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Sports Illustrated Uses iPhone 7 Plus to Photograph Titans-Vikings Game →

September 12, 2016 · 07:46

Sports Illustrated:

On Wednesday, Apple unveiled the brand new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, both of which feature an entirely new camera system. Now some of the first photos taken by the new iPhone 7 Plus camera are being unveiled exclusively on SI.com. On Sunday, Sports Illustrated photographer David E. Klutho took photos with the new iPhone 7 Plus camera at the Titans-Vikings game. The iPhone 7 Plus has a 12–megapixel telephoto camera that offers new zooming capabilities. Each new model also features a wider aperture and a lens that allows the camera to capture brighter and more vibrant colors in photos and videos. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be available in stores in 25 countries on Friday, Sept. 16.

I wonder if these were shot in RAW (DNG) and post processed or if they’re straight from the camera. Obviously the new ‘portrait’ mode wasn’t used or wasn’t available to SI.

Technical Details on Ceramics and the New Apple Watch Edition →

September 10, 2016 · 17:39

Liz Stinson:

Watchmakers use a ceramic material with very fine pores. It’s called zirconia (zirconium oxide, for the chemists reading), and it’s simultaneously hard and resistant to cracking. It also resists changes in temperature and moisture, which is why surgeons often use it in hip-replacement prosthetics. To bolster its strength (and achieve that bright, white color) Apple added alumina, another ceramic. The result is a material that’s pretty much un-scratchable, and, under most circumstances, unbreakable.

Is it impossible to break? No. “But you’ll probably never experience forces that are high enough to cause fracture,” Greer says. That may be true, but at $1,250 it’s best to not test that theory.

I want a white ceramic iPhone, which a white front — Stormtrooper White, if you will.

The Magic of AirPods →

September 10, 2016 · 17:32

Jason Snell:

Apple’s attention to detail, and to how people use their headphones, extends to the way that the sensors on the AirPods and the software on the iPhone work together. If you’ve got audio playing on an iPhone and then you pop an AirPod into one ear, the iPhone automatically switches the audio input to that AirPod—in mono mode, no less. Put an AirPod in the other ear and now you’re hearing everything in stereo.

Without a cable, there’s no clicker to play or pause your music, but if you pull one of the AirPods out of your ear, the iPhone pauses automatically—a cue that you’re removing an earbud because you want to hear something in the real world, or are talking to someone. Pop the AirPod back in and the audio begins to play. Take both of the AirPods out and the iPhone switches its audio output back to its own speakers. On my current pair of Bluetooth earbuds, when I’m done with a run I need to take the earbuds out and then mash on a button for a few seconds until it finally turns itself off and disconnects from my iPhone. This is better!

When I first saw the demo, I couldn’t believe this was Bluetooth or built on top of it, but it’s indeed the latter. These are some of the things which people don’t get until they try them once. But once they do, it’s hard to go back.

Shifting From Apple Car to CarOS with Accessories? →

September 10, 2016 · 17:27

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Brian X. Chen:

In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its self-driving car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly.

The job cuts are the latest sign of trouble with Apple’s car initiative. The company has added resources to the project — code-named Titan — over the last two years, but it has struggled to make progress. And in July, the company brought in Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded Apple veteran, to take over the effort.

Overcast Trying Ads →

September 10, 2016 · 10:07

Marco Arment:

A lot of indie developers struggle to make sustainable income in the App Store. I’ve experimented with many models over the years, and I’ll be happy to share the results of this change to hopefully be useful to other developers.

I honestly don’t know if this will work long-term, but I think it probably will. If it does, it will solve a lot of problems and let me do quite a bit more, better and faster than before, and truly make the best app for everyone, rather than only 3% of my customers.

It honestly makes me sad that developers are having a harder and harder time supporting themselves from good software. Take Tweetbot as an example — an app I use a few hours every single day — it’s really cheap right now but the value it gives me in return is immense. I would gladly pay much more, but at the same time I realise most wouldn’t.

App Store Name Lengths →

September 10, 2016 · 10:06

David Smith:

Starting tomorrow Apple will start enforcing a new rule limiting the length of an app’s name to 50 characters. Additionally, they will start disallowing apps from including “terms or descriptions that are not the name of the app”.

The latter of these rules is probably the most actually impactful and important in terms of cleaning up the App Store. As the length of the names hasn’t really been the problem, it is keyword spamming at the end of the name.

But the 50 character limit is still interesting to consider, so I dug through my App Store metadata cache to see just how many apps would be affected. It looks like only around 9% of apps currently have names that are longer than 50 characters (around 200k).

Why Apple Killed the Headphone Jack →

September 9, 2016 · 13:06

John Paczkowski:

A tentpole feature of the new iPhones are improved camera systems that are larger than the cameras in the devices that preceded them. The iPhone 7 now has the optical image stabilization feature previously reserved for its larger Plus siblings. And the iPhone 7 Plus has two complete camera systems side by side — one with a fixed wide-angle lens, the other with a 2x zoom telephoto lens. At the top of both devices is something called the “driver ledge” — a small printed circuit board that drives the iPhone’s display and its backlight. Historically, Apple placed it there to accommodate improvements in battery capacity, where it was out of the way. But according to Riccio, the driver ledge interfered with the iPhone 7 line’s new larger camera systems, so Apple moved the ledge lower in both devices. But there, it interfered with other components, particularly the audio jack.

So the company’s engineers tried removing the jack.

In doing so, they discovered a few things. First, it was easier to install the “Taptic Engine” that drives the iPhone 7’s new pressure-sensitive home button, which, like the trackpads on Apple’s latest MacBook, uses vibrating haptic sensations to simulate the feeling of a click — without actually clicking. (Did we mention that Apple killed the physical home button too?) Taptic Engine vibrations will also be used to deliver feeling specific notifications — hitting the end of a scrolled page, for example. And because Apple has given developers an API for it, an awful lot of other stuff as well — particularly in games.

“You can’t make it feel like there’s an earthquake happening, but the range of customization lets you do an awful lot,” Apple SVP Phil Schiller explains. “With every project there are things that surprise you with the meaning they take on as you start to use them. The Taptic Engine API is one of them. It turned into a much bigger thing than we ever thought it would be. It really does transform the experience for a lot of software. You’ll see.”
Second, there was an unforeseen opportunity to increase battery life. So the battery in the iPhone 7 is 14% bigger than the one in its predecessor, and in the iPhone 7 Plus, it’s 5% bigger. In terms of real-world performance gains, that’s about an additional two hours and one hour, respectively. Not bad.

Daniel Craig Offered $150 Million for Two More James Bond Films →

September 6, 2016 · 18:04

Radar Staff:

RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned that Sony is offering James Bond star Daniel Craig a whopping $150 million to reprise his role as 007 for two more of the popular franchise’s films.

“The studio is desperate to secure the actor’s services while they phase in a younger long-term successor,” a source told Radar.

Daniel Craig is my favourite James Bond, with Sean Connery coming in second. I have no sensible reasoning behind this — I just like to watch him play the part. If he takes the money, I do expect him to put his heart into it.

David Smith’s Indie Life in the App Store →

September 6, 2016 · 08:33

David Smith:

I am living proof that it is still quite possible to make a solid and reliable income from the App Store. The way in which I have been able to do that, however, has been to change with the times and constantly adapt to the changes in the market.

David’s apps aren’t perfect, but what he doesn’t mention is that he’s a nice guy and very respectable online — I unfortunately haven’t met him in real life. I buy his apps because, while not perfect, they’re solid problem solvers and appeal to my needs. I know that the fact that he has an online presence makes a difference for me — he won’t disappear tomorrow and leave me looking for alternatives.

Good luck on another eight, David!

New Beats Products to Debut Alongside iPhone 7 →

September 5, 2016 · 06:36

Juli Clover:

Apple plans to unveil new Beats by Dre products at its upcoming event set to be held on September 7, reports iGeneration. The news comes courtesy of an email that was mistakenly sent to the site from the Beats PR team, which iGeneration originally provided a screenshot for but was asked to remove.

I did expect the lineup to be refreshed with Lightning connectors, but I didn’t think the new models would be presented during the keynote itself.

Bizarre Ant Colony Discovered in an Abandoned Polish Nuclear Weapons Bunker →

September 5, 2016 · 06:34

Annalee Newitz:

For the past several years, a group of researchers has been observing a seemingly impossible wood ant colony living in an abandoned nuclear weapons bunker in Templewo, Poland, near the German border. Completely isolated from the outside world, these members of the species Formica polyctena have created an ant society unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Fascinating nature. Intruiging headline.

Apple: ‘We Have Lots of Serious Developers Who Don’t Want Their Quality Apps to be Surrounded by Amateur Hour’ →

September 5, 2016 · 06:33

Updated App submission guidelines:

  • If your app looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice app into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.
  • We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.

Surprising, strong wording.

Dropping MacBook Airs Would Create a Hole in Apple’s Lineup →

September 4, 2016 · 08:40

John Gruber:

We might be getting that speed bump update (along with USB-C ports), but I would be very surprised if we get a major update with retina displays. I still think the future is just MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

I held the same view as John for quite a while. The MacBook Airs seem to be going the way of the 2012 non-Retina MacBook Pro. But this does create a hole in Apple’s lineup. The MacBooks have the slowest CPUs, which don’t need fans, while the MacBook Pros are getting the faster mobile units. The series of Intel chips used in the Airs would be missing if they were dropped.

What Apple could do:

  • leave the 12″ MacBook as is — fanless and ultraportable,
  • create new Retina MacBook Airs in 13″ and 15″ sizes, with dual-core fan-needing CPUs of the ULV variety,
  • switch both the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pros over to quad-core CPUs — the 13-inch models have been using the more powerful dual-core Intels exclusively.

While I don’t for a moment imagine this will happen, it would create an extremely versatile lineup of MacBooks, which should fill everyone’s needs, while bringing the ‘Pro’ back to the 13″ MacBook Pro, and making the Airs an extremely versatile machine for people who don’t necessarily need the horsepower, but want nice, big screens.

The ‘Nougat’ in Android Is Silent →

September 2, 2016 · 20:43

Vlad Savov:

If we don’t talk about Android, how can we address the failure to release devices with the latest version of Android? I haven’t heard the word “Nougat” uttered anywhere outside of Berlin’s confectionery shops this week. Google’s latest and best software is a complete absentee from this most important of tech exhibitions. I find myself gazing across a wide landscape of future technology and seeing no mention of the most essential piece of future software.

Speaking of which, I still haven’t received my Nougat update on my Nexus 6.

‘Nexus’ Brand Will Be Replaced by ‘Pixel’ and ‘Pixel XL’ →

September 2, 2016 · 08:46

Edgar Cervantes:

Recent rumors have been suggesting the Search Giant plans to end the Nexus legacy, altering the naming scheme. The murmurs were vague and hard to wrap our heads around, but now a couple sources are claiming this is true… and that the next Google phones will be branded under the Pixel series.

To be more specific, these sources claim Google’s new handsets will be named Pixel and Pixel XL. Both are independent and one of them seems to have a great track record of information. The guys over at Android Police swear by them and multiple publications have said similar things now, so there’s a good chance of accuracy here.

As for these phones, the standard Pixel is said to be the 5-inch version, which has been so far code named as Sailfish. On the other hand, the Pixel XL is said to be the 5.5-inch Marlin.

I prefer ‘Nexus’, but ‘Pixel’ seems OK. No idea why they would do this though — Nexus has been a brand for years now and is hard to mistake for anything else.

Samsung Will Reportedly Issue Worldwide Recall of Galaxy Note 7 →

September 2, 2016 · 08:27

Chris Welch:

Samsung is preparing to announce a massive and global recall of its brand new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The Korea Herald also reported earlier that Samsung is “considering” a recall. The drastic and unprecedented step would be a direct result of Samsung’s ongoing investigation into reports that the Note 7’s battery has exploded while charging, and Samsung could announce a recall as soon as this coming weekend.

Ouch.

Apple Finally Cleansing the App Store →

September 2, 2016 · 07:03

Apple:

We love helping customers discover innovative, useful, and exciting apps on the App Store. With more than 2 million apps available and around 100,000 new and updated apps submitted each week, there’s something for everyone. To make it easier for customers to find great apps that fit their needs, we’re implementing two suggestions from the developer community starting September 7, 2016.

This has been a long time coming.

Siri Isn’t Yet Using the Context Available to Her →

September 1, 2016 · 14:59

Dr. Drang:

So as I was hunting, Siri kept patiently telling me how to get to the airport. When I didn’t see a gas station after a few blocks worth of looking, I gave up and asked her for directions to the closest one.

“Starting route,” she replied. “Head north on Isenberg Street.”

This is why I couldn’t bring myself to read Steven Levy’s new article on how Apple is making great advances in machine learning. The iBrain is already inside my phone? No, not yet.

You see, when Siri told me to head north on Isenberg, I was traveling south on Isenberg. In that circumstance, “head north” is a stupid instruction to give.

Siri knew perfectly well I was going south on Isenberg. Not half a minute earlier, she’d been telling me how to turn off Isenberg to get to the interstate. And she’d been tracking my location continuously since I left the hotel. The context was there, but it wasn’t used.

Siri is still missing a new major motorway from its database in Poland. I reported it months ago. So somehow the above does not surprise me one bit.

Samsung Stops Shipping New Note 7 Smartphones After a Couple of Them Blew Up →

September 1, 2016 · 08:31

Mark Sullivan:

The news comes from the Korea Herald, which states that Samsung stopped shipping the new devices earlier this week. At least two Galaxy Note 7 owners posted images and video of the new device burnt to a crisp after the battery blew up.

“Shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 are being delayed due to additional tests being conducted for product quality,” Samsung said in a statement to Reuters. Samsung didn’t say what it’s testing.

Walt Mossberg Talks About the Night Steve Jobs Called Him About Apple TV →

September 1, 2016 · 08:18

Peter Kafka:

Jobs himself publicly downplayed Apple’s public TV efforts as a “hobby”; in 2010, Jobs told Mossberg and Kara Swisher that Apple couldn’t really get into TV because there was no “viable go-to-market strategy.” The same year, he reportedly said the same thing internally, adding that “TV is a terrible business. They don’t turn over and the margins suck.”

But in 2011, Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson famously wrote that Jobs was working on TVs late in his life, and that he thought he had “cracked it.”

I’ve worked with Walt Mossberg for many years, but I’d never heard him talk about his TV conversation with Jobs before. Then last week, Mossberg wrote a Facebook post referring to a “secret project [Jobs] planned to continue to run” after he left his CEO job.

I called him this week to get the full story. Here it is…

Lack of Android Updates — Enough Blame to Go Around →

September 1, 2016 · 08:11

Andrew Cunningham:

After doing some digging and talking to some people, we can say that it will be either very difficult if not completely impossible for any phone that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 or 801 to get an official, Google-sanctioned Nougat update (including the Z3). And that’s a pretty big deal, since those two chips powered practically every single Android flagship sold from late 2013 until late 2014 and a few more recent devices to boot.

This situation has far-reaching implications for the Android ecosystem. And while it can be tempting to lay the blame at the feet of any one company—Google for creating this update mess in the first place, Qualcomm for failing to support older chipsets, and the phone makers for failing to keep up with new software—it’s really kind of everybody’s fault.

This is such a cluster-fuck. Still.

Pastebot for Mac Beta →

August 31, 2016 · 21:49

Tapbots:

We have been wanting to do a full blown Pastebot for Mac long before we first released it on the iPhone. Paul wrote a fantastic little utility app called PTH Pasteboard Pro on the Mac which I had always wanted to rewrite as a Tapbots app, but we were just too busy with iOS. After the release of Tweetbot 2 for Mac, it only made sense to have Todd start on Pastebot for his next big project. So we are very excited to release Pastebot for Mac…as a public beta.

Leaked ‘iPhone 7 Plus’ Packaging Indicates Lightning EarPods and Lightning 3.5 mm Adaptor Bundled in the Box →

August 31, 2016 · 18:13

Benjamin Mayo:

An interesting image is making the rounds today: a photograph of a purported packaging insert for Apple’s upcoming new phone. If the photo is to be believed, Apple will indeed be calling its larger new phone the ‘iPhone 7 Plus’, with the ‘iPhone 7’ name being taken by the 4.7 inch sibling.

It also indicates that Apple will be bundling Lightning EarPods in the box with every iPhone 7, as a consequence of the missing 3.5mm headphone jack. More interestingly, the leak suggests Apple will also be including a Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Jack adaptor as a bundled accessory.

Surprising that they’re adding the dongle. I guess it would be to lessen the expected wave of hate. All of this assuming it’s not a fake image of course.

Geekbench 4 Is Out →

August 31, 2016 · 09:18

John Poole:

I’m excited to announce that Geekbench 4 is now available. You can download Geekbench 4 for Windows, macOS, and Linux from the Geekbench website. You can also download Geekbench 4 for Android from Google Play, and Geekbench 4 for iOS from the App Store.

Geekbench 4 is currently free on iOS, so grab it now if you don’t want to pay.

Vesper Open Source Plans →

August 31, 2016 · 09:16

Brent Simmons:

We plan to do all of the below by the end of 2016, but we can’t make promises. (Life may intervene.)

Q Branch’s existing open source code — DB5 and QSKit — will be moved to my personal GitHub account. I will continue to maintain DB5 (I continue to use it). QSKit will not be maintained, but will be made available as historical artifact.

We will make Vesper for iOS, Vesper for Mac, and Vesper’s JavaScript sync service open source on my personal GitHub account. This code will also be provided as historical artifacts: they’re not intended as active projects. They’re also not intended as examples of how to write apps these days.

The licenses will be public domain or something roughly as non-restrictive. However: the name Vesper and the app icon remain the property of me, Dave, and John. If you build anything based on this code, you must pick a different name and different app icon.

I wonder if anyone will try to use this to build their own ‘Vesper’… What am I saying? Of course they will. Question is: will it be any good?

iPhone 7 Available in Five Colours? →

August 30, 2016 · 19:20

Joe Rossignol:

The website now believes the new glossy black option will be part of a five-color lineup, including Gold, Rose Gold, Silver, and Space Gray. It previously said the new color will be a “much darker” variant of Space Gray that is “close to black, though not quite black,” and mockups of what an iPhone 7 in that color could look like, including the one above, quickly surfaced around the web.

I’d actually prefer more colourful options than another monochromatic variant. Red with white front please.

Tim Cook’s Message to the Apple Community in Europe →

August 30, 2016 · 13:55

Tim Cook:

As responsible corporate citizens, we are also proud of our contributions to local economies across Europe, and to communities everywhere. As our business has grown over the years, we have become the largest taxpayer in Ireland, the largest taxpayer in the United States, and the largest taxpayer in the world.

Over the years, we received guidance from Irish tax authorities on how to comply correctly with Irish tax law — the same kind of guidance available to any company doing business there. In Ireland and in every country where we operate, Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe.

The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals. We now find ourselves in the unusual position of being ordered to retroactively pay additional taxes to a government that says we don’t owe them any more than we’ve already paid.

The Commission’s move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe. Ireland has said they plan to appeal the Commission’s ruling and Apple will do the same. We are confident that the Commission’s order will be reversed.

Very precise and to the point.

Apple Ordered to Pay Up to $14.5 Billion in EU Tax Crackdown →

August 30, 2016 · 12:16

Dara Doyle:

Apple Inc. was ordered to repay a record 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) plus interest after the European Commission said Ireland illegally slashed the iPhone maker’s tax bill.

When you go to a store and get a deal, if the store screws up, it pays the difference to whomever. Why should Apple be the one to pay and not Ireland itself, for not adhering to EU tax laws?