Deadline:

Paramount Pictures and Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures have set Patrick Osborne to develop to direct Monument Valley, hoping to launch a live action/CG hybrid family franchise based on the Ustwo Games’ international mobile game phenomenon.

“Monument Valley is a one of a kind experience, at once small in its meditative, simple gameplay, as well as enormous in its sense of history,” Osborne said. “I’m privileged to be handed the reins to Ida’s mysterious kingdom, to play in her world of impossible architecture where seeing things differently is everything. I am thrilled to bring this unique world to theaters with the talented storytellers of Paramount and Weed Road.”

I loved this game but I’m not clever enough to imagine what kind of movie they could make from it.

Jalopnik:

This is one of the most common shared experiences in all of automobilia: You’re outside a car, trying to get in. The person inside the car is attempting to open the door lock at the same time you’re pulling the handle to open the door. A comedy of errors ensues, with each of your actions canceling out the other’s, leaving you both pulling handles or locking buttons over and over, in a seemingly never-ending mechanical stalemate. Eventually, someone yells for someone to let go, already, and the nightmare ends. But why must it be this way? What’s going on?

Why can’t you pull the door handle while the door is being unlocked? Why would such a fundamental mechanism of a car have such a frustrating flaw? Well, the answer is simple mechanics. (Except, as we found out, there’s nothing simple about door latches.)

I had no idea car door locks were so insanely complicated.

Open Culture:

You’ve probably seen one, or at least a parody of one, somewhere along the way–formulaic and harmless surf’n’fun films sold to teens, set in a world with very few adults, and most probably starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello as the central will-they-or-won’t-they romantic couple. These weren’t troubled juvenile delinquents like ones played by Marlon Brando or James Dean–these were squeaky clean kids. These weren’t movies about teens like John Hughes films, he points out, but they were sold to teens.

Anyone else remember these movies? As a kid, I loved watching them but I saw one a few years ago and started to watch it out of nostalgia before I realized, they are really quite awful.

First things first, I do hate this headline. Perhaps that’s my reverence at work.

That said, here are a few chunks from this article about Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ upcoming book that are the focus of this point:

Mr. Jobs fathered her at 23, then denied paternity despite a DNA match, and gave little in financial or emotional support even as he became a god of the early computing era.

And:

In passage after passage of “Small Fry,” Mr. Jobs is vicious to his daughter and those around her. Now, in the days before the book is released, Ms. Brennan-Jobs is fearful that it will be received as a tell-all exposé, and not the more nuanced portrait of a family she intended.

And:

On the eve of publication, what Ms. Brennan-Jobs wants readers to know is this: Steve Jobs rejected his daughter for years, but that daughter has absolved him. Triumphantly, she loves him, and she wants the book’s scenes of their roller skating and laughing together to be as viral as the scenes of him telling her she will inherit nothing.

I do think the article is worth reading and that the headline is accurate, if not emotionally manipulative. I’m torn about reading the book. I know what I’ll find, and I’m not sure how much truth about Steve Jobs I want to absorb. But truth is truth and I’d be hypocritical if I ignored the sour for the sweet.

Ironically, this will be one of the first books I order in the newly rendered Apple Books.

Gruber is on a roll. In this Daring Fireball post, he digs into the iOS “Shake to Undo” gesture, an inelegant solution to a reasonably common and complex problem.

My favorite bit:

Here’s an anecdote I heard years ago about how Shake to Undo came to be. Scott Forstall charged the iOS team with devising an interface for Undo — everyone knew the iPhone should have it,1 but no one had a good idea how to do it. One engineer joked that they could just make you shake the iPhone to invoke it. Forstall said he loved the idea, and what was proposed as a joke has been with us as the Undo interface ever since.

My biggest issues with Shake to Undo are that it breaks flow (you have to stop whatever you were doing and shake your device like a maniac) and requires a physical action that is difficult for many people. I’d love to see this addressed as part of the architecture, as Undo is for the Mac.

Marc Edwards continues to add to his library of vector speed runs. He mostly works in Illustrator, but the techniques translate into most object drawing applications. Bookmark and pass along.

Here’s a link to an Imgur album with the complete set of images. Be sure to tap the load more images button at the bottom of the page to see them all.

To me, this is one of the great artifacts of the computer age. Every little bit of this computer was assembled by hand, a genuine product of Woz and Jobs’ imagination and determination.

Terrific images, take a look.

When I first encountered this article, I thought it was simply a one-sided view of typical employee migration from one tech company to another. But a few nuggets:

In 2018 so far, LinkedIn data shows Apple has hired at least 46 people who worked at Tesla directly before joining the consumer electronics juggernaut. Eight of these were engineering interns. This year Apple has also hired former Tesla Autopilot, QA, Powertrain, mechanical design and firmware engineers, and several global supply chain managers. Some employees joined directly from Tesla, while others had been dismissed or laid off before joining Apple.

So this means Apple is hiring, still growing, and Tesla attracts worthy talent.

Field joined Tesla in 2013 from Apple, where he was a VP of hardware engineering at Apple. At Tesla, he was responsible for development of new vehicles there, including the Model 3 electric sedan, which is the company’s first electric vehicle designed for the mass market. Earlier this month, John Gruber reported that Field had returned to Apple to work on Project Titan.

Add to the equation, a major hire attracts people who looked up to that person, appreciated working with them, followed them from Tesla to Apple.

Regarding competition with Apple for talent, a Tesla spokesperson said, “We wish them well. Tesla is the hard path. We have 100 times less money than Apple, so of course they can afford to pay more. We are in extremely difficult battles against entrenched auto companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so of course this is very hard work.”

I found this a very interesting read.

This started with Twitter user Paul Alvarado asking @AppleSupport why Siri could not do something basic and useful like turn on the flashlight.

@AppleSupport Why can’t I ask Siri to turn my iPhone flashlight on or off? Seriously, it’s inexplicably inane limitations like this that make me deeply despise Siri. cc @tim_cook @pschiller @cue

As you can see, Paul cc’ed Tim, Phil, and Eddy.

When I read this, I recognized the usefulness of the request. Asking Siri to turn on the flashlight would be an incredibly useful feature, especially when you are on your hands and knees trying to look under the couch for the only battery in the house that of course rolled under there.

So here’s the kicker, Phil Schiller’s response to the tweet:

iOS 12 “Turn on flashlight” pic.twitter.com/FtAjdwrOG2

— Philip Schiller (@pschiller) August 22, 2018

Yup. In iOS 12, Siri can turn on the flashlight. If you’ve got the beta, try it for yourself. And props to Paul Alvarado for asking the question and for his appreciative response to Phil.

Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels:

These images came from the OS, running on actual hardware; I didn’t use virtual machines at any point. I ran up to 10.2 on an original Power Mac G4, while a Mirror Drive Doors G4 took care of 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. I used a 2010 Mac mini for Snow Leopard and Lion, then a couple different 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros to round out the rest.

This is simply remarkable work. Here’s a link to the screenshot library home page.

One vivid memory this brings to mind: I was working at Metrowerks, makers of CodeWarrior, and I had the chance to play with the first beta of Mac OS X. It was jarringly different. Finder windows used this multi-column browser approach, very different from the disclosure triangle, single-column of the original Finder. The colors were different, the window controls were skeuomorphic, had depth to them.

To be honest, I thought the beta was ugly. But over time, I got used to the change, and grew to love the power, functionality, and especially, the accessible Unix underpinnings of the new Mac OS.

Remarkable stepping through all these screenshots, watching macOS subtly evolve over time.

John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

For most of the modern era at Apple, the company’s Mac portable lineup has been simple, dating back to Steve Jobs’s 4-square product matrix in 1998. iBooks and PowerBooks. Then, in the Intel era, plastic MacBooks and aluminum MacBook Pros. Lower-priced for consumers, higher-priced for pros.

The original MacBook Air threw a monkey wrench in this simple lineup, though. When it debuted in 2008, the MacBook Air was a premium portable, starting at $1799 with an 80 GB hard drive, and going up to $3098 for a version with a faster CPU and 64 GB of SSD storage. It was a different type of premium portable than a MacBook Pro, focused on a remarkably svelte (for the time) form factor. When Steve Jobs revealed that first MacBook Air by pulling it from a manila envelope on stage at Macworld Expo, there were gasps.

And:

This is one of those columns where I started with one idea, but in the course of writing it, drastically changed my mind. I find none of these scenarios satisfying, but I started out with the idea that the one thing Apple wouldn’t do is simply update the MacBook Air, as we know it or very similar, and just give it a retina display. I’ve been saying this for a few years now, that I saw the future as just MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and that the MacBook Air remained in the lineup only until the 12-inch MacBook could drop in price.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that something along the lines of the “just put a retina display in the MacBook Air” scenario seems the most likely.

These callouts are just snippets from an unusually long Daring Fireball column. When the MacBook Air came into being, it represented a huge change, filled a hole in the market. But the MacBook and MacBook Pro have taken advantage of the technology and material science gains MacBook Air brought to the market.

What will a new MacBook Air look like? Good question. Gruber’s take does a nice job exploring the tree of possibilities.

Texas Monthly:

To explore the inner workings of the heart is to discover a form and a function that can inspire thoughts of the divine in the most determined atheist. It is a marvel of strength, efficiency, and tenacity. About the size of a human fist—your fist, custom-designed to your unique size—it nestles perfectly at an angle deep inside the chest, protected by the rib cage and a cushion of lungs. Weighing about eight to eleven ounces, about the same as a running shoe, it has four hollow chambers, two atria and two ventricles that look, in pictures, like ancient temples carved out of caves. Those hollows hold perfectly regulated amounts of blood. The heart also has its own system of valves, muscles, and electrical currents that make sure nothing goes wrong. In fact, it’s easy to believe in the heart as a perpetual-motion machine: it beats 60 to 100 times per minute, about 115,000 times a day, more than 2.5 billion beats in an average lifetime.

This is a book excerpt. It’s visceral and fascinating. It has me hooked.

CNBC:

Recently, job-search site Glassdoor compiled a list of 15 top employers that have said they no longer require applicants to have a college degree. Companies like Google, Apple, IBM and EY are all in this group.

This just does not ring true to me. I know a number of people who work at Apple and Google without college degrees. And many more with degrees unrelated to the field in which they work.

I’d like to see the quote from Apple or Google citing a specific policy change. Ping me if you know more about this.

Microsoft Office blog:

As of the Office 365 for Mac September 2018 update, macOS 10.12 or later is required to update to the new version of the Office client apps for Mac and receive new feature updates.

macOS 10.12 is more commonly known as macOS Sierra. If you don’t want to update to Sierra, you’ll still be able to get support. You just won’t be able to update to the new shiny coming in September.

As part of the upcoming September 2018 update, Office 365 for Mac users on macOS 10.12 or later will receive an update from the Office 2016 for Mac client to Office 2019 for Mac in order to maintain access to new feature releases and updates.

If you use Office, keep this in mind. I’ve always found Microsoft’s penchant for embedding calendar years in a release name an odd branding choice. In a few weeks, you’ll jump from Office 2016 to Office 2019.

No matter, good to know what’s coming.

This is not really news, any more than the fact of Apple holding a September event is news. Both are connected, obviously, and both come like clockwork. But I did find this interesting:

> My mom is an import / export broker and told me they were notified that Apple has reserved almost all air freight going from China -> USA for the upcoming weeks. And the note was “Product Launch” so either they’re placing iPhones in the states, or there is something else happening. On aside note, for individuals eager to venture into the freight industry, enrolling in specialized educational institutions like freight broker training schools in Dallas is an excellent first step. These programs offer comprehensive courses designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of freight logistics. From understanding industry regulations to learning how to efficiently manage transportation routes, these schools provide valuable insights that can greatly enhance career prospects. Graduates leave with a deep understanding of both the practical and theoretical aspects of the freight brokerage business, positioning themselves as qualified professionals ready to excel in this dynamic and growing field. Professional houston trucking services may help boost the growth and expansion of various businesses.

And, from the comments:

> The funny thing is, those iPhones seriously add up in terms of value per cubic meter. > > Imagine a regular living room, maybe 6 x 6 meters, with 2.75 m ceilings. That’s 99 cubic meters of space. An iPhone X box is 16x5x8.8 cm which translates to 704 cubic cm, or 0.000704 cubic meter. > > So your average living room can hold over 140,000 iPhone X boxes. That’s a cool $140M of retail value right there.

Imagine the value of a cargo plane filled with iPhones.

This is an excellent list. Nitpick away, but I’m betting there’s something new and delightful for you here.

My three favorites from the list:

• Spirited Away: If you’ve never experienced a Studio Ghibli film, this is a great starting point. On my personal list of all-time great films. From the writeup:

Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki seems unable to make anything but masterpieces; still, this epic tale of a young girl separated from her parents and thrust into a magical world, stands as his greatest — not only for its transporting visuals but for its bracing sense of adventure, terror, resilience and heroism.

• Michael Clayton: Talking truth to power, personal growth, with just a sprinkling of a “caper” film, this is George Clooney at his best. From the writeup:

If movies can be evaluated as sums of their parts — script, performance, design, editing and sound — then this legal thriller is sheer perfection.

• Children of Men: This was made in 2006, but it might well be talking about today. From the writeup:

Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of the P.D. James novel evinced the perfect balance of technical prowess, propulsive storytelling, complex character development and timeliness when it was released in 2006. But its depiction of a dystopian near-future – what we ruefully now call the present — has proved to be not just visionary but prophetic. Its predictive value aside, it stands as a flawless movie — a masterwork of cinematic values at their purest, with each frame delivering emotion and information in equally compelling measure.

I love this list, not just for the movies it surfaces, but for the descriptions. Well done.

Mitchel Broussard, MacRumors:

We’re just under one month from Apple’s annual September iPhone event, which should also see the debut of the Apple Watch Series 4. Alongside each new edition of the Apple Watch, Apple typically updates its array of band accessories with new colors and styles. Echoing shortages from previous years, it appears that numerous Apple Watch bands have either been removed or are currently unavailable to purchase on Apple.com ahead of next month’s event.

Very curious what Apple has up its sleeve for the next Apple Watch. Thinner? Smaller bezel? New sensors? Improved heart-rate monitoring?

Gadgets360:

Netflix is not letting people sign up for its service via its app for iPhone and iPad. The Netflix iOS app also isn’t allowing people to log in with accounts where the subscription has lapsed and no credit or debit cards are linked to the Netflix account, Gadgets 360 has discovered. This means there is currently no way for users of iOS devices to pay for Netflix via the payment method saved on their Apple ID, unless they signed up to do so in the past.

Tricky situation. Netflix is choosing to keep the 30% Apple would normally take as a fee, and sacrifice the ability for users to sign up for accounts in iOS.

I just signed up for a new Netflix account in iOS Safari, so that still works. Presumably, Apple does not get 30% of that fee.

I’m guessing Apple will not kick Netflix off the iOS App Store. Existing subscriptions continue to be a cash cow for Apple and the availability of Netflix is politically important for iOS and Apple TV.

Will this set a precedent for other, Apple burdened subscription services? Interesting.

UPDATE: From this AppleInsider post:

Since Aug. 2, testing of the idea has been taking place in 33 countries, Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch. Some of the bigger test markets include Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, and South Korea.

The company in fact said that it’s been testing since June, but began in just 10 countries. All new or resubscribing Android users have been unable to use Google Play for billing since May.

Apparently, you can still sign up for a new account in the US, but seems like this move is in the works. [H/T Mike Wuerthele]

Making good on his promise to give his entire fortune away. Respect.

Verizon Wireless’ throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules.

“County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon,” Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. “This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire’s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.”

When the fire department called to ask them to stop throttling the connection, Verizon demanded they upgrade their plan.

Assholes.

Today we’re happy to announce a major new version of Dark Sky for iOS and Android. This update is one of the biggest overhauls in Dark Sky’s six year history. It represents over a year of effort, incorporating countless suggestions from our users as well as the experience we’ve gained building our weather service from the ground up these past years.

I love this app and I trust what it says.

Bustle:

Fitness trackers and wearables are super handy for helping to monitor our exercise habits, especially when we’re trying to get more active time in. And if you use step counting apps, you know how helpful they can be for keeping track of your fitness goals. But how accurate is your step counting app, actually? As it turns out, the accuracy of your phone’s step-counting app might not be super on point — but that might actually be a good thing.

According to a study published last year in the Journal of Sports Sciences, your iPhone’s step count is probably not the best pedometer ever, but what’s great about that is, you’re likely walking more steps than your phone is accurately tallying.

Obviously, no one should rely on step counters for accuracy but they can help regardless.

Joe Steel:

In conversations I’ve had over the past week, it’s become clear that there’s nothing very self-explanatory about Mastodon as a social network, and that in many ways Twitter users are both prepared and unprepared for the experience. There are a lot of things that are similar in concept, but there’s more to it when it comes to how it’s a “service” that can really throw people for a loop.

Mastodon is being touted as a “replacement” for disaffected Twitter users but there’s absolutely no chance of that happening if only because of the confusion surrounding how Mastodon works and is used.

Wired:

Back in 2012, a Seattle-based startup named FiftyThree launched a drawing app designed exclusively for iPad, with a name that sounded like it was designed specifically for an Apple crowd: Paper. Despite its simplicity and also because of it, Apple crowned it the iPad App of the Year. Tech writers described it as “the next great iPad app”, “a superbly designed sketching app,” and “a fresh canvas ready and waiting for your ideas, inspiration, and art.” FiftyThree later expanded to include an iPhone app, an optional subscription called Paper Pro, and Paste, a collaboration app.

Today FiftyThree announced its apps and team have been acquired by WeTransfer, a cloud-based file transfer company with headquarters in Amsterdam and Los Angeles. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but WeTransfer said it had acquired the company’s entire patent portfolio and all assets for its apps. FiftyThree’s executive team and product teams will stay on board for now. As for the future of FiftyThree’s suite of apps, including Paper, which has 25 million users, the company says the apps will live on with “increased investment and support.”

I interviewed the FiftyThree principals back when Paper was announced. It’s a beautiful app and I hope it continues to have a place after this acquisition.

AppleInsider:

This has happened to you. While you’re very busy at work or on a project, you somehow come across an interesting article on the web and you just cannot read it yet. Certainly that’s at least partly because you’re conscientious and you know you’re busy, but there’s more. If you read it now, you would hurry and this is something you want to actually enjoy.

So read it later instead. Find this piece on your Mac at work and then read it later on your iPad. You could bookmark things but get Pocket or Instapaper instead.

I’m a big fan of both of these apps (according to the Pocket email I get at the end of each year, I’ve been in the top 1% of their readers for the past 3 years!) and love squirrelling away articles for later reading.

Digital Content Next:

In “Google Data Collection,” Professor Douglas C. Schmidt, Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, catalogs how much data Google is collecting about consumers and their most personal habits across all of its products and how that data is being tied together.

A dormant, stationary Android phone (with the Chrome browser active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour. An idle Android device communicates with Google nearly 10 times more frequently as an Apple device communicates with Apple servers.

A major part of Google’s data collection occurs while a user is not directly engaged with any of its products. The magnitude of such collection is significant, especially on Android mobile devices

This is obscene and I bet it triggers some sort of (completely ineffectual) Congressional investigation. H/T to that nice young man John Gruber.

Back to My Mac will not be available on macOS Mojave. You can get ready now by learning about alternatives for file access, screen sharing, and remote desktop access.

An alert popped up on my Mac this morning warning that the Back to My Mac service was ending soon and linked to a support article on Apple’s Web site. It’s too bad, I really enjoyed the service, but it’s not like you don’t have options—Apple details everything in the support document.

Lyft has completed more than 5,000 self-driving rides through its ride-hailing app, the company said on Tuesday, as it aims to become a serious competitor in autonomous driving while its biggest rival, Uber, retrenches.

I always said that I wouldn’t want to take a self-driving Lyft ride, but I changed my mind. I would really like to see this technology in action.

You can share files you’ve synced to iCloud with friends and colleagues who have an Apple ID using the step-by-step guide below. Whether you’re sharing from a Mac or an iPhone, you’ll be able to give people one-way access to the file, or allow them to modify the document if you’re collaborating on a piece of work.

Great tip!