The challenge, says Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, was taking the best of the Magic Keyboard, an accessory designed for desktop computers such as the upcoming Mac Pro, which launches in December, and adapting and evolving it for the new notebook.
“People sometimes underestimate how much work goes into a keyboard, and that’s why most keyboards in the industry don’t change for 10 or 20 years,” Schiller said in an interview. “We decided that while we were advancing the butterfly keyboard, we would also — specifically for our pro customer — go back and really talk to many pro customers about what they most want in a keyboard and did a bunch of research. The team took the time to do the work to investigate, research, explore and reinvent.”
It’s always good to hear about these things directly from execs at Apple. I haven’t tried the new keyboard yet, but I’m looking forward to it. For what it’s worth, I’m one of the people that has had no issues with the butterfly keyboard design.
Earlier this year we announced a new way to make Online Grocery shopping even easier for customers – Walmart Voice Order – a service that gives customers the option to add items to their Walmart Online Grocery Cart by simply saying the words.
Today, we’re proud to announce that partnering with Apple, we’ve made Walmart Voice Order available on Siri.
What I find fascinating about this is the mechanics of this deep integration. It’s done using a custom Shortcut:
We are introducing a new Siri Shortcut for Online Grocery. Customers simply ask Siri to start adding items directly to their Walmart Online Grocery cart after they’ve paired their accounts. It feels a little like magic on an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod or in the car with CarPlay.
There’s a video that shows how all this works. It seems really well done, seamless. And it makes me wonder if this corporate integration was what Apple had in mind when they acquired Workflow (the app that became Shortcuts) in the first place.
Disney+ had a rough day yesterday. Lots of technical glitches, completely broken and inconsistent search, made a terrible first impression.
But things did get better. By nightfall, Disney did tame their gremlins and the overall experience was smooth as glass. Solid recovery. This morning, every technical complaint I had was addressed.
As to the integration with Apple’s TV app, depends on where you view it.
On my iOS device or on Apple TV, I did have to jump through a small hoop of connecting Disney+ to Apple TV and logging in to Disney+. On Apple TV, the login allowed me to launch the Disney+ app on my iPhone, tap Allow, and I was in. Easy peasy.
And once I started watching shows, they immediately appeared on the TV app’s Up Next list. Not quite as good as Disney+ or Netflix being native to the TV app, but definitely the next best thing.
As to the Mac experience, the chasm between the TV app and the browser Disney+ experience is pretty wide. Want to watch Frozen in the Mac’s TV app? You’ll need to rent it. Oddly, the TV app seems to pick up on the trending of all the Disney+ movies and shows, but click on them and you get the normal rent option. If I’m missing some way to connect Disney+ to TV on the Mac, please ping me so I can update this info.
As to Disney+ content, there certainly is a lot to love if you are into either Disney, Marvel, Pixar, or Star Wars. Those are the major tentpoles. As is, Apple TV+ definitely comes up short, with its relatively small catalog. That said, Apple TV+ already feels fresher to me, less dependent on nostalgia.
With one notable exception: The glory that is The Mandalorian. Wow do I love that show.
To me, The Mandalorian is like seeing Star Wars through fresh eyes. Beautifully shot, stunning really. Terrific writing, with the comic moments that really warmed me to the original Star Wars trilogy. As I’ve said before, if you have the slightest Star Wars bone in your body, you’ll love The Mandalorian.
Apple on Wednesday released its newest laptop, a 16-inch MacBook Pro, with features all pro users will love.
In addition to the larger display, the MacBook Pro features 8-core processors, up to 64GB of memory, and up to 8GB of VRAM. The computer produces Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz, which is 2.1 times faster than the quad-core 15-inch MacBook Pro, according to Apple.
Something everyone talks about with the MacBook Pro is the keyboard. Apple has developed a new Magic Keyboard with a “refined” scissor mechanism—hopefully this will put to rest all the problems with previous generation keyboards. This keyboard also features a physical escape key and inverted T arrow keys—definitely two welcome changes.
Of course, pros need storage in addition to power, so the standard configurations for the MacBook Pro come with 512GB and 1TB options. If you want to go to the extreme, you can configure the laptop with 8TB of storage.
Apple wasn’t done with power and keyboards in the new MacBook Pro—they also worked on the audio system.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro introduces a completely redesigned six-speaker, high-fidelity sound system designed to bring musicians, podcasters and video editors the most advanced audio experience ever in a notebook. New Apple-patented force-canceling woofers use dual opposed speaker drivers to reduce unwanted vibrations that distort sound. As a result, music sounds more clear and natural than ever before, and the bass can go half an octave deeper. An upgraded high-performance mic array delivers a 40 percent reduction in hiss and an improved signal-to-noise ratio that rivals that of popular professional-grade digital microphones, delivering super-clean recordings that capture even the quietest details.
I can’t wait to hear that.
Pricing for the 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,399 and will be in stores later this week in the US.
Apple also announced that the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR will ship in December. No specific date was given.
In the study presented on Tuesday, IBM says that employees that used Mac machines were 22 percent more likely to exceed expectations in performance reviews compared to Windows users. Employees generating sales deals has 16% larger proceeds from Mac users as well.
Turning to employee satisfaction, the first-of-its-kind study shows that Mac users were 17 percent less likely to leave IBM compared to their Windows counterparts. A team of seven engineers is needed to maintain 200,000 Macs whereas a team of 20 is needed for that number of Windows PCs.
This is interesting but not “news.” Even back when I worked at Apple in the late 90s, Apple knew enterprise Return on Investment (ROI) was significantly higher than Windows in “mixed-use” environments.
Of all the companies to enter the streaming wars, Disney has significant advantages with Disney Plus. It can draw from a deep vault of its own animated and live-action movies and from popular shows on its own cable networks — as well as from company properties like Marvel and Star Wars. And that’s not counting the platform’s slate of original TV shows and movies.
That’s a lot of material: nearly 500 films and 7,500 TV episodes at the time of its debut. Below is our guide to the 50 best titles on Disney Plus, arranged in reverse chronological order with an eye toward variety. As the service continues to build its catalog, this list will change too.
Disney’s back catalog advantage can’t be overestimated.
We have not and never will make decisions based on factors like gender. In fact, we do not know your gender or marital status during the Apple Card application process.
If true, that’s a pretty strong defense against arguments of sexism. Regardless, this has turned south for both Goldman Sachs and Apple. Will this pass as quickly as it ramped up? I suspect it depends on if New York’s Department of Financial Services decides there’s more to this.
Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, went live this morning. I’ve been waiting for this since it was first announced, been looking forward to Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, The Simpsons, and a ton of other content.
Things hit a few bumps right out of the gate. I signed up on my Mac and hit a “Sorry something went wrong. Please try again later.” alert (no comma after the word “sorry”, which gave it an odd tilt in my mind. Tried reloading, logging out and back in, no dice. So I switched over to the iOS app.
On the iOS app, things went a little better, though I did have to do a few retries before I finally got through to the streaming screen. And, just when I started to hear the opening sounds of the first episode of The Mandalorian, an Apple TV alert dropped in front of the app, asking me to connect to Apple TV. Odd that that bit of homework wasn’t taken care of before I started a show, but just a nit. I have to say, if you’ve got a Star Wars bone in your body, The Mandalorian looks great.
I did a search to get a sense of what’s available at launch. Though there’s a lot, there are some surprising omissions. Of course, Toy Story 4 is not there, to be expected, too early. But though Toy Store 2 and 3 are both available, the original Toy Story is not. But wait, did the search again, and there it is.
The Simpsons has 6 seasons available, an odd mix of old and new. That can’t be right. Supposed to be all 30 seasons. Search for Marvel, same thing, many of the movies, but not all. Did the search again and got slightly different results each time. What’s going on with search?
I suspect some missing content will appear over the coming weeks/months. And search is definitely inconsistent, so it’s possible some of the missing content will turn up in future searches. Wondering if the huge demand on opening day is contributing to the odd search results. What’s there is a huge catalog, even with the missing/not missing elements.
Following the November 1 launch of Apple TV+, the streamer is realigning its executive ranks under toppers Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, combining development and current into a single-executive structure.
Kim Rozenfeld is leaving as head of current scripted programming and docu/unscripted content. He will return to his producing roots with a first-look deal at Apple for his company Half Full Productions.
Rozenfeld was one of the first execs hired by Van Amburg and Erlicht, back in 2017. Not clear if he was ousted or left of his own accord.
Ask four-time Grammy-winning producer and engineer Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, Danger Mouse), a question about mic placement, and you’re just as likely to get an answer about the final mix. See, for the laconic Missouri native and former front-of-house engineer, selecting and setting up microphones, and arranging how and where the players will stand during a session is all part and parcel of creating a virtual soundstage that’ll go on to form the basis of a song’s sonic image.
Vance is one of my favorite engineers. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with him on a number of occasions and his commitment to getting things just right is impressive.
This is from a few years ago, but it made its way around the internet over the weekend, thought you’d enjoy. I love the timing of all of this, especially that end cut. Well done.
The internet is a fast acting place. This tweet appeared on Thursday:
The @AppleCard is such a fucking sexist program. My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time. Yet Apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does. No appeals work.
Hansson, who is the creator of web-application framework Ruby on Rails, didn’t disclose any specific income-related information for himself or his wife but said they filed joint tax returns and that his wife had a better credit score, the report said.
And:
New York’s Department of Financial Services confirmed that an investigation was being conducted.
Next up, this tweeted reply from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak Woz:
The same thing happened to us. I got 10x the credit limit. We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets. Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It’s big tech in 2019.
We wanted to address some recent questions regarding Apple Card credit decision process.
With Apple Card, your account is individual to you; your credit line is yours and you establish your own direct credit history. Customers do not share a credit line under the account of a family member or another person by getting a supplemental card.
As with any other individual credit card, your application is evaluated independently. We look at an individual’s income and an individual’s creditworthiness, which includes factors like personal credit scores, how much debt you have, and how that debt has been managed. Based on these factors, it is possible for two family members to receive significantly different credit decisions.
In all cases, we have not and will not make decisions based on factors like gender.
Finally, we hear frequently from our customers that they would like to share their Apple Card with other members of their family. We are looking to enable this in the future.
Andrew Williams, Goldman Sachs Spokesperson
Thinking about this, it could be that there’s truth to these accusations, but it could also be the case that there’s logic to these assessments that we can’t see.
But even if the latter is the case, it does seem to me that Goldman Sachs could do a much better job communicating the logic of their assessments. I suspect, given the public scrutiny, they will reevaluate their process.
This is an article more about supply chain than end users, but it does paint a picture of phenomenal potential for AirPods Pro.
A few tidbits, Yujing Liu from South China Morning Post:
“True wireless stereo will become the next big thing in consumer electronics,” Zhongtai Securities analysts wrote in a new report. It will become the next product that could “create a growth miracle” after the smartphones
And:
Investors believe they are witnessing the emergence of a massive market for AirPods – which sells for as much as US$249 for the high-end version – and other brands of earbuds, with consumer demand worth billions of dollars barely tapped yet.
And:
“There are about 900 million to 1 billion iPhone users worldwide, so the saturation ratio of AirPods among the existing users is not even 10 per cent.”
There’s lots more detail in the linked article, but you get the idea. As big as AirPods have been for Apple, a much bigger wave seems to be coming.
One of the Cold War’s biggest moments began at a routine press conference.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the most momentous events of the 20th century. I remember watching it on TV and thinking, “This can’t be happening. There’s no way they will let this continue. It’s going to end in bloodshed.” Thankfully, it didn’t.
As associate producer for the show SEE, I can tell you the entire cast and crew worked together to challenge misconceptions about #blindness and bring all viewers into our world. Here are some of the ways we did that.
Interesting thread. Nice to hear about all the work they are putting in to it. I’m still not buying the premise though.
Dave and I talk about Apple TV+ and the strategy Apple has for releasing new shows. We also follow-up on some HomePod problems.
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The camera performed very well in our tests in pretty much all areas, but some challenges remain. Still images generally show very good exposure. Dynamic range is very wide in bright light and under indoor conditions, but some highlight clipping is still visible in very difficult scenes. Overall, the iPhone is among the very best for exposure; it’s only in very low light when can’t keep up with devices with larger image sensors, such as the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. Like previous iPhone generations, the 11 Pro Max also scores very well for color and is among the best in this category in all light conditions. A slightly greenish cast is visible in some indoor scenes and in our lab tests, but overall color tends to be very pleasant: a slight yellow cast gives some scenes a warm feel and works very well for skin tones in portraits.
Overall, an excellent review. The iPhone 11 Pro Max got a 124 as a photo score, compared to the second best iPhone, the XS Max, which got a 110.
DXOMARK has the iPhone 11 Pro Max third, behind both the Huawei Mate 30 Pro and the Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro Premium Edition.
Read the review. There’s a lot of detail here, lots of images to bring home specific points.
Apple products are visible in an average of 32 camera shots in each episode of “The Morning Show,” and an Apple logo is visible in roughly one-third of those shots.
And:
In one four-second scene in episode one of the flagship Apple TV+ series, nine Apple products are shown as two characters walk and talk through a newsroom.
Fascinating. The definition of synergy. Apple TV+’s worlds (with the exception, at least to this point, of SEE) serve as ads for Apple products, paint a world where Apple products are part of every person’s day to do. Until I read the WSJ article, I hadn’t even noticed. Subliminal.
Fantastic article on Disney+, on Bob Iger, and on the technology Disney has created to get their media to market.
As I’ve said numerous times, I see three obvious leaders in the coming media wars: Apple (deep war chest, deep commitment), Netflix (huge existing lead, deep brand), and Disney (incredible back catalog, shrewd technology investments).
Of the major new Apple TV+ releases, I saved SEE for last. I wanted the context of the other shows, a sense of the quality level, the production values, before I dove into the world of SEE.
SEE is incredibly immersive. No Apple product placement, no stressors of modern life. Watch the featurette below to get a sense of how this world, supposedly built by a people who have gone blind, was created. Very interesting.
Anyone know why the title is all caps? “SEE”, vs. “See”?
Dramas “See,” “For All Mankind,” “Dickinson” and “The Morning Show” have been greenlit for sophomore seasons. “Morning Show,” led by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, already had a two-season order and is already at work on its next season of 10 episodes.
And:
Sources close to Apple say the service to date has drawn millions of users who are spending on average more than an hour on the Apple TV Plus platform. It’s unclear how many of those are paying subscribers rather than those taking advantage of the service’s seven-day free trial. A knowledgeable source said Apple insiders were impressed by the volume of activity on the platform, which spiked by triple digits this past weekend after the fanfare for the Nov. 1 debut.
Good to have good numbers, but I don’t think bad numbers would stop Apple from renewing these shows, green lighting new projects. It is going to take time to build a catalog with any kind of heft, and time to build up any sort of paid subscriber base.
My two cents? Apple is doing an exceptional job here. The shows I’ve watched so far (including the four that just got renewed) rise to the level of what I’d expect to see on Netflix or HBO.
Adobe Inc. debuted its most important mobile application ever this week when it finally released Photoshop for Apple Inc.’s iPad. But with key capabilities missing, many within the company’s vast fan base have panned the application, prompting the app’s overseer to publicly defend his product.
Scott Belsky, chief product officer of Adobe’s Creative Cloud division, tweeted about the “painful” early reviews for a product his team has worked on for years. Right now in Apple’s App Store, Photoshop for iPad has a user review rating of 2.3 out of 5 stars.
Belsky said on Twitter, “we didn’t do a good enough job distinguishing between “real” (the actual real codebase, so any PSDs can be managed with any # of layers and ppl can use between iPad and desktop) and “full” (every feature that’s on the desktop version on day 1). messaging of strategy always tough.”
I have zero sympathy for him. “Messaging” on this was easy. You guys blew it. Adobe did a poor job of managing expectations from the beginning. Suck it up, take your lumps, do better.
This bug where apps are getting killed soon after they’re backgrounded is driving me nuts. Start a YouTube video in Safari, switch to another app, go back to Safari — and the video loads from scratch and starts from the beginning.
There are many similar examples. Supposedly, this issue was quashed in a new beta, but it was surprising to see it make its way into the wild.
Another widespread issue is the frustration of trying to get HomePod to recognize a second person’s voice. For me, the issue manifested itself when my wife asked HomePod Siri to add an item to the shopping list, something she’s done on a regular basis since HomePod first entered our house a long time ago. But now, all she got was:
Who is this?
And that took us down a wild road of trying to figure out how to get HomePod Siri to recognize her as a person. Now, you might put this off to pilot error, but this problem is pretty widespread. I’ve spent a ton of time trying to solve this problem for my setup, and also helping others fix it for their setup. There’s no shortage of people who can’t get this to work and now have loved ones shut out from the HomePod.
I suspect that the issue at the core of this HomePod problem is a poorly chosen setting, or lack of the proper update. To me, if iOS 13.2 is required for this to work, Siri should say as much, instead of simply saying the unhelpful, “Who is this?” The complexity of the Home app setup is daunting, well beyond the capabilities of a newbie to work through. And there are a lot of settings that have to be “just so” in order for this to work.
I’m not trying to pick on Apple’s developers here. But something does seem amiss. Some say the issue is too much pressure to deliver on too short a timeline. I have no idea. But as a user, I am frustrated.
I love these “data race” videos, where a bar chart is animated over time. Lock in your guesses as to the current top selling artist, ranked by album sales.
Apple took system protection to the next level in macOS 10.15 Catalina by splitting your normal boot volume into two pieces. It appears like a single volume on the Desktop, but it’s really two: one is labeled with the volume’s name, while the other has “- Data” appended to it.
Great explainer on the new boot volume setup, with a side mention of that “Relocated Items” folder alias you’ll likely see on your desktop when you install Catalina.
