The calendar, of course, is an arbitrary inflection point. But it’s one that people (and companies) adhere to. Apple, for example, has pegged a handful of things to 2022–with varying degrees of precision–that have not yet come to pass and, at this late date, may not.
Is this inability to hit targets derived purely from the challenging environment the world finds itself in? Or does even a very large, very profitable company struggle to marshal its resources accordingly?
Removing the paper versions in favour of an iPad-based library saves not only trees but fuel, and we can access any manual without unstrapping our seatbelt, removing our headset and climbing out of our seat.
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Our iPads also hold a navigation app, called Lido mPilot, which opens to a map of the world and that day’s route across it. From that view we can zoom in to see airways, minimum altitudes, navigation beacons and the pleasingly sweeping isogonic lines that indicate magnetic variation. To display or remove layers of data or declutter the screen, we need only tap a button; and we can tap anywhere on the planet to see air traffic control frequencies, satellite phone numbers and local instructions and notices.
This feat of science and personal technology is the best example I’ve seen of how smartphones can help protect tens of millions of us from significant danger. I’ll show you how to get it.
Known as ShakeAlert, America’s earthquake early-warning system was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and partners to give you typically up to 20 seconds of advance warning before significant shaking arrives, or even a minute in extreme circumstances. If you’re close to the epicenter, you might not get much notice — but it could still be enough to protect yourself.
The new version brings full support for the recently released macOS Ventura, as well as a new prediction feature, increased chances of recovering files, and other enhancements.
A few job listings indicate that Apple is ramping up its work to bolster the device with content. The company is searching for a software producer with experience in visual effects and game asset pipelines who can create digital content for augmented- and virtual-reality environments.
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The most interesting job listing is one that specifically calls out the development of a 3D mixed-reality world, suggesting that Apple is working on a virtual environment that is similar to the metaverse—though don’t expect Apple to embrace that term. Its marketing chief said at a recent event that metaverse is “a word I’ll never use.”
The process of squaring these two time scales has become so unruly that the world’s time mavens are making a bold proposal: to abandon the leap second by 2035. Civilization would wholly embrace atomic time; and the difference, or tolerance, between atomic time and Earth time would go unspecified until timekeepers come up with a better plan for reconciling the two. A vote, in the form of Resolution D, is expected on Nov. 18 at a meeting in Versailles of the Bureau’s member nations.
I don't think Apple can blame the supply chains when making software. And I don't think it can blame work-from-home when many other companies have been developing software just fine with remote developers. Apple missing its self-imposed deadline for Apple Classical, from outside, does seem to be an indication of problems in its software development processes.
And when we combine this with the trouble with design problems with Safari last year and Stage Manager this year, and if Apple Classical also have some fancy-smancy design that innovate (read: deviate) on how a regular music-playing app behaves, we can probably make some educated guess on where the problem lies.
Let's wait and see.
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Thanks for reading.