New York Post:

The NYPD has to scrap the 36,000 smartphones it gave cops over the past two years because they’re already obsolete and can’t be upgraded, The Post has learned. Officials plan to begin replacing them all with brand-new iPhones by the end of the year, sources said.

The move follows Microsoft’s recent decision to stop supporting the operating system that runs the NYPD’s devices and nearly a dozen custom-engineered apps.

Ouch. It’s bad enough to have to make this turnaround but it sounds like the entire process and decision was driven by one person. That’s a recipe for disaster. The big question should be, of the other choices available, why choose Microsoft-based phones over those that run Google’s Android software or Apple’s iOS?

The Apple Post:

As Apple continues to grow their worldwide retail presence, the company has today taken a step backwards and has announced the permanent closure of their Simi Valley store, with the 11-year-old location set to close to the public on September 15th, days after the company hosts their ‘Let’s meet at our place’ media event.

To my recollection, this is the first store Apple has ever permanently closed. It’s not a portent of things to come, however.

Men’s Health: >The company that transformed the way you enjoy music and video is now sinking its teeth into a meatier challenge: new ways you can optimize your health with services like this Dentist in Wicker Park as Regular dental visits can do more than just keep your smile attractive – they can also tell dentists a lot about your overall health, including whether or not you may be at risk of chronic disease. “Our lab has collected more data on activity and exercise than any other human performance study in history,” says Jay Blahnik, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies, in a rare interview. “Over the past five years, we’ve logged 33,000 sessions with over 66,000 hours of data, involving more than 10,000 unique participants.” A typical clinical trial enrolls fewer than a hundred participants.

Good oral and dental hygiene can help prevent bad breath, tooth decay and gum disease—and can help you keep your teeth as you get older. Establishing good oral hygiene and dietary habits have been proven to be essential to achieving and maintaining, overall physical and emotional well-being throughout life with help of some health products like UltraCell full spectrum hemp oil. Oral health can affect both your physical and emotional well-being as it can impact upon appearance, interpersonal relations, diet, nutrition and speech. Visit https://www.vanhoofdental.com/orthodontics/ if you have misaligned teeth or bite issues. In addition, a disease of the mouth can affect the rest of the body and is a contributing factor to a number of secondary conditions. If you’re looking to improve your overall health, you can also get delta 8 gummies here.

There’s no doubt that Apple sees health and fitness as another platform for their products. It’s really interesting watching them do so many little things that will eventually add up to really big things.

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.

You can get 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner until September 3 by using the code LOOPINSIGHT at checkout.

Two things about this detailed chart of iOS beta releases since the days of iPhone OS:

1. The chart itself. Great work by Will Hains pulling this together. He’s been doing it for quite some time.

2. Yesterday’s iOS 11 beta 9 release was uncharted territory, the first iOS release to hit this lofty beta territory. So new, Will had to add a new color to the chart. Will iOS 11 hit a beta 10?

Fun chart, Will. Great job.

New York Times:

Next month, Apple plans to hold a special event to introduce a set of new iPhones, including a premium model that can scan 3-D objects — including your face.

Side note, I’m seeing this next month reference a lot. True, but it’s less than two weeks from now. Next month sounds a lot further away.

But I digress.

When Apple shows its new iPhones next month, including a premium model with a starting price of $999, the company will introduce infrared facial recognition as a new method for unlocking the device.

“Next month”. Oy.

Qualcomm’s Spectra, a so-called depth-sensing camera system, is one example of how face scanning works.

The Spectra system includes a module that sprays an object with infrared dots to gather information about the depth of an object based on the size and the contortion of the dots. If the dots are smaller, then the object is farther away; if they are bigger, the object is closer. The imaging system can then stitch the patterns into a detailed 3-D image of your face to determine if you are indeed the owner of your smartphone before unlocking it.

And:

Because of the uniqueness of a person’s head shape, the likelihood of bypassing facial recognition with the incorrect face is 1 in a million, he added. That compares with a false acceptance rate of 1 in 100 for previous facial recognition systems, which had very poor security.

I can only imagine that likelihood dropping with each generation. I wonder what the odds are on a false positive for Touch ID.

UPDATE: From this Apple knowledge base article, hat tip Chuck Skoda:

Every fingerprint is unique, so it’s rare that even a small section of two separate fingerprints are alike enough to register as a match for Touch ID. The probability of this happening is 1 in 50,000 with a single, enrolled finger.

Back to the Times article:

There are, however, limitations to infrared-scanning technologies. For example, objects that you wear, like a hat or a scarf, might throw off the camera, according to Qualcomm. In addition, experts said infrared light can get drowned out by bright sunlight outdoors, so face scanning might work less reliably on the beach.

And on the use of the camera for AR, this interesting note:

the limitations of the Ikea Place app underscore what’s missing from ARKit. For placing virtual objects, the app can detect horizontal surfaces, like a table surface or the ground, but it cannot yet detect walls.

This may be me misunderstanding the issue, but wall detection in AI is not a new problem. It stems from the corner detection problem (finding a corner in a room, then classifying it to determine how the walls emerge from that corner). Regardless, I suspect that ARKit will evolve to solve any and all room geometry problems.

Can’t wait. Less than two weeks to go.

Alex Webb, Bloomberg:

A group of automotive engineers has left Apple Inc. for self-driving car startup Zoox Inc. after the world’s most valuable technology company backed off plans to build its own vehicle, according to people familiar with the situation.

The 17 engineers specialize in designing elements present in both traditional and autonomous vehicles, such as braking and suspension systems, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves aren’t public. Many of them originally joined Apple from Detroit carmakers and suppliers. A Zoox representative declined to comment. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

My two cents: Apple has moved on from phase one of their experiment. They dedicated resources to learning about autonomous tech and the marketplace it represents. As they got smarter about their capabilities and as the marketplace numbers crystalized, Apple laid out plans for phase two. Different learning focus, different market direction requires different personnel.

Lots of ways to spin this story. I see it as R&D-based business that will probably hire an alaska agent for service to help keep it legally compliant.

Adam Engst, TidBITS:

Spotify worked well for me for a while, but in May 2016, the lyrics feature disappeared.

And:

Losing lyrics was a blow, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I ran headfirst into Spotify’s 10,000 track limit. You read that right — despite the fact that Spotify is a streaming service that contains over 30 million tracks, you cannot add more than 10,000 to your collection.

I had no idea any of the streaming services put limits on the number of tracks you can add. Turns out, Google Play has a limit of 50,000 tracks, and Apple Music a limit of 100,000 tracks.

In response to complaints, instead of raising the limit, Spotify said:

At the moment we don’t have plans to extend the Your Music limit. The reason is because less than 1% of users reach it. The current limit ensures a great experience for 99% of users instead of an “OK” experience for 100%.

Um, that logic seems arbitrary. Read the rest of Adam’s post. Interesting stuff.

Yet another reason I appreciate Tim Cook. He runs a tight ship, but has enormous empathy, compassion. And it’s not empty words. For example:

At our Austin campuses, we are kicking off a donation drive in partnership with the Central Texas Food Bank and Caffè Macs to collect food, diapers and personal hygiene items — all things that are critical in the aftermath of a storm of this magnitude.

Tone matters. Actions matter even more. Reading this, it’s clear to me that Tim cares, and that Apple wants to help.

You can read the entire email here.

Eugene Kaspersky:

It all started in the fall of 2016. We received a claim alleging infringement of a patent on data packet filtration technology, together with a ‘kind’ offer to settle the matter out of court – for a large packet of American greenbacks. In other words – the same old script worn out with overuse.

But, as you’ll know, we don’t never give in to patent trolls. We don’t do deals with them; if we did, they’d only be back for more later on. So – also on script – they came back with sterner words: ‘see you in court’. A while later they did see us in court, in their fave court in a rural district of Texas.

Go on, click through. The rest is best told by the person who made it happen. Love this!

Peter Kafka, Recode:

Apple and Hollywood studios are wrangling over pricing for “4K” movies Apple plans to sell on a new version of its Apple TV box.

And:

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the studios want a higher price and Apple wants a lower one. That is: This is the same fight Apple continually has with its media partners, whether it’s music, books or TV channels.

But the bigger story for Apple is that this used to be a fight that Apple would ultimately win, because Apple was the dominant player in digital media. That’s not true anymore.

Apple has played from behind plenty of times. This is another example of that. But, as Peter points out, this is a much more crowded playing field and the model Apple brings to the table is already commoditized. Amazon, Google, et al, already do streaming, 4K is more of a wrinkle in an existing model than a new twist.

Supposedly, the 4K pricing is still not in agreement. It’ll be one of many things to watch for on September 12th.

Design You Trust:

Damon Belanger, a local artist from San Carlos, created the stencil designs for his latest art project at his home before heading to downtown Redwood City where he draws it out in chalk and paints the design on the sidewalk. A dark gray paint gives the illusion of a strange shadow attached to everyday objects. A parking meter’s shadow becomes a monkey’s hangout or bike racks begin sprouting flowers.

Similar to the story we posted back in July about an artist doing similar things in New York City, this artist is using the mundane aspects of the city to create wonderfully whimsical work.

Digital Photography School:

Whether you’ve packed your camera bag light or are simply looking for a creative way to make a picture work in extremely dark conditions, your mobile phone flashlight is a surprisingly capable and adaptable lighting tool.

I mentioned this tip on “The Dalrymple Report” last week. It’s a great way to get a little bit more light when you’re shooting portraits at night.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. plans to transform the way people use its next high-end iPhone by eliminating the concept of a home button and making other adjustments to a flagship device that’s becoming almost all screen, according to images of the new device viewed by Bloomberg News and people familiar with the gadget.

And:

Apple is preparing three new iPhones for debut next month. One of the models, a new high-end device, packs in enough changes to make it one of the biggest iPhone updates in the product’s decade-long history. With a crisper screen that takes up nearly the entire front, Apple has tested the complete removal of the home button—even a digital one—in favor of new gesture controls for tasks like going to the main app grid and opening multitasking, according to the people and the images.

Are we about to enter the buttonless era?

With cameras capable of scanning sophisticated enough to verify your face, there’s a world of possibilities for hands free gestures. Imagine unlocking your phone, starting a podcast, scrubbing forward a few minutes, and adjusting the volume, all without touching your screen.

Fascinating article, lots of design details said to be in the about to be released iPhones.

New York Times:

For the past year, the two companies have been coordinating behind the scenes to make Alexa and Cortana communicate with each other. The partnership, which the companies plan to announce early Wednesday, will allow people to summon Cortana using Alexa, and vice versa, by the end of the year.

Important to note that both companies have tried to take on Apple, Google, Samsung, et al, in the smart phone marketplace. And both companies have failed to make a dent. Without a major smartphone partner, not sure this partnership will have much of an impact.

From a new Apple knowledge base article spotted by 512 Pixels:

When you upgrade to macOS High Sierra, systems with all flash storage configurations are converted automatically. Systems with hard disk drives (HDD) and Fusion drives won’t be converted to APFS. You can’t opt-out of the transition to APFS.

From everything I’ve heard, the transition to macOS High Sierra was easy and rock solid. But, even with that said, the transition of a file system makes it especially critical that you have a reliable, up-to-date backup of your Mac before you give High Sierra a try.

If you are planning a move to High Sierra, read the knowledge base post for specifics. It’s not long.

CNBC:

That cute cat wallpaper for your Android phone or free photo-editing software app you downloaded may be using your phone without your permission and running up fraudulent ad views, according to a recent report from online marketing firm eZanga.

EZanga used its Anura ad fraud protection software to look at one module from a software development kit (otherwise known as an SDK) that hides in apps, then activates to run advertisements and play videos while the user is not on their phone. While the person may be sleeping, the malware chews up bandwidth and battery life.

And:

A Google spokesperson said all apps submitted to Google Play are automatically scanned for potentially malicious code and spammy developer accounts before they are published. Google said it also recently introduced a proactive app review process, as well as Google Play Protect, which scans Android devices to let users know if they are downloading a malicious app. There is also Verify Apps, which warns about or blocks potentially harmful apps.

And:

Google Play did remove all the apps eZanga named in the study within a few weeks, Kahn said. However, when they looked after the study in early August for the same SDK module, they found 6,000 more apps online (not necessarily in the Google Play store) that contained a morphed version of the malware.

Sounds like there’s a hole in the review process. This is the number one thing that keeps me from buying an Android device.

Back in May, just before Google I/O, Google released this blog post, updating developers with the latest on their Augmented Reality project, known as Tango:

With Tango, devices can track motion and understand distances and their position in the real world. For VR, we’ve used technology from Tango as the foundation of WorldSense. For AR, it can be used to enable smartphone AR experiences by placing digital objects in real spaces. The next phone with Tango technology will be the ASUS ZenFone AR, available this summer.

That last sentence is key. Tango was a device specific technology.

A month later, at WWDC, Apple rolled out ARKit, as part of their iOS 11 announcement. Though there is a minimum hardware requirement (requires A9 or later), it will run on any devices that meet the spec.

This is a huge difference. Tango plays to an audience limited to a few specific phones, while ARKit plays to a vastly broader audience, anyone with a relatively recent iOS device.

Google has now leveraged their Tango investment with their own ARKit-like SDK, known as ARCore.

From Google’s official announcement:

We’ve been developing the fundamental technologies that power mobile AR over the last three years with Tango, and ARCore is built on that work. But, it works without any additional hardware, which means it can scale across the Android ecosystem. ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung’s S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above. We’re targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview.

Just how many A9 chip or later has Apple sold to date? Not sure. But I’d bet it’s closer to 500 million than 100 million (please Tweet at me if you have an actual number).

We know they sold 11 million iPads last quarter and about 41 million iPhones. That’s more than 50 million qualifying devices in just the last quarter. As a reminder, ARKit will run on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, both released in September 2015.

For Google, feels like ARCore was a direct (and seemingly hurried) response to ARKit’s wave of adoption and publicity. Interesting developments.

The National Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded an Emmy in the category:

Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content

The award went to:

• Comcast
• Universal Electronics (UEI)
• Apple TV
• Nuance Dragon TV

Interesting that Comcast and UEI got the award as a company, but Apple TV and Nuance Dragon TV got the award as a product.

Congrats to the Apple TV and Siri teams.

The Expression Photo XP-8500 delivers sharp, professional-quality, borderless photos up to 8” x 10”, and 4″ x 6″ in as fast as 10 seconds. Leveraging six-color Claria Photo HD inks photo output features smooth gradations and accurate skin tones. As a powerful and versatile printing and scanning solution, the Expression Photo XP-8500 offers a range of productivity features, including built-in USB and memory card slots for PC-free printing, dedicated photo and CD/DVD printing trays, and a rear paper feed for specialty media.

You can also print directly from your iPhone and iPad.

Apple and Accenture are partnering to help businesses transform how their people engage with customers through innovative business solutions for iOS. The partnership will take full advantage of the power, simplicity and security of iOS, the leading enterprise mobility platform, and Accenture’s capabilities as a leader in industry and digital transformation to help companies unlock new revenue streams, increase productivity, improve customer experience and reduce costs.

For more than 30 years, the Studer A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder and Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder have endured as the world’s most sought-after professional tape recording machines. As two sides of a legendary mixing/mastering coin, the fabled “Studer and Ampex” combination provides the ideal qualities of warmth, presence, cohesion, and low-end punch that only genuine tape can provide.

This is a great video showing how these plug-ins can change your mix. I use these two in my mixes.

Wired:

Sometimes our smart phones are our friends, sometimes they seem like our lovers, and sometimes they’re our dope dealers. And no one, in the past 12 months at least, has done more than Tristan Harris to explain the complexity of this relationship.

Harris is a former product manager at Google who has gone viral repeatedly by critiquing the way that the big platforms—Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram—suck us into their products and take time that, in retrospect, we may wish we did not give. He’s also launched a nonprofit called Time Well Spent, which is devoted to stopping “tech companies from hijacking our minds.”

Today, the TED talk he gave last April was released online. In it, he proposes a renaissance in online design that can free us from being controlled and manipulated by apps, websites, advertisers, and notifications.

Is Harris tilting at windmills or do you think there’s a chance Apple may be able to do what he suggests?

Petapixel:

About two years ago, I used to go about my usual everyday life like most people do, not noticing all of the beauty around me. After I picked up a camera and started taking photos of my kids, I started to see the world in a whole new way. Once you start to see it, you can’t unsee it.

Along with the previous article about “Why you should edit your photos”, here is one about the results of learning how to “see” photographically. Look at the stark difference in the “before ” and “after” shots. Most of us take the Before shot. Learn how to create the After shot.

Learn Ulysses is an online course that will quickly teach you how to get up and running with Ulysses — the best writing app out there for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. (We dive into the power-user features, too.)

This course was made by Shawn Blanc for The Sweet Setup.

Kirkville:

It’s not that hard to learn how to do simple editing, even in an app like Apple’s Photos. You don’t need Lightroom and Photoshop, like all the “serious” photographers; simple apps, even on a smartphone, can make changes to photos.

I tell my photography students this all the time. Half of the work of a good photo is in the edit. Learn how to edit (even simple edits in the iPhone) and your photos will get better. Thanks to Dave Mark for the link.