I’m a huge fan of Field Notes notebooks. Anyone that’s seen me at an Apple event will know that I take one with me all the time. I love that they went back in time for the latest design.

A nice supplement to Matthew Panzarino’s interview with Craig Federighi. This particular edition of John’s podcast is relatively short (about 20 minutes), but worth every second.

Craig Federighi has really come into his own as an on-stage Apple presenter. He’s both genuine and knowledgable, a terrific combination.

Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch:

Face ID is easily the most hot-button topic to come out of Apple’s iPhone event this week, notch be damned. As people have parsed just how serious Apple is about it, questions have rightly begun to be raised about its effectiveness, security and creation.

To get some answers, I hopped on the phone with Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. We went through a bunch of the common concerns in rapid-fire fashion, and I’ve also been asking around and listening to Apple folks who have been using the feature over long periods. Hopefully we can clear up some of the FUD about it.

And:

“Phil mentioned that we’d gathered a billion images and that we’d done data gathering around the globe to make sure that we had broad geographic and ethnic data sets. Both for testing and validation for great recognition rates,” says Federighi. “That wasn’t just something you could go pull off the internet.”

Especially given that the data needed to include a high-fidelity depth map of facial data. So, says Federighi, Apple went out and got consent from subjects to provide scans that were “quite exhaustive.” Those scans were taken from many angles and contain a lot of detail that was then used to train the Face ID system.

Imagine the process of deciding on a representative group of faces. A daunting problem.

“We do not gather customer data when you enroll in Face ID, it stays on your device, we do not send it to the cloud for training data,” he notes.

And, these tidbits on when Face ID yields to demand a passcode:

• If you haven’t used Face ID in 48 hours, or if you’ve just rebooted, it will ask for a passcode.
• If there are 5 failed attempts to Face ID, it will default back to passcode. (Federighi has confirmed that this is what happened in the demo onstage when he was asked for a passcode — it tried to read the people setting the phones up on the podium.)
• Developers do not have access to raw sensor data from the Face ID array. Instead, they’re given a depth map they can use for applications like the Snap face filters shown onstage. This can also be used in ARKit applications.
• You’ll also get a passcode request if you haven’t unlocked the phone using a passcode or at all in 6.5 days and if Face ID hasn’t unlocked it in 4 hours.

Great questions. Nice job, Matthew.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

With the LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 only available in a handful of countries at the current time, it might be tempting to purchase one in another country, but it won’t work. Series 3 models appear to be limited to connectivity in their original country of purchase.

An Apple support representative who spoke to MacRumors reader Thomas said that an Apple Watch purchased in the U.S. online store will only work with the four carriers in the United States, perhaps due to hardware limitations.

So no buying an Apple Watch in another country, and no using your Apple Watch cell when you travel internationally. Caveat emptor.

UPDATE: Did some reading on the Apple Watch carriers page. Seems to me it’s more country groupings, rather than individual countries. One model would work in US, Canada, Puerto Rico, another model in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, UK. Still worth knowing it, still suggests caveat emptor.

UPDATE 2: From this Telegraph article [H/T Sam Gross]:

The feature is likely to be a boost for runners who leave their phone at home, or when a battery dies. However, it has emerged it will only connect to networks in the country it was bought from.

This means owners in the UK and Europe, who ostensibly enjoy free mobile roaming, will not be able to connect when crossing borders.

And on the carrier page referenced above:

Roaming is not available outside your provider network coverage area. So that clarifies that.

Last week, a group of ad agencies blasted Apple for Safari’s emerging anti-tracking technology, which would clearly undermine current advertising practices.

Here’s a link to that story, as well as to another post with Apple’s official response to that shot across their bow.

I was doing a bit of reading on the issue and found myself on the WebKit.org post that started the whole kerfuffle, a blog post by John Wilander entitled Intelligent Tracking Prevention.

From the post:

WebKit has long included features to reduce tracking. From the very beginning, we’ve defaulted to blocking third-party cookies. Now, we’re building on that. Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a new WebKit feature that reduces cross-site tracking by further limiting cookies and other website data.

And:

Websites can fetch resources such as images and scripts from domains other than their own. This is referred to as cross-origin or cross-site loading, and is a powerful feature of the web. However, such loading also enables cross-site tracking of users.

Imagine a user who first browses example-products.com for a new gadget and later browses example-recipies.com for dinner ideas. If both these sites load resources from example-tracker.com and example-tracker.com has a cookie stored in the user’s browser, the owner of example-tracker.com has the ability to know that the user visited both the product website and the recipe website, what they did on those sites, what kind of web browser was used, et cetera. This is what’s called cross-site tracking and the cookie used by example-tracker.com is called a third-party cookie. In our testing we found popular websites with over 70 such trackers, all silently collecting data on users.

It all comes down to privacy. Do you want the ability to browse the web without being tracked? Do ad agencies have the right to impose a “tracking cost” as the price of you being able to browse? Is it their web? To me, there’s an underlying presumptuousness, arrogance, in portraying agencies as the injured party because they are losing their right to track users.

Last Thursday, we ran a piece about the new generation of iPhone hardware not supporting T-Mobile’s emerging 600 MHz network, known as Band 71.

There was a lot of discussion about this, both on whether the new network will be out soon enough to even matter, and whether support for this future network should impact someone’s choice of T-Mobile as a network.

Peter Cohen sheds light on the coverage issue here, well worth reading if you are a T-Mobile customer or considering a carrier switch.

Thanks to Hullo for sponsoring the Loop this week. Your pitiful old squishy pillow needs constant readjustment. It’s invariably too thick, too thin, sometimes just too warm. Flipping, folding and fluffing are getting in the way of your rest. You spend around one-third of your life on that pillow of yours. Try something different: a Hullo buckwheat pillow will conform perfectly to the shape of your body and provide comfortable cool support all night long without fuss. Hullo’s features include:

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Check out Hullo. Try it for 60 nights. If it’s not your favorite pillow, send it back for a refund.

Ahead of next week’s launch of the new Apple TV 4K with HDR support, Apple has begun releasing 4K HDR content on iTunes in the United States and other countries.

I love Apple’s commitment to getting this content out now, so people who purchase the new Apple TV 4K can start to enjoy it.

Alphabet Inc. has held conversations with Lyft Inc. about a potential investment in recent weeks, signalling strong support for Uber Technologies Inc.’s main U.S. competitor, according to people familiar with the matter.

An investment of about $1 billion in Lyft may come from Google or CapitalG, Alphabet’s private-equity arm, said some of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

This makes perfect sense for both companies. Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car division, signed a deal with Lyft to test that technology. The strange part is that Alphabet is also an investor in Uber, but Waymo is suing them for allegedly stealing their self-driving car technology.

BMW (BMWG.DE) is reviewing the necessity of car keys, Ian Robertson, the company’s board member responsible for sales told Reuters.

The fact that customers now all carry a smartphone and the availability of a BMW App which allows customers to unlock their vehicle, has made old fashioned keys less relevant.

Yes and no. I get where they’re going, but there are some obvious situations where you may need a key. What if your phone runs out of battery or you lose it—now you can’t even get in your car.

Keith Krimbel sent an email to Craig Federighi, asking three questions:

• I’ve seen the explanation for what happened on stage at the keynote. Will this happen every time someone else interacts with my phone when it’s locked? I’m concerned the phone will require a passcode much more often than TouchID does.

• Will FaceID work with sunglasses?

• What will prevent a thief from taking my phone, pointing it at my face, and running?

Great questions. And Craig took the time to answer them, as seen in the tweet below. Thanks for asking Keith, and thanks for sharing.

E-mailed #CraigFederighi about #FaceID and actually got a response! pic.twitter.com/3Ytt1k6WvK

— Keith Krimbel (@KeithKrimbel) September 14, 2017

ZDNet:

As if laying out $1,000 on a new iPhone X isn’t expensive enough, Apple hasn’t even included the equipment necessary to benefit from its new fast-charging capability.

Ignore the “hasn’t even included” rhetoric and read on.

The feature is available in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X unveiled this week by Apple. It means a flat battery can reach a half charge within 30 minutes, which is as fast as new flagship Android devices that support fast charging.

Apple’s specs page for the all three devices says they’re “fast-charge capable.” But then, in fine print, Apple declares that it tested fast-charging on the devices with Apple USB-C power adapters, and lists its 29W Model A1540, 61W Model A1718, and 87W Model A1719 power adapters.

Bottom line, the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X will rapid charge if you use a 29W adapter, which you likely have if you own a MacBook or MacBook Pro with a USB-C port. Not certain of this, but I suspect they will also rapid-charge on an iPad 29W charger. [Dave: Nope, no iPad 29W charger. Musta dreamed that.]

And, I also suspect less expensive 3rd party chargers will be hitting the shelves as well, though do a bit of homework first to make sure the chargers are properly tested and recommended by folks that do that sort of thing.

UPDATE: Here’s a good thread discussing the various chargers. And another. Some nice detail in both. [H/T Mark Crump]

Lance Ulanoff, Mashable:

Apple explained that, yes, there were some interesting acoustics in the space, one that, incredibly, doesn’t have a single column to hold up the ceiling or to slice up the sound, but I might have noticed that there were no echoes during the iPhone X launch event. People, they said, act as a natural sound absorber. If there were a small gathering, though, Apple might choose to put a bit of temporary acoustic absorption up on the walls.

And:

What you see when you look at the Steve Jobs Theater from the outside is simplicity in the extreme. Inside, there’s no visible frame, pipes, wires, or speakers to break the illusion. The secret, though, is that it’s all there.

The carbon fiber roof is supported by the glass frame. Foster + Partner also hid the wires and pipes in plain sight. Twenty of the thin joints separating each glass panel house specially-designed water pipes for the sprinkler system, itself hidden under dozens of recessed circles in the carbon fiber roof. The remaining joints are home to wiring for power, data, and audio.

This is just a taste. Great read. Take a look at the video embedded below. The elevator turns as it goes up and down. A magical space.

This is a great collection. Just a taste of this massive catalog:

• Indiana Jones’ whip
• Xenomorph egg from Aliens
• Marty McFly’s 2015 Nike Shoes from Back To The Future Part II
• Conan’s sword from Conan the Barbarian
• Bill Murray’s original jumpsuit costume from Ghostbusters

Lots, lots more. Here’s the Prop Store auction link. Let me know if there’s anything particular that jumps out at you.

Lory Gil, iMore:

> Recently, Equifax announced it had been compromised and as many as 143 million U.S. residents may have had their personal information exposed, including home addresses, birth dates, credit account information, and Social Security numbers. One suggestion from the credit reporting agency, as well as many banks and credit card companies, is to freeze your credit report. > > A credit freeze is a way for you to restrict access to your credit report to protect you from identity theft. If you’ve put a freeze on your credit report, it doesn’t affect your credit score or keep you from being able to apply for loans like that one from the Little Loans’s website. There are some caveats though. > > If you’ve put a credit freeze on your credit report, there are a few things you should know about applying for your iPhone Upgrade Program loan. If you need other options for loans, then sites like RadCred got you covered.

This is worth reading, certainly for the specifics on the iPhone Upgrade Program, but also to wrap your head around the implications of freezing your credit report.

My 2 cents: If you choose to not freeze your credit report, do a regular check on your credit report to see who is running credit checks on you. Believe it or not, there are companies out there that sell product purely on credit to someone who has the right credentials. In other words, they will ship out an Xbox if you have the right combination of social security number and other identifying personal information AND if they can run a credit check.

Freeze your credit and that can’t happen. If you don’t freeze your credit, pay attention. Identity theft is a painful thread to unwind.

Ad Week:

> The biggest advertising organizations say Apple will “sabotage” the current economic model of the internet with plans to integrate cookie-blocking technology into the new version of Safari.

And:

> Six trade groups—the Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation, the Association of National Advertisers, the 4A’s and two others—say they’re “deeply concerned” with Apple’s plans to release a version of the internet browser that overrides and replaces user cookie preferences with a set of Apple-controlled standards. The feature, which is called “Intelligent Tracking Prevention,” limits how advertisers and websites can track users across the internet by putting in place a 24-hour limit on ad retargeting.

From the perspective of the folks whose living depends on ad sales, I do understand this anger. But.

From the perspective of the user, the ability not to be tracked is absolutely fair. I do not want to be tracked. Period. Don’t try to sell me on the supposed benefits of tracking my behavior. To me, it smacks of snake oil.

When I see an ad for something I momentarily glanced at on Amazon appearing again and again as a browser ad, I don’t see that as a benefit. Instead, I see it as psychological manipulation. You are not showing me that ad repeatedly to help me. Instead, you simply want the money that ad brings in. It’s similar to how online betting can be a minefield of choices, where finding the best offshore sportsbooks requires navigating through a sea of aggressive marketing tactics, all vying for the bettor’s attention and capital.

My ultimate reaction to this article is a sense of appreciation for Apple. While they certainly are not perfect, again and again I get the feeling that they have my back in this relationship. More than anything else, that sense keeps me on board the ecosystem.

Second, what kind of sociopaths are these people that they want to put mom-and-pop corner stores and bodegas out of business?

Yeah, “fuck these guys.”

Business Insider:

Just after 6:32 a.m. EDT on Friday, a bus-size object will scream over the cloud tops, burst into millions of pieces, and glow like a meteor.

But this meteor isn’t a rock: It’s NASA’s nuclear-powered Cassini spacecraft plunging to its doom.

However, NASA TV is broadcasting live online video of the final stages of Cassini’s “Grand Finale,” the moment its last stream of data comes in, and — by extension — confirmation that it’s died.

An amazing mission and a fitting ending.

TidBITS:

Late last week, news broke of a massive data breach at Equifax, one of the three major credit rating agencies. Equifax may have lost private information, including Social Security numbers, for up to 143 million U.S. consumers, which would be over half of the adult, bank-account-participating population of the country.

Here is how to understand your risk and best live with the exposure.

As always, when Mogull writes/speaks, I listen. Good article even with the sour note at the end.

John Gruber:

Five, ten years from now, the Apple Watch Series 3, the iPhone 8, and even the iPhone X are just going to be old products sitting around in drawers. But the public debut of Apple Park, the grand opening of the Steve Jobs Theater, and the company’s first public tribute to its founder — that’s what I’ll remember most about yesterday.

It somehow feels appropriate, too, that the most interesting thing revealed in the event that came as a genuine surprise, that hadn’t been leaked, was a message from Steve Jobs himself.

Two things:

1. I was deeply moved by the opening moments of yesterday’s Apple Event. As I said here, “Today’s Apple event opening montage is phenomenal, a real love letter to design and to Steve.” I will freely admit that hearing Steve’s voice got me a little choked up.

2. This writeup by John Gruber is worth reading stem to stern. This post is about Steve and the theater that bears his name.

Kirk McElhearn:

As I reported here yesterday, Apple released an update to iTunes. The latest version, 12.7, has some minor changes, but one big revolution: the App Store is no longer available.

And:

If they go to your website, and click on the Download on the App Store button, something strange will happen. They will not be able to go to the App Store, because it no longer exists.

In fact what happens after that click is interesting. The user’s web browser opens a web page which displays a message, above a spinning gear, that says Opening the iTunes Store. The browser eventually redirects to iTunes, which redirects back to the browser displaying a webpage showing information about the app. However, there is no way to purchase an app from this page. And there aren’t even any hints as to how one might go about this, such as suggesting that the user copy the URL and email it to him or herself to be able to access the information about this app on the iOS App Store.

To be clear, this is a Mac issue, an effect of the App Store being removed from iTunes. To see this for yourself, go to Safari on the Mac and hunt for an app link. For example, go to TouchArcade and scroll down, click on one of the App Store links.

For example, here’s a link to a game called CSR Racing 2.

If you click the link, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll be flipped back and forth a few times between Safari and iTunes as your Mac tries to follow a protocol that no longer works, or you’ll end on a Safari page with no way to make a purchase.

Either way, something big is broken here.

Add a colored accent to your Apple Watch to exactly match the color of your Sport band. This came up because the Series 3 Cellular comes with a red dot on the Digital Crown.

This is pure fashion, a thing for people who own and wear different color bands for style. Unfortunately, it will not allow you to make calls on a non-cellular Apple Watch. Heh.

Chris Mills, BGR:

Apple announced the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus today. They’re all great phones in many ways, but they have one fatal flaw for T-Mobile and its customers: No support for T-Mobile’s new LTE network.

Right now, T-Mobile is in the early stages of rolling out a brand-new 600MHz network nationwide. The first sites are already online, and T-Mobile is expecting to cover a million square miles by the end of 2017. But the 600MHz network uses a brand-new LTE channel, Band 71, and very few devices support it yet. Sadly for T-Mobile, you can’t add the iPhone 8 or iPhone X to that list.

And:

The specs page for the iPhone X confirms that it supports all the usual North American LTE bands, but not Band 71. However you frame this, it’s a blow for T-Mobile. The iPhone X is widely expected to spark an upgrade “super-cycle” that will see people on the iPhone 6 and 6S spring for the upgrade, since they’re buying a phone that they expect to last for years. That phone — expected to last for at least two years — won’t be compatible with the LTE band that T-Mobile is expecting to be the backbone of its network going forwards.

Here’s the iPhone X specs page, look for yourself. Scroll down to the Cellular and Wireless section. No Band 71 mention.

Wondering if this support is something that can be rolled out in the future via an upgrade, or if it has to be baked in. If I was going to order an iPhone X and used T-Mobile, I would definitely want to know about this before I pressed the Buy button.

Any experts disagree with Chris’s take? Please do let me know.

Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore, digs into the differences between the Series 3 Apple Watch and the previous Apple Watch models, as well as the differences between the GPS-only and GPS+cellular Series 3 models.

A few points that stand out:

The GPS + Cellular Series 3 has double the storage capacity: 16GB to the GPS-only’s 8GB.

And:

the GPS-only Series 3 is limited to just aluminum Sport and Nike+ casings (silver, gold, or space grey) with their Ion-X glass screen. In contrast, the GPS + Cellular Watch retains the higher-end casings formerly present with the Series 2 in addition to the aluminum Sport and Nike+ casings. This includes options like stainless steel, white and grey ceramic, and Hermès steel.

And:

All Series 3 GPS + Cellular watches have a red dot on the Digital Crown.

And the biggest point of all, on battery life while talking via the Apple Watch:

3 hours connected to iPhone, 1 hour w/ Cellular

Three hours connected via my iPhone might as well be infinity. If I’ve got my iPhone, I’m going to be talking using my iPhone. I talk via my Apple Watch very rarely, and usually for very short calls when I just can’t get to my iPhone.

One hour battery life talking on my Apple Watch without my iPhone seems extremely low. If I make a half hour call, presumably that’s half my battery gone. Gonna need a recharge.

Perhaps Apple’s marketing research shows that likely buyers want the freedom to not carry an iPhone (runners, for example), want to stay in touch, but don’t anticipate making calls on a regular basis. That would work.

Good, detailed post from Serenity. Check it out if you are thinking about moving up to the Series 3.

Mac Observer:

Apple rolled out iTunes 12.7 on Tuesday with support for iOS 11—the new version of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system that will be publicly available on September 19th. The update also makes some interface changes and does away with saving backups of the apps installed on your devices.

Many of us have complained about iTunes bloat and wanted Apple to do something about it but, in my opinion, this isn’t it. I like having backups on my Mac. Apple says:

The new iTunes focuses on music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. Apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are now exclusively available in the new App Store for iOS. And the new App Store makes it easy to get, update, and redownload apps—all without a Mac or PC.

Except I almost never “get, update, and redownload apps” without my Mac and I never buy apps directly from my iPhone. When I want to buy an app, I read reviews and check out the developer’s web site on my Mac, not on my iPhone. All of this leaves aside the fact many of us have bandwidth caps. Forcing users to use up bandwidth re-downloading apps, for any reason, seems user unfriendly. I recognize I may be an extreme use case but it would be nice if Apple simply made this an option for those users who don’t want to do it this way.

iMore:

Apple’s Senior VP of Retail Angela Ahrendts explained the company’s plans for the future of Apple Retail in her presentation at today’s Apple Event, saying that Apple Stores are no longer just stores – they’re Town Squares.

Ahrendts has been talking about this for a while but, for some reason, it was only yesterday it hit me how odd and jarring the term “Town Squares” was. I can’t quite put my finger on why I dislike it so much.