Generally whenever Apple announces a new iPhone it also announces a new System-on-a-Chip, and this year was no different. The newly launched iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X all use Apple’s in-house A11 Bionic processor. Inevitably, comparisons are made between Apple’s latest SoC and the latest offerings from Qualcomm, Samsung and Huawei. It doesn’t usually take long for benchmarking numbers to appear and for Apple to be declared the winner.
So, why is it that Apple’s SoCs always seem to beat the competition? Why are the processors used by Android seemingly so far behind? Are Apple’s chips really that good? Well, let me explain.
There are two kinds of people: those who have needed tech support, and those who constantly give it over the phone to their friends and families. Both know how tricky and complicated this process can be, but Chalk — a new AR app launching today on iOS (for free) — looks to save the day.
Built by Vuforia, the company behind the tools used by the majority of augmented-reality apps, Chalk operates much like a videoconferencing call, connecting the cameras between two remote smartphones. (It’s iOS-only to start.) The only difference is that both use the rear-facing camera, so the person getting help can show the device or software they’re confused by, and the other person can draw on it.
This is one of those apps that really show off the upside of AR. I would have loved to have something like this when I did tech support.
Diners at Hearth, the newly health-conscious, 13-year-old restaurant from James Beard award-winning chef Marco Canora, may have noticed a new addition to their place settings in recent weeks. Next to plates, napkins, and utensils there are now boxes. Some are old cigar boxes, others kitschy Etsy finds — but all of them are big enough to contain a few cell phones, because the boxes are Canora’s solution to what he views as harmful cell phone addiction.
I like this idea rather than the mentioned bans or discounts. It also reminds me of the joke: “Want me to put my iPhone down? Be more interesting than my iPhone…”
Apple on Tuesday released an update to iOS 11, bring ing the current version to iOS 11.0.2. The latest version fixes an issue where some users reported hearing crackling noises during calls, and it also fixed a problem that caused some photos to be hidden.
You can update by going to Settings > General > Software Update on your device.
It’s easy to create an external installation drive. It’s also handy to keep around, just in case you’re in a situation where you rather use the drive than rely on booting in Recovery mode.
Here are a couple of different ways you can create a bootable macOS High Sierra installation drive.
I’ll be installing macOS High Sierra on Thursday and after I back everything up and ensuring I have a good bootable backup drive, I’ll do is this. But this line in the article:
…the download will be over 5GB, so it’ll take a few minutes.
Bugs the hell out of me. For many of us, it will take significantly longer than just “a few minutes”. I’ll be looking at over 30+ minutes just for the download.
Thanks to Bombich Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. Bombich Software has released Carbon Copy Cloner 5, an upgrade to its bootable backup software for macOS. The upgrade features scheduled task grouping and sorting, guided setup and restore, task history trend charts, a health check for backups, advanced file filtering, and includes hundreds of improvements and fixes.
Carbon Copy Cloner 5 requires macOS 10.10 or later and will be compatible with APFS and Apple’s macOS 10.13 High Sierra release this autumn. A full-featured thirty day trial version is available.
Carbon Copy Cloner is an app that I’ve used for years, in fact, since it was first released. The new version goes a long way to make the software easier to use, while still adding more advanced features.
Reddit post from an account named AmazonVideoEngineer:
Wanted to make this throwaway account after yesterday’s debacle. I saw many people get upset so I wanted to issue this warning: do not expect Amazon to launch before October 26th. The app is done, and has been done for months already. However there are a lot of politics going on beyond my pay grade that are pushing the launch back. And just to clarify, October 26 is the earliest I would expect it. Launch could be pushed well into November.
No way to know if this is fake or not, but it is definitely interesting. Read the whole page for back and forth questions with the alleged engineer. Fascinating. Take with a grain of salt.
UPDATE: I’ve been asked about the reference to “yesterday’s debacle”. I am still looking for a response, but I believe the reference is to last week when Amazon dropped the Apple TV from Amazon.com. As of this post, the Apple TV is still MIA on Amazon’s site.
Access to superior image sensors, a giant entertainment library and the PlayStation ecosystem… By any measure, Apple acquiring Sony makes a lot of sense.
I’ve heard this argument floated before, but without the “access to superior image sensors” logic. Camera hardware is only becoming more important to Apple and iPhone over time. Interesting post.
Hat tip to Fabrice Dubois for uncovering these two gems in iOS 11’s search. To bring up the search field, as always, press the home button to return to Springboard (the iOS equivalent of the Finder), then pull down to reveal the search field.
With search open, type in a word and search results will show its definition, like so:
And, even better, the search field is now open to catching spelling errors.
To see this one for yourself, open search and start typing fadebook (note the “d” instead of the “c”) or protos instead of photos.
Not sure when typo handling and definition suggestion first shipped, but they’re both nice to see.
I find it remarkable when people write with judgment, with venom. Joshua Topolsky’s “Apple is really bad at design” post is full of both.
The tone is over the top, the headline clickbait, and there’s a constant sense of “Apple is doomed” and “Steve would never have allowed this” that there seems no shortage of in the press.
I do agree with some of the points in the post. Every one of them was a complaint about design in the service of compromise.
There’s the Apple Pencil having no home, being eminently losable, and charging by sticking straight out of the iPad. But as a product? It’s outstanding, beautifully balanced, a marvel of low latency. The Apple Pencil is an incredible achievement.
There’s the removal of the headphone jack and the ungainly dongle use it forces. This image makes the point.
The idea was to promote bluetooth headphones, the design a compromise to serve a future that arrived with the AirPods.
But the tipping point for this article is the iPhone X notch.
Plenty has been written about the mind-numbing, face-palming, irritating stupidity of the notch. And yet, I can’t stop thinking about it. I would love to say that this awful design compromise is an anomaly for Apple. But it would be more accurate to describe it as the norm.
I am not at all a fan of the notch design. But I do see the notch and the iPhone X as the first steps on a brand new path for Apple.
The early versions of Mac OS X (the macOS predecessor that coincided with Steve’s return to Apple, the one based on Unix) were full of compromise. The original design was a bridge between the long established look and feel of the original Mac and this newfangled NeXT OS. At the time, there were many complaints, and most were valid.
To me, the notch represents a compromise. I won’t pretend any insight into Apple’s thinking, but I can sense the design pressure forced by the addition of Face ID and the need to ship product.
But the notch is the bridge to the future. I think of the iPhone X as the first of a new product type, a phone spec’ed with different hardware requirements, built from the ground up to serve future technologies like augmented reality.
Over time, I expect that hardware/camera/AI advances will allow the notch to get much smaller and, perhaps, disappear altogether.
Solid review from Apple Insider. My concerns are about functionality and price.
On functionality:
If you want a set-it-and-forget-it box for your 4K television, HDR or not, and you have at least one other Apple device, get the new Apple TV 4K. There is little to not like about it. Even if you don’t have 4K, you’re future-proofed for a few years at least and the power of the A10X is nice.
The review goes through a few complaints, all relatively minor. Read it for details.
As to price:
The Apple TV 4K is an expensive streamer, for sure. A starting price of $179 is nothing to sneeze at. A 4K Roku can be had for less than that, and the very recent Amazon Fire HD box is even cheaper —assuming you tolerate the ads and data mining associated with the company.
But, a better way to look at is as an upgrade charge for your existing iTunes content, if you have any. The deal that Apple made with Hollywood to upgrade past HD purchases to 4K is unprecedented, and a great boon for consumers.
The Amazon Fire HD is $69.99. Add to that another $15 for an ethernet dongle if your WiFi is not up to the task of streaming 4K video. All in, $85. Compared to $179, that’s a huge difference.
If you already own iTunes content, the free 4K upgrade will make a difference. My personal experience with the Fire TV interface is that the Apple TV design is much friendlier, much easier to use.
If you are on the fence, I’d wait for a head to head comparison between the Apple TV 4K and the Amazon Fire TV 4K. The latter is due to ship on October 25th.
The PGA TOUR hired Brad Mangin to shoot the Presidents Cup with his new iPhone 8 Plus. Using the 12MP dual cameras on the new iPhone while taking advantage of the intimacy of such a pocketable device, Brad is able to capture stunning professional photos that would be tough with larger, traditional cameras. At the 2017 Presidents Cup, Brad is taking advantage of the new Portrait Lighting feature on iPhone 8 Plus to put a sharp focus on faces around Liberty National. The photos provide a unique look at the PGA TOUR through the eyes of a photographer who has been covering sports for 30 years.
Introduced in 1982, the KORG SDD-3000 Digital Delay was popularized by U2 guitarist, The Edge, to forge one of the most identifiable guitar sounds in the history of rock. Far from a one-instrument-pony, however, the SDD-3000 also found a home in early new wave and 80’s synth music. Fully endorsed by KORG, the KORG SDD-3000 Digital Delay plug-in for UAD and Apollo interfaces exactly captures the original unit’s colorful analog circuitry, and burnished-sounding 13-bit delays.
There is no company that does better emulations than Universal Audio. Take a listen to the sounds on the company’s page.
Nikkei Asian Review, first on Apple rolling their own modem chip:
Two other chip industry executives also echoed Li’s view that Apple will develop its own modem chips or at least boost its related capabilities – a view bolstered by Apple’s poaching top Qualcomm modem chip engineer Esin Terzioglu earlier this year.
But Li added it is was unlikely that Apple could quickly roll out such components within two years. Modem chips have a very high threshold to develop and need to fulfill requirements of different operators worldwide.
A veteran chip industry executive estimates that it would require more than a minimum one thousand engineers to work on such a project.
As far as Macs go:
Core processor chips for the MacBook range is another area Apple is trying to venture into.
Two industry sources say that Apple is trying to cut its dependence on Intel when it comes to notebook chips and instead build those using ARM architecture, referring to the SoftBank-controlled British chip designer.
“Notebooks are becoming thinner, while consumers are demanding better mobility and longer battery life. That gives ARM’s architecture, which is known for its power efficiency, a very good opportunity,” a chip industry executive said.
And:
Apple also aims to design its own chips that could integrate touch, fingerprint and display driver functions, sources say.
“Apple has hired engineers from Taiwan’s No. 1 display-driver chip designers Novatek and panel makers of AU Optronics as it wants to control next-generation display technology and some related key components,” said a Taiwanese chip industry manager.
Apple switching Macs to ARM chips has long been a topic of speculation. And there are significant technical hurdles to overcome. Interesting, but take with a grain of salt.
Thanks to Twocanoes Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. If you are upgrading to High Sierra and have a Boot Camp partition, check out Winclone 6. Winclone 6 is the ideal Mac App for backing up your Boot Camp partition. You spent a ton of time getting your Windows setup just right, and Winclone makes sure that you can always get back to that same setup. Winclone creates a exact clone of your Boot Camp partition, including all Windows system files, applications, and data. If you have a failed update, bad drive, or ransomware attack in Windows, you just restore your Winclone backup and you are back up and running.
If you are a fan of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki films like Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Howl’s Moving Castle, you will definitely recognize the style of this video. Beautifully done.
Never heard of Studio Ghibli? See any of the movies above. Personally, Spirited Away is my absolute favorite, but you can’t go wrong with any of these. Finding them is the hard part. If anyone has any tips on finding them online, please do let me know.
There are pictures of the phone, and of another phone with a similar symptom.
From the article:
So far, the finger of blame is being pointed at the battery. Unconfirmed reports state the iPhone 8 Plus uses the same battery manufacturer, Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
But it’s worth remembering a couple of things. Firstly, many of the details surrounding this incident are hazy and unconfirmed. Take them with a grain of salt.
Exactly. If this is a widespread issue, we’ll see confirmed reports. If it’s a few flawed phones, this will quickly die off.
This piece is interesting, funny, and insightful. He coached his third graders like he ran Microsoft. Fascinating that his players had no idea who he was, beyond being their coach.
Scott Stein, on sending SMS texts via his cellular Apple Watch:
I have experienced some quirks, particularly with text messages, and investigating them revealed some limitations in how the Apple Watch handles its wireless interactions.
And:
The Apple Watch really, really wants your phone to be powered on somewhere, connected to Wi-Fi or LTE. That location doesn’t have to be anywhere near the Watch, however. Your iPhone can be sitting on your nightstand at home, and you could be 50 miles away — though, obviously, someplace that still has cellular coverage.
The different scenarios are subtle. Scott does a nice job of laying out the rules. And here’s an Apple support page that addresses these issues, though I think Scott’s writeup better addresses the scenarios involving SMS.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, via this press release:
“In recent years, I have repeatedly called on the wireless industry to activate the FM chips that are already installed in almost all smartphones sold in the United States. And I’ve specifically pointed out the public safety benefits of doing so. In fact, in my first public speech after I became Chairman, I observed that ‘[y]ou could make a case for activating chips on public safety grounds alone.’ When wireless networks go down during a natural disaster, smartphones with activated FM chips can allow Americans to get vital access to life-saving information. I applaud those companies that have done the right thing by activating the FM chips in their phones.
“Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so. But I hope the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. That’s why I am asking Apple to activate the FM chips that are in its iPhones. It is time for Apple to step up to the plate and put the safety of the American people first. As the Sun Sentinel of South Florida put it, ‘Do the right thing, Mr. Cook. Flip the switch. Lives depend on it.’”
Apple’s response, as told by Rene Ritchie and Phil Schiller, via Twitter:
Statement from Apple regarding calls for FM radios to be enabled on iPhones. (Recent models don’t have them.) pic.twitter.com/xwggMNtjhq
Apple Music tells Billboard that it now counts well over 30 million paying subscribers, helping fuel a 17 percent revenue jump for the U.S. recorded-music business in the first half of 2017 over the same period a year ago, according to the RIAA. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs issued a report in August predicting that subscription streaming would drive the global record business to nearly triple to $41 billion by 2030.
And:
[Iovine] is working to crack what he sees as the music industry’s biggest challenge: how to inject enough “soul” into subscription streaming services so that fans will pay $10 a month instead of listening to their tunes on free services, which are also growing fast.
To do it, he’s relying on BBC Radio 1 veteran Zane Lowe, now creative director and L.A. anchor for Apple Music’s free radio service Beats 1, and Apple Music head of content Larry Jackson, a former A&R executive at Interscope and other labels. All three are focused on creating exclusive content, from films and ads to radio shows and glossy magazines, to help artists tell the stories behind their music in an age of shrinking attention spans and fast-changing playlists.
To me, the biggest issue with Apple Music is the depth of the user experience. For example, with For You, the on-boarding is primitive, at best. I never felt steered towards my deepest musical tastes. And as I listened to music, even as I diligently favorited my best loved tunes, I never felt that For You really got me.
And there’s no real way to get under the hood, to see what Apple thinks I really love. No way to tap, drag, select, to tune my For You model to really get those recommendations in line with my personal tastes.
Don’t get me wrong. I really do love Apple Music. I use it every day and appreciate being able to call up most any song I can think of on a moment’s notice. But Jimmy is right on. There’s so much Apple can do here to make Apple Music superior to any other service.
Two things I want?
A music recommendation engine that is easy to use, that I can tune, and that really gets me.
Better sharing, with better linkage to social networks so the sharing can ride on the social links I’ve already built. Why reinvent my graph of friends when I’ve already done that work?
The new Xcode 9.1 beta has also been released by Apple today with support for the new operating system updates: iOS 11.1, watchOS 4.1 and tvOS 11.1. It also includes a more fully-fledged iPhone X simulator, which demonstrates the new lock screen and home screen experiences.
There are also some onboarding videos, for things like activating Siri or revealing Control Center, which will be shown to iPhone X users upon setup.
Benjamin does a great job pulling together these inside looks at the iPhone X experience. Read his article, there’s a lot to it.
Here’s just a taste, a pair of onboarding videos, two different results when you swipe up from the bottom, one with a pause and one without, courtesy of Guilherme Rambo:
Remember I talked about onboarding videos when setting up the iPhone X? Here's the first one. pic.twitter.com/Fe5t3s8lgo
