tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23077168225804348392024-02-07T03:09:54.674-08:00My Apple ExperienceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-14581576430234457892019-04-01T21:39:00.001-07:002019-04-01T21:39:13.815-07:00The State of Apple in my experienceMy recent Apple experiences: a bit of a rant.<div>
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<div>
I am focusing on the negative below. There are numerous features I need and use daily that only Apple has. But old features I counted on are getting worse in many cases, and new problems introduced are rarely remediated. I'm not buying gear from another vendor instead, but I am unhappy that I used to have a better experience, and Apple is not at all focused on returning some excellent features that used to simply work. This would not be that hard for Apple to improve tremendously in most cases, but as the years pass this is not improving.<br /><div>
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<div>
Macbook Pro 15":</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I just waited for about two minutes for Touch ID to engage, occasionally pressing the unlabelled button, hoping and waiting... I just ended up typing in my password. The iOS type processor was on, the touch screen was lit, and had an escape key, but no active touch ID. This happens often, every day. It just isn't reliable.</li>
<li>I use a keyboard cover. This does make my screen a mess, but has kept my laptop working after the initial replacement due to keyboard problems.</li>
<li>The ports on my LG 5K display, sold to me by Apple, are back to not working reliably. For example, I have to reseat the ethernet usb-c adapter. There seemed some times of reliability at some point in prior OS/firmware versions, but not for many many months.</li>
<li>Security is one of Apple's hallmark features. I have heard nothing from Apple about <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/27/thunderbolt-3-thunderclap-vulnerabilities-let-malicious-peripherals-attack-a-macs-memory">thunderbolt vulnerabilities</a>. Apple has had more embarrassing security problems that worry us all - such as with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/personaltech/facetime-bug-iphone-hack.html">facetime</a>, and <a href="https://bgr.com/2018/01/10/macos-high-sierra-system-preferences-bug-security-flaw/">administrative access</a>.</li>
<li>I had an at-boot issue where my computer partially went through the initial setup process and added icons to my dock. It took multiple support calls and escalations to get through to someone who was finally able to easily help by having me delete a few plist files, permanently fixing the problem.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
iPhone 7 with Apple Smart Battery Case, and Airpods:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Whenever I have a problem with an iPhone, I am "threatened" with possibly needing to set up my device as new, and not from a backup. Recovering from a wiped iPhone takes long enough, but this process is exceedingly painful. I have acquiesced in a couple of cases in the more distant past, and it did not help. "Geniuses" tell me that it may be necessary due to a data problem. The sandboxing and protection of the iPhone is clearly not good enough if this could ever be necessary. I absolutely refuse to go through this after two previous problems that only proved it unnecessary.</li>
<li>My speakerphone capabilities (with and without smart case) have not been working - people could not hear me. </li>
<li>For months, my airpods, working absolutely perfectly for listening to music and podcasts, had problems in other areas. </li>
<ul>
<li>Often, Siri could not hear me after activating. Then Siri would act on things I said afterward, after I thought Siri would no longer would be listening and after I was waiting for many seconds.</li>
<li>Also, my first couple of seconds talking every time I spoke on phone calls were muffled and inaudible. I tried re-pairing, resetting the airpods, and checked the firmware version on them - nothing helped. I tried finding a path to getting a Genius Bar appointment. after tens of minutes, I gave up. Eventually, I went to a Genius Bar to make an appointment, and was seen the same day. They said that they did a factory reset. This seemed to fix both my speakerphone and my airpods' functionality. I have no idea why or how that could be. I have another co-worker with this airpod problem.</li>
<li>I really wish the help I had in the store might have been had in the first 10 minutes of my chat with Apple, without driving in. That would have been a vastly superior experience.</li>
</ul>
<li>Music</li>
<ul>
<li>I do not use "Apple Music" the subscription service, and seem to have successfully stopped that from showing up, for now, in the interface.</li>
<li>I do use iTunes match. I have had music I downloaded recently show as no longer downloaded. This is quite inconvenient to me at those times when I cannot get internet access.</li>
<li>When I get into Music, I have choices. Those choices include "Library" and "radio" and "search". I do not use Radio. I with I could just be in "library" as was the case before all of these new services.</li>
<li>I do not like the change made some time ago to put shuffle and repeat below the fold - I have to scroll down to find them. It is more work, and not immediately visible or obvious to newer users. My visible choices are download, airplay, and "..." - those are a better choice for below the fold.</li>
<li>I have chosen a song by searching, and I am playing it. I select it, and see the album art. How can I get to the album itself? I just learned - touch "..." and then click on the album art from there (where there is an arrow...). But not from the song with album art. From there, touching the album art, doing a hard press - none of it does anything.</li>
<li>How about Lyrics? If available, they are even farther below the fold, underneath shuffle and repeat.</li>
<li>The simplicity and utility in the interface from quite some years ago is not returning.</li>
<li>I do really like that the iTunes/music store is indeed a separate thing.</li>
<li>I have a couple CDs that are 1 hour per song or more. I still cannot have them as songs I own in Music. Why is that still the case in modern times? I have had to make them into audiobooks as the only way to listen to them.</li>
<li>We cannot update music info in this app; mistakes in music names may be correctable elsewhere...</li>
<li>Album art does not always propagate correctly. </li>
<li>It is not always clear why some songs in one album show up as different albums.</li>
</ul>
<li>Books</li>
<ul>
<li>Is this an app for me to use for my content, or to buy things? The buttons on the bottom are mostly for buying. 5 buttons, 4 for selling content.</li>
<ul>
<li>"Reading Now" - shows recent books I have read/listened to, but also seconds for buying books</li>
<li>Library - ok this is my content</li>
<li>Book Store - self explanatory - buying books</li>
<li>Audiobooks - less self-explanatory - only for buying books</li>
<li>Search - seems to be mostly about sales, but also has a complex relationship to my content also.</li>
</ul>
<li>Where is my content? This is not at all self-consistent or easy for someone new to Apple to understand:</li>
<ul>
<li>Super loud and away from it so I go back hyper navigate back to start making shut up crazyBooks I acquired outside of apple - in icloud files under my Apple ID. </li>
<li>Books I bought from Apple. Are they under icloud files? Where are they? I'm not sure.</li>
<li>Audiobooks - those I own and did not buy from Apple are sync'ed from my iTunes server. </li>
</ul>
<li>No sort by genre for my book content. But I can search by genre while buying books. There is a clear focus on selling.</li>
<li>Audiobook navigation:</li>
<ul>
<li>I most often listen to audiobooks in this app, much more than I read books. Audiobook navigation is poor at best. To get to audiobooks, I touch Library, then collections, then audiobooks</li>
<li>Sorting: by recent, title, author, or manually</li>
<ul>
<li>still no genre search</li>
<li>no reverse search - for example not recent books first</li>
</ul>
<li>It is very easy to get back out of audiobooks on my phone. Then I have to click through the sequence again</li>
<li>If I navigate away from an audiobook I am listening to, it is no longer on the screen. I have no audio navigation tools at that point - pause/stop. Users can read a book while listening to an audiobook. But users cannot switch apps to go shut up an audiobook while doing so.</li>
<li>I'm looking for another app to use to sync and listen to audiobooks.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>TV app</li>
<ul>
<li>Buttons for main navigation:</li>
<ul>
<li>Watch Now</li>
<ul>
<li>This is just not compatible with nearly any service I use and is a waste of space. If only it worked with my home iTunes server...</li>
</ul>
<li>Sports - clearly a lot of work went into this. Which services does it work with? It is unclear.</li>
<li>Library - really what I want to get to - my content</li>
<li>Store - how many different stores does Apple need on my phone?</li>
<li>Search - has no clear way to search only for content I own, and clearly gives access to content I do not own.</li>
</ul>
<li>Where is my content? </li>
<ul>
<li>If I bought it from iTunes or an associated service, it just shows under Library.</li>
<li>If I synced it from iTunes, it is under Library</li>
<li>Otherwise, nothing. No use of iCloud files here.</li>
<li>iTunes server content even from the same wifi network - it just does not work on iPads/iPhones. Why bother having/showing a long broken feature?</li>
</ul>
<li>I buried this app; no longer relevant or useful. I finally gave up and moved to Plex.</li>
</ul>
<li>Photos</li>
<ul>
<li>I use iCloud photo library. </li>
<li>Thus, I cannot see or manage my Photo Stream. I can contribute to the Photo Stream some my family still uses on my Apple ID. but not see it. This is so strange.</li>
<li>What do I want:</li>
<ul>
<li>access to photo stream for all family members, including to capture all taken photos, if desired.</li>
<li>the ability to have limited access to the family shared photo library, such that some devices/users cannot remove photos from the family photo library.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
Apple TV</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>One partial-rant: I plug an Apple TV into a modern TV via HDMI and it controls the volume. It is glorious. I move the Apple TV to another TV, and the same thing. I love this simple use of HDMI to program the Apple TV remote to the correct infrared codes for volume control of the TV. I wish I could control the volume wirelessly through the Apple TV wireless connection, however.</li>
<li>My Apple TV 3rd generation has to be rebooted frequently. Sometimes the remote (well charged) won't work at all without rebooting the Apple TV.</li>
<li>The TV app is still completely worthless to me. My cable provider is not playing ball.</li>
<li>Search - I can search the big players (Netflix/Amazon Prime) but still my iTunes server content cannot be searched by "main search" But if I navigate into my server and it's content, I can search and then use voice search. It is confusing to have different search contexts, and sad not to have them integrated into something central, like, say the TV app.</li>
<li>I care about my iTunes server. Apple clearly does not.</li>
<ul>
<li>Playlist navigation used to be perfect and amazing. Now it is odd - there is no sense of showing and navigating seasons.</li>
<li>TV show navigation outside of playlists:</li>
<ul>
<li>There is no concept of - "I'm in the middle of these 3 shows". This means I must navigate through seasons and through episodes in those seasons.</li>
<li>Sometimes watched/unwatched is not recorded or reported successfully, meaning I have to remember where I was to get back to it.</li>
<li>These problems are problems Apple could solve. They just are not having any focus on this area.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>The remote is strongly problematic. It is too tiny, easily lost, and without using the</li>
</ul>
<div>
I used to count on Apple, and their brand meant a focus on simplicity, just working, and constant navigation improvement and better ease-of-use over time. The focus on additional service revenue over meeting existing customer needs is getting Apple sales, but tarnishing the brand.</div>
</div>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-65682879996077709802018-10-05T10:43:00.000-07:002018-10-05T10:43:13.787-07:00Quiet Apple Pay Wallet ExpansionApple Pay quietly expanded the wallet from 5 to 8 cards on "older devices" - <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204506">https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204506</a><br />
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I tried it and added 6 cards, when I know that in early August I could only have 5 cards. On iPhone 8 and later devices Apple says you can how have 12 cards on a device.<br />
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This is important and quite to some users, especially business owners, who use different cards for different contexts.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-9255507421390747612017-12-01T09:59:00.001-08:002017-12-01T09:59:30.064-08:00Less happy with Apple over timeI have been writing less posts for the last year. I am less happy with my Apple products. And as I listened to ATP this morning (<a href="http://atp.fm/">Accidental Tech Podcast</a>) - episode 250, I heard Marco, Casey, and John variously complain about reliability and other issues. I have similar feelings. Marco also had an internet-famous commentary on the state of the Macbook Pro on his blog at https://marco.org/<div>
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What is bugging me now?</div>
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1) My old apple TV and trying to use it with an old iTunes server. It cannot do 2-factor iCloud without shenanigans I have not gone through - actually getting a code and typing it in after my iCloud password. Somehow, only my wife gets the code, and only a bit later, making it very hard to connect the dots.</div>
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2) A Macbook Air in my house is failing and rebooting most nights. 6 months ago it just failed from what appeared to be a block storage issue with the SSD. After rebuilt (and restore from time machine) it seemed "back to normal" at the time. I had to force Apple support to let me bring it to the store - the old method to schedule with an app was removed from the support app! They strongly discouraged me from bringing it in. And the tests they ran found no problems... But, something was wrong, and something is wrong now (now that I'm out of support/apple care). It is all my problem; Apple could not, or did not, help.</div>
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3) I have a Macbook Pro 15" 2017. I also had a 2016 model. The large touchpad causes numerous stray touches causing a myriad of weird unpredictable behaviors. I cannot wear clothes with sleeves or this escalates to a continuous problem. Apple's stray touch avoidance does not work for me. I have had to re-select where I am in this short blog post many times. And I've had to cut/paste text, and figure out where my cursor moved to, or remove some weird pop-up... This is infuriating. If you spot egregious typos in this blog post including words in the wrong place, then this is the cause. I tried to correct every time, and re-read, but... this is hard. </div>
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I have made corrections about 30 times during the writing of this blog post, as I have sleeves today. This is unusable. </div>
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4) TouchID on the Macbook Pro is extremely unreliable. Between that and the fact that the computer is often unresponsive at wake, it takes minutes away from my work many times per day; I am often mobile. When it works, TouchID on the Mac is a wonderful feature. It clearly does not "just work".</div>
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<div>
5) I just bought Air Pods. Again, when they work, they are amazing! However, they are not so smart about pairing. I must open the airpod storage container next to my iPhone to get them to re-pair after charging; they do not just re-connect automatically. My wife (uses my Apple ID so we can share photos) has her iPhone wanting to pair with the AirPods at times - she has never used them. There is something amiss here.</div>
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<div>
6) Going back to photos - this is an old story that is still there. I have no real way to share photos automatically with my family in a way that I would want to with Apple products. My family uses Photo Stream. I use iCloud photos. I cannot access Photo Stream. Why, oh why, Apple, did you switch to this state and stay that way? I would pay money for a service from Apple that would let me have every family member use a different Apple ID and share every photo taken, but not have every family member with the ability to delete photos from the iCloud photo library. I trust my family members but we do not all want the ability to accidentally permanently delete trip photos.</div>
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<div>
7) Thunderbolt 3/usb-c. I'm not bitter about the dongles. But, my LG 5K display USB-C hub capabilities sometimes work, sometimes do not. Rebooting my MacBook Pro temporarily fixes it when it is a problem, making me think it is Apple's problem (even if at some level it is really Intel's issue as well). I have heard from podcasters that dongles do not produce utterly reliable USB connections either. This just makes the pro not a pro.</div>
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<div>
8) I have wanted a new Mac Mini for about... 2 years. I'm not buying the <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2017/10/16/mac-mini-update-poll/">3-year old design</a>. I hear Apple is coming out with a new version... some day.</div>
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I'm sure that there is more, but this is my stream-of-conciousness unhappiness today.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-51181202866487252017-09-20T20:19:00.000-07:002017-09-20T20:19:33.957-07:00Quick Note: Use caution if you are upgrading your Apple TV to tvOS 11 and use an iTunes serverI just upgraded my Apple TV 4th generation to tvOS 11. The primary use for my Apple TV is to watch content on an admittedly old iTunes server.<br />
<br />
I have TV playlists in my iTunes server. After the upgrade, my iTunes server TV show playlists:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Are out of order - no longer in order by season or even by episode.</li>
<li>No longer show status - what episodes I have watched. </li>
</ul>
<div>
These are critical features for using my Apple TV and having it be useful. It is no longer so useful.</div>
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I have tried some iTunes reconfigurations of playlists, so far, to no avail...</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-35407004354741334852017-08-06T06:17:00.000-07:002017-08-06T06:18:28.274-07:00What all has my iPhone replaced, given me another way to do, or enabled me not to buyOthers have written numerous articles about all of the devices the iPhone (or smart phones) have replaced or are being used in a role in addition to traditional devices:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>http://www.businessinsider.com/the-23-devices-my-iphone-has-replaced-2010-12</li>
<li>https://www.engadget.com/2009/11/19/buyer-s-guide-33-things-you-don-t-need-if-you-have-an-iphone/</li>
<li>https://www.geckoandfly.com/13143/50-things-smartphone-replaced-will-replace-future/</li>
<li>https://www.thrillist.com/tech/things-you-don-t-need-to-buy-if-you-have-an-iphone-tech-that-has-been-replaced-by-your-iphone</li>
<li>https://www.technologyreview.com/s/428579/a-surprisingly-long-list-of-everything-smartphones-replaced/</li>
</ul>
<div>
My list:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Cell Phone</li>
<ul>
<li>texting was never good like this on old cell phones...</li>
<li>with technologies like Slack, Jabber, messages, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google's multiple chat apps, I can text message in more ways with more people than ever.</li>
</ul>
<li>Pager</li>
<li>CD player - Music Player -- using local storage</li>
<li>DVD player - Video Player -- using local storage</li>
<li>Radio</li>
<ul>
<li>Streaming music, Podcasts, Internet Radio, and more</li>
</ul>
<li>TV</li>
<ul class="ul1">
<li>I can watch Comcast in my house from my iPhone...</li>
<li>Netflix</li>
<li>YouTube</li>
</ul>
<li>Web browsing device (on the go)</li>
<li>Video game machine</li>
<li>Electronic Book Reader (aka Kindle)</li>
<ul>
<li>Books / a library</li>
<li>Encyclopedia, Thesaurus, Dictionary, Foreign language dictionaries, and more...</li>
<li>Newspapers and magazines</li>
<li>Comics</li>
</ul>
<li>Training/educational tool</li>
<ul>
<li>many educational videos and books</li>
<li>lynda.com</li>
<li>Khan Academy</li>
</ul>
<li>Voice recorder / Tape Recorder</li>
<li>Devices (may not have been electronic):</li>
<ul>
<li>Mirror</li>
<li>Alarm Clock</li>
<li>Watch</li>
<li>Calculator</li>
<li>Maps</li>
<ul>
<li>This feature keeps expanding. Now in more and more locations it may even work in indoor locations such as malls.</li>
</ul>
<li>Compass</li>
<li>Level</li>
<li>Flashlight</li>
<li>Notepad/Sketchpad</li>
<li>Calendar</li>
<li>Address Book/Rolodex</li>
<li>Photo Album</li>
<li>Magnifying Glass</li>
<li>Camera</li>
<li>Video Camera</li>
<li>Camcorder</li>
<li>Pedometer / step tracker</li>
<li>Diary / Journal</li>
<li>Tape recorder / Dictation device</li>
<li>Grocery lists / other lists</li>
<li>Astronomy guide</li>
</ul>
<li>Scanner (scan papers)</li>
<li>GPS</li>
<li>Keys</li>
<ul>
<li>Can directly unlock connected home locks</li>
<li>2nd factor security device (DUO, Google Authenticator, and more)</li>
</ul>
<li>Video conferencing system (mobile)</li>
<li>Computer (albeit a tiny one)</li>
<ul>
<li>MS Office, iWork apps</li>
<li>Video editing system</li>
<li>Photo editing system</li>
</ul>
<li>Sensor/trackers:</li>
<ul>
<li>Decibel meter (see just how loud that noise is!)</li>
<li>seismometer (detect earth movement)</li>
<li>spedometer</li>
</ul>
<li>Health tracker for many kinds of health data. </li>
<ul>
<li>connects via bluetooth to a blood pressure machine to track my blood pressure</li>
<li>journal for my weight</li>
<li>step journal</li>
</ul>
<li>Remote Control</li>
<ul>
<li>both my TV and my Apple TV, but I can also stream content from my phone to my AppleTV, oh and even a remote for my cable box.</li>
<li>For my thermostat - and soon more via homekit...</li>
</ul>
<li>White noise generator</li>
<li>My wallet (much of the time, via Apple Pay)</li>
<ul>
<li>Parking meter change near where I work...</li>
</ul>
<li>ATM - partially - I can remotely deposit checks and move and track money</li>
<li>Stores - I can buy just about anything and get it delivered anywhere!</li>
<li>Biofeedback device</li>
</ul>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-75833665267126616062017-07-20T12:03:00.000-07:002017-08-16T09:09:53.539-07:00Things about Apple greatly annoying me at this timeI use and greatly enjoy using Apple products in so many ways. I use Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, Macbook Pros, Apple TVs, I have a laptop acting as an iTunes server, and even Apple networking products. I use iTunes match, I have bought movies from iTunes, i use find my iPhone, iCloud storage and backup for my ios devices, cloud iPhoto, Photo Stream, messages/imessage, continuity, Apple Pay, and more. I also use device integrations with Apple APIs, such as Health.<br />
<br />
But, there are many many things Apple and its products do, and have done, that really bother me. I feel the need to write them down and let them out. <br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>iPhotos and Photo Stream</li>
<ul>
<li>I used to use the two together. Really. Then they made it so any given device was on one or the other. Even iCloud.com cannot get to Photo stream. Why not? I want to share photos indiscriminately with some family members but not give them access to accidentally delete photos from our one true real photo store. Apple took that away and do not seem to care. Getting a photo stream photo that is not in my iPhotos library into that library is much too hard. Apple could make this easy.</li>
<li>I spent YEARS putting faces data into iPhoto. It was dropped at some point, I think when I went to Photos. How does Apple decide that years of my efforts to add metadata to photos with their products without even announcing or mentioning it was ok, or a respectful way to treat customers?</li>
</ul>
<li>Apple TV</li>
<ul>
<li>Siri on AppleTV cannot be used on my iTunes server content. I fear the effort that I have put in building an iTunes server will end up thrown out by Apple.</li>
<li>The new AppleTV remote. Many have reported on the <a href="https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7608905?start=0&tstart=0">numerous problems</a>. I bought the strap so that I really know which end is which. It is a bad design. I would buy a new better remote - please design and fix. I am among those who have accidentally caused many different things while searching for the remote.</li>
</ul>
<li>MacOS iTunes and using iTunes on a computer as an iTunes server</li>
<ul>
<li>People are telling me to move to Plex - but I still need a way to get my content onto my iPhones/iPads. So I'm supposed to have both a Plex server and a "sync content to my devices" separate thing? iTunes match services for movies would help. But I have some audio books that I own that were not bought through iTunes that I also need to sync. </li>
<li>I have a problem where syncing iPhones (with a cord or via wifi) that it always seems to fail. I have to sync, kind of quit out of looking in iTunes at my iPhone, go back in, and sync again to make it work. Apple, you broke it! I thought this was a wifi problem. It is not - it also happens with a cord.</li>
<li>using iTunes content streaming to an iPad/iPhone: IT DOES NOT WORK RELIABLY. Early on, it sort of worked ok. Why can a cheap Apple TV device do it right every time, but my ever-so-expensive mobile device on on the same wifi network cannot? These devices are used like TVs. Heck - they even now have an app called TV. This is a HUGE let down. And, the navigation methods that exist on my AppleTV, such as content categories and playlists? They are not to be found on iPhone and iPad. Grrrr.</li>
<li>Why are there so many restrictions on how to get to content? I cannot search for a movie? Really? </li>
</ul>
<li>Mac Mini - https://www.macobserver.com/news/mac-mini-turns-1000-days-old-today/</li>
<ul>
<li>I need a new iTunes server. This is THE device for that role. Apple does not give me the appropriate way out. I'm not buying a new designed-3+-years-ago device at the price it had 3 years ago. Nope. I know many many people similarly annoyed.</li>
</ul>
<li>Macbook Pro 2016</li>
<ul>
<li>The keyboard is so loud, everyone hates it when I type. I even got a keyboard cover, which does help a bit. Only a bit though.</li>
</ul>
<li>iPhone</li>
<ul>
<li>I do not have wireless headphones. I haven't gone there. I do have a lightning-based biofeedback device that I use with my iPhone, and I typically use it with headphones. It does not work with a Belkin Lightning Audio + Charger lightning splitter - no other data is allowed apparently. This is my biggest problem with the iPhone 7. I did not realize that this use case was a problem when I bought my iPhone 7. Apple has not highlighted that this is the case; there will be no true splitter that lets this work. The Apple dock with old headphone adapter DOES work... But it is not convenient to where I am when I use this device.</li>
</ul>
<li>Device management - I would love to use icloud.com to check on OS versions on devices, or even possibly to push an update. I suppose these are nice-to-haves and there are 3rd party solutions, but a family should not require a 3rd party solution to this.</li>
</ul>
<div>
A few more things about iOS</div>
<div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li>Siri</li>
<ul>
<li>I have had many recent times where I ask Siri to "Play artist X" where Siri completely hears me - the screen says the right thing, but then plays something different. This does seem to have been fixed - my examples do not work. But it leaves me feeling like I cannot rely on Siri for this.</li>
<li>New address book fun: I have a home and iPhone address for my wife. In the past, I would ask Siri, "Text my wife I'm on my way home". It used to just work. Now it asks if I want to use the home or mobile number. I'm thinking, Hmmm, which do you think? The one with texting capabilities, or the one without, while I text? Why did this stop working without further intervention? </li>
</ul>
<li>Address book/contacts and syncing</li>
<ul>
<li>I changed my wife's cell phone information so that it lists that it is "iPhone". It kept changing it back to "mobile" after I saved it!</li>
<li>I have another contact for which I do not even have "iPhone" as an option for a phone number. The contact does have an iPhone (blue messages). Where did this go?</li>
<li>I just looked and now my wife's contact information in "favorites" is completely separate from any listing in contacts. How is this possible?</li>
<li>I do sync with icloud contacts (where I do not have email) and with O365...</li>
<li>I have linked contacts. They become unlinked. Why why why?</li>
</ul>
<li>Photos and Photo Stream</li>
<ul>
<li>It would really be nice if when we accidentally re-save the same photo, it did not put multiple copies into Photos and/or Photo Stream. Or, could Apple at least make a deduplication capability?</li>
<li>I would love a mode to auto-stream photos to family members with another AppleID. This could help with many other iCloud photos/photostream issues, but would have to be accessible for both types of users to be useful.</li>
</ul>
<li>Portrait mode bug: portrait vs landscape mode - In many earlier years, I only had problems in one application. Now, I seem to often have to switch apps and return or force quit Apple's TV app and Netflix. I cannot seem to cause it on demand, but when it happens, it is very frustrating - it sticks in portrait mode when it should be in landscape.</li>
<li>Control Center: Why can I often not pull up control center in an app? This often happens in messages, but not always. This did not happen with earlier versions of IOS.</li>
<li>TV - I have blogged about it before. iOS and the TV app cannot really use my home iTunes server. My iOS devices are more powerful than the Apple TV. Why can this not work. Why is there not an interface to look through TV/Movie playlists, or content via genre on these devices on the rare occasion it sort of works? It is my contention that it did at least work with older iOS versions.</li>
<li>iBooks - audiobooks sometimes returns to some older place. Sometimes the beginning, sometimes to where I was maybe the last time I started listening? It is hard to tell as it does not happen every time. This has been a problem for some time.</li>
<li class="li1">Music - the Apple application in iOS when using my music is much worse than it used to be. The Apple website says “A new design that just flows.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>To me, it feels like a design that no longer flows</li>
<ul>
<li class="li1">I have “Show Apple Music” turned off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>However, it seems to still shows up partly because of Radio and that I can search Apple Music content while Apple Music is turned off. This lets Apple ask me if I want to buy Apple Music even though I asked to not have it shown. Is not this setting a lie?</li>
<li class="li1">When looking at my library, navigating to Artists, then a specific artist, , I can "See More by the artist. This "more" includes Apple Music content.</li>
<li class="li1">I can navigate from my Library to Albums then an album, then I can click on the artist name for the album. Why does this take me to the "more" location instead of the location for Artists in my library? These two places are confusing at best.</li>
<li class="li1">When looking at an artist in my library, I see the artist’s albums.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I do not see their songs.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There used to be a way to see all songs that I really miss.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I cannot fathom why this was removed. In older iOS, when navigating to an Artist, I would see the Artists' songs. The older design makes sense to me.</li>
<li class="li1">The Top Songs in the "more" view list scrolls both down and right. This is not obvious. It is not intuitive. It makes no sense. It is bad design. Why is this not just a list that scrolls down?</li>
<li class="li1">I really liked the view in older iOS with buttons Playlists, Artists, Songs on the bottom. They are useful. The current buttons Library, Connect, and Radio are not useful. I used to be able to focus on my library. Now Apple clearly does not want me to do this.</li>
<li class="li1">In older iOS, while playing a song, there were visible icons that worked as buttons for shuffle and replay. Now, these are buttons below the fold. I believe many do not even know they are there. The visible button/icons are cloud download, an icon enabling a choice in where to play the music (for example to an Apple TV), and three dots. The Three dots again let you download, delete from library, add to a playlist, share a song, love or dislike the song, or cancel. Why download twice, but not other choices twice? It is inconsistent and confusing, like much of the new interface to music.</li>
<li class="li1">In old iOS, if I navigated to a song, from that screen I could then navigate to all songs on the same album. I have found no way to do so in newer iOSs.</li>
<li class="li1">The old bug that is still bugging people where music will suddenly play causing this: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/10/silent-10-minute-song-itunes-car-stereo-trick/</li>
</ul>
<li>Complexity of 5 uses for AppleIDs... http://myappleexperience.blogspot.com/2015/01/separating-appleids-and-family-sharing.html</li>
<ul>
<li>I just helped a new family member use an iPhone for the first time. This person found it daunting as I helped them log in with their AppleID in 4 of the 5 places to do that. Even after that, the continued pop-ups about use of their password for "buying" free apps and so forth are extremely confusing for a new user. This family member would never have used an iPhone without help. When I had a family member use an iPhone for the first time in 2010, this process was much simpler. I do not think even Apple understands all the implications of uses of AppleIDs.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
Another thing or two about MacOS and Macs<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Time machine... It can be amazing. It makes moving from machine to machine much less painful. But, it is not pain-free. I have two specific recent examples. Apple should fix them.</li>
<ul>
<li>I have a LOT of email stored on my machine. Time machine backed it up and recovered it. Why did I have to wait for it to get re-imported and reindexed? I get that file systems need re-indexing. It took a couple of hours to re-import the 500,000 emails. Why did they have to be imported from a time machine recovery? Then reindexing had to happen. That took about 24 hours of my not using the computer. It would not re-sync with my exchange server until this was done.</li>
<li>Photos... I use icloud photos, and I had 200GB of online storage, with maybe 20GB free. I had to upgrade to 2TB of iCloud storage so that my Photos could re-sync. After re-sync, and more photos and storage using up my iCloud storage, I still have less than 200GB in use.</li>
</ul>
<li>Mail and annotating images</li>
<ul>
<li>It makes mail crash very often - making the feature nearly useless.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-51668697102719064462017-07-02T07:09:00.001-07:002017-07-02T07:09:22.885-07:0010 years ago: How and why the iPhone changed computingWhen the iPhone came out in 2007, it changed computing.<br />
<br />
What was its real competition? I had been using a Palm Treo 650, which was a generation older. With it, I could:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Watch movies on the tiny screen</li>
<li>Listen to mp3 music and use playlists</li>
<li>Download and install applications</li>
<li>Make calls and listen to voicemail just like on other cell phones</li>
<li>Take pictures</li>
<li>Sync my address book with my computer</li>
</ul>
<div>
But it was indeed horrible too. Doing these things took a huge amount of effort. The phone crashed all the time doing most of these things. Even getting to use the camera was an ordeal that required some expertise. And, it was not secure; if there were any efforts to secure old devices, I am not aware of them. There was friction in using it every day I owned it. It had many other shortcomings; it had a short battery life, a fragile scratch-able screen, no built-in wifi, and was quite large. I should add that I felt my cell phone plan was far to expensive for just about no data use. Non-wifi data usage was so slow as to be just barely above completely useless. And it was the best smartphone I had ever used and I loved it at the time. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then the iPhone came along. What was different?<br />
<br />
One core issue was a real change in the relationship with cell phone carriers. Apple negotiated endlessly until Cingular->AT&T agreed to:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>not control the phone. Apple provided all of the software on the phone.</li>
<li>a data plan with unlimited data at a reasonable price.</li>
<li>and worked with Apple to make a new interface to voicemail, allowing access voicemail in any order desired - visual voicemail.</li>
<li>not participate in other business areas, such selling ring tones.</li>
</ul>
<div>
These things were the core reason why the iPhone could be very different. Previous to the iPhone, the cellular providers prevented innovation by providing the software on cell phones. The cellular carriers prevented the cell phone makers from providing the software completely and directly.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
Some notable software improvements:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>An easy to find and use the camera! I could get people not familiar with technology to actually use and find the camera (app).</li>
<li>Multi-touch interface and on-screen keyboard, enabling the large screen. The touch controlled scrolling was breathtaking. The on-screen predictive keyboard was amazing, and worked much better than people feared it might.</li>
<li>A web browser on a cell phone that did not use WAP, and instead allowed normal web browsing as on a computer. The same was true of email - html email worked!</li>
<li>With iTunes, I could sync content like movies and music easily, not just contacts.</li>
<li>It had YouTube and Maps. Cell phone locations were known to carriers. But now the users of the cell phones got to use that data!</li>
<li>It had SMS that enabled navigation to and through texts with different people in a new actually usable way. SMS was truly horrible before this.</li>
<li>security - Apple's stance on flash was an example of the start of security practices.</li>
<li>phone software: use of phone, contacts to dial, 3-way calls, and control over voicemail were easy to use and amazing!</li>
</ul>
<div>
And the hardware improvements:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Size/weight/battery life</li>
<ul>
<li>4.8oz and volume under 5 cubic inches vs 6.3oz and volume of 9 cubic inches+ for the aforementioned Treo. This was a sleek, flat, and thin design.</li>
<li>7-8 hours of battery for talking on the phone.</li>
</ul>
<li>Gorilla Glass - the first iPhone was the first to use Gorilla Glass! The screen was somewhat vulnerable to shattering when dropped, but did not scratch. It was a huge improvement.</li>
<li>Hardware supporting the amazing multi-touch screen...</li>
<li>New sensors</li>
<ul>
<li>It had an accelerometer to tell how you moved the phone! So when you put it in portrait mode, it changed automatically.</li>
<li>A proximity sensor and ambient light sensor to turn off the screen when it was against your face or in a pocket. </li>
</ul>
<li>Data storage of 4 or 8GB vs the Treo's 22MB built-in (the Treo did have an SD card slot) - competitors at the time had 60MB.</li>
<li>2mb camera - it started to be less important to carry a small camera for many people</li>
<li>B/G wifi capable - wifi was much faster than cellular data.</li>
<li>a large 320x480 pixel screen</li>
</ul>
<div>
It cost quite a bit more, but in that era of cellular carrier plans, it was somewhat hidden from users.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is the first cell phone where many users used many of the features all of the time because the barriers to use were low. It was very intuitive. There was no owner's manual needed, explaining to go to the 5th thing down in the 7th menu item to get to the camera. No more voicemail hell of pushing phone buttons to do the same kinds of thing (push 4 to repeat, 5 to delete); the controls were on-screen.</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-65484516773134246112017-05-15T08:44:00.001-07:002017-05-15T08:44:14.310-07:00Why I advise my friends/family to use an iPhone<br />
I have friends and family who switch cell phones. When they ask me, I always say to get an iPhone, even an old refurbished iPhone. Why? Security.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Summary:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Android:</li>
<ul>
<li>Users who are not experts do not get security updates often enough, fast enough, or for long enough.</li>
<li>Cell phone companies AND phone manufacturers get in the way.</li>
<li>Google, maker of the Android OS, does not prevent the situation.</li>
<li>In some cases you can buy an older device from a store and get updates for less than 2 years, if ever.</li>
<li>Costs less.</li>
</ul>
<li>iPhone</li>
<ul>
<li>Users get updates as needed for a long time directly from Apple.</li>
<li>Even 5-year-old devices can get updates at this time. (I rarely see a reputable provider selling an Apple device more than 2 years old - so they typically get updates for at least 3 years).</li>
<li>Costs more, but worth it.</li>
</ul>
<li>If you buy a used device, buy it from a reputable source. This is absolutely critical. Don't buy a 4-year old device in any case; it isn't worth it.</li>
</ul>
<div>
What can happen when security is compromised? A bad actor or even possibly nearly all bad actors can:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Get all of your contact information on your phone (for everyone in your address book)</li>
<li>Get information about all calls you make, up to and including recordings of your calls, text messages, pictures you take, locations you are including where your phone is right now, and if you are moving, and if so, in what direction.</li>
<li>If you use a web browser or other applications with passwords - all of your usernames and passwords. If you enter credit card information - they get that too.</li>
<li>They sometimes can cause purchases of applications or services on your phone.</li>
<li>Your phone can be used as part of a bot net to attack other parts of the internet.</li>
<li>Illegal content such as stolen data or illegal pornography can be hidden on your device, implicating you!</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some articles I refer to:</div>
<ul>
<li>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/27/15457044/google-nexus-android-phones-security-updates-list</li>
<ul>
<li>Paraphrasing - it says you have 18 months to 3 years AT MOST for security updates.</li>
</ul>
<li>https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/197346-google-throws-nearly-a-billion-android-users-under-the-bus-refuses-to-patch-os-vulnerability</li>
<ul>
<li>The headline says it all?</li>
</ul>
<li>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/5/4/11589630/android-6-marshmallow-os-distribution-statistics</li>
<ul>
<li>Less than 10% of Android Devices are running the most recent Android OS. </li>
</ul>
<li>https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/22/ios-10-nearly-80-percent-adoption/</li>
<ul>
<li>More than 80% of iPhones are running the most recent OS</li>
</ul>
<li>http://www.imore.com/switch-iphone-years-free-software-updates</li>
<ul>
<li>The iPhone from 2012 - 5 years ago - is still getting security updates. </li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<br /><div>
Some additional thoughts and background:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Everyone I talk to is getting a smartphone. No one asks me for advice on a "feature phone" - the name now given to non-smartphone cell phones. And if they are undecided, it is often a decision "Apple or Android?" And, they clearly do not have a strong preference at this point, or they would already have decided. Often price is a guiding factor. Android phones are cheaper, especially in the world we live in without cell company subsidies.</li>
<li>I have friends with Android devices who run them securely. They talk to me about how they are more secure (the way they run them) than an iPhone. However, they are often jailbroken. And these friends are experts who spend quite a bit of time on their Android device, its configuration, and security. Some even compile Android themselves and install it. These are not folks asking me for advice. They have a clear and strong preference, and expertise.</li>
<li>Google often does not have a direct OS relationship with purchasers of Android devices. The manufacturer or cell phone provider usually owns that relationship. Your security is not their top priority.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-75461848013483643822017-02-01T10:13:00.001-08:002017-05-15T08:13:54.920-07:00My experience of the New LG 5K screenI have a new macbook pro 2016, and an LG 5K screen that I am working with.<br />
<br />
The LG 5K screen looks amazing! Good quality pictures with a sky towards sunset simply look more like what I see with my eyes than anything I have seen before. Wow. The tiny differentiation with colors is amazing. I'm in my 40's. The screen makes my eyes very happy. That is important to me!<br />
<br />
I did have to find new ways to scale the resolution of my Windows virtual machine to make it a reasonable size and visibility.<br />
<br />
I have used it as a power source as well; this is a welcome simplicity at my desk. It means I can carry my power supply or take it home, as I have power from my monitor.<br />
<br />
The camera and speakers are just fine, thank you very much. I have not tried the microphone<br />
<br />
Now the caveats...<br />
<br />
On the first day, I had 5 times when things went poorly. Three times, I had two solid colors, each taking 1/2 of the screen. The monitor was completely unusable during this time, as a monitor and hub. Twice things hung - the screen went black and did not recover until I unplugged it from my laptop. Once it took 5 full minutes for my laptop to return to normal. It did return to normal... I never had these problems again after the first day. This is quite strange.<br />
<br />
Using the monitor as a hub is a failure so far. Items plugged in are not re-recognized when I plug the monitor back into my computer, so I have to unplug and re-plug them into the monitor. This has been true for 3 devices:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>USB-A (with USB-C adapter from Apple) HDD</li>
<li>USB-A (with USB-C adapter from Apple) Kinesys keyboard</li>
<li>USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 EZQuest Gigabit Ethernet Adapter</li>
</ul>
<br />
I hope a fix is forthcoming...<br />
<br />
Update: The 10.12.4 MacOS update fixed it! I was taking my monitor to Apple the next day. The Monitor works as a hub now. Whew!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-75399610271362927242016-10-25T09:12:00.003-07:002016-10-25T09:12:43.337-07:00More on my iPhone 7 after a bit of time has pastMy experiences with my iPhone 7 seem notably negative. Things I experience, and experience often:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>My headphone buttons become unresponsive, in part or in whole. For example, this morning, I could start/stop a podcast, but not change the volume. Unplug/replug headphones fixes it. I do that multiple times every day. This is still happening with iOS 10.1. (This is with native lightning headphones).</li>
<li>Siri - I ask for a song or an album, Siri shows on the screen that I am understood, and then Siri decides instead to play all of my music. Examples: I listen to Exit by Tangerine Dream. I say, "Siri, play album Exit". Siri understood but did something else! This seems better in iOS 10.1, thankfully.</li>
<li>Siri - when I am with my family, I try to push the home button to activate Siri and make a request. The timing seems impossible much of the time. I hold down and then let go of the home button, but the flowing "I'm listening" graphic does not show up at the bottom of the screen. Maybe Siri is already trying to interpret what my family is saying around me - I'm not sure. Some time later Siri tells me it does not understand, and I can push the microphone and try again and that typically works reasonably. This does seem a bit better in iOS 10.1.</li>
<li>iPhone 7 hang/crash - home button not working, I cannot stop music/podcasts... I have to hold both the power button and the down volume button to reboot (we'll see if this continues with iOS 10.1)</li>
<li> iphone 7 crash and reboot - I find I must type my password, often, when I pull my iphone out of my pocket, about every other day. It has rebooted and will not accept my fingerprint. I do not know why.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-11290313079521799022016-09-21T18:40:00.002-07:002016-09-21T18:40:45.686-07:00Shipping and the iPhone 7 - a warning and an interesting pathI ordered 2 iPhone 7s. They were both to arrive some time at the end of the month. And then, they were to come today!<br />
<br />
One iphone showed up Monday. I happened to be in the shower at the exact moment the delivery attempt happened. But with a wonderful UPS driver, he came back later and delivered! That was a very happy experience.<br />
<br />
Knowing I might not be available the precise second a delivery was attempted, and not wanting to pre-sign for the iphone and worrying it could be stolen, I changed the delivery location for the second iphone to a local UPS Store. <b>DO NOT DO THIS</b>.<br />
<br />
The outcomes from this action:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>My iphone was in the US when I changed the destination (by about 1 mile). It went back to China! It was in China 3 times total in the end. This travelling miracle was completed in only a couple of days.</li>
<li>Once it was ready for delivery today, they had an address problem. Wait. How can UPS have an address problem with a UPS Store? UPS Stores are not part of UPS. Not really. They are franchise businesses. I am not sure if it is because of a deal with Apple, or packages requiring signature, but the iPhone could not be left with a UPS Store. But the online status did not say this. It said, "Your package is in transit. We're updating plans to schedule your delivery. / The package will be forwarded to a UPS facility in the destination city." I had that message the day I made the request, as well as this morning.</li>
<li>A bit later today I saw, "Directions to the address are required to complete delivery. We are attempting to update this information. / The address was corrected." The correct interpretation of this is, "We aren't allowed to deliver it how you asked. We didn't bother to tell you that. When we feel like it, we'll get back to you, but definitely not today."</li>
<li>I called UPS, waited on the phone for a while, eventually got to talk to a person. After a while, they said, "Oh, this is an Apple shipment. I have to transfer you to a special team dealing with Apple shipments." So I waited for a while and got to a person. I came to understand that the UPS Store delivery was not an option. Can they fix it so this problem does not happen to anyone else? No. Otherwise, my conversation went something like this:</li>
<ol>
<li>So... what is an option? Delivery to my original address, or depot pickup. Where is my iphone? At the depot. Can I go pick it up? Not until tomorrow. But, it is not on a truck? It is at the depot? Yes. But I cannot pick it up now? I can pick it up tomorrow. I will need to change my delivery preferences online. They cannot do it for me now on the phone? No. (eventually they did change it for me). I continued asking if I could pick it up today. They eventually called the depot and told me to expect a call in an hour. But an hour from now is very near when they close...</li>
</ol>
<li>I had gotten driving to the depot during the end of the conversation. I had clearly written the tracking number, my name, and address on a piece of paper. I asked for help at the depot. They gave me the iphone (with ID). </li>
</ol>
<div>
What did I learn</div>
<div>
1) Don't change the destination</div>
<div>
2) If you do, change it to the depot.</div>
<div>
3) Never use a UPS Store if you can avoid it. (I have had other UPS Store problems, but never related to Apple before)</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-16950315939038254692016-09-20T08:31:00.001-07:002016-09-20T08:31:22.031-07:00Partial iPhone 7 experienceI have upgraded from an iPhone 6 to iPhone 7 with 256GB of storage. It has all of the amazing feature upgrades (remember I'm mentioning 6-7 NOT 6s to 7):<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Better screen that some have called the <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/19/iphone-7-best-lcd-display-ever-displaymate/amp/">best screen ever</a></li>
<ul>
<li>Wide color gamut</li>
<li>625 nits - brightest ever on an iPhone (only the new Apple Watch is brighter at 1000 nits) for better performance while in bright light.</li>
</ul>
<li>Double max storage at 256GB</li>
<li>An A10 fusion CPU that is reputedly 2x the speed, 3x faster on graphics, but also more efficient with an additional 2 slower cores with an even better motion M10 co-processor.</li>
<li>Double the RAM at 2GB</li>
<li>So much better camera:</li>
<ul>
<li>12MP main/iSight camera instead of 8MP</li>
<li>Wider color range</li>
<li>Image stabilization (previously only on the 6S plus)</li>
<li>4k video</li>
<li>f/1.8 - better low light performance</li>
<li>also from 6S level - live photos, slow motion support (120fps video)</li>
</ul>
<li>Better facetime/front camera at 7MP up from 1.2MP</li>
<li>Bigger battery - 1960mAH instead of 1810mAH, with a reputed 1-2 hour boost in life (have not tested this yet myself)</li>
<li>Faster LTE with carrier aggregation - 2-3x faster depending on carrier</li>
<li>Siri is improved, and able, like on the 6S, to listen at all times (if you enable this feature)</li>
<li>3D touch (like 6S)</li>
<li>waterproof (only for shallow dunks. Called water resistant. DO NOT TAKE IT IN THE POOL!)</li>
<li>lift to wake screen</li>
<li>No more headphone jack</li>
<li>Replaced home button with taptic response non-button (works great for me!)</li>
<li>Taptic Engine - slowly learning how to enjoy using it!</li>
</ul>
<div>
My experience so far has had some unexpected twists and turns</div>
<div>
1) I had to upgrade iOS from who knows what to 10.0.1 as soon as I received it. This interrupted my iCloud recovery. So I upgraded, reset many settings, and then had to erase all data and settings to recover from iCloud. Very weird, and I felt lucky in knowing how to do this. I wished I had not made any settings.</div>
<div>
2) Siri:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>always on is spotty. So far this has worked better from the headphone adapter and headphones than from lightning headphones</li>
<li>Things that always used to work - hey Siri play album Exit (Exit by Tangerine Dream) left me playing all music shuffled. On screen it showed that Siri heard me, it was just that Siri no longer seemed to understand what these words mean. That is sad. Also Siri turn music down was interpreted to try to play some song called Down. I have also had this work, so it is hit and miss.</li>
</ul>
<div>
3) No headphone jack</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>If you want to use old headphones and charge, get an <a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightning-dock-white">Apple Lightning Dock</a>. But what if you want to use lightning headphones while charging? You will have to wait for a <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12852098/belkin-apple-iphone-7-plus-adapter-dongle-charge-music">3rd party MFI product coming out in October</a> for $40. Or in the car, if you still use headphones? A dock, really? This is going to push some folks to use a battery pack case like <a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MN002LL/A/iphone-7-smart-battery-case-black">Apple's bulgy version for iPhone 7</a>.</li>
</ul>
<div>
4) Big text stops me from seeing some device data</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>This is not a new issue for iPhone 7, but if you have text set via Accessibility features, it is not possible to see your whole hardware wireless address (MAC addr). Some people need this to set up secure wireless connections. Turning this off did not work for me - I had to adjust the size to a smaller size to see the whole address. This was just a minor one-time hiccup. </li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
5) Problems others have reported that I thankfully have not experienced</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>The hiss: <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/hissing-iphone-7-coil-noise/">http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/hissing-iphone-7-coil-noise/</a></li>
<li>Headphone buttons (and mic) stop working: <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/19/apple-working-on-fix-for-iphone-7-lightning-earpods-remote-control-issue">http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/19/apple-working-on-fix-for-iphone-7-lightning-earpods-remote-control-issue</a></li>
<li>Airplane mode disconnecting the phone from the cellular carrier: <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/19/iphone-7-no-service-airplane-mode-issue/">http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/19/iphone-7-no-service-airplane-mode-issue/</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
6) iTunes server - if at all out-of-date, will not work with iOS 10.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>If you have a somewhat aged machine acting as your iTunes server, it will not even try to let you sync your media. I was aware that this was likely going to be the case, but I am waiting to upgrade (probably to a new Mac mini once they are/are not announced in October). So bear this in mind if you are upgrading</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
I was originally told my iphone 7 would arrive at the end of September, but it arrived more than 1 week earlier! That was great!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm enjoying using all of the features that are new to me like live photos, 3D touch...</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll update this post at the top as I use it more in the next few days.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-77502881077202891002016-09-04T18:42:00.001-07:002016-09-12T13:46:20.457-07:00Recent iPhone 6 battery problems<br />
<br />
UPDATE: A replacement iPhone 6 has fixed my battery issues and has fixed other problems I had forgotten about, such as errant triggering of ApplePay and the fact that taking screenshots was nearly impossible. It is back to being a pleasure to use again! I wish I had that months ago, but no one suggested these issues could be hardware related.<br />
<br />
----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
I have not been blogging about Apple. When I am less enchanted with my Apple experience, I am much less interested in blogging about it.<br />
<br />
I have been having iPhone 6 battery issues for more than 6 months. Problems are in 2 core categories:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Poor battery life - a full charge sometimes lasts less than 2 hours.</li>
<li>Shut off when the iPhone indicates that it still has power - It looks like I have 20-30% power, and suddenly my iPhone is powered off with no notice. In this case, sometimes I can turn it back on, and sometimes it indicates that I must plug it in to turn it on. In both cases, once I plug it into power, once it turns on, it shows 20-30% power.</li>
</ol>
<div>
My attempts to remediate:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Try 1: I went to an Apple store for a Genius Bar appointment to help.</li>
<ul><ul>
<li>I was assured that the condition of all hardware involved was good. My battery was in good condition.</li>
<li>we performed a reset of all settings</li>
<li>shut off nearly all background activity</li>
<li>shut off location services access for most apps, and "always" access for any app that had it. I ended up deleting Waze as part of that effort.</li>
</ul>
<li>In the end, this consumed time and was not effective. My battery life was a bit longer with some background activity no longer happening.</li>
</ul>
<li>Try 2: I did an online chat with Apple Support to try to fix the problem. I was guided to reinstall iOS from scratch and then recover from iCloud. After a 2 hour process in chat, the icloud recovery was starting. In the morning once I logged into my iPhone, app downloads and photo syncing. After 24 hours, a few more hours of re-doing logins and re-doing all of my 2-factor setups not based on SMS, I was back to normal use.</li>
<ul>
<li>This proved not effective. I was able to get screen shots of my iPhone going from full to 1% battery use in 1 hour 50 minutes. I plugged it in, and within 2 minutes showed 60% battery capacity available.</li>
</ul>
<li>Try 3: I had another online chat with Apple Support some days later. Although I had my iPhone set to send debugging data, Apple was not getting it. After an hour of getting my debug data to Apple Support, I was told to take my iPhone to a store.</li>
<li>Try 4: Back for a Genius Bar appointment. I was assured by my last Apple Support call that the store would have all appropriate history and be ready to help.</li>
<ul><ul>
<li>A full diagnosis was performed. This appeared to be a repeat of the last diagnosis done online with Apple Support. My battery shows as still in good condition, but just barely.</li>
<li>Instead I showed the Apple Genius the history from my emails from Apple Support. </li>
<li>The Apple Store showed that there was no location nearby with my model of iPhone for replacement.</li>
</ul>
<li>I was told that it might be a corrupt file, and rebuilding without iCloud recovery was strongly recommended.</li>
<ul>
<li>When I asked how I would get back to normal use on my iPhone, there was no answer. The idea seemed to mostly be that I had to go back to acting like I had not been an iPhone user for years. Eventually I was assured that I would only lose my call history and text history.</li>
<li>I brought up that I have an iTunes server with media, and that I sync many types of media, and that that configuration would be forgotten as well. There is no solution to that problem.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
So I thus far have no solution. I have these comments:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>As a result of my battery problems, I was probably charging my iPhone much more often than it was designed to be charged, degrading my battery condition.</li>
<li>Drove twice to apple stores and spend many many hours and did not get resolution.</li>
<li>I am told a corrupt file is involved, and that some apps and core functions are crashing, and that this is related to my iPhone having battery issues. When I asked if this was due to a bug in iOS, that is not known. So even if I took further steps, if it is a corrupt file could I have to go through this whole problem set again? Yes. Was it due to a specific app or apps that I could delete to avoid the problem? No. That to me implies it is an iOS bug.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I am glad Apple is willing to replace my iPhone as they are contracted to do, but the whole experience is painful.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-51258940136686564822016-05-07T20:35:00.000-07:002016-05-07T20:35:24.793-07:00Apple Photo services - experience and concernsI use many Apple products and services. I find that there are some confusing choices Apple has made, and I cannot guess at how they make sense to Apple product management.<br />
<br />
I have used Photo Stream for quite a long time. I have family members who do not otherwise use iCloud, who are set up to use my Apple ID for Photo Stream. We use/used this for:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>automatic sharing of photos we take</li>
<li>looking at photos we take on Apple TV via Photo Stream</li>
<li>enabling download and saving of photos family members take to the core photo library on my computer</li>
<li>We delete photos after sharing that I did not mean to share for a variety of reasons</li>
</ul>
This shows up in a photo album My Photo Stream.<br />
<br />
When iCloud Photo Library became available, the features were really attractive:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>My entire photo library is sync'ed and available on configured Apple devices!</li>
<li>My entire photo library is available on the web via icloud.com</li>
<li>All photos I take from configured devices are part of my entire photo library</li>
<li>I do pay for iCloud storage to have enough room for all of my photos.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Problems using both:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>With the iPhoto OS X app before, I could see and download My Photo Stream photos to my photo library. With the Photos OS X app and iCloud Photos on my iPhone:</li>
<ul>
<li>I cannot see photos in My Photo Stream</li>
<li>I cannot delete photos in My Photo Stream</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<br />
I was unable to find documentation about this feature change, and feature lack. Apple support staff had inconsistent information. Apple support staff cannot explain how I might be able to access or delete photos from My Photo Stream.<br />
<br />
So what am I doing?<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I use an iPad to access My Photo Stream, and on rare occasions use that to save photos to my computer sync'ed from the iPad.</li>
<li>I am living with no longer having immediate access to My Photo Stream.</li>
<li>Wishing Apple made different service decisions...</li>
</ul>
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-34112101962984288092015-09-13T09:09:00.000-07:002015-09-13T09:09:43.701-07:00Summary and some thoughts on the September 9 2015 Apple Event<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The feedback from many pundits after the event has been that the event was underwhelming. This has been common feedback after many events in the last few years. Looking at all of the new technology and renewed partnerships, this seems crazy. I think our ability to absorb and comprehend, or even guess, at the impact of the outcomes from this announcement, is reduced by just how huge the announcements are.</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Apple has continued to come out with products that are superior to all existing solutions in the space - I'm thinking of the Apple Pencil.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Apple continues to focus on various applications related to healthcare, giving people greater access to their health data and giving medical professionals access to that data as well.</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Apple Watch:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>What I am hoping for but have been unable to confirm is in Watch OS2:</li>
<ul>
<li>more reliable connectivity to the iPhone</li>
</ul>
<li>Partnership with Hermes for bands and a watch face</li>
<li>Gold and Rose Gold - anodized aluminum sport models</li>
<li>Stainless Steel Product Red</li>
<li>New vibrant hues and neutral hues</li>
<li>New models and bands available immediately</li>
<li>Watch OS 2 - September 16</li>
</ul>
What I am hoping for in iOS9 on new hardware and old:<br />
<ul class="ul1"><ul>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">audiobooks in ibooks that work - remembering location, allowing scrubbing</span></li>
<li class="li1">better navigation in music - more like what we used to have, with easy access to playlists.</li>
<li class="li1">reliable use of and better navigation of my large on-network iTunes library</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span class="s1">iPad:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The all-all new iPad Pro:</li>
<ul>
<li>12.9" retina screen - 2732x2048</li>
<ul>
<li>Large enough to require a custom timing controller, also uses a variable refresh rate for energy efficiency</li>
<li>New technology to make the screen bright, sharp, with excellent contrast and uniformity</li>
<li>greater touch and multi-touch accuracy</li>
</ul>
<li>1.57 lbs</li>
<li>12"x8.68"x0.27" (thinner than the original iPad Air)</li>
<li>4 new speakers with more sound chamber space on the interior of the iPad Pro to enhance frequency range for excellent sound in any orientation</li>
<li>A smart connector for accessories, such as the smart keyboard, for powering the accessory and for communications</li>
<li>A9X CPU</li>
<ul>
<li>1.8x the CPU performance of the A8X</li>
<li>2x the GPU performance of the A8X</li>
<li>vastly faster storage controller</li>
<li>Like the A9, has a built-in M9 always-on motion co-processor</li>
<li>Adobe says it has 4GB RAM</li>
</ul>
<li>10 hour battery life</li>
<li>802.11ac with MIMO - similar to wired 1Gb connectivity</li>
<li>The same facetime (front) and iSight (back) cameras as the iPad Air 2</li>
<li>Cellular:</li>
<ul>
<li>20 LTE bands, up to 150Mbps via LTE, and uses Apple SIM</li>
</ul>
<li>Apple Pencil</li>
<ul>
<li>It is pressure sensitive, and angle-sensitive</li>
<li>It is engineered to work with iPad pro for highly sensitive high resolution and lag-free use.</li>
<li>12 hours of battery life, 30 minutes more from 15 seconds of charging via lightning to iPad Pro</li>
<li>$100</li>
</ul>
<li>Smart Keyboard</li>
<ul>
<li>Built for iPad Pro, uses the new smart connector</li>
<li>Has what you need for keyboard shortcuts</li>
<li>$169</li>
</ul>
<li>Coming in November</li>
<ul>
<li>32GB $799</li>
<li>128GB $949</li>
<li>128GB with cellular $1079</li>
</ul>
<li>Developer support</li>
<ul>
<li>Microsoft with the office suite of productivity apps - core initial support for iPad Pro - Microsoft is back making software for the best platforms!</li>
<li>Adobe - is back with core support for this new Apple platform!</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>iPad Mini 4:</li>
<ul>
<li>Most the power of the iPad Air 2 in a small package, but with the A8 instead of the A8X.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p1">
iPhones:<br />
<ul class="ul1"><ul>
</ul>
<li>Updated iPhones - for both new phones: </li>
<ul>
<li>also comes in rose gold (keeping silver, gold, space gray)</li>
<li>new glass - dual ion exchange - like the Apple Watch</li>
<li>3D Touch</li>
<ul>
<li>not just tap/swipe/pinch</li>
<li>force is recognized - peek and pop</li>
<li>allows shortcuts on the home screen and fully in Apple apps some other apps (facebook, instagram</li>
<ul>
<li>light = peek at data</li>
<li>heavy = pop into app</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>tactile feedback - taptic engine</li>
<li>uses capacitive sensors </li>
</ul>
<li>Apple custom alloy of 7000 series Aluminum - like the Apple Watch</li>
<li>A9</li>
<ul>
<li>70% faster than A8 for CPU (iPhone 6)</li>
<li>90% faster for graphics than A8</li>
<li>built-in motion co-processor M9 - always on with this integration</li>
<li>hey siri can be always on too</li>
</ul>
<li>2nd gen touchID sensor</li>
<ul>
<li>2x faster</li>
</ul>
<li>Camera</li>
<ul>
<li>Back:</li>
<ul>
<li>12MP iSight</li>
<li>50% more pixels, 50% more focus pixels</li>
<li>deep trench isolation - separates photo diodes for better color with more pixels</li>
<ul>
<li>low noise</li>
</ul>
<li>thus bigger panoramas - 63MPixel, for example</li>
<li>4K video - 8 million pixels/frame</li>
<li>(edit 4K video too!)</li>
</ul>
<li>Front: </li>
<ul>
<li>5MP facetime camera (front)</li>
<li>screen is the flash!</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>live photos - include a mini-video - 3 seconds - with every video, taking almost no additional space</li>
<ul>
<li>developer apis for live photos - facebook will support them this year</li>
</ul>
<li>Wireless</li>
<ul>
<li>LTE Advanced - 2x faster</li>
<li>23 bands - best for roaming</li>
<li>2x faster wifi</li>
</ul>
<li>iOS9 - Sept 16</li>
<li>new charging docs</li>
<li>new phone covers/cases</li>
<li>pre-order Sept 12</li>
<li>available Sept 25</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul class="ul1">
</ul>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">iPhone upgrade program</span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">This is an warranty and replacement agreement</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Different prices for different models$32.41-$44.91/mo</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Is a 24-month installment for $777.84-$1077.84</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">you can upgrade every year, or keep a phone free and clear after 24 months</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">these unlocked phones able to connect to any provider</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Yahoo! summarized the program well: <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/apples-iphone-upgrade-program-know-120005936.html">https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/apples-iphone-upgrade-program-know-120005936.html</a></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">iCloud storage - 1/2 price, I believe by Sept 16:</span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">50Gb $0.99/mo</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">200Gb $2.99/mo</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">1TB $9.99/mo</span></li>
<li class="li1">no more 500Gb plan</li>
</ul>
<div>
Apple TV</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>What I am hoping for once units are more fully tested:</li>
<ul>
<li>Stability for Netflix:</li>
<ul>
<li>not getting kicked out of watching when I pause</li>
<li>not having issues just watching content several times per week (that I do not see with other devices)</li>
</ul>
<li>Much better navigation:</li>
<ul>
<li>Something like bookmarks so I can switch between content I'm watching in a way that is like switching apps on an iPhone - just an easy 1-2 steps back and forth</li>
<li>Much better navigation within Netflix so there are not as many steps</li>
<li>Much better navigation within iTunes content so that I do not have so many many many steps</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Why is it a big deal?</li>
<ul>
<li>the new remote:</li>
<ul>
<li>Siri integration:</li>
<ul>
<li>Search across your iTunes library, Netflix, HBO, and Showtime</li>
<li>filter/narrow your search once you start to look for content</li>
</ul>
<li>Touch - allows single-finger gestures to greatly enhance navigation</li>
<li>frankly it acts like a Wii remote for the games and apps as well with accelerometer and gyroscope</li>
<li>Bluetooth connection to Apple TV</li>
<li>IR to control the volume on your TV</li>
</ul>
<li>App store</li>
<ul>
<li>Games!</li>
<li>TV channels are real apps with much more depth in how they can behave, and with the new remote, input options are hugely expanded.</li>
<li>iPod touch and iPhone can act as a remote, for up to four players.</li>
</ul>
<li>Overall - you can get more information about your TV shows and movies as you watch, or get other information as integrated with Siri (like sports scores and weather information).</li>
</ul>
<li>It's a bit taller - 1.4"</li>
<li>32GB and 64GB storage models - for applications</li>
<li>A8 processor (same as iPhone 6)</li>
<li>Ports:</li>
<ul>
<li>10-100 ethernet (really?)</li>
<li>usb-c (not for consumer use - for service and support)</li>
<li>HDMI 1.4</li>
<ul>
<li>CEC (Consumer Electronic Control) support (turns on your TV, for example) - see a great iMore article about this: <a href="http://www.imore.com/how-new-apple-tv-turns-your-tv-switches-inputs-and-controls-volume">http://www.imore.com/how-new-apple-tv-turns-your-tv-switches-inputs-and-controls-volume</a></li>
</ul>
<li>802.11ac with MIMO</li>
<li>IR receiver (for HDMI integrations)</li>
</ul>
<li>all-new Siri remote</li>
<ul>
<li>glass touch surface</li>
<li>bluetooth 4.0 (to talk to the Apple TV without infrared)</li>
<li>Accelerometer</li>
<li>Gyroscope</li>
<li>dual microphones</li>
<li>IR transmitter (to control other devices)</li>
</ul>
<li>available late October</li>
<li>There is no 4K support with this model.</li>
<li>You will need an HDMI cable - C|Net has a good article about them: <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-cable-buying-guide/">http://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-cable-buying-guide/</a></li>
<ul>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-29696941276754536772015-08-18T11:34:00.001-07:002015-08-18T11:34:03.578-07:00Some thoughts on ios9 and OS X El Capitan from a non-userI have not used iOS9 or OS X El Capitan, so these thoughts are based on Apple's announcements and observations from the Apple reporting community. These releases are in public beta, and are available for normal release this fall.<br />
<br />
What is new in El Capitan? Here is a quick summary based mostly on Apple's announcement page: http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Split Screen to look at two apps in full screen view.</li>
<li>advanced Mission Control to organize your windows.</li>
<li>cursor finding capabilities - it can get big with a shake</li>
<li>updated spotlight - you can move and size the spotlight window, search many other kinds of content (from the internet) including transit information, and use natural language for queries.</li>
<li>mail has many updated features:</li>
<ul>
<li>full screen features enabling cut and paste across multiple threads</li>
<li>just like in iOS, we can now swipe to delete messages</li>
<li>more context sensitivity for adding contacts and events based on email messages</li>
</ul>
<li>Notes is a much more fully featured app that some say will be able to compete with Evernote. Images fit right in to notes, and there is an attachments browser.</li>
<li>Photos</li>
<ul>
<li>3rd party filters</li>
<li>3rd party plugins for photo editing</li>
<li>location editing for a photo or an event is now possible (again)</li>
</ul>
<li>Safari</li>
<ul>
<li>Pinned sites for favorite websites</li>
<li>Air Play for web video (without sharing your whole screen)</li>
<li>The ability to mute all or other tabs</li>
</ul>
<li>Maps</li>
<ul>
<li>Public Transit information</li>
<li>time-based planning for a future trip</li>
</ul>
<li>Better language support (for non-English languages)</li>
<li>Performance</li>
<ul>
<li>Metal graphics performance comes to OS X</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
What is new in iOS 9? https://www.apple.com/ios/ios9-preview/</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>A news app</li>
<li>An update to the Notes app (which matches new features in OS X Notes) including an attachments browser, checklists, and sketches</li>
<li>Maps</li>
<ul>
<li>Transit, matching OS X features</li>
<li>A new nearby feature to find shopping and restaurants</li>
</ul>
<li>Passbook becomes Wallet</li>
<ul>
<li>your rewards/loyalty cards can in many cases will be part of Wallet.</li>
<li>A double-click to the home button activates Apple Pay.</li>
</ul>
<li>Carplay - major updates enabling using car knobs and applications from automakers.</li>
<li>Features for new iPads</li>
<ul>
<li>Slide-over to have a 2nd app on the right 3rd of the screen.</li>
<li>Split view to have two apps shown 50/50</li>
<li>Picture in Picture - watch a video while using another application!</li>
<li>Quicktype:</li>
<ul>
<li>Shortcut bar - Icons for cut, copy, paste, and fonts</li>
<li>Easy text selection - using multi-touch gestures on the on-screen keyboard to do text selection</li>
<li>Keyboard shortcuts - for external hardware keyboards</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Siri - is supposed to be much more intelligent</li>
<ul>
<li>context aware regarding photo and video information</li>
<li>can create context-aware reminders, based on what application you are currently using.</li>
<li>Deep search within apps</li>
<li>guesses for caller ID for unidentified callers?!?</li>
</ul>
<li>Performance</li>
<ul>
<li>power-savings across built-in iOS9 apps will enable longer battery life - 1 hour is claimed</li>
<li>built-in iOS9 apps use metal for faster performance</li>
<li>iOS updates stream and require much less free space to enable updates</li>
</ul>
<li>2-factor authentication for your AppleID means your old </li>
<li>Android migration</li>
<ul>
<li>Migrates much of your content automatically</li>
<li>Helps you re-download (or buy) applications on your Android device.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-73110736955407400242015-08-18T10:53:00.001-07:002015-08-18T10:53:30.772-07:00Frustrated with Music and iBooks on iOSI am frustrated with Music and iBooks on iOS 8. There have quietly been some fixes in iOS 8.4.1. Note: I am not using Apple's new Apple Music service. I do, however, happen to have and use iTunes Match.<br />
<br />
I'll start with iBooks:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Peeve 1: Until the recent fix, my iTunes server on OS X 10.7.5 was recently changed by Apple to no-longer know about Audiobooks. It would import them, and then hide them. No syncing of new audiobooks for users to iOS devices. Thankfully, that has been fixed!</li>
<li>Peeve 2: iBooks does not remember my place in audiobooks reliably at all. I am not the only one experiencing this problem. Often iBooks puts me back at the start of a book. </li>
<li>Peeve 3: iBooks often does not allow me to scan through to a point in a chapter - instead always showing that I am at 0.00 until the next chapter starts. This is very frustrating.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Now on to Music:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>The horizontal view in music went from cover flow (a while ago) to some other cover view, which was not at all useful, to no longer having a horizontal view. Where did the horizontal view go? Why can I not have a useful horizontal view?</li>
<li> I never know what I'm going to get when I open the music app. For example, I'm listening to a music playlist, and my iPhone was locked. I unlocked and opened the music app, and the Radio choice is showing. Why is Radio showing? I'm not using radio at this time.</li>
<li>How do I see what I am listening to - i.e. a playlist I previously selected? There is a tiny three-dots "button" to the right of the tiny line near the bottom that... doesn't get me back to the playlist. It lets me "Start Station" - a radio station based on the current song. Miracle of miracles, this time, when I clicked on My Music, I am back in my playlist. I wonder if there was a fix in 8.4.1? Usually I'm back in my music somewhere and have to re-select playlists and then reselect the playlist as the only way to get back to it.</li>
<li>How do I play the playlist over and over? I see no controls for this in music any longer! The controls are available when selecting the current playing song only, as a tiny icon in 2nd from the right. It has the same 3 options as it always had - it just isn't available on the playlist screen any longer</li>
<li>Is it on my iPhone or not? I'm getting on a plane... Ah a fix with 8.4.1 - I can see with a tiny icon on the right next to the song now. </li>
<li><br /></li>
</ul>
Bonus peeve: outages in the Apple Store - I tried to redeem a free song on a Starbucks card from Apple - but I cannot as the store is unavailable. Adding insult to injury, I had to retype my AppleID password to check every time. Not fun Apple.</div>
<div>
<br /><div>
I have been known by some for watching news about Apple and information from Apple with a large amount of attention. Apple feels much less transparent about these kinds of problems and changes now. That greatly disappoints me. It feels more like what I hear from Android users, frankly.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I reveled in being able to get an elderly relative to use an iPhone when not familiar with using the internet. Now these items are getting less self-explanatory, quietly having new major feature problems, and videos and manuals are needed to know how to use them. It is not what I expect.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-83755197091490716602015-07-15T22:01:00.002-07:002015-07-15T22:01:45.961-07:00So I tried an Apple watchI was able to borrow an Apple Watch sport for a week. I had the black strap. My experiences had good and bad in them:<br />
<br />
The good:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Setup was a breeze.</li>
<li>Setup of Apple Pay was easy as well.</li>
<li>Notifications on the watch were convenient compared to pulling out my iPhone</li>
<li>Siri voice recognition seemed superior to the iPhone experience. Not having it talk back worked.</li>
<li>I had fun turing the playing app (I used Apple Music and iBooks for audiobooks) off and on with the watch. It made it much easier to use non-Apple earbuds without controls.</li>
<li>Resetting the Apple Watch to factory resets (erasing it) was a breeze and I was helpfully notified that Apple Pay was then un-configured.</li>
</ul>
<div>
The bad:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I wear long sleeved dress shirts often. It is one thing to pull up a cuff to see a watch face. It is another thing to to do so to interact. It is not a good experience. Roll up that cuff or the Apple Watch is much less useful.</li>
<li>You do have to read the instructions and study.</li>
<ul>
<li>I had luck and my first Apple Pay use worked flawlessly. My 2nd and 3rd failed miserably and I gave up. I then watched the video that said you had to press the 2nd button twice. That is not an intuitive behavior. It is learnable - but it is indicative of the approach.</li>
<li>I had some random few photos on my watch. I'm not sure which ones, and I did not watch any videos to find out what was going on - it was a strange not useful experience.</li>
<li><br /></li>
</ul>
<li>Connectivity between my Apple Watch and my iPhone was spotty. This caused bad behavior:</li>
<ul>
<li>I did not get some imessage alerts. My phone did not vibrate, I assume, because I had the watch on. But the watch did not sometimes get the alerts so, no alerts. Thus message alerts became less reliable. For a while, I wondered if I just did not feel the wrist vibrate. It took testing to verify that this was the problem.</li>
<li>I use Duo Mobile for 2-factor authentication. When it worked, it was brilliant. Sometimes the 2--factor message did not get back and authentication did not happen.</li>
</ul>
<li>iOS 8.4 iBooks audiobooks has bugs. Sometimes I was unable to properly navigate within sections/chapters. Usually I can move to the middle of the chapter on my iPhone screen. This works most of the time with Apple Watch unpaired, but does fail sometimes. It worked none of the time with Apple Watch paired for me. </li>
<li>The sport band was very uncomfortable for me. It was hard to make it tight enough so that heart rate information could be gathered. Making it tight and then also slipping the end of the band inside (making it tighter) made it more uncomfortable. For me, it felt cheap. </li>
<li>The back of the Apple Watch was uncomfortable to me as well.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Other... annoyances to me;</div>
<ul>
<li>My watch is fully waterproof to 100 meters, and warrantied to that effect. That happens to be a feature I want. Apple seems to be playing games with the water proofing rating. It is listed as water resistant but I should hold it under water to make the bezel spin freely? Why not go farther and make it clear that using it in a pool does not break the warranty?</li>
<li>For just using a watch, I prefer my watch. It is easier to read.</li>
<li>I had hoped the Apple Watch could help wake me up without even a phone vibrate (I can recharge it during the day to keep it on at night). The wrist tap was less reliable than a phone vibrate.</li>
</ul>
<div>
This version is clearly not my cup of tea.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-21269300480555711772015-04-27T20:51:00.002-07:002015-04-27T21:51:47.412-07:00More articles about Apple's Q2 2015 than you can shake a stick atPerhaps you are better at shaking a stick than I. This is more articles abut Apple's Q2 2015 than I am able to shake a stick at:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/04/apple-quarterly-results-more-iphones-more-profits/#more">http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/04/apple-quarterly-results-more-iphones-more-profits/#more</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/27/notes-of-interest-from-apples-q2-2015-conference-call">http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/27/notes-of-interest-from-apples-q2-2015-conference-call</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-reports-record-2nd-quarter-with-61.1-million-iphones-sold">http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-reports-record-2nd-quarter-with-61.1-million-iphones-sold</a></li>
<li><a href="http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarter-2015-earnings/">http://qz.com/392202/were-live-charting-apples-second-quarter-2015-earnings/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/27/apple-q2-2015-earnings/">http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/27/apple-q2-2015-earnings/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/320838/11-key-takeaways-from-apples-latest-blockbuster-financial-quarter/">http://www.cultofmac.com/320838/11-key-takeaways-from-apples-latest-blockbuster-financial-quarter/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/2915318/apples-killer-q2-61-2-million-iphones-sold-13-6-billion-in-profit.html">http://www.macworld.com/article/2915318/apples-killer-q2-61-2-million-iphones-sold-13-6-billion-in-profit.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://9to5mac.com/2015/04/27/fy15-q2-earnings-call/">http://9to5mac.com/2015/04/27/fy15-q2-earnings-call/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.imore.com/tim-our-transcript-cook-apples-q2-earnings">http://www.imore.com/tim-our-transcript-cook-apples-q2-earnings</a></li>
<li><a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/27/apples-q2-2015-iphone-6-is-still-star-of-the-show-ipads-are-still-weak/">http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/27/apples-q2-2015-iphone-6-is-still-star-of-the-show-ipads-are-still-weak/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/04/27Apple-Reports-Record-Second-Quarter-Results.html">http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/04/27Apple-Reports-Record-Second-Quarter-Results.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.appleworld.today/blog/2015/4/27/awt-news-update-april-27-2015">http://www.appleworld.today/blog/2015/4/27/awt-news-update-april-27-2015</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
I have just a few of comments:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>China is bigger than the US for iPhone! Wow. Huge growth! BRIC up 64% YoY.</li>
<li>iPad sales - I think they are mostly not growing due to iPhone 6 plus sales.</li>
<li>iPhone 6 sales may be driving mac sales and vice versa. Next quarter Apple Watch will do the same.</li>
</ul>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-74004270257019220222015-04-23T21:55:00.000-07:002015-04-24T08:40:29.685-07:00State of Apple April 2015The pundits and counter-pundits are working on Apple big time. I believe in Apple's bright financial future at this moment. Why? Below I summarize, prognosticate, I express my opinion.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Computers:</li>
<ul>
<li>The Apple Macbook Air 13" and Apple Macbook Pro 13" are both high performance powerhouses that have had important internals updated.</li>
<ul>
<li>The newer faster storage is, for some, an easing of a pain point.</li>
<li>The force-touch trackpad is a welcome technology update. Those who like Apple's work with additional gestures welcome another gesture - force touch.</li>
</ul>
<li>The Apple Macbook 12" is new, interesting, something folks are talking about and trying out, and reminds many of the first Macbook Air. It is very much different than other products on the market. While I do not want one now, I foresee that there could be one in my future at some point:</li>
<ul>
<li>A new standard in portability</li>
<li>Thinner and lighter</li>
<li>Somehow fitting in a retina display</li>
<li>Minuscule power use</li>
<li>Also with the force-touch trackpad</li>
<li>Colors to go with other devices such as iPhone and iPad</li>
<li>With a new thinner keyboard that some love, some do not like</li>
<li>With no more magsafe power, but with only one physical port (aside from a jack for headphones) - the USB-C port. No one seems to know how to usefully use this port, yet, for anything other than power.</li>
<li>Battery life is not the best. Some call it a netbook. The port situation is not what many want - they want magsafe, and ports they can readily use, or more ports than just the one. There will, however, be a group of users who buy and love the features. If you don't want it, don't buy it. I will not be among buyers this round, but this kind of feature diversity is great. I do not at all equate this system with a netbook, or even the underpowered original macbook air.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Apple Watch:</li>
<ul>
<li>I am not getting one, at least not at this time. However, I think Apple is operating in a very smart way to push farther into fashion than they already were with their well designed sleek devices. I want sleep tracking, and I can get that with other devices if I so choose. </li>
<li>There are already watch bands in the wild from Apple that are not for sale. There will be more watch bands from Apple, and more from competitors. This accessory market will be large and could more than double Apple's sales value from the product.</li>
<li>I still strongly believe Apple will "frequently" update Apple watch with new designs. There will be Apple Watch 2015, and Apple Watch 2016 (or 2017). Some will buy for design updates, and some will collect. All of this will make people happy and make Apple money. There will also be new bands at all price ranges.</li>
</ul>
<li>Other product updates coming:</li>
<ul>
<li>Apple TV - I am waiting to see an app store and a newer better experience with all the crazy channels avaialble.</li>
<li>iPod - a touch based on updated internals would be welcome, including force touch</li>
<li>iMac - 8K</li>
<li>Mac Pro - for real pro users, this is getting long in the tooth. The CPU line at least is aging. Update the CPUs, put in newer faster memory, and put in the newer faster flash storage too.</li>
<li>iPhone/iPad - Force touch should be coming...</li>
</ul>
<li>iCloud, iTunes, and Apple Pay</li>
<ul>
<li>People have barely started to use the Photos app for mac, and thus have barely started to use iCloud storage. This could be an area of reasonable growth for Apple.</li>
<li>iTunes - if we could store more media that we own in the cloud, it could be another revolution - I'm talking about audiobooks and movies not purchased from Apple. If iTunes content could all just be in the cloud, the world would be a different place.</li>
<li>Apple Pay - it does keep on rolling out and getting expanded use. Plans are starting to come together for some international use as well.</li>
</ul>
<li>Other stuff - "kits" and OS X</li>
<ul>
<li>HealthKit and ResearchKit - we have barely started to scratch the surface with what these can do for us.</li>
<li>HomeKit - I still cannot control the temperature of my house with my Apple TV - this has barely started to be used as well.</li>
<li>CarPlay - pretty much all car manufacturers have announced that support will be coming.</li>
<li>OS X advantages</li>
<ul>
<li>It remains, contrary to some comments, more secure than most OSs.</li>
<li>Vastly easier for backup and recovery, as well as for migration to a new machine.</li>
<li>Integration with hardware, enabling software like Safari to be extremely power efficient.</li>
<li>Continuity - I like texting from my computer.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>The doing good thing:</li>
<ul>
<li>Apple keeps up doing more for preventing environmental damage. Apple just <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/16/apple-buys-36000-acres-of-forest-to-create-sustainable-eco-friendly-product-packaging">bought a forest</a>. This is to offset paper usage, and the plan is for sustainable management.</li>
<li>Apple continues to eliminate chemicals someone deems harmful from its products - in the last year, this included <a href="http://www.apple.com/environment/our-progress/">beryllium</a>. This would likely be to make workplaces that previously used beryllium safer.</li>
<li>Apple bought solar energy for domestic energy offsets and use for the next <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/11/apples-848m-25-year-solar-agreement-is-the-largest-of-its-kind-will-provide-130mw-of-clean-energy">25 years</a> for nearly $1B. Apple says they are using 100% renewable energy for all domestic uses, including their data centers.</li>
<li>Apple works hard to be <a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/19/apple-human-rights-campaign-corporate-equality-index-ranking/">non-discriminatory</a>. Apple admits to <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/03/10/apple-pledges-50m-to-increase-the-presence-of-women-minorities-veterans-in-tech-jobs">needing to do more for women and minorities</a> and pledged $50 million to the effort.</li>
<ul>
</ul>
</ul>
</ol>
<div>
Apple has expanded its product lines. It has given people new ways and reasons to use its products and use multiple products together (for example, Apple Pay and Continuity). It now has a fashion-forward accessory line (Apple Watch) for those who want it. And Apple is doing a better job than any other large company to be a good corporate citizen - one that is an example for the rest. Apple has its problems, but making money is not going to be one of them.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-27590775967248027802015-03-19T13:46:00.000-07:002015-03-19T13:46:00.466-07:00Daniel Eran Dilger - February 2015Daniel Eran Dilger's Articles - February 2015:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/03/apple-inc-shares-approach-ex-dividend-as-it-gears-up-to-distribute-28-billion-to-shareholders">Apple Inc. shares approach ex-dividend as it gears up to distribute $2.8 billion to shareholders [u]</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/05/apple-inc-ios-8-healthkit-already-in-testing-at-60-percent-of-top-23-us-hospitals">Apple Inc iOS 8 HealthKit already in testing at 60 percent of top 23 U.S. hospitals</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/05/after-whipping-intel-nvidia-amd-in-mobile-skys-the-limit-for-apple-incs-silicon-design-team">After whipping Intel, Nvidia & AMD in mobile chips, sky's the limit for Apple Inc's silicon design team</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/07/apples-new-swift-programming-language-takes-flight-with-getty-images-american-airlines-linkedin-and-duolingo">Apple's new Swift programming language takes flight with Getty Images, American Airlines, LinkedIn, and Duolingo</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/09/exclusive-february-aerial-tour-of-apple-incs-campus-2-shows-spaceship-ring-rising-theater-progress-more">Exclusive February aerial tour of Apple Inc's Campus 2 shows 'Spaceship' Ring rising, theater progress, more</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/11/08/apples-next-major-market-for-ios-may-be-automotive">Apple's next major market for iOS may be automotive</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/17/apple-inc-campus-2-phase-2-plans-rd-facilities-big-enough-to-design-a-car">Apple Inc Campus 2, Phase 2 plans R&D facilities big enough to design a car</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-65539273906178736982015-03-09T22:09:00.000-07:002015-03-10T21:39:15.661-07:00Summary and Thoughts on the Apple Spring Forward Announcement 3/9/15<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Other announcements:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Moving to 40 stores in China</li>
<li>Apple Pay</li>
<ul>
<li>Triple the participants since the last announcement</li>
<li>Vending machines are starting to take Apple Pay</li>
</ul>
<li>CarPlay - more...</li>
<li>HomeKit - more...</li>
<li>ResearchKit: NEW</li>
<ul>
<li>For Medical Research</li>
<li>Lets researchers work with many people in many places, who have information and apps to work with (iPhones and perhaps Apple Watch)</li>
<li>Open Source - to encourage involvement and adoption (and possible future cross platform involvement?)</li>
<li>Enabling two-way communication, integration with Health Kit</li>
<li>Apps:</li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://parkinsonmpower.org/">mPower</a> - Parkinson's research with the University of Rochester</li>
<li><a href="http://glucosuccess.org/">GlucoSuccess</a> - Massachusetts General</li>
<li><a href="https://med.stanford.edu/myheartcounts.html">MyHeart Counts</a> - Stanford Medicine and the University of Oxford</li>
<li><a href="http://apps.icahn.mssm.edu/asthma/">Asthma Health</a> - Mount Sinai Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College</li>
<li><a href="http://sharethejourneyapp.org/">Share The Journey</a> - Breast Cancer research with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, UCLA School of Public Health, Penn Medicine, and Sage Bionetworks</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li><br /></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Product announcements:</div>
<ul>
<li>Apple TV - price down to $69 (from $99) but otherwise unchanged</li>
<li>HBO Now - HBO streaming, without cable - $14.99/mo available starting in April, exclusive to Apple.</li>
<li>Macbook 12"</li>
<ul>
<li>2 lbs!</li>
<li>13.1mm thick at the thickest point (down from 17.1mm for macbook air)</li>
<li>New keyboard</li>
<ul>
<li>Edge to edge of the laptop</li>
<li>with all new stable butterfly mechanism with shorter travel</li>
<li>led per key</li>
<li>thinner</li>
</ul>
<li>12" retina display - 2304x1440 - thinnest ever</li>
<li>trackpad - force touch trackpad</li>
<ul>
<li>force sensors</li>
<li>taptic engine (instead of clicks, feedback)</li>
<li>new force click gesture</li>
</ul>
<li>TIny new logic board - no fan!</li>
<ul>
<li>5 watts! max 1.3Ghz new-generation Intel</li>
</ul>
<li>USB-C (USB 3 speed)</li>
<li>Starts at $1299</li>
<li>Silver, Space Grey, Gold</li>
</ul>
<li>Updated Macbook Air</li>
<ul>
<li>Updated CPUs</li>
<li>Thunderbolt 2</li>
<li>13" has double-speed flash storage</li>
</ul>
<li>Updated 13" Macbook Pro</li>
<ul>
<li>force-touch trackpad</li>
<li>double-speed flash storage</li>
<li>updated CPUs</li>
<li>more battery life</li>
</ul>
<li>Apple Watch - what is new news?</li>
<ul>
<li>We now know prices - smaller is cheaper, larger is more expensive</li>
<ul>
<li>Apple Watch Sport - $349 for 38mm and $50 more for 42mm</li>
<li>Apple Watch - $549- $1049 for 38mm, and $50 more for 42mm</li>
<li>Apple Watch Edition - $10,000-$17,000 (prices different not necessarily by size)</li>
<li>So the total range is $349-$17,000</li>
</ul>
<li>Pre-order on 4/10/15</li>
<li>Arriving 4/24/15</li>
<li>Apple communicated anew and in a more focused way about the 3 areas of value and focus for use:</li>
<ul>
<li>Time keeping</li>
<ul>
<li>Select different faces</li>
<li>Not sure I saw something new</li>
</ul>
<li>Communication</li>
<ul>
<li>Can do the Dick Tracy thing and answer calls on your wrist</li>
<li>Listen to music with bluetooth headphones, without your iPhone</li>
<li>Any notification on your iPhone can make it to your watch</li>
<li>Nice Uber integration app</li>
</ul>
<li>Fitness</li>
<ul>
<li>Great but I'm not sure I saw something new</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Rumors and/or facts after the fact:</li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://9to5mac.com/2015/03/10/apple-watch-includes-8-gb-of-storage-allows-2-gb-of-music-storage-and-75-mb-of-photos/">9to5Mac</a> says that, "
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Apple Watch includes 8 GB of storage, allows 2 GB of music and 75 MB of photo"</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/03/09/apple-watchs-ipx7-water-resistance-good-for-washing-hands-but-not-for-swimming">Apple Insider</a> says that the Apple Watch is rated to the IPX7 standard, which means, "</span>the Apple Watch will be able to withstand immersion in water up to 1 meter for up to 30 minutes" - good for a shower, but not a swim, they say.</div>
</li>
<li><div class="p1">
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/10/the-apple-watch-battery-is-replaceable/">TechCrunch</a> says the Apple Watch battery is replaceable, and may have a roughly 3 year lifespan.</div>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-75483965268085602932015-02-22T19:35:00.000-08:002015-02-22T19:36:17.304-08:00Apple's attempt to do goodApple has made pledges and commitments in many areas.<br />
<ul>
<li>Working conditions:</li>
<ul>
<li>Improve working conditions for all workers involved in Apple products</li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/">Apple Supplier Responsibility Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/progress-report/">Supplier Responsibility - Apple Tracks Progress</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/diversity/">Apple's Diversity Focus</a></li>
</ul>
<li>Environmental efforts:</li>
<ul>
<li>Use the most environmentally friendly methods and materials</li>
<li>Use renewable energy, make Apple products as efficient as possible</li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/environment/">Apple's environmental pledge</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/environment/our-progress/">Apple tracks progress towards its environmental pledge</a></li>
</ul>
<li>Make the best products it can, period.</li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/05/16/steve-jobs-get-rid-of-the-crappy-stuff/">2011 Forbes article about Steve Jobs' advice to Nike - make only the best stuff</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/30/jonathan-ive-revenue-good-design">2012 Wired article - Apple's goal isn't to make money</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
I knew Tim Cook had pledged support for working conditions. I did not know Jeff Williams had expressed support so strongly. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/19/apple-responds-to-bbc-panoramas-portrayal-of-supplier-conditions/">2014 Techcrunch Apple BBC response</a> - Mr. Williams made the statement that if Apple stops using problematic tin sources, other companies will just snap up the sources and nothing will change. It takes conviction to take a harder road, take the heat, and change things and stay involved.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For me this rings very true to how Apple operates.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-86886951305009281652015-02-01T21:23:00.001-08:002015-02-01T21:23:08.015-08:00Some thoughts on Apple Watch and expected profitabilityI'm thinking about what I'm hearing about Apple, Apple Watch, and fashion. Apple has the people and product to get into and stay profitably in fashion, and the strategy to protect and enhance the brand.<br />
<br />
HBR had an article in October: <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/10/apple-luxury-brand-or-mass-marketer">Apple: Luxury Brand or Mass Marketer?</a> Cult of Mac had one just a couple of days ago: <a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/310590/watch-horizon-apple-already-premiere-luxury-brand-china/">Why Apple Watch will wrap up luxury market in China</a>. What I am hearing and reading is that people are saving up to buy Apple products. Apple sales are not fitting historical stereotypes for consumer electronics, and thus the idea that Apple must make a cheaper product at this time has been proven wrong.<br />
<br />
We also know that Apple has hired many fashion executives - from my blog post last September, <a href="http://myappleexperience.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-going-on-with-apple-hires-and.html">What is going on with Apple hires and acquihires in 2014?</a> I see that Apple hired:<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"></span><br />
<ul><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Angela Ahrendts - former CEO of Burberry</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Paul Devenve - former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Catherine Monier - former European President, head of retail, Yves Saint Laurent</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Patrick Pruniaux - former VP Sales, Tag Heuer</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Marc Newson - famed designer</span></li>
</span></ul>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
</span><div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Apple is clearly pushing into fashion.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">On thoughts of price and revenues... At $350 to start, it takes nearly 3 million to bring in 1 billion. It has been </span><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/rumor-gold-apple-watch-edition-priced-up-to-5000-steel-version-at-500-will-debut-on-feb-14" style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">rumored (at Apple Insider)</a><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> that the high end gold model could be priced at $5,000. Only 200,000 units would bring in 1 billion at that price. Apple has proven time and again that they can manufacture, deliver, and sell mass quantities of product. To my way of thinking, $1B+ </span><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">of sales the first year is well within the realm of possibility. I also suspect that the profit margin on the Apple Watch may be higher than Apple's general product. If it were to be, say, 50%, then that would mean another $0.5B+ of profits. It might not be a massive profit-changer for a profitability juggernaut like Apple, but it is certainly substantial in an absolute sense.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Some people who have disposable income will buy an expensive model as a gift for someone. Apple makes attractive watch bands and some people will buy two or three, and they can also be expensive. With a fashion product, Apple will adjust the look over time both of the watch and of the bands. People may collect Apple Watch, and various watch bands. Complete-ist collectors will attempt to have one of each band and watch; there are some of them out there. I can imagine that one or more may make the news some time after Apple Watch is rolled out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Assuming Apple Watch makes it into fashion stores, Apple brand exposure and value should increase nicely. You can also bet that any such stores will support Apple Pay.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I have an original black Starbucks card. People have greatly surprised me by oooh-ing over it many times. "I had never seen one of those before." is something I hear. That is something that will be happening years from now with Apple Watch.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There are some folks, as in an article last September in <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/apple_watch">John Gruber's Daring Fireball</a>, thinking about the upgradeability of the electronic components inside Apple Watch. If indeed this were to be made possible, I think it is quite clear that Apple's product would be in a category all its own pretty much across the history of electronics.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">
Now about what Apple Watch is for besides fashion:</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Notifications and communications - don't even pull out your phone. Intimately communicate with taptic feedback</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Apple Pay - even simpler to use than an iPhone 6 or 6+! Not even a finger scan is needed.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Health monitoring - It will be with you even when you leave your iPhone somewhere, so step tracking will be better. Heart rate monitoring is already available with other products, but not with other fashionable products, and some that are out (fitbit) are intentionally not compatible with Apple HealthKit.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Other apps - Siri and Maps, again to keep your iPhone in your pocket.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Is this enough? What will 3rd party applications bring? We will have to wait until it is released to see.</span></div>
</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307716822580434839.post-7090884926035938932015-01-30T21:15:00.000-08:002015-01-30T21:15:00.120-08:00Daniel Eran Dilger on fire at the start of 2015Daniel Eran Dilger wrote 18 articles for Apple Insider in January, 2015, presented Apple Insider's first <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/30/appleinsiders-official-podcast-kicks-off-with-analysis-of-the-weeks-top-apple-stories">podcast</a>, and was featured on <a href="http://www.podtrac.net/pts/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/nightowllive/www.technightowl.com/podcasts/nightowl_150124.mp3">The Tech Night Owl LIVE</a>. He is on fire! He're hoping he keeps it up.<br />
<br />
<br />
January, 2015:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/15/how-apple-inc-managed-to-upstage-the-tech-industry-at-ces-for-fifteen-years">How Apple Inc. managed to upstage the tech industry at CES for fifteen years</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/08/apple-inc-stock-leaps-nearly-4-percent-in-first-surge-of-2015">Apple Inc. stock leaps nearly 4 percent in first surge of 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/08/samsung-warns-investors-of-continued-slide-in-profits-for-q4">Samsung warns investors of first holiday quarter profit decline since 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/07/after-intel-spent-billions-to-subsidize-40m-android-atom-tablets-microsoft-releases-office-only-for-arm">After Intel spent billions to subsidize 40M Android Atom tablets, Microsoft releases Office only for ARM</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/06/tapsense-admits-its-apple-watch-ad-platform-may-not-fly-at-all">TapSense admits its Apple Watch "ad platform" may not fly at all</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/04/despite-lawsuit-apples-ios-8-storage-is-actually-far-more-efficient-than-googles-android-samsungs-galaxy-microsoft-windows">Despite lawsuit, Apple's iOS 8 storage is actually far more efficient than Google's Android, Samsung's Galaxy, Microsoft Window</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/07/after-intel-spent-billions-to-subsidize-40m-android-atom-tablets-microsoft-releases-office-only-for-arm">After Intel spent billions to subsidize 40M Android Atom tablets, Microsoft releases Office only for ARM</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/08/samsung-warns-investors-of-continued-slide-in-profits-for-q4">Samsung warns investors of first holiday quarter profit decline since 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/08/apple-inc-stock-leaps-nearly-4-percent-in-first-surge-of-2015">Apple Inc. stock leaps nearly 4 percent in first surge of 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/15/how-apple-inc-managed-to-upstage-the-tech-industry-at-ces-for-fifteen-years">How Apple Inc. managed to upstage the tech industry at CES for fifteen years</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/19/how-intel-lost-the-mobile-chip-business-to-apples-ax-arm-application-processors">How Intel lost the mobile chip business to Apple's Ax ARM Application Processors</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/20/after-eating-intel-apple-could-next-devour-qualcomms-baseband-processor-business">After eating Intel's mobile lunch, Apple could next devour Qualcomm's Baseband Processor business</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/21/bugs-in-qualcomms-64-bit-snapdragon-810-may-force-samsung-to-use-its-own-exynos-chips-in-galaxy-s6-">Bugs in Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon 810 may force Samsung to use its own Exynos chips in Galaxy S6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/23/how-amd-and-nvidia-lost-the-mobile-gpu-chip-business-to-apple-with-help-from-samsung-and-google-">How AMD and Nvidia lost the mobile GPU chip business to Apple — with help from Samsung and Google</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/24/i-bet-my-life-microsoft-hololens-perfectly-targets-its-core-competency">I Bet My Life: Microsoft HoloLens perfectly targets its core competency</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/26/after-eating-amd-nvidias-mobile-lunch-apple-inc-could-next-devour-their-desktop-gpu-business-">After eating AMD & Nvidia's mobile lunch, Apple Inc could next devour their desktop GPU business</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/27/apple-incs-once-slower-q2-now-getting-a-boost-from-chinas-lunar-new-year-holiday">Apple Inc's once slower Q2 now getting a boost from China's Lunar New Year holiday</a></li>
<li><a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/28/samsungs-mobile-profits-plunge-642-after-apples-iphone-6-devastates-premium-galaxy-sales">Samsung's mobile profits plunge 64.2% after Apple's iPhone 6 devastates premium Galaxy sales</a></li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0