Just yesterday, I shared some thoughts on the timing of what has been announced as HomePod:
Apple could pre-announce it at WWDC, and ship it in the coming weeks or months. If it comes with SiriKit support, and if Apple expands that in iOS 11, does it make sense to launch it now with SiriKit being limited to such a small handful of app categories in iOS 10?
Apple did pre-announce the device. It will go on sale — for $349 — in December.
This WWDC has two big winners: iPad software and Mac hardware.
Yes, there’s that new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and yes, we’ll be running macOS High Sierra come this fall, but I think these two categories are the biggest stories to come out of the keynote.
iOS 11 is finally giving iPad users the tools they need to get work done more efficiently and with more power. It all looks amazing, and I cannot wait to try it out.
WWDC has been, for most of its run, a software show. Numerous new versions of macOS have first appeared there over the years, and summer iOS announcements settled into place once the iPhone 4S introduced the era of fall iPhone hardware releases.
That’s not to say Apple has not done hardware at WWDC since. However, hardware releases at the conference need to either serve the software story, or fit with the developer-heavy audience.
Tim Cook, by way of Buzzfeed:
Climate change is real and we all share a responsibility to fight it. I want to reassure you that today’s developments will have no impact on Apple’s efforts to protect the environment. We power nearly all of our operations with renewable energy, which we believe is an example of something that’s good for our planet and makes good business sense as well.
Apple’s Craig Federighi has joked about poor choices for macOS names in the past, citing “OS X Oxnard” and “OS X Weed,” but there are many other less-than-ideal choices for christening macOS 10.13:
We are nearly at the end of the school year here in Scotland and I wanted to take some time to reflect on the experience of teaching the Computer Science curriculum this year using Swift Playgrounds and Apple’s Learn to Code curriculum.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Alex Webb:
The iPhone-maker has started manufacturing a long-in-the-works Siri-controlled smart speaker, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple could debut the speaker as soon as its annual developer conference in June, but the device will not be ready to ship until later in the year, the people said.
As I said on Connected this week, I expected Apple to push SiriKit at WWDC, and this thing come out besides the new iPhones in the fall. May have gotten that one wrong.
In the next round of hardware being marked vintage and obsolete, Apple is putting to rest the 17-inch MacBook Pro, according to 9to5Mac. If you haven’t seen my video on 17-inch Mac notebooks, now’s a good chance:
At Apple, we share the same vision of leadership through service, courage, innovation, and inclusion that guided John F. Kennedy’s presidency. Together with the JFK Library, we’ve curated a collection of learning materials and activities to help commemorate his centennial year and inspire the next generation of leaders.
The page is full of free content about JFK, including a collection of media in iTunes, speeches and more. Nicely done.
Joe Rosensteel is perhaps the person most in tune with what Apple should do with tvOS. With WWDC right around the corner, he has posted a list of things he thinks Apple should introduce to the Apple TV. I agree with all of it.
I had a very rocky experience with iCloud Photo Library in late 2015:
I imported my photos and uploaded my 70GB photo library to iCloud. Everything went very smoothly, so I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my iPad.
Aaaaaand it all exploded.
Apple Support eventually got me up and running, but it took a while for me to fully trust the system.
The reality is that iCloud Photo Library is pretty great when everything is working smoothly.1 Photos show up on my devices quickly, regardless if I snapped them with my iPhone or imported them from an SD card on my iMac.
And it’s a move that’s sure to raise eyebrows not just in Silicon Valley, but in Manhattan media circles as well. Morning Media has learned that Apple has given the job — a new position at the Cupertino-based company — to Lauren Kern, one of New York magazine’s most high-ranking editors and a former deputy editor at The New York Times Magazine.
It’s unclear at this point what this position will mean for Apple News, as the company and Kern declined to comment. I assume Apple is building more of editorial organization within Apple News, but how big it will be, and what it will do within the app is unknown, to me at least.