Apple

Clever app that generates QR codes, makes it easy to store and retrieve them

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Visual Codes is a bit hard to describe. It basically makes it easy to turn a chunk of data (like a URL) into a QR code, and makes it easy to store and retrieve those codes. You can even use Siri to display your codes on your iPhone screen.

Here’s an example that might explain the value here:

You can use Visual Codes to create a QR code that connects to your home WiFi. You could print that QR code (Visual Codes knows how to print, too) and put it on the wall in your house. When someone comes to visit, they point their camera to the QR code poster (iOS knows how to interpret QR codes, knows this particular one is to connect to WiFi) and they are connected.

If you prefer a more private, controlled setting, you could ask Siri to bring up your home WiFi QR code, then have your guest point their camera to the QR code on your iPhone screen. Same result. No password changing hands, and they are in.

This is just one use case. Of many. And the app is FREE. Printing requires an in-app purchase of $1.99 that unlocks all additional features, but the free version is usable. No reason not to grab it. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Details on the Visual Codes web site.

Droid Life: Google to roll out $49 Google Home Mini

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Droid Life:

When Google takes the stage on October 4 at a phone-related event in San Francisco, most of us expect there to be non-phone related product announcements too. We’ve heard rumors about a Google Home “mini” possibly being on the way and today we can confirm that it exists, how much it costs, and the colors it’ll be available in.

The home assistant market is evolving, and all before Apple’s HomePod has an official release date. Amazon’s Echo Dot is priced at $49.99 and now it looks like Google is playing in the same space at the same price.

Begs the question: Will Apple roll out a HomePod Mini to compete with the Dot and Home Mini?

The Dot has a speaker, but is not designed to play music. A HomePod Mini could offer remote, always on Siri queries, and fire up music on the HomePod.

That said, is there a need for a HomePod Mini in a home that likely already has iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches? Gonna be interesting to watch this market unfold.

KGI Analyst: Apple Watch Series 3 demand higher than expected, iPhone X anticipation cannibalizes iPhone 8 pre-orders

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Demand for Apple’s high-end flagship iPhone X is “very likely” to cannibalize iPhone 8 pre-orders, predicts KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in a note sent out to investors this morning.

iPhone pre-orders traditionally sell out in September due to high demand, but this year, many models of the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus were available for launch day delivery through the weekend, and continue to remain readily available for launch day pickup in Apple retail stores.

And:

As for the Apple Watch Series 3, Kuo says demand for the LTE version of the device was “significantly stronger” than expected, perhaps due to the “low premium of $70” over the non-LTE version of the watch.

Both are believable. The iPhone X is compelling, no matter how you feel about the notch.

And the low premium over non-LTE Apple Watch models is a small price to pay for the future-proofing it offers. Pay an extra $70, you’ll be able to turn LTE on if you decide you have the need. If I had the chance to pay $70 and get a WiFi+cellular iPad instead of WiFi-only, I’d make that choice every time.

Sprint follows AT&T with free iPhone 8 trade-in offer

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Reuters:

Sprint Corp said on Monday it will offer Apple Inc’s new iPhone 8 for free with a qualifying phone trade-in, following AT&T Inc’s buy one, get one free promotion on Friday for DirecTV and U-verse TV customers.

And:

Both new and existing customers who enroll in the Sprint Flex leasing program will get a free 64GB iPhone 8 if they trade in newer iPhone and Samsung models, Sprint said on Monday.

AT&T’s video customers could buy a new iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, add a line and receive a $699 credit for a second device beginning with pre-orders on Friday.

Carrier wars. Competition that is good for consumers.

How Apple’s pricey new iPhone X tests economic theory

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Wall Street Journal:

Thorstein Veblen was a cranky economist of Norwegian descent who coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” and theorized that certain products could defy the economic laws of gravity by stoking more demand with superhigh prices.

And:

Typically, raising the price of a good lowers demand for it. If beef becomes too expensive, people will buy more chicken.

Mr. Veblen’s theory posits that some consumers want a product even more when the price rises because the expense broadcasts status, taste and wealth.

And:

By unveiling the new iPhone X last week with a price of $1,000, Apple Inc. is pushing the envelope even further than Samsung Electronics Co., which unveiled the $950 Note 8 phone this year. Rather than trying to attract consumers with cheaper prices, the companies are fighting for customers with expensive price tags.

And:

The biggest spikes came for iPhones that were the most visibly distinct, such as 2014’s iPhone 6, the model in which Apple changed the shape, enlarged the device and raised prices by $100.

Big lesson learned for Apple with the iPhone 6. I hear a ton of discussion of the pros and cons of the iPhone X, with many opinions on the notch and its distinctive look. Can’t help but think of this as a bit of a badge for Apple, another play towards uniqueness that will mark the iPhone X as the new must-have shiny.

Major update to the Mac’s excellent Keyboard Maestro

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I have a very short list of absolutely essential 3rd party Mac software. Tops on that list? Keyboard Maestro.

If you use a Mac and are not familiar with Keyboard Maestro, go here and watch the video, read through the list of things it can do. I use it every single day. My highest recommend.

Apple Music documentary on Clive Davis, dropping October 3

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[VIDEO] Hot on the heels of HBO’s The Defiant Ones, Apple Music is about to release a documentary on Clive Davis, a key figure in the evolution of the music industry since the 1970’s.

His impact is about as big as any other music executive, finding and nurturing artists such as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, Aretha Franklin, The Grateful Dead, TLC, Usher, Outkast, P!nk, Toni Braxton, Notorious B.I.G., Puffy Combs, Kelley Clarkson, Whitney Houston, the list goes on and on.

Clive was the man with the golden ear. He envisioned hits. I am looking forward to this. The trailer is embedded in the main Loop post. Seems to me, this is a perfect fit for Apple, a core representative of the sort of original content they should be producing.

John Gruber talks with Craig Federighi on The Talk Show

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A nice supplement to Matthew Panzarino’s interview with Craig Federighi. This particular edition of John’s podcast is relatively short (about 20 minutes), but worth every second.

Craig Federighi has really come into his own as an on-stage Apple presenter. He’s both genuine and knowledgable, a terrific combination.

Apple’s Craig Federighi answers some burning questions about Face ID

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Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch:

Face ID is easily the most hot-button topic to come out of Apple’s iPhone event this week, notch be damned. As people have parsed just how serious Apple is about it, questions have rightly begun to be raised about its effectiveness, security and creation.

To get some answers, I hopped on the phone with Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. We went through a bunch of the common concerns in rapid-fire fashion, and I’ve also been asking around and listening to Apple folks who have been using the feature over long periods. Hopefully we can clear up some of the FUD about it.

And:

“Phil mentioned that we’d gathered a billion images and that we’d done data gathering around the globe to make sure that we had broad geographic and ethnic data sets. Both for testing and validation for great recognition rates,” says Federighi. “That wasn’t just something you could go pull off the internet.”

Especially given that the data needed to include a high-fidelity depth map of facial data. So, says Federighi, Apple went out and got consent from subjects to provide scans that were “quite exhaustive.” Those scans were taken from many angles and contain a lot of detail that was then used to train the Face ID system.

Imagine the process of deciding on a representative group of faces. A daunting problem.

“We do not gather customer data when you enroll in Face ID, it stays on your device, we do not send it to the cloud for training data,” he notes.

And, these tidbits on when Face ID yields to demand a passcode:

  • If you haven’t used Face ID in 48 hours, or if you’ve just rebooted, it will ask for a passcode.
  • If there are 5 failed attempts to Face ID, it will default back to passcode. (Federighi has confirmed that this is what happened in the demo onstage when he was asked for a passcode — it tried to read the people setting the phones up on the podium.)
  • Developers do not have access to raw sensor data from the Face ID array. Instead, they’re given a depth map they can use for applications like the Snap face filters shown onstage. This can also be used in ARKit applications.
  • You’ll also get a passcode request if you haven’t unlocked the phone using a passcode or at all in 6.5 days and if Face ID hasn’t unlocked it in 4 hours.

Great questions. Nice job, Matthew.

Apple Watch Series 3 cellular only works in country of purchase

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

With the LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 only available in a handful of countries at the current time, it might be tempting to purchase one in another country, but it won’t work. Series 3 models appear to be limited to connectivity in their original country of purchase.

An Apple support representative who spoke to MacRumors reader Thomas said that an Apple Watch purchased in the U.S. online store will only work with the four carriers in the United States, perhaps due to hardware limitations.

So no buying an Apple Watch in another country, and no using your Apple Watch cell when you travel internationally. Caveat emptor.

UPDATE: Did some reading on the Apple Watch carriers page. Seems to me it’s more country groupings, rather than individual countries. One model would work in US, Canada, Puerto Rico, another model in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, UK. Still worth knowing it, still suggests caveat emptor.

UPDATE 2: From this Telegraph article [H/T Sam Gross]:

The feature is likely to be a boost for runners who leave their phone at home, or when a battery dies. However, it has emerged it will only connect to networks in the country it was bought from.

This means owners in the UK and Europe, who ostensibly enjoy free mobile roaming, will not be able to connect when crossing borders.

And on the carrier page referenced above:

Roaming is not available outside your provider network coverage area. So that clarifies that.

Preventing cross-site tracking and web cookie sharing

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Last week, a group of ad agencies blasted Apple for Safari’s emerging anti-tracking technology, which would clearly undermine current advertising practices.

Here’s a link to that story, as well as to another post with Apple’s official response to that shot across their bow.

I was doing a bit of reading on the issue and found myself on the WebKit.org post that started the whole kerfuffle, a blog post by John Wilander entitled Intelligent Tracking Prevention.

From the post:

WebKit has long included features to reduce tracking. From the very beginning, we’ve defaulted to blocking third-party cookies. Now, we’re building on that. Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a new WebKit feature that reduces cross-site tracking by further limiting cookies and other website data.

And:

Websites can fetch resources such as images and scripts from domains other than their own. This is referred to as cross-origin or cross-site loading, and is a powerful feature of the web. However, such loading also enables cross-site tracking of users.

Imagine a user who first browses example-products.com for a new gadget and later browses example-recipies.com for dinner ideas. If both these sites load resources from example-tracker.com and example-tracker.com has a cookie stored in the user’s browser, the owner of example-tracker.com has the ability to know that the user visited both the product website and the recipe website, what they did on those sites, what kind of web browser was used, et cetera. This is what’s called cross-site tracking and the cookie used by example-tracker.com is called a third-party cookie. In our testing we found popular websites with over 70 such trackers, all silently collecting data on users.

It all comes down to privacy. Do you want the ability to browse the web without being tracked? Do ad agencies have the right to impose a “tracking cost” as the price of you being able to browse? Is it their web? To me, there’s an underlying presumptuousness, arrogance, in portraying agencies as the injured party because they are losing their right to track users.

About the new iPhones and T-Mobile’s band 71

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Last Thursday, we ran a piece about the new generation of iPhone hardware not supporting T-Mobile’s emerging 600 MHz network, known as Band 71.

There was a lot of discussion about this, both on whether the new network will be out soon enough to even matter, and whether support for this future network should impact someone’s choice of T-Mobile as a network.

Peter Cohen sheds light on the coverage issue here, well worth reading if you are a T-Mobile customer or considering a carrier switch.

iPhone 8, iPhone X, and rapid charging

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ZDNet:

As if laying out $1,000 on a new iPhone X isn’t expensive enough, Apple hasn’t even included the equipment necessary to benefit from its new fast-charging capability.

Ignore the “hasn’t even included” rhetoric and read on.

The feature is available in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X unveiled this week by Apple. It means a flat battery can reach a half charge within 30 minutes, which is as fast as new flagship Android devices that support fast charging.

Apple’s specs page for the all three devices says they’re “fast-charge capable.” But then, in fine print, Apple declares that it tested fast-charging on the devices with Apple USB-C power adapters, and lists its 29W Model A1540, 61W Model A1718, and 87W Model A1719 power adapters.

Bottom line, the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X will rapid charge if you use a 29W adapter, which you likely have if you own a MacBook or MacBook Pro with a USB-C port. Not certain of this, but I suspect they will also rapid-charge on an iPad 29W charger. [Dave: Nope, no iPad 29W charger. Musta dreamed that.]

And, I also suspect less expensive 3rd party chargers will be hitting the shelves as well, though do a bit of homework first to make sure the chargers are properly tested and recommended by folks that do that sort of thing.

UPDATE: Here’s a good thread discussing the various chargers. And another. Some nice detail in both. [H/T Mark Crump]

The incredible architectural secrets of Steve Jobs Theater

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[VIDEO] Lance Ulanoff, Mashable:

Apple explained that, yes, there were some interesting acoustics in the space, one that, incredibly, doesn’t have a single column to hold up the ceiling or to slice up the sound, but I might have noticed that there were no echoes during the iPhone X launch event. People, they said, act as a natural sound absorber. If there were a small gathering, though, Apple might choose to put a bit of temporary acoustic absorption up on the walls.

And:

What you see when you look at the Steve Jobs Theater from the outside is simplicity in the extreme. Inside, there’s no visible frame, pipes, wires, or speakers to break the illusion. The secret, though, is that it’s all there.

The carbon fiber roof is supported by the glass frame. Foster + Partner also hid the wires and pipes in plain sight. Twenty of the thin joints separating each glass panel house specially-designed water pipes for the sprinkler system, itself hidden under dozens of recessed circles in the carbon fiber roof. The remaining joints are home to wiring for power, data, and audio.

This is just a taste. Great read. Take a look at the video embedded in the main Loop post. The elevator turns as it goes up and down. A magical space.

How the Equifax breach affects your enrollment in the iPhone Upgrade Program

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Lory Gil, iMore:

Recently, Equifax announced it had been compromised and as many as 143 million U.S. residents may have had their personal information exposed, including home addresses, birth dates, credit account information, and Social Security numbers. One suggestion from the credit reporting agency, as well as many banks and credit card companies, is to freeze your credit report.

A credit freeze is a way for you to restrict access to your credit report to protect you from identity theft. If you’ve put a freeze on your credit report, it doesn’t affect your credit score or keep you from being able to apply for loans. There are some caveats though.

If you’ve put a credit freeze on your credit report, there are a few things you should know about applying for your iPhone Upgrade Program loan.

This is worth reading, certainly for the specifics on the iPhone Upgrade Program, but also to wrap your head around the implications of freezing your credit report.

My 2 cents: If you choose to not freeze your credit report, do a regular check on your credit report to see who is running credit checks on you. Believe it or not, there are companies out there that sell product purely on credit to someone who has the right credentials. In other words, they will ship out an Xbox if you have the right combination of social security number and other identifying personal information AND if they can run a credit check.

Freeze your credit and that can’t happen. If you don’t freeze your credit, pay attention. Identity theft is a painful thread to unwind.

Ad groups blasting Apple for Safari cookie blocking tech “sabotage”

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Ad Week:

The biggest advertising organizations say Apple will “sabotage” the current economic model of the internet with plans to integrate cookie-blocking technology into the new version of Safari.

And:

Six trade groups—the Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation, the Association of National Advertisers, the 4A’s and two others—say they’re “deeply concerned” with Apple’s plans to release a version of the internet browser that overrides and replaces user cookie preferences with a set of Apple-controlled standards. The feature, which is called “Intelligent Tracking Prevention,” limits how advertisers and websites can track users across the internet by putting in place a 24-hour limit on ad retargeting.

From the perspective of the folks whose living depends on ad sales, I do understand this anger. But.

From the perspective of the user, the ability not to be tracked is absolutely fair. I do not want to be tracked. Period. Don’t try to sell me on the supposed benefits of tracking my behavior. To me, it smacks of snake oil.

When I see an ad for something I momentarily glanced at on Amazon appearing again and again as a browser ad, I don’t see that as a benefit. Instead, I see it as psychological manipulation. You are not showing me that ad repeatedly to help me. Instead, you simply want the money that ad brings in.

My ultimate reaction to this article is a sense of appreciation for Apple. While they certainly are not perfect, again and again I get the feeling that they have my back in this relationship. More than anything else, that sense keeps me on board the ecosystem.

Craig Federighi on Conan

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[VIDEO] Surprised to see Craig Federighi fielding questions on Conan yesterday. As always, video embedded in the main Loop post.

Welcome to the Steve Jobs Theater

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John Gruber:

Five, ten years from now, the Apple Watch Series 3, the iPhone 8, and even the iPhone X are just going to be old products sitting around in drawers. But the public debut of Apple Park, the grand opening of the Steve Jobs Theater, and the company’s first public tribute to its founder — that’s what I’ll remember most about yesterday.

It somehow feels appropriate, too, that the most interesting thing revealed in the event that came as a genuine surprise, that hadn’t been leaked, was a message from Steve Jobs himself.

Two things:

  1. I was deeply moved by the opening moments of yesterday’s Apple Event. As I said here, “Today’s Apple event opening montage is phenomenal, a real love letter to design and to Steve.” I will freely admit that hearing Steve’s voice got me a little choked up.

  2. This writeup by John Gruber is worth reading stem to stern. This post is about Steve and the theater that bears his name.

iTunes, App Store removal, and a whole bunch of broken links

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Kirk McElhearn:

As I reported here yesterday, Apple released an update to iTunes. The latest version, 12.7, has some minor changes, but one big revolution: the App Store is no longer available.

And:

If they go to your website, and click on the Download on the App Store button, something strange will happen. They will not be able to go to the App Store, because it no longer exists.

In fact what happens after that click is interesting. The user’s web browser opens a web page which displays a message, above a spinning gear, that says Opening the iTunes Store. The browser eventually redirects to iTunes, which redirects back to the browser displaying a webpage showing information about the app. However, there is no way to purchase an app from this page. And there aren’t even any hints as to how one might go about this, such as suggesting that the user copy the URL and email it to him or herself to be able to access the information about this app on the iOS App Store.

To be clear, this is a Mac issue, an effect of the App Store being removed from iTunes. To see this for yourself, go to Safari on the Mac and hunt for an app link. For example, go to TouchArcade and scroll down, click on one of the App Store links.

For example, here’s a link to a game called CSR Racing 2.

If you click the link, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll be flipped back and forth a few times between Safari and iTunes as your Mac tries to follow a protocol that no longer works, or you’ll end on a Safari page with no way to make a purchase.

Either way, something big is broken here.

Add a splash of color to your Apple Watch

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Add a colored accent to your Apple Watch to exactly match the color of your Sport band. This came up because the Series 3 Cellular comes with a red dot on the Digital Crown.

This is pure fashion, a thing for people who own and wear different color bands for style. Unfortunately, it will not allow you to make calls on a non-cellular Apple Watch. Heh.

BGR: T-Mobile just got burned by Apple and the iPhone X

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Chris Mills, BGR:

Apple announced the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus today. They’re all great phones in many ways, but they have one fatal flaw for T-Mobile and its customers: No support for T-Mobile’s new LTE network.

Right now, T-Mobile is in the early stages of rolling out a brand-new 600MHz network nationwide. The first sites are already online, and T-Mobile is expecting to cover a million square miles by the end of 2017. But the 600MHz network uses a brand-new LTE channel, Band 71, and very few devices support it yet. Sadly for T-Mobile, you can’t add the iPhone 8 or iPhone X to that list.

And:

The specs page for the iPhone X confirms that it supports all the usual North American LTE bands, but not Band 71. However you frame this, it’s a blow for T-Mobile. The iPhone X is widely expected to spark an upgrade “super-cycle” that will see people on the iPhone 6 and 6S spring for the upgrade, since they’re buying a phone that they expect to last for years. That phone — expected to last for at least two years — won’t be compatible with the LTE band that T-Mobile is expecting to be the backbone of its network going forwards.

Here’s the iPhone X specs page, look for yourself. Scroll down to the Cellular and Wireless section. No Band 71 mention.

Wondering if this support is something that can be rolled out in the future via an upgrade, or if it has to be baked in. If I was going to order an iPhone X and used T-Mobile, I would definitely want to know about this before I pressed the Buy button.

Any experts disagree with Chris’s take? Please do let me know.

New Apple Watch comes in two flavors, here are the detailed differences

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Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore, digs into the differences between the Series 3 Apple Watch and the previous Apple Watch models, as well as the differences between the GPS-only and GPS+cellular Series 3 models.

A few points that stand out:

The GPS + Cellular Series 3 has double the storage capacity: 16GB to the GPS-only’s 8GB.

And:

the GPS-only Series 3 is limited to just aluminum Sport and Nike+ casings (silver, gold, or space grey) with their Ion-X glass screen. In contrast, the GPS + Cellular Watch retains the higher-end casings formerly present with the Series 2 in addition to the aluminum Sport and Nike+ casings. This includes options like stainless steel, white and grey ceramic, and Hermès steel.

And:

All Series 3 GPS + Cellular watches have a red dot on the Digital Crown.

And the biggest point of all, on battery life while talking via the Apple Watch:

3 hours connected to iPhone, 1 hour w/ Cellular

Three hours connected via my iPhone might as well be infinity. If I’ve got my iPhone, I’m going to be talking using my iPhone. I talk via my Apple Watch very rarely, and usually for very short calls when I just can’t get to my iPhone.

One hour battery life talking on my Apple Watch without my iPhone seems extremely low. If I make a half hour call, presumably that’s half my battery gone. Gonna need a recharge.

Perhaps Apple’s marketing research shows that likely buyers want the freedom to not carry an iPhone (runners, for example), want to stay in touch, but don’t anticipate making calls on a regular basis. That would work.

Good, detailed post from Serenity. Check it out if you are thinking about moving up to the Series 3.

The five biggest questions about Apple’s new facial recognition system

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Russell Brandom, The Verge:

Because phone’s all-glass front leaves no room for a home button, Apple is ditching Touch ID in favor of a facial recognition system powered by a new camera array and a specially modified A11 chip.

Not quite sure “leaves no room for a home button” quite captures the motivation for the change. But no matter, the article goes on to ask 5 questions, with thoughts for each.

Here are the questions:

  • Will Face ID make it easier for police to unlock my phone?

  • Could my face leak or get stolen?

  • Will Face ID have a racial bias problem?

  • Can you spoof Face ID with a picture of someone else’s face?

  • Will Apple ever use Face ID for anything other than unlocking phones?

Tempting to just dismiss these questions (the first four with a no, the last with Animoji), but they are interesting topics. Lots of food for thought here.

One particular point:

Soon, millions of people will be enrolled into Face ID, giving Apple control over a powerful facial recognition tool. In the current system, that data stays on phones, but that could always change. The hashing would make it difficult for anyone other than Apple to use the data, but there’s no real limit on what they use it for, particularly if they start to store information outside of specific phones. On Twitter, privacy advocates worried about Face ID data being used for retail surveillance or attention tracking in ads. You could also imagine it as next year’s delightful product breakthrough, integrated into Apple Stores or Apple Cars as a way of carrying over logins no matter who walks in.

Some good thoughts, there. One I’d add: Apple is going to gather a tremendous amount of machine learning data, with incredible value (especially in the phone arms race), if they find a way to bring that data back to their central servers. This is a mighty new frontier.

Apple TV 4K brings back the gigabit ethernet port

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Andrew O’Hara, iDownloadBlog:

Though most of the changes to the upcoming Apple TV 4K are internal, one notable change to the exterior is the addition of a gigabit ethernet port.

Good catch. Nice to be able to do a WiFi only setup, but with 4K comes 4 times the data, making a gigabit ethernet port much more important.

From a related iDownloadBlog post:

The new Apple TV 4K has brought back the speedy Gigabit Ethernet port (the previous box uses the slower 10/100 Mbps Ethernet for wired Internet), but it’s lost the handy USB-C port.

I checked the Apple TV 4K spec page, and it seems this is true. I wonder how you’ll do restores if things go south. Via Ethernet? Wifi?

UPDATE: Much digging, much discussion, here’s my current thoughts on life without the USB-C. For most folks, a failure of the Apple TV will mean a trip to the Apple Store. For developers, Xcode 9 lets you connect to the Apple TV (here’s a post, H/T Jack Webster) as long as you are on the same network. So, ethernet port is your friend there, network debugging. If your Apple TV goes south, not sure how end users or devs would do a restore. Interesting.

The new Apple accessories

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Jake Underwood does a nice job digging through the new accessories Apple rolled out, including iPhone cases (love the new iPhone X leather folios), Apple Watch bands, and charging mats.

The new Apple TV Siri remote

Written by

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Alongside the new 4K Apple TV, Apple today quietly released a new, slightly redesigned Siri Remote to go along with it. Priced at $59, the updated remote features a new more prominent Menu button with a white circle around it.

Aside from the redesign to the Menu button, the new Apple TV Siri Remote appears to be identical to the previous-generation model. At $59, the remote is $20 cheaper than the previous-generation Siri Remote.

I’ve long wished Apple would make a change to the remote to make it more obvious which end of the remote is which. In low light, it’s easy to end up with the remote pointed the wrong way, and there’s not enough of a tactile difference to be able to easily feel which end is which.

I’ve not gotten my hands on the new remote, so it is possible that this “more prominent” Menu button will solve the problem. At the very least, glad to see the price drop.