512 Pixels

This week marks a full decade since the original iPhone launched. I wrote about it back in January, on the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ incredible keynote.

There’s already a bunch of great stuff on the web about the anniversary. Throughout the week, I’m going to round up some of it here.

• WSJ: How The iPhone Was Born: Inside Stories of Missteps and Triumphs — Former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell and Greg Christie talk about the time and work leading up to the iPhone’s announcement.
• CBS: It had us at “Hello”: The iPhone turns 10 — A video with the four journalists who received review units of the iPhone back in 2007, coupled with an interview of Bas Ording, who was instrumental in Apple’s early multi-touch work. Don’t miss this chance to re-watch David Pogue’s painful music video of his review.
• Computer History Museum: Putting Your Finger On It: Creating the iPhone — Original iPhone Engineers Nitin Ganatra, Scott Herz, and Hugo Fiennes in Conversation with John Markoff, followed by Scott Forstall.
• Wired: iPhone-creator Tony Fadell: don’t let smartphones threaten your ‘analogue life’ — In this interview, Fadell mentions a multitouch MacBook Pro and talks about the Rokr, which is fun.
• MacStories: iPhone 1.0: The 10th Anniversary Review — John Voorhees reviews the iPhone as if it was 2007.
• The Verge: We compared hardware specs for every iPhone ever made — All the great charts.
• WSJ: Living With the First iPhone … in 2017 — Joanna Stern is braver than most.
• The Prompt #30: The Internet in Your Pocket — Back in 2014, Federico Viticci, Myke Hurley and I talked through the original keynote.
• 512 Pixels: On the Original iPhone’s Launch — A few years ago, I recounted my experience as an Apple retail employee when the iPhone launched.

The Computer History Museum has posted a two-hour interview with Avie Tevanian, the principle designer of the Mach kernel, and Apple’s former Chief Software Technology Officer.

This piece by Jeff Guo on how the new bill was covered on Fox shouldn’t surprise anyone:

Juan Williams, the token liberal, was the only person who brought up substantive details about the new Republican bill. “This is going to drive the premiums and costs for working people who come to the hospital,” he said. “What about the elderly, Jesse? The people we all have sympathy for?”

“They are all going to die, according to the liberals,” Gutfeld mocked.

“You forgot the children dying of cancer,” deadpanned Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was at one point rumored to be a possible replacement for Sean Spicer as the president’s press secretary.

Fuck you, Fox.

My thanks to Balance for Mac for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. Balance is a powerful menubar app for your money built by a team from Apple, Stripe and Ethereum.

Senate Republicans have unveiled their version of the House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As usual, Vox’s Sarah Kilff has broken things down very nicely:

The bill asks low- and middle-income Americans to spend significantly more for less coverage.

The bill would roll back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the Medicaid program, which currently covers millions of low-income Americans, and include additional cuts to Medicaid. It would rework the individual market so that enrollees get less financial help to purchase less generous health insurance with higher deductibles.

Here are some “highlights” of this bill:

• It defunds Planned Parenthood for one year.
• The most wealthy Americans will see a large tax cut.
• Medicaid expansion ends in 2021, keeping millions of low-income Americans from receiving funds.
• If you purchase a health insurance plan with high deductible, your tax credit will be smaller under the new law.
• States will be able opt out of Obamacare’s marketplaces entirely.
• The individual mandate is gone, which will lead to an increase in prices and healthy people who don’t want insurance will exit the market.

Here’s Kliff again:

The replacement plan would make several changes to what health insurers can charge enrollees who purchase insurance on the individual market, as well as changing what benefits their plans must cover. In aggregate, these changes could be advantageous to younger and healthier enrollees who want skimpier (and cheaper) benefit packages. But they could be costly for older and sicker Obamacare enrollees who rely on the law’s current requirements, and would be asked to pay more for less generous coverage.

The Senate’s version makes little changes in terms preexisting coverage. The House’s bill gutted those protections, putting the future of families like mine in serious jeopardy.

However, it’s not all good news there. The Senate versions removes lifetime caps, meaning a cancer patient could be cut-off by their insurance company in the middle of their chemotherapy, or the day before an important MRI.

Back to Vox:

The Senate bill still requires insurance companies to accept all patients, regardless of how sick they might be or what preexisting conditions they have. Building a health insurance system without an individual mandate or any replacement policy runs a significant risk of falling into a death spiral, where only the sickest people buy coverage and premiums keep ticking upward.

Both the House and Senate versions of this new healthcare bill — penned entirely by Republicans with no input from Democrats — will cause harm to the sick and poor of our nation while lining the pockets of the wealthiest Americans. Those in Congress responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

Richard Moss, writing at Ars Technica, has published a lovely article about FireWire. I learned a bunch of stuff reading it.

This isn’t confusing at all:

The latest versions of iPod software and iTunes add Podcast features to iPod. iPod Updater 2005-6-26 and later adds a Podcast menu to any iPod with a Click Wheel. For iPods without a Click Wheel, iTunes 4.9 and later creates a Podcasts playlist on the iPod (it will do the same on Click Wheel models that haven’t been updated with iPod Updater 2005-6-26 or later).

This time on Ungeniused:

For centuries, treasure hunters have been digging up a tiny island off the coast of Nova Scotia in search of a pirate treasure. The thing is, there is very little evidence of it actually existing.

This fortnight, Jason and I talk about NEEMO, newly-discovered exoplanets and the Parker Solar Probe.

My thanks to our sponsor:

• Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.

This week on Connected: HomeKit changes coming in iOS 11, our approaches to running betas and Business Chat in iMessage.

My thanks to our sponsors for this episode:

• Incapsula: Secure and accelerate your website. Connected listeners get one month free.
• Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.
• PDFpen 9, from Smile: Everything you need for more powerful PDF editing

This story by William Turton at the Outline shows how much work Apple is doing to keep things secret. The Outline received a copy of an internal training session:

The briefing, titled “Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple,” was led by Director of Global Security David Rice, Director of Worldwide Investigations Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert, who works on the Global Security communications and training team.

According to the hour-long presentation, Apple’s Global Security team employs an undisclosed number of investigators around the world to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press, as well as hunt down the source when leaks do occur. Some of these investigators have previously worked at U.S. intelligence agencies like the National Security Administration (NSA), law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service, and in the U.S. military.

I figured this sort of stuff was going on, but reading about how this team works within the company is just wild.

Also, don’t mention the irony that the session about leaking to the press was leaked to the press.

I’ve had my 10.5" iPad Pro for just about a week now, and while I’m not really ready to a full review of it, I do have a bunch of miscellaneous thoughts I wanted to share:

• The additional screen size is nice, but it’s not a game-changer. As Federico wrote, if you are a 12.9" iPad Pro user, this probably isn’t for you. The experience is very much like that of the 9.7" model.
• The 120Hz refresh rate makes me feel super weird. I got queasy after about 15 minutes of use. Any time something scrolled, it was like my brain was vibrating. Thankfully, there’s an Accessibility setting to cap the screen at 60 framers per second. While this is perhaps the headline feature of this iPad, I’m still going to keep the device for the speed and ability to run three apps under iOS 11.
• Fast charging is really nice to have, but Apple should include the required charger in the box.
• The revised Smart Keyboard, while not much wider than the one that I have on my old 9.7" iPad Pro, is just larger enough to make a real difference in typing. I feel a lot more comfortable with it than I did the old one.
• The camera is much improved. LOL, I don’t take photos with my iPad.
• This thing is just begging for iOS 11 to be installed on it.