While we are going to have to wait a little longer for Apple to launch payments in iMessage, this weekend, Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s VP of Apple Pay, announced a series of other milestones for the digital wallet and payments service that competes against the likes of Android Pay from Google (which today announced its own expansions), Samsung Pay, and others efforts from retailers and banks.
The advances point to how Apple wants to steal a march when it comes to using phones as a proxy for a card or cash, and there is some anecdotal evidence that it’s working: merchants and others who have partnered with Apple say that Apple Pay is accounting for 90 percent of all mobile contactless transactions globally in markets where it’s available.
That is a remarkable achievement. I rarely use Apple Pay but I’m always impressed by how easy it is to use. I bet that lack of “friction” is a big part of why Apple Pay is so popular.
Industrial giant General Electric employs 330,000 staff world wide, and can be considered one of the more conservative businesses. But yesterday, GE quietly let slip that it is standardising on iPhones and iPads and will let any GE employee who wants a Mac have one, instead of a Windows PC.
GE follows the lead of IBM, which has supplied 100,000 staff with Macs, and has been touting the lower cost of Macs in the enterprise as a result.
This is not an embarrassment to Microsoft – these kinds of flips happen often – but there can’t be many smiles on the faces of the Enterprise people in Redmond regardless.
I came upon this Reddit thread and thought, “Impossible. This can’t be true.”
But yes, it is. Try this yourself. When you hit the plus sign for the second time, the calculator app goes into some odd state. Not sure if this is intentional, or a bug, but either way, this is not what you’d expect.
The good news? PCalc gets it right.
UPDATE: Looks like this is an animation lag issue and goes back at least through iOS 9, possibly earlier. Also, Apple employee #8 weighed in about filing a radar.
Provocative title, easy article to dismiss, but take the time to make your way through.
Sam Byford, The Verge:
Yes, the iPhone X has a 5.8-inch screen compared to the iPhone 8 Plus’ 5.5-inch display. It’s also true that the X’s is higher resolution. But the 8 Plus’ screen is actually bigger. The X uses a narrower aspect ratio, so while it’s longer on the diagonal, you still get more surface area on the Plus overall — and that’s before you account for the notch and the rounded corners.
And:
Apps, websites, and so on have 414 horizontal “points” — the unit of measurement that the screen is divided into for design purposes — to fill on the Plus, while the X has 375, the same as the regular iPhone 8. The X has more vertical points, of course, because of the taller screen, but a lot of that will be occupied by the notch and home button bar.
This would not be an issue if Apple had released an iPhone X Plus at the same time as the iPhone X. This is a bit like comparing Apples and bananas, but since there is no iPhone X Plus, this is a worthwhile point.
The X’s screen may well be better quality — we’ll have to see how Apple’s first attempt at an OLED phone turns out, but I have high hopes for the panel itself. Obviously, there’s also no denying that the X makes far better use of available space; the iPhone 8 Plus’ chunky bezels are pretty anachronistic for a phone at this price in 2017. But I’m too used to the Plus layouts, and the accompanying information density, to go back to what’s often going to feel like a smaller phone in actual use.
All fair points.
The other point that Sam makes that struck home for me concerned availability:
Even if you’ve read all of the above and still want an iPhone X, good luck actually getting one. Supply chain reports suggest that Apple is only able to produce the device in alarmingly low quantities, meaning that you could be waiting for several months before you’re able to pick one up.
The use of the word “alarmingly” aside, the availability question is something to consider. Of course, we won’t know for sure until at least Friday.
The video is only about 6 minutes long, worth the time. The questions are interesting, there’s some terrific footage of the new Chicago riverfront Apple Store, and there’s the chance to see Time Cook and Angela Ahrendts together, get a sense of their comfortableness with each other. Not something you can see in print.
One interesting bit about 5:27 in: Tim was asked about rumors of Angela being slated as the next CEO. Perfect deflection, and good response on Tim’s part.
This article talks you through a pretty obvious and straight-forward process. But 3 things:
Important to note that you can now delete built-in apps like Weather, Stocks, etc. Delete them just as you would any other app.
Finding the originals if you decide to go back is the trick. You can search the app store, but the article has a list of links to the originals. Bookmark the article. A nice resource.
If you click on the App Store links on your Mac (DO NOT DO THIS), you’ll plunge down the infinite loop of sadness, as Safari tries to get iTunes to do what it is no longer programmed to do.
If you are in the market for a new car, this support page is definitely worth your time. One particular thing to look out for:
Some automotive wireless chargers have physical size constraints and might not fit every phone. If you’re planning on buying a car with a wireless charger, make sure that your iPhone will fit in the charger first.
To me, this is an obvious place where car manufacturers should offer a user-replaceable shell, so when you move from one form factor to another, you don’t end up with a sad face and a phone that no longer fits snugly in place.
As is, I suspect that manufacturers will force you to bring your car in to replace the Qi-charging shell if you switch phone types, if they even have a shell that fits.
Anyone have a car that offers Qi wireless charging? Ping me, if you know how the shell swapping works.
On Monday, the city’s transit system took a significant step toward a more modern way for passengers to pay their fares. Starting late next year, they can do it the way Londoners already do, by waving cellphones or certain kinds of credit or debit cards at the turnstiles in the subway or the fareboxes on buses.
A committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved a $573 million contract for a new fare payment system adapted from the one in use for several years on the London Underground and London’s commuter railroads. New electronic readers will be installed in 500 subway turnstiles and on 600 buses in New York beginning late next year, and will reach the rest of the city’s subway stations and buses by late 2020.
And:
The system will work through apps like Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay as well as “contactless cards” — credit or debit cards with embedded chips that rely on a wireless technology known as near field communication, or N.F.C.
The resistance was strong in this one, but the force beckons. In other words, it’s about time.
SoundShare was already a great social music app, but it just got better with the release of 3.0 and new features like Party Mode.
SoundShare allows you to connect your music subscription service like Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer to the app and build collaborative playlists with your friends. If you don’t subscribe to any of those services, you can still use YouTube, so everyone can join in.
The great thing about SoundShare is that it doesn’t matter what service your friends belong to, the app will allow all of them in a single playlist.
With the new Party Mode, you simply connect your iPhone to a Bluetooth speaker or Apple TV and then invite your friends to join the party inside the app. Everyone that you invited can add songs to the party, regardless of the service they are using.
SoundShare 3.0 also features integration with Apple’s MusicKit. This means that when you authorize SoundShare to access Apple Music, you will see your Favorite Mix, Chill Mix, New Music Mix, Daily Playlists, Daily Albums, Spotlight Playlists, and New Releases in the SoundShare app. Basically, you’ll see your Apple Music “For You” section.
I’ve been using SoundShare for quite a while and really like the app a lot. I especially like the seamless integration with all of the other services and how easy it is to collaborate with friends who use different music services, to build a single playlist.
FYFD is dedicated to sharing the awesomeness that is fluid dynamics with the world—whether or not you care for calculus. It is a science and engineering outreach blog with a new post about the physics of liquids, gases, plasmas, or granular materials—anything that behaves like a fluid—five times a week. It features photos, videos, and research from scientists, engineers, and artists around the world along with a short explanation from FYFD’s author, Nicole Sharp.
If you’re new, try exploring the archive to see some of the awesome physics FYFD has covered. You can also follow FYFD on YouTube or Twitter.
Their NSFW name aside, this is a fascinating site with great, easy to understand descriptions of the phenomenon represented.
Steven Mallas, Seeking Alpha (free regwall) on Apple and Steve Spielberg inking a deal to bring the series of Amazing Stories to Apple TV:
The plan is for there to be 10 episodes at a cost of $5 million each. That’s nothing to Apple, a drop in the bucket.
And:
Spielberg could shift some of his slate over to streaming services that are aching to differentiate themselves from the pack, primarily the alpha Netflix. Again, here’s where Apple and its cash hoard and its enormous market cap and its platforms that need to be programmed come in – they could help Spielberg distribute concepts that might not find a place elsewhere. Netflix arguably already does this. Think the recent Stephen King adaptation Gerald’s Game. On Netflix, it stands out. In theaters, maybe it wouldn’t have. There’s no way that Cook and Spielberg don’t understand that.
The whole article is interesting, especially when Mallas chews on the possibility of Apple buying the rights to James Bond, both existing movies and the rights to new content:
Comparison was made to Disney and its purchases of Marvel/Lucasfilm; Lucasfilm was all about Star Wars, and that cost billions of dollars to consummate. If either Amazon or Apple won the rights to Bond, then those companies could release new films and episodic series on their respective platforms, as well as release movies to theaters on a worldwide basis.
And:
Bond, though, doesn’t necessarily, in my mind, lend itself to capital investment in the same way that Star Wars or Marvel do. I’m not sure about how valuable a merchandising program for Bond would be, as an example.
Interesting comparison. Not sure Netflix thinks about merchandising at all.
Starting on Monday, October 23, iPhone Upgrade Program customers will be able to get a “head start” on the iPhone X pre-order process by getting pre-approved for an iPhone Upgrade Program loan.
If you are part of the iPhone Upgrade Program, this is worth a look, will get you through checkout that much quicker this Friday.
Over the weekend, Alex Dobie, Executive Editor of Android Central, posted this tweet, showing what appears to be screen burn-in on his Google Pixel 2 XL review unit.
Viewing a grey image on the screen, you get a clear look at where the navigation bar has started to settle in on the display. You also interestingly see the portions of pixels where the back, home, and recents buttons go — those don’t seem to be burned in themselves (displaying white instead of black), but the outlines clearly show where they are compared to the black portion that’s burned in. Or that may be some optical trickery and the buttons are burned in. We’re just not sure what we’re seeing here.
Deiter Bohn, Executive Editor of The Verge, following with this article, reports that he is seeing similar burn-in on his review unit, and:
Screen burn-in isn’t an uncommon issue, but it does seem especially worrisome that it’s showing up within a week or so of these units coming into usage. It’s also possible that what we’re looking at here is image retention instead of actual screen burn-in. If that’s the case, then it’s not as permanent. Neither one is good, but “ghosting” goes away where burn-in may not.
From Google:
We put all of our products through extensive quality testing before launch and in the manufacturing of every unit. We are actively investigating this report.
Hopefully for Google, this will turn out to be fixable.
Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts has a new vision for these stores: They should be “town squares,” places where people meet up with friends, attend concerts and take classes.
CNBC’s Josh Lipton caught up with Apple’s senior VP of retail, Angela Ahrendts, to talk about her vision for the company’s retail outlets.
Apple is usually pretty good about not “encouraging” customers to buy more than they need.
The store has moved south along Michigan Avenue to just north of the river at Pioneer Court, an open plaza between the historic Chicago Tribune Tower and the Chicago River.
It’s a space where the city’s hustle and bustle comes alive with a mix of Chicagoans and tourists, and you can take in some of Chicago’s finest architectural treasures like the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Tower, the DuSable Bridge, the 333 North Michigan Avenue building, and the London House hotel. Nestled in the center of it all is Apple’s new location, which was designed by Foster + Partners, the architects that designed Apple Park.
I’d love to visit this store. Chicago is a great city and these photos really show off the new space.
A Japanese company, which owns the trademark for “Animoji” in the US, is suing Apple for using the word to name its iPhone X feature.
The Tokyo-based company, Emonster, filed the suit on Wednesday in US federal court, saying, “Apple made the conscious decision to try to pilfer the name for itself.”
Although Emonster has owned the trademark for Animoji since 2015, Apple filed a petition this September to cancel the trademark, so the registration is now under review. Apple said that because of a filing error, Emonster registered the trademark to a nonexistent business and therefore can’t actually own “animoji.”
Apple plays hardball but $20 says this gets settled out of court for “an undisclosed sum”.
Apple, AT&T, the FCC and Alphabet’s X division have all put into motion efforts to give residents of Puerto Rico more cellular connectivity.
Apple has been working with AT&T to extend and activate cell service for users in Puerto Rico. To improve what is a terrible connectivity situation there, it’s going to enable a provisional band of LTE that has been recently approved, but not activated in the US and Puerto Rico, where it has not been licensed. This will allow iPhones to connect to Alphabet X’s Project Loon balloons in the region, which were activated today.
This should allow users to send text messages and access some critical online services.
This is great news and hopefully will ease some of the pain of the people in those affected areas.
Follow the link, take a look at those images, especially that last one. This is an incredibly beautiful storefront, perfectly incorporated into the surroundings.
In a complaint lodged with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, plaintiffs emonster k.k. and Enrique Bonansea, a U.S. citizen living in Japan, registered for the “Animoji” mark in 2014, reports The Recorder. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office subsequently granted rights to the property in 2015.
And:
According to the complaint, Apple not only had knowledge of the Animoji app prior to September’s iPhone X launch, but attempted to purchase rights for the mark from emonster. Bonansea claims he was approached by Apple “fronts,” like The Emoji Law Group LLC., to sell the property this past summer. These entities allegedly threatened to file a cancellation proceeding if the developer failed to acquiesce to their requests.
Facebook’s effort to help media companies sell subscriptions has hit a snag: Apple.
The two companies are butting heads over Facebook’s plan for a new subscription tool in its mobile app. The tool will put paywalls around some articles in Facebook’s news feed, and then send users to publishers’ sites to buy subscriptions.
The issue: Apple wants to take as much as 30 percent of any subscription revenue Facebook helps generate. Facebook wants all of the money to go to publishers.
This is nothing new. The 30 percent model has been in place since inception. But:
People familiar with Facebook’s plans say Google won’t take a cut of subscriptions users sign up for using its Android operating system.
And there’s the rub. I don’t think there are many people who will switch platforms because of this issue. This is about the publishers.
Note that not every publisher likes Facebook’s subscription plan. Notable holdouts from the test plan the company is announcing today include the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
And you can see why. Both the NYT and WSJ have existing paywalls that work for them. This is a complex problem, one I hope gets resolved quickly.
Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to displays having a substrate with a visually imperceptible texture that provides tactile sensations varying with an object contacting the surface. Apple is considering applying a new finish on displays for Macs and iDevices that acts as an added protection layer with a different texture to the glass. The glass may feel smooth to the touch but slightly rougher with a little drag when using it with an Apple Pencil.
Not clear if this difference in feel is what they were going for in the first place, or a side product of the finish. What would really be cool is if there was a way to control that texture electronically, adjust it based on context.
Robots, smartphones, computational cameras, and a true pop culture phenomenon round out the list.
I’m sure we’ll have arguments about this list but I hope we can agree that if the fidget spinner is the “most ingenious gadgets of 2017”, we’re doomed.
