This is a great idea. The Lexar JumpDrive is a short cable with a USB connector on one end and a lightning connector on the other. Plug the USB side into your computer and copy a few movies over to the now connected flash drive.
Click through to the main Loop post for details.
The verge waded through the morass of smart phones and picked the one they thought was the best that money can buy.
Hint: This is an Apple blog.
I knew that you could use your Apple Watch to make your iPhone ping. Did not know about making it fire its flash. Good to know.
UPDATE: Great add-on suggestion from Rich Fletcher:
A quieter way to find your iPhone with Apple Watch in the dark is to open the camera app on the watch, which turns on phone screen.
Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
In 1984, the Mac’s software engine, which included an AppleTalk network stack and a LaserWriter driver, ran on a single Motorola 68000 CPU and needed just 32K of ROM and 128K of RAM.
And:
Today, macOS is a fully-grown computer operating system, pleasant, fast, flexible. But it’s also enormous — RAM and disk storage requirements are measured in gigabytes — and it isn’t exactly bug-free. An ex-Apple acquaintance recently told me there are something like 10,000 “open” bugs on an on-going basis. The number that are urgent is, of course, a fraction of the gamut, but like any mature operating system, macOS has become a battlefield of patch upon patch upon patch.
And:
When the Apple smartphone project started, the key decision was the choice of software engine. Should Apple try to make a ‘lite’ version of OS X (as it was then known)? Go in a completely new direction?
[Note that Jean-Louis was the founder and CEO of Be, Inc.]
And:
It appears that a new direction may have been tempting. At the time that Apple’s smartphone project began, an Apple employee and former Be engineer offered Palm Inc. $800K for a BeOS “code dump” — just the code, no support, no royalties. The engineer was highly respected for his skill in mating software to unfamiliar hardware; BeOS was a small, light operating system; draw your own conclusion… Palm, which had purchased Be a few years before that, turned him down. (I learned this when I was asked to become Chairman of PalmSource, Palm’s software spinoff)
Wow. I had not heard this bit before.
I could go on with the excerpts, but you really should read this piece for yourself. Terrific writing from someone who lived at the intersection of Apple and history.
Janko Roettgers, Variety:
Netflix is cutting each and every video into one-to-three-minute-long chunks. Computers then analyze the visual complexity of each and every of these clips, and encode with settings that are optimized for its visual complexity.
The resulting potential bandwidth savings are significant: Compared to the encoding tech Netflix uses for streaming, using this chunking method in combination with the new VP9 codec saves around 36% of bandwidth on average for videos that look the same to the human eye.
This new approach sits on a curve. On one end, the videos are much smaller, saving you space on your phone. On the other end, the videos look much better. What you get on your phone depends on the complexity of the particular chunk you are viewing. Interesting stuff.
This is a pretty solid article. Some excellent holiday gift ideas for the techie on your list.
Personally, I swear by this iFixit Tool kit. I’ve owned it for years, done tons of Mac/iPhone and non-Apple repairs with it and it’s never let me down.
Benjamin Mayo, 9to5mac:
Apple is ramping for its biggest iPhone sales success ever next year, according to KGI. Its estimates suggest that the new iPhones in 2017, expected to comprise three new models, will empower Apple growth with ‘unprecedented’ demand. KGI expects the new phones may sell between 120-150 million units in the second half of next year, eclipsing the previous sales record set by iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
The new form-factor premium OLED iPhone will likely encourage high-end customers to upgrade their device and the low-end new 4.7-inch iPhone model (with wireless charging and a glass chassis) will be attractive to the lower-end of the smartphone market.
Doomed.
Some terrific, vibrant pictures.
Jump to the main Loop post for descriptions and links to official Apple support pages for these two new programs.
Anshel Sag, writing for Forbes:
It’s been a month since I got the Apple iPhone 7 Plus. Full disclosure, I have never owned an Apple product in my life. Okay, I had an iPod shuffle for about a week or two and ended up returning it. I had experiences with Apple computers as a child in a suburban elementary school but never owned an iPhone, iPad, MacBook or anything of the sort. I have been a lifetime Google Android user, and before that a Microsoft Windows Mobile user (yeah, I know). So, my first experience with an Apple product that I bought and used has been extremely interesting. That includes the utter shock and awe that came out of people’s mouths after I told them that I got an iPhone. I feel like a lot of the reasons why I never switched to Apple have gone away while others remain.
I love stories like this, because it reflects an objective, outsider view that is rare inside the Apple bubble.
If you press your iPhone’s power button 5 times in rapid succession (don’t try it until you finish reading this post), your iPhone will place an emergency call, presumably to 911 in the US.
Once you start the process, you’ll hear a loud alert siren and see a countdown appear, giving you an opportunity to cancel the call. To cancel the call, you’ll need to press the Stop button, then press the Stop Calling button that appears.
Here’s what this looks like on my phone:
Not sure how long this feature has been in place, but I thought it was worth sharing.
How did they do it? Volume! (where’s that rimshot emoji?)
OK, not really. Here’s why:
BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long estimates that Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in the third quarter. Its share is over 100% because other vendors lost money in the business, resulting in Apple having more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall.
That’s mind-boggling.
Horace Dediu, on some remarkable business achievements of the Mac over time:
The product is in its 32nd year of market presence. A longevity that in unmatched by any other PC maker.
Apple reached a top five position in the ranking of PC vendors. This was achieved for the first time only this year, far along in the evolution of the market.
With about $23 billion in revenues per year, Apple places among the top four PC vendors in terms of revenue.
With an estimated $5.5 billion in operating margin Apple is the most profitable PC vendor, capturing over 60% of the available PC hardware profits.
The product has retained an average selling price of over $1200 for at least a decade. At the same time the average pricing of Personal Computers has more than halved.
Then, following some charts to lay out his thesis, Dediu gets to the heart of the matter:
Mobile has been foreseeable as a disruption to computing a decade ago–at least to some of us.
And so what do you with the Mac?
To answer this we have to ask what exactly is the purpose of the Mac in the age of the Mobile device?
And:
The same way keyboard shortcuts are hard to learn but pay off with productivity, touchbar interactions are fiddly but will pay off with a two-handed interaction model. They are not something you “get” right away. They require practice and persistence for a delayed payoff. But, again, that effort is what professionals are accustomed to investing.
This is a leap forward and a big deal. For 32 years the UX model of the Mac has been two-handed typing with one handed gesturing. Now we have the option of two-handed indirect manipulation: one hand on the touchbar and one hand on the touchpad. Imagine you’ve been playing guitar with one hand for years and then someone lets you use your left hand. Holy cow.
This is a great read. Be sure to look at that third chart, the one that contrasts Mac, Windows, and iPhone sales.
iClarified:
A new video confirms previous reports that the 32GB iPhone 7 has 8X slower write speeds than the 128GB and 256GB models.
Unbox Therapy demonstrates a benchmark and real world test of write speeds on a 32GB and 256GB iPhone 7. The benchmark found that the 256GB model was able to write data at 341 MB/s; whereas, the 32GB was only able to write data at 42 MB/s.
The video is embedded below. Feel free to skip to 1:14 in, where the side-by-side test between the 32GB and 256GB iPhone 7’s starts.
Is this a big deal? I’d say, it’s worth keeping in mind if you are on the fence between the 32GB and 128GB iPhone 7.
UPDATE: Turns out this is standard for SSDs. Larger SSDs are faster because of parallel design. Here’s a link to a site that explains this pretty well (H/T Rob Pickering and Robert Davey).
Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5mac:
Prolific Apple hacker/developer Steve Troughton-Smith last night posted on Twitter that he has found a one-handed mode for the iPhone keyboard, hacking the iOS Simulator to demo the unreleased feature as shown above. The code has apparently been in the system since iOS 8 but is yet to be released as a public-facing feature.
The one-handed keyboard mode is activated by an edge swipe on the keys, revealing a sidebar of cut/copy/paste controls and squishing the other keys down to the side. This would make it much easier for the user to stretch their thumb across the entire width of the alphabet keys, improving one-handed use on larger iPhones.
Here’s a link to the Steve Troughton-Smith tweet that brought this to the surface.
I’m left-handed and I use a Plus. I’d love to test this keyboard.
Some thoughts, and real-world images of the jet black iPhone 7 finish.
I noticed this on my last Apple Store visit. It was nice to be able to pick up an iPhone and walk around with it, even stick it in my pocket to get a sense of the size difference between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
I never felt watched, never got a sense of extra security around the iPhone table, though I can’t imagine there’s not some security measures in place to prevent wholesale shoplifting.
No matter, this was definitely an improved customer experience.
Jeff John Roberts, writing for Fortune:
In trying to make sense of the design patents’ value, the judges repeatedly invoked the body shape of Volkswagen’s iconic Beetle model, noting that consumers will pay extra for a cool-looking car. But they drew back at saying a company, in cases of complex products, should be able to use a patent for exterior appearance to collect for the whole thing.
And:
Justice Stephen Breyer contrasted simple products like wallpaper to cars and smartphones, which are often covered by hundreds or thousands of patents and design decisions.
“For wallpaper, you get the whole thing. A Rolls Royce with the thing on the hood? No, no, no you don’t get profits on the whole car,” said Breyer.
This likens Samsung copying the iPhone look and feel to building a car that looks like the VW Beetle. Interesting point.
Federico Viticci:
After nearly two years spent using a 5.5-inch iPhone, I’m accustomed to not having a compact phone anymore. The iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus have reshaped my iPhone experience for a simple reason: they give me more of the most important device in my life.
Thus, I was a little skeptical – even surprised – when Apple gave me a gold 256 GB iPhone 7 review unit (with a leather case) two weeks ago. I didn’t think I would be able to enjoy a smaller iPhone, but, despite my initial resistance, I set up a fresh install of iOS 10 and used the iPhone 7 exclusively for two weeks.
I’m glad I did. While I’m still pining for a 7 Plus, using the iPhone 7 showed me that there’s more to this year’s iPhones than the lack of a headphone jack.
In many ways, the iPhone 7 feels like a portable computer from the future – only in a tangible, practical way that is here with us today.
If you are on the fence about the iPhone 7, read Federico’s take. It’s a deep, thoughtful dive into the iPhone 7, as well as the wonderfully efficient pairing process between the iOS 10-powered iPhone and the new Beats Solo3 headphones:
- Turn them on;
- Bring them close to your iPhone;
- Tap ‘Connect’ on a dialog that appears, and you’re paired.
That’s it.
All of Bluetooth should be this simple. Nice job, Federico!
Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Ezrin gave the band members specific instructions: Learn and play 10 folk songs, then start writing, beginning with a folk song. Mr. McConnell’s effort, “Things People Do,” not only made the final cut, but the version included is his demo. Phish made multiple versions of the song before agreeing that nothing topped the original low-fi version, recorded on Mr. McConnell’s iPhone, sitting atop a Wurlitzer piano in his living room.
Cool. To paraphrase an aphorism, sometimes the best recording device is the one you have with you.
BBC News:
To find context ahead of Tuesday’s showdown between Apple and Samsung in the US Supreme Court, you need to go back over a century to a row over some rather attractive carpets.
It’s 1885, and John and James Dobson stand accused of nicking designs from other carpet makers and selling them off as their own.
A couple of companies, Hartford Carpet and Bigelow Carpet, were so incensed they took the Dobsons all the way to the highest court in the land.
The firms were quite right to be upset, the Supreme Court agreed, but then it got more complicated. The court hit a stumbling block over the amount of money the firms deserved in damages.
Read on for the details. Interesting.
DPReview is one of the go-to sites for deeply technical camera reviews. Note that that this is an iPhone 7 gallery. Here’s a link to the DPReview iPhone 7 Plus gallery.
Tap one of the images to get started.
From the fine print at the bottom of Google’s official Pixel Phone page:
Unlimited backups for photos and videos taken with your Pixel. Requires Google account. Data rates may apply.
There are a number of fronts in the battle between Google and Apple for the hearts and minds of smartphone users. One well-defined line in the sand is for media storage. Do you pay a monthly fee for an iCloud account to store your photos, as well as updates and backups?
Google has thrown down the gauntlet, offering free unlimited media storage for Pixel buyers. This move will be difficult for other Android phone manufacturers to match, since the photos go to Google’s servers, even if the phone is made by, say, Samsung.
Apple does control the entire path from camera to photo storage. The question is, will Apple address this challenge directly?
At the heart of Google’s new marketing campaign is a razor sharp jab at Apple:
3.5mm headphone jack satisfyingly not new
That headphone jack is an ingress point for water. Obviously, that’s a problem that can be solved (as Samsung does), but Google chose not to, and made a point of chastising Apple for going down that road.
Google is pouring on the marketing here. Spend a few minutes with the official Pixel page. Is this hype, or is this progress?
UPDATE: This is one of those posts where I just shouldn’t have hit enter. Lots of pushback, deservedly so, but we don’t delete posts, so all I can do is say I’ll try to do better.
[VIDEO in the main post] Google’s new phone, introduced with this text:
Introducing Pixel, a new phone by Google. It has the highest rated smartphone camera. Ever. A battery that lasts all day. Unlimited storage for all your photos and videos. And it’s the first phone with the Google Assistant built in.
And:
With a best-ever 89 DxOMark Mobile score, Pixel’s camera lets you take brilliant photos in low light, bright light or any light.
And:
I’ll leave it to the camera pros to do a side-by-side comparison between the Pixel and the iPhone 7 Plus cameras. Bold claim, though.
Oh, and right there in the middle of the video:
3.5mm headphone jack satisfyingly not new
Yeah, we know who that was aimed at.
Jeff Benjamin, writing for 9to5mac, goes into a fair amount of detail on the new iPhone 7 home button. If you’ve not yet had the chance to play with one, this post will answer a lot of questions.
The Home button on the iPhone 7 feels more responsive than the old mechanical Home button, as long as you ensure that you make skin contact with it.
To me, the home button feels different, even odd, because the underlying mechanism is completely different. Rather than a directly coupled microswitch which clicked as you pressed it, the new mechanism relies on a circuit to activate a taptic engine lying underneath the home button.
I get the slightest feeling of delay from the moment I apply pressure to the home button to the moment when I actually feel the vibration from the taptic engine. This could be my imagination, the way my brain translates that different feel, but it certainly will take some getting used to.
Because the new solid state Home button requires skin contact to register presses, this makes interacting with the Home button through non-capacitive gloves or other barriers a non-starter. It also means that you can no longer click the Home button with your fingernail, a practice that many of us with soiled hands have relied on in the past.
I’ve also used my fingernail to press the button without unlocking the phone, just to see the lock screen. Again, just something to get used to.
Yes, the Home button has changed and the change may feel odd at first, but after you get used to it, it’s much better. Going back to the mechanical Home button on my iPhone 6s now feels weird. I’ve simply come to the realization that the new Home button isn’t bad at all, it’s just the way that a Home button on an iPhone 7 is supposed to feel.
The big win here is waterproofing resistance, something the old design would not have supported. So get used to it we will.
Nature’s balance. Love this.
Blog “Which? Tech Daily” ran the HTC 10, LG G5, Samsung Galaxy S7, and the Apple iPhone 7 through a series of battery tests.
The most notable difference:
Whilst the iPhone 7’s 712 minutes of call time (nearly 12 hours) may sound acceptable, the rival Samsung Galaxy S7 lasted twice as long – and it doesn’t even have the longest lasting battery. The HTC 10 lasted an incredible 1,859 minutes (that’s almost 31 hours).
And:
So just why does the iPhone 7 have such a poor battery life? It may sound obvious, but the majority of the fault lies in its comparatively tiny cell. Smartphone batteries are measured in milliampere hours (mAh). The iPhone 7 has a 1,960mAh battery, whilst the HTC 10 has a 3,000mAh battery: it should hardly be surprising that one battery nearly half the size of another offers roughly half as much charge.
So was this a fair test? Is call time a fair measure of battery life? In browsing/email testing, the battery life was much closer, though the iPhone still finished last.
To me, the bottom line is a battle between thinness/weight and battery life. I rarely have to recharge my iPhone battery during the day. So, for me, the thinness of my iPhone is worth the shorter battery life.
UPDATE: The test compares the iPhone 7 (138.3mm x 67.1mm) against the HTC 10 (145.9mm x 71.9mm), the Samsung Galaxy S7 (142.4mm x 69.6mm), and the LG G5 (149.4mm x 73.9mm). All three competing phones are a fair bit larger than the iPhone 7. Bigger phone equals bigger battery. Thus the addition of the word “flawed” to the post’s title.
If you are using iOS 10 and have not yet encountered automatic voicemail transcription, take a minute and open the Phone app and tap the Voicemail tab.
Tap on a voicemail and you’ll notice that, in addition to the playback controls, there’s now a textual transcription of each message. Though the quality of the transcription can be spotty, it’s usually good enough to get a basic sense of the message.
The service is a beta, which gives me the sense that we’ll see needed improvements to transcription accuracy over time.
Lory Gil pulled together this nice how-to on various aspects of working with iOS 10’s voicemail transcription.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (the corporate and investment banking division of Bank of America) ran a survey to get a sense of the public’s AirPod and Apple Watch purchase intentions.
From Business Insider’s writeup of the survey:
12% of U.S. consumers surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch say they intend to purchase AirPods, apparently on the strength of Apple’s marketing, given that few people have actually seen and tried them out.
This is a very bullish sign for Apple, says BAML. “12% of the US installed base could lead to up to an incremental $3bn in revenue,” writes the analysts.
John Gruber, from his analysis:
Not 12 percent of iPhone owners. 12 percent of consumers. For a product that Apple has merely announced, but not yet even started advertising. That’s huge.
As per usual, Gruber’s writeup is worth reading.
Some math:
$3B / $159 = 18.9M
This tells us that it will take 18.9 million AirPod sales to generate $3 billion.
18.9 / 12% = 157M
This tells us that it will take a total population of 157 million for 12% to generate $3B in sales.
There are about 90 million iPhone users in the US (Please ping me if you know a more precise number), so clearly Gruber is right about that. There are about 125 million US households (again, ping me if you have a better number), which dovetails nicely with 157 million total consumers.
With this math in mind, go read Gruber’s take on the survey, including his thoughts on the Apple Watch projections.