Apple have previewed some of the new emoji that will be coming later this year. I’m in for the zombie emoji.
Apple Preview New Emoji
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The iPhone Turns 10
The iPhone turned 10 today. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a good piece:
There is no way to overstate it. The iPhone was the inflection point where “personal computing” truly became personal. Apple had amazing product introductions before the iPhone, and it’s had a few good ones after. But the iPhone was the only product introduction I’ve ever experienced that felt impossible. Apple couldn’t have shrunk Mac OS X — a Unix-based workstation OS — to a point where it could run on a cell phone. Scrolling couldn’t be that smooth and fluid. Touchscreen response couldn’t be so responsive. Apple couldn’t possibly have gotten a major carrier to cede them control over every aspect of the device, both hardware and software. I can recall sitting the hall at Moscone West, watching the keynote unfold, 90 percent excited as hell, 10 percent concerned that I was losing my goddamn mind. Literally mind-blowing.
Apple and Record Labels Working on New Deals
The record labels’ deals with Apple expire at the end of June, though they are likely to be extended if the parties can’t agree on new terms by then, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
The negotiations would bring Apple closer to the rate Spotify Ltd. pays labels, and allow both sides to adjust to the new realities of the music industry.
And:
Apple initially overpaid to placate the labels, who were concerned Apple Music would cripple or cannibalize iTunes, a major source of revenue.
The growth of Apple Music hasn’t been as detrimental to iTunes as labels had feared. But record labels are still asking for precautions.
Creating the Original iPhone
John Markoff interviewed three of the team members who worked on the original iPhone. Even if you think you know the short version of a lot of these stories, this is still really great.
Apple Music Adds $99 Annual Plan
Apple Music now offers a $99 a year plan:
This setting is quite buried as Apple doesn’t want you to know that you can pay less than what you’re actually paying. We tried different scenarios, and it was quite hard to find the new annual plan — but it’s real.
If you’re not a current Apple Music subscriber, the Music app only lets you subscribe to a normal monthly plan as pictured above. But if you’re an existing subscriber, you can go to your membership settings and switch to an annual plan. So new users will have to buy a monthly subscription first and then switch.
Quick way to save $20 bucks a year.
MacStories Reviews the New iPad
Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories, about the new 10.5” iPad Pro:
The first time I swiped on the 10.5” iPad Pro’s 120Hz display last week, I thought it looked fake – like a CGI software sequence. It was incredibly, utterly crisp and fast. It didn’t look like iOS belonged on the screen: after years of iPad usage, my brain was telling me that something didn’t seem normal about the way iOS was animating. Except it’s all real, and it simply takes a couple of days to get used to the new display and the work Apple has put into ProMotion for smoother scrolling and fluid animations throughout the system.
Apple Announces Podcast Updates
Apple has announced some new podcast updates. Jason Snell, over at Six Colors, has a good rundown:
The other big news out of today’s session is for podcasters (and presumably for podcast advertisers): Apple is opening up in-episode analytics of podcasts. For the most part, podcasters only really know when an episode’s MP3 file is downloaded. Beyond that, we can’t really tell if anyone listens to an episode, or how long they listen—only the apps know for sure.
Apple said today that it will be using (anonymized) data from the app to show podcasters how many people are listening and where in the app people are stopping or skipping. This has the potential to dramatically change our perception of how many people really listen to a show, and how many people skip ads, as well as how long a podcast can run before people just give up.
Apple’s Keynote is Full of Goodies
Apple kicked off their developer conference this week with a slew of announcements in their keynote. A bunch of the Macs got speed-bumps, the new iMac Pro looks lust-worthy, and iOS 11 has a whole bunch of new features specifically designed for the iPad.
Then there’s the new HomePod speaker. It’s pitched as a great speaker that includes Siri.
Some quick thoughts:
- I’m glad to see Apple dedicated to updating their Mac line-up with new processors and little speed-bumps when available. This gives me faith in the Mac platform going forward.
- While the name of the new macOS, “High Sierra,” is sure to be the butt of a lot of jokes, I like that it signifies a bug-fix and more small improvement release.1
- That iMac Pro with the black accessories burns me at my core with envy. I want one. That price tag puts it outside of my grasp for now though. I’m sure a lot of “pros” will be happy to see these kinds of specs in a new machine.
- The iPad specific updates to iOS 11 look fantastic. They look to be moving the iPad more toward to Mac in terms of what it can do productivity wise. Multi-tasking, file management, and drag and drop are all things we take for granted on a Mac, but I think bringing them to the iPad in a new way is far better than just trying to shoehorn a touch interface onto the Mac. It actually made me want an new iPad with an Apple Pencil. I yearned for something like this in college.2
- The HomePod looks interesting. I think pitching it as a great speaker first is a smart marketing move. It sets expectations. A great speaker that works with Apple Music and does some Siri stuff? That’s enticing to me. I like my Amazon Echo, but the speaker isn’t great and it doesn’t integrate with my Apple Music account — that’s two great selling points for me right there. It’s on the pricey side (no shock there), but this feels like the kind of device I’d love to have in the living room to play music with, and if the multi-device syncing is as good as advertised, I think I’d look to this before a Sonos system. I’m intrigued. The sound quality will be the make or break moment for me.
- The Safari browser will be shipping with the ability to stop auto-play videos. It’s interesting to me how much of Safari and Chrome are having to be devoted to basically “fixing” so much of the gross bullshit websites are being filled up with today. Not a good sign for the web.
Inside the New Apple Campus
Steve Levy goes inside Apple’s new spaceship campus:
We drive through an entrance that takes us under the building and into the courtyard before driving back out again. Since it’s a ring, of course, there is no main lobby but rather nine entrances. Ive opts to take me in through the café, a massive atrium-like space ascending the entire four stories of the building. Once it’s complete, it will hold as many as 4,000 people at once, split between the vast ground floor and the balcony dining areas. Along its exterior wall, the café has two massive glass doors that can be opened when it’s nice outside, allowing people to dine al fresco.
Shazam Launches Redesigned iOS App
Shazam for iOS has introduced an update that makes app navigation more simple and streamlined. Gone are the traditional navigation tabs at the bottom of the screen; they have been replaced by a paginated layout where a swipe left or right is used to switch screens.
iTunes Podcasts is Now Apple Podcasts
Apple has rebranded their iTunes podcast directory as “Apple Podcasts.” You can still find Encore in the same ‘ol place.
I do wonder how much longer iTunes will remain. Splitting that (very bloated) app up has to on some roadmap somewhere.
Apple Debuts Clips Video App
Apple has released their new Clips video app. MacStories has a nice rundown of the features:
Overall, Clips is well-polished, packed with tools, and it does well what it’s designed for. The recent onslaught of ephemeral, short-form video content on services like Snapchat and Instagram was clearly a strong influence on Clips’ creation. And while I haven’t gotten into the ‘Stories’ craze myself, I’m still expecting to be a somewhat-regular Clips user. Whereas I find something like Instagram Stories intimidating because I don’t like the pressure of shooting and immediately sharing something. Clips allows those who want to move that fast to do so, while people like me can take their time – I can record something, save it to the Photos app, maybe share it with my wife or a friend, and if I end up really liking it, I can later share to social media.
The Mac Pro Lives
John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:
Apple is currently hard at work on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro, with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs and big honking hot-running GPUs, and which should make it easier for Apple to update with new components on a regular basis. They’re also working on Apple-branded pro displays to go with them.
And:
Regarding iMacs, Schiller also said that new iMacs are in the works, slated for release some time this year (no specifics other than “this year”), including “configurations of iMac specifically with the pro customer in mind and acknowledging that our most popular desktop with pros is an iMac.”
Nice. I love my 5K iMac, it’s the best desktop computer I’ve ever owned. (And now we have fodder for all the tech podcasts for the next six months in anticipation, and for the six months after when the results aren’t perfectly tailored to each individual.) I’m just glad that the rumors of the Mac’s demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated.
Apple Releases watchOS and macOS Updates
Apple has released updates to watchOS and macOS. The addition of “theatre mode” for the Apple Watch is a welcome addition. Here’s MacStories with the details:
watchOS 3.2 adds Theater Mode. According to the beta release notes published on Apple’s developer site, Theater Mode lets users mute their Watch and disable raise-to-wake. Theater Mode is accessible by swiping up from the bottom of the Apple Watch’s screen. While the feature is engaged, notifications are silent, but you still receive haptic feedback when a notification is received and can view a notification by pressing the Digital Crown.
And macOS gets “night shift.”
How Drake and Apple Music Broke Streaming Records
Drake’s latest project More Life was streamed 300 million times worldwide in its first week on Apple Music, Republic Records tells The Verge, surpassing the 250 million streams the label said Views, an Apple Music exclusive, did in its first week last year. The biggest first week for any album on a single service is Ed Sheeran’s Divide, which was streamed 375 million times on Spotify. The label also says early calculations for More Life have it at around 600 million streams worldwide, which would be a record for an album.
Those are big numbers.