Great read from Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac. For me, the Camera app is one of the most important apps on my iPhone. Improvements to the camera are important distinguishing features between iPhone generations and between models of the same generation. A big camera improvement can trigger iPhone users to upgrade to a newer model.

This particular iOS 14 change jumped out at me:

With iOS 14, Apple says opening the Camera app and taking the first picture is up to 25% faster, while taking two or more pictures is 90% faster. For iPhones with Portrait Mode, photos are taken up to 15% faster.

These changes are automatically enabled to all devices running iOS 14, so you don’t need to change anything to benefit from these enhancements.

Huge gain in both of these paragraphs. How many pictures have you lost because you were just a hair too slow getting your iPhone out and getting that picture snapped?

And, maybe more importantly, the faster speed is enabled across all models, not just the higher end of the range.

Hollywood Reporter:

Imahara died suddenly following a brain aneurysm, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. “We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” a representative for Discovery said in a statement on Monday.

And:

While part of the Mythbusters team, he sky-dived and drove stunt cars, on film sets he came into contact with some of the most iconic characters in screen history, installing lights onto Star Wars’ R2-D2, creating the robot Geoff Peterson for The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson and working on the Energizer Bunny.

Adam Savage:

I’m at a loss. No words. I’ve been part of two big families with Grant Imahara over the last 22 years. Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous, easygoing, and gentle PERSON. Working with Grant was so much fun. I’ll miss my friend.

— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) July 14, 2020

Damn.

Earth Sky:

Later this month, the comet will become visible in the evening for those at latitudes like those further south in the U.S. Some skilled observers have reported that – once you spot it with binoculars – you can remove them and glimpse this comet as a fuzzy ball, using only the unaided eye. Using binoculars or other optical aid is a must, though, if you want to see this comet’s splendid split tail. The comet is called C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). In this post, we provide charts that can help you see this celestial visitor.

Around July 12-15, Comet NEOWISE will appear early in the evening sky, close to the northwest horizon.

Definitely going out this evening with my son to see if we can spot this tonight.

Smartphone Performance Settlement:

If you are or were a U.S. owner of an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, and/or SE device that ran iOS 10.2.1 or later before December 21, 2017, and/or a U.S. owner of an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus device that ran iOS 11.2 or later before December 21, 2017, you could be entitled to benefits under a class action settlement.

Under the proposed settlement, Apple will make a minimum, non-reversionary payment of $310,000,000 and a maximum payment of up to $500,000,000, depending on the number of claims submitted.

The max you’ll get is $25 and this is good only for US owners of the affected devices.

The Hustle:

Imagine this: An airline loses your checked bag. After an extensive search, customer support comes up empty-handed. They compensate you and life goes on.

But life goes on for your suitcase, too. Written off as “unclaimed,” it sits in a musty collection depot for 3 months. Eventually, the airline sells it — along with hundreds of other lost suitcases and cargo shipments — to a private company, sight unseen.

The new owner cracks the lock, sifts through your former possessions, and marks them for sale.

A few days later, a retired mechanic named Charlie buys your grandfather’s watch for $150. A 19-year-old line cook acquires your Beats headphones. And a nurse from Florida becomes the proud new owner of the scarf your mom knitted you for Christmas.

This is the bizarre secondary market for lost luggage.

It’s unlikely that my two lost iPods would be in this stuff.

AppleInsider:

Apple is proceeding in its $2.5 billion commitment to help fight the housing crisis in California, with the allocation of more than $400 million going towards affordable housing projects and homeowner assistance programs in the state in 2020.

Apple initially announced its $2.5 billion plan in November, seeking to ease the rising costs for renters and homebuyers in California. The aim was to help people buy houses, including in areas like San Francisco where house prices are escalating and homeownership is at a seven-year low.

In keeping with its plan, Apple revealed on Monday it had ring-fenced more than $400 million for the initiative, which will go to supporting first-time homebuyers and the construction of new affordable housing units. The units include many reserved for veterans, the homeless or formerly homeless, and residents with developmental disabilities.

Good to see these units won’t be reserved for Apple employees but will end up in the general housing pool and aimed at those most in need.

Monday Note:

Why should Intel worry about Apple’s decision to base future Macs on homegrown Apple Silicon SoC (System on a Chip) devices? According to Dataquest and IDC estimates, Apple owns no more than 7% of the PC market. Furthermore, Apple doesn’t buy the expensive Xeon chips, used in millions of Cloud servers, that represent a growing proportion of Intel’s revenue. And the company is a headache: It makes demands and complaints way out of proportion with the amount of revenue it generates. Losing Apple is more symbol than substance.

Not so fast. The impact on Intel — and the entire industry — will be felt beyond Apple’s small share of the PC market.

Specifically, what are Dell, HP, Asus, and others going to do if Apple offers materially better laptops and desktops and Microsoft continues to improve Windows on ARM Surface devices?

I’ve read various pundits saying this transition will have little to no effect on Intel. But Gassée argues it may create a seismic shift at Intel.

9to5Mac:

Apple News+, the company’s paid offering is running a new promotion for users who have tried the service and canceled their subscriptions. The new deal offers previous customers another free month of Apple News+ as the new audio stories are set to launch with the upcoming release of iOS 13.6.

If you haven’t tried Apple News+, the standard welcome at the top of the News+ tab in the Apple News app encourages you to try it for free for one month before paying the $10/month regular price.

Now, Apple is offering a second free month to those who have given it a try but canceled the subscription.

Sorry, Apple. Nothing significant has changed with News+. There’s no need for another trial subscription for me.

Macworld:

If you leave your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air plugged in all the time—no matter the vintage—the battery suffers wear for being charged to full. Over time, the maximum charged capacity diminishes and you lose many minutes—even hours—of usable time. It is just a characteristic of the lithium-ion batteries in laptops and nearly all modern electronics.

Here is a quick list of the best practices for managing your MacBook’s battery.

I have definitely been guilty of leaving my laptop plugged in for days on end.

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.