Apple Unveils New Mac Book Pros

Apple unveiled some new MacBook Pros today. Here’s Jason Snell, at Six Colors, talking about the updates:

The new MacBook Pros, the first major revision of Apple’s flagship Mac since the unveiling of the Retina MacBook Pro in 2012, possess all the things you’d expect from a new Apple product. They’re thinner and lighter, more powerful, integrate Apple-originated technology, and question basic assumptions about the product category they reside in.

With the Touch Bar, Apple’s questioning the existence of the function row at the top of our keyboards. Over the years Apple has de-emphasized the size of those keys and remapped them to system functions, and now it’s doing away with keys altogether. A programmable multi-touch display can provide virtual keys and sliding interface elements based on context. Having a custom button properly labeled sure beats “Press F10.”

AirPods Getting a Slight Delay

It looks like Apple’s AirPods will be delayed a bit. Matthew Panzarino, at TechCrunch, reports:

“The early response to AirPods has been incredible. We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers,” an Apple spokesperson said to TechCrunch.

Apple did not say whether hardware or software updates are what is at the heart of the delay so I couldn’t conjecture which. My experiences with the AirPods have been very positive this far but the pre production units that were given out to press are not without their foibles and bugs. I have seen a variety of small software/hardware interaction issues that have caused some frustration — but have taken them in stride because they are not final products.

Apple will be making more announcements today at an event (rumors are new Macs), feel free to come join us in the Apple thread to talk about the new shit.

The 15th Anniversary of the iPod

Apple

The iPod turned 15 over the weekend. The Verge has a cool visual history of the icon device:

And while the classic iPod design was finally retired two years ago, and the remaining members of the iPod line are less important to Apple’s strategy today than they were years ago, it’s still an integral part of history, both for the company and the larger tech industry.

So here’s a look back at some highlights in the history of the king of MP3 players, from the physically scrolling plastic wheel of the original iPod to the smooth glass and aluminum of today’s iPod Touch.

And Nobuyuki “Nobi” Hayashi found the 20 CDs that were curated by Steve Jobs to give to journalists along with the iPod to test out the device:

Steve Jobs insisted that Apple has no intention of stealing away the sales of the music industry; remember this was way before iTunes Music Store. What Apple did to keep its word is buying same number of 20 CDs sets and gave it along with the iPod prototypes to the journalists.

It has been 15 years since then, and I thought I have lost them. But recently, as I was moving to a new house, I have found that set (shrink wrapped).

Below you will find the list of those 20 CDs which was carefully selected by Steve Jobs and the original iPod team (lead by Stan Ng). Enjoy!

Jimmy Iovine on the Future of Apple Music

Dan Rys, at Billboard, sat down with Jimmy Iovine to talk about Apple Music:

Before we get into that, we have to get into the why. It’s a story, it’s complex. Because what everyone’s writing is the obvious right now. They’re writing, “People in the record business are getting into tech so they can talk to people in the record business.” That’s hogwash. And why it’s hogwash is, it takes a certain individual… For example, I met [Apple executives] Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue in 2003. I realized, okay, the future of music is going to be intertwined with distribution through technology companies. It just looked like that to me, and I realized how far behind I personally was. So I set out to really understand. So I worked with those guys for about two years, and I said to Steve, “I’d like to do headphones with Apple with [Dr.] Dre,” about two or three years later. He said, “Do it yourself, you can do it.” So I tried it myself.

Inside Apple’s Lightning Audio Adapter

Apple

Jeff Suovanen, writing at iFixIt, tears down Apple’s new headphone dongle:

The takeaway seems to be that in some areas, the sound quality does measure a bit worse from the adapter than we might be accustomed to. For instance, when playing an uncompressed 16-bit audio file on the iPhone 6s, the dynamic range dropped from 99.1 dB at the headphone jack to 97.3 dB at the adapter. Though keep in mind, this slightly lower measurement is still higher than the theoretical maximum you get from a compact disc (which is 96 dB). So, is it a difference you are likely to notice? If you sit in a quiet room with a really, really good pair of headphones … and you’re a canine, the answer is: maybe.

Those x-ray photographs are pretty incredible.

Apple Not Looking to Buy Tidal

Jimmy Iovine, head of of Apple Music, told Buzzfeed that the company is not interested in buying Tidal.

“We’re really running our own race,” Jimmy Iovine, who heads Apple Music, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “We’re not looking to acquire any streaming services.”

iOS 10 Message Apps and Sticker Packs Roundup

iPhone

One of the best features of iOS 10 is the new iMessage app. MacStories has a really good round up of some of the best apps and sticker packs that have been released:

Over recent weeks, Federico and I have tested dozens of iMessage apps and sticker packs, exchanged hundreds of stickers, made interactive to-do lists, played games, edited photos, and much, much more. Some of the things we’ve tried are highlighted in Federico’s iOS 10 review to illustrate particular aspects of the Messages app, but we’ve seen so many interesting apps and stickers, we wanted to share them with readers in one place.

I’m all about that Mario pack.

iOS 10 Is Now Available

iPhone

Apple has released iOS 10 today. It should now be available via software update. A few of the reviews I’ve enjoyed reading include:

Pixel Envy:

I may regularly bemoan individual parts of iOS. There are certain places where I wish Apple had made more progress than they did, but there are also aspects of the system that have been greatly enhanced in ways I’d never have expected. Saying that iOS 10 is the best release of iOS yet is a bit trite — you’d kind of hope the latest version would be, right?

But there’s so much that has gone into this version of iOS that I deeply appreciate.

iMore:

iOS 7 was a redesign, wiping away rich textures and putting physics-based interactions in their place. iOS 8 was a re-architecture, decoupling actions from apps and letting them extend into other interfaces and continue across devices. iOS 9 was a rewiring, setting up intelligence and proactivity, but in a way that respected privacy and security.

Now, iOS 10 takes all those things and pushes them forward.

Mac Stories:

At the same time, iOS 10 is more than a collection of new features. It’s the epitome of Apple’s approach to web services and AI, messaging as a platform, virtual assistants, and the connected home. And as a cornucopia of big themes rather than trivial app updates, iOS 10 shows another side of Apple’s strategy:

Sometimes, change is necessary.

Early Reviews for AirPods Seem Pretty Impressive

Early reviews for the new Apple AirPods seem to be pretty good. Here’s Susie Ochs, from Macworld:

Not only did I dance, I headbanged. I shook my head side to side, I tossed my hair, I jogged in place, and I looked silly doing all of it. The AirPods stayed put, and they stayed loud. The music (more Sia, naturally) sounded full and lush and I couldn’t hear a single word anyone around me was saying, as if I was completely sealed off in a bubble of rock and roll. Pretty impressive.

My dream has always been to walk around and talk to my computer like Ender, so I’m probably going to give these a shot.1 For those interested in being able to charge your phone and listen to audio with a cord at the same time, it looks like Belkin has released a $40 “audio + charge” dongle, and Apple’s own dock comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack on it. I charge my iPhone in an Elevation dock so I’ve never really charged my phone and listened via headphones with a cord anyway, but, it does look like there’s a couple solutions here.


  1. I’ll write something up about what I think, in October, on how they work for music and podcast listening.

Buzzfeed: Why Apple Killed the Headphone Jack

Apple

John Paczkowski, writing at Buzzfeed about Apple killing the headphone jack:

“It was holding us back from a number of things we wanted to put into the iPhone,” Riccio says. “It was fighting for space with camera technologies and processors and battery life. And frankly, when there’s a better, modern solution available, it’s crazy to keep it around.”

It’s hard to imagine Apple’s hardware design team hamstrung by a diminutive legacy port. But when you’re dealing with a computing device with extraordinarily tight dimensional tolerances, there are bound to be challenges. Riccio spends a good 15 minutes explaining them. I’ll try to do it in two.

Like it or hate it — the decision making process really is interesting.

Apple Announces iPhone 7 and AirPods

Apple has announced the iPhone 7. It does not contain a 3.5mm headphone jack, instead including lightning headphones in the box, and an adapter for your old headphones. The adapter is also available separately for $9. Apple has also announced their new wireless headphone solution, dubbed “AirPods.” Those will be available in October and cost $159.

The pitch was actually pretty simple: wireless is better. The devil will be in the details of implementation, but they touted a simple pairing method that looks impressive. If I had to guess, I’d say that as battery life in wireless headphones improves, and as they become more popular and costs drop, wireless will be ubiquitous. Being a 90’s kid will be talking about how you used to have a wire running from your phone to your head all the time. It’s going to be an interesting transition to watch.

What to Expect at Tomorrow’s Apple Event

Apple

Apple will be, presumably, debuting new iPhones tomorrow at their annual September event. Jason Snell, at Six Colors, has a good run down on what to expect, and what to look for:

Is there an additional wireless audio story? There have been rumors swirling around for a while that part of the headphone-jack removal would be a new set of Apple-branded wireless headphones, dubbed EarPods. Whether or not that rumor is true, I’m curious how Apple promotes wireless audio. Does it highlight Beats? Does it unveil new Apple-branded headphones? Does it use an alternative technology to Bluetooth?

The Apple thread in our forums is always a fun place to talk about the announcements when they drop. So, if you’re watching tomorrow morning at 10:00am (PDT), come join in while we complain about our headphone jack-less future.

Apple Music Adds Two New Custom Playlists

Apple Music has added two new weekly playlists to the “For You” section of the service. The first comes out on Wednesday and is a “My Favorites Mix” that is based on songs you love. The second is a “My New Music Mix” that comes out on Friday and contains new music from artists that Apple thinks you’ll like. It looks like, currently, this is only available on the iOS 10 beta version of the service, but I hope they end up bringing it to the desktop as well.