Molly Watt lives with Usher Syndrome. From the Wikipedia page:

Usher syndrome is a relatively rare genetic disorder caused by a mutation in any one of 10 genes resulting in a combination of hearing loss and visual impairment, and is a leading cause of deafblindness. Usher syndrome is incurable at present.

Molly and her mom each got an Apple Watch about five days ago. From Molly’s blog:

I was born deaf and registered blind when I was 14. The condition I have is Usher Syndrome Type 2a. I am severely deaf and have only a very small tunnel of vision in my right eye now so I was concerned not just about the face size but how busy it would appear to me and also if there would be an uncomfortable glare.

Follow the link to read Molly’s take on the Apple Watch, get a sense of how Apple’s accessibility settings work for her.

From The Verge:

A major part of the appeal of The Legend of Zelda series is its setting: Hyrule is a fantasy world that’s equal parts epic and charming. Venturing out into its open fields and finding all of its secrets is a huge task in the game, but now you can do it all from a web browser. A group of developers created a browser-based version of the map from A Link to the Past, so that you can pan across the beautiful, pixelated green fields and blue waters of the land of legend. It even has a bit of animation, so that you can see Chu Jellys wander around or just simply watch the waves bob up and down. And because it’s built in HTML5, you can also explore Hyrule from your phone.

Here’s a link to the map. Pretty cool. They’ve been swamped by web traffic, so if you find the site slow-to-load, bookmark it and try it again later.

Jordan Kahn, writing for 9to5mac:

Ahead of Apple’s WWDC in June and an expected Apple TV refresh, shipping times for its current generation Apple TV have just slipped from in stock to 1-2 weeks. Apple’s estimates for shipping Apple TV from its online store often jump between being “in stock” and “1 day”, but a longer delay in shipping could signal Apple’s intent to introduce a refreshed Apple TV in the near future.

For the record, my Apple Store mining efforts show Apple TV in stock and available for in store pickup at all 4 Apple Stores in my area. Online ordering shows a delivery date, via standard shipping, of May 5th (in four days).

This availability doesn’t mean the shipping time isn’t fluctuating, but I’m not seeing the fluctuation in my neck of the woods. Clearly, other people are seeing things differently. Here’s hoping for that refresh.

When you think of Amazon, you think of rockets, right?

Well, maybe not, but they now officially have a solid link. Jeff Bezos used (likely a very tiny portion of) his Amazon money to create Blue Origin. The goal, much like that of SpaceX, is to create a reusable launch vehicle. A typical satellite launch costs about $200 million. With a reusable launch vehicle, that cost is estimated to be closer to $50 million. This is a problem worth solving.

SpaceX got pretty close with their last launch, but again lost their rocket when it tipped over on landing.

From Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin blog entry:

Today we flew the first developmental test flight of our New Shepard space vehicle. Our 110,000-lbf thrust liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen BE-3 engine worked flawlessly, powering New Shepard through Mach 3 to its planned test altitude of 307,000 feet. Guidance, navigation and control was nominal throughout max Q and all of ascent. The in-space separation of the crew capsule from the propulsion module was perfect. Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return.

In fact, if New Shepard had been a traditional expendable vehicle, this would have been a flawless first test flight. Of course one of our goals is reusability, and unfortunately we didn’t get to recover the propulsion module because we lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent. Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system. Also, assembly of propulsion module serial numbers 2 and 3 is already underway – we’ll be ready to fly again soon.

Video and images can be found here.

This has been flying around the interwebs. Click this link, and you’ll jump to a site that will let you upload a picture of yourself. It’ll then use Microsoft Azure’s Face APIs to guess your age.

The site is powered by Microsoft Azure’s Face APIs that not only recognize features and predict both gender and age. They can also group faces and determine if someone in multiple pictures is the same person. If you’ll recall, Windows 10 will use facial recognition as a log-in option, and the tools that this Azure API offers would certainly come in handy for organizing that personal photo album — expanding features already available in OneDrive.

Apple has long had face recognition software (see iPhoto/Photos). The age guessing aspect is an interesting side note. So is allowing your face to be your fingerprint, enough so to unlock your computer. Does that mean my twin brother (I don’t have one, but allow me this conceit) can unlock my computer? How about other non-genetic dopplegangers? Or, perhaps, a realistic photo I hold up in front of the camera?

The age guessing thing is interesting. But I can’t imagine that technology ever maturing to the point where it is enough of a unique identifier to trust with my login credentials.

The Daily Dot:

Before you go cancelling your order for Apple’s first smartwatch, it’s important to grasp the facts.

But “Apple Watch Defective!” is such a sexier headline. By the way, it’s a good rule of thumb that, when the headline includes something bad about an Apple product, wait 24 hours before commenting. Invariably, the facts come out and it’s not nearly as bad as the Chicken Littles would have you think.

The Loop Magazine released a new issue today with eight new articles. You can download the app for iPhone and iPad and get a free preview of every article in this month’s issue. You can purchase the issue for $1.99 or get a subscription for just $1.99 per month and get access to all of the issues.

In this issue:

Review: 12-inch MacBook: Jim Dalrymple got his hands on one of the new MacBooks Apple recently introduced and gives you his thoughts, from the Retina display to using the one USB-C port.

Skating To Where The MacBook Is Going To Be: Rene Ritchie takes a look at why the all-new MacBook is ahead of the curve and why competitors will have a hard time catching Apple.

The MacBook: A New Mac Laptop For A New Mac Customer: Peter Cohen tackles the criticism lobbed at the new MacBook and why he thinks they are wrong.

What Entertainment Looks Like In The Cord Cutting Age: Cable TV isn’t gone yet, but Darren Murph imagines what the future of TV will look like.

Behind The Mask: This is a really great piece written by Mateusz Stawecki. He talked to some of the people we hear speaking at conferences and finds out what bothers them about public speaking.

Apple Pay: Technology Done Right: Jim Dalrymple looks at Apple Pay and how the new payment technology is working for developers.

To Live, Or To View? Periscope and Meerkat Are Turning Life Into ‘Show & Tell’: Darren Murph looks at how some new apps have changed we way we share our lives.

My Life with iPad: The iPad recently turned five years old. Jim Dalrymple talks about his love of Apple’s tablet device.

Would you pay $6 to commute in a bus that looks like a cafe crossed with a Virgin America plane?

A luxury-bus startup called Leap Transit relaunched in San Francisco last week, carting passengers from the wealthy Marina district to downtown. It’s the latest company to offer a high-end alternative to public transit.

I’d do it.

Rob Richman bought a 38mm Apple Watch, spent some time with it, then had a bit of buyer’s remorse. He swapped it out for a 42mm model. From his post on Opinion8td:

I knew when I put it on my wrist that while it looked great and fitted me well that the touch screen was just a bit too fiddly for my liking and immediately placed an order for the 42mm White Sports version with a June dispatch date. I deliberately chose this option due to my feeling that the Space Grey could take longer to get to me and the Blue model could also be in short supply with it being offered to some developers.

Rob got lucky and his watch shipped quickly. Once he had the new one, he had to figure out how to get his data from his old watch to his new one. Here’s Rob’s take on what he did:

If you ever need to get a new Apple Watch or a replacement here’s how to restore it.

1. Unpair your previous Apple Watch (this also provides an instant Backup)

2. When you set up the new device it gives you the option to pick from one of the latest backups.

3. Pick the backup you want to restore from and let iCloud do its magic and you’re good to go.

Pretty much what you’d expect, given Apple’s experience with iPhone backup and restore. Just thought some of you might be wondering how all this works.

Apple, IBM, and Japan Post Group jointly announced a pilot program to bring iPads with custom software to Japan’s elderly. The short term goal is to expand the existing JPG Watch Over program (which has workers check in on elderly customers for a nominal monthly fee), giving pilot program customers iPad loaded with custom health and monitoring software. The longer term goal (say, five years out) is to expand this program to put these custom iPads in the hands of the majority of seniors in Japan.

Here’s a link to the Japan Post Group’s Wikipedia page. Japan Post Holdings operates post offices, banks, and insurance businesses in Japan. They took over the public Japan Post in 2007.

From the Apple press release:

Japan Post Group, IBM and Apple® today announced a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at improving the quality of life for millions of Japanese senior citizens. Built on the global partnership Apple and IBM announced last year, the new initiative will deliver iPads with IBM-developed apps and analytics to connect millions of seniors with services, healthcare, community and their families.

After piloting iPads and apps custom developed for the elderly, Japan Post Group will expand the service in stages with the objective of including 4 million to 5 million customers in Japan by 2020.

Today more than 33 million seniors make up about 25 percent of Japan’s population, projected to grow to 40 percent over the next 40 years.

There is some reporting that say Apple will be giving away millions of iPads. I am not getting that from the press releases I’ve read. Instead, the sense I get that Apple is giving iPads to members of the pilot program. As the program expands, I’d guess that Japan Post will either resell iPads to its Watch Over customers, or charge a monthly fee to include an iPad with the check-in service.

This program is, in some ways, like leveraging Uber to deliver groceries. The Uber service works on its own, and if you add grocery delivery to the mix, you enhance an existing business to create a new one.

Japan Post has an army of postal workers already visiting every home in Japan. Having those workers check in on the elderly, who may have also opted for relevant services on my company, is a great idea. Adding health monitoring to the mix makes it ever better. The question that pops into my mind is one of training. Are the Watch Over workers the postal workers? If so, will all of these postal workers undergo special training to deliver/setup/monitor the iPads? If so, that’s great leverage of an existing business. If not, there’s still the leverage of a business that already knows how to organize a large team of workers and network them to reach all homes in Japan.

The press release lays out the elements included with the initiative:

• iPad® and its intuitive built-in apps, capabilities and features including FaceTime®, Messages, Mail, Photos and iCloud® Photo Sharing, along with access to rich content in the App Store℠, iTunes Store® and iBooks Store℠. iOS 8, offering award-winning accessibility features, including settings for low vision and hearing impaired users like those who may have undergone Hearing Tests.
• Custom-built apps specifically for the elderly by IBM Global Business Services for reminders and alerts about medications, exercise and diet, along with direct access to community activities and supporting services such as grocery shopping and job matching.
• Exclusive cloud services of the IBM MobileFirst for iOS platform, for data integration and security, analytics, and management of millions of devices; along with systems integration services and training for Japan Post Group employees.
• Pioneering text analytics and accessibility technologies, many invented in IBM Research – Tokyo, including Japanese natural language analysis and tracking to guide seniors and make the experience more natural.
• The nationwide infrastructure of Japan Post Group and its ability to cover the “last mile” to virtually every citizen of Japan. In addition to 24,000 post offices and a workforce of 400,000, Japan Post Group has existing financial relationships with nearly all of the 115 million adults in Japan.

This is an incredibly ambitious program with a potentially huge upside for the elderly in Japan and for their families as well. A remarkable effort on the part of Apple, IBM, and Japan Post Group.

App Camp for Girls:

The Quiz Compendium includes 15 personality quizzes created by camper project teams. You’ll learn so many things about yourself, such as what your superpower is, where you should go on vacation, and even what your breakfast choices say about your personality.

I utterly despise these kinds of “personality quizzes” but App Camp for Girls is a great cause started by a wonderful person, Jean MacDonald. The app is only 99 cents and goes to a very worthy organization. So I’ll swallow my disdain and buy the app and you should too.

TechCrunch:

Today as expected, Microsoft announced that developers will be able to more easily bring their Android applications to Windows devices. The company said developers will be able to “reuse nearly all the Java and C++ code from an Android phone app to create apps for phones running Windows 10.” Developers will also be able to recycle their Objective-C apps for iOS using new tools in Visual Studio.

Smart move on Microsoft’s part. Note that Android is included in this strategy. No mention of Swift.

Given how similar the Windows 10 desktop is to Windows’ Phone os, I wonder if there will be a path for Objective-C apps to run on the Windows desktop.

Can’t help being reminded of all those many years of Apple finding ways to run Windows apps on a Mac.

The times have indeed changed, the tables turned.

According to Apple, iOS 8 is at 81 percent, iOS 7 has 17 percent, and earlier OSes are at 2 percent.

Samsung Electronics Co. said its first-quarter net income has plunged 39 percent as the smartphone business saw its profit shrink to less than half from a year earlier.

And

Sales fell 12 percent from a year earlier to 47.12 trillion won while operating income dropped 30 percent to 5.98 trillion won, in line with Samsung’s earnings preview earlier this month.

The wider-than-expected drop in net profit was due to a big profit plunge in Samsung’s mobile business. The maker of Galaxy smartphones said its mobile division generated 2.74 trillion won in quarterly profit, compared with 6.43 trillion won a year earlier.

Ouch, sucks to be Samsung. This may look like the smartphone market is falling, but it’s not. Apple sold 61.1 million iPhones, up 40 percent over last year.

Pixelmator 3.3.2 is out, featuring lots of new stuff — Photos app support, Force Touch trackpad support, jaw-dropping Repair Tool enhancements, and much more.

This is just great software. I use it everyday.

Matthew Miller, writing for ZDNet, takes you from unboxing, through learning, through three days of living with his brand new Apple Watch. If you are still on the fence about buying one, this will give you a sense of the experience.

Cult of Mac, nicely summarizing this Reddit thread:

With a variety of bands, and price tags ranging all the way from $349 – $17,000, there’s an Apple Watch for everyone. Except, possibly, the heavily tattooed.

That’s according to a new thread on Reddit which claims that several tattoo-sporting Apple Watch customers are having trouble using the device, because the wearable’s wrist-detection feature gets confused by the way in which tattoos reflect the green and infrared light emitted by the Watch.

The result? People with tattoos don’t get notifications, unless they move the Watch to an un-tattooed area, or turn off wrist detection.

Here’s the science, from further down the Reddit thread:

Oxyhemoglobin has several local peaks of absorbance which can be used for pulse oximetry: one green, one yellow, one infrared, etc. Apple uses the ones at infrared and green parts of the spectrum. Now, here’s some key facts. Melanin and ink are both equally good at absorbing frequencies over 500nm, which sadly includes the green. But, melanin’s absorbance falls down so rapidly that by the infrared end of the spectrum its hardly absorbing anything at all. That, combined with the fact that Apple adjusts the sensitivity/light level dynamically means infrared is probably black people friendly. Ink has a much more gradual fall off in absorbance, so even infrared might not work for them.

Apple’s response:

I spoke with Apple and informed them of my situation. the applecare specialist was really good, walked me through a bunch of steps to try and alleviate another issue I’m having (making calls from the watch). they are reporting to engineering and i should hear back from him this week regarding my call issue and the detection issue.

Interesting problem, good response.

Variety:

In another sign that Hulu is stepping up its game, the digital video giant has landed the SVOD rights to “Seinfeld,” cutting a deal with Sony Pictures TV for all 180 episodes of the enduring NBC comedy.

The deal is said to be valued at just under $1 million an episode, which translates to a nearly $180 million windfall to be split by distributor Sony TV, Time Warner’s Castle Rock and “Seinfeld” profit participants, including star/co-creator Jerry Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David. The pact is expected to be announced at Hulu’s upfront presentation on Wednesday.

Amazing to me how much money was generated by a show about nothing.

San Jose Mercury News:

An iPad “test model” was one of the items taken during a robbery and kidnapping at a Cupertino house earlier this month, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office, which would not disclose more details about the stolen device, but said it has not been recovered.

It’s unclear whether the Apple item was related to an upcoming product release or was an outdated model or test device.

And:

The robbers took the device, along with electronics, prescription drugs and cash valued at $7,500, from a Cupertino home during an incident in which a 20-year-old man was kidnapped and robbed after answering a woman’s online advertisement.

Bizarre.

Update: Rereading the iMore post, I get the sense this was old kit, more a part of a random robbery than a targeted theft.

[Via iMore]

From Quartz:

American Airlines flights experienced significant delays this evening after pilots’ iPads—which the airline uses to distribute flight plans and other information to the crew—abruptly crashed. “Several dozen” flights were affected by the outage, according to a spokesperson for the airline.

The Quartz headline reads:

An iPad glitch grounded several dozen American Airlines planes

I added the word “app” because I find it hard to believe this issue was caused by an iPad, especially when it happened to a number of different iPads. Seems to me this is a bug in an app, as opposed to a hardware fault.

Serious, no doubt, but the reporting on this seemed to point to Apple and the iPad, as opposed to the American Airlines team that built, tested, and accepted the app. My 2 cents.

Read the tweets in the article. The first one uses the words “issue with a software application”, but the rest use words like “iPad crashed”, “iPad shutdown glitch”, and “iPad crash”.

Sébastien Page, writing for iDownloadBlog, walks you through the process of getting a podcast from your Mac to your Apple Watch.

While you can sync music from your iPhone library to your Apple Watch, there is currently no way to sync podcasts, which is something Apple will likely address in a future update. In the meanwhile, podcast listeners must still be tethered to their iPhones to enjoy podcasts on the go with the help of Overcast, which apparently is the only podcast app with support for Apple Watch at this time. But again, it’s not really a solution as you have to have your iPhone nearby to listen to podcasts via Overcast on Apple Watch.

However, there is a workaround that allows you to sync podcasts with Apple Watch. Like all workarounds, it’s not very straightforward, and to be honest, a bit cumbersome, but if you want to listen to podcasts on your Apple Watch without an iPhone, this is currently your only option. In this post, we’ll show you how to sync podcasts with your Apple Watch.

I didn’t find the process that cumbersome, and I definitely learned something about iTunes along the way, so I’d call this a worthwhile read.

UltraTuner is the most precise digital tuner available for iOS, providing precision down to .01 (yes, that’s 1/100th) of a cent. UltraTuner is 10x more precise than mechanical strobe tuners, which are generally considered the “gold standard” of precision tuners, and they typically don’t fit into your shirt pocket.

This looks very cool. The screenshots of it on the Apple Watch are just great.

BIAS FX turns your iPad into a world-class, guitar amp-and-effects processor. It gives you an endless collection of insanely great-sounding guitar pedalboards, ultra-high definition stereo rack effects, dual amps and dual signal chain. You can share and download users and artists signature guitar pedalboards from the cloud.

Yes. Download!

Alex Vollmer is a very talented guitar player and he’s come up with an explanation and video of how to play Eddie Van Halen’s “Little Guitars.” It’s great.

Stephen Witt, writing a long form piece for the New Yorker, captures a moment in time, when compact discs were the de facto currency of the music industry and the MP3 was just starting its disruptive reign.

You might think this piece was about Shawn Fanning and Napster, but it is not. This is about the first crack in the industry, when the bootlegs that would become Napster fodder first leaked their way out of the CD duplicating plant.

So, on the way from the conveyor belt to the grinder, an employee could take off his surgical glove while holding a disk. He could wrap the glove around the disk and tie it off. He could then hide the disk, leaving everything else to be destroyed. At the end of his shift, he could return and grab the disk.

That still left the security guards. But here, too, there were options. One involved belt buckles. They were the signature fashion accessories of small-town North Carolina. Many people at the plant wore them—big oval medallions with the Stars and Bars on them. Gilt-leaf plates embroidered with fake diamonds that spelled out the word “BOSS.” Western-themed cowboy buckles with longhorn skulls and gold trim. The buckles always set off the wand, but the guards wouldn’t ask anyone to take them off.

Hide the disk inside the glove; hide the glove inside a machine; retrieve the glove and tuck it into your waistband; cinch your belt so tight it hurts your bladder; position your oversized belt buckle in front of the disk; cross your fingers as you shuffle toward the turnstile; and, if you get flagged, play it very cool when you set off the wand.

I found this whole article a non-stop, riveting read.

Ben Bajarin, writing for TechPinions, homes in on the value of hands free computing and the Apple Watch.

What has stood out to me the most about this experience is how the Apple Watch allows me to be “hands free” but still get value from the digital world.

On this point, I believe an important framework is worth establishing. To get value from the digital computing world with devices like a PC, tablet, or smartphone, you have to be looking at and engaged with the device. In the case of the smartphone and tablet, you are likely to be holding the device in at least one hand but frequently both. This means your hands and full attention are on that screen. There are absolutely times for these experiences. But if the average person spends about 2 hours using their smartphone daily, how does one get value from the digital world in all the other hours of the day? This is where I think a wearable screen begins to establish its value proposition.

This is all about efficiency, about reducing interface friction, the time cost of having to pull out your phone to check for a progress notification or seek some reportable data.

It is also about freeing up your hands. Imagine doing the dishes, with your hands full of suds. Or in the middle of some messy cooking, where you have sauce or some other cooking concoction on your hands. If you get a text, or some other notification, the best you can do is either interrupt the process, clean up, get out your phone, then get back to your hand-messing activity. The Apple Watch is like a remote signal tower for your iPhone (and for the Apple ecosystem).

Another use case is for people who have to silence their iPhone at work and don’t keep their phone in their pockets (or don’t have pockets), so they don’t have access to the notification vibrations. The Apple Watch is a boon to those folks, as well as to the people trying to reach them.

Taking full advantage of her transcription super power (I’ve heard this is one of many), Serenity Caldwell put together a living, breathing transcript of today’s Apple earnings call. The living and breathing part means that she’s still typing.

Thanks for doing this, Serenity!