June 17, 2015
The history of Think Different ∞
How Craig Tanimoto’s simple sketch turned in to an advertising campaign that helped turn Apple’s fortunes around. Nice little story.
Finding an Apple Watch to buy, in store, today
Want to get your hands on an Apple Watch today? Apple has opened up an in-store reservations system to make that possible, at least in some countries.
To get a sense of your options, head over to the Apple Store web site, then click the Shop Watch icon at the top of the page.
On the watch page, pick the watch you want, click the Select button. If in-store reservations are an option where you live, you should see something like this (just below the Add AppleCare+ section):
Click the Check reservation availability link and you’ll be on the Reserve and Pick Up page. Fill out the form to select an Apple Store and you’ll find out if that store has stock of your selected model. If so, sign in with your Apple ID and make your reservation. Easy peasy.
Apple vs Google and the battle over personalization and privacy ∞
Om Malik, writing for the New Yorker:
Even their products sound remarkably the same. Apple Pay. Android Pay. Apple Photos. Google Photos. Apple Wallet. Google Wallet. Google announced its “Internet of things” efforts, such as Weave and Brillo. Apple came back with HomeKit. Android in the car. Apple in the car. At the Google I/O conference, Google announced app-focussed search and an invisible interface that allows us to get vital information without opening an application. There was an improved Google Now (a.k.a. Now On Tap). Apple announced a new, improved Siri. It also announced Proactive Assistant. Google launched Photos, which can magically sort, categorize, and even search thousands of photos using voice commands. Apple improved its Photos app—you can search them using Siri.
But when it comes to privacy, there’s a major difference.
On Google’s approach to your personal data:
the company must put all of your information inside Google’s gigantic server farms. Google then uses all of this data to make Google Now more personal and perceptive. If you’re texting a friend about dinner, Google will give you restaurant reviews and directions automatically. In the future, it might make a reservation and call a driverless car. The more repetitive you are in your behavior, the more the algorithms learn to automate things for you. Google’s approach has its benefits—the company’s products are free, and you can be fairly confident they won’t break. The cost is in your data, privacy, and lack of control. Someday, Google will want to make money from all these experiences, either through advertising or through transactions that are hyper-tailored to you.
And on Apple’s approach:
Apple’s approach is entirely different. For them, future personalization will be done by using information already on a device. When you search your iPhone, the company’s new Proactive Agent will quickly find content inside the apps on the device and bring it to the forefront. Imagine that you’ve organized a trip on an app such as TripIt, booked flights on United Airlines, and made hotel reservations. The travel plans will be synchronized with your calendar, but you will also get alerts on when to leave for the airport (depending on traffic conditions) and what route to take. When you arrive, your phone will show you your boarding pass. Any flight delays should automatically show up as well. If you like to read certain magazines on the plane, maybe the phone will download them for you in advance. It learns your habits. Plug in your headphones and you’ll get music recommendations based on your location.
Bottom line, Google’s approach is holistic, global. They take all your data, build a big personalized picture of you, your likes/dislikes, preferences, habits, then unapologetically use that data wherever there’s a need. Some of that need is for advertising (to pay the bills), some of that need is to make their services more closely tailored to your needs.
Apple has drawn the line at keeping your data on your device and, if it leaves the device, anonymizing that data. Craig Federighi, speaking about gathering user intelligence during last week’s WWDC keynote, said:
We do it in a way that does not compromise your privacy. We don’t mine your email, your photos, or your contacts in the cloud to learn things about you. We honestly just don’t want to know. All of this is done on-device, and it stays on-device, under your control.
Om compares Apple and Google to the Klitschko twins, two brothers who became great boxing champions. I thought this was a great analogy. The brothers were identical twins, incredibly alike in many ways, but also unique. And so it is with Apple and Google. One went into product design, one went into advertising.
June 16, 2015
Apple Watch: My most personal review ever
I have been reporting on Apple for more than 20 years now, and in all that time no product has had such an impact on my life as this little piece of hardware and software. I don’t say that for dramatic effect, it has had a profound effect on the way I live. As you will read later, this is the most personal review I have ever written.
However, before we get there, I need to address a few other items, so let’s get started.
I picked up my Apple Watch from Apple the day before they went on sale to the public. I must admit, I was a bit concerned about using it after reading the initial reviews of the device. They talked about the notification system being just as bothersome as the iPhone and described the watch as having a steep learning curve.
These were exactly the opposite impressions I had of the device after having it on my wrist a couple of times at Apple events, during its introduction. How, after 20 years, could I have misread the watch so badly?
So, while every reporter in the world rushed to get their review of the Apple Watch posted online, I sat and looked at my Apple Watch. I touched it, played with the interface, and I even talked to it.
I needed to know what was so difficult to understand about a device that sits on my wrist, so I put it on and started using it.
The steep learning curve
There is no steep learning curve. Complete bullshit.
Notifications are annoying
This says more about the reviewers ability to use the product than anything. Notifications are completely configurable. Again, complete bullshit.
Fundamentally Apple
Apple Watch is a new product and a brand new category for Apple, but fundamentally, it is an Apple product. In order to understand the Apple Watch, you first have to appreciate what Apple does. I’m not saying that in a “I love Apple” kind of way, but you have to have an understanding of how Apple does things.
Having that fundamental understanding of how Apple makes its hardware and software work together, how its user interface works, and how the company brings it all together is key to understanding the watch.
It’s all fundamentally Apple.
When someone asks me how to use an Apple designed interface, I always tell them the same thing: think of the easiest way to do it, and 9 times out of 10, that’s what Apple did. There is that one time that Apple messes up, and something weird happens, but most of time, that advice holds true.
That is the advice I’d give a new user of Apple Watch.
This happened to me on a number of occasions as I began using the watch. For example, when I received a notification on the watch, I could swipe right to left and clear that notification. However, there were other notifications still in the queue—how could I dismiss them all? Surely Apple wouldn’t want me to dismiss each one individually, so the question was, what magic implementation did they put in the watch to make this happen? What would be the easiest way to do it?
I tried a Force Touch and sure enough, “Clear All” popped up on the screen. From that point on, I would Force Touch everything just to see what options it would bring up. There are quite a few—explore and you will find many.
Navigating Apple Watch
The best way to describe navigating the watch is to think of the Digital Crown as your home/back button. No matter where you are in the watch’s interface, you can get back home using the crown.
The crown has more functionality than that—it takes you from the watch face to the app screen, and back again, and you use the crown to activate Siri, which is something I’ve been using a lot.
Many people have commented that Siri is much better on the watch than it ever was on the iPhone. I think that’s true too, but there are some other things to consider with Siri. With the watch, we have to use Siri, so I think we’ve become better at interacting with it, and since we’re using it more, it makes sense that we’ve become better too. The two of those put together gives us the illusion that it was just Apple improving the service, but I think it was all of those things together that have made the experience better.
One of the things I use Siri for is playing music. Just hold the Digital Crown and say what music you want to play—if you’re in the car, or your phone is connected to another external speaker, the music will automatically play through it.
One thing I really like is that when I choose a song to play and say “shuffle,” it will play that song and then shuffle the album that song is on. However, if I choose a band and say “shuffle,” it will play through all of the songs from that band. I like that.
The side button on the Apple Watch immediately opens your friends list. This is where I keep all of the people that I want to communicate with quickly—if they have an Apple Watch, then you can send your heartbeat, doodles and other interactive messages.
Soon after turning on my Apple Watch, I received my first ever doodle. It was from John Gruber and it was probably the funniest conversation I’ve had with him in all the years I’ve known him.
You can tell who has a watch and who doesn’t by the types of messages you can send someone. If they have a watch, you will see the button for the doodle screen, but if they don’t, you will have to send an old fashion message. This is how John knew I had my watch.
If you double-press the side button, you will see your Apple Pay cards. I’ve used this often to purchase things since I started wearing the watch and it’s great. After the payment is made, you receive confirmation and Apple Pay goes away. Simple.
Battery
The first full day I had the watch, I drained the battery down to 2 percent. I wondered how long it would be before I completely drained it under normal use—that day has yet to arrive.
When Apple told me the battery would last all day, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. Turns out, they were right. Most nights when I go to bed, I have 25 percent or better remaining on my watch battery.
I should be clear, that the first thing I do in the morning is put on the watch. Taking it off is the last thing I do before going to sleep. It is on my wrist all day long.
Not everything is perfect… yet
The Apple Watch OS is not perfect, but I didn’t expect it to be. There are things that weren’t included, but yet, oddly were included. Many of these things are being added in WatchOS 2, so I won’t go through them all, but there are a few odd ones that I thought I’d mention.
For instance, you can’t reply to an email from the Apple Watch. If you get an alert, you have to go to your phone to reply. Fair enough. Except, if you have a calendar appointment with someone and their email address is in the appointment, you can send them an email from the watch. I think that’s good, but it seems odd that you can send an email from Calendar, but not from Mail.
I also had a few problems with Maps. I started directions from my Watch and, as expected, the screen of my iPhone picked up the map. However, it wouldn’t give verbal turn-by-turn directions through the car’s Bluetooth. As soon as I unlocked the iPhone’s screen, verbal directions started working. Odd.
When I got to a place where I felt comfortable and no longer needed it, I turned off navigation on my watch. However, the phone wouldn’t stop giving directions. In fact, it restarted the navigation on my watch. In order to stop the navigation, I had to stop it on the phone.
These are small things, but worth pointing out. They didn’t really impact the way I use the watch or my overall satisfaction with how it works, they are just weird little things that popped up.
Fitness: information is power
This is where the review gets very personal for me. This is how I lost over 40 pounds using HealthKit and Apple Watch.
I am overweight. Not just a little, but a lot. I smoke, and have for most of my life, I drink, I eat every food that is bad for me, and I just didn’t care. I think a better way to put it is that I didn’t see a way out.
Apple does a very good job of promoting Apple Watch to marathon runners and other athletes that want to stay fit and maintain their perfectly sculptured bodies. I look at that and know I will never be them, so I move on. There are millions of people in my situation that have done the same thing.
About 10 months ago I went out for a walk. That started a transformation for me that I will never forget. A simple walk.
During one of these walks, I was thinking about life, listening to music and I just kept walking. I walked a long time, at least for me, and it felt good. It wasn’t strenuous really, just a walk—turns out it was a three mile walk and I started doing it every single day.
One day, I weighed myself and I had lost five pounds. I was shocked—I ate the same, but yet I’m losing weight.
Then I remembered this technology on my iPhone called HealthKit. It could track my steps, distance, weight and other information about my body. I started using HealthKit every day to see how different things would affect my weight loss and generally how I felt. Did I lose more weight walking in the morning or the afternoon? What foods made me gain weight? Should I skip meals and hope that helps with weight loss?1
I hesitate to say I became obsessed, but I did become more aware of what I did and how it affected me, both physically and mentally.
I looked at every aspect of my life to see what a little change would do for me. I ate my very first yogurt in my life, and I like it. I challenged myself in ways that I never would have before with food and with exercise, sometimes hitting a limit and knowing that I’d gone too far. I picked myself up and started again, eventually breaking through that limit and many others along the way.
Then I started using MyFitnessPal to track the amount of calories I was eating and compared that to the amount I was burning. Calories in versus calories out is weight loss, I’ve come to learn. I track every single thing I eat, good or bad, and use HealthKit to track what it does to my body.
I’m not religious about what I eat, but I’m aware. I still grab a burger if I’m out with friends and I thoroughly enjoy it—every single bite. The difference is that I understand what it does.
There is no sense in tracking what you eat if you skip writing down the bad things. Track everything. You will have bad days, and that’s okay. I have all kinds of bad eating days, and while I don’t feel guilty, I do feel good about knowing how to change it tomorrow.
Knowledge and understanding has allowed me to break through the barrier of not seeing a way out of my situation. I am in control.
Apple Watch furthered my transformation. I can see on my wrist every minute of the day where I’m at for standing, movement, activity, calories and much more.
One minute please, Apple Watch says I need to stand up
If Apple Watch says stand, I stand. I still don’t know why. Maybe I just want to complete those rings every day and feel good about that. Maybe standing every hour really is good for me. I don’t know, but I’ll indulge this little device on my wrist and stand.
I workout every day now2. I have incorporated a two mile, 3.5 mph treadmill walk, a two mile outdoor walk, and some light interval training, with eating better.
With the lost weight, I have also added in some weight training. Doing that has added several inches to my biceps and is tightening up my chest and stomach. I should be clear, I don’t exercise for hours a day—I only spend about 40 minutes a day exercising. That’s my comfort zone.
As of this writing, and using the exercises I talked about, I have lost 42.4 pounds.
I am about five pounds short of the goal I set for myself, and about 15 pounds from where I should be for my height and age. Not only can I see my goal, but I am making it to that goal.
In the past 10 months, I have lost four pant sizes and two shirt sizes. Even now, I see myself as being overweight, and while technically I am, whenever I see someone and they say, “wow, where did the rest of you go,” I understand that I’ve made a lot of headway.
This didn’t happen overnight. It happened a tenth of a pound at a time. Some days it was a real struggle.
What I’m saying to those of you in my situation of being overweight, is that there is hope. There is a way out for you too. It has to start somewhere, so why not today.
Apple Watch and HealthKit changed my life. It can change yours too.
You can read a follow-up post too.
LensProToGo’s stolen gear serial numbers ∞
LensProToGo:
As many of you may have heard, LensProToGo suffered a break-in at our Concord, MA location over the weekend of June 13-14 totaling just shy of $600,000 worth of gear stolen. We’ve taken a full inventory and this is the list of items that was taken. While this list is quite large, it does represent only a portion of our inventory, so we’re still able to handle customer orders with virtually no effect.Please take a look at this list and be wary of any used camera items for sale in the coming months. Always ask to see serial numbers before purchasing.
The nice folks at LensProToGo (who I’ve rented from often) need your help. As with any purchase, always check the serial numbers and, if you are a photographer, be on the look out for “special deals” on eBay, Craigslist and other places on lenses. As you can see by the list, LensProToGo got ripped for a lot of lenses that will soon start showing up for sale.
Police search for 3 men in death of 18-year-old trying to retrieve his phone ∞
CBC:
Cook had left his smartphone in a taxi and traced it electronically to an address on Highbury Avenue.When he and a relative went to the address, he was confronted by three men in a car, London police Const. Ken Steeves told CBC News.
After a discussion about the phone, the men started to drive away and Cook dove onto the hood of the car. He was shot soon afterward.
We hear “heartwarming” stories of people tracking down their iPhones, confronting the bad guys, and getting them back all the time. Here’s the flip side. Please don’t do this. I promise your phone isn’t worth your life. Contact your local police if you’ve lost your phone and can track it to a specific location.
Metallica performs the Star Spangled Banner at Giants game
Some people are comparing this to the Hendrix Woodstock version. To me, not even close. But still, great job, amazing sound.
Adobe updates most everything in Creative Cloud, folds in Adobe Stock service ∞
This is a big deal for Creative Cloud users. From Adobe’s press release:
Adobe today launched a milestone release of its flagship Adobe Creative Cloud tools and services. The 2015 release of Creative Cloud includes major updates to Adobe’s industry-defining desktop tools, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, Premiere Pro CC and InDesign CC; as well as new connected mobile apps for iOS and Android. The company also shipped Adobe Stock, the industry’s first stock content service to be integrated directly into the creative process and the tools creatives use every day (see separate press release). In addition, Adobe announced an expanded Creative Cloud enterprise offering that includes enterprise-grade administration, security, collaboration and publishing services for design-driven brands, businesses and large organizations.
Here’s one take on the updates to Photoshop.
And here’s Adobe’s new feature page for Illustrator.
J. J. Abrams: He was The Beatles to me ∞
Great appreciation piece on Medium.
I do not agree to your terms ∞
Mike Ash writes a widely read development blog, which he makes available as an RSS feed. Mike got an email from Apple letting him know that they planned to include his feed in their iOS 9 News initiative. Nice to be noticed, right?
These are the terms Apple included in the email:
- You agree to let us use, display, store, and reproduce the content in your RSS feeds including placing advertising next to or near your content without compensation to you. Don’t worry, we will not put advertising inside your content without your permission.
- You confirm that you have all necessary rights to publish your RSS content, and allow Apple to use it for News as we set forth here. You will be responsible for any payments that might be due to any contributors or other third parties for the creation and use of your RSS content.
- If we receive a legal claim about your RSS content, we will tell you so that you can resolve the issue, including indemnifying Apple if Apple is included in the claim.
- You can remove your RSS feed whenever you want by opting out or changing your settings in News Publisher.
Pay special attention to that “indemnifying Apple” item. It’ll come back up in a minute.
The email continues:
If you do not want Apple to include your RSS feeds in News, reply NO to this email and we will remove your RSS feeds. [emphasis Apple’s]
Mike continues:
Let me get this straight, Apple: you send me an e-mail outlining the terms under which you will redistribute my content, and you will just assume that I agree to your terms unless I opt out?
This makes typical clickwrap EULA nonsense look downright reasonable by comparison. You’re going to consider me bound to terms you just declared to me in an e-mail as long as I don’t respond? That’s completely crazy. You don’t even know if I received the e-mail!
I am completely mystified by this email. If I got the email, I would carefully check the headers to make sure this was from Apple. It is so tin-eared it sounds almost like a phishing attempt of some kind.
To be clear, the issue is not about Apple’s right to use Mike’s publicly available feed. It is about trying to impose contractual or license terms without some indication that both parties have agreed to those terms.
When you install a new piece of software, you have to click some form of “I agree” button. Whether that holds water in court is a matter of interpretation (sometimes a different interpretation in different states/jurisdictions). But the idea of imposing contract/license terms without some action on Mike’s part is, at the very least, unfair.
If Mike never got the email, would a court ever rule that he had some obligation to indemnify Apple in the case of a lawsuit? Does the fact of the email being sent provide some legal cover for Apple to claim indemnity? Perhaps, but this seems incredibly one sided.
This one sided opt-out required approach to gathering content just doesn’t seem like Tim Cook’s Apple.
Oh Trevor
More original thinking, this time from a Samsung fan.
Remember this moment from last week’s keynote?
At the start of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, CEO Tim Cook made mention of Brandon Moss’ 100th home run ball, and the litany of Apple products the Indians’ relievers requested in return for surrendering the baseball to the slugger.
Tim showed the ball, announced that Apple would pay the ransom, give the ball to Brandon Moss. Great move.
Enter Samsung fan (maybe) Trevor Bauer, pitcher for those same Cleveland Indians. He got hold of another milestone ball, the first hit for rookie Francisco Lindor. Bauer squirreled away the ball and sent out this ransom tweet:
Hey @Lindor12BC we have your ball. @indians Bullpen settled for @tim_cook Apple products but we want @samsungmobileus
Any number of people saw this as a Samsung PR ploy (Dan Frakes from Wirecutter, for example). At the very least, this is some pretty unoriginal pranking.
But there’s a kicker.
Bauer’s ransom tweet was sent from his iPhone. You just can’t make this stuff up.
June 15, 2015
HelloTalk: Learn a new language on your iPhone [Sponsor] ∞
Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.
HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.
With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy today.
Download HelloTalk for iPhone
Download HelloTalk for Android
Did Twitter lose the plot? ∞
The folksy roots, the founder breakups, the dysfunction — all those things made Twitter a very human and a much beloved service. It was a service everyone (especially those in the media) wanted to love — and yet it is 2015 and the narrative around the company has become negative and toxic. The more I read all these things about the company, the more I wonder — how did Twitter lose the plot, the narrative. Till not too long ago, the press was generally very kind to the company.
It’s true, there’s been very little positive out of Twitter in a while.
First look: OS X El Capitan
I began using OS X El Capitan shortly after last week’s WWDC keynote when I met with Apple to talk about the latest release of the operating system.
A lot of people have asked me what my favorite announcement during the keynote was, and my answer was always the same—the focus on performance and stability for OS X. Yosemite brought many improvements and tighter integration with iOS, but it was time to go back stabilize everything.
While the focus of the release is clear, Apple didn’t leave us without any new features in El Capitan—that’s what I’ll have a look at today.
Split View
I know from my limited use, Split View is going to be one of my most used features in OS X. Many of us spend quite a bit of time switching from window to window during our daily work. While there are ways to make that more efficient, nothing quite beats having the windows side-by-side.
I find myself in this situation quite a bit. While researching articles, I will often copy links, images, and text as reference points for something I’m working on. I found Split View very useful in these circumstances, not only for convenience, but also because I didn’t lose my focus or train of thought—it was just a simple drag and drop from one pane to the other.
Split View is very easy to initiate too. Just hold down the green window button and your desktop will split into two sections—drop the current window into one of the sections and the remaining open applications will be available on the other side—chose the one you want there and that’s it, you’re now in Split View.
Exiting Split View is equally as easy—hit the escape key on your keyboard and you’re back to your desktop.
While exiting is easy, there is one thing I would like changed. When you exit one of your Split View windows, you return to the desktop with that application, which is good. However, the other app remains full screen in another one of OS X’s “Spaces.” You have to go back to the app and also press exit—that seems odd to me.
Split View is also window-based, not app-based, which means you can have two windows from one application in Split View. For example, if I want two Safari windows open in Split View, I can do that.
You can also adjust the size of the Split View screens. If you have the Notes app on one side and Safari on the other, you can make the Safari window a bit larger for more comfortable viewing and still copy information into Notes. This was also a handy feature for me.
I’ll be using Split View a lot when El Capitan is released.
Spotlight
My other favorite feature in OS X El Capitan is the improved Spotlight. Not only do you get results from more sources, but now you can use natural language to search your Mac.
We’ve become accustomed to using natural language to enter calendar appointments with apps like Fantastical and know that all of the information is going to be entered correctly. I even dictate many items to Siri and have it automatically set things up on my iOS devices. Having natural language in Spotlight searches is a great step forward for me.
Whether I’m looking for the serial number for Daniel Jalkut’s MarsEdit1 or I’m searching for a subset of emails from a specific person with a few keywords, I can find them.
That’s what I really like about Spotlight and natural language—it allows me to find things the way I want, which makes things faster and more efficient.
Notes
I’ve been a Notes user for a while. Ever since Notes would sync from my iOS devices to my Mac, and back, I’ve been taking notes and working on them wherever I happen to be at the time.
The new Notes takes that several steps further by allowing you to add photos, PDFs, videos, audio, map locations, Pages documents, Numbers spreadsheets, Keynote presentations and lots of other things. You can also save information to Notes directly from many applications.
I have a feeling Notes will be used by a lot more people after they get their hands on El Capitan.
Safari
The new feature in Safari is Pinned Sites. This allows you to keep your most visited sites “pinned” in the Safari tab bar so they are always open and ready for you to visit.
It’s a handy little feature, but it’s one of those that I’ll have to use more before I decide if it’s a must have. I’ve been browsing the Web for over 20 years, so I have things setup pretty good right now—we’ll see how this one goes, but I’m certainly not opposed to having a more efficient way of browsing.
I think my favorite Safari feature is the ability to mute a tab. For those inconsiderate Webmasters who auto-play audio when you enter their Web site, Safari now has an option to mute the audio from the Smart Search field. I love this.
I use Mail a lot. Unfortunately, I’ve had some trouble lately with Mail on Yosemite getting stuck while checking IMAP connections, especially after I wake the computer from sleep. All I ask for in El Capitan is for that to be fixed.
The good news is that it seems much better in this beta version of the operating system. Apple said Mail in El Capitan delivers an improved IMAP engine, so I’m very hopeful. I haven’t had Mail stop working yet and I’m a week into using it—that’s a damn good sign.
Apple added a number of new features to Mail including Swipe to manage messages, similar to how we interact with messages on iOS; improved full screen; tabs, which should be a great feature; suggested contacts; and suggested events.
I do like the suggested contacts and events. This is another one of those features that just makes me more efficient and the OS does all the heavy lifting for me. If there’s an event or a new contact, it shows up in the Mail window—you just click and it’s added.
Maps
Apple has built public transit directions right into Maps in El Capitan. This will probably be one of the most used features in the operating system once it’s released in conjunction with the iOS version.
Maps will now give you detailed directions that combine step-by-step walking, subway, train, bus, and ferry routes. You get schedules, routes based on when you want to leave and arrive, and a Map view of the transit system. This is truly outstanding.
Right now, Apple supports transit in London, New York, San Francisco Bay Area, and Toronto. It’s also supported in more than 300 Chinese cities.
When El Capitan ships, Apple will also support Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, Mexico City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
Photos
With the new Photos app in El Capitan, users can take advantage of third-party editing extensions. These extensions can be bundled in an existing photo app or distributed individually.
You can even use multiple extensions with an individual photo. I know a lot of people that are going to have fun with this. I’m not much of a photographer, but I do like to clean up my photos, so I may give this a serious try. Most of the time, Apple’s built-in tools are enough for me, but we’ll see.
You can also batch organize faces, batch change image titles, and add or edit image locations. All features I’m sure will be used by all levels of photographers in Photos.
Bottom Line
Apple is focusing on the right things with OS X El Capitan—performance, efficiency and a few features that will make the operating system better for us to use2.
My use of the new features gives me a good sense of what to expect in the new OS when it’s released and I can’t wait. As you can probably tell, performance and stability are my favorites so far. To me that’s a good sign that Apple is headed the right way.
The 2015 iPhone Photography Award Winners ∞
iPhone Photography Award:
From intimate, thought-provoking moments to stunning, captivating scenes, this year’s iPhone Photography Award winners are nothing short of impressive.The three Photographers of the Year Awards go to Michal Koralewski of Poland, David Craik of the United Kingdom and Yvonne Lu of the United States. Their photographs take full advantage of the iPhone to quietly capture their subjects without disturbing the atmosphere.
Always amazing to see what photographers can do with the iPhone. Inspires me to want to shoot more with it.
Why I’m getting on board with watchOS 2 ∞
Daniel Pasco, CEO of digital agency Black Pixel, writing for Medium:
Existing WatchKit apps present a UI on the Watch, while the application logic processing is actually done on the iPhone. Communication between the UI code is done via bluetooth between the Watch and the iPhone, which adds considerable network overhead and latency, ultimately resulting in a fairly slow interaction and experience.
watchOS 2 applications, on the other hand, collocate the logic execution and the UI together in the Watch itself. This makes the application experience much snappier, reducing the amount of time needed to interact with your (indispensable to the user) app so that they can get back to more urgent things such as avoiding oncoming traffic, talking to their spouse, etc.
watchOS 2 brings a major evolutionary change to the Apple Watch experience. You’ll be able to do much more on your watch without necessarily having access to your iPhone. This is a major opportunity for developers and a real step forward in potential experience for the Apple Watch user.
watchOS 2 was announced at WWDC and is available to developers now.
Here’s what happens to your $10 after you pay for a month of Apple Music ∞
Re/code:
Here are the real numbers, according to Robert Kondrk, the Apple executive who negotiates music deals along with media boss Eddy Cue: In the U.S., Apple will pay music owners 71.5 percent of Apple Music’s subscription revenue. Outside the U.S., the number will fluctuate, but will average around 73 percent, he told Re/code in an interview. Executives at labels Apple is working with confirmed the figures.Those totals include payments to the people who own the sound recordings Apple Music will play, as well as the people who own the publishing rights to songs’ underlying compositions. That doesn’t mean the money will necessarily go to the musicians who recorded or wrote the songs, since their payouts are governed by often-byzantine contracts with music labels and publishers.
No surprises here as the 70+% is pretty standard. What I’m curious to know is how much will those “basement musicians” Apple mentioned get? Apple talks of unsigned artists being able to get their music listened to on the service. If those artists get 70% of the revenue, it might generate significant money for them.
Peter Jackson and Ian McKellen pen tributes to Christopher Lee ∞
Sadly, actor Christopher Lee died last week. You likely know him best as Saruman, from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Director Peter Jackson and actor Ian McKellen (Gandalf himself) put pen to paper to pay last respects to their friend.
Apple, WWDC, and accessibility ∞
Steven Aquino, writing for TechCrunch:
Event after event, Tim Cook makes a point to remind the audience that Apple’s ethos is to build best-of-breed products that change people’s lives. I believe Cook to be sincere for no other reason than the work the company does in supporting accessibility. In iOS and OS X. Apple has made good on their word to changing people’s lives by continually improving the tools that, quite literally, change the way a person with disabilities (such as myself) uses an iPhone and iPad.
But it isn’t only Apple who’s doing good. Third-party developers have a responsibility to incorporate accessibility into their apps as well, and that’s where WWDC comes in. Apple provides numerous resources to developers during the conference that help he or she ensure that their app(s) are as accessible as possible.
The accessibility presence at WWDC is deep and far-reaching; Apple does much to raise awareness of and advocate for the accessibility community. Apple this week granted me behind-the-scenes access to sessions, labs, and developer interviews at Moscone so as to tell WWDC’s accessibility story.
This is a great read. Kudos, Steven.
Thoughts on last week’s keynote
In today’s Monday Note, Jean-Louis Gassée offers his takeaways from last week’s WWDC keynote.
On Apple Music:
Apple Music doesn’t need to make money. It isn’t a business unit, it doesn’t have a Profit & Loss statement. Its sole raison d’être is to make iPhones more valuable, more pleasurable. The incumbent music services don’t have the luxury of Apple’s deep pockets and enormous user base, 800 million or more credit cards on file. Individual users might balk at the $9.99 per month price, but I have a feeling that many will find the $14.99 family deal quite attractive. We’ll know soon; the service goes live on June 30th, free for three months.
I think this logic is spot on. That $14.99 monthly fee allows up to 6 people unlimited access to Apple Music with custom settings for each user. For a family of music lovers, that is an excellent deal.
From the official Apple Music site:
As an Apple Music member you can add anything from the Apple Music library — a song, an album, or a video — to your collection. And that’s just the warm-up act. From there you can create the perfect playlist from anything you’ve added. You can save it for offline listening and take it on the road. You can even post your favorite playlists, albums, and videos to Facebook, Twitter, or Messages. It’s never been easier to share music with each other.
The math on this is compelling. I certainly spend more than $15 a month buying music. Key for me is the ability to save a playlist for offline listening so I am not sucking on my data plan during long runs/bike rides/drives.
Regardless of what you thought of the keynote performances, Apple Music offers something of real substance. The competition is right to be concerned.
Jean-Louis also weighed in on the iPad announcements:
It appears that Apple might be reconsidering the iPad’s purpose. In addition to the split screen, Apple’s hermetic iCloud Drive has been “opened”, making it look more like a conventional file system. We also have shortcuts for Bluetooth keyboards and two-finger gestures that convert the iPad’s on-screen keyboard into a trackpad of sorts. All we need now is an accessory keyboard/trackpad and, who knows, a stylus.
There is a major gap between my ability to create content on my iPad and on my MacBook Pro. The biggest issue for me is typing speed. My fingers fly on the MacBook Pro keyboard, but slow to a crawl on the iPad’s virtual keyboard. I’ve got a Bluetooth keyboard, but that defeats the purpose. If I’ve got to carry my iPad and a keyboard, I’ll just bring my laptop.
Adding gestures and Bluetooth keyboard shortcuts is definitely a step in the right direction, but that gap still remains. iOS 8 brought us QuickType and predictive text, and iOS 9 raised the bar with gestures that make QuickType that much better.
With the changes brought by iOS 9, the gap between typing on a Mac and on an iPad is now interestingly close. If I am typing on my Mac and want to move to another paragraph in my document, I either have to press and hold the arrow key and navigate my way to my new insertion point, or reach for my trackpad or mouse. On the iPad, I can gesture to the new insertion point without taking my hands from the home row. This one change narrows the gap considerably.
One last thought about the keynote concerns the performance itself. There have been a tremendous number of comments about the various presenters and the overall polish of the keynote. Most notably, Jimmy Iovine has been lambasted for his apparent nervousness and unpolished delivery.
I think those criticisms might be true, but are pointed in the wrong direction. The keynote delivered well when it focused on benefits and not features, and when those benefits were presented clearly and quickly.
As an example, the Apple Music rollout was all about features and short on benefits. We’ve got curated music, we’ve got celebrity DJs, we’ve got radio stations emanating from three different cities. Those things are incidental, they are features. How do those things help me?
Consider this benefits-first approach: “For only $9.99 a month, you can have access to pretty much every song ever recorded. Add in $5 more a month, and it’ll be you and up to 5 more people. That’s a real cost savings. You can listen to all that music offline, just like the music you own. We do curated playlists to help you discover more music and those playlists are tunable, so we can make them more enjoyable for you as we learn your tastes.”
That short paragraph would have hooked me. As is, the lede was about as buried as a lede can be. Those messages were stretched out and buried in a sea of features and marketing speak.
Jimmy Iovine didn’t help matters, but he’s a smart guy. I’ve seen him captivate an audience with his deep musical knowledge and charisma. With the right material and enough practice, Jimmy Iovine will be an invaluable resource in bringing across the keynote message.
I’m wondering if that last section of the keynote was originally built around an AppleTV rollout and the “one more thing” was changed to focus on Apple Music late in the game. That would explain a lot.
June 14, 2015
Dave Grohl breaks leg after falling off stage, finishes concert anyway ∞
This is so Dave Grohl.
Foo Fighters are doing a show in Sweden, Grohl falls off the stage and breaks his leg. The vast majority of folks would have called it a night and headed for the hospital. But not Dave.
First, he calls out drummer Taylor Hawkins, tells him he’s got to make some music for the crowd. And while Taylor takes over the mic (playing party songs, no Foo Fighter material), Grohl heads off on a stretcher.
Watch the video below to get a sense of this and what happens next. And jump to this page for a nice collection of videos and images from the concert.
Respect.
[H/T Matt Abras]
June 13, 2015
Video for John Gruber’s WWDC interview of Phil Schiller ∞
Yesterday’s post, Phil Schiller takes a big risk, John Gruber makes it pay off, included a link to the audio podcast of Gruber’s WWDC interview of Phil Schiller.
Here’s the video. Even better.
June 12, 2015
8 historic concerts you can watch online right now ∞
Mic:
The Internet has a wealth of concerts, but it can be next to impossible to wade through the options. Places like Netflix and Hulu carry the classics, like The Last Waltz and Gimme Shelter, while random YouTube pages carry snippets of concerts. But somewhere in the middle are hidden gems — complete nights from historic moments in music.From the Beach Boys to Rage Against the Machine and B.B. King to Nirvana, here are eight historic shows available at your fingertips.
I am so watching the daylights out of that Rage Against The Machine concert right now.
The new Microsoft era: any developer, any app, any OS. Really? ∞
I’d like to thank Microsoft for sponsoring The Loop this week. This year, Microsoft is making major investments in developer and cloud tools to move beyond Windows and bring great support to iOS developers and other popular platforms. As part of this focus, Microsoft is sponsoring Altconf this week and will be there to show you some of the cool new services and free tools to help you take your apps to the next level.
I also want to thank Microsoft for sponsoring the Beard Bash party on Monday June 8th. Life may run on code, but we all know developers run on beer.
If you cannot attend Altconf or the Beardbash, you can learn more about what is possible at http://AnyDevAnyApp.com.
Apple, backstage at the start of the WWDC keynote
This is what developers saw just before Tim walked out onto the stage. Pretty great.
Twitter will remove 140 character limit on DMs next month ∞
Applause. Also:
Meanwhile, the micro-blogging platform this week introduced the ability to export and share block lists. So if you share your friend’s hatred for spambots or abusers, import their list into your account and block multiple people at once.
And still more applause. I wonder if the 140 character limit on regular tweets is sacrosanct, or if its days are numbered, too.
Wired’s take on Apple Music ∞
Wired:
When Apple acquired Beats Music in early 2014, the company’s intentions were clear: It needed to enter the music streaming game—quickly. Since then, Apple was mum on its plans for the service, and questions flew: Would Apple wash Beats clean of its identity? Would the union produce some hybrid of Apple’s OCD proclivities and Beats’ bubbly personality? What, people wondered, could a merging between two very different aesthetics produce?
After WWDC, we have our answer: Apple’s design sensibilities still rule supreme. At WWDC, Apple showed off Apple Music, a music-streaming app that draws heavily on iTunes’ DNA, with a recessive Beats gene or two thrown in for good measure.
One correction:
The cluttered result is a natural side effect of making a music app. “Designing music apps is inherently challenging because of how many things you can do with music,” says Chris Becher, the head of product at the streaming-music service Rdio and a former product manager at Apple.
They quote Chris several times in the article, spelling his name consistently as Becher. Chris Becher is really Chris Becherer. Just a nit.
No, CNN, Apple Music will not sound worse ∞
From CNN’s article on Apple Music:
Apple said its tracks will stream at 256 kilobits per second. That’s a bitrate similar to music files available on iTunes, but the Apple Music files are 20% smaller than competing streaming music services, including main rival Spotify.
Spotify’s audio files come in three sizes: 96 kbps, 160kbps and 320 kbps. Files with the highest quality are only available to paid subscribers. Apple Music doesn’t have a free version like Spotify does — all of its customers will have to pay $9.99 a month.
The article goes on to compare Apple’s 256 kbps against Spotify’s 320 kbps, pointing out (correctly) that Apple’s stream will save on your data plan (less data moves over the pipe) and complains (incorrectly) that “Apple Music will be streaming its tracks at a lower quality than its competition”.
Kirk McElhearn catches this error, writing:
What they don’t consider, however, is that AAC – also known as MP4 – is a much better codec. It won’t sound worse at that lower bit rate; it will sound just as good, if not better, than 320 kbps MP3 files. And, it saves you money on bandwidth.
While they point out that Spotify only uses 320 kbps for paid subscribers (others get 96 or 160 kbps), they still manage to say that Apple Music will sound worse. And they don’t point out that Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis files, which are much lower quality than either MP3 or AAC.
Nice catch, Kirk.
Phil Schiller takes a big risk, John Gruber makes it pay off ∞
If you haven’t listened to this special version of The Talk Show, live from WWDC, take a few minutes and go here. It’s a great listen. Terrifically entertaining.
Next, go to Marco Arment’s absolutely brilliant insider’s look at the podcast, replete with pictures.
From the review:
But after a brief introduction from Merlin Mann and Adam Lisagor, John introduced, “and I shit you not,” Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller.
Being familiar with John’s dry humor, I’m not sure most of the audience believed him. Many cheered. Some hesitated. For a few seconds, nobody walked out, and people started laughing, thinking they got the joke.
And then Phil Schiller really walked on stage.
And this next bit is critical:
Apple executives rarely speak publicly outside of Apple events, especially for live interviews. One of the highest-ranking executives of the world’s highest-profile company being subjected to questions, unprepared and unedited, in front of a live audience full of recording devices, is rarely worth the PR risk: the potential downside is much larger than the likely upside. Do well, and a bunch of existing fans will like you a bit more; do poorly, and it’s front-page news worldwide.
Both Apple and Phil Schiller himself took a huge risk in doing this. That they agreed at all is a noteworthy gift to this community of long-time enthusiasts, many of whom have felt under-appreciated as the company has grown.
Phil took the risk. John Gruber made it pay off. And Marco caught the true essence of the moment. Nice.