The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern is really on a roll. If you haven’t seen it, take a look at this video, where Joanna presents Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg as rock ’em sock ’em robots.
Now she’s got 15 minutes (edited down to 8 or so) with Craig Federighi to talk iOS 14.5 and privacy. Great to see Craig, and a terrific tracking explainer.
Apple:
iOS 14.5 brings exciting new features to iPhone, including the ability to unlock iPhone with Apple Watch while wearing a face mask, more diverse Siri voices, new privacy controls, skin tone options to better represent couples in emoji, and much more. iOS 14.5 builds on the reimagined iPhone experience introduced in iOS 14, and is available today as a free software update.
Here are the major bullet points in Apple’s article:
This is followed by a raft of additional features. Take a look, worth knowing what’s new.
This is a brilliant ad, with just the right tone of scolding disappointment at those who would use our personal information for tracking badness.
Watch the ad, then head over to:
Settings > Privacy
And make sure “Allow Apps to Request to Track” is set the way you want it. If you turn it off (as shown here), you’re issuing a blanket “No thanks” to apps that want to ask you for permission to track you.
Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:
In iOS 14.5 and later, Apple has added a Waze-like feature to its native Maps app that lets you report accidents, hazards, and speed checks along your route when getting directions. Keep reading to learn how it works.
Given that, for me, the vast majority of the time this comes up I am behind the wheel, the simplest (and safest) way to do this is:
“Hey Siri, there’s an [accident/hazard/speed check]” and Siri will send in a report to Apple Maps.
Note that, at least for the moment, this feature is US and China only.
One of the most notable features of Apple’s newly release iOS 14.5 is the ability to unlock your iPhone with your Apple Watch while wearing a mask. No more constantly typing in your passcode while, say, masked up cruising the aisles of your grocery store.
Apple Support released this video showing you how to turn this feature on.
Apple TV+ released this general ad for Apple Original Films.
Apple:
Clips, Apple’s easy-to-use video creation app for iPhone and iPad, gives users even more fun options to record captivating videos. With all-new AR Spaces powered by LiDAR on iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro models, creators can transform a space by adding immersive visual effects that map to the contours of a room, and can be easily shared with anyone.
And:
With AR Spaces in Clips 3.1, users can easily scan a room and see a live preview of effects that bring dynamic lighting, falling objects, and immersive scenes to life. Using the rear camera on a supported iPhone or iPad, users will see effects appear on walls, floors, surfaces, furniture, and objects.
This looks like a lot of fun. Depends on the LiDAR Scanner introduced on last year’s iPad Pro and found on the iPhone 12 Pro as well.
Matthew Panzarino interviewing Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak and Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus about the new iPad Pro:
Last year’s model is still one of the best computers you can buy, with a densely packed offering of powerful computing tools, battery performance and portability. And this year gets upgrades in the M1 processor, RAM, storage speed, Thunderbolt connection, 5G radio, new ultra wide front camera and its Liquid Retina XDR display.
And:
Apple has essentially ported its enormously good $5,000 Pro Display XDR down to a 12.9” touch version, with some slight improvements. But the specs are flat out incredible. 1,000 nit brightness peaking at 1,600 nits in HDR with 2,500 full array local dimming zones — compared to the Pro Display XDR’s 576 in a much larger scale.
And:
“One of the things that iPad Pro has done as John [Ternus] has talked about is push the envelope. And by pushing the envelope that has created this space for developers to come in and fill it. When we created the very first iPad Pro, there was no Photoshop,” Joswiak notes. “There was no creative apps that could immediately use it. But now there’s so many you can’t count. Because we created that capability, we created that performance — and, by the way sold a fairly massive number of them — which is a pretty good combination for developers to then come in and say, I can take advantage of that. There’s enough customers here and there’s enough performance. I know how to use that. And that’s the same thing we do with each generation. We create more headroom to performance that developers will figure out how to use.
“The customer is in a great spot because they know they’re buying something that’s got some headroom and developers love it.”
And:
“How crazy is it that you can take a chip that’s in a desktop, and drop it into an iPad,” says Joswiak. “I mean it’s just incredible to have that kind of performance at such amazing power efficiency. And then have all the technologies that come with it. To have the neural engine and ISP and Thunderbolt and all these amazing things that come with it, it’s just miles beyond what anybody else is doing.”
The use of the same processor in a smartphone, a tablet, and a desktop is no small things. Intel made a living building custom processors for different enclosures, tuning their chips to get the most performance per watt for each specific device type (Here’s Steve Jobs talking about the origins of this strategy). With Apple’s M1, they’ve flipped this strategy on its head.
“Your battery life is defined by the capacity of your battery and the efficiency of your system right? So we’re always pushing really really hard on the system efficiency and obviously with M1, the team’s done a tremendous job with that. But the display as well. We designed a new mini LED for this display, focusing on efficiency and on package size, obviously, to really to be able to make sure that it could fit into the iPad experience with the iPad experience’s good battery life.
And:
One of the marquee features of the new iPad Pro is its 12MP ultra-wide camera with Center Stage. An auto-centering and cropping video feature designed to make FaceTime calling more human-centric, literally. It finds humans in the frame and centers their faces, keeping them in the frame even if they move, standing and stretching or leaning to the side. It also includes additional people in the frame automatically if they enter the range of the new ultra-wide 12MP front-facing camera. And yes, it also works with other apps like Zoom and Webex and there will be an API for it.
And:
It also goes a long way to masking the awkward horizontal camera placement when using the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.
And:
I ask how they would you characterize an iPad Pro vs. a MacBook buyer? Joswiak is quick to respond to this one.
“This is my favorite question because you know, you have one camp of people who believe that the iPad and the Mac are at war with one another right it’s one or the other to the death. And then you have others who are like, no, they’re bringing them together — they’re forcing them into one single platform and there’s a grand conspiracy here,” he says.
“They are at opposite ends of a thought spectrum and the reality is that neither is correct. We pride ourselves in the fact that we work really, really, really hard to have the best products in the respective categories. The Mac is the best personal computer, it just is. Customer satisfaction would indicate that is the case, by a longshot.”
And:
“Contrary to some people’s beliefs, we’re never thinking about what we should not do on an iPad because we don’t want to encroach on Mac or vice versa,” says Ternus. “Our focus is, what is the best way? What is the best iPad we can make what are the best Macs we can make. Some people are going to work across both of them, some people will kind of lean towards one because it better suits their needs and that’s, that’s all good.”
Great interview.
FastCompancy, from the interview with Kaiann Drance, Apple’s VP of worldwide iPhone product marketing, and Ron Huang, senior director of sensing and connectivity:
AirTags don’t rely on an internet connection of their own. Instead, they piggyback off of a network of almost a billion iOS devices and Macs already out in the world. Each AirTag sends out a unique encrypted Bluetooth identifier; other Apple devices can detect it and relay the location of the AirTag directly to an owner’s Apple ID account.
And:
This entire process is end-to-end encrypted so that no one but the owner of the AirTag—not the owners of the crowdsourced devices picking up the AirTag’s location or even Apple itself—ever has access to the AirTag’s current or past location. And the Bluetooth identifiers that AirTags emit are not only randomized but “are rotated many times a day and never reused so that as you travel from place to place with the AirTag, you cannot be re-identified,” Huang says.
And:
The AirTag owner can never see which devices its AirTag’s location is pinging off of or who owns those devices.
And:
Every AirTag has a unique serial number printed on it, but the identity of the owner cannot be derived from that number unless that owner activates the AirTag’s Lost Mode. That’s a toggle in the Find My app that marks your AirTag as lost. Once you’ve toggled that option on, someone who finds your lost AirTag can then scan it with any NFC-equipped device (such as an iPhone or Android phone) to display a web URL prompt on that device. Tapping on the prompt will take the finder of your AirTag to an Apple support page featuring the AirTag’s unique serial number and—if the AirTag owner so chooses—the phone number of the AirTag’s owner so the finder can call or text.
And:
If you’re an iPhone owner running iOS 14.5 or later and someone slips an AirTag into your possession in secret in order to track your movements, your iPhone will warn you this has happened by sending you an “AirTag Found Moving With You” notification. This notification will appear only when an AirTag is following you that is not paired with your Apple ID or another iPhone that is in your vicinity. That distinction is critical so that your iPhone won’t be notified of AirTags that, for instance, belong to other people on the same bus you’re riding.
This whole interview is a riveting read, full of insight into how AirTags work and showing off how much thought Apple put into the privacy and safety aspects. Learned a lot reading this.
Season 2 premieres May 7th, week from Friday. Gonna rewatch Season 1 of both this and Ted Lasso, in preparation for Season 2. Apple TV+ has a lot of great content loaded up in the pipeline.
Apple:
Apple today announced an acceleration of its US investments, with plans to make new contributions of more than $430 billion and add 20,000 new jobs across the country over the next five years.
And:
As part of its investments and expansion, Apple plans to invest over $1 billion in North Carolina and will begin construction on a new campus and engineering hub in the Research Triangle area. The investment will create at least 3,000 new jobs in machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and other cutting-edge fields.
Wonder what they’ll call it. Apple Park east? No matter, this is huge news for North Carolina. Wonder if it will have a political impact on the state, long term.
Apple:
An immersive, deep-dive rich with archival footage and interviews, “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything,” will show how the musical icons of the time were influenced by the changing tides of history; and, in turn, how they used their music to inspire hope, change and the culture around them. The docuseries will examine the most iconic artists and songs that we still listen to 50 years later, including The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed and more.
Definitely looking forward to this one. Premieres on Apple TV+ on May 21 (three weeks from Friday).
This is a fascinating bit from Steve’s WWDC 2005 keynote. At its core, about 2:43 in, is Steve talking about power consumption and Performance per Watt.
This whole talk makes the Mac’s transition to the M1 seem inevitable. Feels, to me at least, like the Mac move to M1 would have been Steve’s end game.
This is a great post, chock filled with links to things that stuck out to Federico Viticci as notable, all relating to Tuesday’s Apple Event.
My favorite is the Ted Lasso Easter egg, right at the bottom.
And (H/T Keith Kolmos), David Smith made the secret shortbread recipe!
This is the best kind of unboxing video. Very little wasted time, focusing on all the important parts of the unpacking (that peel of plastic and the tug at the end that completed the battery circuit, generated a sound to let you know AirTag is live) and setup (place the AirTag next to your power button for optimal results).
Worth your time, great job MKBHD.
Philip Michaels, Tom’s Guide:
Right now, Tile tops our choice for key finders. But AirTag takes a very different approach from what other trackers have offered before. This AirTag vs. Tile comparison offers a closer look at how Tile has come to dominate the key-finding business, and how Apple figures to change things up.
This is a great side-by-side comparison, really lays out the Tile ecosystem and, to me, makes it clear why Apple’s AirTag is the better solution.
Key to this is Apple’s U1 ultra-wideband chip, which Tile does not have. And, as Kif Leswing points out in this post, Apple also brings a billion iPhones to the game. The combination of ultra-wideband and the ability to enroll in Apple’s “Find My” service makes the choice of AirTag a no-brainer.
Is Apple’s size and market dominance an unfair advantage? Hard to say. But it certainly is an advantage, much as the advantage a large movie studio has over smaller independent studios when it comes to making a special effects laden blockbuster.
Disney:
The Walt Disney Company (DIS) and Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) today announced a multi-year content licensing agreement for U.S. streaming and TV rights to Sony Pictures’ new theatrical releases across Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution’s vast portfolio of platforms including its streaming services Disney+ and Hulu, as well as linear entertainment networks including ABC, Disney Channels, Freeform, FX and National Geographic.
And:
The deal also grants rights to a significant number of SPE’s iconic library titles, ranging from the “Jumanji” and “Hotel Transylvania” franchises to Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters films, including Spider-Man.
We should see Spider-Man arriving on Disney+ starting in June. Right now, a search for Spider-Man on Disney+ yields a raft of animated titles, not including Into the Spider-Verse.
Makes me wonder about Apple TV+ and the lack of a superhero franchise. Will this sort of programming make its way to Apple TV+? Will they license this sort of content from elsewhere? Expensive to make, hard to make well. But tentpole product if they can pull it off.
Finneas O’Connell is Billie Eilish’s brother and musical partner. He uses a Mac for much of his work. The video embedded below is a great take on his experience learning to play piano, then guitar, reading music, then having his world expand exponentially when he was introduced to the Mac.
If you find an AirTag or a lost item with an AirTag attached:
Tap and hold the top of your iPhone or NFC-capable smartphone to the white side of the AirTag.
Tap the notification that appears. This opens a website that provides information about the AirTag, including its serial number.
If the owner marked it as lost, you might see a message with information about how to contact the owner.* You can contact the owner to let them know that you found their AirTag.
If you see an “AirTag Found Moving With You” message:
Tap the message.
Tap Continue. If you need help finding the AirTag, tap Play Sound.
If the AirTag is attached to an item you’re borrowing, you can tap Pause Safety Alerts to turn off “AirTag Detected” notifications for one day. If you’re borrowing an AirTag from a member of your Family Sharing group, you can turn off Safety Alerts for one day or indefinitely.
You can tap Learn About This AirTag to see its serial number if the owner marked it as lost.
To disable the AirTag and stop sharing your location, tap Instructions to Disable AirTag and follow the onscreen steps. If you feel your safety is at risk, contact your local law enforcement who can work with Apple. You might need to provide the AirTag or its serial number.
If AirTags is in your future, take the time to read the support document. Lots of important info there.
In no particular order, here are the videos from yesterday’s Apple event. And if you haven’t had the chance to watch the event, here’s a link. Enjoy…
Apple:
Apple today unveiled the premiere date and teaser trailer for the highly anticipated second season of comedy sensation “Ted Lasso,” which will make its global debut on Friday, July 23, 2021 on Apple TV+.
Have to backdate from July 23 so I can rewatch season 1 just in time for the premiere of season 2.
As to the trailer, here ya go…
Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:
Alongside the redesigned iMac, Apple introduced a new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for fingerprint authentication, which is useful for quickly logging into macOS or confirming an Apple Pay purchase online.
And:
As first noted by Rene Ritchie and confirmed by MacRumors, the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID is fully compatible with all M1 Macs, including the new iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini. If used with Intel-based Macs or other Bluetooth devices, the Magic Keyboard will still function with the exception of Touch ID.
Here’s that Rene Ritchie tweet.
I do all my Loop posts using the previous gen Magic Keyboard. I love the feel of the keys, don’t really mind the squished together arrow keys, the price you pay for a compact, portable keyboard.
Telling that Apple stuck with Lightning for charging and initial setup. Feels to me an indicator that Lightning isn’t going away anytime soon.
If you’ve never used a modern Magic Keyboard, one of its charms is how ridiculously easy it is to pair. Just connect its lightning port to your computer, make sure it’s turned on (the previous gen have a tiny slider switch in the back, green means it’s on) and that’s it. A notification pops up to let you know it’s connected. No need to plug it in again until it runs out of juice.
Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg:
As Apple Inc. was revealing its newest line of iPads and flashy new iMacs on Tuesday, one of its primary suppliers was enduring a ransomware attack from a Russian operator claiming to have stolen blueprints of the U.S. company’s latest products.
Then, about an email exchange with the hackers:
REvil then delivered on its promise to publish data it believes to be Apple’s proprietary blueprints for new devices. The images include specific component serial numbers, sizes and capacities detailing the many working parts inside of an Apple laptop.
A pretty significant security lapse. If those images became public, I wonder how significant the harm would be. A leg up for competitors trying to copy Apple designs? Or more of an annoyance, since the products have been announced, and will ship soon, available to be taken apart and examined firsthand?
Apple:
Apple today announced the next generation of Apple TV 4K, delivering high frame rate HDR with Dolby Vision and connecting customers to their favorite content with the highest quality. At the heart of the new Apple TV 4K is the A12 Bionic chip that provides a significant boost in graphics performance, video decoding, and audio processing. And with an all-new design, the Siri Remote makes it even easier to watch shows and movies on Apple TV with intuitive navigation controls. Together with tvOS — the most powerful TV operating system — Apple TV 4K works seamlessly with Apple devices and services to magically transform the living room in ways that everyone in the family will love.
And:
With A12 Bionic, Apple TV 4K now supports high frame rate HDR (High Dynamic Range) and Dolby Vision video, enabling fast-moving action at 60 frames per second (fps) to play more smoothly and appear more lifelike than ever before. Apple is working with leading video providers around the world, including FOX Sports, NBCUniversal, Paramount+, Red Bull TV, and Canal+, as they begin to stream in high frame rate HDR. And with high frame rate support in AirPlay, videos shot on iPhone 12 Pro can be displayed in full 60-fps Dolby Vision on the new Apple TV 4K.
And:
Apple TV uses the light sensor in iPhone to compare the color balance to the industry-standard specifications used by cinematographers worldwide. Using this data, Apple TV automatically tailors its video output to deliver much more accurate colors and improved contrast — without customers ever having to adjust their television settings.
This last bit is amazing. You place your iPhone, face forward, up against your TV, and the Apple TV uses your iPhone camera to build a profile it uses to adjust its display to get the optimum image from your TV. Remarkable bit of engineering.
The all-new Siri Remote features an innovative clickpad control that offers five-way navigation for better accuracy, and is also touch-enabled for the fast directional swipes Apple TV users love. The outer ring of the clickpad supports an intuitive circular gesture that turns it into a jog control — perfect for finding a scene in a movie or show. And with its one-piece aluminum design, the new Siri Remote fits more comfortably in a user’s hand.
The new remote is gorgeous. And it adds in power and mute buttons. And it is now easy to tell top from bottom, front from back, even in the dark. Apple delivered a ton of stuff today, but the new Siri Remote might be my favorite bit of all.
A few notes:
Apple makes it so easy to watch. Click the headline link to watch on device, or the Apple TV app on your Apple TV.
Here’s my take on what we might see today.
Per usual the Apple Store is down, with the traditional “Be right back. We’re making updates to the Apple Store. Check back soon.” message.
What other company can demand such worldwide attention for a product announcement?
OSXDaily:
If you’re unable to resolve any issue that you’re facing with an Apple device or service, you can always get in touch with an Apple Support agent for further assistance. Moreover, you can do this right from your iPhone or iPad.
Nice walkthrough to pass along to folks new to Apple.
Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS:
Thirty million US households just received another option for affordable, high-speed home broadband. T-Mobile Home Internet covers that many households, 10 million of which are in rural areas. The company promises an average of 100 Mbps in most areas via its 5G network. Service should average no less than 50 Mbps for any household, including those that are currently only within reach of T-Mobile’s 4G LTE towers.
And:
T-Mobile Home Internet costs $60 per month for unlimited use, with no long-term commitment. There’s also no separate fee for the necessary hardware, which is designed for self-installation.
More and more options popping up for cutting the cable. This is a great read, lots of detail.
The advantage of sticking with cable is bundle pricing. But with so much content available, enough content to fill your days is becoming cheaper and cheaper. If you’ve got Netflix and Apple TV+, you’ve already got a pretty good amount to watch. Add in Disney+ and some over the air local channels and it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Feels like I am stuck on an old-school Macintosh theme with this morning’s posts, but it’s purely coincidental.
This one uses an emulator to run classic MacOS on an iPad Pro. It looks amazing.
More gorgeous work, this time by Stephen Hackett, sharing the various tones made by old school Macs when they were unable to boot. Don’t miss the Power Mac 6100 car crash.
This is gorgeous work. Follow the headline link, click on each of the pictures below the main image to step through the gallery. That floppy disk is simply amazing.