Category: Apple

This change is not surprising, given the company’s video today pitching Apple Music as the next chapter in the history of music listening, but it is still a little sad.

WWDC 2015 was a big one. New versions OS X, iOS and watchOS were shown off, along with the Beats-inspired Apple Music service.

The keynote itself is interesting for a couple of reasons. While there’s still a lot of news to digest, talking about the art of the keynote is fun, too.

After a rather hilarious intro video, Tim Cook skipped his normal “state of the company” segment, assumedly for the sake of time. The cynical voice in my head thinks that if he had gone into the numbers, and had glossed of Watch sales, part of the news cycle would have been taken with Watch sales speculation. Whatever the reason, Apple jumped right to its operating system updates.

The OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 segments were tightly done by Craig Federighi, as was the time devoted to the new iPad-specific features. There’s lots to unpack there, especially with the iPad, but Federighi was present in full-force today with just the right balance of boldness and humor.

Like in the fall, Kevin Lynch showed off watchOS. The new version, due in the fall, brings the tools for developers to build native apps. Lynch is soft spoken compared to Federighi, but his segment was easy to follow. I’m not using many WatchKit apps, and while I’m not sure if native apps will make a bigger dent in my workflow, it’s exciting nonetheless.

Much more importantly than product details is the set of presenters we saw today.

As expected, Apple had two women on stage today. Jennifer Bailey, head of Apple Pay, walked through the service’s new features and success and Susan Prescott, Vice President of Product Marketing, introduced and showed off Apple’s new News app. Both were excellent additions, bringing a new feel to Apple’s stage presence.

There’s no way around it; Apple’s work to promote diversity may be some of the best in the industry, but that has not been reflected on stage during the company’s events. Apple is behind its peers in this area, but I think Cupertino is well aware of the fact.

As important as this is, in five years, I expect we will all remember the Apple Music segment the most clearly.

Coming after a overly-dramatic “one more thing” slide from Cook, the Apple Music segment was awkward, poorly-paced and too long.

Jimmy Iovine wasn’t great on stage. He stumbled into a iPhone keynote joke, and clearly didn’t understand why people were laughing. He made a multi-line joke about playing music during sex that was just … awkward. However, his story about meeting Steve Jobs during the early iTunes days was nice to hear, and there’s no doubt that the guy is an industry leader.

Stage presence issues aside, Iovine got through his section without giving a clear explanation of Apple Music. If the keynote had ended after his segment, I’d have very little idea about what the product actually does. That’s the entire reason for this sort of event, and by that simple metric, Iovine wasn’t a successful speaker.

Sadly, however, that wasn’t the end of the Apple Music section of the keynote. Drake’s stage time was short, and while he was wearing a bad-ass six-color Apple logo jacket, I also think his time was a bit of a dud. He explained some of the tools for artists to connect with fans from within Apple Music, trying to show the benefits of Apple Music for artists. Like Iovine’s time, it wasn’t immediately clear what Apple Music can do in this regard.

Lastly, Eddie Cue demoed the new iOS Music app for what felt like an eternity. The app seems dense, and maybe even confusing, but again, Apple didn’t make it very clear what’s going on with the product. It’s a mashup of streaming, iTunes Match and YouTube.

Another big issue with Cue’s time was the pacing. The executive played a lot of music samples while showing the app, adding extra minutes to an already long keynote. Many people I watched the keynote with were ready for Apple to wrap up just a few minutes into Cue’s demo.

The truth is that events like this seem crazy hard to pull off well, and while Apple generally does a great job, this year’s was a bit of a mixed bag. The pacing and length of today’s keynote was a bit of an issue, but the announcements were solid. The first 90 minutes were as good as Apple can be on stage, but the music section was just a wreck.

Sadly, it can be hard to separate those things in the days after an event like WWDC. I certainly don’t think Apple Music will be hampered by its introduction, but it could be hitting the ground running in a stronger way if the complaints weren’t present.

My friend and fellow podcast host Christina Warren, in an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook:

I sat down with Cook, a relatively reclusive interviewee, and asked why it was important that Apple ramp up its efforts in diversity. His answer was unequivocal: “It’s the future of our company.”

Cook added: “I view these people that I talk to today as the future generations of the company, and they will either be a part of it directly or a part of the ecosystem.

“And either way — when I think of Apple, I think of the whole community, not just the people that have the Apple badge.”

And that future, according to Cook, should be diverse: “I think the most diverse group will produce the best product, I firmly believe that,” he says. Even without taking its values into account, Apple is a “better company” by being more diverse.

With WWDC starting in less than an hour, I’m hoping that this year’s keynote presenters are more representative of this talk from Cook. I expect it will be.

Brian Chen:

Yet one much ballyhooed device will be absent from the conference: a new Apple TV, Apple’s set-top box for televisions. The company planned as recently as mid-May to use the event to spotlight new Apple TV hardware, along with an improved remote control and a tool kit for developers to make apps for the entertainment device. But those plans were postponed partly because the product was not ready for prime time, according to two people briefed on the product.

Apple declined to comment.

I mentioned I thought this may be the case on Connected last night. I don’t see why Apple would release updated hardware without their new software or web TV service in place. My guess is that the box is ready, but the content deals aren’t all in place yet.

The Verge’s Chris Ziegler makes the argument that with iOS and OS X probably moving to the San Francisco font — coupled with Apple’s recent naming scheme — “iPhone” doesn’t work anymore:

Disclaimer: This theory is definitely bunk, and I will surely be proven wrong both this year and next. But hear me out.

“i” is an endangered letter at Apple: the iBook died many years ago, and we now have Apple Watches on our wrists, not iWatches. iThings are passé.

I believe we’re ready for the Apple Phone. Not iPhone, not iPhone 6S, not iPhone 7… just Apple Phone.

I don’t disagree with Ziegler’s points, but I don’t see Apple changing the name of their most popular product any time soon. I think “iPhone” is here to stay.

I’ve had my Apple Watch for a month now and feel like I’ve settled into a routine with it. I deal with the handful of notification types I allow to show up on my wrist. I don’t use many third-party apps, and — unlike some people I know — actually use and like Glances.

In this pre-SDK era, third-party Glances are pretty simple, so I’m only using a couple of them. However, Apple’s can be interactive, and by mixing them with the couple of critical third-party ones, Glances have become a quick way for me to know what’s going on with my devices and jump into the apps I use most.

I haven’t tinkered much with the order or number of Glances in a couple of weeks, so I feel like my usage is stable enough to show off how I have it setup:

In order, they are:

1. Settings
2. Now Playing
3. Overcast
4. Calendar
5. Weather
6. OmniFocus
7. Activity
8. Heartbeat
9. Battery

For reference , I use the Simple watch face most of the time, with these complications:

1. Weather
2. Activity
3. Calendar
4. Sunrise/Sunset

(I am still working on a review, I promise.)

I love when people get something old to work with something new.

Apple Watch to Mac 512K

 

Apple II to Cinema Display

Jeff Williams, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations, spoke at the Code Conference today. It’s an interesting read about the Watch, among other things.

Benjamin Mayo:

The discoveryd process has been subject to much criticism in recent months as it causes users to regularly drop WiFi access and causes network shares to list many times over, due to bugs. Many developers, such as Craig Hockenberry, have complained about the buggy software and workarounds have been found to include substituting the older system (called mDNSResponder) back into Yosemite.

discoveryd would cause random crashes, duplicate names on the network and many other WiFi-relate bugs. In the latest beta, Apple appears to have applied the same fix as the enthusiasts by axing discoveryd completely.

While I’m sure there was someone at Apple who lost out in this decision, its the right one to make. OS X should be easier to live with now.

Stephen Fry, in a wonderfully-written essay about Apple’s design boss:

Until now, Ive’s job title has been Senior Vice President of Design. But I can reveal that he has just been promoted and is now Apple’s Chief Design Officer. It is therefore an especially exciting time for him.

Inside the fabled design studio (cloths over the long tables hiding the exciting new prototypes from prying eyes like mine) Jony has two people with him. They too have been promoted as part of Ive’s new role.

One is Richard Howarth, English as Vimto. “Richard is going to be our new head of Industrial Design,” says Jony. “And this is Alan Dye, the new head of User Interface.” Dye is a tall, amiable American.

In the piece, Ive says that Howarth and Dye will help him with administrative and management work. With a larger product portfolio then ever (or at least since Jobs’ return) and Campus 2 being built, there’s no doubt that Ive is a busy man. My guess is that this move was to help alleviate that stress, while also planning for a future without Ive as part of the company.

Rene Ritchie at iMore:

Imagine instead, like the Apple Watch, the iPad ran its own distinct version of iOS: iPad OS. Rather than a stripped down version for smaller screens and batteries, imagine it ran an amped-up version that really took advantage of bigger screens and batteries, with a Home screen, interaction methods, and capabilities optimized for a tablet.

The iPad runs an OS designed for the smartphone; thinking about what it could do if Apple would break that link (feature-wise, at least) is really interesting.