512 Pixels

Holy moly.

Dan Moren, writing at Macworld:

Apple was so concerned about transforming the 2013 edition of the Mac Pro into an elegant, radical piece of machinery that it lost sight of what made that product appeal to its users. In a rare moment, the company even admitted it had taken the wrong approach.

But what about Apple’s portable Macs? With this week’s announcement of Microsoft’s Surface Laptop—of which there is very little that’s radical—it seems as though Apple’s notebooks may have missed a beat by being too focused on pushing the envelope. Maybe what we’re looking for is a faster horse.

The lack of a good, updated Mac notebook at the $999 price point sure seems silly to me.

My thanks to iStumbler Labs for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. iStumbler provides detailed information about Wi-Fi Networks, Bluetooth Devices and Bonjour Services around you. Plug in the Oscium WiPry 5x and see detailed 2.4 and 5 GHz spectrum analysis for the first time on your Mac!

Rumors have it that Apple may ship its Echo and Google Home competitor as early as WWDC.

The timing would be classic Apple: let the early players work out the kinks in the market, then come in with something you think is more nicely designed and works better than the devices that founded the category.

No doubt a Siri Voice Canister would look better than the $179 Amazon Echo. I love how the slightly cheaper Google Home looks, but I found its touch surface to be a little lacking.

A Siri Voice Canister carved of a single block of aluminum with a multitouch control surface? Sign me up.

The other side of this isn’t as positive. I don’t think Siri works as well as these other voice assistants in some contexts. I rarely have my Echo misunderstand my words or misinterpret them, and Google is basically king of the hill here.

Additionally, Apple’s reluctance to open Siri to more third-party services means its not as extensible as something like Alexa with its Skills program.

If this product is real, I think Apple has to expand SiriKit into a much richer platform. The Siri Voice Canister will have to be able to work without a paired iPhone present. I’ll be looking for that at WWDC, even if there is no hardware announced.

In thinking about what physically goes into a product like this, its clear Apple has all the expertise needed. Networking, speakers and microphones are things the company understands. In fact, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple’s product could be sold at a premium based on sound quality:

We expect Apple’s first home AI product will have excellent acoustics performance (one woofer + seven tweeters) and computing power (similar to iPhone 6/6S AP). Therefore the product is likely to be positioned for: (i) the high-end market; (ii) better entertainment experience; and (iii) higher price than Amazon Echo.

All of that feels right to me, but I still have some questions about what this product could be like if Apple really leveraged its ecosystem.

The Echo and Google Home both fall back to a mobile app when they can’t deliver the results the user expects. Tap the Echo app on my iPhone, and you’ll see a trail of every request it has heard, but the Echo itself will direct a user there when it can’t reply with voice:

This is a space where Apple’s integration could really shine. Not only could this type of information simply show up on the lock screen of an associated iPhone, I think it’s be great for the Apple Watch to be involved as well.

The Echo and products like it want to live in the kitchen. It’s a natural place a voice assistant. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve spoken to our Echo while cooking or washing dishes. Having a Siri Voice Canister fall back to my Watch means information is just a glance away, even if I have my hands in the sink.

Update: Several people have suggested Apple could just build this type of functionality into the next Apple TV. I think this is a flawed idea for a couple of reasons.

First, most people don’t have an Apple TV in their kitchens, where these products are the most useful. Even if the Siri Remote would work from a different room of the house well enough for this, then your Siri Remote is constantly in the wrong place when you reach for it.

Secondly, most people don’t leave their TVs on all the time. Would this Apple TV also have a speaker in it? Then you’re back to the first problem, unless the Siri Remote also gains a speaker, which would make it bigger and even worse than it is today.

I just don’t see it. I think this is a separate device from the Apple TV.

Devin Coldewey:

The Apple I, you may or may not remember, wasn’t much of a hit. Only 200 were made — by hand — and it wasn’t long before the company put its hopes in the Apple II, which would go on to be more popular by far. One of the Is, however, Jobs kept in his office as a demo machine for industry people.

When Jobs left in 1985 he left in a hurry, and this I was left behind on a shelf. Don Hutmacher, one of the company’s first employees, grabbed it and it stayed in his possession until he passed away last year. His wife generously allowed the museum to take care of it, and you can imagine their gratitude.

Sarah Kliff at Vox:

The bill would likely cause millions to lose health insurance coverage. We don’t know how many because the latest version of the Republican plan has not yet been scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to estimate how many people it would cover and how much it would cost. The most recent score for the bill, before new amendments offered in recent weeks, found that 24 million more people would be uninsured by 2026.

Still, even without the CBO score, we have a very good sense of how the bill would work, whom it benefits, and whom it disadvantages.

TL;DR: If you are sick or elderly, you’re going to be in trouble. The bill:

• Allows states to opt out of pre-existing conditions. The definition of “pre-existing conditions” is being expanded to include sexual assault.
• Would create high-risk pools for the sickest citizens, but doesn’t include near enough funding to keep these from collapsing.
• End Medicaid expansion in 2020 and remove $880 billion from the program.
• Could bring back lifetime caps on insurance coverage.
• Includes an exemption for legislators’ insurance.
• Is being voted on before the public or CBO have had a chance to review.
• “Essential health benefits” (including prescriptions, hospitalization, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care, counseling, physical rehab, oral and vision care for children and more) could be made optional, even for those on plans purchased by their employer.
• Does not include the setup of cross-state purchasing, even though Trump has promised it would multiple times.
• Cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
• Drastically increase costs for older enrollees.

This bill is shameful, and the Republicans who back it should be voted out of office in 2018.

Apple:

The numbers tell the story. Apple is one of the biggest job creators in the United States, responsible for two million jobs in all 50 states. Last year, we spent over $50 billion with more than 9,000 U.S. suppliers and manufacturers. Since we launched the App Store in 2008, U.S. developers have earned over $16 billion in App Store sales worldwide. And we’re just getting started.

No doubt the company feels like it has to play defense as Washington chants “Buy American; Hire American.”

Politics aside, I sometimes lose sight of the sheer scale of modern Apple. This site helps correct that.

One of macOS’ best tricks is the ability to print anything to a PDF. This is accessible from any system print dialog box:

Apps can put their own items in that services menu, but selecting “Save as PDF…” will let you pick which folder you to save your newly-minted PDF to.

Most of the time, I’m creating a PDF with this method to upload to something like Freshbooks. I just want to save my receipt to the Desktop as quickly as possible. Waiting for the Open/Save window just slows me down.

Thankfully, adding a folder to that menu is super simple.

Selecting the “Edit Menu…” options spawns a new window:

Clicking the + button will bring up the Open/Save window. Simply navigate to the Desktop (or whatever folder you want to use) and press Open.

The name of the folder will now appear in the list of custom printing workflows.

You can double click on the name if you wish to change it. When you’re done, click OK, and your new custom destination will appear in the PDF services menu. Selecting it will cause macOS to create a PDF in that folder without any additional clicks.

I think this is the first Apple kbase article I’ve seen that’s source was a clone maker. Check out this fine print!

Power Computing provided the information in this article and it was deemed accurate as of 14 November 1997. Apple Computer, Inc. is not responsible for its content. This article is being provided as is and will not be updated in the future.

TL;DR: It’s a pretty normal Q2 for the company:

“We are proud to report a strong March quarter, with revenue growth accelerating from the December quarter and continued robust demand for iPhone 7 Plus,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve seen great customer response to both models of the new iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition and we’re thrilled with the strong momentum of our Services business, with our highest revenue ever for a 13-week quarter. Looking ahead, we are excited to welcome attendees from around the world to our annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month in San Jose.”

Some tidbits from the call:

• Services business almost the size of a Fortune 100 company.
• Double-digit revenue growth from Apple Music and iCloud storage.
• Paid subscriptions for Apple/third parties now exceed $165 million.
• Apple Pay is now in 15 markets. Number of transactions growing quickly.
• 380,000 iMessages per second were sent during the Super Bowl.
• Clips got a mention on the quarterly call!
• Gains in Mac market share thanks to new MacBook Pros.
• iPad numbers better than Apple’s internal expectations. New 9.7" iPad going well.
• Apple Watch, AirPods and Beats combined revenue for the last year is the size of a Fortune 500 company.
• Mac and services seeing double-digit growth in China.
• Apple excited about opportunities in India and the growth of Retail to 495 stores.
• WWDC and recent Environmental Report both mentioned, with the latter being praised by Tim Cook.
• Tim Cook: Apple is a company that could have only been created in America," before stating that Apple supports 2 million jobs, in all 50 states.
• The App Store saw its most profitable quarter, and grew 40% year-over-year. Apple saw its biggest increase in paying accounts ever.
• iPhone 7 Plus demand was higher than expected; it took Apple time to adjust supply.
• While he didn’t share numbers, Cook noted that the Apple Watch has “doubled in sales.”

Here are some charts for your enjoyment. Unless you’re an iPad fan, in which case … maybe just move on.

Revenue

Apple saw double-digit revenue growth in US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Turkey and Mexico.

Profit

Services Revenue

Remember, this quarter was one week shorter than the previous one. That services number continues to impress.

“Other Product” Revenue

iPhone Unit Sales

iPad Unit Sales

The slide is slowing, but is still there.

Mac Unit Sales

The new MacBook Pro pushed the Mac this quarter; portables grew at twice the rate of the PC portable market. Mac revenue was up over the sheer unit numbers. The reason is simple; the $899 MacBook Air is no more, and the $999 Air is old. The base MacBook runs $1,299. In short, Macs are more expensive then they were last year.

This week on the world’s greatest podcast:

Myke is putting wax seals on everything, and Stephen is backing documentaries about antique computing devices. Once that’s finished, the two talk about Apple’s rumored Siri-in-a-Canister product and Amazon’s recent Alexa news.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
• Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer CONNECTED to get 20% off.
• Bombfell: Find the right clothes for you. Get $25 OFF YOUR FIRST purchase.

Alex Abad-Santos at Vox, recounting Monday’s episode:

Kimmel told a heart-wrenching story about his newborn son, who was born a little over a week ago with a congenital heart disease that could have killed him. Kimmel’s wife Molly McNearney (who’s the co-head writer of Jimmy Kimmel Live) gave birth to William “Billy” John Kimmel on April 21. Everything seemed fine at first, but a nurse heard a murmur in his heart and noticed that he didn’t look right.

I’ve embedded the video below. You won’t be able to make it through without tearing up.

At the end of it, Kimmel made a passionate argument about the state of healthcare legistlation in America:

We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world. Until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all. You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease, like my son was, there’s a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance, because you had a preexisting condition.

[…]

If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right? No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.