Walt Mossberg is retiring this year — he’s already written his last column, hosted his last Code Conference, and taped the final episode of Ctrl-Walt-Delete in front of a live audience in New York. But Walt’s also assembled an impressive collection of notable gadgets over his two decade run as a reviewer and columnist, and we asked him to talk us through some of the more notable items as he cleared out of his office.
There’s some fun stuff in here.
WWDC is winding down here in San Jose, and I think everyone’s pretty happy.
Most people I’ve spoken to like the move from San Francisco to San Jose. I know I do; I feel like WWDC has taken over the downtown area in a good way. It’s easy to run into people in a venue or restaurant and strike up a conversation because chances are, they are here for the conference. The badass WWDC jackets helped make it easy to spot each other.1
I’ve gone to the same events I always have, in venues that are pretty spectacular in most cases.
(If you came to a Relay FM event, thank you! We are already making plans for next year to accommodate bigger crowds.)
The good feelings apply to the conference, too. Except for the diehard Mac mini fans, I think everyone has something to be happy about this week.
iPad users got new hardware, and an impressive software update that is going to redefine multitasking and file management on iOS. I’ve spent some time with iOS 11 on an iPad already, and it is very impressive.
I can’t wait to get my hands on that 10.5-inch iPad Pro. Everyone I have talked to says the new screen is incredible to behold. I guess I’ll find out early next week when FedEx brings mine by the house.
Mac users got a lot of new hardware. The MacBook has been revised with a better keyboard, the MacBook Pros are faster and the iMacs are now equipped with Thunderbolt 3. For the pro users among us, the preview of the iMac Pro is the news of the week, despite the Mac Pro’s future form still unknown.
macOS High Sierra may not the best-named or most exciting release of all time, but that’s what many of us wanted. Taking some time to breathe, the macOS team has fixed lingering issues and made improvements across the board. A Snow Leopard year is just what the Mac needed.
With WWDC in the rearview mirror, Apple’s year can begin. Developers are hard at work tuning their apps, podcasters have months of content to discuss and we can all enjoy the updates to the products we use and love so much.
I really like this year’s jacket, and usually I don’t care for them. The pins were a great addition, too. I am avoiding eBay for a while. ↩︎
New extensions to Apple’s podcast feed specification will allow podcasts to define individual seasons and explain whether an episode is a teaser, a full episode, or bonus content. These extensions will be read by the Podcast app and used to present a podcast in a richer way than the current, more linear, approach. (Since podcast feeds are just text, other podcast apps will be free to follow Apple’s lead and also alter how they display podcasts based on these tags.)
Users will be able to download full seasons, and the Podcasts app will know if a podcast is intended to be listened to in chronological order—“start at the first episode!”—or if it’s more timely, where the most recent episode is the most important.
Apple is also rolling out new analytics tools. Back to The Snell Zone:
Apple said today that it will be using (anonymized) data from the app to show podcasters how many people are listening and where in the app people are stopping or skipping. This has the potential to dramatically change our perception of how many people really listen to a show, and how many people skip ads, as well as how long a podcast can run before people just give up.
My thanks to Working Copy for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. It puts your sourcecode, websites, and images on your tablet and phone, even when offline. It’s Git for iOS, and it’s pretty awesome.
I’ve heard several questions from people wanting to know if Dropbox will be a part of iOS 11’s Files app. The answer is yes:
iOS users have been requesting better file management on iPhone and iPad for a long time. The new Files app, coming later this year, does just that, letting you more easily manage and access files in your Dropbox throughout iOS 11. Much like macOS Finder, Files will give you an easy way to browse, open, edit, move, rename, upload, create folders and download files stored in Dropbox with your iOS device.
Dropbox is my file system. This is going to be huge for how I work.
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by James Thomson, the indie iOS and Mac developer behind apps like PCalc and DragThing. He has a long history with Apple, and was recently sharing some old photos on Twitter. I badgered him into sharing some more with me here.
I visited Infinite Loop for the first time around twenty years ago, and decided to properly document my visit. All these photos were all taken on my trusty film camera, and the negatives scanned some years later. They were promptly forgotten about until now.
The view from outside of Infinite Loop building 1. It looks pretty much the same today, with the exception of the six colour Apple logo. Steve’s office was at the top right. At this point Infinite Loop had only been open for four years.
The Icon Garden, featuring Clarus the Dogcow who was the mascot of the Developer Technical Support group, and appeared in the print dialog. One day, Steve got rid of the icon garden in the middle of the night and everybody was very sad.
Another view of the Icon Garden facing towards the car park.
Clarus looks out wistfully towards the De Anza buildings. I briefly worked for the “At Ease” team who were based there.
Clarus is ready for her close up.
A much younger model of this author, posing with Clarus. Despite rumours of her destruction, she lives to this day in a garage, much like the one Apple was created in. She hopes that one day, she will be allowed to come to the new campus.
Infinite Loop 2, where my group the Finder team lived along with most of the OS folk. I had an office in here, even though I was secretly working and living in Cork. Don’t tell Steve!
Infinite Loop 3. The DTS group were in here.
Infinite Loop 4. The briefing centre was near here - used for internal company-wide meetings, and also where the press would be brought to see the latest hardware and software
Infinite Loop 5. Literally no idea.
Infinite Loop 6. I think there was a basketball court near here. Who knows? I never left Infinite Loop 2.
A view across the courtyard. I think this must have been taken very early in the day because there’s nobody about.
Looking back towards Infinite Loop 1 from the courtyard.
Looking towards Caffè Macs, the company cafeteria. It was here I first discovered the burrito. And why it was a bad idea to sit at the table next to Steve.
Closing in on Caffè Macs.
Inside Caffè Macs. It’s so empty! But nobody stopped this intrepid reporter who was running around Apple with a camera. Madness!
The inside of Infinite Loop 1 - Apple has liked indoor trees for over twenty years.
An old six color sign on the way into the campus. Sorry for the blur!
The exterior of Infinite Loop, taken from the “Cupertino Inn” across the road, where I spent many months living.
The courtyard of the Cupertino Inn. I hope you like concrete!
A “Think Different” billboard in the wild.
A picture of Infinite Loop I took only last year - not on film, this time. Look how much the trees have grown!
Thanks to Stephen for letting me share these with 512 Pixels readers. I hope you enjoyed this little trip back to the old new campus! — James Pictures ©1997-2017 James Thomson, All Rights Reserved.
The port city of Texas City, Texas has witnessed not one, but two, explosive accidents over the last century. With hundreds dead and even more injured, this city has seen more than its fair share of disasters.
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Live from San Jose, the trio talk about the news from a little event known as WWDC.
This is a really good episode, and the first time we’ve done it sitting around a table together.
My thanks to our sponsors:
I crashed Clockwise this week:
It’s WWDC week, so we talk Apple’s HomePod, the new iMac Pro, iPad improvements, and what was missing from the keynote.
Apple briefly mentioned the MacBook Air was updated yesterday. Turns out, that update isn’t much to write home about, as Ryan Smith reports:
The updated laptop retains the use of Intel’s Broadwell processor, but the base configurations now uses a faster chip, Intel’s Core i5-5350U, instead of the slower i5-5250U. As hinted at by the minor model number change, this is not a massive difference – both the base and the boost clock are 200MHz faster, for 1.8GHz base and 2.9GHz boost – but it is none the less a tangible performance improvement for Apple’s entry-level laptop.
I knew that name was familiar.
This fortnight, Jason and I reviewed the 2016 film Hidden Figures.
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