This amazing documentary was broadcast on NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting service. No spoilers, but it is a gorgeous take on Steve Jobs’ passionate connection to Japan.

Typically, I’d embed the video, but NHK has specifically prevented that, so follow the headline link to watch it on YouTube.

[H/T @rwintheiser]

Follow the link, start spamming the keyboard. Such code!

Don’t forget to tap the option key 3 times to gain access.

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld:

In macOS 11.0 Big Sur, Apple added full-blown management and visualization, similar to what appears in iOS and iPadOS. The algorithm generally keeps the laptop charged to about 80 percent of capacity. Charging above 80 percent, and particularly to “full,” can put premature wear on a battery, as lithium-ion batteries run hotter the closer they are to their hardware-derived full charge.

However, one reader noted that their battery was always being charged to 100 percent, and wanted to set it to charge no more than 80 percent as a preventative measure. Owners of new M1-based Apple Silicon laptops have found battery life is so remarkably long that they may feel the same way: why risk wearing out the battery when 80 percent gives them more than a full day off the plug?

When I finally managed to get my M1 MacBook Air down to the point where it hit “charge or die”, I noticed that it only charged up to 80%. Glenn Fleishman’s article laid out the why of this.

Still not clear to me why charging sometimes stops at 80% and sometimes goes all the way to 100%. As Glenn mentions, with this exceptional battery life, 80% is plenty for most days, and an acceptable upper limit if it means an extended lifetime for my battery.

Apple’s latest gallery, showing off the iPhone 12 series camera. Follow the headline link and scroll through these photos. Some beautiful work there.

There’s a lot of gear here, but what grabbed my attention was the look at that new 31.5″ OLED LG display right at the beginning of the video.

LG has been steadily improving their display lineup, with each new generation seemingly custom made with the Mac in mind. Take a look.

OSXDaily:

Have you received audio files or audio messages from any of your contacts on iMessage? If so, you may sometimes want to store them permanently on your iPhone or iPad so that you can listen to them later at your convenience, and save the audio attachment as a file directly. Fortunately, you can do this pretty easily, and we’ll show you how you can manually view and save audio attachments from iPhone and iPad.

As advertised, follow the sequence. Pretty low discoverability there, but not a widely used feature, I’d suspect.

William Gallagher, AppleInsider:

In theory, Apple offers the same AppleCare+ insurance for Macs that it does for iPhones, yet the details are so different that it’s harder to determine the value to you.

Once you understand just what AppleCare+ actually offers, and what it costs, then in principle the decision is straightforward.

The value of this post is not so much in answering the headline question, but in walking through the differences between AppleCare+ for Mac and iPhone.

Take a read through, note the costs involved in repairing the various Mac models.

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch, digs through the annual App Annie mobile report. There’s a ton of fascinating trend data in the linked post, worth a scan.

One chart I found particularly interesting was the top social media apps in the US chart (about 1/3 of the way down). Facebook usage grew (pandemic?), but was overtaken by TikTok. 2020 was a huge year for TikTok.

And:

App usage in the U.S. surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours on their mobile device.

This seems a clear trend, exacerbated by the pandemic. I watch live TV for breaking news and sports. Otherwise, it’s on-demand streaming content. Obviously, this is only possible with high bandwidth net access.

Interesting read.

If you’ve read about Shortcuts, but felt a bit overwhelmed by the learning curve, here’s a great, simple project, perfect for dipping your toes in the water.

In a nutshell:

• Fire up the Shortcuts app on your iPhone
• Tap the Automation tab at the bottom of the screen
• Tap “Create Personal Automation”
• Scroll to the bottom and tap “Charger”
• Make sure “Is Connected” is selected
• Tap “Next”
• In the search field that appears (bottom of screen), type “Speak”. The action “Speak Text” should appear. Tap on it.
• Tap the “Text” area and type some text to speak, like “Charging”
• Tap “Next”
• Tap to turn off “Ask Before Running”.
• Tap “Done”

That’s it. Now plug in your iPhone and it will speak the text. Let the pranks begin!

One last note: To delete the shortcut (on the off chance that the novelty wears off), drag it to the left and tap Delete.

Apple:

Apple today announced a set of major new projects as part of its $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) to help dismantle systemic barriers to opportunity and combat injustices faced by communities of color. These forward-looking and comprehensive efforts include the Propel Center, a first-of-its-kind global innovation and learning hub for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); an Apple Developer Academy to support coding and tech education for students in Detroit; and venture capital funding for Black and Brown entrepreneurs. Together, Apple’s REJI commitments aim to expand opportunities for communities of color across the country and to help build the next generation of diverse leaders.

Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, Lisa Jackson:

“Every individual deserves equal access to opportunity regardless of skin color or zip code,” said Jackson. “For too long, communities of color have faced gross injustices and institutional barriers to their pursuit of the American dream, and we are proud to lend our voices and resources to build new engines of opportunity that empower, inspire, and create meaningful change.”

Props to Apple for putting its money where its mouth is. While this is clearly not going to solve racism, it is a targeted use of funds that will help those underrepresented communities on the receiving end. A step in the right direction for sure.

NBC, Washington:

Seventeen Amazon packages have been delivered to Catherine Mayfield’s home in Temple Hills, Maryland, since October. She didn’t order any of them. Some of the packages included cheap items, such as scissors, a foot cushion and an eyebrow trimmer. Others contained pricier items, like a steam iron.

So what’s going on? One likely possibility: Mayfield is a victim of what’s called a “brushing” scam.

And:

Sellers do this to boost their ratings. They make a fake account using a real name and address they can easily find online. The seller buys the product from themselves and sends it to the address.

“In order for you to have a validated purchase so that your rating carries more weight, they actually have to ship something,” said Hamerstone. The seller then writes a fake review and gives themselves five stars.

So when you see those “verified purchaser” labels on Amazon reviews, dig a little deeper. When I buy something on Amazon, I start by looking at the percentage of 1-star reviews. Any percentage above 6% gives me pause, no matter how many 5-star ratings a product has. I read those 1-star ratings. Often there’s a clue there, a red flag that goes beyond, “dead on arrival” (bad units happen with all manufactured goods), something on the order of “this product was shoddily made, and here’s why I say that”.

Unfortunately for those receiving these packages, there’s really nothing they can do about it except to just wait for it to stop. It’s just too much for sites like Amazon to track these sellers down.

And that’s where we differ. Amazon created this process. Surely they could tweak their system so verified purchases are actually “verified”. Make it easy to report unordered packages, then have Amazon note on the product pages that the product has an active brushing scam.

UPDATE: Check out the site Fakespot. Copy the link to an Amazon product you are looking at and paste it in the Fakespot search field (upper left of the page). Fakespot will tell you all sorts of things about that product and, perhaps, help you avoid buying a dud.

There’s also a Chrome extension, if Chrome is your thing. No Safari extension, sadly. [H/T, Kirk McElhearn]

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:

Facebook today is rolling out an update to its Access Your Information tool with the goal of making the tool easier to both use and navigate, as well as better explain how and why that data is used. The new version of the tool has been visually redesigned, and now further breaks down the viewable information across eight categories instead of just two.

Grudging credit to Facebook for sliding towards transparency. But hard to reconcile this move with the bruising fight against Apple advertising transparency efforts. Facebook is clearly for transparency as long as it does not impact their revenue stream.

Side note: Just me, or do you automatically downgrade any information source when it is passed along via a Facebook link?

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Apple CEO Tim Cook joined CBS This Morning for an interview today, touching on the events that occurred at the US Capitol last Wednesday.

Notably, CBS This Morning host Gayle King also teased that more of the interview will air tomorrow, as Apple is expected to make a “big announcement” of some sort – but it’s “not a product.”

Big announcement, but not a product. Hmmm. Well I’m hooked.

Kirk McElhearn:

On January 10, 2001, Steve Jobs went on the stage at Macworld Expo in San Francisco and presented a new app that would change the course of Apple. iTunes would become Apple’s most important app, not only because it was the companion of the iPod that would be released later that year, but also because it would become the framework for all of the company’s future online stores.

And:

Jobs explained the process of ripping and burning CDs, since, for many, this was new. He ripped a CD – the B 52s’ Time Capsule – then he imported a folder with 1,000 songs to his library. He then showed how to play music, how to sort the library, how to search for songs, and how to create a playlist; all of these were techniques that were new for most people.

And:

As Jobs said in his presentation, there were a number of programs that could play MP3s, and, on the Mac, there were two main options: SoundJam, sold by Cassady & Greene, and Audion, from Panic. Both of these apps were simple, focusing more on the player aspect, even though they offered features such as playlist creation, ripping CDs, and syncing music to MP3 players.

Apple approached both companies, and eventually purchased SoundJam, along with its three developers (who still work for Apple).

This is a fascinating, detailed look at the history of iTunes, an app that still exists. On Windows.

Interesting that there are lots of people who have never even seen iTunes, came on board after iTunes was split into pieces, have entirely missed this major chapter in Apple’s history.

Follow the headline link, scroll down to the animated GIF. At first glance, it looks completely fake, a smartphone that slowly changes size.

But if you scroll down a bit further, you’ll see an old Apple patent drawing that gives a hint of what’s likely going on here. The screen “shrinks” by rolling up inside the case, the two sides of the case slide together, seemingly all driven by some sort of motor.

Interesting but gimmicky. But worth a look. Can’t imagine this as a successful new smartphone design trend.

Jeff Porten, TidBITS:

Having attended the show roughly 20 times, I can scan several hundred booths in an hour, giving each one a brief opportunity to strike me as novel and worth more time. Compare that to the screenshot below, which appears to be the booth experience this year.

Here’s a link to the exhibitor directory. Unless you know what you are looking for, there’s very little info here, nothing to tease you, arouse your curiosity.

Beyond that, so much of the value of CES is tactile. Whether it’s getting hands-on with a production model that won’t be released until April, seeing a prototype under glass, or just getting a sense of whether a company has their act together—even if it’s just two guys in a garage—nothing beats being there in person.

Wondering if the CES folks thought COVID would pass and they’d actually have an in person show, didn’t have the time to create a truly virtual experience.

That aside, Jeff does follow with some CES items that caught his attention. Take a look.

MacRumors:

The ads have appeared on Apple’s YouTube channel in the UK and some other European countries, and will likely be shared in other regions soon.

Follow the headline link to watch the ads.

Hollywood Reporter:

Andy Samberg and his Palm Springs writer Andy Siara have teamed up with Noah Hawley and Ben Stiller for a untitled sci-fi comedy-drama that has landed at Apple Studios.

Apple finalized the deal over the weekend, picking it up in a competitive situation.

And:

The project also joins the growing list of homegrown projects that Apple Studios is developing and will be part of the Apple Original Films banner. The latter last year released On the Rocks, Greyhound and Wolfwalkers, all of which are part of this year’s awards conversation. This year it will release Joe and Anthony Russo’s drama Cherry and go into production on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Andy Samberg will star in the series. Noah Hawley was the show creator behind the series Fargo. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Dell Cameron, Gizmodo:

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by their Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence.

In a nutshell, Parler was hacked before it was taken down, all the posts, including deleted posts, were downloaded and archived. I can’t help but imagine the FBI will be interested in getting their hands on that data.

Here’s a link to an alleged description of how this all was done.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

When the ‌M1‌‌ MacBook Air, ‌‌M1‌‌ MacBook Pro 13-inch, and ‌‌M1‌‌ Mac mini models arrived in customers’ hands, a number of owners almost immediately began reporting various Bluetooth problems ranging from intermittent disconnects of wireless peripherals to completely non-functional Bluetooth connections.

This is great news. I’m hoping that same team is working on a fix for the broken Big Sur, Safari iCloud tabs that make it a bit of a nightmare to share pasteboard and iCloud tabs between machines.

100% reproducible for me, have heard from a fair number of people with the same issue. Feedback submitted.

Jason Snell:

A recurring game on Incomparable’s Game Show podcast is a modern take on Family Feud, a show where contestants guess the answers that people gave in a survey. (We did a version of this, with Apple themed questions, for the Relay FM 5th anniversary show.) Last summer I fielded a survey with Star Wars questions—but never wanted to do the hard work of compiling the answers.

The problem with these sorts of surveys is, they’re all based on free-form text boxes. And people don’t answer in a consistent fashion—they misspell things, phrase responses differently, you name it. And yet at the end, I need to say “38 people said Han Solo, 24 people said Luke Skywalker.”

This is where BBEdit saved me an enormous amount of time, and I thought I’d share what I did so that you don’t have to waste your time in the future.

This is just one example of the incredible power of BBEdit. There are so many times when I need to do some sort of data or text manipulation and after a bit of digging, turns out BBEdit has a tool to do what I need.

Jason does an excellent guided tour here, showing exactly how BBEdit solved a knotty problem.

As I’ve mentioned many times, when I get a new Mac, the two apps that I install first are BBEdit and Keyboard Maestro.

Hidden in the massive new Burger King branding redesign is a charming mini-logo.

Though it does get a mention in the branding link above, a better showcase is via the headline link. It’s such an excellent little mini-design: A capital “B” eating a “K”, the whole thing, unmistakably, a Burger King burger.

Mitchell Clark, The Verge:

The Apple Watch’s ability to act as a camera remote for your phone got a mention in its announcement keynote, so it’s been around a while, but I’ve only ever used it once or twice to take group pictures. Twitter user @PeterSciretta, however, has pointed out that you can also use it as a vlogging aid.

Here’s a tweet video showing this remote viewfinder in action:

Using your Apple Watch as an iPhone viewfinder: surprisingly latency-free and useful pic.twitter.com/PyoxK6TxND

— Mitchell (@strawberrywell) January 6, 2021

Bloomberg:

Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.

A 4.8% rally in the electric carmaker’s share price Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.

And:

Over the past year his net worth soared by more than $150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743% last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.

“The fastest bout of wealth creation in history”.

The pandemic has been very good to Elon Musk and to Tesla stock.

Parker Ortolani, 9to5Mac:

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, Apple has introduced a limited-edition pair of AirPods Pro available in multiple Asian countries, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. This coming new year is the Year of the Ox, and Apple has created an adorable new emoji character to celebrate. On these countries’ home pages, Apple has also added a new custom logo to commemorate the occasion.

Here’s a link to the product page, if you want to check it out for yourself.

And follow the headline link, check out the image with the box and AirPods Pro, check out the box design and “Year of the Ox” icon.

I’m a fan of custom Apple gear, like a rare, event-specific Apple Watch band, or a custom color iPhone.