People have been asking me two things all week—What did you think of Apple’s keynote announcements? And What did you think of WWDC in San Jose instead of having it in San Francisco? I largely covered my thoughts on the product announcements, including listening to HomePod, so I thought I’d give you some additional thoughts on WWDC in San Jose.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint all week how to properly explain my feelings on how I felt about WWDC in San Jose, especially for developers that previously attended the conference in San Francisco, but didn’t make it here this year.
The best way to explain it is that when you left the Moscone building in San Francisco, you effectively left WWDC. In San Jose, it feels like Apple set up a little city for developers—even a few blocks away, you felt like you were still at the conference.
There was a wonderful plaza setup out front of the convention center where people would sit and chat, eat, and do some work. The days of people sitting in every nook and crevice at Moscone has been replaced by comfortable chairs and tables that allowed for conversation and collaboration among attendees.
The only thing I would like to see is that the restaurants and bars nearby would stay open a bit longer each night to accommodate the crowd. They all closed pretty early.
WWDC in San Francisco felt like a tech conference. WWDC in San Jose feels more like a get together of friends. I really hope Apple decides to bring the conference back here again next year.
Sure, a few of us lucky souls were able to listen to a HomePod at Apple’s developer conference, but nobody outside of Apple has talked to one or picked one up. At the risk of stating the obvious, that’s because this is a product that’s not finished yet. Apple doesn’t want to publicly commit to a feature and then realize it can’t ship it; the product as the company conceives it today may not be the product that ends up in customers’ hands in December.
Lots of detail on what we know and what we still don’t know. Good read.
The history of London can be found in pieces on its riverbed. The old pipes and fossilised horse bones wash up on the shore, and with them come the lead letters that printed that history in the newspapers.
The letters ended up there mostly out of laziness, building up piece by piece over the years that Fleet Street served as the epicentre of British journalism. A typesetter’s job was time-consuming: A page of newspaper was laid out one character at a time, the pieces were put back in their boxes the same way. When the typesetters crossed Blackfriars Bridge on their way home from work they’d toss a pocketful of type over the side rather than bother.
They’re still there. There are thousands of letters slowly rearranging themselves over the years and moods of the mud, like alphabet soup.
This is the story of one of those sunken typefaces and a feud between two longtime friends. Beautifully written and a fascinating bit of design history.
UPDATE: Here’s a BBC video laying out the story (H/T James Stratford):
Lots of good reading material here, but this on the Mac Mini stuck out:
And while they even updated the venerable MacBook Air (a bit), the Mac Mini is sitting there in its ancient and increasingly “what about this then?” glory. I have to admit, I can only think of one reason for this: that they still plan to replace the Mac Mini down the road, and that it’ll be done with a lower end version of the Mac Pro. Here’s hoping, because I’d buy that thing in a femtosecond. But for now, the Mac Mini continues to be an enigma of “why is is not updated and still on the price list?” — I’m a little surprised it didn’t get a CPU refresh with everything else here, but I’ll bet our friend the Thermal Limit problem is the reason, and replacing it will require the stuff being done on the Mac Pro. At least, I hope so.
The Mac Mini does have an audience, it’s throw in the suitcase portable, and is Mac Pro-level long in the tooth. Here’s hoping we see a new one sometime soon.
With iOS 11, users will gain the ability to adjust the AirPods’ double-tap action with new control options.
Changing the double-tap functionality on the AirPods is as simple as jumping into the AirPod’s Bluetooth settings. Before iOS 11, users were simply stuck between decided whether the double-tap activated Siri, or Play/Paused audio. On iOS 11, Apple has given more control to the AirPods with the introduction of Next Track, Previous Track, and Off options.
This is a smart add for Apple. I can control volume (something I do rarely) from my Apple Watch, and skip to next track (something I do all the time) directly from my AirPods. Perfect.
When you pair AirPods to your iPhone, the wireless earbuds are automatically paired to iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches with the same iCloud account thanks to automatic setup. Apple TV has not been included in the devices that automatically pair, however, but that’s changing with tvOS 11.
Starting with the first tvOS 11 developer beta, AirPods appear as a new speaker option automatically on Apple TVs with iCloud accounts connected to iPhones with AirPods paired. This means you can play music or easily listen to video from Apple TV through AirPods without using the TV speakers.
Welcome to the auto-pairing family, Apple TV. Huzzah!
When iOS 11 comes out in the fall, users will be able to turn on “Type to Siri” in their accessibility settings, which will let you write your commands to Siri, rather than shout them into space.
As of now, Type to Siri is an accessibility feature: It’s designed for folks who may not be able to speak their queries and need a keyboard (or other switch control-based device) to do so, and a huge boon for them, too.
But even those without need for accessibility features may love this feature — Google’s Assistant offers both a text and type interface, allowing for quick and quiet answers to questions when a typical voice query won’t do, and a similar Siri option should prove very helpful for a variety of folks. The feature will also be available for macOS High Sierra when it launches in the fall, as well.
It’ll be interesting to see if this feature is exposed in other ways. For example, would I be able to write a script in High Sierra to programmatically interface with Siri?
The Wall Street Journal did a complete hatchet job on Siri this week this week in an article entitled “‘I’m Not Sure I Understand’—How Apple’s Siri Lost Her Mojo”. I use Siri, and yes, I’ve had issues with the responses sometimes, but it’s not at all as bad as what this article implies. In fact, Siri has improved significantly over the past little while.
Siri has remained largely a feature of the iPhone, although it is also available on a handful of other Apple devices, including the Apple Watch.
Well, that’s divisive of Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. I use Siri on all of my devices.
Some former executives, close observers and even devoted customers say Apple’s innovative power appears to be waning, stymied by a lack of urgency and difficulty bringing ideas to fruition.
So people that left the company or were forced out, and I don’t even know what hell a “close observer” is.
Apple will enter the home-speaker market a distant third, at best.
Reporters like this scoffed at the iPhone and iPad too. How did that turn out for you?
In nearly six years under Chief Executive Tim Cook, Apple’s stock has soared but the company has not delivered a breakthrough product on par with the string of hits under late founder Steve Jobs, which included the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Ugh, I hate when people do this. Yes Steve released some amazing products, and Tim has and will continue to, as well. Name me one company that has released a product on par with the iPhone since it was released—there isn’t one. Most companies have one or two major releases in their history, Apple has had multiple. They will continue to work on new products and release innovative products, so don’t bring up Steve and think you’re making a major point because you’re not.
Another thing to consider is that Apple values its customers privacy. I appreciate that. While the article describes it as being “hamstrung”, I think Apple’s commitment to the privacy of its customers should be commended.
I had the chance to hear Apple’s HomePod this week and it was incredible. I’m not sure yet how Siri will work with HomePod, but I’ll add it to the products that I’ll use Siri on a lot. It also kicked the Amazon Echo’s ass in music playback quality.
Can Siri be better? Absolutely. Is it going to get better? Absolutely.
I’m not sure what the WSJ’s reason was for writing such an unbalanced piece of shit, but damn, this article sucked.
Recorded in front of a live audience at The California Theatre in San Jose, John Gruber is joined by Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi to discuss the news from WWDC: new Mac hardware, the new iPad Pro, Mac OS 10.13 “High Sierra”, iOS 11, the upcoming HomePod, and more.
While at WWDC this week I had a chance to listen to Apple’s new HomePod and compare it to some of the competing products on the market. The results were somewhat surprising.
Music is a huge part of my life. I play guitar, record, mix, play live and listen every single day. I love many genres of music and the talented people that make it. I want my music to sound the best it possibly can, in all situations.
I use Future Sonics Ear Monitors because they are quite simply the best in-ear headphones on the market—nothing beats them. In my home, I have a Sonos bar and a few satellite speakers to fill the room wirelessly. They do sound great, but I don’t often use them for just listening to music.
I mentioned that the results of listening to the HomePod were surprising—that’s in a good way. I never expected the sound from this relatively small speaker to fill a room so well. It wasn’t just loud, it was crisp, clear, warm, and filled with bass. It sounded so good, I was truly surprised.
And that was just with one HomePod speaker.
The real listening magic came when I heard two HomePods together. The HomePods automatically talked to each other and split the channels of the song. It wasn’t just adding another HomePod increased the loudness of the music in the room, they seemed to intelligently know what the other was playing.
The HomePod will also adjust its sound depending on where you place it in the room. If it’s against a wall, it will know and play the music according. If you move it to an open space, it will readjust for those conditions as well, all automatically.
I also listened to the same songs using the Sonos Play 3 and Amazon Echo. The Echo was so bad, it’s not even worth discussing. The sound was awful—it’s like it was being played in a tin can. I understand that people have the Echo for many uses, but I hope playing music isn’t one of them.
The Sonos was better, but it still didn’t measure up to the HomePod. Being a fan of Sonos and owning a system myself, I expected a lot more from it.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about the HomePod, from setting it up to how many can be connected and what that experience would be like. I’m not even sure how Siri will work on the HomePod.
What I can say is that from a listeners standpoint, the HomePod is one hell of a great sounding speaker. One will certainly not be enough for me.
Could a 45-year-old writer with no baseball experience beyond seventh grade, armed with only desire and an obsessive work ethic, go deep in a major league park? It would take a helluva lot of swings to find out.
I can identify with this quest. 40lbs ago, I could dunk a basketball; not Jordan-like but I had some hops. I used to be able to throw a perfect spiral 60 yards downfield. Not accurately but with some distance. And I’ve scored my fair share of hockey goals. But I’ve never held a bat in a major league ballpark and “gone yard”. Definitely a bucket list item but, after reading this article and realizing the work it took this guy, I may have to scratch it off as impossible.
Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation run by Apple employees selling computer and phone users’ personal data.
Twenty-two people have been detained on suspicion of infringing individuals’ privacy and illegally obtaining their digital personal information, according to a statement Wednesday from local police in southern Zhejiang province.
And:
Of the 22 suspects, 20 were Apple employees who allegedly used the company’s internal computer system to gather users’ names, phone numbers, Apple IDs, and other data, which they sold as part of a scam worth more than 50 million yuan (US$7.36 million).
The statement did not specify whether the data belonged to Chinese or foreign Apple customers.
The good news is, it looks like this is news about the breaking up of this black market, not simply uncovering it. But the allegation that this was an operation run by Apple employees is, if true, a big black eye for Apple in China.
As far as specifications go, the iMac Pro is a pretty beefy PC, and in all the right places. It’s got one heck of a CPU, and a yet to be announced AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56.
Apple says that the $5000 base price for the new iMac Pro is a good deal, comparing its new computer to similar systems, specifically HP, which Apple said would have costed you $7000 for a similar system.
But the old adage is that Apple computers are overpriced for what they are and that if you DIY, you can get an equivalent system for cheap. So let’s try it! We went to our friends at PCPartPicker and built a system that attempted to match the new baseline iMac Pro feature for feature, to see how much we would actually save:
“Things are worth what people will pay” may be true but, in this case, it looks like what Apple is charging for the new iMac Pro is actually in line with what you can reasonably expect a powerful system like this to cost.
Davey Lambert, a 48-year-old man from Gateshead, England, died this week after crashing at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, an annual motorcycle event here that claimed two more lives on Wednesday. Four competitors died in the races last year, and another was killed the year before that. Those fatalities brought the death toll at the event, known as the TT, to 146 since it was first run in 1907. If one includes fatal accidents occurring during the Manx Grand Prix, the amateur races held later in the summer on the same Snaefell Mountain Course, the figure rises above 250.
For this reason, and others, the TT has few parallels within global sports. The concept of mortality underpins everything here. It gives the race its prestige, opens it to criticism, makes it exhilarating, makes it terrifying. It puts the island on the map.
The people who race the Isle of Man TT are certifiably insane. YouTube has lots of videos of the racing and it’s often terrifying. Thanks to my friend Jared Earle for the link.
Quartz, on this Reddit story about a junior developer who inadvertently erased all data from the company’s production database:
The CTO told me to leave and never come back. He also informed me that apparently legal would need to get involved due to severity of the data loss. I basically offered and pleaded to let me help in someway to redeem my self and i was told that i “completely fucked everything up”…
This is a timeless tale, oft repeated. Some examples:
In December, a coding error in Snap’s latest iOS update accidentally jammed the network that keeps more than 15 million computer systems synchronized to the clock. A typo from a busy Clinton campaign aide inadvertently opened the door to the Russian hack of John Podesta’s emails. The British Airways power outage that disrupted tens of thousands of flights last week was reportedly caused by a tech support worker accidentally flipping the power off.
And this, about psychological safety:
An extensive review of employee teams at Google found that the most successful were those with a high level of psychological safety. In other words, when employees felt safe enough to take risks (and make mistakes) without being shamed or criticized, they did better work.
And:
“For all that’s wrong with Amazon, the best part was when someone fucked up, the team and the company focused only on how we make it never happen again,” a former employee wrote on the forum. “A human mistake was a collective failure, not an individual one.”
If you missed the keynote and want to learn more about iOS 11, Jeff Benjamin from 9to5Mac has your back.
The video embedded below does an excellent job walking you through the interface changes, and there are a lot of them. This video is definitely worth your time.
Alexa and Siri, rival voice assistants on Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s iPhone, don’t directly communicate with one another. But the Amazon executive in charge of Alexa and the Amazon Echo said he’d welcome the idea.
“You should be able to tell `Alexa, ask Siri X,’” said David Limp, senior vice president of devices at Amazon.
“If Apple or Google want to come calling, my phone number is out there, they can call…I don’t know if I can envision it but I hope that will happen on behalf of customers,” Limp told a group of journalists at the Wired Business Conference Wednesday in New York.
Interesting politics, Limp reaching out through the media.
I would welcome a common currency for AI assistants, a language that would allow them to communicate with each other. There’s obvious resistance to that approach, since it would weaken the walls of the ecosystem. But it would open doors for collaboration, and that’s a win for end users.
The Apple Design Awards recognize state-of-the-art apps that reflect the very best in design, innovation, and technology on Apple platforms. Learn about these winning apps and the talented developers behind them.
Apple’s first offering, “Planet of the Apps,” feels like something that was developed at a cocktail party, and not given much more rigorous thought or attention after the pitcher of mojitos was drained.
It’s not terrible, but essentially, it’s a bland, tepid, barely competent knock-off of “Shark Tank.” Apple made its name on game-changing innovations, but this show is decidedly not one of them.
I haven’t seen it yet (I’ll watch it eventually but I’m in no rush) but this is the exact review from a “real” TV critic I would have expected on the show.
Privacy has been one of Apple’s core messages over the last few years, especially as it’s positioned itself in stark contrast against major rivals like Google and Amazon. While the new anti-tracking feature may not have a direct impact on those companies’ bottom lines–the fine details of Apple’s implementation of its privacy protection feature seems to differentiate between first-party sites that you visit and third-party tracking networks–Apple is still drawing a strategic line in the sand.
Companies such as Google, Amazon, and even Facebook want to know everything about you, and then use that information to present you with ads for products that you might like to buy–good or bad, those are their business models. Apple, on the other hand, is focused on selling hardware to consumers, and it’s less interested in monetizing where you go and what you do afterwards.
Apple is in a unique position because of their stance on privacy and their business model.
Numerous brands of color laser printers leave coded metadata in barely perceptible yellow dots that can be used to trace a printed document to its source, a feature originally intended as a deterrent to counterfeiting currency with laser printers.
While a majority of laser printers are designed to produce this secret metadata, it is unclear exactly how many printing companies and models employ the technology.
I thought everyone knew about this. I remember hearing about it in the late 1990s as color printers were becoming more common in offices. We were told not to try and photocopy money – it wouldn’t work and we’d be tracked.
The ad blocker — which Google is calling a “filter” — would roll out next year, and would be the default setting for Chrome when fully functional. In other words, the normal user sparking up their Chrome browser simply wouldn’t see the ads blocked by the system.
What ads would get blocked? The ones not sold by Google, for the most part.
This is a way for Google to crush its few remaining competitors by pre-installing an ad zapper that it controls to the most common web browser. That’s a great way for a monopoly to remain a monopoly.
I was automatically and understandably skeptical about the stories that Google would create an ad blocker for the Chrome web browser. As expected, this benefits Google the most and might actually hurt many users.
Contrary to the inviting “Sounds good” button to accept the new policy and get to tweeting, the changes Twitter has made around user tracking and data personalization do not sound good for user privacy. For example, the company will now record and store non-EU users’ off-Twitter web browsing history for up to 30 days, up from 10 days in the previous policy.
Worst of all, the “control over your data” promised by the pop-up is on an opt-out basis, giving users choices only after Twitter has set their privacy settings to invasive defaults.
It’s typically sleazy for Twitter to have the pop up give the impression that nothing will change.
The season premiere is finally here! Watch this groundbreaking new series about apps and their creators. Featuring Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gary Vaynerchuk, and will.i.am.
The first episode is available here for a limited time. Join Apple Music to get new episodes weekly.
The feel of the show is like Shark Tank meets The Voice, all built around app developers looking for funding. You can watch the first episode, for a limited time, on Apple’s official Planet of the Apps site.
