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The Photo-Realistic Edition Tuesday, January 10, 2017

The iPhone's First 10th Birthday, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

We also had about three official images, released by Apple, to use as the basis for our magazine coverage. As you can imagine, every single story about the iPhone used those images. [...]

So what we ended up doing was working with an illustrator named Joe Zeff, who made some amazing 3-D illustrations for many issues of Macworld. Joe created a photorealistic iPhone (and a set of white earbuds!) in 3D and we used it as the cover art for our first iPhone issue, with an Apple-supplied iPhone screenshot added in.

'Sweating Bullets' - The Inside Story Of The First iPhone, by Dave Lee, BBC

"I was sweating bullets."

Tony Fadell was pondering just how he was going to explain to Steve Jobs that he'd lost the prototype of what would become the most successful technology product of all time, the Apple iPhone which launched 10 years ago on Monday.

He'd just got off a plane, felt his pockets, and... nothing.

W1 Walking

Testing The Operating Range Of AirPods And Beats Solo3 Vs non-W1 Beats Headphones, by Steffen Reich, iDownload Blog

[A]s expected the W1-chip delivers a clearly superior performance over the older generation of headphones. Mind you this is not breaking news, but putting a number on the walkable range does give you a better feeling for what these devices can and cannot pull off, which might help you quite a bit come your next purchase decision.

Review: AirPods, by Steven Aquino

I realize learning language is hard, and teaching a robot to understand it is even harder. But if these assistants are supposed to be truly "intelligent," I shouldn’t have to adapt my speech pattern to the assistant; Siri, et al, should be nimble enough to adapt to me. If voice-driven computing is the way of the future, as many in the tech commentariat proclaim, then I surely hope engineers are investigating ways to make Siri and its ilk more accommodating. Voice brings with it new paradigms for accessibility, and, frankly, I worry that users like me will be left behind. If Siri or Alexa can't understand me and I’m frustrated, why bother? I'll do stuff manually.

Repairing MacBook Pros

Debunking Retail Rumors, Apple Says Its Stores Are Equipped To Repair New MacBook Pros, by Mike Wuerthele, AppleInsider

Reports claiming Apple Stores can't repair the 2016 MacBook Pro because of a lack of diagnostic tools are false, as AppleInsider has been told that stores are fully equipped and trained to perform all required diagnostics and repairs necessary.

Stuff

Looking For More Than A Recipe? There’s An App For That., by Suzanne Boyle, Belleville News-Democrat

The cookbooks on my shelves just aren’t getting the attention they once did.

I wonder if they know. I feel kind of bad for them.

What’s happened is that a whole new world of recipes and food ideas has invaded my kitchen via one three-letter word: app.

Notes

Apple Plans To Perform 'High-tech Manufacturing' Of Data Center Gear In Arizona, by Kif Leswing, Business Insider

A notification published in the Federal Register on Monday said Apple was looking for approval from the Foreign-Trade Zones Board to produce "finished products" in a special zone that exempts it from customs duty payments.

"Apple Inc has repurposed the site as a global data command center that will conduct high-tech manufacturing of finished data center cabinets for other data centers," according to a document filed by Mesa on behalf of Apple in June and made public Monday.

It's OK, Guys. Yahoo Is Not Changing Its Name To Altaba, by Olivia Solon, The Guardian

Contrary to some news reports on Monday, only the part of Yahoo that is not being sold to Verizon will be renamed “Altaba”.

In addition, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is to step down from its board, but will continue to be CEO.

Bottom of the Page

I am fine by Apple's definition of all-day-battery-life as being 10 hours more or less. Whether the new MacBook Pro laptops achieve all-day-battery-life on a single charge is a separate question, but I do think the 10-hour figure is reasonable.

If I have to work more than 10 hours in a single day, I am okay that I will have to find a power source during the day, either from a power socket in the wall or a external battery.

Of course, it will be great if Apple can find ways to provide more than 10 hours of battery life, but I'd rather not have a heavier laptop just to get more hours.

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Thanks for reading.