Two good reads for the weekend. First, be sure to dig into Jim Dalrymple’s iOS 14 favorite features piece.

Then follow the headline link and read John Gruber’s powerful App Store essay. I’ll quote a few bits, but worth heading over to read the whole thing:

Feel free to file Google’s release this week of an update to their iPad Gmail app with support for split-screen multitasking under “better late than never”, but this is so late it borders on the absurd.

and:

Five years to add support for a foundational element of the iPad user experience. And an email client is near the top of the list of the type of apps where someone would want to use split-screen. Five years.

and:

I worry that it’s not tenable in the long run to expect Apple to continue striving to create well-crafted — let alone insanely great — software when so many of its users not only settle for, but perhaps even prefer, software that is, to put it kindly, garbage.

And:

I’d like to see all the vim, vigor, and vigilance Apple applies to making sure no app on the App Store is making a dime without Apple getting three cents applied instead to making sure there aren’t any scams or ripoffs, and that popular apps support good-citizen-of-the-platform features within a reasonable amount of time after those features are introduced in the OS. I don’t know exactly how long “reasonable” is, but five fucking years for split-screen support ain’t it.

And:

Imagine a world where the biggest fear developers had when submitting an app for review wasn’t whether they were offering Apple a sufficient cut of their revenue, but whether they were offering users a good enough native-to-the-platform experience.

And, finally:

Rather than watch Apple face antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe with a sense of dread, I’d watch with a sense of glee. “This company is abusing its market dominance to take an unfair share of our money” is an age-old complaint to government regulators. “This company is abusing its market dominance to force us to make our apps better for users” would be delightful new territory. Only Apple could do that.

Go read the whole post. There’s a lot more. It’s clearly born of epiphany.

At the core of the issue is a basic problem with being a public traded company. Once you put your company up for sale to the public, take public money to use as you will, you are beholden to those shareholders. You can’t help but treat the bottom line as a fiduciary responsibility. And there’s the rub.

Apple, and shareholders, made a ton of money on the iPhone and its wondrous ecosystem. But it’s a hard treadmill to escape. So as the smartphone market matured, Apple shifted to services. And the App Store is one of the more important pieces of that strategy.

No argument with Gruber’s idealism. And I do think it’s possible Apple’s hand will be forced by Antitrust investigation/regulation. But the financial forces, the pressure from shareholders for year-over-year growth, will not change. Some balancing force needs to come to bear here, pressure to make Apple value a world where, as John says, their most used apps are best-in-class.

Great food for thought from Gruber. Go read the whole thing.

Apple on Thursday released the first public beta of iOS 14. You can sign-up to download the beta on Apple’s Web site. I’ve been using the developer betas for a couple of weeks and have written some of my thoughts that I posted this morning.

Samsung skipping the whole “mock Apple” stage, moving right to the copiers.

Follow the headline link for all the details, watch the video below for more of a guided tour.

To me, these highlights stick out:

• Thunderbolt 4 implemented as a USB-C port (no change there)
• Daisy chain up to 4 Thunderbolt 4 devices
• Video: Support for two 4K displays or one 8K display.
• Data: PCIe at 32 Gbps for storage speeds up to 3,000 MBps.

And this from Apple:

“Over a decade ago, Apple partnered with Intel to design and develop Thunderbolt, and today our customers enjoy the speed and flexibility it brings to every Mac. We remain committed to the future of Thunderbolt and will support it in Macs with Apple silicon.”

Good stuff.

While yesterday’s Variety review was safe reading, this Rolling Stone review digs into plot points, has some spoilers.

But suffice it to say, while neither review is effusive, both are thoughtful and appreciative, both make me want to binge Little Voice when it drops tomorrow, July 10th. Or, at least, binge the first three episodes. The remaining six drop weekly, on Friday.

TechSpot:

Thanks to a recent surge in its stock price, Nvidia has overtaken Intel to become the most valuable chipmaker in the US. Following a 2.3 percent jump yesterday afternoon, team green’s shares have now reached $408, putting its market cap at $251.3 billion, ahead of Intel’s $248.1 billion.

Interesting, granted, but I do take exception to the phrase “most valuable chipmaker in the US”.

By that logic, the most valuable chipmaker in the US would be Apple. By far. After all, TSMC makes Nvidia’s chips, and they make Apple’s Arm SoC’s as well. But Intel makes their own chips. Let’s let them keep the crown.

Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac:

Starting today, Apple Store visitors can head online before visiting the store in person and schedule a Shop with a Specialist appointment. Booking an appointment guarantees you a time to comfortably browse inside the store and shop without the hassle of waiting or potentially being turned away at the door.

And if you know what you want, this makes the entire shopping experience more efficient, shorter, safer, minimizing the time spent in a public space.

Great way to ease people back into the Apple Store.

If you care about the show, read the review. It’s spoiler free.

Bottom line, this smells like a surprisingly, refreshing winner of a show. It drops Friday. I will definitely be watching it.

Adam Engst, TidBITS:

When it comes to general usage, I haven’t noticed any real difference between the AirPods and the AirPods Pro.

In an attempt to qualify that better, I connected both to my Mac and played my go-to test music—the “Brothers in Arms” album by Dire Straits from Apple Music—through one and then the other. Even with the same song and switching back and forth, I couldn’t really pick a winner.

I’d have to agree with this. As far as audio subtlety goes, they both sound very good, though a pair of top over-ear headphones wins that battle. But convenience reigns. The best earbuds are the ones you have with you, and that you can easily slip into your pocket.

Back to the review:

The noise cancellation in the AirPods Pro, on the other hand, can be near magical. The first time I used them, I was vacuuming the house. They were a revelation. The noise cancellation dampened the vacuum noise so significantly that I can’t imagine vacuuming without them again.

And there’s the value. Again, you can get better noise cancellation, but AirPods Pro noise cancellation is very good, and fit in your pocket.

The AirPods Pro also have shorter stems, which means I can just fit them inside the earmuffs that I wear when mowing the lawn.

I wear a knit cap (I’ve long shaved my head, and the knit cap keeps my head warm) and I find that, especially with the shorter stems, the cap keeps my AirPods Pro in place and, if I pull the cap over my ears, makes the noise cancellation even better.

I love my AirPods Pro, consider them worth every penny and then some.

Comprehensive, still growing list of all the changes from iOS 14 beta 1 to beta 2. Solid resource.

Only thing I’d change is to bold the more important features, make the list a bit easier to scan.

And there’s a what came with beta 1 list, too.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

At the current time, third-party music services like Spotify can only be streamed on the ‌‌HomePod‌‌ using AirPlay and an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. The new feature will presumably allow Spotify and other music services to be set as the default music service, letting users ask Siri to stream music from Spotify.

It’d be interesting to know if this new feature was directly driven as a legal strategy.

Terrific post by Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac. This is about much more than just staying safe. This is about alternatives to going to an Apple Store, and about planning, so you can minimize the time spent out in the world.

Apple:

Apple is expanding its Independent Repair Provider Program with additional options for customers to access repair services. The industry-leading program enables businesses of all sizes to offer repairs on iPhone using genuine Apple parts, which ensures safety and quality. Following the launch of the program in the US last fall, over 140 independent repair companies have joined with over 700 new US locations now available to customers, and businesses in Europe and Canada can now sign up.

And:

Since the launch of the Independent Repair Provider Program last fall, there are now over 700 Independent Repair Provider locations across the US providing out-of-warranty service for iPhone.

Genuine Apple parts is key here, especially where screen replacement is concerned.

You can verify that your local shop has access to genuine parts and repair resources on this official Apple page.

CNET:

If there was ever a time the world needed the satirical comic The Far Side, it would be 2020. As the coronavirus pandemic dominates headlines, we could use cartoonist Gary Larson’s oddball humor now more than ever.

Larson, who retired the daily syndication of the cartoon in 1995, on Tuesday added new comics to the New Stuff section on his official The Far Side website.

The world can certainly use Larson’s brand of weird and funny right now.

Ars Technica:

Few technologies have yielded such divisive and widespread passion as Flash. Many gush over its versatility and ease of use as a creative platform or its critical role in the rise of web video. Others abhor Flash-based advertising and Web design, or they despise the resource-intensiveness of the Flash Player plugin in its later years.

Whichever side of the love-hate divide you land on, there’s no denying the fact that Flash changed how we consume, create, and interact with content on the Web. For better and worse, it helped shape the Internet of today.

But now, after roughly 25 years, Flash is finally nearing its end. In less than six months—December 2020—Adobe will officially end support and distribution of Flash Player, the browser plugin we all associate most strongly with the technology.

For its time, Flash was an amazing piece of technology but it fairly quickly got turned into a beast we all hated to varying degrees. Few of us will mourn its passing.

Engadget:

Fraunhofer, the German company that helped develop the H.264, H.265 and MP3 encoding formats, has unveiled a new video encoding standard that could severely reduce streaming bottlenecks. Called H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC), it’s specifically designed for 4K and 8K streaming and reduces data requirements by around 50 percent compared to H.265 HEVC (high-efficiency video coding). At the same time, the improved compression won’t compromise visual quality.

The company developed the codec in collaboration with partners including Apple, Ericsson, Intel, Huawei, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Sony. It will be licensed by the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF), a group with 34 major member companies. The aim there is to avoid the kind of licensing squabbles that plagued the H.264 codec a decade ago.

Fraunhofer said that if a 90-minute, H.265/HEVC-encoded movie is about 10GB, it would only be 5GB for the same quality when encoded with the new codec.

Welcome news for those of us who blow through our data caps each month.

This is worth making your way through, just to get the mechanics down. You can tell this is non-obvious when the first instruction is:

• Long press on a blank area of the Home Screen or any additional page of apps.

Nice job by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors.

Juli Clover digs through the iOS 14 beta and lays out all that’s new with Messages, including pinned chats, inline replies, and emoji search.

Interesting to see if the ability to do a deep, efficient search emerges, as appears to be the case with macOS 11.

Apple:

In a move that will add more globally beloved children’s stories and characters exclusively to Apple TV+, Apple today announced a first-of-its-kind, multi-year deal with The Maurice Sendak Foundation. Through the deal, Apple and The Maurice Sendak Foundation will reimagine new children’s series and specials based on the books and illustrations by Maurice Sendak, which will premiere all over the world exclusively on Apple TV+.

Talk about a treasure trove of rich source material. Just like Goodnight Moon, Corduroy, and Charlotte’s Web, generations of kids grew up with Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. This is seminal stuff.

Side note: There have been some great, animated treatments of Sendak material over the years. One of the best was called Really Rosie, a collection of shorts with music by Carole King. If that rings a bell, fire up the album on Apple Music.

Vulture:

“I can honestly say I’ve never been in such a cocky pitch environment,” Gairdner recalls. “I would describe the atmosphere as almost Wolf of Wall Street, not in terms of actual debauchery, but it’s an incredibly nice office that just goes and goes. They had two lobbies; you went in and checked in at a nice, big lobby, then you were moved to another lobby. There’s massive jars of expensive, nice-seeming candy everywhere. It’s sleek and modern, and you see hundreds of people passing by. And there’s this energy of people who really believe they’ve got the next big thing.”

And:

Drawing on his deep well of relationships earned after more than four decades in Hollywood, Katzenberg recruited an amazing array of talent: Sam Raimi would produce a horror anthology; Idris Elba would star in a car-stunts show; Chrissy Teigen would put on judge’s robes and comically preside over a courtroom; Lena Waithe would make a show about sneakerheads; Anna Kendrick would anchor a comedy in which her character befriends her boyfriend’s sex doll; and the Kardashians would do a mock reality show featuring a mythical fraternal twin brother named Kirby Jenner.

And:

Most subscribers have signed on with a 90-day free trial. This month, as that period expires, Quibi will learn how many of those people will stick around once they’re asked to pay. If they don’t, Quibi will be left to reckon with how it miscalculated so badly, and for Katzenberg and Whitman, it could be a deflating capstone to two storied careers.

This is an amazing read. An almost infinite well of money to throw at the problem, some great talent, and solid design chops. What went wrong here? And is the story over? Is there enough money left to pivot, to correct mistakes?

I think part of the issue here is the content itself. Having a star attached is never enough. The content needs to be compelling. And it’s hard to compete with free, crowd-sourced content (YouTube, TikTok, etc.)

Another hurdle for Quibi is the lack of an existing ecosystem or tentpole content. Disney has that deep back catalog. Apple has the ecosystem. Quibi does have a partnership with T-Mobile, but that’s mostly an advertising partnership.

And, of course, there’s the pandemic. Will Quibi survive? Or will it be a lesson in hubris?

vulture:

…to say that Morricone is a great soundtrack composer — or even the greatest of all soundtrack composers — doesn’t quite do him justice. His influence is monumental across musical genres, and his innovations have been adopted even by avant-garde musicians. In fact, many people who’ve never seen a single film scored by the prolific Morricone can probably still easily identify many of his musical themes. Don’t believe me? Whistle a few tunes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or A Fistful of Dollars sometime, and you might find that even people who’ve never seen a frame of a spaghetti Western will know what you’re referencing.

Morricone, who recently passed away, wasn’t just a composer of scores for spaghetti Westerns. You’ll recognize many of these cues from a wide variety of films.

Eli Reiter:

I didn’t intend to become a liar for hire, a purveyor of fake news on that terrible site, Amazon. But I knew I went too far when I woke up shrouded by my untruths. My blanket, pillows, and even my duvet were a lie. The pajamas, my night light, the Christmas lights that I hung on the wall: all falsehoods.

The more I reviewed, the more the Facebook accounts asked me to review. It became a daily ritual.

The black market for Amazon reviews makes some sense if you consider how valuable positive reviews can be to sellers on the platform.

Yet another reason to not trust Amazon reviews.

The Guardian:

Greyhound has been an especial labour of love for him, one he sweated over for almost a decade, and it is one of those sweeping war movies that really should be seen on the big screen. So the change in plans has been, he says, “an absolute heartbreak. I don’t mean to make angry my Apple overlords, but there is a difference in picture and sound quality.”

Apple TV+ is having a similarly negative impact on Hanks’ appearance in this interview. Even though he is in his office, “the cruel whipmasters at Apple” decided the background needed to be a blank wall, presumably so nosy journalists like me wouldn’t spend the whole encounter snooping at Hanks’ bookcases. Against the eerily empty backdrop, he looks, Hanks rightly says, as if he’s in “a witness protection programme. But here I am, bowing to the needs of Apple TV.”

The Mac media is having a field day with this interview, portraying it as if Hanks is pissed at Apple. But in a long interview where he only mentions Apple briefly, it’s obvious he’s just teasing and not serious about it. I do get his point about being “heartbroken” that his sub-hunting moving is being limited to small screens. I would much rather see a movie like this in a theater.

Great way to get a sense of the visual change coming with macOS Big Sur. Scroll through the images, keep in mind that’s Catalina on the left, Big Sur on the right (mostly).

Also keep in mind that Big Sur is a first beta. Some details may (and likely will) change.