To get your head around this headline, watch the video embedded in the tweet below:

A virtual eye dropper in AR that can pick up colors from real world and apply it to smart lights. It feels a bit magical so I used the deluminator sound effect in #HarryPotter movie. Prototyping with Zed Mini from @Stereolabs3D @LeapMotion and @oculus rift. pic.twitter.com/mavpkixN21

— WU SHENGZHI (@Wu_Shengzhi) April 3, 2019

This is a fantastic proof of concept. Though the prototype was developed for Oculus Rift, I see no reason this couldn’t be done on iPhone, or any AR wearable Apple produces.

Patently Apple:

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple relating to a smart charging system for a portable electronic device. The smart charging system includes a magnetized connector and a charging component that can be configured to dynamically attract and repel the connector to and from the portable electronic device.

“Dynamically attract and repel”. That’s very interesting.

And, of course, you had me at MagSafe.

My immediate thought here is that Amazon still does not have a phone. They will never be a first class citizen on iPhone.

Sure, if you have an Alexa device in your kitchen, AmazonPods can rival AirPods in every way possible. But when you leave the house, that picture changes.

AmazonPods won’t have the pairing snappiness of AirPods when Amazon does not own both sides of the connection. Imagine you want to go for a run. Will AmazonPods pair with Apple Watch? Certainly, the connection with iPhone, Apple Watch, etc., will never be as easy as with AirPods.

I suspect AmazonPods will be cheaper than AirPods and will offer advantages when Alexa hardware is on the other end. Will those advantages be enough to pull Apple users from the comfort/snappiness of the ecosystem? We’ll see how this plays out.

CNBC:

Ian Goodfellow, one of the top minds in artificial intelligence at Google, has joined Apple in a director role.

The hire comes as Apple increasingly strives to tap AI to boost its software and hardware. Last year Apple hired John Giannandrea, head of AI and search at Google, to supervise AI strategy.

What does Ian bring to the table?

Goodfellow is the father of an AI approach known as generative adversarial networks, or GANs. The approach draws on two networks, one known as a generative network and the other known as a discriminative network, and can be used to come up with unusual and creative outputs in the form of audio, video and text.

GAN systems have been used to generate “deepfake” fake media content.

I’m assuming the “deepfake” reference here is a red herring. But it does make me wonder how this tech will fit in with Apple’s AI pursuits.

The Cut:

Abigail Disney, 59, is an activist and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker. She is also the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, making her an heiress to the Disney family fortune (she declines to say how much she inherited, but has given away over $70 million since she turned 21). Raised in North Hollywood, California, with three siblings, she has a doctorate from Columbia and currently lives in New York. Here, she talks about the paradoxes of growing up in tremendous wealth.

I fully expected to read this article and absolutely hate the subject but she’s surprisingly honest and down to earth about having access to more money than the rest of us combined.

This is a pretty big get for the Mac App Store.

Here’s a link to the official press release.

The Mac App Store version of BBEdit follows a subscription-based pricing model, US$3.99 per month, or US$39.99 per year.

You can also pursue a perpetual and/or multi-user license directly from Bare Bones, so pick which works best for you. No matter the path, you’ll get the exact same experience.

Either way you choose, BBEdit still doesn’t suck.

Nice detailed review from The Verge. If you are considering buying the new AirPods or prefer the noise-muffling benefits and fit of in-ear earbuds, spend some time reading through this review.

The Powerbeats Pro are pricey at $249.95 and shipping in May.

As an aside, here’s a new commercial showing off the goods.

Oregon Live:

Two Oregon engineering students from China face federal charges in an alleged counterfeit Apple iPhone scheme that cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to court documents.

The men are accused of importing more than a thousand counterfeit iPhones, then sending each phone back to the company, complaining it wouldn’t power on, in exchange for a new phone under Apple’s warranty process.

An incredibly ambitious scam. Wow. Two people returning more than a thousand iPhones. They will pay the price, while the people who ran the ring will no doubt get off scot-free.

Never got a HomePod? Thinking about a second HomePod? Now might be the time.

Farhad Manjoo, New York Times:

Since becoming the first trillion-dollar corporation last summer, Apple has battled a souring assessment on Wall Street. The iPhone is the most profitable product in the history of business, but more than a decade after its debut, pretty much everyone on the planet who can afford one already has one, and many customers see little reason to upgrade.

So now, instead of selling better stuff to more people, Apple’s new plan is to sell more stuff to the same people.

And:

As I watched Apple’s event, I felt the future shrink a little. In its gilded middle age, Apple is turning into something like a digital athleisure brand, stamping out countless upscale accessories for customers who love its one big thing, a company that has lost sight of the universe and is content merely to put a ding in your pocketbook.

Yeesh. Farhad really doesn’t like Apple. While the picture he paints might ring true to many, it purposely misses the remarkable in service to the complaints.

Apple’s health efforts alone deserve prominent recognition. The Apple Watch is an incredible piece of hardware and it has saved many lives by putting a low-end ECG on every buyer’s wrist. That is no small thing.

Add in all the health-related research that Apple’s health initiatives made possible. This is certainly a ding in the universe, a ding that is destined to grow significantly.

How about the remarkable AirPods, with that H1 chip and Hey Siri, small enough to fit in your ear. Again, tip of the iceberg of what’s coming.

And think about all the doors Apple has opened, all the tech folks Apple has birthed and influenced. iPhone begat Android, have no doubt.

Yes, it’s true that the MacBook Keyboard is a stumble. There are other examples where Apple has lost its way. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that shareholders demand growth at all times. That Tim and company have kept their commitment to privacy and continue to develop some remarkable technology while continuing to serve the ravenous growth demands of Wall Street is no small thing.

Microsoft:

Starting April 2, 2019, the books category in Microsoft Store will be closing. Unfortunately, this means that starting July 2019 your ebooks will no longer be available to read, but you’ll get a full refund for all book purchases. See below for details.

While you can no longer purchase or acquire additional books from the Microsoft Store, you can continue to read your books until July 2019 when refunds will be processed.

Nothing but props for the way Microsoft is handling this. What more could you possibly want them to do? They can’t compete with Amazon and Apple and they’ve turned out the lights. And given folks their money back, to boot.

But this does remind me that we own less and less as consumers. More and more, we license our music, rather than own MP3s, discs and LPs. No more daily papers, no more loaded bookshelves full of favorites we loan to friends.

No more fully working copies of Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, or Excel. It’s all licensed goods.

Not that this is even remotely likely, if Adobe went out of business, you’d lose access to Creative Cloud. If Microsoft went under, you’d lose access to Office 365.

Imagine if Tesla went under. Would the software in your car continue to work? Probably. But no more updates. And that self driving mode? Without updates? That’d be scary.

Don’t mean to be a curmudgeon here. But Microsoft just took their books back.

So there’s an article that’s been making the rounds, with the inflammatory title, The MacBook keyboard fiasco is way worse than Apple thinks.

From the article:

Apple keep insisting that only a “small number of customers have problems” with the MacBook keyboards. That’s bollocks. This is a huge issue, it’s getting worse not better, and Apple is missing the forest for the trees.

The fact is that many people simply do not contact Apple when their MacBook keyboards fail. They just live with an S key that stutters or a spacebar that intermittently gives double. Or they just start using an external keyboard. Apple never sees these cases, so it never counts in their statistics.

I struggled with whether to post this article and, if I did, finding the right take. My issue with the article was the small sample size.

But, I’ve experienced exactly what this article focused on: The “r” key on the very MacBook Pro on which I’m typing this occasionally refuses to work. But it happens so rarely, and responds to my hammering the key back into normalcy, that I just live with it.

Enter John Gruber. From the linked post:

Hansson used the headline “The MacBook Keyboard Fiasco Is Way Worse Than Apple Thinks”, but I suspect it’d be more accurate to say that it’s way worse than Apple admits. They don’t need to look at the number of support incidents from customers. Almost everyone at Apple uses MacBooks of some sort. They know from their own use of the product how problematic reliability is.

And there’s the crux. Apple eats their own dog food, as the expression goes. Numbers being what they are, they must be acutely aware of this problem.

So what’s next? Will we see a MacBook event later this year with a new keyboard? One based on an entirely new (or old and reliable) keyboard design? Time will tell.

Not sure I’d use this bit of open source, but I do think it’s a fascinating concept. I wonder if Apple would ever consider adding this to the Mac’s Touch Bar preferences.

We’ve posted about this before, but one of those things that’s good to be aware of, worth the refresh.

I’ve spoken with a few people who’ve had the issue. One comment:

Well it was fine to begin with but my problem just started after several months usage, so it might have been after an update.

It was not a simple process to get it replaced.

Many hoops were jumped through!

— Don McAllister (@donmcallister) April 3, 2019

Hopefully, this is a software issue introduced by the latest iOS update.

Not a fan of Apple not acknowledging hardware issues. Once an issue surfaces more than a few times in forums, that should be enough for Apple to address it in some way. I get that there’s a liability issue for Apple, that taking responsibility can affect the outcome of future lawsuits. But if a user brings in their iPad Pro with a stuttering issue, and a link to the linked MacRumors article, shouldn’t that be enough for:

• A hassle free repair or swap out.
• Interest within an Apple Store to get their hands on a malfunctioning device they can send back to Apple Park so they can get to the heart of the matter.

As is, many hoops were jumped through.

Straight from the horses mouth (an article in the Times):

The New York Times and The Washington Post did not join the effort, despite intense lobbying from Apple. Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The Times, said the problem with the app, from his perspective, was how it “jumbled different news sources into these superficially attractive mixtures,” making it difficult for users to know which publication they’re consuming.

And from this Vanity Fair article:

Publishers hope they’ll get exposure to new audiences. But any potential new or existing direct subscriber to a publisher will no longer be willing to pay a healthy monthly fee to occasionally access that top content while supporting the rest of the newsroom. They’ll just cherry pick what they want via News+, and Apple will shave off a few cents for the publisher while owning all the data, customer relationship and power.”

And:

That would appear to be the primary concern of the two major News+ holdouts: The New York Times and The Washington Post. Apple badly wanted to lock down at least one of them, and it began a vigorous courtship of the papers last spring, not long after the Texture deal closed and Apple’s plans for its content bundle were beginning to materialize, according to people familiar with the matter. “They put a tremendous amount of pressure on,” one source said. “Eddy Cue was in and out of their offices really trying to woo them.” Cue’s elevator pitch, according to people familiar with the discussions, was, “We’ll make you the most-read newspaper in the world.”

And:

“We’ve been pretty deliberate about saying that the best place you can experience journalism is through a relationship with a news provider,” Meredith Kopit Levien, the Times’s chief operating officer, told me. “So far for us, that has meant a direct relationship with users. The more we have a relationship with users, the better we think our business will be, and the better the experience that we can provide to them.” Kris Coratti, a Post spokeswoman, said, “Our focus is on growing our own subscription base, so joining Apple News+ did not make sense for us at this point. Apple has been a very good partner—we will continue collaborating with them on other ongoing projects and expect to do many things with them in the future.”

My issues with Apple News+ all feel solvable. Like a great piece of hardware saddled with early beta software, you know a better experience is just an update away.

I think Apple News+ has huge potential. At its core is a commitment to privacy and the avoidance of fake news. Every single issue I have relates to interface.

Obviously, the issues keeping the Times and Post at arms length go beyond interface, to user data sharing and revenue split.

As Apple evolves the interface design, I think they’ll see an influx of new users. As that installed base of paying users grows, so grows Apple News+’s leverage. You’ll know they’ve truly succeeded when both the Washington Post and the New York Times come to the table.

OneZero:

It’s hard to believe, but a scant 20 years have passed since viewers were unshackled from their televisions. For decades, NBC told us Thursday nights were “Must See TV” and ABC insisted it was “TGIF” Friday, so we did as we were told and stayed home to watch Friends, Seinfeld, and Full House.

Then, in 1999, two former employees of Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Graphics (SGI), Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay, introduced a revolutionary new product: a digital video recorder, or DVR. The product, named TiVo, seamlessly recorded shows, paused live television, and allowed users to fast-forward through the commercials. Sure, you could achieve similar wonders with a VCR, but the process was so laborious that few would try. Plus, TiVo included an algorithm to make suggestions about the shows we might want to watch.

TiVo was a giant leap into the digital age that can be traced to the ambitious “Orlando project”.

I first used a TiVo when I moved to Nashville in 2002 and it was incredible. I don’t think I’ve gone without a DVR since.

Pixelmator Photo is a powerful, beautiful, and easy to use photo editor for iPad. It features a collection of nondestructive, desktop-class photo editing tools, a set of stunning, machine learning-enhanced film emulation presets, a magical Repair tool to remove unwanted objects from your photos, support for editing RAW images, and more. Simply put, it’s the best way to edit your photos on iPad.

There is no company in the industry that knows photos like Pixelmator. The pre-order price for Pixelmator Photo for iPad is $3.99—that is a no-brainer. Take a look at all of the features on the company’s web site.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

New AirPods pair just as easily as the originals which still feels neat. Upgraders will probably want to rename the new AirPods though. My original AirPods were called ‘Zac’s AirPods’ so the new AirPods defaulted to ‘Zac’s AirPods #2’ since the new ones were paired before the old ones were removed.

I removed the original AirPods from my Bluetooth device list, then dropped the #2 from the new AirPods.

In my experience (colored by a run down battery, no doubt), the new AirPods paired much more quickly and consistently than Gen 1.

As to renaming, I went through the same process Zac did, but added Gen2 to my new ones to keep both around, each with a distinct name. Why? I know I will use the old ones at some point and want to avoid the name collision.

“Hey Siri” support is the most noticeable new feature of second-gen AirPods for upgraders. Activating Siri before required a double-tap on an AirPod or using Hey Siri on a paired device. Activating Siri with a voice command on AirPods is really natural and fast.

And:

“Hey Siri” on new AirPods even works with the Apple Watch when you’re away from your iPhone as long as there’s a network connection (like Wi-Fi or LTE). I’ve been testing this with indoor and outdoor runs and I’m hooked.

And:

Being in motion and activating Siri with a voice command without breaking your stride or worrying about where your wrist is positioned is just one less point of friction.

Hey Siri on AirPods is a home run feature for me. That, snappier connects, and way longer talk time made the new AirPods well worth the cost of admission.

Side note: AirPower or not, I am happy to have the charging case. Plenty of Qi options to choose from.

The Verge:

I will say that for $10 a month, News Plus is the most comprehensive magazine subscription service on the market. (Scribd is a very solid alternative for non-iOS users.)

If you’re thinking about subscribing, that — and only that — is what you should be focused on: getting a service designed mostly for magazines.

I have to agree here. If you are into magazines, Apple News+ is a tremendous value.

But as a news source? Early days still.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think there’s a lot of high-value, news-related content on the site. But the user interface makes getting to those stories a challenge.

Part of the issue is the primitive search features. And the like/dislike/block functionality being hidden in the kitchen junk drawer that the share icon has become. [UPDATE: Swipe right to dislike a story. Not obvious to me, given the multiple columns, but it’s there. And also in the junk drawer.]

My sense, also, is that the News+ interface is constrained by what cross-platform features are currently supported by Marzipan.

Add in the complexities of Apple News+ being one step removed from the news cycles. My sense is that breaking news has to wait to make an appearance until the next sync cycle between Apple News and the news origin.

As I said, it’s early days still. If you are into magazines, the value is clear. If you are looking for breaking news, or want a highly tunable experience, stay tuned.

Thinknum:

What does Siri really know about sports, the weather, and stock? Not too much, and that’s a problem for Apple. There’s nothing worse than asking a digital assistant the score of a game only to get a wooden answer that you could have Googled in half the time.

Well, no. I would definitely be more than happy with a wooden, but correct, answer. But that aside:

Based on hiring data tracked over the past few months, Apple appears to know this. That’s why the company is hiring writers and engineers with a focus on particular subject matters to help make Siri more interesting and enticing to use.

I think that last little bit is on the mark. Apple wants Siri to be more interesting and entertaining. And, I think, more human.

The new positions suggest that the company is putting together subject-focused teams of both engineers and writers to not just improve Siri’s knowledge base, but do so in a way that’s editorial and entertaining with a particular voice.

No matter the reasons, good to see Apple’s Siri hires trending upwards. Interesting article.

I’m guessing they had a backup plan in case they lost: “Got Swatch?”

Release Notes is an event meticulously designed to help you grow your online business. At its heart are practical talks on a range of business topics, but those who have attended past events know that Release Notes has more to offer. Plenty of networking time is built into the schedule, and organized activities are designed to stimulate great conversation and build new relationships. Whether you are a developer, designer, marketer, salesperson, or founder, Release Notes can help you take your next step with your business.

I love this conference so much. It’s not just the speakers, but the attendees and the events organized around the conference. It’s a great time and you learn a lot. The conference runs from October 3-5 in Mexico.

CNBC:

Apple has cut prices for several of its most important products on its official Chinese online store by nearly 6 percent. The price cuts affect products including iPhones, iPads, Macs and AirPods, according to Apple’s online store in China.

The original CNBC headline was “Apple slashes iPhone prices in China”. The price cuts were less than 6 percent. Significant and newsworthy, yes. But slashes seems an overreach to me.