Apple’s stock keyboard on iOS 11 comes with a special mode designed to make typing with larger iPhones easier. Available on 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones but not on iPad, it shrinks the keys and moves them closer to your thumb.
I love this mode. I was unable to get it to work via Settings > General > Keyboard, but I was able to get it to work using the long press on the keyboard’s emoji icon. It’s a beta, so I feel certain both methods will work consistently when iOS 11 is released.
“Change—shit, I guess change is good for any of us,” Tupac raps at the start of one of his most beloved singles, recorded in 1995 and released the following year after his death. Back then, rap, hip-hop, and R&B were still subcultures, brimming with loyal followers but lagging just below the attention of the mainstream. Fame was fierce, yet limited.
Just over a decade later, the status quo’s been flipped on its head. According to Nielsen Music’s latest semi-annual report, hip-hop (including R&B) is now the biggest genre in the US, overtaking rock music for the very first time. Hip-hop claims 25.1% of all music consumption, while rock music is at 23%.
That’s be just over two decades, no? But I digress.
Why this happened has as much to do with US’s listening methods as it does the undeniable talent of many modern-day rappers. In the 1990s, CD sales still dominated. Digital-music streaming has now outstripped physical album sales and iTunes downloads as the primary way people listen to songs; with this new order comes both a new audience and a revamp of music charts.
The article tells the tale of the data embedded in this Neilson Music report. Lots to process there, including the death of the album.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak defended the high price tag of iPhones, which is rumored to cost $1,200 for the upcoming 10th anniversary model, because the quality is so good and “a safe bet.”
And:
“Apple products are safe. And Apple’s pricing is high in the extreme,” said Wozniak to South China Morning Post reporters on Wednesday. “It’s a safe bet for a lot of people, and when you love Apple you are willing to pay for it.”
Wozniak also spoke highly of Chinese smartphones, which are much cheaper than iPhones.
“Here is what I admire about Chinese phones: really good, intelligent decisions about how to lower the cost but keep enough of the functionality in,” said Wozniak.
Though it’s not clear if this was planned, Woz is being a bit of an ambassador here, his China visit and comments following directly on the heels of Apple’s promotion of Isabel Ge Mahe as Managing Director of Greater China.
Almost two years after the Santa Fe Opera commissioned “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” the narrative, music and rehearsals are complete and the production is set to open this Saturday as part of a limited six-show run.
And:
Throughout the course of 19 scenes, beginning with the launch of iPhone in 2007, the opera navigates the transformative experiences of Jobs’ life, from his days at Reed College to his time with spiritual advisor Kobun Chino Otogawa to the launch of the Apple I.
As can be expected, personal relationships appear to feature prominently in the production. Scene synopses and a cast list show interactions with Steve “Woz” Wozniak, former girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, wife Laurene Powell Jobs and father Paul Jobs. In true opera fashion, Otogawa’s ghost makes multiple appearances.
John Gruber on forcing quitting apps to save battery:
The iOS system is designed so that none of the above justifications for force quitting are true. Apps in the background are effectively “frozen”, severely limiting what they can do in the background and freeing up the RAM they were using. iOS is really, really good at this. It is so good at this that unfreezing a frozen app takes up way less CPU (and energy) than relaunching an app that had been force quit. Not only does force quitting your apps not help, it actually hurts. Your battery life will be worse and it will take much longer to switch apps if you force quit apps in the background.
I see people doing this all the time, but they never believe me when I tell them it doesn’t do any good.
The accusations, made in a filing late Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, are counterclaims to a Qualcomm lawsuit filed in May seeking to force the contractors to pay Qualcomm license fees that Apple directed them to stop paying.
I mentioned a while ago that this was going to get very interesting—here you go.
Apple on Wednesday launched a new section of its Website called the Machine Learning Journal. The site allows Apple engineers to write about their work using machines learning to build products.
While technical in nature, the articles are easier to read than I would have thought, so it seems Apple is making a concerted effort to make these posts, and their work, understandable for everyone.
The first post, “Improving the Realism of Synthetic Images,” is available to read now. This is going to be a very interesting section of Apple to watch in the coming months and years.
Dave here. I’ve been playing music since I was a kid. I started with an out-of-tune, broken down, flea-market guitar, then moved on to pretty much any instrument I could get my hands on. Master of none, tryer of all. But the one instrument I could never quite get going with is the drums.
I always felt awkward trying to make my feet do one thing while each hand did something completely different. Part of it was not understanding the rules. Then came the video below. For some reason, watching this video, it all just clicked for me. And so I thought I’d share it with you.
To me, the best part of this video is the look on the drummers face. The thousand yard stare. Enjoy.
A patent granted on Tuesday depicted technology that would sense the “manner” in which a finger touched the iPhone screen to trigger a 911 call. For example, the phone might look for a particular sequence of fingers, the level of force, a gesture (pinching or swiping), or a certain cadence of taps to the screen, the filing says.
When the “panic command” is activated, the phone would provide the users’ location to responders, and could also livestream audio or video from the iPhone.
The key to this, for me, is the ability to subtly make a call to 911, capturing audio and video, all without a potential attacker being aware the call was placed. Terrific idea.
Customs officials in Shenzhen, China have arrested a woman with 102 iPhones stuffed into her clothing.
Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, and, over the years, customs officials have arrested all sorts of smugglers.
According to XMNN, customs officials recently stopped a woman after noticing that the way her body bulged appeared strange. The officials searched her, discovering she was allegedly smuggling 102 iPhones of various models as well as 15 luxury wrist watches. The total weight of her haul was over 44 pounds.
Not sure what drove this particular smuggler. Was it a price disparity between iPhone values in Hong Kong and Shenzhen? More an issue of scarcity? A combination of both?
What I found most fascinating was the picture with the smuggler and the two border agents. The smuggler’s face is pixellated, the agents’ faces are not. And the smuggler is pointing to the iPhones, all laid out in front of her. Was she made to do this? It feels less mug shot, more selfie.
Two weeks ago I moved from Scotland to Germany to start a new job as an iOS engineer at SoundCloud. On Monday of last week I started that job. By Thursday evening I, along with 172 of my new colleagues, was officially being laid off. And then, on Friday, I received somewhere in the region of sixty emails about potential new jobs.
It’s been a wild week.
Follow the link to read the whole thing. That’s some story. I hope Matthew gets a new job right quick.
Apple today updated its professional audio editing software Logic Pro X to version 10.3.2, introducing bug fixes, performance improvements, and a couple of new features.
Today’s update brings three new Drummers able to play percussion in the styles of Pop, Songwriter, and Latin, and the new Drummer loops can be added to songs and customized with performance controls.
Apple has also improved the responsiveness of the graphical user interface, introduced an automatic time align feature for improved morphing in Alchemy, and debuted new tools for fine tuning the pitch of an audio region.
Apple today announced that Isabel Ge Mahe, vice president of Wireless Technologies, has been named vice president and managing director of Greater China, reporting to CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams. In this newly created role, Isabel will provide leadership and coordination across Apple’s China-based team.
And:
lsabel has led Apple’s wireless technologies software engineering teams for nine years, focusing on development of cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, location and motion technologies for nearly every Apple product. She has also overseen the engineering teams developing Apple Pay, HomeKit and CarPlay.
In China, she has worked closely with Apple’s R&D team and carrier partners to develop new China-specific features for iPhone and iPad, including recently announced iOS 11 features such as QR Code support, SMS fraud prevention and enabling the use of a phone number as an Apple ID.
This is a highly visible role in an area critical to Apple’s growth.
Yes, that’s Google Glass on her frames. But she’s not using it to check her Facebook, dictate messages, or capture a no-hands video while riding a roller coaster. Erickson is a 30-year-old factory worker in rural Jackson, Minnesota. For her, Glass is not a hip way to hang apps in front of her eyeballs, but a tool—as much a tool as her power wrenches. It walks her through her shifts at Station 50 on the factory floor, where she builds motors for tractors.
Okay, I can see how it could make sense for some business markets.
With one massive update we’ve brought everyone’s favorite file-transferring truck into the future with more speed, more servers, more features, more fixes, a better UI, and even Panic Sync. Everything from the core file transfer engine to the “Get Info” experience was rethought, overhauled, and improved.
I’ve been using Transmit for so many years, I can’t even remember how long it’s been. Great app.
Custom fit earphones, where the some or all of the earphone is moulded to fit your ear exactly, have undergone something of a resurgence. Traditionally worn by musicians, new materials and technologies have given custom fit earphones a new lease of life as a viable option for consumers that demand the most comfortable fit possible. Custom fit earphones have historically demanded a visit to an audiologist to create moulds (which is an interesting experience to say the least), but the arrival of 3D scanners, 3D printing, and new materials mean moulds can be made quicker and cheaper, even at home.
The question is, do custom fit earphones offer a tangible advantage over foam tips, which cost a mere £12 for a set of three? And can the cheaper options compete with a traditional audiologist mould?
I’ve had a few sets of custom fit earphones and have loved (and sadly, lost) them.
Now you can give the customer support experts in your organization the ability to respond to customer reviews on the App Store with the new Customer Support role in iTunes Connect. Users with the Admin or Customer Support role have the ability to respond to customer reviews.
Part of the problem has been the price, but with Amazon coming on the scene, that could change. The online retailer is known for offering low prices. Once the Whole Foods deal goes through, it’ll have a strong grocery backbone to plant a stake. Throw in a well-established logistics and delivery systems and Amazon is poised to be a real meal-kits player.
I don’t know how a company like Blue Apron can compete with Amazon. The article is right though, price has been a deterrent in making meal kits even more successful, especially with the coupons codes for Splendid Spoon I was able to receive, which is a competing meal kit I found. With Amazon entering the market, that could be fixed very quickly.
While Apple tends to keep upcoming technologies and features under lock and key, its upcoming facial recognition software will likely be based on technology it acquired when it purchased an Israeli machine learning company called Realface earlier this year. Consequently, a close examination of Realface’s cutting edge technology can provide us with a number of significant clues as to what we can expect out of the highly anticipated iPhone 8.
And:
The company also claims that its software can recognize faces with an impressive 99.67% success rate, a figure which is actually higher than the 97.5% success rate most humans are capable of when it comes to recognizing faces.
And:
Realface’s technology is said to be so sophisticated that it can filter out photos, videos and even sculptures designed with the express purpose of tricking the software.
Apple’s intentions are good. Customers downloading apps that haven’t been updated in years is bound to create a poor experience, and lack of developer support undoubtedly generates complaints to Apple.
Getting rid of 32-bit code is also sensible: it reduces app sizes, iOS can drop old APIs and 32-bit-only code, and everything new runs smoother and better. It’s also a good way to “encourage” customers to upgrade to more recent hardware (older devices are 32-bit-only and will not run iOS 11).
However, Apple’s solutions to these issues have serious problems.
Interesting piece on the issues with the way Apple manages apps. For me, there are all kinds of annoyances, minor and major, with the way Apple manages (often poorly) apps on iOS.
This is one of those areas where Apple may be the victim of its own success. The iPhone is so popular a product that Apple can’t include any technology or source any part if it can’t be made more than 200 million times a year. If the supplier of a cutting-edge part Apple wants can only provide the company with 50 million per year, it simply can’t be used in the iPhone. Apple sells too many, too fast.
And:
Most cutting-edge technologies are going to cost more and initially be available in limited quantities, unless Apple makes huge investments in equipment and manufacturing and corners the world’s supply of those parts, which it has done on more than one occasion.
Apple’s has to balance discriminators against practicality, bleeding edge tech that can help the latest iPhone stand above existing phones against the problems that come trying to buy that bleeding edge tech in adequate and reliable quantities.
The App Store is the most successful guarded ecosystem in the history of the internet. For nearly a decade, Apple has undertaken a remarkable task—keeping an enormous software marketplace free from spam, malware, and risks to user security. And for the most part, it has been good at the job.
But at the same time, Apple has repeatedly rejected apps and refused to clarify its decisions to developers and users. While it’s also frequently corrected its mistakes, rejections like Metadata’s show that Apple is not afraid to wield its power without explaining itself.
The company has effectively dictated what kind of content should live on the devices we carry around with us everywhere, and stare at for hours each day. By controlling what’s allowed in its App Store, Apple has shaped how iPhone, iPad, and Mac users experience the internet.
The article includes a small handful of examples to make its point. As you read this, keep in mind how impossibly complex a task Apple has in reviewing millions of apps in a steadily surging river of inputs. In recent years, Apple has improved the process with most app submissions turning around in a matter of a day or so, many turning around in a few hours.
With a process this complex, mistakes will be made, and edge cases will exist. But given the choice, I’d rather live in the walled ecosystem controlled by Apple, with its commitment to keeping out spam and malware, than any other choices out there.
Silicon Valley’s most powerful imagination belongs to a very powerful CEO.
That’s according to recent data from job search firm Paysa, which used IBM’s supercomputer Watson to determine that Apple CEO Tim Cook is the tech industry’s “most imaginative” leader. Cook is followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Cisco’s Chuck Robbins.
How they reached this conclusion:
To arrive at these results, Paysa fed “speeches, essays, books, the transcripts of interviews and other forms of communication produced by those highlighted above”— over 2,500 words — through the Watson Personality Insights API.
Benedict Evans, on iPhone as a subscription service:
One can certainly argue that selling smartphones is a subscription business, and though Google does not itself sell phones (to any significant degree), Apple certainly does. You pay an average of $700 or so every two years (i.e. $30/month) and Apple gives you a phone. Buy an Android instead and you lose access to the (hypothetical) great Apple television service.
On the idea of buying Netflix:
From a pure M&A perspective, buying Netflix and immediately limiting its business to Apple devices would halve its value – why buy a business and fire half the customers? Buying it without such a restriction would have no strategic value – Apple would just be buying marketing and revenue. But as Amazon has shown, you don’t have to buy Netflix – they’re not the only people who can buy and commission great TV shows.
And on Apple taking on the business of producing hit shows to enhance its content:
Perhaps a deeper question, setting aside the purely strategic calculations, is that Apple has always preferred a very asset-light approach to things that are outside its core skills. It didn’t create a record label, or an MVNO, and it didn’t create a credit card for Apple Pay – it works with partners on the existing rails as much as possible (even the upcoming Apple Pay P2P service uses a partner bank). So, Apple has hired some star producers and will presumably be commissioning some shows, with what counts as play money when you have a few hundred billion of cash. But I’m not sure Apple would want to take on what it would mean to have a complete bouquet of hundreds of its own shows. That would be a different company.
The whole piece is thoughtful and well written. It’s all about the ecosystem. What serves the ecosystem serves Apple.
“ISPs have incentives to shape Internet traffic and the FCC knows full well of instances where consumers have been harmed. AT&T blocked data sent by Apple’s FaceTime software, Comcast has interfered with Internet traffic generated by certain applications, and ISPs have rerouted users’ web searches to websites they didn’t request or expect,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz. “These are just some examples of ISPs controlling our Internet experience. Users pay them to connect to the Internet, not decide for them what they can see and do there.”
