Howard Oakley digs into the details of the M1 Mac startup process.

Very technical, arcane even, but I found it fascinating.

First things first, the headline is a bit sensationalized, the content more interesting than newsworthy.

Read on…

Ben Smith, New York Times:

Mr. Cook, according to two people briefed on the email, was surprised to learn that his company was making a show about Gawker, which had humiliated the company at various times and famously outed him, back in 2008, as gay. He expressed a distinctly negative view toward Gawker, the people said. Apple proceeded to kill the project.

And:

But now, from beyond the grave, Gawker is revealing another reality in this era of media consolidation: that the chief executive of one of the biggest companies in the world, who testifies before Congress and negotiates with China, also decides what television shows get made. A spokesman for Apple, Tom Neumayr, declined to comment on the show’s demise.

And:

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president for internet software and services, who has been at the company since 1989, has told partners that “the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China,” one creative figure who has worked with Apple told me. (BuzzFeed News first reported last year that Mr. Cue had instructed creators to “avoid portraying China in a poor light.”)

Though I did find the entire bstory interesting, none of the emerging detail is particularly surprising. What would be surprising is if Amazon, Disney, Netflix, or Apple promoted, or even allowed a show that would clearly harm their other business interests.

This is day 2 of the 12 Days of Apple Stores, brought to life by the prolific coverer of all things Apple Store, Michael Steeber.

Each day, Michael explores an unusual or favorite Apple Store, with background and links of interest. Nicely done.

Want to understand the physics at work when you take a picture, either with your iPhone or a DSLR with a high end external lens?

The linked site is a fantastic sandbox, like a hands on discovery museum for camera optics. Stop at each station and play with the sliders, watch what happens to the light passing through the lens. Wonderful.

There’s a lot to love about the AirPods Max. But two things that I struggle with are the lack of foldability and whether or not the audio quality lives up to the price.

On foldability: As a frequent traveler (this year aside), I value headphones you can fit in your pocket (the AirPods Pro are my constant companion) and, in the case of over ear headphones, those that can fold up into a relatively compact case, minimizing space in my suitcase or backpack.

Though the ear cups do swivel ninety degrees to reduce the height of the footprint, the headband does not fold over. Not a dealbreaker, but I am used to headphones that fold up, either into a ball, nesting the ear cups inside the band, or like the AirPods Max, turn ninety degrees, but then roll up inside the handle. As far as I can tell, the way the AirPods Max come in the box is as small a footprint as they get.

Next issue is the audio quality. Here are a few questions that I am digging into. I am not an audiophile, but if I was thinking about spending $549, these are things I’d want to wrap my head around:

• Will AirPods Max do a better job isolating me from background noise than AirPods Pro?

Surely the answer here is yes, though I will wait for the technical reviews to come in to be certain. And I’ll be looking at both noise reduction (subtracting the sound picked up by the microphones from the sound coming through the wire/Bluetooth) and leakage (sound that escapes the ear cups and might be picked up by my podcasting mic).

• Assuming AirPods Max use the AAC Bluetooth codec, are the AirPods Max as good as the highest end Bluetooth competing headphones?

I’m assuming that I’ll be listening to Apple Music on these headphones as my primary music experience. And my understanding is that AAC is the standard codec used by iPhone/Apple Music. So the max data transfer rate/cap is that of AAC, assuming I am listening via Bluetooth (I’m assuming wired listening offers me higher quality options, but I rarely plug in, I’m a Bluetooth listener).

There are a lot of articles on Bluetooth and codecs, but I found the headline linked article (H/T Saurabh Garg) particularly easy to follow. On AAC:

AAC is the audio standard for lossy digital audio compression. It also happens to be the license-free standard for YouTube, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and is preferred by Apple. If you have an Android phone, you won’t really benefit from AAC as its performance is unreliable: it’s a power-hungry codec that Android remains unprepared to handle efficiently. iPhone users do benefit from its higher-resolution playback though. It has a transfer rate cap of 250kbps, creating a file similar to that of a mid-quality MP3.

On that last phrase, “mid-quality MP3”: Will I notice the difference here, given how accustomed I am to listening to my AirPods Pro and my HomePod? Could I buy better Bluetooth headphones, of any stripe, to get better sound connecting to my iPhone?

I’ve been told that AAC is actually superior to MP3 (disagreeing with the article) and that, from an audiophile standpoint, AAC is very good. Also, Apple Music uses 256kbps. The combo of Bluetooth and AAC introduces that 250kbps cap. A very small difference, likely not noticeable.

And that “power-hungry codec” comment: Does not apply to an Apple device connecting to Apple headphones. They do the decoding in hardware, very power-efficient.

Again, I’m no audiophile. I’m eagerly waiting for reviews to come in, to get a sense of just how much Bluetooth listening bang I’d be getting for my bucks.

Per usual, if I’ve got anything wrong here, please do ping me.

Crowdsourced site gathering info on games that pay real money running on M1 Macs. Is the game playable? If so, what environment (Rosetta 2? Crossover emulation? Native?), frame rate, resolution?

Follow the headline link and search for a game, or simply scroll down and see what games do what. A great resource.

Warring thoughts here. On one side, there’s the collector, owning a snippet of Steve Jobs, a bit of history. Sports cards have been doing this for a long time, offering cards, with a bit of a players’ uniform, a sliver of bat, an original signature, all designed to pump up the rarity, increase the card’s value.

But on the other side, there’s the complete lack of a resale market, and the certainty of the phone losing its value as a phone over time.

Want to save a bit of money? Consider the Steve Jobs New Balance sneakers with the Think Different laces, at about 1/5 the price.

WSJ. Magazine:

“It does feel like people might think we built Fitness+ because of Covid,” Jay Blahnik, Apple’s senior director of fitness technologies, tells me via a video call from the company’s fitness studio in Los Angeles. “But we’ve been working on it for a very, very long time.”

And:

With the launch of Fitness+, however, Apple aims to create a new ecosystem for the watch: a subscription-based, on-demand virtual-fitness studio, with an initial 21-person team of trainers (recruited after an intensive search, in which Apple says “no gym was too gritty for us to go into”), covering 10 disciplines—from high-intensity interval training to dance workouts to rowing to “mindful cooldowns”—offering a fresh slate of workouts, of varying lengths, every week (all set to the beat of Apple Music).

And:

“We have a carousel called ‘Try Something New.’ So if you tend to do more linear workouts, like running or cycling, you would be suggested things like HIIT [high-intensity interval training] or yoga, that would move your body in different directions.”

And:

What Apple is pursuing, suggests Benedict Evans, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a longtime tech-industry analyst, is a “broader bundling strategy”; the new AppleOne, for example, includes Fitness+ along with services like iCloud and Arcade. The company, he says, is “trying to create more perceived value without adding marginal cost.” And, importantly, it adds value to the watch itself, which Evans suggests, “hasn’t worked really well as a developer platform”—in other words, “most of the stuff you do with it comes with it.” Fitness+ is a logical evolution of the watch that could increase its relevance for many users.

Lots more in the article itself. I linked to the Apple News version of the article, but here’s a link to the version on the WSJ site.

I am very interested in how Fitness+ interacts with Apple Watch. There seems to be the promise of a new set of interface mechanisms, highlighting progress in a different way than the current simple tally of minutes and calories burned. Looking forward to Monday’s launch.

As of this morning, all five Apple AirPods Max colors are shipping delayed until March 3rd, 2021 at the earliest. That’s 10 weeks out.

But, if you hurry, you can still get them in a week if you are willing to settle for Space Gray or Silver. Follow the headline link to Best Buy. I suspect they won’t last long. The other three colors are already sold out.

Those same two colors seem available at Target as well, with the possibility of an appearance by Pink as we get closer to ship date.

Finally, B&H Photo has the Silver AirPods Max available for pre-order.

Happy hunting.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi today spoke at the virtual European Data Protection & Privacy Conference, where he highlighted Apple’s approach to privacy and commitment to keeping customer data safe.

Watch the video (embedded below) for yourself. Craig’s intro starts at 49 minutes in.

If you like teardowns, this is an interesting one. Lot’s of detail on the take-apart, ultimately landing here:

By leaving the flip chip SoC in place and using IR imaging through the die’s backside to acquire a die image, the product remains functional. Now, it is time to see what can be learned from monitoring the M1 while it’s put through its paces on the lab bench

Looking forward to part two of this process.

[H/T Om Malik]

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Apple’s online store has started listing select exercise gear on its online store for the first time. Apple has kicked off its exercise equipment offering with yoga accessories, including a Manduka eKOlite Yoga Mat ($77.95), a Manduka 6 mm Performance Yoga Mat ($119.95), and a Cork Yoga Block ($19.95).

Getting ready for Monday’s launch of Fitness+.

Apple:

Apple today announced AirPods Max, innovative wireless headphones that bring the magic of AirPods to an over-ear design with high-fidelity sound. AirPods Max combine a custom acoustic design, H1 chips, and advanced software to power computational audio for a breakthrough listening experience with Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio. AirPods Max come in five gorgeous colors, including space gray, silver, sky blue, green, and pink, and are available to order starting today, with availability beginning Tuesday, December 15.

There is so much to unpack here.

First things first, these are some gorgeous headphones. They’ve got Active Noise Cancellation, as you’d expect, and they seem to me to fit into that high end category of headphones that are over ear, great for sound isolation, and designed to be an incredibly comfortable fit, perfect for the studio, perfect for a long airplane ride.

20 hours of battery life. Cordless, but able to plug in if the need arises (there’s a Lightning port, on device, for both audio and charging).

There are five different colors. As Rene Ritchie pointed out, the AirPods Max bands are the iPhone 12 colors, while the casings are the iPad Air colors. Brilliant observation.

Fair or not, I am assuming the audio quality of the AirPods Max will compare favorably to high end Bose, or even B&O headphones. Jury out on this last point, waiting for audiophile reviews to see where they land.

If you’ve not seen them, watch the two product videos embedded below. They do a nice job showing off the product elegance. Don’t miss the magnetic ear cup attachment. Presumably, if one gets lost or damaged, easy enough to replace (replacement AirPods Max ear cushions coming soon, priced at $69). And (as other headphones have done before them), don’t miss the woven “L” and “R” in each ear cup. So if one does need replacement, you’ll need to get the right flavor/color.

Note that you can engrave your AirPods Max. Right on the shoulder. Cap letters and emoji.

OK, so that brings us to price. At $549, these are high end product. There’s a lot of value here and, if the audio lives up to the billing, I’d imagine these will sell quite well. And, at that price, I’d imagine they’ll be envy inducing. And like Apple’s original wired EarPods, and AirPods, they will be easy to spot marketing for Apple’s brand.

I would love a pair for Christmas. Just saying, in case my family is reading.

Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac:

Right after the Apple event in October, Samsung mocked the company for not including the power adapter in the iPhone 12 box and also removing it from the older models. Now, as some rumors have predicted, the Galaxy S21’s documentation suggests that it will also not come with a charger included in the box.

It’s uncanny how quickly this happened.

Samsung went from big ads with pics of a charging brick and the tagline, “Included with your Galaxy” to removing the brick from the box. So quickly, that I can’t help but think they knew they were removing the brick while they were designing the “we’ve still got a brick” ad campaign.

Yeesh.

Google Blog:

Starting today, Apple Music is rolling out to Google Assistant-enabled devices like Nest Audio, Nest Hub Max, Nest Mini, and more. Apple Music subscribers can search and play songs (more than 70 million!), albums and playlists—all ad-free—just by using their voice.

To play music from Apple Music, first link your Apple Music account in the Google Home app. You can also select Apple Music as your default music streaming service. Then, all you have to do is say, “Hey Google, play New Music Daily playlist,” or “Hey Google, play Rap Life playlist.”

Interesting break in the ecosystem on both sides. Google has opened the door to Apple Music being the main music service, and Apple has allowed Google to be the music hardware provider and Siri replacement.

Available now in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan.

Apple:

Apple today announced Fitness+, the first fitness experience built around Apple Watch, is launching Monday, December 14. Apple Fitness+ brings studio-style workouts to iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, intelligently incorporating workout metrics from Apple Watch for a first-of-its-kind personalized and immersive experience users can complete wherever and whenever is convenient for them. Apple Fitness+ will launch with 10 of the most popular workout types, including High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Strength, Yoga, Dance, Core, Cycling, Treadmill (for running and walking), Rowing, and Mindful Cooldown, led by a phenomenal team of trainers whose approach is welcoming to all. The workouts are fueled by inspiring music from today’s top artists designed to keep users motivated from start to finish. Start working out today, do it for your health.

And:

Apple Fitness+ dynamically integrates personal metrics from Apple Watch to inspire users, animating them on the screen during key moments in the workout, providing an engaging and immersive experience to help users stay motivated.

The tight Apple Watch integration is one of the key features that will distinguish Apple Fitness+ from competitors, like Peloton.

For example, when the trainer says to check heart rate, the heart rate metrics are spotlighted; during tough intervals, a countdown timer starts to help users get through to the last second; and when they close their Activity rings, a celebration happens right on the workout screen.

I’m definitely going to incorporate Fitness+ into my workout regimen, looking forward to seeing how well Apple Watch works here, what interface elements have changed.

My favorite bit:

For those who enjoy a little competition, HIIT, Treadmill, Cycling, and Rowing workouts have an optional Burn Bar that shows, in real time, how a user’s effort stacks up against anyone who has previously completed the same workout.

Apple Music also plays a strong role here:

Music is a central part of the Apple Fitness+ experience, and the trainer team weaves music throughout the design of every workout. Users can choose from nine different styles, including Latest Hits, Chill Vibes, Upbeat Anthems, Pure Dance, Throwback Hits, Everything Rock, Latin Grooves, Hip Hop/R&B, and Top Country, and see the full workout playlist before they start. They can also filter by music to find the right workout to fit their current mood. An Apple Music subscription is not required to enjoy the music in Fitness+, but for those who have one, favorite songs or an entire playlist from Fitness+ workouts can be downloaded to their Apple Music library to listen anytime.

Looking forward to taking Fitness+ for a spin. Monday.

Bloomberg:

Chip engineers at the Cupertino, California-based technology giant are working on several successors to the M1 custom chip, Apple’s first Mac main processor that debuted in November. If they live up to expectations, they will significantly outpace the performance of the latest machines running Intel chips, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t yet public.

And:

Intel’s shares slid 1.7% in early trading in New York Monday after the news.

My gut is to be skeptical that Apple can build a chip that can take on a PC with a discrete GPU. But the M1 has definitely under promised and over delivered, crushing all my expectations.

And:

Apple engineers are also developing more ambitious graphics processors. Today’s M1 processors are offered with a custom Apple graphics engine that comes in either 7- or 8-core variations. For its future high-end laptops and mid-range desktops, Apple is testing 16-core and 32-core graphics parts.

Skeptical, but also skeptical of my skepticism. Could we see future mid-priced Macs that beat high-end gaming PCs with high-end GPU cards? With the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, the CPU performance (especially showing off in single core benchmarks) is astounding, the GPU performance still less than a home built PC with a moderately high end GPU.

High hopes for the Mac’s future. Looking forward to the next Mac reveal.

Rob Griffiths did as the title suggested, launched 75 apps on the M1 in an effort to see how that impacted the M1 MacBook Pro. Read the post, amazing to me how brilliantly the M1 Macs handle what people are throwing at it.

Also worth reading, Rob’s followup post, a more comprehensive review on the M1 MacBook Pro.

A bit of a spoiler:

I’ve had my M1 MacBook Pro for a few weeks now, and I can confidently say this is the best-performing Mac laptop I’ve ever owned—and not just because of its benchmark scores. It’s that the entire system has been designed to take advantage of Apple’s homebuilt powerful but low-power CPU. As I use the machine, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s the basically the lowest-end ARM chipped Mac you’ll ever be able to buy.

I’m still loving my M1 MacBook Air, can’t wait to see what Apple rolls out to bring the iMac and Mac Pro into the M1 family.

This is a beta app, not yet released, but the concept is promising.

Watch the video below to get a basic sense of the app, called Magico. I do like the idea of gestures (think this scene from Minority Report) as a way to control your Apple TV, replacing the simple (but low discoverability) remote.

Interesting.

Every time I hear the Gruber-coined term claim chowder, I think of this post:

“Is Apple serious competition?: Palm CEO Ed Colligan seems downright nonchalant about rumors that Apple may introduce a mobile phone to market in the coming year.”

And:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Delicious.

Now follow the headline link, where Jean-Louis Gassée shares some Apple Arm claim chowder. Not quite as momentous as that original, quoted above, but an interesting read, nonetheless.

Side note: I find it interesting that “Claim Chowder” has an entry in Urban Dictionary. Also interesting: Go into Wikipedia and type claim chowder in the search field.

Tim Standing, OWC blog [Via TidBITS]:

Each pair of Thunderbolt ports on my Intel Mac is connected to a single bus powered by a dedicated controller chip. Since the two ports in a pair are connected to one bus, they share the Thunderbolt bandwidth. The total throughput of both ports together on a single bus is limited to 2,800 MB/sec.

And:

You can confirm the number of Thunderbolt buses in your Mac by viewing the System Report window (select About This Mac in the Apple menu and then click the System Report… button). Then click on Thunderbolt in the column on the left. Here is what I see on my 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro, showing the two Thunderbolt buses. (4 ports = 2 pairs of ports = 2 Thunderbolt buses).

Yup, confirmed, worth a look.

But on the M1 Mac mini:

System Report indicates that there are two Thunderbolt buses, one for each of the Thunderbolt ports!! This means that each port has its own dedicated bus and doesn’t have to share its bandwidth with any other port. Each one will have 2,800 MB/sec all to itself.

And:

The M1 Macs are the first Macs with support for the Thunderbolt hub feature found in Thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 4 requires computer makers to implement a whole set of features, most of which were optional in Thunderbolt 3. These features have actually been found in almost all Macs that Apple has shipped in the past four years, so the move to Thunderbolt 4 isn’t a huge change for Mac users.

These features include 40 Gb/sec Thunderbolt ports, support for charging laptops over Thunderbolt, and protection from malicious hardware that might try and snoop computer memory over Thunderbolt. The one feature in Thunderbolt 4 new to the Mac is the support of Thunderbolt Hubs.

The article goes on with some testing and details, along with a pitch for their own OWC Thunderbolt Hub. Hub needs aside, I found the bandwidth info worth knowing.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Apple Music has added a whole bunch of new playlists in the Browse section. These include the Apple Music top songs of 2020, both globally and for a wide range of countries.

Other categories are the most Shazammed songs – the ones people have heard somewhere and wanted to identify – and the most-read lyrics.

Fire up Apple Music, tap the Browse tab, scroll down to the section labeled “The Top Songs of 2020”, then tap See All. Lots of stuff to explore there.

Wall Street Journal:

United Parcel Service Inc. imposed shipping restrictions on some large retailers such as Gap Inc. and Nike Inc. this week, an early sign that the pandemic-fueled online shopping season is stretching delivery networks to their limits.

The delivery giant on Cyber Monday notified drivers across the U.S. to stop picking up packages at six retailers, including L.L. Bean Inc., Hot Topic Inc., Newegg Inc. and Macy’s Inc., according to an internal message viewed by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by UPS workers in different regions.

And, most importantly:

“No exceptions,” the message said.

To me, this news shows a canary in the coal mine.

We are growing ever more dependent on our delivery services, dramatically more so in these pandemic times. And, clearly, these systems are showing the strain.

One question I have: Will we go back to “normal” when the pandemic ends? Or have we permanently changed our habits, ordering food and groceries rather than leaving the house, eliminating visits to malls and other shopping centers? Brick and mortar shops have clearly been damaged in 2020. Many will not return. What will emerge in their place?