Over the weekend, got into a Twitter discussion on iOS 13 and the improvements it brought to CarPlay. Thought I’d share two posts that lay out the details of what’s changed.

If you have CarPlay or are considering a new car purchase and want to learn more, here are two articles to make your way through:

• Dan Moren, SixColors, 13 Features of iOS 13: CarPlay improvements.

• Zac Hall, 9to5Mac, from back in June, Previewing CarPlay in iOS 13: Light mode, new and improved apps, more.

Patently Apple:

Although the invention could apply to a wide range of future products such protective covers, advanced versions of Apple’s Smart Keyboard, clothing, furniture, wearable electronic devices, and other items using fabric, the focus for this invention is a future smart fabric Apple Watch band.

And:

According to Apple’s invention, a fabric-based item may include fabric formed from intertwined strands of material with embedded circuitry.

And:

The circuitry in the fabric-based item may gather input from a user and from the user’s surroundings. The circuitry may supply visual output, audio output, tactile output, and/or other output.

And:

In the I/O segment of system 8 may include Sensors such as temperature sensors, pressure sensors, force sensors, gas sensors (e.g., carbon monoxide sensors), particulate sensors, moisture sensors, light sensors, magnetic sensors, capacitive sensors (e.g., sensors for touch or proximity measurements), gesture sensors, image sensors, proximity sensors, touch sensors, button sensors (e.g., switches coupled to movable button members or button regions),

This is a fascinating, far reaching patent.

LA Times:

The iPhone and its App Store changed gaming. And not always for the better. Yet now with Apple Arcade, a game subscription service launching this week, Apple wants to tweak and elevate the conversation surrounding games.

A long overdue course correction that attempts to attract attention away from free-to-play diversions, Apple Arcade succeeds where the game industry has failed. Apple’s iTunes recognized a weakness of the mainstream music industry, namely a fear to collectively embrace digital music. Now Apple Arcade acknowledges what’s long been one of the game industry’s most stubborn, less becoming traits: a lack of willingness to take a risk and put its best and most adventurous content forward.

I don’t know if Apple Arcade will “kill free-to-play” gaming as some have predicted but it is a shot across the bow to those developers who use that model to make money.

CNET:

What will it take to crack the glass on the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro? That’s the question I’m asking myself after putting these phones through eight different drop tests, each time onto hard concrete. Try as I might, the glass on these phones just wouldn’t crack. But that doesn’t mean the phones were damage-free.

I take all these tests with very large grains of salt because everyone’s “Oh crap! I dropped my phone!” situation is different but they can still be interesting. I will admit it’s painful to watch so many brand new phones get destroyed. I wih I had that kind of money.

Hodinkee:

Because last year’s Apple Watch Series 4 was such a massive leap forward, consensus before last week’s event was that this year’s release would be much more minor. In hindsight that feels foolish and the Apple Watch Series 5 is yet another big jump in fit, finish, and overall experience.

I’ve spent a week with the Apple Watch Series 5 Edition in the new titanium case, and it’s given me an awful lot to think about.

Hodinkee is a site that reviews very high-end watches. Predictably, they really like the latest version. Thanks to John Kordyback for the link.

Jalopnik:

You’ve seen the annual “Top Safety Pick” car ads and the crash-test videos, with cars slammed into objects as their own debris pours down around them like a snowstorm. Perhaps the latter even convinced you not to buy a car you so desperately wanted.

But that’s just a small part of determining which vehicles on the market are safe and which fall short—a long, messy process full of bulk vehicle purchases, bulk trips to the salvage yard, and automakers’ attempts to go back and fix what they didn’t get right the first time.

I find this kind of stuff fascinating. There’s some really interesting details into how the major organizations perform their testing.

Imgur:

Our own little oasis about 20 minutes outside of downtown Portland. 30ft in diameter. 730 sq ft w/ an additional 200 sq ft loft. The exterior structure is a kit that we built (most yurts in the US are manufactured by about 10 different “yurt companies”). Interior was completely custom.

Check this project out. My wife has always wanted a Yurt in our backyard but I thought it was silly. Looking at this beautiful design makes me think it’s less of a silly idea – but we’re still not doing it.

Digg:

Seven minutes of high-octane mayhem.

Both the cop and the bad guy are incredible riders.

The Verge:

Apple’s new iOS 13 update adds a new privacy measure that requires apps to get your consent in order to use your device’s Bluetooth. After installing the latest version of iOS, trust me when I say you’ll be surprised by the number of apps asking for Bluetooth permission the next time you open them. Some might seem very strange (like Dunkin’ Donuts in my case), but others probably won’t make you think twice about giving the thumbs-up.

The reason Apple implemented this is because Bluetooth has enabled companies to sneakily track your location over Bluetooth by using beacons in stores, shopping malls, and even on popular city streets if they’re placed within range of a place you’d walk by.

I’m very glad Apple is shining a light on this sleazy practice.

Federico Viticci, MacStories:

It was only natural (and well-deserved) for the iPad to begin advancing in a parallel direction to iOS – informed and inspired by it, but also capable of growing on its own and tackling problems that an iPhone doesn’t have to solve.

From this standpoint, there are two sides to iOS 13: on one hand, an underlying tide that raises all platforms, featuring a distillation of themes Apple comes back to on an annual basis; on the other, a fork in the road, opening a new path for the iPad’s next decade. And against this backdrop, a single question looms large:

Can Apple balance both?

This is a remarkable read, just chock full of detail on every aspect of iOS and iPadOS 13. As you make your way through it, tap the table of contents icon in the upper right corner (looks like a 2×2 grid of squares) to get a sense of the overall structure, and to jump to a particular chapter that interests you.

This is incredible work.

Jason Snell has been working on an update to his book, Take Control of Photos (update coming soon), and pulled together this overview of the iOS 13 Photos app.

Not a long read, definitely worth your time if this is your first experience with the updated Photos app.

Reddit:

I am running both iOS 13 beta (it gets publicly released in a few hours) and Spotify beta. iOS 13 is required, as well as the latest version of Spotify from the iOS App Store for this to work.

Here’s a link to an image, showing this at work.

If you use the Spotify app on iOS 13, give it a try.

Ars Technica:

Apple has begun pushing iOS 13 and watchOS 6 to supported iPhones and Apple Watches. Both updates bring substantial changes—especially iOS 13—and mark the beginning of a new annual update cycle.

While it may take some time, most users should see iOS 13 become available in the Settings apps on their iPhones or iPod touches by the end of the day today. The watchOS update will pop up in the Watch app on iPhones that are connected to an Apple Watch.

iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS releases are still on the way, though.

Take this free advice for what it’s worth: DO NOT install iOS 13 today on any devices you NEED to be stable and not buggy. Just wait until next Tuesday for iOS 13.1.

TidBITS:

Do you have an aging iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch that you want to keep using—and keep covered by AppleCare? The good news is that if you previously bought AppleCare+ for your device, you can now extend that coverage indefinitely on a monthly basis when the plan ends. Here are two things to keep in mind:

You cannot extend your coverage until your existing AppleCare coverage ends. Once it ends, you have 60 days to renew your coverage.

Apple will not notify you when your AppleCare+ coverage ends, unless otherwise required by law.

Set yourself a reminder to do this once your AppleCare+ expires.

Om Malik, Wired:

About 72 minutes into the annual iPhone launch event, Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller invited Sri Santhanam to come onstage and talk about the brand new A13 Bionic chip found inside all three of the new phones.

And:

By the time Santhanam was done talking, all I could think of were the numbers. Apple’s new chip contains 8.5 billion transistors. Also, there are six CPU cores: Two high-performance cores running at 2.66 GHz (called Lightning), and four efficiency cores (called Thunder). It has a quad-core graphics processor, an LTE modem, an Apple-designed image processor, and an octa-core neural engine for machine intelligence functions that can run a trillion operations per second.

This new chip is smarter, faster, and beefier, and yet it somehow manages to consume less power than its predecessor. It’s about 30 percent more efficient than last year’s A12 chip, one of the factors that contributes to the extra five hours per day of battery life in the new iPhones.

And this on the competing chips from Qualcomm, Huawei, and Samsung:

Those chips have some faster components and more of them, so you may think those chips perform better than Apple’s. But the reality is that we hardly use the entire capacity of the chips that come in our mobile devices. One or two high-performance cores are enough for most of what we throw at our phones. Apple’s six-core design might seem lagging compared to the eight-core processors from the competitors, but really, the two big processors on its chip easily outperform its rivals’ designs.

This is a terrific read. No special hardware knowledge required.

Apple:

Apple today previewed the new Apple Fifth Avenue, an entirely reimagined space beneath one of New York City’s most recognized landmarks. With its distinctive, luminous glass cube rising above a newly designed public plaza, Apple Fifth Avenue is ready to resume its place at the heart of one of the world’s most vibrant creative communities.

Now nearly double the size of its original version with a higher ceiling and more natural light, Apple Fifth Avenue is a brighter, more expansive space, and the perfect stage for customers to discover and try Apple’s newest products. A new Forum will be home to free, daily Today at Apple programming, which kicks off Saturday with a special series that captures the creative spirit of New York. The area dedicated to Geniuses has also doubled, allowing the team to dramatically increase service capacity. It remains the only Apple retail location open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Follow the headline link, check out those images. Those circular stairs are a marvel.

Great food for thought from The Verge’s Dieter Bohn. Read it, it’s well written, not too long.

Bottom line, it does not seem an unreasonable conclusion that Apple Arcade will impact the App Store, at least in the Games section. The question is, will that impact be seismic?

Will Apple Arcade have a similar impact to music streaming, where all-you-can-eat replaced one-at-a-time song sales?

Will the Apple Arcade grow into the thousands, even tens of thousands? Or will Apple limit the number of games in the catalog?

One thing that is clear to me: For the consumer, Apple Arcade is a big win. Not only for value, but for the ability to live in a world free of scams and the pressure to make in-app purchases.

Interesting.

You might want to clear the decks around 10a PT, 1p ET, 6p London time. There’re a lot of games to be played.

As we shared yesterday, here’s a nice list of games to get you started, and a growing list of all the games on Apple Arcade so far.

While you wait, now might be a good time to dig out your Xbox One, PS4, or MFi game controllers and charge ’em up.

Once you dig in, ping me with your absolute favorite games.

T-Mobile:

Today, T-Mobile announced it is the only wireless provider to offer 3% Daily Cash on Apple Card. Starting Friday, September 20, all customers will receive 3% Daily Cash when they use Apple Card with Apple Pay at any T-Mobile store. Combine that with T-Mobile’s current offer — 50% off the latest iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max with 24 monthly bill credits and an eligible trade-in — and customers score serious savings on the latest and greatest.

First things first, if you’re considering a carrier switch, this might be worth considering. As I read it, you have to go to a T-Mobile store. Not clear if this works if you start service on-line or over the phone.

There’s also this:

And this is just the beginning, as T-Mobile will bring Apple Pay to the T-Mobile app and t-mobile.com.

“Will bring”. Not clear when this will happen, but once it does, you should get the 2% Apple Pay bonus when you pay your monthly bill, so add that to the equation.

One final thought on the 3% list. I wish there was an easy way to tell if a merchant I was about to pay offered the 3% bonus. Seems to me, there should be a way, on the Apple Card Wallet page, to tell me the bonus of the nearby terminal. That’s prompt me to use Apple Card in that situation. As is, I have to remember the list of 3% offerers.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Apple Watch is still a maturing product category for Apple, and that shows in the adoption data. According to CNBC, Apple says a whole 70% of Apple Watch customers are buying their very first model. That means that 30% of Apple Watch customers are actually upgrading from older models, but Apple hasn’t fully tapped into the upgrade pool yet.

Here’s a link to the CNBC article. Great catch by Zac.

70% of Apple Watch buyers are new to Apple Watch. That’s incredible growth. And it’s before Apple Watch Series 5 hits the street.

Doomed.

Vanity Fair:

As he exits Apple’s board, the Disney chief reminisces about his unlikely friendship with its mercurial founder—and how their radical visions aligned to save two companies.

If anyone else had said that Apple and Disney might have merged, I wouldn’t believe them.

The Verge:

Let’s just get this out of the way: if you’re at all interested in high-quality mobile games and you own an iOS device, Apple Arcade is a no-brainer. The subscription service launches tomorrow for $4.99 a month, and it’s making its debut with a huge range of excellent games from renowned studios like Ustwo, Simogo, and Capy Games. If there are even two titles that pique your interest, that’s worth the price of admission.

The biggest problem with the service right now, though, is that it can be overwhelming. There’s just so much. It can make figuring out where to start almost paralyzing. For the past few days I’ve been digging through the Apple Arcade lineup to pick out the 10 games I’d recommend most, spanning a number of genres and play styles.

Looks like there’s a little something for almost every kind of gamer. Can’t wait to try it out tomorrow.

Austin Mann:

The iPhone 11 Pro announcement was really about one thing: camera.

The big camera features I was most interested in testing were obviously the Ultra Wide (13 mm) lens, the new Night mode, Capture Outside the Frame, and things like iOS 13 photo management, editing tools, etc.

It’s been a blast to shoot with and test this strong camera upgrade and I’m excited to share the results.

As usual, Mann got an early review unit to take on his travels. As expected, the camera performed above and beyond his expectations.