MyAppleMenu - Sat, Oct 31, 2015

Sat, Oct 31, 2015The Had-To-Keep-Secret Edition

Apple, AT&T Hail Decade Long Partnership, by Kavit Majthia, Mobile World Live

“You have to find someone special to believe in you,” said Cue. “Why didn’t we show them the device? Because we knew we were building something special. It was a game changer, and we had to keep it secret. We had to develop a close level of relationship with AT&T and there was a level of trust. This shows because we knew network traffic was going to go through the roof with this thing, and we needed an operator to commit billions on their infrastructure, all based on something they hadn’t even seen.”

“At the time, they were huge and we weren’t. We were relying on them.”

The New TeeVee

The New Apple TV: TidBITS Answers Your Questions, by Josh Centers, TidBITS

The fourth-generation Apple TV is now available for purchase and pre-orders have started arriving. Apple was kind enough to send me one before they go on sale, so I’m happy to answer your Apple TV questions.

There's no category in the app store, and there's no folders on your Apple TV.

New Apple TV Tidbits: Limited App Discovery, User Guide, Amazon Pulls Apple TVs, And More, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

In countries and regions that support Siri, the remote is called the Siri Remote. Elsewhere, it is called the Apple TV Remote, but has identical functionality otherwise. International users can easily access Siri by changing their Apple TV's region to the U.S. or other supported countries.

Periscope, Watch Disney And NBC Apps Launch On The New Apple TV, by Janko Roettgers, Variety

Clear My Weekend; Alto's Adventure Comes To Apple TV, by Steve Sande, Apple World Today

Now Kids Can Spend A Fun-Filled Day With Albert On Apple TV, by Sandy Stachowiak, AppAdvice

Apple TV And YouTube Red: The Truth Beyond The Hype, by Andrew Wallenstein, Variety

Both Apple TV and YouTube Red aren’t quite the breakthroughs their companies profess them to be. But it would be very premature to pronounce either of them disappointments. Because as underwhelming as they might seem out of the gate, they both have tremendous potential to evolve in ways that can recapture breakthrough status. Neither may be the seeming overnight sensations that the original YouTube or iPhone were, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get to a place where they can be almost as impactful.

Stuff

OS X El Capitan Quietly Unlocked 10-Bit Color In iMacs And Mac Pros, by Michael Zhang, Petapixel

OS X El Capitan added some major features to the operating system when the update was released at the end of September 2015, but it appears that there was a pretty significant one that didn’t receive as much fanfare: 10-bit color.

Apple Plans To Start Selling The iPad Pro On November 11th, by Mark Gurman, 9to5Mac

Apple plans to start selling the 12.9-inch iPad Pro on Wednesday, November 11th via both its physical retail and online stores, according to multiple sources.

New Utah App Creates Safe Virtual Playground For Kids, by Devon Dewey, KSL

Develop

Apple Opens Cryptographic Libraries To Developers In Bid To Encourage More Security, by Roger Fingas, AppleInsider

Considerations For Choosing 3rd Party Swift Libraries, by Andrew Bancroft

While relying on 3rd party dependencies can provide you the benefit of not having to spend time implementing a portion of your app, realize that you’re essentially giving away little pieces of your app when you bring in a dependency.

You’re delegating away a certain level of control off to someone else who has no knowledge of or interest in the final outcome of your team’s app.

Do One Thing…, by Mike Loukides, Radar

I don't want barely distinguishable tools that are mediocre at everything; I want tools that do one thing and do it well.

Notes

Apple Voices Support For Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, by Olivia Plusinelli, Houston Busienss Journal

Antique Nightmares, by Jason Boog, Los Angeles Review of Books

2015 will be remembered as a major year in the history of horror podcasts. Three new horror hits blasted through iTunes this year: the Lore podcast, The Black Tapes Podcast, and Limetown. In March, supernatural thriller novelist Aaron Mahnke released the first episode of Lore. The show mines folklore and legend for true spooky stories. “Lore’s growth has been astronomical,” Mahnke told me in an email. “I could never have predicted the size of audience that now hits the PLAY button twice a month. March was the first month of the show, and Lore was downloaded about 1500 times. In September, the show was downloaded over 1 million times.”

Can You Search In Chinese?

The old Apple TV doesn't really support Chinese. When I had to search for YouTube videos with Chinese characters, for example, I had to use the iOS Remote app instead.

Given that even English-using customers are now having a difficult time entering English text for the new Apple TV, I think Apple TV is nowhere ready for the Chinese market yet.

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Thanks for reading.