512 Pixels

Today’s Apple event was oddly paced, with a long time spent discussing topics that weren’t new hardware products. While unusual, I liked what I saw.

The FBI & Environment

Tim Cook opened today’s event by talking about the on-going FBI case concerning weakening the iPhone’s encryption. “We need to decide, as a nation, how much power the government should have over our data and our privacy,” Cook said. “We did not expect to be in this position, at odds with our own government,” he continued, “but we believe strongly that we have a responsibility to help you protect your data and your privacy.”

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, then walked the press through Apple’s on-going environmental initiatives. Here are some quick figures:

• 93% of Apple’s facilities run on renewable power worldwide.
• In 21 out of the 23 countries Apple operates in, its 100%, including the US.
• Apple built a 40-megawatt solar farm in China that’s yak-friendly.
• 99% of the paper products in its boxes is either recycled or comes from “sustainably managed forests.”

Jackson then showed a short video featuring “Liam,” a robotic arm designed to disassemble an iPhone (to prepare it for recycling) with frightening speed and accuracy.

There is no doubt that Apple has a long way to go in many areas, but seeing what the company’s doing concerning the environment is always refreshing.

CareKit & Updates to ResearchKit

Jeff Williams provided an update on ResearchKit, the system that allows doctors and institutions use the iPhone and iOS software to make large-scale medical research a reality.

ResearchKit seems to have taken off, with huge studies now underway looking at Parkinson’s, epilepsy, autism and more.

Williams then introduced CareKit, a new system for allowing patients take a more active role in their treatment. CareKit gives patients tools to track symptoms, manage medications and review things like post-surgical dos and don’ts.

Out of everything the company does, these products are the best examples of making a true “dent in the universe.”

tvOS Update

Apple announced that there are 5,000 Apple TV apps on the Store. With today’s software update, they can be put into folders, and Siri can do a lot more. Also on board is iCloud Photo Library support, decades after it launched.

Ron Amadeo at Ars Technica has directions on how to to enable it. R.I.P., Chrome OS.

Amazon Support:

Customers using an outdated software version on Kindle e-readers require an important software update by March 22, 2016 in order to continue to download Kindle books from the Cloud, access the Kindle Store, and use other Kindle services on their device.

If you do not update your device by March 22, 2016, you will receive the following message on your device: Your Kindle is unable to connect at this time. Please make sure you are within wireless range and try again. If the problem persists, please restart your Kindle from the Menu in Settings and try again. If you see this message on your device on or after March 22, you will need to manually install the latest software update for your device.

I can’t imagine what changed on Amazon’s end that requires an update like this, across almost every generation of device.

Jason Snell and … well … yours truly:

Located at 4 Infinite Loop on Apple’s main campus, the Town Hall conference center was probably designed more for in-company meetings than for major events covered by worldwide media. And yet on numerous occasions over the years, it’s been exactly that.

Monday’s event in Town Hall could very well be the last hurrah for the old 300-seat venue, given that Apple is constructing a 1,000-seat auditorium in its new campus, due to open next year. Before it goes, here’s a look back at key public events in Town Hall, starting in late 2001.

It was a lot of fun to dive into some of these events. Products from the iPod to the Xserve to the iPhone 5C have been introduced at Town Hall:

Jason Snell:

Of all the brilliant tricks Steve Jobs pulled during his second stint at Apple, maybe the most clever was his transformation of the technology product announcement.

I’ve never been all that into games, but I did love playing Sonic on my friend’s SEGA system. This is going to be fun.

I’m not normally one to link to Apple ads, but this new Siri one is pretty dang funny. Don’t miss the Easter egg at the very end.

This week on Connected:

Federico weighs in on the great pineapple pizza debate, then the conversation moves to Android N, the future of the Mac and iOS text editors.

My thanks to our sponsors:

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I wrote about the PowerBook Duo and its docking stations back in 2011, but I left a critical question unanswered:

As a general rule, the PowerBook Duo is ejected from the dock approximately 2.5 inches (6.3 cm). This is a typical measurement, not a minimum or maximum.

It’s similar to a VCR ejecting a video tape: if you can easily grab the Duo and pull it out of the machine, then the Duo Dock is operating correctly.

Helium is a free Mac app that enables Picture in Picture on OS X. Open it, feed it a URL or video file and it’ll play in a borderless window anywhere on screen.

Since publishing my article about tech that should come to the Mac this morning, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about Fusion Drives.

For the uninitiated, the Fusion Drive is a storage solution Apple ships with the Mac mini and iMac that uses a small SSD mated to a larger spinning hard drive. To vastly oversimplify what’s going behind the scenes, the system sees these two devices as one volume. OS X, core apps and the user’s most-used files are on the SSD, while apps and data accessed less frequently live on the hard drive.

This system is designed to give the user the best of both worlds: SSD performance with the large capacity offered by cheap spinning disks. In practice, most users will see speeds much closer to what an SSD can provide than users without a Fusion Drive.

It’s not all great news, though. Fusion Drives generally work well, but there is a level of complication to them not found in single-device storage systems.

Then there’s the penny-pinching. In late 2015, Apple adjusted the Fusion Drive to include much less Flash storage space on some models:

In previous versions of the Fusion Drive, Apple has included 128 GB of flash storage—enough to store a lot of large apps and files that you use frequently. In the new iMacs with 1 TB Fusion Drives, however, that number has been cut to an insanely small 24 GB.

This means that less can be on the SSD at any given time. While OS X and many core apps will still fit there, more users will have more files on the spinning hard drive more of the time, making the overall experience slower than it may have been previously.

SSD costs are still higher than hard drives, so the Fusion Drive continues to exist as a stop-gap. Many users need bigger capacities than Apple offers in their all-SSD models. Other users simply can’t — or don’t want to — pay for a 1 TB SSD at Apple’s prices.

I wish we could move past the Fusion Drive and live in all-SSD world, but I fully realize why we aren’t there yet. But hey, it’s fun to talk about goals.

When Apple introduced OS X Lion, it was at the “Back to the Mac” event, and rightfully so. Lion was the first OS X release to really incorporate — for better and for worse — features from Apple’s mobile operating system.

These days, iOS and OS X’s development tracks are closer than ever, with features like Handoff and AirDrop tying the two systems together in new ways.

With a new version of Mac OS X — or MacOS — assumedly around the corner, I think there’s more Apple could take from iOS’ cookie jar.

Picture in Picture

While the official YouTube app still doesn’t support it, Picture in Picture has changed the way I use my iPad in a significant way.

For example, in the past, preparing for an Apple history article or writing a video script had to be done at my Mac, as I couldn’t have a video, a bunch of browser tabs and a text document set up in any useful way. Now, I can open a video and have it float above my document and browser as I take notes and collect links to relevant articles.

In the short time since iOS 9 has been out, I already feel like video is stifled and trapped on the Mac. Needing an entire browser window open to watch something on YouTube feels incredibly old-fashioned and inflexible. I’d like to see Picture in Picture show up on the Mac to solve this.

UIKit

I’m not a developer, so I’m unable to fully explain this, but in talking with friends who make apps, it’s clear that there’s a frustration on the part of many when it comes to developing on the Mac.

This is especially true in terms of taking an iOS codebase and making a desktop version of an existing app. Mac OS X’s AppKit is far older then UIKit, and is full of differences. The tools and technologies available don’t go far enough in bridging the gap.

There’s no doubt that iOS is where all the action is these days for developers, but I believe the Mac is a longterm, stable platform where people are willing to spend money for software. If Apple could make porting iOS apps to OS X easier, it’d be better for everyone. Bringing UIKit to the Mac would allow developers to re-use much more of their work, lowering the bar required for cross-platform development. That could breathe new life into the Mac software ecosystem and lead to more sales for developers who are seeing prices continue to plummet on the iOS App Store.

All Flash Storage

That 2010 event closed with the introduction of the second-generation MacBook Air. The new design, with its great battery life, thin enclosure and instant sleep/wake ability was only possible through the magic of Flash storage.

Indeed, the MacBook Air is the notebook that brought SSD technology to the masses.

But here in 2016 — a full 6 years later — the Mac lineup still includes numerous models with spinning hard drives (or Fusion Drives) as the default configuration.

• Mac mini
• 21.5-inch iMac
• 21.5-inch iMac with Retina 4K display
• 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display
• 13-inch MacBook Pro

These computers can be upgraded to ship with an SSD from the factory, but many people won’t see or understand the need for it, and have a subpar experience.

While I can understand this on the MacBook Pro and Mac mini, the Retina iMac is perhaps the flagship Mac. It’s dissapointing that Apple cripples it by putting a slow 5400 RPM drive in the thing.

2016 should be the last year this is true. It’s time that Apple finish this transition and leave the spinning hard drive behind.