Traf:

I saw some people sharing screenshots of their iPhones after discovering that iOS 14 now allows you to add custom icons to your home screen using the Siri Shortcuts app. This was the first time you can really customize iOS, and it was catching on.

And:

As soon as I noticed the hype, I put together some icons in my own style, downloaded some widgets, and tried it all out. I thought it looked cool, so I shared a screenshot of it on Twitter. Right away, people started asking about the icons in the screenshot. So I quickly packaged them, uploaded them to Gumroad, and embedded them on a Notion site using Super. All of this took about two hours.

The next day, the tweet had hundreds of retweets, thousands of likes, and over 100k impressions. The day after that, almost a million. The next thing I knew, it was everywhere. My icons got published on notable tech sites like Cult of Mac, iMore, AllThingsTech, and Gridfiti. I think at this time I was around the $6k mark in sales.

Then, MKBHD happened.

Read the post. Love stories like this. Note that Apple did not get a cut of this. All happened outside the ecosystem.

[Via 9to5Mac]

Jeff Benjamin with a calm, thoughtful look through watchOS 7’s top features. Most of these will work with a Series 4 Apple Watch and beyond.

Even if you’ve lived with watchOS 7 for a while now, I suspect there’s something here for you to learn.

Solid walkthrough/explainer on the Apple Watch Series 6 blood oxygen monitoring mechanics. Read the comments on the post, too.

Side note: I’ve got a woven Solo Loop band, and I’ve found both blood ox and ECG to work flawlessly, even though my band is a bit loose-fitting (my preference).

M.G.Siegler:

I now think I was wrong that widgets are the biggest iOS 14 deal. Only because I’m now certain that App Clips are.

This revelation comes after playing a single game. One that’s not even necessarily my cup of tea, mind you. But the experience of playing a demo of the game via an App Clip was so seamless it feels appropriate for once to invoke the term “magical”.

If you’ve not had the chance to try this yourself, here’s how.

But M.G. makes a bigger point here:

Given how well this works, I can see a world in which other developers beyond gaming take advantage of this technology to demo their apps. And, if I squint, I think I can even see a world of “micro-apps” that don’t need full apps to operate. Perhaps these are more ephemeral style apps. Apps where asking for a full download is a lot in this age of app saturation.

The importance of App Clips is underrated, assuming developers embrace it. And, as M.G. says, the implementation brings Apple’s “It just works” ethos to life.

Steven Aquino, Forbes, first on Apple Pay:

Apple Pay was not only more secure (more on this below), it also was fast and easy—no longer did someone need to fumble through their wallet to find their credit card. All that was needed was to place your iPhone (or Apple Watch) near the NFC reader, and the transaction is done.

And:

People with fine-motor delays, for instance, are saved from the friction of not only finding their physical card, but also inserting it into the chip reader.

Now on to the Amazon One palm reader:

Whether Amazon One gains wide adoption is obviously an open question, but it’s not difficult to see where Amazon has leveled up on usability from an established player like Apple Pay, theoretically at least.

Still, the idea of Amazon One as a more accessible payment system is predicated upon the reality that many people with disabilities have trouble manipulating everyday objects. Thus, Amazon One completely removes such a barrier by letting the person literally do the paying.

This is an interesting distinction. From an accessibility standpoint, using your palm on a reader (assuming the reader is well marked and itself is accessible) is a step easier than Apple Pay. The price you pay is in privacy.

Interesting read.

Jason Del Rey, Recode:

Amazon on Tuesday is unveiling a new biometric technology called Amazon One that allows shoppers to pay at stores by placing their palm over a scanning device when they walk in the door or when they check out.

John Gruber:

I’m happy to hear more details, but on the surface this sounds insane. Why in the world would anyone voluntarily send their palm print to any company to store in the cloud? With something like Face ID and Touch ID, your biometric info is not only stored solely on your own device, it’s stored on the secure enclave on your own device. Even the apps running on your own device can’t access it.

And:

This is a terrible idea and the only reason I can think of why Amazon created it is that they wanted their own payment system and felt they had to use some kind of biometrics for identification, privacy implications be damned, because they don’t have any sort of mobile device platform they could use instead. In addition, if you want to automate your organization’s AR process, then you may consider getting professional help from reputable payment solutions like Paystand.

I’m guessing there are a ton of people who will follow along, scan their palms unknowingly, in the same way they respond to a Facebook survey asking them where they met their spouse or what their first pet’s name was.

At the very least, as John intimated, this feels like Amazon trying to disrupt Apple Pay and the like.

Back to Recode:

The company expects to sell the technology to other retailers, like it began doing earlier this year with its “Just Walk Out” technology — the cocktail of cameras, sensors, and computer vision software that powers Amazon Go stores. Kumar said the Amazon One pitch to other retailers is straightforward: reduce friction for your customers at checkout, thereby shortening lines and increasing how many shoppers are served along the way.

There’s the overt business model. But what’s not clear is what Amazon will do with this treasure trove of intimate biometric data in the long haul.

You know all these tricks, I’m sure, but worth a scan, just in case. And pass this along to the newer Mac folks you support.

And don’t tell James Thomson. He might pull my PCalc license.

UPDATE: Dammit!!!

Reddit:

This makes zero sense to me. The only Macs, that could really benefit from 4k streaming, without an external monitor, are the 4k and 5k iMacs yet only 2 models (the Pro and the new 2020 27″) will be able to stream it. Windows machines don’t have any kind of T2 alternative and are still able to stream 4k via Edge or via the native app, their only requirement is a 7th gen intel cpu or a dedicated graphics card.

Read the comments. Interesting stuff.

This is responding to the Netflix in Ultra HD help page.

Here are the first few requirements:

• A Mac computer with macOS 11.0 Big Sur installed.
• The latest version of Safari browser
• Select 2018 or later Mac computer with an Apple T2 Security chip

That last one is the most surprising. An anti-piracy move?

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Voice tweets – the ability to record and tweet an audio message – are coming to more iOS Twitter users, while Android and web users will need to wait until some time next year. The company first began testing the feature on iOS back in June.

The testing started in Brazil. Have confirmation it’s popped up in iOS clients in both the US and Canada.

As to Android:

I suppose rolling this out to Android users will happen about the same time you give us all an edit button? >:( @jack

— KoHoSo™ (@KoHoSo) September 29, 2020

Ryan Christoffel, MacStories:

Sticky Widgets enables placing sticky note-style widgets on your iPhone or iPad Home Screen which can be modified simply by tapping on the widget.

This is a great concept. To get an idea of how this works, check out this Tweet from the app’s author, Tyler Hillsman:

So… I made Sticky Widgets. A totally free, very lightweight little thing that lets you put “sticky notes” on your home screen.https://t.co/iq6HATuClg pic.twitter.com/jpxsbtGDEk

— Tyler Hillsman (@thillsman) September 28, 2020

As you can see in Ryan’s MacStories post, Sticky Widgets can occupy as much space as you want to give up on your home screen.

I’d love to see this idea evolve. How about a sticky note for the lock screen. As Tyler notes here, you can add Sticky Widgets to your Today View, and swipe over to it from the lock screen. Pretty close!

Here’s a link to Sticky Widgets. Give it a try.

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple appears to have been planning to introduce country-specific Apple Watch bands for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, but with the games postponed until 2021 due to the global health crisis, they have yet to be released.

To get a sense of Apple’s past efforts here, follow this link to the bands Apple pulled together for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Will we have games in 2021? If so, seems likely we’ll see another rollout of summer games bands.

William Gallagher, AppleInsider, quoting this Apple patent:

“Hydrogen fuel cells have a number of advantages,” says Apple. “Such fuel cells and associated fuels can potentially achieve high volumetric and gravimetric energy densities, which can potentially enable continued operation of portable electronic devices for days or even weeks without refueling.”

You know there has to be a ‘but’ or we’d already be using these cells. “[But] it is extremely challenging to design hydrogen fuel cell systems which are sufficiently portable and cost-effective to be used with portable electronic devices,” explains Apple.

That’s what this patent is meant to solve. It’s about “the design of a portable and cost-effective fuel cell system for a portable computing device,” which converts fuel — such as hydrogen-based — into electrical power.

My original reaction to reading this AppleInsider headline was to laugh. After all hydrogen is extremely flammable and not trivial to convert (both from water to hydrogen, and from hydrogen to electricity). But mostly the flammable part.

But thinking about the flammable part, is hydrogen any more dangerous than lithium-ion batteries, which have been known to explode and cause fires?

One positive thing here is the almost limitless supply of hydrogen, constantly renewed. Can Apple figure this one out?

Apple Original Films:

Apple and Billie Eilish today announced that the highly anticipated documentary feature film, “Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry,” directed by award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler (“Belushi,” “The September Issue,” “The War Room”), will premiere in theaters and on Apple TV+ in February 2021. The documentary is from Apple Original Films, in association with Interscope Films, Darkroom, This Machine and Lighthouse Management & Media.

I’ve embedded the Billie Eilish trailer below. It’s purely teaser, but worth a look.

But one thing I find fascinating is the evolving branding of Apple Original Films. Note the quote above, “The documentary is from Apple Original Films.” And if you follow the headline link to the original Apple press release, you’ll see the name is in the headline.

No Wikipedia page for Apple Original Films (yet), but follow this link and you’ll see a page of trailers with the headline Apple Original Films.

This branding feels smart, more appropriate for movies than Apple TV+, especially if Apple has ambitions to grow in the theatrical release space.

Unless you are a developer, it’s not really important to understand the App Clips concept.

What is amazing to experience is the new iOS 14 ability to play a game demo in Safari itself.

Give this a try:

• Fire up iOS 14 Safari on your iPhone
• Tap this link to the FiriGames Phoenix II game page
• Tap the Play button in the top banner of the page

The game play is fun, but makes the larger point that you got to experience the game before you plunked down your hard earned bucks. A fantastic capability.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

With iOS 14, Apple has added a new automatic switching feature to the AirPods and AirPods Pro earbuds. This feature is meant as a convenience; when you start playing content on another Apple device, the AirPods connection automatically switches in unison. However, some people don’t like this behavior and would rather connect to each device manually, just like how it worked in iOS 13 and earlier. Good news! There is a way to get the old behaviour back.

First things first, I’ve found the behavior just a bit buggy. I’ve been listening to content on my Apple TV through my AirPods Pro, then fired up my iPad, which brought up the automatic switch message and showed the AirPods icon on my iPad, as if the switch had happened. But the Apple TV content still played on my AirPods. Odd, but early days still, I’m sure that will get resolved.

As to the linked post, worth reading, especially the last two paragraphs which help clarify some confusing setting wording, specifically the phrase “‘When Last Connected to This iPhone”.

Follow the headline link, enter a URL, tap Scan Site. If you’ve got a site of your own, run it on that site, see how others see you.

John Gruber, on Widgetsmith:

It’s rocketed to the #1 spot on the App Store’s Productivity list. My teenage son, out of the blue, asked me if I’d heard about it — not iOS 14 widgets in general, but Widgetsmith specifically. A well-deserved hit product.

First things first, here’s an App Store link to Widgetsmith. It’s free to download, with in-app purchases. Give it a look.

Moving on:

And but so of course the ripoff scammers are already doing their thing, and the App Store is welcoming them. Search for “Widgetsmith” — the exact name of Smith’s app — and the first app in the results is not Widgetsmith but a name-alike ripoff called, I swear, “Widgetsmith – Color Widgets”. This utterly shameless ripoff, replete with a ham-fisted knockoff of the icon to boot, is listed above the actual Widgetsmith, despite the fact that the actual Widgetsmith is currently the #1 app in Productivity and has over 53,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews. The ripoff app has 25 5-star ratings, one 1-star rating, and one written review, which reads, verbatim, “Thank developer for making such great app especially for iOS 14!” The entire description of the ripoff app is written in similar broken English.

As John notes in his update, the “ripoff” version of Widgetsmith is now gone, more a testament to the power of the press, I suspect, than any automated App Store takedown process.

Read Gruber’s take on all this. It’s right on the money. How does this sort of thing continue to happen? Is it a sign of the complexity of the App Store, an overwhelming number of titles to police?

If that is the case, if the volume of available apps is more than Apple can properly manage, might that not be a fair argument for reducing that 30% fee (less service, reduced fee)?

Oh, and props for that headline, Gruber. Delicious.

John Gruber:

A few people have wondered why Apple doesn’t just map fluoroelastomer Sport Band sizes to Solo Loop sizes. I can see why Apple doesn’t do that — they can’t assume everyone already has access to an Apple Watch with a Sport Band, and even for people who do have access to one, Apple can’t assume it’s the right size watch (38/40mm vs. 42/44mm). And to further complicate matters, each Sport Band comes with two sizes for the side with the holes: “S/M” and “M/L”. So that’s four separate mappings from Sport Band holes to the new Solo Loop sizes. That’s complicated. But it’s no longer a safe assumption that everyone has access to a printer, either, so let’s figure out the mappings here.

Great community contribution from John. And this Daring Fireball post is a bit of a collector’s item, with the ultra-rare embedded graphics, well composed and useful.

To me, this whole Solo band sizing kerfuffle is a bit of a mess. Ideally, Apple would have created a simple tool mapping your choice of bands (assuming you already own an Apple Watch) to a sizing recommendation, based on how you wear your watch now. Harder with some bands, but certainly doable with the Sport Band.

But I do get that rolling out an interface is harder than it might look.

That said, one thing I think Apple should absolutely address is the mixed messaging on Solo band returns. There’s a prominent report claiming that if your Solo band doesn’t fit, you have to return both the band and the watch. Even worse, you have to go to the back of the line to order a new one. Yechh.

Today, rumors have been flying around from folks who called Apple or visited Apple Stores asking about this policy. Some were told they could return their band, sans watch, no problem. Others were told they had to return both the watch and the band.

Unnecessary mess of mixed messages. I hope Apple sends out a clarifying, definitive policy message. And soon.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors, on macOS Safari 14:

One of the most dramatic changes is the overhauled Start Page, which now includes a browsing privacy report, iCloud tabs, Siri suggestions, and more. It also features several customizable options, such as the ability to choose your own Start Page wallpaper.

If you fire up a new, blank page in Safari 14 (your “Start Page”), you’ll see an icon in the bottom-right corner of the page. Here’s an image so you know what to look for.

Click the icon, a pop-up will appear, filled with checkboxes to enable/disable various Start Page elements. You can also choose a Background Image from those presented, or click the + and select any image you like.

Except “Catalina Nights.heic”. Don’t choose that one. You’ve been warned.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Face ID is normally a completely seamless way to unlock an iPhone and iPad: just swipe up and it unlocks automatically. At a time when we’re frequently wearing masks, however, it’s rather less seamless.

So we’d like to see Apple allow an unlocked Apple Watch to automatically unlock an iPhone and iPad

Tricky to implement. If someone grabs your phone, they’d be able to unlock it just by being near you.

That said, the core premise strikes me, I’d add it to the pile of ideas on ways to unlock your iPhone with a mask on your face. I’d love to see Apple add Touch ID back in to a future iPhone, whether under screen or as an iPad Air-like layer on the power button.

Reuters:

The Coalition for App Fairness, structured as a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. and Brussels, said it plans to advocate legal changes that would force Apple to change. Beyond Epic, Match and Spotify, other members include smaller firms such as Basecamp, Blix, Blockchain.com, Deezer, and Tile, along with developers from Europe including the European Publishers Council, News Media Europe and Protonmail.

From the Coalition signup page:

The Coalition for App Fairness was created by industry leading companies who want to see freedom of choice for consumers and a level playing field for businesses. This is an open call to all developers, big and small, to join us – and together we will fight back against the monopolist control of the app ecosystem by Apple.

If you are interested in joining the coalition, please fill out the following form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Is there a path for compromise? Will this continue to escalate until something explodes? Is this the hill Apple will defend to the death?

Lines are being drawn, sides being chosen. I hate this whole thing.

Chris Welch, The Verge:

Similar to voice tweets, voice messages have a bare-bones, simple interface: there’s just a play / pause button, and the sender’s avatar pulsates as the message plays. The product team designed an “in-line recording experience to make it easier to send these messages as part of the natural conversation flow,” so that’s one difference from the current audio tweets interface. There’s a “report message” option in the event that someone misuses voice DMs, which is always a fair concern with private audio.

It’ll start testing in Brazil.

Immediate thought: The terrifying messages that some people get slid into their DMs will be so much more so amplified by voice. I sure hope Twitter tests the hell out of this, and plans to be vigilant in response to complaints.

You’ve likely heard of most of the features Jeff Benjamin is showing off, but the devil is in the details here, the subtleties of Jeff’s excellent, calming walkthrough.

Tom Warren, The Verge:

One of Apple’s surprise hardware announcements last week was the relocation of the iPad Air’s fingerprint sensor to a tiny power button on top of the display. It’s a change from the typical Touch ID Home button location at the bottom of the screen, and it allows Apple to place a larger edge-to-edge display on its iPad Air for the first time. It’s also an ideal location for a fingerprint sensor, and I’d love to see it on the iPhone 12.

YES! I’d love to see this addition, if Apple does not yet have under-screen fingerprint scanning ready for prime time. Perfect for these masked times. (In fact, I said as much while watching the keynote).

Practical on an iPhone? Only Apple knows, and we’ll find out soon enough.

Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica:

> Researchers said that a tip from a child led them to discover aggressive adware and exorbitant prices lurking in iOS and Android smartphone apps with a combined 2.4 million downloads from the App Store and Google Play. If those apps were able to steal any money from the users, that’s where solutions such as fund recovery services come in to save the day.

And:

> To prevent users from uninstalling them, the apps hid their icon, making it hard to identify where the ads were coming from.

Hmm. I wonder how an iOS app gets away with that. This purely the Android versions?

> The apps came to light after a girl found a profile on TikTok that was promoting what appeared to be an abusive app and reported it to Be Safe Online, a project in the Czech Republic that educates children about online safety. Acting on the tip, researchers from security firm Avast found 11 apps, for devices running both iOS and Android, that were engaged in similar scams.

And:

> A Google spokesman said the company has removed the apps, and Web searches appeared to confirm this. Several of the apps for iOS appeared to still be available in the App Store as this post was being prepared.

Definitely a hole in iOS App Store oversight.

From Avast press release:

> The iOS and Android apps appear to be developed by the same person or group. The links promoted on the social media profiles lead to the iOS or Android versions of the apps, depending on the device the link is being accessed from.

Seems like once they got one of these apps, they should ban all the rest from the same developer.

As you can see from the article (there, at the bottom) this came up for me this morning. But it does happen often enough to make me follow Ben’s advice and change my Safari settings.

Interestingly, my settings are slightly different than those in the article. I am running Catalina, but have the new Safari 14 update installed. No matter, the change is purely wording, subbing Blocked for Deny.

Side note, this was an artifact of a rogue Google ad. In the past, when this has happened, I’ve seen some bizarre behavior/popups. This one was caught by Apple’s latest blockers. Excellent work.

Sean Hollister, The Verge:

on Monday, Microsoft announced a new Xbox app that lets you stream games from your own Xbox to your own Android phone over your local network for free. There’s an iOS version coming too — and while my colleague Tom Warren originally suggested the console streaming feature probably wouldn’t come to iOS, I’m now willing to bet it will.

And:

Microsoft now tells me the goal is actually to have full parity between the iOS and Android apps, and that Apple is already reviewing the iOS version now.

And:

Sony’s PS4 Remote Play is already on iOS, and it works almost exactly the same as Microsoft’s Xbox console streaming. It similarly mirrors the entire PS4 interface, including access to the PlayStation Store. And though Microsoft’s Android app does include the ability to play over the internet, and a few more creature comforts like remote management of your console, I would think the “generic mirror” rule would keep it from getting kicked out.

That last is the precedent that makes this case. I’d be shocked if Apple blocked the Xbox streaming app.

Ryan Christoffel, MacStories:

One of the most exciting trends I’ve seen is the emergence of a new category of apps entirely centered around widgets. While most widgets will come built in to the apps you already know and love, some developers have built brand new apps for the sole purpose of enabling users to create and customize widgets in a hyper-personalized way.

And:

Leading the pack in this regard is Widgetsmith from David Smith, which not only covers one of the widest array of different widget types, but also features a power user-friendly scheduling option that sets it apart. The App Store hosts a growing number of other widget creation tools too, such as Widgeridoo, Widget Wizard, Glimpse, and Health Auto Export.

I’m planning on spending some quality time this week creating my own Widgets, seeing if I can craft a home screen experience that delivers the info I’m looking for.

If rolling your own is not your cup of tea, spend some time looking through Steve Streza’s curated list of widgets he’s encountered, both built in and custom.

If Widgets are new to you, follow the link in the previous paragraph, scroll down and read the section titled How to use Widgets. Great, short explainer.