MyAppleMenu - Fri, Oct 30, 2015

Fri, Oct 30, 2015The Rule-Of-Reason Edition

Apple Asks U.S. Supreme Court To Toss E-Books Antitrust Decision, by Mike Segar, Reuters

Apple in its petition said the June decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York contradicted Supreme Court precedent and would "chill innovation and risktaking."

In SCOTUS Petition, Apple Claims 2nd Circuit Used Wrong Antitrust Standard, by Alison Frankel, Reuters

The e-books antitrust scheme alleged by the Justice Department against Apple and five major book publishers was what’s known in antitrust lingo as a hub-and-spoke conspiracy, in which a central player supposedly enables industry competitors to fix their prices. Now Apple is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify what standard of review should apply to the conduct of that central player: Is its alleged participation a per se violation of antitrust law, as price-fixing amongst competitors is deemed to be? Or should courts be required to evaluate the enabler’s actions under the more forgiving “rule of reason” standard, which takes into account the potentially pre-consumer consequences of restraints on trade?

Big Screen Entertainment

Apple TV Apps: Alto's Adventure, Crossy Road, Plex And More, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

With customers around the world beginning to receive their new Apple TVs over the coming days, developers have been busy readying the first apps and games for the set-top box. Below, we have rounded up some of the more interesting tvOS apps that are or will be available through the App Store on the new Apple TV. Some apps are still under review and may not be available immediately at launch.

Pangea Software Unveils Apple TV Game Lineup With 3DTV Support In Tow, by Dan Thorp-Lancaster, iMore

Pangea Software, a long-time game developer of games for Apple platforms, has announced its lineup of games for the new Apple TV. However, included in its announcement of 5 titles, Pangea noted that all of its games can be played in stereo-3D on any TV that is 3D-capable.

Look Out, Amazon: QVC To Launch Apple TV App With On-Screen “Speed Buy” Button, by Jacob Demmitt, Geekwire

Television shopping king QVC announced a new Apple TV app on Thursday that will let viewers quickly order products they see on the screen with a click of the remote.

Apple TV, Meet Xbox: How Microsoft Has Repositioned Its Game Console, by Janko Roettgers, Variety

The software giant launched its current-generation Xbox One with a somewhat familiar premise two years ago: Xbox One was supposed to be the all-in-one home entertainment system, bringing together live television, streaming services and gaming on one device, with one user interface. It was supposed to appeal as much to Netflix users as to gamers — which is very much how Apple is trying to position its new Apple TV today. [...] But Microsoft made an abrupt turnabout when its new CEO Satya Nadella took charge in early 2014.

Stuff

Apple Releases 'Beats Pill+' App For Controlling Beats Pill+ Speaker On iOS And Android, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple today debuted a new Beats Pill+ app for both iOS and Android users, providing a way for those who own the new Beats Pill+ speakers to control the speakers, check power levels, download software updates, adjust sound levels, and link multiple speakers together for different effects.

Napkin 1.5 Review: Quick And Detailed Markup Of Screen Captures And Images, by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

As a tech writer, I have a bias towards programs that make it easier for me to communicate graphically, especially when a step-by-step process is involved.Napkin 1.5 helps enormously by letting me take an image—whether a photo or screen capture—and quickly annotate it in a way that looks professional and can be edited later.

If Pages Is Too Limiting For Your Print Projects, Check Out PrintLife, by Dennis Sellers, Apple World Today

For the past couple of years, Chronos’ PrintLife has offered a reasonable alternative to Apple’s own Pages when it comes to designing print. However, version 3.0 sports a completely redesigned the user interface which makes the software even easier to use (and it was pretty darn easy to start with).

Expo For Mac OS X Is A Fine DAM Tool, by Dennis Sellers, Apple World Today

The software helps you manage your digital assets, as well as assisting you in finding new images, clips, fonts and icons online.

Microsoft Band 2.0: Big Steps Forward Mean You Just Might Ditch Your Trainer, by Valentina Palladino, Ars Technica

The new [...] device boasts an improved design, making it a more "wearable" wearable, new sensors that detect floors climbed and UV exposure, and an online dashboard for Microsoft Health where you can create your own workouts. As a hybrid fitness device with many smartwatch-like features, it's hard to put the Microsoft Band into a (figurative) box. But Microsoft knew what it needed to fix the second time around—and what was best left untouched.

Develop

My Biggest Failure: On Launching Penultimate 6 For iPad, by Joshua Taylor, Medium

For many users, iOS automatically updates their apps. I knew this. Somehow though, I didn’t take into account the gravity of the fact that a user would open up their app one day and it would be completely different. The worst story I heard was someone that was taking notes in a university class, switched apps to look something up, and when they came back to the app, it had updated and they could no longer find their notes. I don’t think they use Penultimate anymore.

Notes

Apple’s Deep Learning Curve, byJack Clark, Bloomberg Businessweek

In the world of artificial intelligence, one of the year’s biggest coming-out parties is the Neural Information Processing Systems conference. Thousands of researchers from universities and software companies gather to share their work and wrestle with new ways to tailor software to people’s habits. At last year’s conference in Montreal, employees of Google, Microsoft, and IBM presented papers on teaching computers to work faster and smarter, such as by reading the house numbers in a photo to determine an address. But one player was conspicuously absent: Apple. This year, Chinese search giant Baidu and Facebook, along with Google and Microsoft, are slated to present papers. Apple isn’t.

A Harder Road Ahead, by The Economist

In all, most multinationals would be wise to tough it out in China, and adapt to its changing markets. Those which do so will find there are still fortunes to be made. And though their advantages over local firms are diminished, they still have some strengths, in technology and marketing, that they can exploit. As Xiang Bing, dean of Beijing’s Cheung Kong business school, puts it, multinationals are no longer sitting comfortably at the very front of the plane, but compared with Chinese firms, they are “still flying in business class.”

The Rating Game: How Uber And Its Peers Turned Us Into Horrible Bosses, by Josh Dzieza, The Verge

The rating systems used by these companies have turned customers into unwitting and sometimes unwittingly ruthless middle managers, more efficient than any boss a company could hope to hire. They’re always there, working for free, hypersensitive to the smallest error. All the algorithm has to do is tally up their judgments and deactivate accordingly.

Vast Wasteland

Can anyone tell me if there are anything to watch on Singapore's version of the Apple TV?

~

Thanks for reading.