MyAppleMenu

The Great-Typing-Experience Edition Friday, April 19, 2019

Apple Owes Everyone An Apology And It Should Start With Me, Specifically, by Casey Johnston, The Outline

Apple still claims that only a “small percentage” of people experience trouble with their keyboards. But having now heard the idea of a “sensitive” keyboard, I’m not sure I will ever get over it. No one has had to think this hard about keyboards in decades, at least before Apple went in and messed with them. Now the complaints are reaching critical mass and I have Microsoft emailing me offering to fly me out to its Redmond campus so it can walk me through its “seven elements that every keyboard needs to create a great typing experience.” I have a hard time imagining what those seven elements are, because I get stuck at two: 1. Produces the characters 2. That I intended to type. These two attributes are also, incidentally, what the biggest and most-valuable tech companies in the world are somehow grappling with anew.

Is It Good Or Bad To Use A Dynamite-Triggered Avalanche For An Apple Ad? We Asked Scientists, by Caroline Haskins, Motherboard

Now granted, it’s not bad that this was a controlled avalanche. Capturing a controlled avalanche rather than looking for a real one is a safer option for everyone involved. And of course, controlled avalanches serve an important purpose: they break the stress of giant slabs of snow, preventing them from fracturing on their own and hurting people.

However, the marketing of a dangerous event like an avalanche raises complicated questions about how we interact with natural landscapes.

Apple Watch Authentication Expanding Beyond Unlocking Your Mac In macOS 10.15, by Guilherme Rambo, 9to5Mac

According to sources familiar with the development of macOS, the next major version of the operating system will allow users to authenticate other operations on the Mac beyond just unlocking the machine with their watch.

It’s unclear the extent of operations that will be supported, but it’s possible that all operations that can currently be authenticated with Touch ID will also be accessible via the Apple Watch mechanism.

Stuff

Bose Rolling Out AirPlay 2 Support To Three Of Its Smart Speakers And Sound Bars, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Bose this week quietly announced that it has released AirPlay 2 functionality to its line of smart speakers. This includes its Home Speaker 500 and two different Soundbar models, while SoundTouch speakers are still playing the waiting game.

Primephonic App Review: The Unrivaled Classical Music Streaming Service Comes To Android And iOS, by Theo Nicolakis, TechHive

While major streaming services might be fine for the casual classical music listener, they fall short when it comes to catalog selection, searching, metadata support, and descriptions.

Postbox 5 For MacOS Review, by Lloyd Coombes, The Digital Fix

Postbox, now in its fifth major version, is a complete email suite for Mac users. While many will stick to the standard Apple Mail that comes preinstalled, Postbox offers plenty to make it worth the price of admission.

There's A New Way To Meditate At Work, by Lila MacLellan, Quartz

But that human—not a robot, not a recording—speaking in real time is the reason I keep returning. The instructor could be nearby in New York, or in Boulder, Colorado, or somewhere in California, but the sound is crisp and clear. As I close my eyes (on the days I’m working from home), I imagine the 50 to 100 others who may also be on the app doing the same thing, at the same moment.

Develop

TestFlight For iOS Adds Search Integration And Other Improvements In Latest Update, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Perhaps most notably, today’s update means you can now see TestFlight information through the universal Search feature of iOS.

Notes

Apple iPhones Get Recycled In This Secretive Lab. Now It's Opening Up, by Ian Sherr, CNET

Meet Daisy. Daisy is 33 feet long, has five arms and can methodically deconstruct any of 15 iPhone models -- from 2012's iPhone 5 to 2018's iPhone XS -- at a rate of 200 per hour. In a coordinated and sometimes violent dance, Daisy removes the screen, battery, screws, sensors, logic board and wireless charging coil, leaving its husk of an aluminum shell.

Apple invited me here not just to see Daisy in action, but also the Material Recovery Lab that's been built up around it. Last year, Apple announced Daisy for the first time to the world via a press release and video. Now it's inviting in academics, recyclers and other companies to learn how Daisy works.

And, hopefully, use its technology to make e-recycling around the world better.

New Apple Retail Head Deirdre O'Brien Joins Instagram, Shares Pics From Trip To Hong Kong And Macau, by Roger Fingas, AppleInsider

O'Brien is on the service as @deirdre.at.apple. Two photos were shot in Hong Kong, including Apple IFC Mall, while a third was shot at Apple Cotai Central in Macau.

Three Ways Apple’s Own Marzipan Apps Can Benefit macOS, by Dan Moren, Macworld

But amidst all of that doom and gloom, there are plenty of glimmers of hope about what this could mean for the Mac. I’d go so far as to say I have optimism that deploying iOS apps could be a boon for not just Apple, but the whole Mac platform, which is not only alive and kicking, but even flourishing.

Apple Paid Up To $6 Billion To Settle With Qualcomm, UBS Estimates, by Kif Leswing, CNBC

The UBS estimate suggests that Apple paid a high price to end a bitter legal battle that spanned multiple continents and threatened Apple's ability to release a 5G iPhone and put pressure on Qualcomm's licensing business model that contributes over half of the company's profit.

Bottom of the Page

How can a company that pride itself on attention-to-detail, that rather make products that are more-expensive-but-good rather than cheaper-but-not-so-good, let a little keyboard tarnish its reputation? Or did Apple let go off all its engineers who know how to make good buttons and keys ever since it declared war on anything that moves and clicks?

~

Thanks for reading.