While the new 27-inch iMac does not feature the much-awaited redesign, and it does feature chiefly minor specification improvements, it’s also got one big extra. Previously, to get Apple’s high-quality nano-texture glass on a Mac display you had to pay $5,999 for the top-range Pro Display XDR.
Rather than diffusing reflections on the glass or perhaps trying to compensate for them with greater brightness, Apple cuts fine lines into the display. This means the monitor does not present a single plane for ambient light to bounce back from.
This is a big deal to those of us who hate reflections but can’t afford the $6,000 Pro Display.
Apple on Tuesday announced that longtime senior executive Phil Schiller would become an Apple Fellow. Greg Joswiak (Joz) will take over Schiller’s role of senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing at Apple.
“It has been a dream come true for me to work at Apple, on so many products I love, with all of these great friends — Steve, Tim, and so many more,” said Schiller. “I first started at Apple when I was 27, this year I turned 60 and it is time for some planned changes in my life. I’ll keep working here as long as they will have me, I bleed six colors, but I also want to make some time in the years ahead for my family, friends, and a few personal projects I care deeply about.”
Schiller has been behind the most important product launches in Apple’s history. All of the announcements and ads that we have grown to love over the years have his fingerprints all over them.
I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Phil many times over the last 20 years, and one thing I always came away with is that he cared about the company. Phil always believed in what Apple was doing and wanted the company to release the best products. He does “bleed six colors.”
Fortunately, Schiller isn’t going away entirely. Reporting to Tim Cook, Schiller will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events in his role as an Apple Fellow.
If there is anyone at Apple that could take on Phil’s role, it’s Greg Joswiak. He will now be responsible for Apple’s product management and product marketing, developer relations, market research, business management, as well as education, enterprise, and international marketing.
Joz has been at Apple for more than 20 years and served as the vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing for the past four years.
Joswiak is another exec that I’ve interviewed many times over the years, and his philosophy is very close to that of Schiller’s. Create the best message and create the best products that Apple can do.
It’s a loss to see Schiller leave his role at Apple, but I’m confident that Joswiak can step into those shoes and pick up where Phil left off.
Having Schiller continue as an Apple Fellow is a bonus for Apple. He is the type of person you want to keep around.
Apple today announced a major update to its 27-inch iMac. By far the most powerful and capable iMac ever, it features faster Intel processors up to 10 cores, double the memory capacity, next-generation AMD graphics, superfast SSDs across the line with four times the storage capacity, a new nano-texture glass option for an even more stunning Retina 5K display, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, higher fidelity speakers, and studio-quality mics.
And:
For pros who need to push iMac even further, the 27-inch iMac has a 10-core processor option for the first time, with Turbo Boost speeds reaching 5.0GHz for up to 65 percent faster CPU performance. And when working with memory-intensive applications, iMac features double the memory capacity for up to 128GB.
And:
For GPU-based rendering, editing multiple streams of 4K video, or playing a graphics-intensive game, the 27-inch iMac has more powerful next-generation AMD graphics. iMac delivers up to 55 percent faster graphics performance from its Radeon Pro 5000 series graphics, featuring AMD’s latest RDNA architecture with faster, more power-efficient compute units. And for customers using pro apps that can take advantage of large amounts of video memory for even greater performance, iMac features a graphics option with 16GB of memory for the first time — providing double the video memory capacity of the previous-generation 27-inch iMac.
And:
Apple today also announced that its 21.5-inch iMac will come standard with SSDs across the line for the first time. Customers can also choose to configure their 21.5-inch iMac with a Fusion Drive. iMac Pro now comes standard with a 10-core Intel Xeon processor. Designed for pro users who require workstation-class performance, iMac Pro features Xeon processors up to 18 cores, graphics performance up to 22 teraflops, up to 256GB quad-channel ECC memory, and a brilliant 27-inch Retina 5K display.
Good rollup post from Tim Hardwick on the whole Microsoft wants to buy TikTok, Trump wants a piece of the action, China likely to retaliate situation.
You’ve no doubt followed this as it’s unfolded. New to the story is in this Reuters article:
China will not accept the “theft” of a Chinese technology company and is able to respond to Washington’s move to push ByteDance to sell short-video app TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft, the China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday.
The United States’ “bullying” of Chinese tech companies was a consequence of Washington’s zero-sum vision of “American first” and left China no choice but “submission or mortal combat in the tech realm”, the state-backed paper said in an editorial.
if China decides to retaliate — and why wouldn’t they? — what company might they target other than Apple? Facebook and Google are already banned in China. Amazon has AWS, which has a fair-sized presence there, but AWS is sort of the anti-TikTok in terms of being consumer-facing. Microsoft would be the obvious tit-for-tat target. But does Microsoft have a neatly bundled consumer presence in China?
If I were the dictator of China, and I was angry about the Trump administration forcing a proud Chinese company like ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok, and I was looking for a way to show that China cannot be pushed around by the U.S., I’d look at iCloud and the App Store, and humiliating the biggest company in the world.
Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co. said Monday that it is suing Apple for an estimated 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in damages in a Shanghai court, after a court decision in June that upheld the validity of its Chinese patent for a chatbot similar to Apple’s Siri.
And:
As part of the suit, Shanghai Zhizhen, also known as Xiao-i, asked Apple to stop sales, production and the use of products flouting the patent—a category that includes virtually all the U.S. company’s devices.
I agree with Gruber’s take, above. Apple does seem the likeliest target for retaliation. What a mess.
What do you call it when there’s a little voice in your head only you can hear? A hallucination?
Amazon calls it progress. I’ve been living with its latest talking artificial intelligence product, called the Echo Frames, for two weeks. They’re glasses with tiny speakers and a microphone so you can have your own private conversations with Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant everywhere you go.
This new version of Alexa is much more proactive about chatting — and it has driven me bananas.
According to Amazon, there’s a waiting list to buy these things. I did get an invite, and wrestled with the idea of plunking down $180 to see this brave new world.
Reading/watching this, I’m really glad I didn’t. Don’t miss the video embedded at the top of the article.
“A timeline application on my tablet, uh, gives me a error message that says Safari cannot open the page, and then it’s got a HTML address because your iPad is not connected to the internet,” Behnken reported. “Can you confirm that Wi-Fi is off and AirPlane Mode is on,” asked Menon. Then the NASA astronaut improvised with a go-to troubleshooting step.
Follow the headline link to Zac Hall’s writeup. Scroll about halfway down to watch this all unfold in the embedded video (jump to about 4h16m in).
Macs running macOS 10.15.5 or later have a Battery Health Management feature to preserve the life of the battery, and occasionally, the Battery Health Management option will cause the Mac to pause its charging for calibration purposes.
And:
Battery Health Management features are available on Mac notebooks that have Thunderbolt 3 ports and that run macOS Catalina 10.15.5 or later. The option improves the lifespan of a Mac’s battery by reducing the amount of time that the battery spends at a maximum charge, which can cut down on chemical aging.
Pixel 4a also has Live Caption, which provides real-time captioning (English only) for your video and audio content. New with the Pixel 4a launch—and also rolling out for Pixel 2, 3, 3a and 4 phones—Live Caption will now automatically caption your voice and video calls.
Follow the headline link to watch The Verge’s Dieter Bohn demo this. I’d love to see Apple add a feature like this to iOS and FaceTime. It’d be great for accessibility, in the same way as closed captioning provides an assist when you are watching a movie.
Apple TV+ today unveiled a first look at “Long Way Up,” an epic new motorcycle series, starring and executive produced by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, which reunites best friends after more than a decade since their last motorbike adventure around the world. The first three episodes of “Long Way Up” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, September 18, and new episodes will roll out weekly.
Covering 13,000 miles over 100 days through 16 border crossings and 13 countries, starting from the city of Ushuaia at the tip of South America, Ewan and Charley journey through the glorious and underexposed landscapes of South and Central America in their most challenging expedition to date, using cutting-edge technology on the backs of their electric Harley-Davidson LiveWires in order to contribute to the sustainability of the planet.
The new series will follow Ewan and Charley as they journey through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and up through Colombia, Central America and Mexico.
Many motorcyclists are big fans of McGregor’s other series, “Long Way Round” and “Long Way Down.” I’m less impressed if only because they had a support crew of many, many people to assist – the trips weren’t “solo travelers testing their mettle.” I still enjoyed them enough to want to watch this series if only to see how they managed it on electric motorcycles. By their own admission, they averaged 130 miles a day which, even for rough terrain on an adventure bike, isn’t a lot of ground to cover in a day.
McGregor talked a bit about the trip on the Jimmy Fallon show a few months ago:
Last year, Google added automatic Android phone backups to Google One, the company’s “membership” program that includes Drive storage, family sharing and a handful of other perks. It made sense for Google to bake that feature right into Android, but today the company announced it’ll soon do the same for iPhone users as well. And whether you use an Android device or iPhone, the phone backup feature will be free for everyone, regardless of whether or not you have a Google One subscription.
iPhone users can manage their phone backups through a new Google One app that’s coming out soon; it’ll store photos, videos, contacts and calendar events in your Google account. Given that Apple already has backup options for all those things (albeit with a paltry free 5GB of iCloud storage), it wouldn’t surprise me if this feature mostly goes unnoticed.
It’ll be more useful for people who are paying for Google One — the base membership plan includes 100GB of storage for $2 per month, enough to make Drive, Photos and phone backups a lot more feasible. But regardless of whether you pay for Google One or not, it doesn’t hurt to have another option for backing up your phone.
I have multiple backups of all my Mac and iOS data, including a couple of cloud backups. I’ll add this to my repertoire.
This is a pretty solid walkthrough of how 5G will come to iPhone users. Especially useful is the explainer on the differences between FR2 (the super high speed branch of 5G) and FR1 (the flavor that will roll out to the vast majority of users, those not in spitting distance of the 5G towers).
One of the major security enhancements Apple has brought to its devices over the years is the Secure Enclave chip, which encrypts and protects all sensitive data stored on the devices. Last month, however, hackers claimed they found a permanent vulnerability in the Secure Enclave, which could put data from iPhone, iPad, and even Mac users at risk.
Good explainer. A few key points:
This vulnerability is permanent. Because the Secure Enclave is embedded in the processor and not patchable, it cannot be fixed on a specific device.
That said, Apple has fixed the design itself, starting with the A12. So if you’ve got a device with an A7 through A11, that issue exists on your device.
The good news? To take advantage of the exploit, a hacker would need physical access to your device.
Here’s a list of devices that have the Arm A12. If you’ve got one of these, or newer, you’ve got the fix in place:
Beginning Aug. 1, American now offers free inflight streaming of Apple TV+ shows, an airline spokesperson confirmed with TPG.
This new streaming option is available to every flyer with a Wi-Fi capable device on flights that feature internet access. However, you don’t need to pay for internet in order to stream — you’ll just need the AA app on your phone or tablet or visit aainflight.com on your laptop.
If and when you ever fly again, be sure to download the AA app (or whatever airline you’re traveling on) to your device before you leave. That way you won’t have to pay for internet just to download the app.
If your flight is equipped with seat-back entertainment, you’ll find a selection of Apple Originals preloaded on the screen.
The deal is exclusive to American, and builds on their existing Apple Music streaming deal.
Smart for American, smart for Apple. On Apple’s side, it builds the Apple TV+ brand, builds the exposure and audience for the various shows.
You’ve decided you need an Apple Watch in your life, but now the question is which one? There have been six different versions of the Watch over the years and a new one may be coming in a couple of months, but Apple currently gives you two models to choose from: the Series 5, which starts at $399; and the Series 3, which starts at $199.
The good news is you can’t go wrong with either if you have your heart set on an Apple Watch. Both have the same fitness tracking features, notifications and seamless integration with your iPhone. So if price is your main concern, rest easy, you’ll get everything you need from the Series 3 for $200 less. But if you have some wiggle room in the budget, the Series 5 has some standout features that might just make it worth the splurge.
As much as I’d like a Series 5, my Series 3 is a perfectly good smartwatch at a great price.
Apple is pushing for huge rent reductions across its UK stores despite its sales soaring to new heights during the lockdown.
The tech giant has told landlords of a portion of its 38-store estate in the UK that it wants rents slashed by up to 50% and a rent-free period. In return, it has offered to extend leases by a few years.
The tough tactics have caused consternation among property owners.
I don’t know if Apple has actually “demanded” these discounts as the headline posits but I imagine it’s going to be awfully hard for a company that announced 55 billion pounds in profit last year to get any significant discounts from landlords who are “struggling” just as much.
Step on the ice with two of the best players in the NHL, Marc-André Fleury and Mark Stone, as they push the iPhone 11 Pro to its limits using nothing but a little hockey tape. See the game like never before with Ultra Wide and Slo-mo.
Of course Apple Canada would do a video like this.
Apple recently purchased Mobeewave, a payments technology startup that developed a method by which smartphones like iPhone can be used as mobile payments terminals.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports Apple paid approximately $100 million for Montreal-based Mobeewave and its “dozens” of employees. The team has been retained and continues to work out of its headquarters.
Mobeewave’s technology employs NFC communications to enable users to conduct payments by tapping a compatible credit card on a smartphone. Consumers can also trigger transactions by bringing two smartphones within close proximity of each other, the report said.
The CEO of Square is going to be unhappy. Many small merchants at farmers markets around the world are going to be very happy.
A Florida teenager has been identified by authorities as the “mastermind” behind the recent Twitter Bitcoin hack that targeted the accounts of Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Bill Gates and many other high-profile celebrities. The 17-year-old was arrested Friday and charged in Tampa, according to the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.
During the hack, the Twitter accounts of celebrities including Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Kim Kardashian West and Bill Gates asked millions of followers to send money to a Bitcoin address. The hackers acquired more than $100,000 in Bitcoin from more than 400 transfers the day of the hack, the DOJ said, adding that approximately 130 accounts of politicians, celebrities and musicians were compromised.
Twitter announced Thursday that the July 15 hack was the result of a phone spear phishing attack that required access to both the site’s internal network and employee credentials granting restricted access. The hacker was able to obtain passwords and other sensitive information from employees using illegitimate emails, the company said.
I don’t know if it’s scary, sad, or lucky it was “just” three young hackers who did this and not a nation-state or other bad actor. Probably a combination of all three.
Canada today released a new COVID-19 contact tracing app called COVID Alert, as noted by iPhone in Canada. COVID Alert takes advantage of Apple and Google’s privacy-focused Exposure Notification API to alert people when they’ve come into contact with someone who has the coronavirus.
If someone with COVID Alert tests positive for the virus, they can opt to enter that information into the app, and each person they’ve been in contact with will then receive an alert. COVID Alert collects no location information or personally identifiable data, and was built by Health Canada with the Canadian Digital Service.
Contrary to this story, the app has been available for a week – I’ve been using it each day to report in. Does anyone else use this version or similar apps in their country?
Apple usually releases new smartphones in September. However, it looks like we’re going to have to wait just a little longer for the iPhone 12. Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri broke the news during Thursday’s earnings call. “As you know, last year we started selling new iPhones in late September,” Mr. Maestri said. “This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.”
We’ve been hearing rumors of production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic for a while now. However, a top Apple exec actually making the admission public at this stage is still significant.
This is definitely significant. Apple is loathe to speak about “future products” and they never confirmed a late September launch so they could have said nothing and gone about their business. But I think this is an admission from Apple that, if the usual September announcements didn’t happen, the rumour mills would run even wilder than usual.
In the armed forces, ‘military grade’ isn’t the best — it’s the cheapest stuff that gets the job done. When the phrase is on a Ford or an iPhone case, real soldiers laugh their heads off.
Unfortunately, though, companies calling their products “military grade” is pretty much the same as Robert Pattinson calling his microwaved sugar pasta “authentic Italian cuisine” — total garbage.
“It’s mostly just a marketing ploy,” explains Alex Hollings, a former Marine and editor of the military news outlet Sandboxx News. “And to be totally honest, the military standard itself is a bit of a sham.”
I see this term all the time in press releases I’m sent for various iPhone and iPad cases and I’ve always discounted it as marketing fluff.
You can’t stop Megan Rapinoe, Serena Williams, or Lebron James.
Just as you can’t stop Naomi Osaka, Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Baker.
Because as athletes, we are never alone. Sport unites us. Strengthens us. Keeps us pushing ahead. No matter what, we will always come back stronger, together.
Dave and I started off the show talking about the beginning of live sports, especially hockey. We also talked about the antitrust hearing this week, Emmy nominations, movie theaters and a couple of suggestions to make Apple TV even better.
Apple on Thursday reported quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue, according to the company.
“Apple’s record June quarter was driven by double-digit growth in both Products and Services and growth in each of our geographic segments,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “In uncertain times, this performance is a testament to the important role our products play in our customers’ lives and to Apple’s relentless innovation. This is a challenging moment for our communities, and, from Apple’s new $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative to a new commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030, we’re living the principle that what we make and do should create opportunity and leave the world better than we found it.”
In the quarter Apple sold $26.4 million iPhones, up from the $25.9 million in the year ago quarter. Mac sales were up from $5.8 billion to $7 billion this quarter, and iPad sales were up to $6.5 billion from $5 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Wearables, Home, and Accessories were up from $5.5 billion to $6.4 billion in this quarter, while rose from $11.4 billion to $13.1 billion.
Apple made a huge announcement today regarding the company’s stock.
“The Board of Directors has also approved a four-for-one stock split to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors. Each Apple shareholder of record at the close of business on August 24, 2020 will receive three additional shares for every share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on August 31, 2020.”
Apple Inc. agreed in 2016 to halve its App Store fee for Amazon.com Inc. as part of a deal to put the e-commerce giant’s Prime Video app on Apple’s mobile devices and TV set-top box.
Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president, and Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos negotiated directly on the deal, according to emails released Wednesday as part of a congressional hearing on anticompetitive behavior. The companies agreed to a 15% revenue share for customers who signed up through the app and no revenue share for users who already subscribed via Amazon or elsewhere, the emails showed.
And:
Apple generally receives a 30% cut for the first year of an app’s subscriptions made through the platform. That fee drops to 15% after the first year.
And:
“That is not correct,” Cook said when asked if some developers are treated differently. “We treat every developer the same.”
This is a great summary of Tim Cook’s appearance at yesterday’s congressional antitrust hearing. It combines his opening remarks, plus some back and forth with questioners.
Last year, we launched automatic phone backup for members on Android devices. So no matter what happens to your phone, you won’t lose the important stuff like texts, contacts and apps, and photos and videos. To bring this peace of mind to more people, we’re making some Google One features—phone backup and a new storage manager tool—free for Google users wherever Google One is available. You can back up your devices and clean up your files across Google Photos, Google Drive, and Gmail—all in the new Google One app for Android and iOS.
Two things leap out at me:
First, this feels like a push to expand Google’s pay-for-storage business. You get 15Gb for free, but once you buy into the model, you’ll inevitably want more storage, which means more money flowing to Google, less to Apple.
Second, what are the privacy rules here? I’ve not found specifics yet, but before you go down this road, be sure to read the EULA and know if Google has the rights to data mine your data, or use your photos in any way.
If the storage pricing is better, and if there’s no privacy concerns on your end, this might be a net positive, apply pressure on Apple to lower their storage prices.
Apple today updated its Apple Store app with a new “For You” tab that offers access to order status, devices, accessory recommendations, services, reservations, and product tips, all in one simple to access place.
And:
There’s also a feature that’s designed to allow you to compare a new iPhone you’re considering purchasing with your existing iPhone so you can see the difference at a glance.
First, note that this is the Apple Store app, not the App Store app.
Second, I’ve not yet gotten this extra tab on my phone, which is running iOS 13, but I did get the new tab on my iPad, which is running the beta of iOS 14.
