Super Bowl Commercials:

If you love Super Bowl commercials even half as much as we do, then this is just for you. Because when it comes to Super Bowl advertisers, you can get all the news here. Sure the game was pretty unforgettable, but luckily for us, so were many of the ads!

Learn who advertised in Super Bowl 2017 and watch all the best Big Game ads, teasers, extended cuts and more!

Unless you are one of those fans who watched the six plus hours of pre-show, you might not have seen all the commercials and their associated pre-game teasers.

Wired:

The best Super Bowl halftime shows leave indelible memories, be it a notorious wardrobe malfunction, that goofy Left Shark, or every last second of Beyoncé’s two appearances. It’s too soon to say whether anything Lady Gaga did tonight will resonate, but at least she offered something new: An army of dancing drones, ducking and dodging over the Houston skyline, transforming from stars to a fluttering flag.

It’s probably the first time you’ve seen 300 drones flying in formation, but it’s almost certainly not the last.

I’d heard rumors of this and was interested to see how they would pull it off. Looks like it went really well.

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Fascinating documentary on PBS about the race to build the first subway. Turns out the Great Blizzard of 1888 was the trigger, crippling the entire northeast of the United States, heaping up to 40 feet of snow in places, shutting down all transportation.

Well worth watching.

Rene Ritchie:

When iPhone first came out, it was cool but it wasn’t some abstract coolness that made people’s eyes light up. It was the specific coolness of pinch-to-zoom in Photos or Maps, or Cover Flow in iPod. Those were immediately, undeniably cool.

When Apple Watch first came out, I had trouble finding a similar demo. It didn’t help that Watch wasn’t a minimally delightful product in the same way as iPhone. Apple introduced it with a bevy of features which made isolating one as the go-to demo harder: Mickey may have made people smile but it didn’t make them want to immediately rush out and buy.

And:

But Apple Pay and Wallet? That’s the “Wow!” moment. That’s the demo I’d been looking for and the one that’s been right in front of me this whole time. It’s what my friends, who recently go Apple Watch, are messaging me all excited about. It’s what the guy at the coffee shop counter loved when I stepped up, tapped, paid, and was on my way while the person beside me was still counting out cash. It’s the magic.

And:

Apple has succeeded in making paying for things not just cool but fun as well. Paying for things. Fun. That’s something to show off.

My guess is we haven’t seen a lot of this yet because the U.S. has only just begun to adopt tap-to-pay technology. That’ll change, though. And as it does, I think we’ll see a lot more of those “wow” moments, and Apple will sell a lot more Watches.

I’ve long felt this way, almost since the first time I put an Apple Watch on my wrist. Paying for things with the Apple Watch is a killer feature, but a feature that is struggling for critical mass. Apple Pay continues to grow, but relatively slowly. Once Apple Pay is everywhere, ubiquitous, an Apple Watch will be as easy to sell as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:

Apple’s unexpectedly strong numbers caused Wall Street’s doomsaying visionary sheep to suddenly tell rosier AAPL share price tales.

And:

Apple plays the Long Game and seems to play it well.

And:

A reliable measure of Apple’s ambitious expectations is its R&D expense: It keeps climbing, 19% higher than last year. Another sign can be found in the Off-Balance Sheet section of the 10-Q. This year, Apple has committed $24B in manufacturing purchase obligations — money promised to suppliers. That’s a 16% increase over last year’s $20.7B. This doesn’t mean that the company’s output will increase by a similar amount, but it’s always a reliable trend indicator. For example, we saw the same number go down from $21.6B in December 2014, to $20.7B in 2015, a timeframe in which Apple revenue also declined.

This is but a small slice of Jean-Louis’ look at Apple’s long game. His Monday Note is always a great read.

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post:

On Sunday night, technology giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and many others filed a legal brief opposing the administration’s contentious entry ban, according to people familiar with the matter. The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry — 97 companies in total— and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban.

The amicus brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Friday a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan — as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.

From the brief:

Immigrants make many of the Nation’s greatest discoveries, and create some of the country’s most innovative and iconic companies. Immigrants are among our leading entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, and philanthropists. The experience and energy of people who come to our country to seek a better life for themselves and their children—to pursue the “American Dream”—are woven throughout the social, political, and economic fabric of the Nation.

And:

America has long recognized the importance of protecting ourselves against those who would do us harm. But it has done so while maintaining our fundamental commitment to welcoming immigrants—through increased background checks and other controls on people seeking to enter our country.

And:

Immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list, including Apple, Kraft, Ford, General Electric, AT&T, Google, McDonald’s, Boeing, and Disney.

Here’s a link to the amicus brief, in case you want to read it for yourself.

Mental Floss:

More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game “just for the commercials”—but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple’s Board of Directors didn’t want to run it at all.

For many of you, this might be an old familiar story but, on Super Bowl Sunday, it’s still interesting to read how the “greatest commercial ever made” might never have been broadcast.

Ken Segall:

What follows is the tale of HAL: Apple’s 1999 Super Bowl commercial starring the malevolent computer from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

HAL became Apple’s first Super Bowl appearance since 1985, when the ill-conceived Lemmings commercial ran. That, as you know, was the follow-up to the previous year’s amazing 1984 commercial — arguably the greatest commercial of all time.

Read on if you’re interested in learning how ads were often born in Steve Jobs’s Apple. The process was not at all like what you find in most big companies today (including Apple).

I don’t know how “successful” the ad was for Apple but, re-watching it again after all these years certainly brought back the creepy factor of the ad.

Thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week.

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Recode:

LG has found a fix for a problem that left its high-end Mac monitor unable to work properly when placed within a few feet of a router.

An LG spokesman told Recode that the company is adding additional shielding to newly manufactured models.

And if you already own one:

Existing models will be able to be retrofitted with the enhanced shielding, which will allow the monitor to be placed near a router.

If you already bought one of these displays, be sure you register it, and check the LG web site for details.

Indian Express:

India is a crucial market for Apple in terms of future growth, especially with the US, Europe and China markets pretty much saturated by now. It would not have been an easy decision for Apple, given that it will have to source about 30 per cent or inputs, locally. How they cross this hurdle will be interesting, especially since the company has sought exemption from this norm. There is a possibility that the government might actually grant a concession given that getting Apple to make in India will be a badge the Modi government can wear proudly on its sleeve.

Apple manufacturing in India is a win for Apple, a win for the Modi government. Apple expands their market, India gets a prestige brand to manufacture locally.

Actual manufacturing is much easier, given that both Foxconn and Wistron Corp are already in India. In fact, Apple seems to have decided that Wistron Corp will be the first to make the iPhone in India, most probably the iPhone SE if reports are to be believed. The Taiwanese company is known to have manufactured the iPhone SE and the iPhone 5, both of which have similar chassis.

All the pieces seem to be in place here. So how does this impact the economics of owning an iPhone in India?

Let’s take the case of the iPhone SE. This 4.7-inch smartphone has a box price of Rs 39,000 in India, while it is possible to buy the phone for around Rs 30,000 online the US price of the phone is at least 10 per cent less than even this price. With local manufacturing, Apple should be able to offer the best price in India.

Clearly, building locally is a benefit to the Indian economy (jobs and taxes) and to Apple (units sold, expansion of ecosystem, better margins).

Would this model translate to the US if Apple built iPhones locally? Not likely, given the higher wages, pricier real estate, taxes, and heavier regulations found in the US. Not without a push or incentive via tariff or taxes.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. will begin assembling iPhones in India by the end of April, a regional minister says, heightening its focus on the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone market as growth slows elsewhere.

The U.S. company has tapped Taiwan’s Wistron Corp. to put together its phones in the tech capital of Bangalore in Karnataka, said Priyank Kharge, the state’s information technology minister. Apple executives met with him in January and confirmed the timeline, he said in an interview.

And:

It signals a renewed focus on the country, where it just scrapes into the top 10, as growth begins to slow in China and other more mature markets. The Cupertino, California-based company is said to have put forward a long list of demands in negotiations with India’s federal government, including a 15-year tax holiday to import components and equipment.

This is a big step for Apple, both in expanding the market for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, etc., along with associated services, but also in the maturation of Apple’s ability to build locally, rather than centrally.

Apple hired former Spotify VP of Content Steve Savoca in January, an Apple spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

He’ll be doing the same thing for Apple that he did for Spotify — heading up label relations based out of New York, focusing on relationships with smaller, independent labels, especially internationally, Business Insider has learned.

Sounds like a good choice. Clearly Spotify did well with him doing that job.

The Newseum announced today that Apple CEO Tim Cook will receive the Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award in the Free Speech category. Cook, who has led Apple since August 2011, will be recognized for his leadership in creating technology that has had a profound impact on how we communicate. Further, he has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues, including racial equality, privacy, protecting the environment, access to education and LGBT rights. Cook will accept the award during a special event to be held at the Newseum on April 18, 2017.

Much respect, Tim.

The fees come into play if you continue to use the Roku in addition to your Comcast set-top box after the beta trial wraps. At that point, Comcast will treat the Roku device like any other “additional outlet.” That additional outlet incurs a $9.95 fee, minus the bring-your-own-device credit of $2.50 for using a Roku, instead of Comcast’s box. This is also how a secondary outlet that connects to Comcast’s network via a TiVo would be charged and credited.

Basically business as usual.

Recode:

Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Uber and Stripe, along with a consumer packaged goods company and others, are working together on a letter opposing U.S. President Trump’s travel ban, according to sources.

Tech companies are leading the effort but are working to involve other industries, the sources say. The letter will be the first major push from big U.S. businesses to try to support immigration in the wake of a recent travel restriction order by Trump.

The restrictions affect the tech sector in a huge way. If it continues, Apple will have issues with WWDC in a few months.

When the owner built this apartment building, he left one wall open, drove the car inside, then finished the wall, trapping the car inside. This is incredible.

This is brilliant marketing. Serenity clearly loves Linea, shows it off just perfectly, and Iconfactory gets some nice buzz for their new app.

Wish I could draw.

Gordon Mah Ung, Macworld, gets to the bottom of the MacBook Pro’s disparate battery tests. Most testers got great battery life, others found it to be terrible. Why? Turns out, it’s a bug:

In looking at other battery run-down scenarios, I ran smack into a problem that’s likely at fault for many of the confusing battery life issues with the laptop, at least in macOS Sierra 10.12.2. On occasion, the laptop’s discrete GPU would just get stuck on and consume power even when it wasn’t used. Others had reported this too, but you’d really have to stumble onto it.

I was able to reproduce the issue in Safari by opening Google Maps, which would cause the laptop to switch over to the GPU for the WebGL workload. Opening additional browser tabs and then closing the Google Maps tab would, on occasion, leave the GPU consuming up to 10 watts of power while doing absolutely nothing.

Terrific job homing in on this. Nothing helps tech support more than a problem they can reliably reproduce.

Via Reddit, this is fascinating to me. Don’t want to reveal the spoiler, but if you make your way through this, be sure to read the comment at the bottom by a user named rouverius. I believe that is exactly what is happening here.

This is one of those posts filled with tips you’ll know most of. But scan through the list, just in case there are a few you don’t know.

Even better, pass this post along to the folks in your life to whom you are the go to tech support. Good, foundational info every Mac user should know.

If you use Time Machine for backups, read the post before you do a restore. Even better, do a verify periodically to make sure you are not backing up on top of a bad backup.

UPDATE: Turns out that the verify backup option is disabled (appears in grey) for USB drives. My sense is that this was designed for Time Capsule. Well here’s an article from a few years back that discusses this.

Mark Gurman and Ian King, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is designing a new chip for future Mac laptops that would take on more of the functionality currently handled by Intel Corp. processors, according to people familiar with the matter.

The chip, which went into development last year, is similar to one already used in the latest MacBook Pro to power the keyboard’s Touch Bar feature, the people said. The updated part, internally codenamed T310, would handle some of the computer’s low-power mode functionality, they said. The people asked not to be identified talking about private product development. It’s built using ARM Holdings Plc. technology and will work alongside an Intel processor.

If this interests you, take a look at Rene Ritchie’s take on the Bloomberg report. Here’s a taste:

Power efficiency is Apple’s jam. Unless and until they license x86 or swap MacBook to ARM, there’s only so much even the tight and belabored integration they do with Intel will deliver them.

Offloading low-power, low-level tasks to their own silicon, though, is absolutely something Apple could and would do regardless of the main processor architecture. Same as they could and did offload display to their own, custom timing controller when they wanted to bring 5K to the iMac and the industry just hadn’t gotten there yet.

To me, it makes sense for Apple to control as much of the silicon as it can. This is just another step down the road to an ARM Mac.

A U.S. jury in Texas on Wednesday ordered Facebook Inc, its virtual reality unit Oculus, and other defendants to pay a combined $500 million to ZeniMax Media Inc, a video game publisher that says Oculus stole its technology.

Ouch.