“After 16 years at Apple, countless keynotes, product launches and the occasional PR crisis, I’ve decided that the time is right for me to step away from our remarkable company,” wrote Dowling. “This is something that has been on my mind for a while, and it came into sharp focus during the latest — and for me, last — launch cycle. Your plans are set and the team is executing brilliantly as ever. So, it’s time.”

In a statement, Apple said of Dowling’s departure: “Steve Dowling has been dedicated to Apple for more than 16 years and has contributed to the company at every level through many of its most significant moments. From the first iPhone and App Store to Apple Watch and AirPods, he has helped tell Apple’s story and share our values with the world. Following another successful product launch, he has decided to leave Apple to spend some much deserved time with his family. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy that will serve the company well into the future. We’re grateful to him for all that he’s given to Apple and wish him the best.”

The move comes right after Apple hosted its annual fall event last week at its Cupertino headquarters, launching the iPhone 11 and its latest iteration of the Apple Watch. Marketing head Phil Schiller will take over Dowling’s role in the interim, and sources said the company will be considering both internal and external candidates to take over the position.

This is an incredible bit of news. I will miss Dowling. I’ve known him for the entire time he was at Apple, and he’s always been very upfront, honest, and helpful. All the best.

It’s interesting that Apple is looking internally and externally for a replacement. With Apple the way it is, I think it would be very hard to find someone outside that could fill that role the way Apple expects it to be done. I honestly don’t know if that would work out for them.

Engadget:

You might have rolled your eyes when Apple mentioned that the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro could do “slofies,” but the company is taking things slightly more seriously. Apple has applied to the USPTO for a trademark on the term “Slofie” in terms of “downloadable computer software for use in capturing and recording video.” Don’t worry, it’s not trying to own the cultural landscape — rather, this is largely to prevent app developers and phone makers from ‘borrowing’ the term for their own features.

The word is silly and unlikely to catch on but Apple is CYAing just in case.

Great job. 62 games in the list so far. Trying them out, feels like infinity.

Of all the services, Apple Arcade feels like the most no-brainer of no-brainers.

Dieter Bohn really nailed this Apple Watch Series 5 review. Great production values, lots of detail, all clearly explained.

Hollywood Reporter:

The ad-supported, direct-to-consumer platform will be called Peacock and launch in April 2020 with a lineup of more than 15,000 hours of content, including exclusive library titles like Parks and Recreation and originals including reboots of Battlestar Galactica, Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster. Peacock will take center stage during NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics in 2020 when the entire NBCUniversal fold will get behind the platform with a massive marketing push promoting the service, with originals set to launch after the Games.

Ad supported. This like the Hulu model, with two pricing tiers, one with ads, and a premium version ad-free?

Peacock will be the exclusive streaming home for both The Office and Parks, with other library titles set to debut at launch on the service eventually becoming exclusive to the platform. Those titles — nearly all of which are from studio counterparts Universal TV and UCP — include 30 Rock, Bates Motel, Battlestar Galactica, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cheers, Chrisley Knows Best, Covert Affairs, Downton Abbey, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Friday Night Lights, House, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, King of Queens, Married … With Children, Monk, Parenthood, Psych, Royal Pains, Saturday Night Live, Superstore, The Real Housewives, Top Chef and Will & Grace.

That’s a huge back catalog, with lots of movies as well. Going to be interesting to watch Apple TV+ build a service from scratch. Definitely a long game. I expect some consolidation over time, as the limits of consumer pocketbooks are reached.

Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica:

A municipal broadband service in Fort Collins, Colorado went live for new customers today, less than two years after the city’s voters approved the network despite a cable industry-led campaign against it.

And:

The Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), of which Comcast is a member, donated $815,000 toward a campaign against the ballot initiative. The Chamber of Commerce also opposed the plan. Comcast didn’t participate in the campaign publicly, but the company would have been the main beneficiary of a vote against the municipal option.

In all, the industry-led opposition spent more than $900,000 fighting the ballot question, while the pro-broadband group led by residents spent about $15,000.

This is a huge win. What fair-minded person would vote against such a service, a service that levels the playing field for all people in the community, gives far more value than Comcast was offering.

More of the same, please.

Halide:

Every year, cameras including those in your iPhone become far more powerful thanks to both hardware changes and accompanying software processing. This is a machine learning camera.

It’s 2019, and your camera isn’t just a module that takes a photo anymore. Cameras compose images from dozens of exposures, mixing and matching pixels from various frames, changing the output creatively and intelligently to ensure you get an image that looks, ironically, more faithful to what we see. All of this means that with fairly modest changes in hardware (except for the new ISO ranges), the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro appear to deliver one of the biggest leaps in camera quality in iPhones yet.

If you’re a serious amateur or professional photographer, the 11 Pro will be of great interest to you. This technical readout goes into a lot of details of the cameras on the new devices.

Follow the headline link for the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max review. But watch the video embedded below for the visuals.

I especially appreciate Nilay Patel’s voiceover explanation of Smart HDR and the mention of Deep Fusion, a software update for low light that is said to be coming later this year.

All-in-all, a terrific video to watch if you are interested in the iPhone 11 Pro camera.

And don’t miss the pictures Matthew Panzarino took on his trip to Disney World with the iPhone 11 Pro, especially that Night mode pic of Winnie the Pooh, inside a dark ride, with no flash.

Follow the headline link, tap iPhone 11 or iPhone 11 Pro, then pick a color. Tap the side arrows to step through the gallery for that model/color combination.

Next, tap the Compare models button to get to the compare page. Tap the tabs at the top to compare specs.

I found this useful. But check out the URL. “experience.apple”. I’ve not seen that one before.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Digital compasses like the one inside the new Apple Watch Series 5 and iPhone 3GS and later rely on a magnetoresistive permalloy sensor called a magnetometer to detect levels of magnetism.

And:

Apple warns that bands with magnetic clasps may cause interference with the built-in compass.

It’s an edge case, but if you prefer Apple Watch bands with magnetic clasps (such as Leather Loop, Milanese Loop, and Modern Buckle), be aware they might mess with the compass.

Solid move, Tim. The discount applies to:

• Current and Veteran members of the US Military, National Guard and Reserve
• Immediate family members who reside in the same household

Looks like the discount is across the board. Check this tweet, and this one.

TechCrunch:

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: iPhone 11’s Night Mode is great. It works, it compares extremely well to other low-light cameras and the exposure and color rendition is best in class, period.

Given the similarities in models, (more on that later) I mainly used the iPhone 11 Pro for my testing, with tests of the iPhone 11 where appropriate. I used the iPhone XS as a reference device.

There are going to be lots of iPhone 11 reviews in the coming days and weeks but I expect many of them will be similar to this one. Apple has another huge hit iPhone.

BoingBoing:

The Mr. Creosote sketch from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life went viral this weekend after director Quentin Tarantino was alleged to have said it’s the only scene in film he was ever disturbed by. Watching it, it struck me that I’d never actually seen the whole thing, and that you might not have, either.

I read somewhere, perhaps Michael Palin’s autobiography, that under the hot studio lights and the long, technical takes, the food matter on the set began to reek and one of the extras vomited for real.

I haven’t seen it since it originally came out and I have no intention of watching it ever again – that’s why I didn’t embed it in this post. But some of you might enjoy it. Fair warning: Tarantino is right.

One Zero:

Nerds have always been defined by their passion, and passion can be a wonderful thing. But passion seems to turn so bad so quickly. There’s an oft-used adage, “No one hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans,” which also happens to have been a line I used to hear verbatim about Star Trek fans, too. I mean, Game of Thrones’ final season wouldn’t be loathed by so many if they hadn’t adored the series first.

For the first time since high school, I have felt genuine shame in telling people I am a nerd. When I have had occasion to tell someone I’m a Star Wars fan, I immediately feel the need to qualify it by adding, “but I’m not one of those crazy assholes you hear about.” I love Game of Thrones, but I can’t think of the series at all without also remembering all the hate spewed about the final season. There are an increasing number of things I used to enjoy that feel tainted by the hate other so-called fans feel for them, and it’s getting harder and harder to separate the two.

It’s hard to argue with this. Maybe it’s because I’ve “aged out” of my former low-level nerdiness but while the article points out “…there is more nerdy love in this world than hate,” it also makes the point that, likely because of the internet, “love is quiet, and hate is loud.”

AppleInsider:

Apple has secured another Emmy award for Apple Music’s ‘Carpool Karaoke: the Series,’ with the iPhone maker continuing to win accolades from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences ahead of the launch of its subscription video service, Apple TV+.

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards honor outstanding artistic and technical achievement in various TV and program genres. While the Primetime Emmy Awards are better known and are the main awards, the Creative Arts version recognizes other elements of show production and types of content not served under the Primetime accolades.

This isn’t the first time the show produced for Apple has received a Creative Arts Emmy award. In 2018, the show won the category of Outstanding Short Form Variety Series, the same category as this year’s repeat performance.

It’s a show I’ve never warmed to but congratulations to everyone at Apple involved in it.

Reuters:

Apple will launch a legal challenge on Tuesday to a European Commission order to pay 13 billion euros ($14.4 billion) in Irish back taxes in a landmark case in the EU’s crackdown on tax avoidance by multinational companies.

The iPhone maker is expected to send a six-man delegation headed by Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri to the two-day court hearing at the Luxembourg-based General Court, the EU’s second highest court.

In August 2016, the Commission said tax rulings by Ireland in 1991 and in 2007 had artificially reduced Apple’s tax burden for over two decades, effectively making it illegal state aid.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager pointed to a 0.005% tax rate paid by Apple’s main Irish unit in 2014 as an example of the unusually low payments by the company.

For better or worse, this is a case Apple will likely lose.

The Verge:

The next generation of Wi-Fi has been trickling out over the past year, but this week, its launch is going to accelerate. The Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization that oversees implementation of the Wi-Fi standard, is launching its official Wi-Fi 6 certification program. That might sound boring, but it means the Wi-Fi 6 standard is truly ready to go, and tech companies will soon be able to advertise their products — mostly brand new ones — as certified to properly support Wi-Fi 6.

What matters is that Wi-Fi 6 has a bunch of tools allowing it to operate faster and deliver more data at once, so the speeds you actually get will be higher than before. Those gains will be most noticeable on crowded networks, where the efficiency improvements will make up for the higher Wi-Fi demands.

5G won’t be ready for at least another 18 months but this is ready on the new iPhones this Friday.

New York Intelligencer:

Fifth Avenue Version 1.0 was, despite its success, an imperfect retail space. The above-ground cube was beautiful, but the there was often a line at the door, because the staircase and the elevator could take only so many people at a time. That was especially true on, say, a holiday-season Saturday, when the store itself reached capacity. Once you made your way in, you were—despite the light coming down through the glass cube—pretty clearly in a subterranean space. Not awful; just kind of basement-like.

The principal changes, in this renovation, address that dramatically. Most significantly, the floor has been lowered, items like a ceramic tile has been installed, and the roof elevated, adding about 8 feet to the ceiling height. (Most of the clearance was reclaimed from a parking garage below.) The newly raised plaza has been perforated with a grid of round skylights that will bring sunlight down into the store. Eighteen of them, which Apple’s people are calling “sky lenses,” have stainless-steel bezels, mirror-finished, and they’re raised above the plaza, sort of like shiny mushrooms. Chris Brathwaite, senior director for Apple retail and design, tells me that they’re meant to foster “sitting, selfies, and reflection,” which seems extremely likely to pan out.

The Fifth Avenue Store will always be my favourite. I spoke to Steve Jobs and his wife outside the location five years before Apple opened it. He was looking at the plaza and pointing things out to his wife. He knew then what the store would look like. I hope I get to revisit this store in the near future.

If you are interested in Apple’s new Apple Watch Series 5, here’s a bit of fun.

Follow the headline link, scroll through all the eye candy, until you get to a section labeled Apple Watch Studio.

Tap that pride-outlined button labeled “Create your style”. This is the latest and greatest take on stepping through the cases and bands (don’t miss the Side view button) to get a sense of all the styles and colors, to home in on your custom Apple Watch.

Next up, open the link on your iPhone, scroll down again, this time stopping at the section labeled “See Apple Watch Series 5 in AR”. Go ahead and tap the “View in AR” button.

You can drag the virtual Apple Watch to a new location, and walk around to get a better view. If you’ve got long enough arms, you can even get the Apple Watch onto your arm and take a screenshot.

Have not yet figured out a way to change the model. Ping me if you figure that one out.

Apple, keeping the whimsy alive.

Jessica Dolcourt, CNET:

One day, 5G will become the new standard for data speeds, but for now, growth is slow and the coverage sporadic and limited. While Samsung says it already sold 2 million 5G phones, roadblocks litter the way between early adoption and mass use.

5G isn’t even close to ready for prime time. The current rollouts require you to be physically near (within feet) of a transceiver to get the top speeds. Move away from the transceiver and your speed drops significantly. And, obviously, if you live in the suburbs or beyond, it’ll be years before those transceivers make it out to your neck of the woods.

As Apple has shown time and again, they are patient, waiting until they can deliver a superior experience before they release a new product. 5G is just not there yet.

Apple has time. And they’ve got plenty of work to do, both in absorbing Intel’s modem business (which they acquired in July) and in incorporating that technology into a carrier-agnostic 5G modem that won’t overheat in the hot summer sun.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

At its event last week, Apple previewed a new version of Filmic Pro running on the iPhone 11 Pro. It was a compelling demo with the app able to record from multiple cameras simultaneously, like recording the front and back camera together.

If you haven’t seen this demo, take a minute to watch that part of last week’s Apple event. The demo starts at about 1:27:06. It’s short.

What really struck me, and the subject of Benjamin’s post, is the ability of Filmic Pro to record both the front facing camera and the selfie camera at the same time. A very specific use-case, true, but if you have that need, this is a big deal. And, I suspect, there are movie makers who will add this to their bag of tricks and we’ll start to see the double-camera effect make its way into indie features.

The multi-cam recording relies on new API introduced in iOS 13. At the WWDC session on the subject, Apple stressed that this required significant reworking of the hardware pipeline of their devices, but that the necessary changes have been made in the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and the new iPad Pro models.

If you have one of those existing models, take a read through the linked article.

Lots of great hooks. RIP, Ric.

AV Club:

Nearly 25 years after bringing his iconic The Far Side strip to an end, Gary Larson seems to have come around on this whole “internet” thing. The cartoonist has previously pushed back against any digital reproductions of his work—presumably because he was single-handedly keeping the calendar industry alive and the big, hardcover Far Side collections have become family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation—but now the official Far Side website has been updated with what appears to be new art and a message about a “new online era of The Far Side” coming soon.

This is the best news I’ve read all year. I’m one of those who have the big, hardcover Far Side collection books (literally, 20lbs of funny!) and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with after so long away.