI; this is fine to connect to a TV or AV amplifier, but if you want to connect an Apple TV to a DAC, and then to an amp, you’re out of luck. Of course, one option is to use both: an Apple TV 3 for music only, and the new Apple TV for videos, games, apps, etc.
The TOSLINK connector was originally designed by Toshiba as a proprietary interface for Toshiba CD players (TOSLINK = Toshiba Link) but was widely adopted by the rest of the industry.
Personally, I’ve never used the optical interface on the old Apple TV. I won’t miss it, but for folks who do use optical, good to know the deal on this.
Not quite what I was asking for in this post, but a solid start. This is a spec table, comparing basic technical specs of the iPad Pro and the Surface Pro 3.
What’s missing, for me, is the technical comparison of the Surface Pro 3 stylus and the Apple Pencil. I assume someone is working on that one as we speak.
Caitlin McGarry, writing for MacWorld, pulled together a lot of info on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Most importantly:
Set an alarm, because iPhone 6s and 6s Plus pre-orders kick off at 12:01 a.m. Pacific on Saturday, September 12. That means 3:01 a.m. for you East Coasters. At least you might not have to work the next day.
Daniel Eran Dilger, writing for Apple Insider, put together this terrific post, detailing the hands on experience with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. There are a number of videos embedded in the article, but the video below is the one I found most compelling.
The video shows Apple Pencil being put through some of its paces in Adobe Sketch. Watch the video, then come back and read on.
If you’ve ever used a tablet and pen/stylus, you’ve seen much of this before. From everything I’ve read and seen, Pencil captures the angle and force as well as any tablet, which may or may not include a pen for tablet, on the market, but it does so with no lag, becoming an almost perfect mirror of the tool being emulated. That’s what a high end tablet should do.
The “Aha” moment for me, involves content creation. I’ve always seen the iPad as a second class citizen when it comes to creating content. Unless I use an external keyboard, typing on an iPad is never as fast as on my laptop. Without outside assistance, the angle of the iPad is not easy to get just right, no match for my laptop’s hinged screen. Document creation and a management is more sophisticated, more capable in OS X. Drag and drop between applications, for example, has not been mirrored in iOS. Yet.
This is by no means a complaint. The advantage the iPad brings is obvious. Incredible portability, as well as compatibility between my iPhone and iPad and, more and more, between iOS and OS X. A perfect example of this is Safari. When I wake up in the morning, I grab my iPad and use Safari to dig in to the news of the day. When I move over to my Mac, I can access all the tabs I opened on my iPad in the OS X version of Safari. Easy peasy.
I love the portability of my iPad, but do the majority of my content creation on my Mac. I truly appreciate having both of them, truly appreciate the bridge Apple built between them.
Back to the “Aha” moment. Watching the video embedded below, I could see myself creating content on an iPad Pro that I could not create on my Mac, at least not without adding a pretty expensive tablet setup. It’s still pretty early in the game, app-wise, but I can see myself creating annotations, first cuts at graphics/logos/icons, page layouts, all with a direct touch and portability that I don’t have on my Mac.
With the iPad Pro, the stylus is a first class citizen, as opposed to a 3rd party add-on with limited app support. I’ll be interested to see how Pencil compares, head to head, with the stylus that ships with Surface and Samsung’s offerings. I suspect the Apple Pencil is head and shoulders a better experience.
Regardless, with the iPad Pro, I now see the iPad in a different light, not just as a content consumer, but as a first class content creation tool.
The Wall Street Journal ran a small interview this morning, giving Sir Jony the opportunity to talk about the creation of the Hermès Apple Watch and the partnership with Apple.
A few things that stood out:
Allowing Hermès’ symbols to upstage Apple’s is a first, Mr. Ive said. “I’ve been at Apple 23 years and this is conspicuous and singular. I’ve never known anything like this,” he said.
And on pricing:
The watch, which goes on sale Oct. 5, will be available in Apple and Hermès stores in 14 countries including the U.S., China, France and Switzerland. Prices range from $1,100 for the classic bracelet with a 38-mm case to $1,500 for the cuff, which comes with a 42-mm case.
And:
But for Mr. Ive, the attention he and Mr. Dumas lavished on the Apple Watch Hermès doesn’t give it any special status.
“Look at this next to one of the sport collection,” he says, referring to the $349 rubber-bracelet version that accounts for the majority of watch sales to date, according to people familiar with the matter. “There’s not one that had more care invested in its designing or making.”
That last point is important. Apple puts care and detailed craft into every product they make. The sports band matters to the design team, even though it is the cheapest band they sell. That’s a core principle.
Malicious apps that disable Android phones until owners pay a hefty ransom are growing increasingly malevolent and sophisticated as evidenced by a newly discovered sample that resets device PIN locks, an advance that requires a factory reset.
