Apple

Apple Cuts Prices on USB-C Adapters and Accessories →

November 5, 2016 · 08:31

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple on Friday cut the price on its USB-C adapters in the online store. The company also said that third-party USB-C peripherals in the store would be reduced in price.

“We are extremely excited about the new MacBook Pro, which is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made,” Apple said in a statement provided to The Loop. “It has the fastest CPU, graphics, memory, storage and I/O, best display, the innovative Touch Bar and more. MacBook Pro uses the most advanced industry-standard connector, USB-C with Thunderbolt 3, to provide maximum performance, expandability and compatibility.

“We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and they face a transition. We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem. Through the end of the year, we are reducing prices on all USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals we sell, as well as the prices on Apple’s USB-C adapters and cables.” (…)

Adapters included in the price reduction include:
• USB-C to USB Adapter (from $19 to $9);
• Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (from $49 to $29);
• USB-C to Lightning Cable (1m) (from $25 to $19);
• USB-C to Lightning Cable (2m) (from $35 to $29);
• USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (from $69 to $49);
• USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter (from $69 to $49).

The cost of the SanDisk Extreme Pro SD UHS-II Card USB-C Reader will be reduced from $49 to $29, and all other third party USB-C peripherals will also be discounted.

Good call, Apple.

The Steve Jobs Email That Outlined Apple’s Strategy a Year Before His Death →

November 4, 2016 · 14:47

Zachary M. Seward:

In 2010, a year before his death, Steve Jobs outlined Apple’s strategy in an email to the company’s 100 most senior employees. He heralded the “Post PC era,” vowed “Holy War with Google,” promised to “further lock customers into our ecosystem,” and warned that Apple was “in danger of hanging on to old paradigm too long.”

The email was an agenda for Apple’s annual “top 100” meeting later that year. It was released this week as part of Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung over smartphone patents. Here is the entire email…

Apple’s Philip Schiller Talks Computers, Touchscreens and Voice on the New MacBook Pro →

November 2, 2016 · 22:21

David Phelan:

We first talked in an Apple-white private room at Infinite Loop, the company’s Californian headquarters, minutes after the new laptops had been unveiled and followed up a few days later…

This rarely happens. I assume it’s because the internet almost burned down from the heat of the discussions after the new MacBook Pro event.

Phil Schiller answers David’s questions:

The new MacBook Pro is a product that celebrates that it is a notebook, this shape that has been with us for the last 25 years is probably going to be with us for another 25 years because there’s something eternal about the basic notebook form factor.

Now this will be an interesting quote to return to in 25 years. I will actually put this down in my calendar.

If you made the Mac a touchscreen you’d have to figure out how to make it a good experience with your finger on a touchscreen. Trust me, we’ve looked at that — it’s a bad experience. It’s not as good or as intuitive as with a mouse and trackpad.

People assume Apple has never tried to make a touchscreen device. I was more than certain that they entertained the thought more than once, without Phil’s confirmation.

Then there are very fine and fast USB card readers, and then you can use CompactFlash as well as SD (…) So, that was a bit of a trade-off. And then more and more cameras are starting to build wireless transfer into the camera. That’s proving very useful.

Quite frankly, the camera companies, such as Nikon and Canon, are terrible at implementing features, which should have been standard years ago, wireless transfers being right there at the top.

And we are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before. So there certainly are a lot of people as excited as we are about it.

This is a tough one to judge — people have waited for so long for a new MacBook Pro, that it could just be then finally putting their orders down.

To be fair it has been a bit of a surprise to me. But then, it shouldn’t be. I have never seen a great new Apple product that didn’t have its share of early criticism and debate — and that’s cool. We took a bold risk, and of course with every step forward there is also some change to deal with. Our customers are so passionate, which is amazing.

We care about what they love and what they are worried about. And it’s our job to help people through these changes.

That’s the thing. I curse, swear, and shout, because I love, not because I hate. I want and expect the new MacBook Pros to be the best — my iPhone too, for that matter — but apart from the usual suspects, I do have two complaints:

  • there is no screen cloth included in the box; I still use the one from my 17″ MacBook Pro and have two more stashed away, for when this one finally gives out; I use it every single day to wipe down my screen and I expect a new one for every Mac; perhaps this is strange of me, but this is an expensive machine — I want to feel that Apple sweated the details;
  • the charger extender is missing and now a $19 optional accessory, which I consider bad taste; I’m sure most people never used it, but that’s besides the point.

Anyway, I have one on order too… with the Touch Bar.

iPhone 7 Plus and iOS 10 Battery Life Is Terrible; Apple Support Giving Me the Runaround

November 1, 2016 · 14:39

I’m finally fed up. My iPhone 7 Plus, because of it’s abysmal battery life, is now officially the worst phone I have ever owned. I’m an iPhone-user since 2008. Since then I’ve had the 3GS, 4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6 Plus, 6S Plus, and now 7 Plus. I recall that I once had issues with battery life on one of the older models, but it wasn’t anything dramatic and a subsequent iOS update fixed the problem. This cannot be said about the 7 Plus. In addition, Apple Support is basically telling me that I’m on my own.

Continue reading →

Apple Financial Results — FY Q4 2016 →

October 26, 2016 · 08:53

Apple PR:

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2016. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $46.9 billion and quarterly net income of $9 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $51.5 billion and net income of $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold:

  • 45.5 million iPhones (48.05 million in FY Q4 2015)
  • 9.2 million iPads (9.88 million in FY Q4 2015)
  • 4.8 million Macs (5.71 million in FY Q4 2015)

Here’s What You Can Buy at Apple’s Special Campus Store in Cupertino →

October 25, 2016 · 08:31

Zac Hall:

And even though it may be about to be replaced with something bigger and better, 1 Infinite Loop does have something fairly new of its own: a dedicated Apple Store that reopened last fall. Apple’s campus store has always sold exclusive collectables like T-shirts and pens, and the Jony Ive-designed retail store adds Apple products just like traditional Apple Stores.

The shirt styles and souvenirs offered change regularly, but head below to see what you can expect to find at the 1 Infinite Loop Apple Store that’s not sold anywhere else if you visit.

I know I’d buy way too much stuff there.

A Transcript of Bogdan Popescu’s Phone Call With Apple

October 12, 2016 · 08:42

I’ve followed the Dash vs. Apple kerfuffle for the past few days and have a slightly different take on the subject than anyone else I’ve seen — think ‘lost in translation’ with a dash of pride1, and a pinch of exasperation. Anyway, while writing about the whole thing I made a transcript of the phone call published by Bogdan, which you can listen to on his blog.

Continue reading →

  1. Pun not intended. ↩

Rob Janoff Talks About His Apple Logo Design →

September 28, 2016 · 11:59

Touraj Saberivand:

While working in their garage in 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak asked Rob Janoff, who had studied design, to create a logo for their first Apple products. When Janoff went to Jobs with final sketches, everything went very smoothly, and the bitten apple has been the symbol of the brand ever since.

The whole piece is worth a read — lots of great tidbits; much too many to quote here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Jony Ive Is Making People Uneasy →

August 27, 2016 · 09:44

Neil Cybart:

Some think Apple’s design-led culture doesn’t fit within today’s changing tech landscape. Others think Apple is running out of ideas. Instead, the opposite is true. By doubling down on design, Apple is placing a rather large bet. Apple executives think design will continue to allow Apple to remain focused on the customer experience. It is this customer experience focus that will then keep Apple relevant and able to ride the technology waves like no one has done before. It all comes back to Jony and the ID philosophy that is guiding Apple. If you have doubts about Apple, you probably are uncomfortable with Jony’s vision for the company.

Apple Reportedly Working On Social Video Editing App →

August 26, 2016 · 09:03

Mark Gurman reporting for Bloomberg:

Now Apple is starting to develop a video sharing app that allows users to record video, apply filters and drawings to the media — much like Snapchat does — and send it to contacts or via existing social networks such as Twitter Inc., according to the people familiar with its development. The software is currently being designed to be used mostly with one hand and with the intention that video could be shot, edited, and uploaded in less than 1 minute, the people said. At least one of the prototype designs for the app would shoot video in an Instagram-like square shape, one of the people said.

The goal behind the project’s development is to offer simple video editing with tools that appeal to the generation of users growing up with Snapchat and Instagram, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Snapchat told investors in April that more than one-third of its daily users create their own photo-and-video “Stories” of their daily lives. Apple’s current plan calls for its project to become a stand-alone app, presumably as a download via the App Store, but the company may decide to package the functionality into the iPhone’s existing camera application, the people said.

First of all, many people have reported that Apple is working on their own version of Snapchat or Instagram Stories and this does not seem to be the case from what I read of Mark’s report.

I imagine that this is an offline tool for creating content which can then be posted to existing social networks, because if you need an app to view the content, I don’t think people will switch — they already have Snapchat, IG, Facebook, and Twitter. The mentioned apps are also available on Android. Should Apple go down the path of making their app required to view content and not offering an Android app, I don’t see it getting off the ground.

This is a similar problem to Apple News, which is not only restricted to iOS, but also to regions — whenever I see a link on Twitter or elsewhere, and I click it, I get a ‘this news item is not available in your location’ message, which has led me to just stop clicking on the links. Months of this kind of behaviour have taught me to avoid them altogether.

The app is being developed in the same Apple department that developed Final Cut Pro and iMovie software, according to the people.

I use Final Cut Pro. It does almost everything that I need, but I do wish it would improve at a faster pace. It just seems as if Apple has abandoned their pro tools.

Apple is striving for a 2017 release, the people said, adding that the project could be killed if it doesn’t meet the company’s timetable and expectations.

I wonder it this means it will be released with iOS 11 or whenever it’s ready. Linking it to iOS release cycles would be a mistake, since an app like this wouldn’t get updated as often as it should. I’m also worried that it will be basically abandoned in time, when the team gets pulled to do different projects. These are my worries mostly based on Apple’s historical behaviour.

Separate from its video sharing app, Apple has developed and tested multiple social-related features for its iPhone and iPad operating system over the past year that have yet to be released, according to people familiar with the matter. One system that has been tested and still may launch in the future is a bolstered version of the “proactive assistance” functionality.

The proposed enhancements are designed to more effectively connect users with their contacts, one of the people said. Apple’s goal is to make sharing and connectivity with contacts a system-wide feature, the people said. The company has also worked to consolidate communications between users into single panels. For example, two friends could be able to see all text messages, e-mails, and social network interactions between each other in a single window, one of the people said.

Now this sounds interesting. I was just looking for a conversation the other day with a friend — checked Twitter, Slack, Facebook, and I still didn’t find it. Turned out it was in Messages.

Apple Financial Results — FY Q3 2016 →

July 26, 2016 · 23:34

Apple PR:

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 third quarter ended June 25, 2016. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $42.4 billion and quarterly net income of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $49.6 billion and net income of $10.7 billion, or $1.85 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 39.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold:

  • 40.4 million iPhones (47.53 million in FY Q3 2015)
  • 9.9 million iPads (10.93 million in FY Q3 2015)
  • 4.2 million Macs (4.8 million in FY Q3 2015)

Apple Readying New External 5K Display, May Feature Integrated GPU →

June 2, 2016 · 08:38

Benjamin Mayo:

At first, the idea of Apple including a GPU in the external display may sound crazy. Our sources explain that the reason for it is primarily for compatibility with as many future Macs as possible. Due to the immense graphics needs required to push 5K worth of pixels, normal super high-resolution displays require connected computers to include significantly powerful GPUs.

If the GPU is used only to push the display’s pixels, and not add any more ‘oomph’ to a connected Mac, then I can see this happening.

I will however consider this a lost opportunity. The ability to use a regular MacBook 12″ for Final Cut Pro X, gaming, etc. would be too good to pass up for me personally.

Thunderbolt Display With Built-in GPU Theory →

June 2, 2016 · 08:00

John Gruber:

A 27-inch standalone retina display will be a genuine finally. If they announce it at WWDC, the crowd will go nuts. But just how they’ll drive it is a fascinating question. Using two Thunderbolt cables would be clunky. Maybe one cable that forks into two Thunderbolt adapters at the end?

UPDATE: Best guess so far, from Stephen Foskett:

@gruber What if Apple put the graphics card in the monitor? It would work with most (all?) Thunderbolt Macs and wouldn’t require 2 cables…

I’d bet on this.

The problem with this solution is that the GPU would have to be upgradeable. People buy screens for years, while GPUs tend to get updated much more often, and newer models usually boast significant gains.

I wouldn’t bother spending 1-2K (or more) on an LCD which doesn’t have a GPU I can replace. Nor would I want to buy a new screen every few years, just to get the latest and greatest GPU. And looking at Apple’s history, I seriously doubt a newer model of GPU would be introduced regularly and in a timely manner.

‘Apple Sent Two Men to My House; No, They Weren’t Assassins’ →

May 21, 2016 · 09:20

James Pinkstone:

Tom, along with his boss Ezra, had just spent most of Saturday at my dining room table with me, trying to recreate a disaster like we were Netflix green-lighting Fuller House. So far, no luck.

In the days leading up to our face-to-face encounter, they’d earned more of my trust when they acknowledged that A), they’d read the phone transcripts, and although they maintained that she was mistaken, they did not dispute my account of what Amber had told me, and B), they, too, were convinced this was not user error. Before allowing them into my home, though, I’d laid out some conditions. Their research would be strictly limited to Apple Music, iTunes, and my iTunes library, and I would always be in the room to watch them work. Any information gleaned would be used solely for iTunes and Apple Music troubleshooting. If I had a document on my desktop called “Zapruder Film Unedited,” for example, they would still leave it alone. They agreed, both on the phone and in person, so we began.

I never linked to James’ original post about how ‘Apple stole his music‘, because quite frankly, I believed it to be user error. In the meantime my friend also told me about his problems — he also lost some of his files — and Apple showed up on Pinkstone’s doorstep to try to diagnose the issue.

What other company would do that? No, seriously. Is there any other tech company that would go to such lengths to figure out what’s wrong with their product?

Introducing CareKit →

April 28, 2016 · 23:59

Apple:

Care doesn’t only happen at the doctor’s office. That’s why Apple created CareKit. An open source framework, CareKit allows developers to build beautiful apps that leverage a variety of customizable modules. CareKit apps will let users regularly track care plans, monitor their progress, and share their insights with care teams. Since CareKit is open source, developers can build upon existing modules and contribute new code to help users world wide create a bigger—and better—picture of their health.

You can find CareKit on GitHub here and the CareKit blog over here.