Jason Snell, Macworld:

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.

[Via DF]

Louise Matsakis, Motherboard:

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.

CNBC:

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.

And here’s a link to IBM’s official Personality Insights API portal, if you want to play with this a bit yourself.

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.”

The FCC can’t seriously do this.

Up until just over 30 years ago, when the desktop computer debuted, the whole design production process would have been done primarily by hand, and with the aide of analog machines.

This is wonderful.

But ultimately we reached an impasse when OFCCP demanded even more: employees’ compensation and other job information dating back 15 years, as well as extensive personal employee data and contact information for more than 25,000 employees. We were concerned that these requests went beyond the scope of what was relevant to this specific audit, and posed unnecessary risks to employees’ privacy. Despite our repeated efforts to resolve this impasse informally, OFCCP issued a complaint against us demanding access to the information and asserting we had no right to challenge their requests.

Respect for standing up for what they felt was right.

Digg:

If you’ve ever wondered what sound actually looks like traveling through the air, then you’re in luck because apparently, all you need is a high-speed camera and a photography trick called the Schlieren Flow Visualization to help you see sound.

This is a very cool visualization.

Wired:

Cook’s steadfast aversion to the cloud presents a challenge as Apple tries to build up new features powered by machine learning and AI. To build and run machine learning services you need computing power and data, and the more you have of each the more powerful your software can be. The iPhone is beefy as mobile device goes, and it’s a good bet Apple will add dedicated hardware to support machine learning. But it’s tough for anything it puts in your hand to compete with a server—particularly one using Google’s custom machine learning chip.

I appreciate whatever complications Apple is going through in their stance on privacy. I much prefer their approach to these issues over Google’s and Facebook’s.

There are some great new emojis in there.

Alan Kay, responding to this question on Quora:

A good enough answer would be longer than is reasonable for Quora, but I can supply a few comments to highlight just how little attention is paid in the media, histories, and by most people to find out what actually happened. For example, I was present at the visit and demo, and it was the work of my group and myself that Steve saw, yet the Quora question is the first time that anyone has asked me what happened. (Worth pondering that interesting fact!)

Steve Jobs’ famous visit to Xerox PARC to see the Alto system graphical user interface is the stuff of legend. The Mac owes its inspiration and existence to that visit. This is a great story.

On Friday, we posted a tweet storm of pictures and a video taken during Disney’s rollout of their newly announced Star Wars theme parks. There was some argument as to whether the new parks would be DisneyWorld only or include Disneyland as well. The Disneyland question was due to the space limitations at Disney’s original California park.

And the answer is, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is coming to both parks. From the official announcement:

Just moments ago, Bob Chapek, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, revealed the official name of the Star Wars-inspired lands that are currently under construction at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts, and shared details on the immersive experiences guests will be able to enjoy when the lands open in 2019.

And:

The lands, both called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, will allow guests to visit a remote trading port on the edge of wild space, where Star Wars characters and their stories come to life – and where guests will find themselves in the middle of the action.

The lands will feature two major attractions that put guests in the middle of a battle between the First Order and the Resistance. Each attraction – and even the land itself – will offer guests the chance to immerse themselves in the Star Wars universe like never before.

This will be a major refresh for Disney parks. Perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime refresh. Looking forward to seeing this in person.

Sarah Buhr, TechCrunch:

Apple has made great strides in health in the last few years and if it gets its way, there will be an iPad in the hands of every hospital patient.

And:

Earlier this week, I went down to L.A. to take a tour of Cedars-Sinai‘s pilot program allowing patients direct access to their vitals, care team and educational tools through iPads.

And:

Without the iPad, doctors and nurses have to follow a paper trail and then write up duplicate information on a white board often found on the back wall in the patient’s room. Mistakes can happen and, as Cedars-Sinai doctor Shaun Miller told me, the staff often run out of room to write, leading to confusion or a lack of information for the patient.

And:

In another section of the hospital, new parents are utilizing unmodified iPads to FaceTime with their newborns who may be sick or premature. These babies need to be kept isolated from the outside world and the germs that come with it so new parents aren’t usually able to see their baby for a few days after they are born. But, with what the nurses refer to as BabyTime (FaceTime for babies), parents can interact virtually with their little one while they wait.

Lots of upside here. I can only imagine this gathering steam as the ability grows for doctors to interact with patients remotely via their phones and tablets, perhaps with satellite devices attached to draw blood, take readings, etc.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Apple today launched a large-scale promotion in China offering special discounts for consumers who use Apple Pay, in the company’s latest bid to counter the dominance of rival digital wallets in the country.

Between July 18 and 24, Apple device owners who use the mobile payment system to make purchases in participating merchants across mainland China will receive concessions of up to 50 percent and as much as 50 times the usual number of reward points for credit cards, according to Apple’s official Chinese website.

I went to the official site and ran the results through Google translate:

Apple Pay brings as low as 50% off this season and up to 50x bank points.

Our lives are often filled with tedious, but do not have to pay so. With Apple Pay, just touch it and hear “bite”, and it will be done quickly and easily. Whether in supermarkets, cafes or shopping malls, payment has become more convenient. From 18th to 24th July 2017, where you can use Apple Pay to pay, you can enjoy as low as 50% discount, as well as up to 50 times the bank credit card points reward 3 in a designated store with a CUP cloud flashover logo.

Not clear to me how this discount gets funded. Is it all Apple or a shared cost with the merchant? Certainly an interesting move on Apple’s part.

While I’m not a good photographer, Om really is. He’s taken some great shots from around the world that I’ve really enjoyed seeing.

National Geographic:

Unlike other birds, such as pigeons, a hummingbird can fly in multiple directions, including backward and sideways. Its wings can beat up to 100 times per second. Its brain, at 4.2 percent of body weight, is proportionally the largest among birds and second largest in the animal kingdom.

“The world’s smallest birds” is just one of several distinctions that hummingbird species claim. They’re the only birds that can hover in still air for 30 seconds or more. They’re the only birds with a “reverse gear”—that is, they can truly fly backward. And they’re the record holders for the fastest metabolic rate of any vertebrate on the planet: A 2013 University of Toronto study concluded that if hummingbirds were the size of an average human, they’d need to drink more than one 12-ounce can of soda for every minute they’re hovering, because they burn sugar so fast.

Typically amazing video and images in this piece. Hummingbirds are fascinating little creatures.

Open Culture:

Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it–including an early version of his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451–as did Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Theodore Sturgeon, Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, and numerous others.

Now a fairly decent collection of issues (355 in total) is available for your perusal at archive.org for absolutely free. It’s not complete yet, but it’s close.

If you are even a casual fan of science fiction, you’ve got to check out some of these issues. The writing can seem dated at times but you’ll still enjoy some great sci-fi.

The Washington Post:

On Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will be visible from the contiguous United States. It’ll be the first to traverse coast to coast in nearly a century. There will be 69 total solar eclipses visible from somewhere on the planet in the next 100 years, but only a few will be visible from North America. See how many total solar eclipses are left in your lifetime.

For me, it realistically is my last chance to see even a partial eclipse.

BoingBoing:

Snap a picture of a key and Key Me will turn it into a working metal key.

“KeyMe is a secure and convenient way to copy, share and personalize keys. We also help solve frustrating lockouts. Get the App, or visit a Kiosk today!”

This is a little scary but not surprising. As they say, it’s a reminder that locks aren’t as secure as we think they are.

MIT Technology Review:

For several years now, Apple has operated a hush-hush fitness lab in an undisclosed location at its campus in Cupertino, California, and this week the company offered up a few details about how it’s studying all kinds of activities—on dry land and in water—in order to build algorithms for tracking them on the Apple Watch.

Jay Blahnik, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies, said Tuesday that Apple believes the gym-like lab—which was built before the Apple Watch was released in 2015 and uses employee volunteers as guinea pigs—has now collected more biometric data than anyone else.

This is an all too short article. I’d love to read more about what Apple is doing in the gym and how. Unlikely, I know.

TechCrunch:

Unless you’ve had a chance to try some Apple HomeKit products in someone’s home or apartment, it can be hard to understand how it all works. In order to help with that, Apple has unveiled interactive HomeKit experiences in 46 of its retail stores worldwide.

Now, when you go into Apple’s new retail stores, you’ll be able to use the Home app from either an Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad to control devices like the Philips Hue light bulb, the Hunter ceiling fan and many others. If you tap to lower the shades in the living room, for example, you’ll see the shades lower in the house shown on the screen.

This is one of the primary reasons Apple created the Apple Retails Stores – to show off their products and technology. I can’t wait to go to my local store to try this out. It’s not exactly like the “real” HomeKit experience but it looks like a good approximation.

TidBITS:

I want to pick apart this story, not to criticize Motherboard or the reporter per se, but instead to explain in greater depth for existing 1Password users why this licensing shift doesn’t force them to put their passwords in the cloud. And, additionally, how AgileBits’s approach to zero-knowledge encryption in the cloud, which is similar to that employed by Apple for iCloud Keychain and LastPass for its system, may be less risky and less exposed in some ways than using Dropbox to sync vaults.

The devil is in the details, though: despite having a robust design, the implementation of AgileBits’ cloud-based system isn’t as fully transparent and audited as many researchers would like.

As usual, there is a lot of hair on fire reporting from the tech and Mac media on subjects they don’t understand and/or are too lazy to actually do any research or real reporting. Fleishman does a great job on both.

Equinux blog:

Apple is known for doing things with more attention to detail than most companies. So it should come as no surprise that even App Store gift cards with their promo codes have a few secret details that help make the experience more Apple-like.

So what powers the simple App Store promo codes? Secret fonts, special dimensions, and many more.

Today, we uncover these secrets.

And:

Apple’s App Store gift cards have a special trick: you can simply hold one up to your iPhone or Mac’s camera and it’ll automatically scan in the code and redeem the card for you. As developers, we thought it’d be cool to print some of our own promo code cards to give away at events, so we tried to create our own scannable cards. Turns out, there’s more to it than meets the eye…

This is some fascinating reverse engineering. My concern is that the post exposes font details that might be used to break Apple’s carefully built promo card system. If so, I’d expect a pretty rapid response by Apple.

Charvel continues its long-held partnerships with Warren DeMartini and Jake E Lee with the upcoming release of brand-new signature models. The Warren DeMartini USA Signature Frenchie and the Jake E Lee USA Signature Blue Burst will be unveiled this week at the Summer NAMM Show in Nashville, Tenn., and available to consumers in October 2017.

Both of these guys are among my favorite players.

Australia on Friday proposed new laws to compel companies such as U.S. social media giant Facebook and device manufacturer Apple to provide security agencies access to encrypted messages.

They don’t seem to understand that you can’t just let them have access to the information. Once access is grant, security is weaker for everyone.