June 18, 2015

EFF names companies who have your back ∞

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Apple earns five stars in this year’s Who Has Your Back report. This is Apple’s fifth year in the report, and it has adopted every best practice we’ve identified as part of this report. We commend Apple for its strong stance regarding user rights, transparency, and privacy.

Congrats Apple.

EFF’s evaluation of Google (three stars):

Google should take a stronger position in providing notice to users about government data requests after an emergency has ended or a gag has been lifted. Furthermore, Google should provide transparency into its data retention policies.

The Hello Project ∞

Written by

Spencer Wynn

The Hello Project was born of a love of story telling and curiosity.

All too often people pass one another, head down and only interacting with their mobile devices. This is an attempt to use the power of social media to reconnect people in the oldest way possible …

by saying Hello.

This is sort of the Canadian version of the famous New York city project and it brings home a thought I’ve always had – most of us have stories to tell but no one to tell them to.

I love the idea of street photography but am often too reserved and shy (too Canadian) to approach people. I think this way of doing it will inspire me to try my own photographic experiment along these lines.

Showing off the Apple Watch ∞

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Way more people have never seen an Apple Watch than actually own one. WAY more.

Folks with an Apple Watch on their wrist are often asked a question like, “What does it do?”

Here’s one anecdote from David Chartier, writing for Finer Things in Tech:

“Ooh, what can you do with it.” I showed her my current watch face and four complications—date, next appointment time, temperature, and activity. I mentioned those are all customizable. That alone got her really excited.

“Does it have Siri?” I said yep, with the caveat you still need your phone somewhere on or near you for a lot of stuff like that. She didn’t seem to mind. “Ask her something!” So I asked Siri to “find Northwestern Hospital,” and it displayed a tiny map swatch, along with the phone number “wait, you can make a call ON YOUR WATCH??” and options for walking and driving directions.

Her head damn nearly exploded.

Yeah. Apple Watch is pretty cool.

The value of the round smart watch face ∞

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Andy Faust, writing for WatchAware, explores the differences between Apple’s square watch face and the Android Wear round design. In a nutshell, Apple got it right. A square display is perfect for scrolling data. No way around it.

But:

Round Android Wear (or other) smartwatches are at an almost complete feature disadvantage to Apple Watch. Except one. Yet if they continue to position their circular screen approach as predicated on traditional analog watch design cues, they’ll never be able to play their sole trump card upon Apple’s (overflowingly) green table. They must get their bearings right and move forward. They must forget the timepiece, and they must embrace the compass.

To understand what I mean, just put on a wristwatch. Now glance down at your wrist, as if checking the time. Don’t exaggerate things — just twist your arm towards yourself in that standard, natural motion you’re used to. More likely than not, you’ll notice that your watch probably isn’t oriented in the easiest-to-read manner. For analog or basic digital affairs, this is hardly a problem, as you’ve long been conditioned to read simple watch displays even when viewed from various off-center positions.

Here’s the kicker:

But the benefit to a circular display is that the entire display can rotate without any data loss — just like the inside of a compass. This means that, once calibrated with your head-level as “north” (you are a star, after all!), the UI will always know where your smartwatch is in relation to your eyeballs. And exactly as a compass always points north, your smartwatch display will always balance itself for maximal viewing, allowing for centered, left-to-right (or right-to-left) reading no matter how off-center your wrist happens to be. No more turning and twisting your head like a chump! (The calibration shouldn’t be complex, either. You’d simply hold the device up to your face in a vertical manner, follow a few prompts to move your arm here and there, and manually make minor adjustments to the amount of display “spin” as needed.)

This is an interesting read, good food for thought.

Hacked Apple Watch runs Flappy Bird ∞

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Ridiculous. And awesome.

Jason Snell on family tech support ∞

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Jason Snell writes about using Apple tech to troubleshoot for remote family members. If you are the go to tech support person in your extended family, this is definitely worth a read.

Image of a well bearded man ∞

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The headline link jumps to iMore’s post of Jim’s Apple Watch review.

The value add is the incredible picture at the top of the iMore post. Aside from the pic of Jim and his magical guitar, this is my favorite picture of my famous well bearded friend.

Re/code interview with Apple SVP of Operations Jeff Williams ∞

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This interview happened a month ago, but re/code just released the complete video and transcript. I actually enjoy reading a transcript. Let’s me focus, undistracted, on the words.

Speaking of transcripts, here’s a link to Serenity Caldwell’s transcript of Gruber’s interview with Phil Schiller.

The people who create these transcripts are doing a real service to the community. Thank you all.

June 17, 2015

Holy shit Samsung ∞

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Over 600 million Samsung mobile device users may be at risk due to a significant security threat, according to researchers at mobile security specialist NowSecure.

and

“Welton found he could hijack the process of updating one of the virtual keyboards Samsung installs on many Android smartphones. From there, he could eavesdrop on phone conversations, rummage through text messages and contacts, or turn on the microphone to capture audio,”…

Enjoy your phone Samsung people.

The Dalrymple Report with Merlin Mann: The Pointy Part

Jim and Merlin recap WWDC and talk rock.

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The increasing scarcity of Helium ∞

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Priceonomics:

As helium supplies start to dwindle, the prices have already started to rise, and party balloons are taking a back-seat to the more serious applications. A hundred years down the line, a party balloon might be about as precious as a gold ring.

Despite the fact that science has known about the impending helium scarcity for decades, it’s only made the news in the past five years. Why that is has a lot to do with helium’s complicated political history in the United States.

What a fascinating story about an element most of us give no thought to unless we are sucking it in to make funny voices.

The history of Think Different ∞

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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):

watchReservation

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.

How to record your iPhone’s screen on your Mac for free

Simple, elegant, free.

[Via iHeartApple2]

Apple vs Google and the battle over personalization and privacy ∞

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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.

  1. The answer is no, don’t skip meals. ↩

  2. Every day that I can. I’ve missed days, but that’s going to happen. I pick up where I left off the next day. ↩

LensProToGo’s stolen gear serial numbers ∞

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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 ∞

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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 ∞

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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 ∞

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Great appreciation piece on Medium.

I do not agree to your terms ∞

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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] ∞

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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? ∞

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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.

Mail

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.

  1. MarsEdit is one of the first apps I put on all of my new Macs. ↩

  2. Please, do not run out and install El Capitan on your computer. This is a beta release for testing only—it’s not meant to run full time yet. ↩

The 2015 iPhone Photography Award Winners ∞

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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 ∞

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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 ∞

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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 ∞

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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.