Apple:

Apple today announced iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, introducing a powerful 5G experience and advanced technologies that push the boundaries of innovation for users who want the most out of iPhone. iPhone 12 Pro models feature a new design and edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays, the largest ever on iPhone, protected by the all-new Ceramic Shield front cover, which provides the biggest jump in durability ever on iPhone. The Apple-designed A14 Bionic chip, the fastest chip in a smartphone, powers impressive computational photography features including the all-new Apple ProRAW for more creative control in photos, and enables the first end-to-end Dolby Vision video experience, up to 60 fps. The reimagined pro camera systems include an expansive Ultra Wide camera, a Telephoto camera with an even longer focal length on iPhone 12 Pro Max, and new Wide cameras to capture beautiful professional-quality images and video in bright and low-light environments. iPhone 12 Pro models also introduce a new LiDAR Scanner for immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences and MagSafe, which offers high-powered wireless charging and an all-new ecosystem of accessories that easily attach to iPhone.

To me, big discriminators between the Pro and the non-Pro line: Camera/ProRAW/Dolby Vision video, stainless vs aluminum finish, LiDAR, Super Retina XDR display. If those things have value to you (they do to me, especially the camera), go Pro.

iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB models in graphite, silver, gold, and pacific blue starting at $999 and $1,099, respectively.

As to availability:

• iPhone 12 Pro pre‑order starting at 5:00 a.m. PDT this Friday, available starting one week from Friday
• iPhone 12 Pro Max pre-order starting at 5:00 a.m. PDT November 6th, available November 13th

As to 5G:

Featuring the most 5G bands on any smartphone, iPhone 12 Pro models offer the broadest 5G coverage worldwide. Models in the US support millimeter wave, the higher frequency version of 5G, allowing iPhone 12 Pro models to reach speeds up to 4Gbps, even in densely populated areas. iPhone 12 Pro models also feature Smart Data mode, which extends battery life by intelligently assessing 5G needs and balancing data usage, speed, and power in real time.

Not clear to me that there is any difference between 5G on the iPhone 12 models and the iPhone 12 Pro models.

Apple:

Apple today unveiled iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini with 5G technology, ushering in a new era for the world’s best smartphone. The newly designed iPhone 12 models feature expansive edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays for a brighter, more immersive viewing experience, and a new Ceramic Shield front cover, providing the biggest jump in durability ever on iPhone. The Apple-designed A14 Bionic, the fastest chip in a smartphone, powers every experience on iPhone 12, and coupled with an advanced dual-camera system, delivers meaningful new computational photography features and the highest quality video in a smartphone. iPhone 12 models also introduce MagSafe, offering high-powered wireless charging and an all-new ecosystem of accessories that easily attach to iPhone.

The lower end of today’s Apple iPhone 12 lineup, the mini and iPhone 12 both offer the A14 Bionic processor and 5G compatibility. Definitely a lot of value in this pairing.

These are the aluminum finishes, with your choice of colors: blue, green, black, white, and (PRODUCT)RED. The mini is 5.4″ and the iPhone 12 is 6.1″.

Both models feature a sleek new flat-edge design with an aerospace-grade aluminum enclosure and combined with the Ceramic Shield front cover, which goes beyond glass by adding a new high temperature crystallization step that grows nano-ceramic crystals within the glass matrix, increases drop performance by 4x.

The new Ceramic Shield and improved drop performance adds to that value, especially if you don’t use a case.

MagSafe improves wireless charging for a better, more efficient experience, and introduces an ecosystem of easy-to-attach accessories that beautifully complement iPhone 12 models.7 MagSafe delivers a unique experience to iPhone, featuring an array of magnets around the wireless charging coil, optimized for alignment and efficiency, that perfectly connects to iPhone every time. MagSafe chargers efficiently provide up to 15W of power, while still accommodating existing Qi-enabled devices.

MagSafe is a new ecosystem, including a MagSafe charger and a MagSafe Wallet. Both are ideally suited to the iPhone 12 and Apple’s iPhone 12 cases. According to Apple’s web site, the MagSafe Wallet is compatible with all 4 iPhone 12 models. In the paragraph above, it says “while still accommodating existing Qi-enabled devices”. Thinking that last means you’ll get the charge, but maybe not the magnetic snap?

Apple:

Apple today unveiled HomePod mini, the newest addition to the HomePod family that delivers impressive sound, the intelligence of Siri to get things done, and a smart home experience that offers comfort and convenience without complexity. At just 3.3 inches tall, HomePod mini is packed with innovative technologies and advanced software that together enable computational audio to deliver breakthrough audio quality wherever it is placed. HomePod mini will be available in white and space gray at a great price of just $99.

Great pricing. Preorders start on November 6th, shipping starts November 16th.

Follow the headline link, get yourself ready for the event!

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

There are two kinds of 5G networks: mmWave, which is the super-fast 5G that most people are talking about when they talk about 5G speed improvements, and sub-6GHz, the 5G that most people are going to experience for the time being.

This is a great explainer, to help you wrap your head around what’s coming, the terribly named mmWave and sub-6GHz.

Apple employees that have been testing the 5G iPhones recently (and confidentially) told Bloomberg that the 5G speeds have been disappointing as the current 5G networks are not “improving connection speeds much.” Most people who are expecting their iPhones to deliver super-fast mmWave speeds will likely end up similarly disappointed when they find that mmWave networks just aren’t available in most places.

Set your expectations accordingly. At least in the US. The way I read it, this is about telecomm infrastructure rollout, not Apple’s hardware.

Leo Kelion, BBC News:

The “five nanometre process” involved refers to the fact that the chip’s transistors have been shrunk down – the tiny on-off switches are now only about 25 atoms wide – allowing billions more to be packed in.

And:

Moving to smaller transistors helps because they use less power than larger ones, meaning they can be run more quickly. On this basis, TSMC has said that its 5nm chips deliver a 15% speed boost over the last 7nm generation while using the same power.

And:

Apple has already claimed its A14 chip will do machine learning tasks “up to 10 times faster” than the A13.

All of this is important, important across the product line, including the up and coming Apple silicon powered Mac, said to ship by the end of the year.

What makes this article so interesting is that it gets into the details on how the 5nm process was achieved, using a technique called “extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography”. Great read.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

If you started a free year of Apple TV+ between November 1st and January 31st, your end date for your free trial will now last until the end of February, giving you up to an extra three months of free access. If you signed up in February or later, there will be no change as your trial already lasts beyond the February date.

There’s more to this (read Benjamin’s post), but in a nutshell, the soonest your free year of Apple TV+ will expire is February 28th. Especially good news for folks who grabbed their free year back when Apple TV+ first started, last November 1st.

Consider this bit from the Apple TV+ terms and conditions:

Upon claiming the offer, you commit to a $4.99/month subscription that starts immediately after the 1 year free and automatically renews until cancelled.

Presumably, this part of the terms will be updated and your commitment won’t start before March 1st. But that aside, there’s a line in the sand for all free Apple TV+ subscriptions to translate into a paid monthly sub.

Unless…

Here’s where bundles come in. We know the bundle pricing. What we don’t know is when they will start. I originally thought we’d see bundles turn on by November 1st so everyone would have the bundle option when faced with their subscription flipping to paid.

When I heard about the February extension, my immediate thought was that this had something to do with bundles and season 2. The availability of both the bundle and the appearance of new seasons of favorite content would ratchet up the pressure to make the leap to paid. Bundles are a no brainer for some, and the actual availability of new seasons of shows you love gives more immediate value to the equation, more so than if you had to make a decision in 2020, before the new seasons drop.

Side note: Jim and I talk about this issue on the Dalrymple Report episode that will drop later today, but it was before we knew about the extension, so keep that in mind if you are a listener.

David Shayer, TidBITS:

As an Apple software engineer, I worked on the first two releases of watchOS, so I’m familiar with many of the Apple Watch’s internal trade-offs. While I don’t have any inside information about current versions of watchOS and Apple Watch hardware, there are at least four reasons to think Apple won’t support third-party watch faces any time soon, if ever.

Read for the details, but:

• Battery life
• Buggy code
• Apple’s image
• Copyright worries

In a nutshell, handing control of Apple Watch faces over to developers would put the Apple Watch quality experience at risk.

Dan Moren, SixColors:

On the only road trip I’ve taken since the whole world situation went to pot, we ran into a strange issue where Google Maps wanted to take us on a bizarre route that would have taken an hour longer than the normal route, for reasons that we still don’t understand. I encouraged my wife, who was driving, to use Apple Maps instead, but she was annoyed by the way the Apple Watch taps her wrist to alert her even though CarPlay is already showing the directions onscreen.

And:

While I was pretty sure that there was an easy way to turn off those alerts altogether, I felt like they could still be useful sometimes, so disabling them entirely seemed like it might be throwing the baby out with the bath water. But, lo and behold, Apple has—at some point in the past—improved its options, and you can now disable the alerts on a granular basis, depending on what kind of directions you’re using.

If you use Apple Maps and wear an Apple Watch, take a read for the setting changes. Worth knowing about.

Sam Curry:

Between the period of July 6th to October 6th myself, Brett Buerhaus, Ben Sadeghipour, Samuel Erb, and Tanner Barnes worked together and hacked on the Apple bug bounty program.

And:

During our engagement, we found a variety of vulnerabilities in core portions of their infrastructure that would’ve allowed an attacker to fully compromise both customer and employee applications, launch a worm capable of automatically taking over a victim’s iCloud account, retrieve source code for internal Apple projects, fully compromise an industrial control warehouse software used by Apple, and take over the sessions of Apple employees with the capability of accessing management tools and sensitive resources.

Most importantly:

As of October 6th, 2020, the vast majority of these findings have been fixed and credited. They were typically remediated within 1-2 business days (with some being fixed in as little as 4-6 hours).

This is a fascinating read, filled with detail. Work like this finds the vulnerabilities before they can be used against us. There’s also a bit of insight on Apple’s bug bounty program.

Apple:

Gallaudet University has always been a center of advanced learning and teaching approaches. From its founding in 1864 with 8 students who are deaf, to its thriving university community of over two thousand students and faculty today, Gallaudet has become the premier higher education institution for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community.

With that as background:

This summer, Gallaudet University students and faculty received a special welcome kit. Inside, they found some essential Bison gear — the school’s mascot — including a sweatshirt, stickers, and a notebook. There were also a few powerful learning tools that would be essential for the remote fall semester. Every student and faculty member was equipped with a new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Smart Keyboard Folio.

And this:

Apple is also giving students opportunities in technology after they graduate from Gallaudet. Apple Carnegie Library, in Washington, D.C., holds several recruiting efforts with Gallaudet, and currently employs more than 30 team members of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Many are Gallaudet alumni.

This is a side of Apple that I absolutely love. Sure, it’s good business, good publicity, but I believe the drive to do this is what sets Apple apart from so many other companies. Good on you Apple.

Nikkei Asia:

It was a hot summer morning in Taipei when several officials from the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy, visited the top management of a major tech company, a key supplier to Apple.

It was immediately apparent that this was unlike previous courtesy visits, where U.S. officials stop in from time to time to hear what’s happening in the industry. This time, they cut the chitchat and threw out a blunt question soon after they sat down: “Why aren’t you moving more of your production capacity outside of China?” they asked. “Why aren’t you moving faster?”

Participants described the conversation as “serious and unsettling.” “We felt uneasy,” said one. “They asked many questions that we didn’t know if we could answer. The answers would have involved unreported strategies about ourselves and our clients.” But the message was unambiguous: The U.S. government was directly appealing to his company to cut its ties to China, he said.

And:

The idea of unpicking the sophisticated tech supply chain that has grown up in China over the last two decades would have been unthinkable just two years ago. But pressure from the Trump administration has made this a reality, with companies from Apple to Google decamping from China to Vietnam, India, Thailand and Malaysia in the last 36 months. For the global tech industry, the question is whether the alternative supply chain that emerges can match the efficiency of the one in China that builds more than 200 million iPhones a year.

Apple walking a bit of a tightrope here:

A number of the biggest companies are doing their best to straddle the widening chasm between Beijing and Washington, in an effort to avoid picking a side. Apple, for one, has adopted a two-sided strategy to balance itself from the tech war. While it has been pushing suppliers to accelerate their shift away from China since late 2018, it has also been aggressively cultivating Chinese homegrown suppliers to play a more important role inside China, and secure continuous access to the 1.4 billion strong market.

Fascinating read. My gut reaction is that diversification is incredibly important, minimizing dependence on China is good for Apple, as long as they can still reach China’s billion-plus market.

Jesper:

I recently have been in a mode of deep (Windows-based) user interface focus at work, and was describing Panic to someone recently when something came over me. I love these guys. I love the attention to detail of every large, small and medium thing, the time put into making an application that feels right and flows right, that’s easy to use, that has just enough user interface that you can get done what you need to get done, that has style, function and whimsy.

And:

The Mac gets a lot of flack from people who are nose deep in technical specifications and price matchups. What they don’t see — or aren’t interested in — is the intangible: the culture that people with big dreams and small means have made the unconventional available, the complex seemingly simple and the advanced accessible. This culture doesn’t live or die by Apple in particular, although the original Macintosh being a product of a similar mindset helped set the tone. This culture produces things that are hard to find elsewhere, not because it’s technically impossible to do, but because the values that drive those other platforms produce different outcomes.

This entire post is a love letter and perfectly captures how I feel about the Mac and Apple in general, warts and all. I love the culture, love the attention to detail, in spite of the flaws. In spite of the App Store madness, Sherlocking, Steve Jobs horror stories, broken keyboards, etc. That love is just deeply, deeply ingrained.

Lovely bit of writing, this. Well done.

[Via Michael Tsai]

Piper Sandler:

The Piper Sandler Taking Stock With Teens® survey is a semi-annual research project that gathers input from thousands of teens with an average age of 15.8 years.

And:

86% of teens own an iPhone and 89% expect an iPhone to be their next phone, both all-time survey highs

Think about that for a moment. Many consider Apple and iPhone to be premier, high-end brands. And 86% of teens own one. That is remarkable.

Doomed.

Apple:

Apple TV+ has ordered “The Supermodels,” an unparalleled event docuseries that will feature exclusive access to and interviews with Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, who will revisit their iconic modeling careers and collective disruption of the ‘90s fashion scene, which continues to reverberate today.

And:

Hailing from Imagine Documentaries, the project will be directed and executive produced by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple (“Harlan County, USA,” “American Dream,” “Shut Up and Sing”), and executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, along with Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista and Turlington, who have joined in an unprecedented partnership on the series.

Interesting slice of the fashion industry, definitely something I’d watch.

Also interesting is the branding here. Still trying to get my head around the Apple Original Films branding. AOF is listed as a studio on Apple’s official On the Rocks page. But though the press release for the new Springsteen doc is from Apple Original Films, the studio is not listed on Apple’s official Springsteen documentary page.

Not a complaint, just me being curious.

Eddie Van Halen, whose innovative and explosive guitar playing kept the hard rock band that bore his family name cemented to the top of the album charts for two decades, died on Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.

This is just heartbreaking news. Eddie was one of the few guitarists that literally changed the way we think about how the instrument is played. My condolences to his family.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

For those who signed up for Apple TV+ right when it was available on November 1, 2019, those free year-long Apple TV+ accounts are expiring at the end of October. A year is a long time to remember to cancel a subscription, so we wanted to warn MacRumors readers not interested in keeping Apple TV+ that charges are imminent. The first subscribers will be charged for Apple TV+ on October 31, 2020.

Follow the headline link for instructions. Good reminder that once your free year of Apple TV+ ends, you will be charged for the subscription renewal.

Hopefully, the new Apple One bundles will kick in before folks start canceling.

Side note: If you’re interested, here’s the official terms and conditions on your free year.

Google blog:

The heart of Jacquard is the Jacquard Tag, a tiny computer built to make everyday items more helpful. We first used this on the sleeve of a jacket so that it could recognize the gestures of the person wearing it, and we built that same technology into the Cit-E backpack with Saint Laurent. Then, we collaborated with Adidas and EA on our GMR shoe insert, enabling its wearers to combine real-life play with the EA SPORTS FIFA mobile game.

Project Jacquard was announced back in 2015, and Google has touted it as a smart controller you can wear to control various devices.

I can’t help but see a parallel to Apple Watch. Apple pushed their remote control capabilities into the Apple Watch (think answering the phone, controlling music/podcasts, curating notifications, etc.), Google is going in a different direction, splintering the control into a sprinkling of Jacquard Tag embeds.

The newest of these is the just announced Konnect-I Backpack series:

Whether it’s touch or movement-based, the tag can interpret different inputs customized for the garments and gear we’ve collaborated with brands to create. And now we’re sharing that two new backpacks, developed with Samsonite, will integrate Jacquard technology. A fine addition to our collection, the Konnect-I Backpack comes in two styles: Slim ($199) and Standard ($219).

While they might look like regular backpacks, the left strap unlocks tons of capabilities. Using your Jacquard app, you can customize what gestures control which actions—for instance, you can program Jacquard to deliver call and text notifications, trigger a selfie, control your music or prompt Google Assistant to share the latest news. For an added level of interaction, the LED light on your left strap will light up according to the alerts you’ve set.

Will we see a similar device (the rumored AirTags) from Apple? If so, will AirTags parallel the Jacquard tag in functionality?

While you think about all this, here’s a commercial for the new Konnect-I backpack. So very odd.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. has stopped selling headphones and wireless speakers from rivals including Sonos Inc., Bose Corp. and Logitech International SA as the company gears up to launch its own new audio products.

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has long sold third-party hardware on its website, one of the largest e-commerce operations in the world. All headphones and speakers from Bose, speakers from Logitech’s Ultimate Ears brand and Sonos’s latest smart speaker disappeared from Apple’s online store at the end of last month, according to checks by Bloomberg.

Check for yourself. Jump onto Apple.com and do a search for, say, “headphones”. Nothing but Apple and Beats.

A sure sign of coming Apple-branded over-ear headphones? And will we soon see a keynote invite for next week? October 13th has been rumored as a keynote date and it’s one week from today.

Apple:

Bruce Springsteen fans around the world will get a behind-the-scenes look at the iconic artist’s creative process in the documentary feature film, “Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You,” from Apple Original Films, premiering Friday, October 23 exclusively on Apple TV+. The feature-length vérité documentary arrives the same day as Springsteen’s new album “Letter To You,” and features full performances from the E Street Band, in-studio footage, never-before-seen archival material, and a deeper look into “Letter To You” from Springsteen himself.

Continuing the Apple Original Films branding, this is a gift to Springsteen fans. I was raised just up highway 9 from Bruce’s old stomping grounds, required viewing for me, looking forward to this.

Here’s a taste:

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Nine years ago today, Steve Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, one day after Apple executives introduced the iPhone 4s at a media event on the company’s Infinite Loop headquarters campus.

You can send an email to [email protected] to express your appreciation for Steve. The remembrances scroll on Apple’s official Steve Jobs appreciation page.

Here’s a video with lots of Steve. Brings tears to my eyes to think of what we’ve lost.

Follow the headline link, scroll/search to find the character you need, including emoji, then click the character and it is copied, ready for pasting.

Similar to command-control-space on a Mac, which brings up the character browser, but this is much larger. And on the iPhone, it’s scalable, to make it easy to see more detail.

I did notice that some of the new emoji are not yet implemented (they appear as mystery squares). Still useful to me.