[VIDEO] This is a bit of a quirky rabbit hole, one I found quite fun. Watch the video embedded in the main Loop post, visit the web page (tap the headline link), check out the app on the iOS App Store.
Way back in the day, there was a Mac game called The Fools Errand. Incredibly fun to play, with just the right level of difficulty and reward. This reminds me, just a bit, of that.
Fun.
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
One of the coolest new features in iOS 13 is something called Audio Sharing. This lets you easily share your headphones audio with a friend via Bluetooth, allowing you to listen to the same music, watch a movie together, and more. Here’s how it works.
Great feature, nice job by Chance walking through all the details. Even if you’re not running the iOS 13 beta, skim through the article to get a sense of how this works. Perfect for sharing music, or movie audio.
Will this audio sharing ability make its way to Apple TV?
Alex Cranz, Gizmodo:
Around the Gizmodo office, my colleagues groaned when news broke that following a refresh of its laptop line, there would no longer be a standard MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar. Apple, in their eyes, was going all in on the little touch-sensitive OLED strip above the number pad, and it was a travesty.
Someone complained that the only time they used the Touch Bar was when they activated the Siri touch button by accident several times a day.
I don’t see the MacBook Touch Bar as terrible, but I do see it as unfulfilled promise. There are a few use cases where I’m glad to have it:
That’s about it. Not terrible, but there’s just so much potential here. Now that Touch Bar is on every single MacBook model, perhaps Apple will open the Touch Bar up a bit more, encourage more creative experimentation by developers by relaxing limitations on what is allowed on that bit of real estate.
In the meantime, there’s TouchSwitcher and BetterTouchTool.
[VIDEO] This is a detailed, thoughtful look at the various interdependencies between Apple and China. It’s pretty easy to follow and, if you are interested in Apple’s business side, this is worth your time. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.
Bloomberg:
Tinder joined a growing backlash against app store taxes by bypassing Google Play in a move that could shake up the billion-dollar industry dominated by Google and Apple Inc.
The online dating site launched a new default payment process that skips Google Play and forces users to enter their credit card details straight into Tinder’s app, according to new research by Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter. Once a user has entered their payment information, the app not only remembers it, but also removes the choice to swap back to Google Play for future purchases, he wrote.
The first thought that leaps to mind is the fact that Tinder does not have this option on Apple’s iOS App Store. Yet.
This feels like something that could impact Apple, though. In the way that a precedent in one case, after making its way through the courts, can have a much larger impact down the road.
[VIDEO] James Thomson (the mad genius behind PCalc and this cool dice rolling app) gave a very entertaining talk at Swift Live 2019, suitable for all audiences, anyone interested in the history of Easter eggs. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.
[VIDEO] Joanna Stern traveled to 4 US cities that have started rolling out 5G access, sharing her experience (video embedded in main Loop post). Obviously, this will change over time as more 5G hardware is built out and the 5G network expands, block by block.
I suspect 5G coverage will be a lot broader and the temperamental nature of the mobile 5G experience a lot more stable and less heat-sensitive by the time Apple rolls out their first 5G devices.
[VIDEO] This Rene Ritchie review of iPadOS (video embedded in main Loop post) starts off by walking through something both subtle and compelling: Apple’s tweaking of iPadOS Safari to make the desktop version of websites the default, intelligently pouring them into the form factor of the iPad on which its running.
Watch the video to wrap your head around this. And then keep watching for lots more detail on iPadOS.
Verizon just dropped their 5G M1000 hotspot. It sells for about $650, which does not include a data plan. Read the linked article for details, or check out the Verizon product page.
Trying to wrap my head around the usefulness of this product. Obviously, it’s not useful if you don’t have 5G in your area. So if you do have 5G service, it will port that 5G to your non-5G devices. In effect, this lets you experience 5G on your iPhone, while we wait for a 5G iPhone. Again, in that limited case where you have access to 5G.
Sometime in the not too distant future, Apple will likely start rolling out their 5G phones, and 5G service will become more widely available, at least in urban areas. And that $650 5G hot spot will become a doorstop, since you can, presumably, just use your iPhone as a (much more portable) hotspot.
Think I’m missing something here?
Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:
An Israeli security firm claims it has developed a smartphone surveillance tool that can harvest not only a user’s local data but also all their device’s communications with cloud-based services provided by the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
From the paywalled Financial Times article that broke the story:
The new technique is said to copy the authentication keys of services such as Google Drive, Facebook Messenger and iCloud, among others, from an infected phone, allowing a separate server to then impersonate the phone, including its location.
This grants open-ended access to the cloud data of those apps without “prompting 2-step verification or warning email on target device”, according to one sales document.
And don’t miss this response from Apple:
In response to the report, Apple told FT that its operating system was “the safest and most secure computing platform in the world. While some expensive tools may exist to perform targeted attacks on a very small number of devices, we do not believe these are useful for widespread attacks against consumers.”
Um. That is quite different from a denial, makes me think this story is true. And once the tools are out there, you know they will find their way into black hat hands. Hopefully, Apple will silently update my devices with a leapfrog update to obsolete these tools.
[VIDEO] This is a great look back at the development of Apple’s brand, starting with Steve Jobs return to Apple. I found it fascinating, all the way through. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.
And once you’re done watching, take a read of John Gruber’s take on the video.
[Via DF]
Wayne Ma, The Information (Paywall):
Six years ago, a warehouse employee at one of Apple’s top suppliers, Jabil, stole thousands of iPhone 5C casings from a factory in China before the product was announced. The employee, with help from a security guard, falsified documents and avoided security cameras as he drove a truck filled with the candy-colored shells out of the gates, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The incident, which hasn’t been previously reported, was one of the most devastating leaks to come out of Apple’s supply chain, the people said. Images of the iPhone 5C soon appeared on the Internet, spoiling the reveal at the company’s carefully choreographed media event that September.
And from this MacRumors article:
Apple once even caught factory workers “digging a small tunnel in a corner of a room behind a large piece of machinery,” hoping to use it to funnel stolen components to the outside, according to the report. “People were chipping away little by little at the wall ‘Shawshank Redemption’ style,” one person said.
Fascinating underground market for any clue as to what’s coming from Apple.
Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac:
The iconic wood tables that fill every Apple Store have long been globally admired as symbols of tasteful interior design. Fewer people are aware that recent top Apple Stores contain a hidden space called the Boardroom. Each Boardroom is decorated with a collection of premium furniture and accessories from some of the most respected designers in the world. We tracked down these hard-to-find items to create a directory for those with a discerning eye for design.
Were you aware that your local Apple Store might have a spacious board room hidden in the back of the store? Some terrific work by Michael Steeber. Lots of pictures from around the world, all of beautifully decorated rooms out of the public view.
[VIDEO] Some old school programming, this. Apollo 11 moon landing 50th anniversary is being celebrated, good fit there. Snoopy (and the Vince Guaraldi music you get a hint of at the very end of the trailer) is timeless.
This certainly fits the family friendly tone that’s been said to be a core value of Apple TV+. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.
Jeremy Horwitz, VentureBeat:
Back in 2015, Apple introduced pressure-sensitive iPhone screens alongside 3D Touch as a potentially major hardware-software innovation, but barely supported the feature, leading to informed speculation that all of 2019’s iPhones would lose their pressure-sensing hardware. Today’s release of the fourth iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 developer betas appears to put the final nail in 3D Touch’s coffin, tightening up the responsiveness of its replacement: Context Menus.
And:
Over the last few beta releases of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, Apple has been rolling out a replacement called Context Menus — a change it set the stage for last year by releasing the iPhone XR without 3D Touch hardware.
Great explanation of how all this works. Personally, I like the new approach. I find it more consistent across all my devices. I found 3D Touch to be too hidden, low discoverability.
I like the fact that touch has become just plain touch. I no longer have to guess how hard to press a button. Now the choice is between tap, and long press. And that works well for me.
[VIDEO] Another in the series. Per usual, video embedded in main Loop post. Very interesting.
No external power used, so the iPhone is charging the iPod. And this only works if the iPod is formatted as Fat32, not HFS+.
Lots of fascinating little details. Nice.
Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. plans to fund original podcasts that would be exclusive to its audio service, according to people familiar with the matter, increasing its investment in the industry to keep competitors Spotify and Stitcher at bay.
Executives at the company have reached out to media companies and their representatives to discuss buying exclusive rights to podcasts, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the conversations are preliminary. Apple has yet to outline a clear strategy, but has said it plans to pursue the kind of deals it didn’t make before.
Slowly but surely, the podcast space is splintering, much like the video space.
In the video space, properties like Marvel, Pixar, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Office, Friends, etc., are all getting hidden behind walled gardens, like Disney+ and CBS Online.
Watch for podcasts to do the same over time. With funded podcasts outstripping indie podcasts that depend on withering advertising dollars, aggregating into well funded walled gardens.
To be clear, I’m not faulting anyone from going down this road. If this is true, seems a smart, competitive business move by Apple. More an observation that this particular evolution is as inevitable as the tides.
The FaceApp app has gone viral over the last day or so, especially on Twitter, with people sharing pics of themselves, and others, as they’ll look when they get old.
The pics are fun, the viral nature harmless, but there are a few questions:
Matthew Panzarino does a great job exploring and explaining these issues. Personally, I think someone at FaceApp should lay all this bare in a blog post, avoid turning all this viral exposure into a black eye.
One point Matthew makes that stands out to me:
While the app does indeed let you pick a single photo without giving it access to your photo library, this is actually 100% allowed by an Apple API introduced in iOS 11. It allows a developer to let a user pick one single photo from a system dialog to let the app work on.
An app can let you pick out a single photo, even if you mark access to photos as Never. This strikes me as a decision made long before privacy was even a consideration, left in place over the years as privacy moved to the forefront.
As Panzarino points out, maybe it’s time to reconsider that option.
DuckDuckGo:
In our quest to provide the best experience for local searches, earlier this year we announced that we’re now using Apple’s MapKit JS framework to power our mapping features. Since then, we’ve been continually working hard on further enhancements and we’re excited today to show you some new improvements.
Read the linked press release to learn all the details but, in a nutshell, this is a big leap forward for DuckDuckGo and mapping.
And, at least in my local area, this pushed it a little bit past Google Maps. There’s a pizza place a few blocks away that opened about a month ago. It’s on DuckDuckGo (because Apple Maps) and it is not yet on Google Maps.
Small sample size, I know, but it makes privacy respecting DuckDuckGo more of an equal browsing choice for me.
Two great spots. Don’t Mess with Mother still one of my favorites. Great action shots and “Last Rites” by Megadeth. Yum.
Apple press release:
To celebrate World Emoji Day, Apple is previewing a selection of new emoji coming this fall, revealing the newest designs that bring even more diversity to the keyboard, alongside fun and exciting additions to popular categories of food, animals, activities and smiley faces.
My favorite:
In a major update to the Holding Hands emoji typically used to represent couples and relationships, users will now be able to select any combination of skin tone, in addition to gender, to personalize the people holding hands, opening up more than 75 possible combinations.
Representation. Normalization. This feels like a giant step forward to me. The ability to represent your relationship, to have that be seen as a normal part of the whole, is a powerful gift. Well done.
I don’t want to spoil this. If you’ve got an iOS device (have not yet been able to make this work on my Mac):
Now, before you go any further, let me put out this caveat: If you hate jump scares, even gentle ones, go no further. With that in mind:
You should feel the occasional tap, occurring more and more frequently. Then a bit of a light show. Keep pressing.
Amazing to see the amount of work that must have gone into this incredibly hidden feature. Well done.
Reddit user:
I came home this evening to find my house had been broken into.
- TV – Gone
- Bluetooth Speaker – Gone
- Wifes work Laptop (HP) – Gone
- DSLR Camera – Gone
- Logitech Headset – Gone
- Computer bag – Gone
But my MacBook Pro 15″ on the other hand? They literally took it out of my computer bag and left it on my desk alongside my iPad and Apple TV.
Why not take the Apple gear? Of course, this could just be a hoax, but set that possibility aside and consider the possibility that this is real.
Is it possible that the reputation of Apple gear as trackable, the strength of iCloud locking/deactivation/tracking as a security measure is affecting the theft of Macs, iPads, and iPhones? Interesting.
[VIDEO] First things first, it’s amazing to me that the very first iPod debuted in October 2001.
Think about that timing for a moment. This was a bit more than a month after 9/11 and the shock was still palpable. A difficult time to command public attention and roll out a new product, to say the least.
The video embedded in the main Loop post does a nice job showing off the difficulties of working with really old gear, from port incompatibilities to replacing dead batteries on a device that was not meant to be easy to open.
I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d really love to see a video connecting that original iPod to an iPad running iOS 13. Hey, I can dream, right?
Enjoy.
John Gruber starts off with the story about Bill Gates calling out his approach to the smartphone market his greatest mistake ever. But he then moves on to thoughts on how Microsoft, more than any other factor, saved Apple at a time when Apple really needed saving.
Terrific read, great food for thought. Can’t help but wonder if Apple, with Steve Jobs and the iMac, would have still managed the improbable rise without that support from Microsoft.
[VIDEO] The Executive Producers of the coming Apple TV+ show For All Mankind pulled together this homage for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The video is embedded in the main Loop post.
I am really looking forward to both Apple TV+ and For All Mankind in particular. Of all the shows Apple has so far revealed, For All Mankind seems like the one with the biggest potential. Fingers crossed.
Here are a few of the deals I found. As is our policy, there are no embedded affiliate links:
Some pretty good deals here. Looks like these go through all day Tuesday.
Charles Arthur:
All of the plaudits for Jony Ive begin with how he and Steve Jobs saved Apple with the iMac. No doubt about it: that instantly recognizable shape became an icon, and led to thousands of imitations using translucent colored plastic, often in that same Bondi Blue, to show that they were part of the late-90s vibe. In a sense, the iMac was a triumph of packaging: the components inside were pretty straightforward. If Apple had put them into a beige box, the company would now be a historical footnote.
And:
The quote often attributed to Einstein is “everything must be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” I think the trouble was that Ive often ignored the second part of that advice in the pursuit of refinement.
This is actually a fair take on Jony Ive designs that are considered by many to be mistakes, triumphs of form over function.
My favorite part is the section called “The strength of compromise”, which highlights things gone right, compromises that yielded greatness.
Terrific read, all around.
[VIDEO] Linus (of Linus Tech Tips) continues to pursue his goal of building the fastest Mac in the world (video embedded in the main Loop post). He thought he had it, releasing his mega-Hackintosh on the very day Apple announced the new Mac Pro. Unlucky that.
But he perseveres, bringing on a friend to help up the technology. Entertaining and ubergeeky.
Rich Mogull, TidBiTS:
This year I sat in the WWDC keynote, hearing the undertones, and realized that Apple is upping its privacy game to levels never before seen from a major technology company. That is, beyond improving privacy in its own products, the company is starting to use its market strength to extend privacy through the tendrils that touch the Apple ecosystem.
Rich does a nice job digging into Apple’s privacy moves, focusing on Sign in with Apple, Intelligent Ad Tracking Prevention, and HomeKit Secure Video.
From the end:
The global forces arrayed against personal privacy are legion. Advertising companies and marketing firms want to track your browsing and buying. Governments want to solve crimes and prevent terrorism whatever the cost. Telecommunication providers monitor all our Internet traffic and locations, just because they can. The financial services industry is sure our data is worth something.
Any list of big companies has to include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and, of course, Apple. Daunting to think how critical your personal data is to the money-making equation for those first three.
Daunting that on this list, Apple stands alone as a guardian of your privacy.