Maps is one of the very few products I use, equally, in both the Google and Apple ecosystems. Apple doesn’t have a counter to Google search. I use Gmail, not Mail. But I use Google and Apple Maps interchangeably.
I definitely prefer Apple Maps, purely for the ecosystem support, and especially for those turn-by-turn Apple Watch taps that I don’t get with Google Maps.
But I am not a fan of Yelp, and I find Google Maps’ crowd-sourced restaurant reviews more accurate than what I experience with Apple Maps’ Yelp tie-in.
So a Google Maps update is nice news. Follow the headline link to scan through the new features. A welcome redesign, some nice new ideas.
Last week I set up my tablet on my new laptop. As part of installing its drivers I was asked to accept Wacom’s privacy policy. Why does a device that is essentially a mouse need a privacy policy? I wondered. Sensing skullduggery, I decided to make an exception to my anti-privacy-policy-policy and give this one a read.
In section 3.1 of their privacy policy, Wacom wondered if it would be OK if they sent a few bits and bobs of data from my computer to Google Analytics.
Wacom didn’t say exactly what data they were going to send themselves. I resolved to find out.
Wacom will undoubtedly offer a heartfelt apology and explanation as to why they do this but the big question will be, for how long have they been doing this and what do they do with the data? The other part of this is I wish I had half the technical chops this guy does.
As first spotted by Steve Troughton-Smith, release notes for the latest beta build of Xcode include a major development: Mac apps can soon be included as universal purchases with their iPhone and iPad companions.
Universal apps currently enable you to make a single purchase to gain access to both iPhone and iPad versions of an app. Nearly all cross-platform developers default to this option, though some still sell separate iPhone and iPad apps. macOS has never been included as part of universal apps though, even after Mac Catalyst launched last year. That sounds like it’s going to change when the latest OS updates – iOS and iPadOS 13.4 and macOS 10.15.4 – arrive this spring.
My day was completely ruined yesterday when I stumbled upon a fun fact that absolutely obliterated my mind. I saw this tweet yesterday that said that not everyone has an internal monologue in their head. All my life, I could hear my voice in my head and speak in full sentences as if I was talking out loud. I thought everyone experienced this, so I did not believe that it could be true at that time.
Literally the first person I asked was a classmate of mine who said that she can not “hear” her voice in her mind. I asked her if she could have a conversation with herself in her head and she looked at me funny like I was the weird one in this situation. So I began to become more intrigued. Most people I asked said that they have this internal monologue that is running rampant throughout the day. However, every once in a while, someone would say that they don’t experience this.
I would tell them that I could look at myself in the mirror and have a full blown telepathic conversation with myself without opening my mouth and they responded as if I had schizophrenia. One person even mentioned that when they do voice overs in movies of people’s thoughts, they “wished that it was real.”
This is kind of mindblowing. I also didn’t realize not everyone could “hear the voices in their head.”
Unlike on iOS and iPadOS, Apple is quite permissive about running full web browsers on macOS. Mac browsers can use their own technologies to render webpages and set themselves to be the default web browser. On iPhone or iPad, they can’t do either of those things.
There’s nothing wrong with sticking to Safari, but depending on your own particular needs, it might not be the best browser. Some services, like YouTube TV, won’t run on Safari at all. And some features, like YouTube’s support for 4K video, don’t work with Safari. So you’ll need to try another browser. Here are five other Mac browsers worth trying out.
News+ was never going to work as a stand-alone subscription offering from Apple. With the news today of a key departure from the group, perhaps the company now sees that. But the writing has been on the wall from day one.
So, what to do?
It’s so obvious that it’s already rumored. Make News+ a part of an Apple bundle. Yes, yes, “Apple Prime” as it were. Flip the script so that News+ isn’t yet another cognitive load on us. Something that may be a good deal but will I really have time for that? To: oh wow, this is included in what I already pay for? Awesome.
This is a no-brainer that many of us have been saying from the start. In light of today’s departure of a key executive, I’ve been told Apple will announce a News+ bundle at or before WWDC this June.
kiboko, a video editor who focuses on drum tracks, took the iconic Toronto Pearson Airport inspired instrumental “YYZ” by Rush and brought the audio of Neil Peart‘s drumming to the forefront while quieting Geddy Lee‘s bass and Alex Lifeson‘s guitar.
Beautifully done. Really showcases the complexity of Peart’s iconic drumming style.
At first blush, this post’s title, “One very bad Apple”, gave the impression of pure trolling. But reading through (which is worth your time, IMO), I found it to be an informed take on Apple’s evolving privacy model, full of detail and solidly sourced links.
Bottom line:
So, here we are, in 2020, with Apple in a bit of a pickle. It’s becoming so big that it’s not prioritizing security. At the same time, it needs to advertise privacy as a key differentiator as consumer tastes change.
Not sure I’d agree that Apple is “not prioritizing security”. But Apple’s massive growth has certainly made supporting privacy a far more complex problem than in Steve Jobs’ time, when Apple was small enough that he had complete control.
> The head of business for Apple Inc.’s news app stepped down less than a year after launching a high-profile subscription product that has struggled to attract paying readers. > > Liz Schimel, the outgoing executive, joined in mid-2018 after serving as the president of international business at magazine publisher Conde Nast, said people familiar with the move who asked not to be identified discussing personnel matters. At Apple, Schimel oversaw relationships with advertisers and news publishers.
Of all Apple’s services, News+ seemed to me the toughest win for Apple. When Apple took on the music space, it had a stronger financial model, with consumers very willing to pay for songs to bring from CD to their hard drives and then pay again for the monthly all-you-can-eat of Apple Music. Incorporating strategies inspired by online sweeps cash casinos, such as offering exclusive content and regular incentives, could have enhanced News+’s ability to attract and retain subscribers. Apple also had Steve Jobs building and cementing those initial relationships.
Much has changed since the iTunes Store launched back in 2003. Liz Schimel had an unenviable, difficult task convincing publishers that News+ was their savior. Too much competition in news aggregation, much of it free.
To me, this is not a sign of doom for Apple News+. More a sign that change is needed. And if the Bloomberg report is correct, change is coming. However, if you suspect your business may face financial challenges during such transitions, don’t hesitate to seek Business Insolvency Help: Take Action to safeguard your business and secure its future.
I especially appreciate the discussion of full-array local dimming (FALD), which Pro Display XDR uses, vs OLED, microLED, and mini LED. Well written, worth the read.
Bottom line:
Apple’s Pro Display XDR provides exceptional color accuracy and build quality at a price that’s quite competitive with those of reference-grade pro monitors. It’s exquisite enough that swallowing the wildly extravagant cost of its Pro Stand is worth it.
The chief executive of developer Mobicip, Suren Ramasubbu, told Reuters he was interviewed in November by a U.S. investigator who asked about the company’s interactions with Apple. The app, which has nearly a million users worldwide, allows parents to control what their children see on their iPhones.
Ramasubbu said the Mobicip app was temporarily removed from the iPhone app store last year for a failure to meet requirements imposed by Apple.
And:
Six executives of parental control app companies interviewed by Reuters said they had a comfortable relationship with Apple until mid-2018. That is when Apple introduced its own, similar software giving parents oversight of their children’s phone screen time and searches.
When Reuters reports that a “handful of app developers had been contacted”, I suspect (no inside info here, just intuition) that they are all connected to the parental control space.
General Motors used to be, for a time, America’s largest car manufacturer with a peak market share of 50.7% in the US in 1962. In 2016? 17%.
It doesn’t matter whether the Photoshop is still king, because kingdoms usually revolt when the king becomes tyrannical. Even if Adobe’s brand presence is such that it has become a verb, it doesn’t garner loyalty. In fact, if the ubiquitousness of the phrase is so great, it can eventually become a generic word like ‘aspirin.’
Now, yes it is true, Photoshop is the industry standard — but when a majority of your customers aren’t reliant on industry standards as they are sole proprietors, freelancers, and students, standards aren’t important, because cash flow is.
I don’t know if Adobe is paying attention or cares (because they know their business model better than anyone else) but there’s certainly a groundswell of dissatisfied photographers (and others) who are looking for alternatives.
Less than 10% of Apple customers eligible for 12-month free trials of the company’s Apple TV+ streaming video service have taken the offer, a Wall Street analyst said Monday.
Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimates that under 10 million Apple customers have accepted the free trial offer. He calls that a “surprisingly low take rate.”
So much of the media is unquestioningly accepting Sacconaghi’s numbers without asking how he came about them or being critical of the report in general.
Sacconaghi based his estimate on an analysis of Apple’s fiscal first-quarter results, released last week. Apple did not give specifics on the Apple TV+ service, which launched on Nov. 1. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple TV+ “is off to a rousing start.”
Sacconaghi sees three possible explanations for a low initial take rate for Apple TV+ free trials.
Here’s a fourth possibility – Sacconaghi is talking out of his posterior and has no actual data to base this on. The Mac and Tech media should at least entertain that idea instead of going off half-cocked and making pronouncements like “consumers might not be interested in Apple TV+ because of its limited content offerings.” While that may be true, everyone likes “free.”
Your notion of the typical YouTuber might be anything from a Twitch streamer sharing clips of game streams to beauty vloggers, influencers and all manner of other loud, brash, in-your-face personalities — with the kind of persona focused on keeping people entertained and amassing millions of followers. And then there’s Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast. An altogether different sort of YouTube presence who’s known not so much for his personality or his antics, as … his philanthropy? That’s right, this guy loves to give away stuff, and yes, on one level the giveaways work very much as attention-getting stunts. But take his latest video, which you can watch above.
It may very well be “just a stunt” but as stunts go, it’s pretty cool. And sure, it may be an indictment of our consumer culture but wouldn’t it be great to have the money to be able to do this for people?
Below is basically what I would pitch to my boss if I worked on the watchOS team at Apple on what I thought we should be doing. Since I don’t work there, though, this is my public wish list for the platform and I hope you agree and pass this along so it’s more likely to get in front of someone on the actual team as inspiration.
This is a pretty good read. My favorite is, “A Damn Day Off”. Would be a nice option, especially when you are on vacation, trying to unwind.
We observed a particularly high volume of requests coming from individual IP addresses located within Iran, Israel, and Malaysia. It is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors.
And:
When used as intended, this endpoint makes it easier for new account holders to find people they may already know on Twitter. The endpoint matches phone numbers to Twitter accounts for those people who have enabled the “Let people who have your phone number find you on Twitter” option and who have a phone number associated with their Twitter account.
I’m late to the Apple Watch Series 5 game and I only bought mine last night. I’ve been putting off the purchase primarily because I’ve seen the 44mm on multiple wrists and the most common face, called Infograph, looked so odd. What was this abomination? Why were people using it? Why were there so many little circles?
I finally bit the bullet and ordered one and now I can unequivocally say that Apple’s watch face designs are awful.
I honestly thought I could get away with not caring. After all, the best watch face on the device, the so-called Modular, is so useful and elegant. It tells you exactly what you need to know, offers a few simple complications, and stays out of your way. With Infograph, however, you realize that Apple misunderstands both horology and design and feels that some weird skeuomorphic fever dream can pass for a real watch face.
I wish Apple would open up the watch face API so others can take a shot at doing it better.
The caps of most cheap pens have holes in them so you can still breathe even if you accidentally swallow the cap.
The word “helicopter” has two components. They aren’t “heli” and “copter”. They are “helico” and “pter”. “Helico” (helix) and “pter” (wing, like with “pterodactyl”).
The founding fathers of America pretty much all died before the first documented discovery of dinosaur bones in 1812. I always tell people George Washington didn’t know about Dinosaurs during his lifetime and that will get people thinking.
Do not click on this Reddit link unless you’ve got a lot of time to waste.
Dear Salty, I was at the coffee shop counter, and the cashier wouldn’t take my order until I took off my AirPod! And it was only in one ear! Am I the asshole here?
Kevin
Oh, Kevin, you sad, foolish little soul. Where do I even begin? [Takes a deep breath.] I am trying hard here to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you were in the middle of a very important phone call/podcast/guitar riff that could not be paused for the 30 or so seconds it takes to order a cup of coffee. In which case, you very politely step aside to conclude your business and then order your coffee.
The creator of one of the world’s most famous mysteries is giving obsessive fans a new clue.
Kryptos, a sculpture in a courtyard at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., holds an encrypted message that has not fully yielded to attempts to crack it. It’s been nearly 30 years since its tall scroll of copper with thousands of punched-through letters was set in place.
Three of the four passages of the sculpture have been decrypted (the first, though unacknowledged at the time, was solved by a team from the National Security Agency). But after nearly three decades, one brief passage remains uncracked. And that has been a source of delight and consternation to thousands of people around the world.
I’ve been following this story as an interested observer (I’m nowhere near smart enough to attempt any solution) for years and I love the mystery of it.
In November 2019, Russian parliament passed what’s become known as the “law against Apple.” The legislation will require all smartphone devices to preload a host of applications that may provide the Russian government with a glut of information about its citizens, including their location, finances, and private communications.
<Apple typically forbids the preloading of third-party apps onto its system’s hardware. But come July 2020, when the law goes into effect, Apple will be forced to quit the country and a market estimated at $3 billion unless it complies. This piece of legislation, along with a controversial law aimed at the construction of a “sovereign internet,” is the latest step in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing encroachment into digital space—and has brought Apple into direct conflict with the autocratic Russian president.
I don’t think Apple has a “Putin problem” at all. They won’t accede to this demand and will pull out of the Russian market. No problem. If this happened with China, then they’d have a real problem.
Audio engineer Neil Parfitt puts his new rack mounted Mac Pro through its paces, shares the results, along with details on his setup and his overall impressions in the video below.
When visiting Apple’s Support site to initiate a device repair, there’s now a mention of an onsite option when scheduling a repair. “Look for an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Genius Bar. In select locations, onsite service may be available.”
Onsite repairs from Go Tech Services appear to be available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas.
I’m curious about the pricing model. Obviously, there’s an extra fee for these services.
Start off with the two videos embedded below. One is a “livestream”, showing a quick run through of a bit of Oceanhorn 2. It’s reminiscent of a Pixar short.
The second is an Apple Arcade commercial that’s just plain fun.
And last, but not least, jump to the Apple home page and check out the animated Apple Arcade additions. Don’t forget to scroll.
Customers who have AirPods Pro that also purchased an AppleCare+ protection plan for $29 appear to be able to receive free replacement tips for their AirPods Pro.
Multiple MacRumors readers have reported being provided replacement tips at no cost after going through Apple’s support repair steps for the AirPods Pro.
The proposal is embedded in this GitHub repository. Easy read, short and clearly written.
From the linked ZDNet explainer:
Apple engineers have put forward a proposal today to standardize the format of the SMS messages containing one-time passcodes (OTP) that users receive during the two-factor authentication (2FA) login process.
And:
The proposal has two goals. The first is to introduce a way that OTP SMS messages can be associated with an URL. This is done by adding the login URL inside the SMS itself.
The second goal is to standardize the format of 2FA/OTP SMS messages, so browsers and other mobile apps can easily detect the incoming SMS, recognize web domain inside the message, and then automatically extract the OTP code and complete the login operation without further user interaction.
Basically, the goal is to automate the process, to have your device enter the code automatically, rather than you having to copy and paste it. Seems to me, in the past when this standardization was raised, there was a security concern about taking the human out of the middle of this process. Was that concern unfounded?
