This week on Connected:
This week, the Europeans and Stephen discuss some follow-up then move on to some fake Blackberry news, smartwatch companion apps and RSS.
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While these art projects float around every so often, this one really jumped out at me. Clearly, this isn’t ever going to be a real product, but it sure is pretty.
Dave Wiskus’ newest video is a great look back at the history of the UI. Check it out.
The Verge’s Vlad Savov:
The iPhone’s lead as the smartphone to beat has rarely been defined by just one thing. At one point, the biggest advantage was the simplicity and speed of its interface; at another, it was down to the diversity and quality of available apps; and most recently, the iPhone has distinguished itself with the quality of its 8-megapixel camera. Today, the combination of all these things — simple and fast operation, strong optics and image processing, and a wide app ecosystem — is helping people create the best possible images with the least possible hassle.
While I think the iPhone has the lead over Android in several categories, Savov’s point about the iPhone camera is true:
The effortlessness of taking good pictures with the iPhone is probably that phone’s most underrated quality. And yet, its importance grows with every passing day.
I’m taking a photo a day this year, and while I have a nice Olympus mirrorless camera, I know that shots taken with my iPhone 6 are far beyond “good enough” for my usage.
Apple has cared about photography for a long time (despite what Aperture users may think), and that care is what drives the bar higher and higher when it comes to the iPhone.
Just look at the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. I’m sure it nearly killed some industrial designers at the company to have a protruding camera, but clearly good optics were of a higher priority. I appreciate that, and I think a large portion of the smartphone buying market does, too. It blows my mind that Android OEMs can’t get this right.
If you see weird DNS issues on your Mac, this article may help you sort them out.
I’ve finally crashed MPU:
Katie and David sit down with Stephen Hackett of 512pixles.net to discuss his previous life as an Apple Genius, how he juggles a day job, Relay.fm and being Editor-in-Chief of the Sweet setup with his family life, his love of old Macs and more.
A huge thanks to Katie and David for having me on. It was a ton of fun to talk about keeping everything I juggle in the air.
Jason Snell:
Over the years I’ve said numerous times that when it comes to battery life on iOS devices, Apple appears to have a target battery life in mind and builds its hardware—a balance of power-saving software, hardware efficiency, and battery capacity—to hit that number.
It’s an observation born out of reading spec sheet after spec sheet over the years while writing reviews of new iPhones and iPads. Every year, people who are frustrated with their iPhones running out of juice before the end of the day hold out hope that the next iPhone will ameliorate the issue. In general, those people have not been satisfied.
Turns out, every iPad has gotten 9-10 hours of battery life. There’s a little more variation on the iPhone side of things, but not much until you get to the 6 Plus.
Dan Goodin:
The potential privacy glitch affects people who have configured the Mac Mail App to turn off the “load remote content in messages” setting, as security experts have long advised. Spammers, stalkers, and online marketers often use remote images as a homing beacon to surreptitiously track people opening e-mail. Because the images are hosted on sites hosted by the e-mail sender, the sender can log the IP address that viewed the message, as well as the times and how often the message was viewed, and the specific e-mail addresses that received the message. Many users prefer to keep their e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and viewing habits private, a goal that’s undermined by the viewing of remote images.
Yeah, Apple doesn’t have a quality problem. No way.
A year ago, Federico, Myke and I looked back at the original iPhone keynote. It’s hard to believe the announcement was eight years ago.
Jason Snell:
If Gurman’s reports are accurate, this new model pulls the MacBook Air line away from the MacBook Pro. In fact, it returns the MacBook Air to its roots—as a product full of choices that we consider crazy at first, because they’re out of step with conventional computer design, but that will appeal to a target audience that doesn’t actually care about those de rigueur features.
We talked about this machine at length on yesterday’s show, but Jason’s article sums up my thoughts pretty squarely.
Everything about this machine screams next-gen, like the original MacBook Air, and even the MacBook Pro with Retina display. While the single USB port thing seems insane to me, I can’t write it off entirely. Apple’s always had forward-looking machines — think the 128k, iMac, etc — that have dropped things everyone at the time felt were essential.
I think this machine will come into the product line between the current MacBook Air and the MacBook Pros for that reason. Like the MacBook Pro with Retina display, I bet it will slowly push down the line, edging out the machines of today over the coming years.
Apple:
Over the years, Apple has driven incredible job growth and created entirely new industries. In fact, our products and innovations have led to over 1 million U.S. jobs — from our engineers and retail employees to suppliers, manufacturers, and app developers.
Connected is old enough to drink legally in the United States:
To ring in 2015, the boys spend some time with weird old browsers, Hackintoshes, the rumored 12-inch MacBook Air and Federico’s attempts to reinvent his nerd life.
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