Samuel Axon, Ars Technica:

When Apple announced its plans to transition the Mac to its own, ARM-based silicon and away from the x86 architecture used in Intel Macs, the company listed a plethora of tools for making sure as many applications survive the shift as possible. But while it’s helpful that Apple is providing developer tools for adapting Intel Mac apps and virtualization tools for running the apps that won’t make the move right away, there’s one scenario Apple didn’t talk about at all during its keynote: running Windows natively on a Mac.

And:

While virtualization via tools like Parallels or VMWare are usually sufficient for running most Windows apps under macOS, there are some edge cases when the Boot Camp approach is the only option. One of the most common: running Windows PC games, which tend to run more optimally under Windows than they do under macOS, no matter how well done the ports are.

And there’s the rub. Boot Camp allows Windows to run natively, currently as an Intel-targeted OS running natively on Intel platform.

But:

We’ve learned that Boot Camp will not work on Apple silicon-based Macs. This will surely be a surprise to almost no one, of course. You can’t expect to just run a game natively out of the box on a totally different architecture.

Yup. Boot Camp itself doesn’t allow an Intel-compiled OS to run natively on Arm. So will Microsoft allow a version of Windows to be built, targeted specifically at Apple’s Mac/Arm architecture?

Does Apple want Windows on the Mac? Is that an important part of the next generation of Macs?

A detailed walkthrough on the new features the iOS 14 Music app brings to the table.

Public beta coming in July, with a likely release in September.

Serenity Caldwell continues to bring it. Great work.

As much as I miss the camaraderie, I am really enjoying this year’s experience. My hope is that all the changes Apple is bringing, especially the new production elements, will continue next year.

C. Scott Brown, AndroidAuthority:

At this point, saying Android has a serious problem when it comes to phones receiving reliable Android upgrades is getting old. We’ve written about it a lot — even I, specifically, have written about it a lot. You’ve told us your thoughts. We all get it. Even with all that, though, the latest announcement of iOS 14 really sends the message home.

We do talk about this a lot. By its very nature, the Android market is fragmented. Extremely so.

Meanwhile, the flagship Android device from 2015 was the Samsung Galaxy S6. The most recent official version of Android that phone received was Android 7 Nougat, which dropped in 2016. Of course, it was well into 2017 before the Galaxy S6 actually got it. Since then: nothing.

I’ve seen this same message in a number of places, staunch Android supporters grumphing about their older phones reaching the practical end of Android update rollouts. And they are not wrong.

Come join us. You are more than welcome.

This is a nice to have feature, but especially useful here:

The new charged notification is a useful feature for the ‌Apple Watch‌’s Sleep app, which lets users wear the ‌Apple Watch‌ at night for sleep tracking purposes.

The ‌Apple Watch‌ can’t be charged while it’s worn at night, of course, so after waking up, it will need to be placed on the charger if the battery is getting low.

Wake up, throw your Apple Watch on the charge, do your morning Loop posts (OK, maybe you do you), then, when you get the notification, grab your watch and go.

Six Colors:

Doing unusual things at Mac startup has long required remembering keyboard shortcuts. Is it Command-Control-P-R or Command-Option-P-R that zaps the PRAM? Is that still even a thing? Is it Command-S for Recovery Mode—or wait, that’s Single User Mode, it’s Command-R for Recovery mode, Command-T for Target Disk Mode, Option to choose a startup disk.

With the advent of Macs running Apple-designed processors, things will get a whole lot simpler. As described Wednesday in the WWDC session Explore the New System Architecture of Apple Silicon Macs, these new Macs will only require you to remember a single button: Power.

Holding down that button at startup will bring up an entirely new macOS Recovery options screen. From here you’ll be able to fix a broken Mac boot drive, alter security settings, share your Mac’s disk with another computer, choose a startup disk, and pretty much everything else you used to have to remember keyboard shortcuts to do.

I’ll quibble with the “has long required remembering keyboard shortcuts” (my wife’s MBA refused to boot this AM and I had to Google the various shortcuts. No need to remember them), but it will definitely be a welcome change regardless.

Fleetsmith:

We started Fleetsmith to balance the management and security needs of IT with the experience users love about Mac, iPad, and iPhone. We’re proud of the incredibly talented team we’ve built, and that we’ve stayed true to our mission: to make powerful, secure Apple fleet management available to everyone.

We’re thrilled to join Apple. Our shared values of putting the customer at the center of everything we do without sacrificing privacy and security, means we can truly meet our mission, delivering Fleetsmith to businesses and institutions of all sizes, around the world.

This is another one of those “small” acquisitions Apple makes of a company most of us have never heard of but, at some point in the future, will become very important to many of us.

Forbes:

Yesterday Apple killed the IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) without killing the IDFA, by taking it out of the depths of the Settings app where almost no-one could find it — although increasingly people were finding it and turning it off — and making it explicitly opt-in for every single app. If an app wants to use the IDFA, iOS 14 will present mobile users with a big scary dialog box.

This is actually a genius move by Apple. Marketers can’t really get upset about losing the IDFA capability, because technically it’s still around. Apple gets to burnish its privacy credentials while not taking huge amounts of flack from brands and advertisers because, after all, who can argue with giving people more rights with their personal data?

And make no mistake: this is a great move for user privacy.

But it’s also a huge problem for a massive industry.

While I’m generally loathe to link to anything coming out of the Forbes Contributor Network, this is a well-done piece. Let’s all shed one single solitary crocodile tear in false sympathy for an industry that did everything it possibly could to abuse users.

Steven Sinofsky:

It is easy to get wrapped up in debates about specifics, excited by tweaks or surprises, even an occasional scandal, or to wonder about the quality (is this is a good beta?). Under the hood, is a team that over time has done more and executed better than any I can name, ever.

Quite simply, what we’re seeing is some of the most remarkable product engineering over time in history.

High praise from Sinofsky, a guy who has lots of experience with this kind of stuff.

Fast Company:

Steve Jobs said it would be bigger than the PC. Some dubbed it the most hyped product since the Apple Macintosh. An era of secrecy bubbled up in the year 2000 about an invention that would change the world as people knew it. People speculated it was a hydrogen-powered hovercraft, or a device that would break the rules of gravity itself.

Instead, it was a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transport device called the Segway. Now, less than 20 years after the first Segway’s release, Fast Company has learned that the Segway brand will retire the last Segway as we know it.

Segway had originally planned to sell as many as 100,000 units in the first 13 months; the company only ever sold around 140,000 vehicles total.

Riding a Segway is gloriously dorky. I’ve ridden them in a warehouse in Nashville, and on tours in San Antonio, Rome, and London and always had a blast. But they were doomed as soon as various big city governments banned their use on city streets.

Erica Sadun:

Apple’s new App Clip technology lets people load transient mini-apps without installing through the App Store. Users don’t have to authenticate or authorize the mini-app. It just downloads and works. Whether scanning a code (think QR code) or detecting an NFC tag, iOS users can download and run these pre-vetted packages that represent a light, typically transactional, view of a larger app experience. I went through some writeups and video today and thought I’d share a mental dump of my thoughts.

App Clips are designed for transaction. As an app, rather than a web page, they integrate seamlessly with the store ecosystem, allowing users to purchase goods and services from an instant menu and integrate with features like Apple Pay.

Honestly, there’s nothing an App Clip can do (maybe other than something like Apple Pay) that a reasonably designed web page cannot but it’s that charm and an eye towards lowering the transaction barrier that makes the Clips so compelling. With Clips, end-users can point, pick, and pay with an absolute minimum of effort.

Short but good description of the possibilities of App Clips.

Variety:

Apple, which has been the target of sharp criticism over its App Store policies and the power the company holds over developers, says it’s establishing a new process to hear the complaints of developers who disagree with its app-approval policies.

The tech giant announced two changes that it will roll out this summer for the app review process. First, Apple said, developers will “not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself.”

In a second change, Apple said, for apps that are already on the App Store, “bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues.” Instead, the company said, developers will “be able to address the issue in their next submission.”

How the new policies will be put into practice remains to be seen, but Apple is at least trying to show that it’s willing to hear out the complaints of disgruntled iOS developers.

It will take some time to tell whether this is an olive branch or lip service to developers. On the face of it, it sounds like Apple is making some accommodations in the wake of the Hey email app kerfuffle.

Digital Camera World:

In huge news within the camera industry, it has been announced that Olympus Corporation will be divesting its imaging business to a Japanese private equity fund.

We spoke to Olympus, which is eager to stress to customers that it is very much business as usual, and that “this is the right step to preserve our brand’s legacy, the products, and the value of our technology”.

I wonder if this is just the first shoe (of possibly many) to drop? According to the story, “JIP specializes in restructuring loss-making businesses to make them profitable before reselling them.” So this is likely the end of Olympus as we know it which would be a huge shame. I’ve used their M1 and TG brand cameras and like and recommend them.

Apple:

It wouldn’t be WWDC without a little music. Bring Khalid and The Killers into your living room and create your very own musical conference experience with the WWDC20 playlist collection, now available on Apple Music. The opening WWDC20 playlist features great artists like Glass Animals and Alicia Keys, and includes Aurora from this year’s opening video.

In addition, Apple Music is celebrating the powerful connection the development community has to music with a new “Music to Code to” series, which features several multi-hour playlists featuring different musical styles and genres.

If you are on an iOS device, follow this link to get to the official WWDC music playlist page.

Interestingly, if you follow the link on a Mac, you’ll get to an XML dump, but no musical joy.

To check your firmware version number:

• Pop your AidPods out of the case and connect them to your iPhone
• Go to Settings > General > About
• Scroll down and tap on your AirPods Pro, which will appear only when connected

I was on 2D15 this morning, firmware update to 2D27 happened pretty immediately once I was connected. Your mileage may vary.

First things first, take a minute to read this official Senate Judiciary Committee explainer. It’s actually not that long and pretty readable.

At its heart:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and U.S. Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) today introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, a bill to bolster national security interests and better protect communities across the country by ending the use of “warrant-proof” encrypted technology by terrorists and other bad actors to conceal illicit behavior.

Now go read John Gruber’s headline-linked take. At its heart:

This is breathtaking. At least they’re being somewhat clear here: they’re proposing outlawing all end-to-end encryption. Encryption that is “warrant-proof” is everything-proof — there are no decryption keys in the middle. Encryption that can be undone at the behest of a lawful warrant can also be undone by anyone with access to the keys.

The way I read it, this would require device manufacturers (like Apple) to build in some mechanism to allow them to (as the result of a warrant) break encryption. This is no small thing. This would break Apple’s privacy foundation.

Keep your eyes on this one.

Vox:

Apple is cracking down on what it allows other companies to know about you. The company announced on Monday that iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur will feature a host of improved privacy features that will give users better control over their data and knowledge over what apps and websites know about them. This is great for users who don’t like the idea of, say, a period tracker app sending their data to a company they’ve never heard of. It’s bad news for that company they’ve never heard of.

Over on iOS, the mobile operating system that powers iPhones, apps will now have to get your permission before they can track your data, which is used to target ads to you based on that behavior. Apps often come loaded with secret trackers that send data, such as your location, device type, or usage time, to big companies like Facebook or Google or to the lesser-known brokers like Unacast or Cuebiq. These companies usually have their trackers in several, even thousands, of apps, allowing them to track your data across all of them. Your identity is typically anonymized and hidden behind a unique advertising identifier assigned to your phone. Privacy experts, however, will tell you that nothing is truly anonymous, and we’ve seen how it’s possible to re-identify someone.

If nothing else, Apple is making users more aware of the security issues surrounding web browsing. What the user does with that information is up to them.

Brian Barrett, Wired:

Apple outlined several failsafes to ensure as few bumps along that road as possible. It will ship Rosetta 2, an emulator that will let ARM-based Macs run Intel software from any lagging developers. It will allow for virtualization of Linux, although Apple has been mum as to whether Macs will continue to be able to load Windows through Boot Camp or virtualization software. Most intriguingly—and unexpectedly—iPhone and iPad apps will be able to run natively on a Mac.

And, on the Roseta 2 emulator:

“It translates the apps when you install them so they can launch immediately and be instantly responsive,” said Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi during Monday’s keynote. “Rosetta 2 can also can also translate code on the fly when needed, like web browsing. It even handles the most complex pro apps and their plug-ins.”

And:

There’s also a question of at what point certain apps, in particular those that aren’t actively maintained, simply stop working on ARM-based Macs.

Terrific article. I’ve been watching developers download and install macOS 11 Big Sur (yes, it’s macOS 11), then jump through the hoops to build ARM versions of their existing apps. Without the actual Mac mini Developer Transition Kit in hand, hard to know if the ported apps actually work, but (grain of salt) assuming the ports do work on ARM hardware, this looks like a reasonably pain free port for mainstream apps.

I’ve got an app in the hopper, waiting to try for myself.