Google Pixel 3 Doesn’t Support 10W Qi Charging →

October 23, 2018 · 23:30

Ron Amadeo, writing for Ars Technica:

Google’s Pixel 3 smartphone is shipping out to the masses, and people hoping to take advantage of the new Qi wireless charging capabilities have run into a big surprise. For some unexplained reason, Google is locking out third-party Qi chargers from reaching the highest charging speeds on the Pixel 3. Third-party chargers are capped to a pokey 5W charging speed. If you want 10 watts of wireless charging, Google hopes you will invest in its outrageously priced Pixel Stand, which is $79 […]

Google got back to us. The Pixel 3 does not support 10W Qi charging at all. It supports 10W wireless charging, and it supports the Qi wireless charging standard, but these are two different things. Qi is capped at 5W, and for 10W wireless charging, you need a charger with what Belkin calls “Google’s 10W proprietary wireless charging technology.”

This is something I expected Apple to do, when they first introduced inductive charging, not Google.

Facebook Portal — Who You Call and What Apps You Use Could Determine What Ads You See →

October 17, 2018 · 11:00

Kurt Wagner, reporting for Recode:

Last Monday, we wrote: “No data collected through Portal — even call log data or app usage data, like the fact that you listened to Spotify — will be used to target users with ads on Facebook.”

We wrote that because that’s what we were told by Facebook executives. 

But Facebook has since reached out to change its answer: Portal doesn’t have ads, but data about who you call and data about which apps you use on Portal can be used to target you with ads on other Facebook-owned properties.

Of course it can. And over time it’ll probably do other nasty stuff to its users.

Morgan Knutson Tells His Story of Working at Google on Google+ →

October 16, 2018 · 12:50

Moran Knutson, in a long thread on Twitter:

Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry on how awful the project and exec team was.

I’m still pissed about the bait and switch they pulled by telling me I’d be working on Chrome, then putting me on this god forsaken piece of shit on day one.

Read the whole thing, it’s worth it. I’m actually suprised (though I shouldn’t be) about how things are done over there.

If your team, say on Gmail or Android, was to integrate Google+’s features then your team would be awarded a 1.5-3x multiplier on top of your yearly bonus. Your bonus was already something like 15% of your salary.

Apple Watch Series 4 — Quick First Impressions

October 12, 2018 · 09:26

My new Apple Watch finally made it onto my wrist yesterday. I’m going straight from a steel Series 0 in Space Black to the aluminium Nike+ 44 mm in Space Grey, so this is going to be a huge jump in terms of… everything basically. I’ve only been using the new one for a few hours, but here are a few quick notes on the things I’ve already noticed…

Continue reading →

Safari Content Blocker Evaluations — 2018/9/26 Edition →

October 11, 2018 · 09:50

Ben Brooks:

I ran another round of content blocker testing for Mobile Safari in order to take a look at which ones are the ‘best’ right now. To be fair: it’s really hard to find these content blockers on the App Store now, so I grabbed the ones which looked the most popular to me (top lists, and top search results) and then did the testing to see which was the best.

My favourite is 1Blocker X, which I have been using exclusively — it gets the job done, doing excellent work saving me LTE bandwidth (and battery at the same time). It is, in fact, so good, that my wife asked me to install it on her iPhone, and she’s not the type of person who enjoys the additional overhead of using a content blocker.

Apple Frames: A Shortcut for Framing Screenshots From Every Apple Device →

October 11, 2018 · 09:45

Federico Viticci, on MacStories:

When I published my iPhone XS Frames shortcut two weeks ago, I noted that my goal was to eventually support screenshots and device templates from other Apple devices, starting with the Apple Watch and MacBook Pro. After two weeks spent rebuilding the shortcut and asking Silvia to prepare several more templates, I’m happy to re-introduce my shortcut as the new and improved Apple Frames – a comprehensive custom shortcut to frame screenshots taken on every Apple device. Well, at least most of the current ones that the company is still selling.

Federico has two versions of the shortcut for Apple’s Shortcuts app — with and without the Macs. They’re both brilliant.

Amazon Orders Female-Driven Fantasy Series ‘The Wheel of Time’ →

October 11, 2018 · 09:42

Elsa Keslassy, for Variety:

Amazon Studios has ordered “The Wheel of Time,” an action fantasy series based on Robert Jordan’s bestselling fantasy novels, which have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide. Rafe Judkins (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) adapted the material into a series and serves as showrunner.

I read the first ‘Wheel of Time’ book in 1995 (or thereabouts) and the last one was published in 2013, so this is a universe in which I spent close to 20 years in. I hope the TV series is at least as good as ‘Game of Thrones’.

Why It’s Hard to Read the Time on the Infograph Apple Watch Face →

October 10, 2018 · 15:42

Marco Arment:

The Apple Watch is an amazing feat of technology. It’s a computer. It can display anything. With no mechanical or physical limitations to hold us back, any watch-face design from anyone could plausibly be built, enabling a range of creativity, style, and usefulness that no single company could ever design on its own.

But they won’t let us. In a time when personal expression and innovation in watch fashion should be booming, they’re instead being eroded, as everyone in the room is increasingly wearing the same watch with the same two faces.

Open this door, Apple.

Apple could hand pick a few designers and developers for all I care. The current selection of Watch faces is stale and long in the tooth too. They need to address this sooner rather than later.

Google Discloses Privacy Security Flaw Kept Quiet Since March →

October 9, 2018 · 17:30

Gerrit de Vynck, for Bloomberg:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it found a “software glitch” in its Google+ social network in March that could have exposed the personal data of as many as half a million users, but decided not to tell the public until Monday.

Google chose not to disclose the flaw out of concern it would trigger regulatory backlash, especially in the wake of criticism against Facebook Inc. for its privacy failures, according to the Wall Street Journal, which initially reported the news Monday. In a statement posted to its blog minutes after the report, Google said it plans to shut down Google+ for consumers and introduce new privacy tools restricting how developers can use information on products ranging from email to file storage.

Unsurprising.

Movie About Church Sexual Abuse Is a Contentious Hit in Poland →

October 9, 2018 · 11:49

Alex Marshall, writing for The New York Times:

“Clergy,” a new movie by the director Wojciech Smarzowski, starts with three priests drinking vodka until they can barely speak. One then drives drunk to a parishioner’s apartment and mumbles his way through the giving of last rites.

The picture of Poland’s priesthood only goes downhill from there. The priests steal money from their congregations, spy on each other, and exploit their connections with politicians, journalists and the police.

But much of “Clergy” focuses on one issue: Clerical child abuse, which the movie says the church covered up. In one scene, it incorporates accounts from real people who say they were abused.

This may not sound like the plot for a blockbuster movie — let alone one that features a heavy dose of comedy — but “Clergy” is a smash hit in Poland. It opened on Sept. 28, and more than 1.7 million people saw it during its first week, according to Kino Swiat, the movie’s distributor. That is a huge figure for a country of 38 million.

I thought that our current “democratic” government wound actually ban it outright.

Facebook Portal →

October 9, 2018 · 11:18

Portal was created with privacy, safety and security in mind. And it has clear and simple settings, so you always stay in control.

Having all of Facebooks privacy scandals in mind, this product feels like the perfect companion device to their portfolio… if it was released on April Fool’s.

Do not buy this product. You probably shouldn’t be using Google’s Home or Amazon’s Alexa either.

My Photography (56) — City Across The Thames, London, UK, 2018

October 8, 2018 · 12:42

I was disappointed with The Weather Channel’s forecast for my recent UK trip — it was supposed to be clear skies, sun and warmth. This shot portrays exactly what I got instead — cloudy skies, no sun, and an extremely chilly wind. That prompted me to attach my ND filter and shoot a few long exposures, despite it being noon. This was my favourite one.

Shot with Sony A7R II + FE 28 mm f/2: f/11, 13 s, ISO 50.

Microsoft Now Has the Best Device Lineup in the Industry →

October 4, 2018 · 22:21

Owen Wilson, on Charged:

The company took just an hour to unveil sweeping updates to its existing hardware, and what’s clear after the dust has settled is that Microsoft’s hardware division is a force to be reckoned with. Apple’s dominance on the high-end laptop space looks shakier than ever, because Microsoft’s story is incredibly compelling.

Rather than building out a confusing, incompatible array of devices, Microsoft has taken the time to build a consistent, clear portfolio that has something to fit everyone across the board […]

I really loved one thing about the Surface Book (review unit) I had a while back — when I was done typing, I could just detach the screen and use it as a tablet… or run desktop Lightroom, which I can’t do on my iPad Pro.

Microsoft, it seems, has removed all of the barriers to remaining in your ‘flow.’ Surface is designed to adapt to the mode you want to be in, and just let you do it well. Getting shit done doesn’t require switching device or changing mode, you can just pull off the keyboard, or grab your pen and the very same machine adapts to you.

It took years to get here, but Microsoft has nailed it. By comparison, the competition is flailing around arguing about whether or not touchscreens have a place on laptops. The answer? Just let people choose.

This coherency is what I had come to expect from Apple, but iPad and MacBook look messier than ever. Sure, you can get an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, but you can’t use either of them in a meaningful way in tandem with your desktop workflow. It requires switching modes entirely, to a completely different operating system and interaction model, then back again.

I won’t even bother writing about the sorry state of Apple’s hardware updates but there is one thing that frustrates me daily. I usually start work on my iPad, and when I get to the tougher stuff, I pull out my MacBook Pro. It’s not even because I can’t do that work on the iPad, but because I can get it done 50% faster on MacOS. I would love to just attach/detach the screen or keyboard, instead of switching computers.

iPhone XS: Why It’s a Whole New Camera →

October 2, 2018 · 12:45

Sebastiaan de With:

iPhone XS has a completely new camera. It’s not just a different sensor, but an entirely new approach to photography that is new to iOS. Since it leans so heavily on merging exposures and computational photography, images may look quite different from those you’ve taken in similar conditions on older iPhones.

But unlike previous cameras, exactly because many of its leaps in quality are based on software, we can expect it to change, and even improve. This is just the first version of iOS 12 and Smart HDR.

Likewise, us developers need to update apps to take full advantage of the new iPhone XS and XS Max’s very capable sensor. Since it is such a different animal, simply treating it as any other iPhone will yield subpar results. We’re almost done doing our first take at it and we’ll no doubt have to work more on it in the future.

Sebatiaan also notes a few specific RAW quirks with the XS:

As it stands today, if you shoot RAW with an iPhone XS, you need to go manual and under-expose. Otherwise you’ll end up with RAWs worse than Smart HDR JPEGs. All third-party camera apps are affected. Bizarrely, RAW files from the iPhone X are better than those from the iPhone XS.

I’m going to test Halide’s Smart RAW function, which should allow to extract the maximum quality out of the camera.

My Photography (55) — Banking Above London, UK, 2018

October 2, 2018 · 10:16

I rarely get the chance to capture a nice shot during takeoff or landing — I’m usually lucky enough to be seated on the wrong side of the aeroplane, or the weather’s bad, or it’s pitch black, or the light is terrible. I made sure to pick the right seat this time but the weather and timing weren’t perfect — it was a bit misty (or smoggy) and just a bit too early in the day. Still, I tried to make the most of it.

As to what you can see in the shot… That’s the Thames in the middle, with the London Eye on the left of the frame. Big Ben and The Palace of Westminster are just on the other side of the river. That blob of light to the right of the London Eye is Waterloo Station. That black line crossing the Thames, more or less in the middle of the shot, is Millennium Bridge, which was destroyed by Death Eaters in one of the Harry Potter books/movies — it leads to St Paul’s Cathedral. The City of London is the part which is lit most north of the river and the rightmost bridge is Tower Bridge. That’s the one from the Sherlock Holmes movie, where it was still being built and where the villain met his demise (it’s often mistaken as London Bridge).

Shot with Sony A7R II + Zeiss ZF 100 mm f/2 Makro-Planer T*: f/2.8, 1/60 s, ISO 5000.

My Photography (54) — Peacock Backside, Royal Łazienki Park, Warsaw, 2018

September 30, 2018 · 21:58

I went out shooting with the iPhone XS today and was not only surprised by this here peacock sneaking up on me, but also at the result of Portrait Mode and its bokeh. It has a much more natural, analogue look to it, reminiscent of what SLR lenses are capable of producing. It’s not there yet but I like what I see.

Shot with iPhone X @ 52 mm: f/2.4 (simulated f/1.4 by Portrait Mode), 1/122 s, ISO 32.

My Photography (53) — Another Look at a Rainy Scilla, Italy, 2017

September 28, 2018 · 13:11

Scilla is a truly beautiful city. We spent two days there in 2017 and I still fondly recall the amazing views. I already posted a photo from our second day there — it was cold but sunny. The weather wasn’t as kind to us on our first visit however. It was raining heavily, the streets turned into small rivers, but the colour of the sea rewarded our perseverance. This panorama was stitched in Lightroom from a few (handheld) photos to get the field of view I wanted and was shot from Castello Ruffo (see photo below) — a small castle towering over both sides of the city.

Shot with Sony A7R II + FE 28 mm f/2: f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 160.

See a shot of Castello Ruffo below →

My Replaced MacBook Pro’s Keyboard Is Having Issues Again

September 28, 2018 · 12:24

I had my 2016 MacBook Pro Escape’s keyboard replaced in April 2018, because some of the keys were expanding under heat, making them “sticky”, e.g. when using it in the sun.

I’m extremely happy to report that today my Control key has gone on strike and will only work when it feels like it should, which translates to registering maybe one in ten presses.

This keyboard is great to type on, when it works, but it’s generally a disaster.

Export Your Messages and Texts to TXT Files With Image Attachments via Baskup

September 25, 2018 · 15:29

I have been having some issues with Messages in the Cloud on my Macs — both show less texts and iMessages than my iPhone and iPad. I guess I could go through Apple Support but their software solutions usually are to log out and log back in to iCloud or to start fresh (seriously). Instead, I spent a few hours pruning old conversations, which I didn’t need anymore. This still didn’t solve the issue of the multi-year threads that I have with my wife — I have three of those on my iOS devices and only one on my Macs. Since Messages only loads a page or two of messages at a time and requires the user to constantly scroll up to load older messages, its close to impossible to get to the beginning of the thread anyway (I don’t have the patience to scroll-wait-scroll for hours). This led me to the decision to just export our message history as a txt or PDF file and then clear Messages.

Continue reading →

Thee Shalt Not Mention iPhones XS & XR in Thy App’s Releaseth Notes →

September 24, 2018 · 15:34

Greg Knauss, on App Store Review rejecting release notes, mentioning the iPhones XS and XR by name:

You’ll note that I didn’t mention the names “iPhone XR” or “iPhone XS Max.” However, Apple again responded with a rejection […]

Apple apparently considers referencing the devices that an application is designed to run on not relevant to its functionality.

So on September 20, 2018, I squared my shoulders, modified the release notes again, and resubmitted the app:

A change was made. We can’t tell you what the change was, because that’s disallowed by Section 2.3 of the Program License Agreement. But we can’t not tell you what it was, because that’s disallowed by Section 2.3 of the App Store Review Guidelines. This leaves the app in a state of quantum indeterminacy, and the waveform can only collapse when someone doing App Store reviews stops observing it.

Apple — sensing that I might not be taking the process seriously — responded […]

We had the same situation and I was as baffled as Greg. Hats off to him for standing his ground and fighting absurdity.

An Oral History of Apple’s Infinite Loop →

September 17, 2018 · 14:52

Steven Levy published a whole trove of anecdotes from Apple’s execs, including Steve Jobs, on Wired:

Espinosa: When Steve returned, I drove down to the local Flag and Banner store, bought a pirate flag, stuck an Apple sticker on it and cable-tied it to the bridge across the atrium. It was there for about four hours before security took it down.

I’m halfway through. They’re a must-read.