512 Pixels

Nicole Nguyen at BuzzFeed:

Today, almost four months after HomePod’s release, HomePod users can access the new features through a now-available software update available through the Home app in iOS 11.4, which includes AirPlay 2, Apple’s wireless audio technology that enables HomePod pairing. HomePods can now sync with other HomePods or third-party, AirPlay 2-enabled speakers, and play music throughout your home. Bose, Sonos, Beats, Bowers & Wilkins, and Libratone are some of the companies that have announced AirPlay 2 compatibility for current and upcoming speakers.

Apple announced this just shy of a year ago. iOS 11.4 also includes Messages in iCloud, another iOS 11 feature announced at WWDC 2017. I would love to know more about what took these two features so long to ship.

Apple:

WebObjects 5.2 Developer tools will not work with the WWDC 2003 Xcode Developer Preview installed on the system.

• WebObjects Builder integration with Project Builder is broken.
• EOModeler integration with Project Builder is broken.
• None of the WebObjects project templates appear in Project Builder when creating a new project.
• Rapid turn around is broken for all WebObjects projects.
• Interface Builder integration with WebObjects is broken.

The solution listed on this page is incredible:

Do not install the WWDC 2003 Xcode Developer Preview.

I just came across this YouTube Playlist of Apple promo videos from the late 1980s. There are a bunch of gems in here, including this one:

I picked up one of those Spigen iMac G3-inspired iPhone X cases and it showed up in the mail today, so I thought I’d show it off a little bit:

YouTuber Quinn Nelson has been through the wringer trying to have his iMac Pro repaired after the butter-soft screws that come with the $80 VESA mount Apple offers for the machine failed:

I haven’t been behind the Genius Bar in almost 10 years, but if one of my staff members had caused that sort of damage to a customer’s machine, I would have worked to replace the computer, with or without my manager approving it. Apple should make this right by Quinn, work to train its AppleCare and Genius Bar employees on this computer’s quirks and ship higher-quality screws in that VESA kit.

I had actually been thinking about putting my iMac Pro on a VESA arm. This video has talked me out of that idea.

Update: Apple is indeed making this right by Quinn, but I hope this prompts changes to how employees are trained on what is Apple’s best pro machine for sale right now:

Apple store offered to a) replace the outer shell in another repair or b) do a CRU (complete replacement unit). I obviously elected the latter.

In the end, I am getting taken care of, but a few have seen the video already. Don’t know what they would have done for an average Joe.

— Quinn Nelson (@SnazzyQ) May 26, 2018

Jason Koebler, writing at Motherboard:

Apple’s internal tests found that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are significantly more likely to bend than the iPhone 5S, according to information made public in a recent court filing obtained by Motherboard. Publicly, Apple has never said that the phones have a bending problem, and maintains that position, despite these models commonly being plagued with “touch disease,” a flaw that causes the touchscreen to work intermittently that the repair community say is a result of bending associated with normal use.

The information is contained in internal Apple documents filed under seal in a class-action lawsuit that alleges Apple misled customers about touch disease. The documents remain under seal, but US District Court judge Lucy Koh made some of the information from them public in a recent opinion in the case.

The company found that the iPhone 6 is 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.2 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, according to the documents. Koh wrote that “one of the major concerns Apple identified prior to launching the iPhones was that they were ‘likely to bend more easily when compared to previous generations.’”

The 6S and 6S Plus were more rigid than the 6 line, which resolved the bending issue for the most part, but customers are still dealing with the “touch disease” issue. It was caused by a chip on the logic board working its way loose over time. Apple opened a Repair Extension Program for the iPhone 6 Plus to address it.

Neither problem were good ones to have, but the information about how prone the 6 and 6 Plus were to bending is pretty rough.

iPhone camera apps are some of my favorites in the App Store, and over the years, they’ve just gotten better and better.

Obscura 2 is out now, and is my favorite Camera.app replacement. It offers full manual controls and some incredible filters, all in a beautiful, powerful user interface. If you want to improve your iPhone photo game, it’s well worth the $4.99.

The choice between a high-end 5K iMac and the base-model iMac Pro just got a little easier to make.

Jeremy Burge, before diving into the numerous ways in which Apple’s emoji search on the Mac is pretty broken:

I’ve been aware of this for quite some time, but until recently haven’t sat down to figure out what’s going on.

His blog post is full of examples, but this is a pretty damning one:

To find Person Facepalming you can’t type “facepalm” or “palm” but instead need to type “face palm.”

I’ve often lamented the lack of search in Apple’s iOS emoji keyboard. Maybe Apple has held off on that feature for a reason. That said, many of Jeremy’s examples work correctly in the emoji section of the QuickType bar above the keyboard.

The thing is, this shouldn’t be a hard problem. Every emoji has an official name granted by Unicode, as well an official localized name that can be more user-friendly. Apple’s search should take those two labels, plus its own custom names, into account when searching. Right now, the entire system seems bad in random ways, and inconsistent across emoji characters.

I can’t blockquote any of this amazing article by my dear friend.

If you haven’t read it, take some time this evening with an iPad and do it. It’s a beautiful and raw piece about his life as a cancer survivor, and how he keeps tabs on his health today, years after a terrifying diagnosis.

This week on Connected, Myke and Federico talk about Spark 2, Castro 3, and Ticci’s big article about his Second Life.

I missed the recording today, but am looking forward to listening to this tonight.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• PDFpen 10, from Smile: The ultimate tool for editing PDFs and go paperless.
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Jason Snell:

Here’s a bit of numerology for you. Today marks 17 years, one month, and 29 days since Mac OS X 10.0 was released on March 24, 2001. That’s a strangely odd number—6269 days—but it also happens to be the exactly length of time between January 24, 1984 (the launch of the original Macintosh) and March 24, 2001.

In other words, today the Mac’s second operating system era, powered by Mac OS X (now macOS) has been in existence as long as the first era was.

Mind-blowing, right?