From idownloadBlog:

Apple has quietly issued a backend update to the tvOS App Store, adding a new ‘Not on This Apple TV’ option to the Purchased section, making it easier to spot apps that users previously purchased on their iPhone and iPad which have since been updated to support the fourth-generation Apple TV.

In other words, use “Not on This Apple TV” to spot apps you own that have added Apple TV support that you have not yet downloaded on your Apple TV. Very smart.

If you are a fan of magic, and/or a fan of Penn and Teller, follow the link for a series of links to YouTube videos, showing magicians whose tricks have fooled Penn and Teller. No easy task.

Allyson Kazmucha, writing for the App Factor, reviews Unroll.me:

When I first scanned my iCloud inbox, Unroll.me found over 70 subscriptions and items it considered junk. In less than 10 minutes, I was able to condense those into daily digests, or get rid of them altogether.

Unroll.me works by scanning your email accounts for items it considers to be subscription based or junk. Once it’s done scanning, you can quickly decide whether you want to leave something as it is, get rid of it, or condense it into a daily digest. You do this by swiping left, right, or up. (If you’re a frequent Tinder user, you’ll feel right at home.> Unroll.me works by scanning your email accounts for items it considers to be subscription based or junk. Once it’s done scanning, you can quickly decide whether you want to leave something as it is, get rid of it, or condense it into a daily digest. You do this by swiping left, right, or up. (If you’re a frequent Tinder user, you’ll feel right at home.

This is a really interesting idea. An app that manages all your subscription and junk email, keeping it out of your main email stream.

This tutorial on the use of color in graphic design is basic, but easy to get through and well designed. At the end, you’ll invest just a few minutes but gain an understanding of the five basic color combination categories.

Yesterday we posted a link to Serenity Caldwell’s piece on iOS 9.3 eliminating Apple Pencil’s navigation capabilities (Apple, don’t cripple the Pencil’s navigation in iOS 9.3).

Soon after Serenity’s article (and a number of others) ran, Apple responded thusly:

Apple Pencil has been a huge hit with iPad Pro users, who love it for drawing, annotating and taking notes,” an Apple spokesperson told iMore. “We believe a finger will always be the primary way users navigate on an iPad, but we understand that some customers like to use Apple Pencil for this as well and we’ve been working on ways to better implement this while maintaining compatibility during this latest beta cycle. We will add this functionality back in the next beta of iOS 9.3.”

The will of the people!

The well-respected Pew Research Center put a poll in the field from Feb 18-21 asking this question:

In response to court order tied to ongoing FBI investigation of San Bernardino attack, Apple…

The then followed up with these choices:

• Should unlock iPhone
• Should not unlock iPhone
• Don’t know

I’ve got a real issue with this poll. There is no context here. The question is simplistic and makes no mention of precedence, privacy, or encryption. On the surface, the question gives the impression that the FBI has simply asked Apple to enter the code to unlock the phone. Which, of course, is an incredible oversimplification.

The poll questioned 1,002 adults. The results? 51% felt Apple should unlock the iPhone.

Take a look at this MarketWatch poll. Certainly not as scientific as a Pew Research poll, but the choices are more informative:

Should Apple comply with a U.S. court order that it unlock the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone?

• Yes, it’s a justified request under the circumstances.
• No, Tim Cook should fight to protect our privacy.
• Hmm, I’m not sure this is the big deal it’s made out to be.

More importantly, the poll is embedded in a short discussion of the matter with links to more detailed discussion. And even more importantly, the numbers showed 63% favorable to Apple with more than 6,000 responses. Clearly not as scientific, but a much larger sample size.

Moving on, here’s another poll, this one released this morning, from Reuters/Ipsos. The sample size of this poll was 1,500 adults. Results were 46% agree with Apple’s decision, 35% disagree. The results were split largely along party lines, emphasizing the relevance and importance of the upcoming Supreme Court appointment and that currently vacant seat.

Bottom line, don’t believe headlines like this one: Apple losing to feds in court of public opinion.

Do what Tim Cook does and make up your own mind.

IDC put out wearables numbers for the entire year (2015) and for the latest quarter (4Q2015). Apple Watch moved past Samsung, Garmin, and Xiaomi in 4th quarter shipments, grabbing a 15% marketshare. FitBit is in first place with 29.5% of units shipped.

Not too shabby for a product that just started shipping 9 months ago.

The Economist put together this chart of housing prices in different countries, from 1980-2015. Boring, right? But click through anyway and play with the chart.

• Click on a country to add it to the chart.
• Hover over a line (or touch/drag if you are on iOS) to get precise values at any given moment in time.
• Drag the double-headed slider at the bottom of the chart to change the range of years covered.
• Be sure to look at the other tabs at the top of the chart (there are five, total).

To me, this is a fantastic way to present information. Not sure what tool they used to construct the chart. If you do, ping me on Twitter.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the responses. Looks like the post used Highcharts.

Federico Viticci updates us on how he is making out with his iPad. I truly don’t know anyone that uses one as much as he does.

The Daily Mail:

Construction continues at Apple’s new California campus in Cupertino with one of the most difficult aspect of the project underway – the installing of the world’s largest piece of curved glass.

More than 3,000 curved panes will be used in the end around both sides of the circular four-story building, which is over a mile around.

Peter Arbour, an architect who works with Apple on their store designs, previously said that in the end more than six kilometers of curved glass will be used in the project.

I find it remarkable Apple is going to this incredible effort. They don’t really have to. They want to. The company is not going to be better because their new headquarters has the “world’s largest piece of curved glass”. But I do know from speaking to Apple employees who will be in the new campus that they are very excited about the building and that it gives them a sense the company really cares about their work environment. They also know they are going to be spending a lot of time behind that glass.

Above Avalon:

There have been a handful of events since 2011 that have served as key milestones in Cook’s tenure as CEO. The Apple Maps debacle, Apple Retail turmoil, Apple supply chain working conditions, environmental activism, and data privacy and security, have each played a role in laying the groundwork for Tim Cook’s legacy.

With Jony Ive focused on Apple’s product vision, Tim Cook has been playing to his strengths dedicating much of his attention to nurturing the Apple experience by focusing on six values: security and privacy, trust, equality and ethics, and environmentally responsibility.

It would actually be a shame if this issue was the “defining moment” of Cook’s legacy as Apple’s CEO. It means that our governments had failed us.

Hollywood 360 Radio:

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas are fully-dramatized radio plays based on Rod Serling’s classic TV series. In 2002, Producer Carl Amari licensed the rights from CBS and The Rod Serling estate to turn The Twilight Zone TV series into a brand new radio drama series. Each 40-minute radio drama includes Stacy Keach as host, a full cast, music, sound effects and a Hollywood celebrity in the title role.

These Twilight Zone Radio Dramas will keep you glued to the edge of your seat whether listening in your home or while driving in your car.

You can get three “Twilight Zone Radio Dramas” for free by signing up and more than 150 Twilight Zone Radio Dramas (each approximately 40 minutes) are available for digital download for only $1.99 each. When I was a kid, I would lie under my covers, trying to tune in to a particular New York City radio station that, late at night, replayed old radio dramas. I saw this tweet from Darby Lines and knew I had to sign up to get these.

Petapixel:

The Canon PowerShot SX50 HS features a 50x optical zoom lens, the equivalent of a 24-1200mm in 35mm terms. Combined with its 4x digital zoom, the camera has a reach of 200x. The video above is a mind-bending demonstration of how powerful a 200x zoom is. It was filmed by YouTuber TheSleeb during a trip through Bilbao, Spain.

I started watching this video and thought the picture quality was awful. And then I kept watching. Wow. That’s insane zoom.

The credit card company noted 92 percent of the their test subjects liked the new system over passwords, as Selfie ID authenticates customers with biometrics when selfies are taken with a front facing camera, or via fingerprint authentication via Apple’s Touch ID, for example.

I always wondered about the reliability of using photos or pictures. Touch ID seems better to me.

Tina Roth Eisenberg:

The Smart Rope counts your jumps and shows them in real-time with a futuristic LED display that appears right before your eyes. Pretty cool idea!

This is indeed a cool idea.

Court records released on Tuesday show the U.S. Justice Department has in the last four months sought court orders to force Apple Inc to help investigators extract data from 15 iPhones in cases across the country.

I thought these were great. They even have the poop emoji.

Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore:

Unfortunately, whether by bug or intentional design, the Pencil’s navigational prowess appears to have vanished in the iOS 9.3 public betas. With 9.3, you can no longer scroll or manipulate text; the only places the Pencil works are on canvas or when pressing digital buttons.

It’s a beta. Surely this is just an oversight, right?

Normally, I don’t write about beta bugs and features, because it’s a beta: There are always bugs, and features change. But this functionality is important enough that I wanted to talk about it before Apple submits its final 9.3 release. It could be a bug, yes: But several betas in, we’ve seen fixes for Smart Connector keyboards and new features, and the Pencil remains crippled. Which makes me think, more and more, that this is a conscious decision on the part of Apple’s engineering team.

Read the whole post. Serenity is not alone in her thinking here. Here’s hoping she’s wrong or, if Serenity is correct, that the Apple Pencil team changes their minds on this.

The Washington Post:

In a typical call, the robot keeps the telemarketer on the phone for a few minutes, but in some cases they go on for much longer. The robot does this by cleverly exploiting a flaw in the telemarketer playbook: staying on the line if the person is agreeable. So the system leans on “yeah,” “sure,” “okay” and “yes.” In one instance the robot kept a cable company on the line for 22 minutes.

Yes, please.

Market Watch:

Andrew Crocker, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which plans to file an amicus brief in support of Apple’s stance, believes that Apple has a strong case to keep fighting.

“(The feds are) doubling down on the idea that forcing Apple to write code is not burdensome, and relying on the Fricosu case (compelled decryption) as the best precedent, which is a weak precedent indeed,” Crocker said in an email.

In the 2011 case Crocker cites, the government seized a laptop from Ramona Fricosu, who was accused of fraudulent real estate transactions, and asked the court to compel Fricosu to enter her password or turn over a decrypted version of the data on her laptop. The attempt used the same so-called All Writs Act that the government is citing against Apple.

The EFF argued in its amicus brief for that case that the demand was contrary to the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it would force Fricosu to become a witness against herself. A federal court ruled in January 2012 that she could be forced to turn over an unencrypted version of the laptop’s hard drive. Fricosu later entered a plea agreement.

You’ll no doubt hear more about the Fricosu case as this current case goes to court.

Here’s yesterday’s tweet from the official Apple Music Twitter account:

.@the1975 live in LA. Feb. 25 on @Beats1 @zanelowe
http://apple.co/snapchat

The official announcement is here. You can hear the show on Beats 1, 9a PT on Thursday.

LA Times:

Amid the tense standoff between the FBI and Apple, protests are planned across the nation Tuesday supporting the tech giant’s refusal to unlock the San Bernardino gunman’s iPhone.

The protest is being organized by a group called Fight for the Future, which has organized demonstrations on tech issues in the past.

According to the group, protests will take place in San Francisco, Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, Los Angeles and FBI headquarters in Washington, among other places. The group said backers will carry banners saying “FBI: Don’t Break Our Phones” and “Secure Phones Save Lives.”

From the Fight for the Future press release:

Concerned iPhone users and digital security supporters will gather at Apple stores in more than 30 cities this coming Tuesday, February 23rd, exactly one week after a court order that attempts to force Apple to write software that would undermine the safety and security of millions of people.

That’s today. If you are of a mind, here’s a map of all the existing rallies and some advice on starting your own.

Lots of headlines this morning saying that Bill Gates backs FBI iPhone hack request. The source of this particular headline is the Financial Times, with Bill Gates quotes like:

“This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case,” Mr Gates told the Financial Times. “It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records. Let’s say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said, ‘Don’t make me cut this ribbon because you’ll make me cut it many times’.”

And:

“I hope that we have that debate so that the safeguards are built and so people do not opt — and this will be country by country — [to say] it is better that the government does not have access to any information,” he said.

These quotes were embedded in a Bill Gates backs FBI iPhone hack request headline, and that spawned a sea of stories.

But.

Bill Gates, dismayed by those headlines, responded in this Bloomberg interview:

Q: Were you blindsided a bit? I came in this morning and saw headlines saying, “Bill Gates back FBI”.

Bill Gates: Yeah, I was disappointed, because that doesn’t state my view on this.

And:

Q: What specifically should be done in this case?

Bill Gates: Well, the courts are going to decide this, and I think that Apple said that whatever the final court decision is, they’ll abide by it. In the meantime, that gives us this opportunity to get the discussion, and these issues will be decided in Congress.

If anything, I think these interviews (read the Financial Times piece and watch the Bloomberg interview, I’ve quoted representative snippets) both show that Bill Gates is still new to this, that he has not had the chance to think this all the way through. These quotes feel like someone thinking about an issue out loud, not at all like someone with a strong opinion.

But Bill Gates backs FBI iPhone hack request? Please. That does both Bill Gates and Apple a terrible disservice.

Priceonomics:

The Panama Canal, the largest construction project in history, which had literally moved mountains to link the world’s oceans, had become too small. An increasing number of container ships, tankers, battleships, and even cruise ships no longer fit through the canal. Their hulls were too wide.

The canal’s administrators and Panamanian politicians responded with a $5.25 billion plan to expand the canal. Analysts still debate how the expansion will affect world trade. But if the global flurry of construction and speculation is any indication, the expansion seems to have succeeded in placing Panama back in the center of global trade.

The engineering of the Panama Canal would be remarkable if it occurred today. But it was an even more incredible construction project when it originally opened in 1914. I hadn’t realized it was in danger of becoming irrelevant due to the massive size of today’s cruise and container ships.

FX Guide:

Director Tim Miller’s first feature, the Fox film Deadpool, hasn’t just raised the bar for subversive, fourth-wall-breaking comic book movies, it also pushes the art in terms of visual effects. From completely synthetic environments for the freeway chase, to a fully CG dialogue-delivering metallic character in Colossus, to a unique approach to Deadpool’s facial animation and an unforgettable frozen moment opening title sequence, the film showcases a raft of impressive tech.

We talk to Miller, overall visual effects supervisor Jonathan Rothbart and VFX vendors Digital Domain, Atomic Fiction, Blur Studio, Weta Digital, Rodeo FX, Luma Pictures and Image Engine about just some of these key scenes.

I saw this movie over the weekend and it deserves all the accolades it’s receiving. Fun, funny, visually gorgeous. It was shot here in Vancouver and even though I recognized several of the locations, this article showed me just how much CGI they had done. The technical aspects of these films always amazes me, especially when they are so good, you don’t notice them while you’re watching the movie.

Fortune:

In an interview on Feb. 12 at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., CEO Tim Cook spoke expansively about the state of Apple, Fortune’s most admired company for nine consecutive years. He talked about how Apple behaves in a down cycle, how the company’s once-sacrosanct only-in-Cupertino mind-set is evolving, and the importance of services to Apple’s product mix. Without acknowledging its existence,

Cook also shed possibly contradictory light on Apple’s widely rumored efforts to build an iCar: He suggested that Apple ultimately may decide not to make a car at all, yet he implied that if it did, it could utilize contract manufacturers to do so, just as it does with computers and phones.

The quote everyone is pointing to in this story is Cook saying, “Yeah, I’m probably not going to do that” with regards to talking about Apple’s much-rumored car project. Cook reiterates the point the company has been making for years – they explore all kinds of technologies and possible products. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will bring them to market.

It must be killing the guys at Fortune that they didn’t do this interview after the Apple vs FBI story broke.

It’s time for another exciting Mighty Deal Exclusive! This super mega bundle from Tom Chalky includes 57 hand-drawn fonts, 230 textures and brushes, and hundreds of extra design elements! If you were lucky enough to snag Tom Chalky’s mega bundle in early 2015, you know how fabulous these design assets can be. You also can take advantage of this year’s Mighty Deal as it contains all new pieces!

I’ve never met her, but she sounds like an amazing woman.

For your enjoyment, a new episode of my podcast, with special guest Jim Dalrymple. Topics include the Apple/FBI legal showdown, the debate over Apple software quality, and more.

I had a great time chatting with John.