Mark Gurman, Power On:

Steve Jobs used to say that consumers don’t know what they want and trust Apple to make decisions for them.

And:

That way of thinking has helped make Apple one of the most successful companies ever, topping $2 trillion in market value and selling billions of iPhones, iPads, Macs, AirPods and Apple Watches. Those products wouldn’t be the hits they are today without Apple’s approach. But it has also created problems for the technology giant.

One major example:

It took Apple about four years and several lawsuits before it admitted and fixed serious problems with its “butterfly” keyboards introduced in 2015.

All this leads to the point raised in the headline:

For iOS 15’s release this year, Apple planned to make some of the biggest changes ever to the design of the Safari web browser on the iPhone. The fundamental shift: moving the address bar from the top of the screen to the bottom, erasing nearly 15 years of muscle memory.

This past week, after mounting complains from users, including by me in Power On, Apple reversed course, making the new design an option in the Settings app. With that change, Apple will offer users two distinct interfaces for a core app, a rarity in the iOS world.

Interesting take. Mark’s Power On newsletter is a consistently good read.

I can’t remember the last time Apple made such a dramatic interface change in response to feedback from the user base. Of course, this assumes that feedback from users, as opposed to internal design feedback, is what caused the change.

This is some fun back and forth between the @AppleTV twitter team, representing Ted Lasso, and the opposition, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, representing the Wrexham AFC soccer team (which they own in real life).

Follow the headline link, read the whole thing. The mildest of spoilers on the latest Ted Lasso episode, so be mildly warned.

Side note: Interesting to me that the twitter account is @AppleTV and not @AppleTVPlus. Both of these are real Twitter accounts, but the former has a much bigger following. Simpler, for sure, and everyone knows the intent. But part of what makes the Apple TV+ branding a bit confusing. No matter, good stuff, worth a look.

That’s a lot of cheddar. Worth it, no doubt.

The handwritten part:

Julian, Your generation is the first to grow up with computers. Go change the world! steven jobs, 1980

Interestingly, it was also signed by Apple’s angel investor and former CEO, Mike Markkula.

Who was Julian?

“Julian” was a teenager at the time, son of entrepreneur Mike Brewer who had negotiated exclusive distribution rights for Apple products in the UK and later became the first Managing Director of Apple Computer (UK) Ltd. Julian recalls, “I was sitting in my bedroom writing games on my Apple II when Dad called me down to meet some guests. To my amazement it was Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula. I had the manual with me and only later understood how rare it was for Jobs to sign anything, let alone to write an inscription like this. He got on well with Dad, so I feel the inscription was made with care.”

The winning bidder was Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who also bought David Gilmour’s black Strat back in January 2019.

Follow the headline link for a zoomable image and more background on this historic document.

Follow the headline link, scroll to explore various services. There’s the Apple Services ToS, down at the bottom.

Note the various grades. Only two “A” grades, one of them for Duck, Duck, Go.

If you’re on a desktop machine, hover over any of the terms for a tool-tip with more detail. Tap or click around to explore. An interesting project, started in 2012.

Related note: Here’s a link to Apple’s official Privacy Policy, last updated June 1st, 2021.

Back in July, I posted about a machine made by ASML, The most important machine in Apple’s universe.

From that post:

The complex machine is widely acknowledged as necessary for making the most advanced chips, an ability with geopolitical implications. The Trump administration successfully lobbied the Dutch government to block shipments of such a machine to China in 2019, and the Biden administration has shown no signs of reversing that stance.

ASML makes the chip lithography machine that TSMC uses to produce Apple Silicon.

The tweet embedded below starts a thread filled with data, images, and video on ASML and that oh, so vital machine. A fascinating read.

1/ What *exactly* does ASML sell?

Its key product is an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machine, which uses advanced light technology to "print" tiny circuits onto Silicon wafers.

Only ~50 are made a year and ASML has a near monopoly on the machine technology. pic.twitter.com/M6xL6QiDzX

— Trung Phan 🇨🇦 (@TrungTPhan) August 22, 2021

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Motherboard:

For more than a year, an active member of a community that traded in illicitly obtained internal Apple documents and devices was also acting as an informant for the company.

Wow!

On Twitter and in Discord channels for the loosely defined Apple “internal” community that trades leaked information and stolen prototypes, he advertised leaked apps, manuals, and stolen devices for sale. But unbeknownst to other members in the community, he shared with Apple personal information of people who sold stolen iPhone prototypes from China, Apple employees who leaked information online, journalists who had relationships with leakers and sellers, and anything that he thought the company would find interesting and worth investigating.

This is a riveting read, a look inside Apple’s efforts at preventing leaks, figuring out who is doing what leaking, and how they are getting their information. A riveting read.

There’s a movie in this!

Apple:

Seventeen-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the sole hearing member of a deaf family – a CODA, child of deaf adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur) and working on the family’s struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and soon finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams.

The writeup above does a solid job setting up the plot for this new Apple TV+ movie. But the devil is in the details, and those details delivered. If emotional family drama is your bag, take a look at both videos embedded below. Or just head over to Apple TV and start watching.

The writing was tight, the performances, well, extraordinary. Top notch cast, led by Best Actor Oscar winner Marlee Matlin. For me, right up there with Ted Lasso for escapist, feel-good viewing.

CNBC:

Macy’s is joining forces with the owner of Toys R Us to bring an assortment of toys, games and other gadgets for kids to more than 400 of the department store chain’s locations and online.

The Toys R Us shop-in-shops in Macy’s will roll out next year, the companies announced Thursday.

Are you a Toys “R” Us kid? Did you ever go to Toys “R” Us to buy Lego sets, video games, or a new bike?

Glad to see this brand survive, even if only for nostalgia’s sake. Strikes me as good for Macy’s, a way to keep their stores relevant, or at least make better use of their space, adding a draw for parents and kids.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Netflix has confirmed that it is now rolling out Spatial Audio support to its iPhone and iPad applications. This enables an immersive experience using directional audio filters, and it has been a long time coming to Netflix users.

If you’ve not played with Spatial Audio, you’ll need AirPods Pro or AirPods Max. If you’ve got one or the other, connect them, then head to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the info button (the “i” in a circle) and scroll down.

In iOS 14, there’s a toggle to turn Spatial Audio on, with a link to try it out. In iOS 15, it’s slightly different, just a button to take you to the experience.

As far as the Netflix interface goes, it seems like it is still rolling out. Not clear to me how you can tell what shows support it or how you can tell if it is currently enabled, other than the obvious change in your ears.

This is a cool addition. I’m definitely looking forward to having this experience throughout the ecosystem, on my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Wondering when other apps will join the party.

Apple press release:

Apple Card, created by Apple, is the only card issued by Goldman Sachs, which ranked highest among the Midsize Credit Card segment in the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study and received a chart-topping score of 864. Apple Card and issuer Goldman Sachs also ranked highest in the Midsize Credit Card segment across all of the surveyed categories, including interaction, credit card terms, communication, benefits and services, rewards, and key moments.

And here’s the link to the original J.D. Power study. That second chunk of bar chart data, all the way at the bottom, shows the results. As Apple points out, Apple Card is the only card issued by Goldman Sachs, so that top position is Apple’s.

I’ve used Apple Card since day one and have to say, it’s been a real pleasure to use.

Follow the headline link, check that first image, showing the two new options for the Safari address bar in the latest iOS 15 beta.

Personally, I think both of these approaches are head and shoulders better than what we had before. I love that Apple listened to all the beta tester grumbling/feedback.

Still waiting for my iPad to find the beta 6 update to see what changes look like there. I’m hopeful we’ll see a similar redesign on iPadOS 15.

This is an incredible list, filled with tiny details, many of low discoverability. Even the most powerful of power users are sure to find a tip or two that are new to them. Perfect to pass along to folks who are new to iOS and who love digging in to the details.

Ben Feuerherd, New York Post:

A New York robbery crew that targeted drug runners hit the jackpot late last year, netting $500,000 in cash after tracking a targeted criminal’s car — with a hidden Apple Watch, new court documents show.

The seven-person crew based in the Hudson Valley pulled off the major score in January 2020 after their alleged leader, 30-year-old Darren Lindsay, bought an Apple Watch and linked it to his AT&T account.

And:

The thieves put the watch underneath the bumper of a car that belonged to a drug-runner they suspected was flush with cash, the documents say.

The suspects then tailed their mark, who was not identified, from Orange County to a hotel parking lot in Hartford, Conn., the feds said.

This is eerily similar to this story, where an iPhone was used as a tracking device.

Shaking my head.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple’s next Apple Watch Activity Challenge is set to take place on Saturday, August 28th, in celebration of national parks worldwide.

Apple:

Let’s take a day to appreciate the beauty of national parks all over the world. On August 28, earn this award by recording a hike, walk, run, or wheelchair workout of a mile (1.6K) or more with any app that adds workouts to Health.

Added this to my calendar.

From the PairPlay app home page:

PairPlay transforms your AirPods into a two-player adventure! You and your partner split the AirPods (one takes the left, one takes the right) and you hear OPPOSITE sides of the same story.

To get a sense of this at work, watch the video embedded below.

This is but a taste of what’s possible here. What strikes me is the power of that immersive audio, like the radio shows back in the days before TV came to dominate. In the same way that the best casinos online to withdraw without sending any documents offer players a seamless, hassle-free experience, this audio augmented reality unleashes the power of your imagination, removing barriers to fully engaging with the content.

For game players working remotely, imagine a dungeon crawler that used separate audio tracks, customized for each player, that allowed fully remote collaboration to solve puzzles and make your way through the game.

As is, PairPlay seems like a lot of fun, especially if you’ve got kids.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Once ‌FaceTime‌ screen sharing has started, you can navigate to any app that you want to share with the callers. A sharing icon will remain in the top-left corner of the screen to indicate that ‌FaceTime‌ screen sharing is active, and you can tap it to reveal the ‌FaceTime‌ control panel.

Another delightful nugget coming with iOS 15, especially useful for folks who are tech support for their families.

Link to AirPods Pro on the US Apple Store.

Link to AirPods Pro on Amazon.

That $69.01 difference (about a 28% discount) is pretty huge. Does it say anything about the rumored September Apple event?

Spoiler rumor ahead:

Mark Gurman hinted at a new AirPods release. He specifically did not mention new AirPods Pro. But (pure speculation on my part) this does feel like inventory clearing pricing. Is it because the new base level model, in Mark’s words, offer “a design closer to the AirPods Pro, including a new in-ear shape and shorter stems”.

Even if the price discount is business as usual, nothing to do with the September event, it’s interesting to wonder what will become of the AirPods Pro at that event. Will Apple introduce a new base model that hews closer to the Pro design and leave the AirPods Pro as is?

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Apple has always allowed you to disable Night Mode for low-light shots, but the process isn’t fast. If the iPhone detects that Night Mode should be used, the camera automatically enables it.

Only then can you turn off Night Mode for that shot or shooting session. Fire up the camera after a break, and Night Mode will once again default to on when low light is detected.

And:

Turning this setting on tells your camera to keep Night Mode off if you’ve disabled it for a shot. You can still use Night Mode when you need it by manually engaging it in the Camera app, but you make the decision now instead of the iPhone.

Follow the headline link for the details on the new Night Mode default setting. Good to know that setting exists. More to the point, once you upgrade to iOS 15, worth spending time in the “Preserve Settings” section of the Camera settings to remind yourself what’s there.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today released a new version of its iCloud for Windows app, with the 12.5 update adding a new ‌iCloud‌ Keychain password manager app for Windows users.

And:

With the new password management option, those who are running Windows can access their ‌iCloud‌ Keychain passwords and can add, edit, copy and paste, delete, and look up usernames or passwords.

And:

New ‌iCloud‌ password extensions for Microsoft Edge and Windows Chrome work in tandem with the password feature, letting ‌iCloud‌ passwords be autofilled on a Windows machine just like in Safari.

A few things to unpack here:

Interesting to watch Apple extend the reach of their password management mechanism as password titan 1Password faces pushback on moving away from a native Mac application to Electron.

Is there anyone working on blue bubble Messages support for Windows? Android? Password management support for Android?

Are there security implications for opening up password access on Windows? Or is the encryption up and down the stack bulletproof?

Pretty great pic. Popped up on Reddit over the weekend.

Follow the headline link and read Mark Gurman’s take on what’s rumored to be coming from Apple next month. It’s a lot.

Or hold out until the event goes live, keep the excitement/surprise maximized.

Joanna Stern, Wall Street Journal, got the chance to interview Craig Federighi about the backlash in response to Apple CSAM scanning plans.

The video embedded below is worth watching, both for Craig’s take on what Apple did wrong in the rollout, but also for Joanna’s excellent pause and explain take on Craig’s response, on the difference between what’s happening in Messages and the neural hash analysis in the cloud, and what Apple is really doing here. Really, really good.

One piece of this puzzle is who gets notified when a CSAM image is flagged.

Benjamin Mayo, from this explainer:

I think there’s a reasonable worry that a government could use this as a way to shuttle other kinds of content detection through the system, by simply providing hashes of images of political activism or democracy or whatever some dictatorial leader would like to oppress. Apple’s defence for this is that all flagged images are first sent to Apple for human review, before being sent on.

That cuts to the core of the problem many people have with this approach, the “slippery slope” argument. Apple is saying, we won’t let that happen. The argument is, the chances of a false positive are already really low, and the images being sent on to Apple (imagine being on that particular image review team) for review raise the bar even further.

One issue here is, who gets notified if a CSAM matching image is found? As is, seems the notification happens behind the scenes.

Back to Benjamin:

My suggestion would be that all flagged images are reported to the user. That way, the system cannot be misused in secret. This could be built in the software stack itself, such that nothing is sent onward unless the user is notified. In press briefings, Apple has said they don’t want to do this because their privacy policy doesn’t allow them to retain user data, enabling a legitimate criminal who is sharing CSAM would simply be able to delete their photo library when alerted. I think tweaks to policy could solve it. For instance, it would be very reasonable for a flagged image to be automatically marked frozen in iCloud, unable to be deleted by a user, until it has gone through the review process. The additional layer of transparency is beneficial.

Thoughtful take. Worth reading the whole piece, worth watching Joanna Stern’s interview with Craig Federighi, embedded below.

Jason Snell:

AgileBits chose to build the new version of its Mac app using Electron, a system based on web technologies that’s used by numerous cross-platform apps, including Slack, Skype, and Discord.

And:

Electron apps have a reputation for being slow, eating up a lot of system memory, and—perhaps most offensively—failing to behave like proper, “native” apps on whatever platform they operate.

And:

The root problem is this: 1Password, originally a Mac-forward software developer, has simply decided that the Mac isn’t important enough.

And:

Fey’s post clearly spells out AgileBits’s priorities. Android and iOS apps are built with native platform frameworks in order to create the best app experience possible on mobile. For iOS, AgileBits decided to use Apple’s new SwiftUI framework rather than the venerable UIKit, in order to skate “to where the puck was going.” Their plan was to use SwiftUI on the Mac, too. In doing so, AgileBits was buying into the vision Apple has for SwiftUI as a tool to build interfaces across all of Apple’s platforms. Unfortunately, it seems that SwiftUI didn’t measure up on the Mac:

And:

AgileBits was willing to put in the extra work for iOS, because it’s an important platform and SwiftUI is clearly the future there. But implementing it on the Mac required a lot of duplicate work—and what’s worse, SwiftUI apps aren’t compatible with older versions of macOS. AgileBits was planning on covering the older versions with an Electron version, but once it decided the SwiftUI implementation for the Mac was too much work, it pulled the plug—and now plans to ship an Electron version to all Mac users.

In a nutshell, Jason is pointing out both a weakness in SwiftUI as the one, true mechanism for building an app that serves iOS and the Mac, and the inherent problem of Electron as a cross-platform solution.

We have seen the holy grail of cross platform frameworks come and go over time. They never deliver the same experience as a platform optimized app. Never.

I think the optimization argument is really well expressed in this thread from BBEdit creator Rich Siegel. Building a cross-platform app requires a tradeoff: Either you build an optimized, efficient experience tuned for each platform, or you sacrifice the great for the good-enough.

Josef Adalian, Vulture:

The larger issue, according to HBO Max insiders, is that the current app wasn’t built from scratch the way Netflix or Hulu were brought to life. Instead, Max has been running on a retrofitted version of the old HBO Go and HBO Now services. While those were both solid applications, they were designed for a very different product.

Interesting back story there, but more generally:

Having so many technical issues crop up in such a short time frame isn’t just a PR headache. Competition for subscribers and audience attention is so intense right now, the last thing any streamer wants is to anger customers with a poor user experience.

And:

For instance, while you can rewind and fast-forward shows on the Peacock connected TV apps, I can report that the process is both painful and slow. Paramount+, meanwhile, somehow launched without giving users the basic ability to add shows to a content queue (it’s since been fixed). This lack of convenience in user experience is something that stands in stark contrast to platforms like instant withdrawal casinos, where ease of use and quick transactions are prioritized. And despite purposely keeping its user interface incredibly simple, Disney+ famously imploded on its first day back in 2019.

All fair points. When a channel follows the Apple TV interface guidelines, the experience is functional and, for the user, predictable, consistent. And the app will work with the new Apple TV remote.

Tech Reflect:

I wrote this little anecdote shortly after Steve Jobs passed away. Despite it happening more than 5 years ago, it still is imprinted on my brain and does a great job of illustrating the person I felt he was.

Found this in my saved links bin, a post from back in 2017. Steve died just about 10 years ago. A sweet little anecdote.

Linked by Jason Snell here, and pairing well with his Cutting the Cord post from a few weeks ago, Suppose.tv uses your location to help you work through the math of cutting the cord.

Pick a channel from the list on the right and Suppose will give you all the options in that list that give you access to that channel, with the cheapest option listed first. Keep adding channels, home in on the service or combination of services that will fill your needs for the cheapest price.

Great find, Jason.

Makena Kelly, The Verge:

The bipartisan “Open App Markets Act,” introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) would ban app stores from forcing developers to use the store’s payment systems. It would also bar companies from punishing developers that offer lower prices on a separate app store or through their own payment systems, along the lines of Apple’s public dispute with Epic Games. Notably, the bill would also make it unlawful for companies like Apple to use non-public data from their stores to build competing products against companies using their service.

Lots to think about here. First thought is how much support this bill would get from streaming services like Netflix, if it meant they could sign up customers and let those customers pay and track their bills in-App, without having to run those funds through Apple.

Same with gaming services. And developers who want to offer related services/products for sale through their apps.

And that last bit, about building competing products, is this an anti-Sherlock bill?

From one of the bill’s authors:

“For years, Apple and Google have squashed competitors and kept consumers in the dark—pocketing hefty windfalls while acting as supposedly benevolent gatekeepers of this multi-billion dollar market,” Blumenthal said in a statement Wednesday. “This bipartisan bill will help break these tech giants’ ironclad grip, open the app economy to new competitors, and give mobile users more control over their own devices.”

And from Apple:

“Since our founding, we’ve always put our users at the center of everything we do, and the App Store is the cornerstone of our work to connect developers and customers in a way that is safe and trustworthy.” The spokesperson continued, “At Apple, our focus is on maintaining an App Store where people can have confidence that every app must meet our rigorous guidelines and their privacy and security is protected.”

The law of unintended consequence applies here. If this bill goes through, will this break the iPhone’s very foundation, change the nature of what distinguishes iPhone from Android, breaks Apple’s ecosystem?