512 Pixels

Wait, what year is this?

David Sparks, after reminding us that the current iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display are internally identical:

If the rumor sites are to be believed, this won’t be the case with the two different sized iPhones we are expected to see next week. Not only will screen size be different but we may also have differences in camera quality. I would speculate that differences in display quality, battery life, and storage could also easily be in play. Assuming that the bigger phone does get some of the better components, what do the people who want a smaller screen with the better components do? They have to make tough choices. I suspect much digital ink will be sacrificed in relation to this question in the coming weeks.

I think it makes sense that a larger iPhone could have a better battery due to its larger chasis, but it’s important to remember that all current iPads sport the same battery life.

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As far as the other components, I really hope that Apple put the iPhone on the same track as the iPad: that the only difference between the two models is size. I don’t want a 5.5-inch phone, but I don’t want to feel like a second-class citizen because of my size preference.

David Pierce at The Verge:

This watch just happens to do more than tell time.

Until, that is, it doesn’t do anything at all. That happens about 12 hours after I take the watch off its charger, a cool black wireless dock that the 360 slots into sideways. Motorola says the 360’s battery lasts a day, but I haven’t seen it last that long yet. I don’t expect a smartwatch to last weeks or years, but it ought to be able to last a day and a night no matter how much I use it. My watch now dies before my phone does, and that’s unacceptable. I’ve already spent too much time wearing a dead Moto 360, and good-looking a bracelet as it is, that’s not what I’m spending $249 for.

If Apple has something up its sleeve for next week, I hope this issue has been addressed.

This week on Connected, Myke and I were joined by Macworld’s Jason Snell to talk about Apple’s upcoming event.

This episode was sponsored by:

• Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.
• Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation
• Squarespace (use code WORLD for 10% off)

Our refrigerator is probably just like yours — covered in photos of family and friends, along with a calendar and some coupons to use at the grocery store.

There’s a section on ours, however, with photos of kids who have died of cancer.

For a little over five years, our oldest son has been fighting a brain tumor, and in that time, we’ve had far too many “little friends” and their families pass through our lives.

The real kicker is that these kids received the best care on the planet. The very best that science can do still isn’t enough; cancer remains the leading killer of children.

Just look at these survival numbers. St. Jude is leading the way in ridding the world of some terrible diseases. St. Jude makes their research and breakthroughs public, so kids well beyond the 7,800 seen each year here in Memphis can benefit.

The most unbelievable part is right in the organization’s mission statement:

The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family’s ability to pay.

I know first-hand what this means. In five years, my family hasn’t paid a single dime for our son’s care and on-going rehabilitation. As soul-crushing as having a child with cancer is, I can’t imagine having to worry about life-altering debt or filing for bankruptcy as well.

There are a million good causes out there, but let’s make September about those kids on my refrigerator.

I’ve set up a St. Jude fundraising page that I will be linking to instead of RSS sponsors for the month of September. My goal is to raise $1,000$2,500$4,000$6,000 $10,000 for the kids of St. Jude this month It takes $2 million a day to run the hospital and research center, so this is a drop in the bucket. Let’s make it our drop.

Over on Re/code:

So that new wearable device Apple is introducing on September 9? It’s going to be a while before anyone is actually wearing it. Sources in position to know tell me it won’t arrive at market for a few months. “It’s not shipping anytime soon,” said one. So when does Apple plan to ship its eagerly anticipated wearable? That’s not clear, but my understanding is that we’re unlikely to see it at retail until after the holiday season — think early 2015.

A delayed release makes sense on a bunch of levels, including giving developers time to prepare apps for the platform.

If this new device is months away from shipping, it would also help explain the suspicious lack of leaked details, especially from parts suppliers in Asia.

Juli Clover:

Apple today issued invitations for its upcoming iPhone 6 event on September 9, which is also said to include its much-anticipated wearable device. According to the invitations, Apple is planning to host the event at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts at De Anza College in Cupertino, the same location where Steve Jobs introduced the original Mac 30 years ago.

For the occasion, it appears that Apple has been building a massive structure on the campus, which has been kept under tight wraps with a white barricade.

Well, this should be exciting. From what I’ve seen on video, the Flint Center is pretty big; I can’t imagine what Apple needs more square footage for during or after an event that would be boring.

This week on Connected, Federico, Myke and I follow up on the history of the iPod, then discusses software and hardware that are helping them get in better shape.

Sponsored by:

• Blogo: Blogging made easy
• OmniGraffle from The Omni Group
• Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.

Quote keeping is a problem with a thousand possible solutions.

Quotes can be stored in apps like Vesper, Simplenote, Evernote or even Google Docs. But the data entry sucks, and there’s no relationships built across pieces of data. There’s no structure to the data, leading to messy storage.

Take Evernote for example. I rely on it daily as my Anything Bucket. It does a good job at doing lots of things. It’s a generalist.

Generalists are boring.

Quotebook 3 by the handsome young men at Likability is not messy or boring. Some of the best apps on iOS are ones that do very specific things. Quotebook is in that class.

The new version of the universal comes with super fast iCloud syncing, the ability to import quotes from Tumblr and Facebook and share them with Tweetbot, Day One and more.

Because Quotebook is a specialist, however, it’s fine-tuned to the work of collecting and reviewing quotes. Here’s the entry screen:

The app can pull in names from the device’s contact list, and sources from song titles from your music library. Tapping on a source or name brings up all related content, and with tags, it’s easy to organize quotes across categories or topics.

Quotebook 3 is $4.99 on the iOS App Store.

Maia Olson at Smile Software:

We’ve been hard at work since Apple announced the new and exciting extensions and custom keyboards available in iOS 8.

TextExpander touch 3, coming on the heels of iOS 8 this fall, includes a TextExpander keyboard which can expand snippets in any app on the iPhone or iPad, including built-in apps such as Mail and Safari.

Hot damn, my iOS devices are about to get a lot more useful at work.

This morning, Dropbox announced a revamped approach to the company’s Pro offering.

Instead of the tiered structure in place before, all Dropbox Pro users will now have 1 TB of space on the service for $9.99/month or $99/year.

The new monthly price matches Google Drive’s monthly cost for the same amount of storage. Paid annually, Dropbox is actually cheaper.

In addition to the increased space, Pro users can set passwords and expiration dates for shared links and view-only permissions for shared folders. Lastly, Dropbox Pro customers can remotely unlink and remove a Dropbox folder from a lost computer.

I’ve used Dropbox Pro for years, and store a ton of data on the service. It’s good to see the company taking Google on in price and storage, and the new features are more than welcome.

Matt Richman really wants Apple to ship ARM-based Macs. Let’s look at his latest points:

1. User Experience Would Improve

Richman — who discloses that he owns 56 shares of Apple and 50 shares of ARM — writes:

If Apple’s chip design team can create a phone processor that performs on par with Intel’s fastest tablet chip, the company’s “highest priority”, then there’s no reason to believe that the same team at Apple can’t design chips powerful enough for any Mac in the company’s lineup.

Maybe. As discussed, it’s not as simple as cranking the processor machine to 11 and standing back.

He continues:

Apple has already released a line of A-series chips tailored specifically for iOS devices, and the company is most definitely working on a line of B-series chips tailored specifically for Macs. When that B-series chip — or set of B-series chips that runs in parallel — is ready, Apple will be able to switch to ARM-based Macs without sacrificing user experience. On the contrary, because the company is no doubt designing its line of B-series chips in tandem with Mac OS X, there would be iPhone-like hardware-software optimization, improving user experience.

Initially, ARM-based Macs would be a step backwards in terms of user experience. Even if Apple could ship a ARM-based Mac that’s as fast x86 Macs, Apple would be sacrificing Windows compatibility, which is a huge deal for many business users, including yours truly.

Additionally, going with ARM would give Apple a slightly better opportunity for “iPhone-like hardware-software optimization,” but the truth is that Apple is already heavily involved with the design of the Intel-powered hardware inside its Macs. The MacBook Air sleeps and wakes nearly as quickly as an iPad, and the Mac Pro sings a tune that no generic PC can.

2. Apple Would Make More Money Per Mac And Sell More Macs

Going from chip concept to manufactured product can be broken down into two separate and distinct steps. The first is chip design — figuring out what features the processor will have and how it will work. The second is manufacturing — turning a file that exists on a screen into a physical product you can hold in your hand.

Today, Intel designs the chips in Macs and manufactures them, profiting on both of those steps. But if Apple substituted Intel’s chips for its own ARM-based designs, an external company would profit on only one step of the chip creation process, not both, leading to a decrease in the cost of building a Mac. By my conservative estimate, Apple would be able to drop the price of the base model 11- and 13″ MacBook Airs by $50 and still make more profit per unit on each than it currently does.

As John Siracusa spoke about in episode 77 of ATP, Apple would face significant issues in fabricating a Mac-caliber desktop ARM chipset. Intel wouldn’t bump their own production back to do it, and while Apple does have a shit-ton of cash, it may not be able to spin up a fab shop easily, let alone cut prices on machines.

3. Apple Would Be Able To Create Better Macs

There are clear advantages to Apple using ARM chips in their machines. Battery life could be insane and the things could run cooler than ever. There’s even this, which I haven’t thought about in quite a while:

Apple wouldn’t have been able to create Touch ID if the iPhone were powered by an Intel chip instead of an Apple-designed one. There wouldn’t have been a “secure enclave” on the iPhone’s processor to store the fingerprint data, nor would there have been perfect hardware-software integration. Apple was able to implement Touch ID because it designed the A7 chip in tandem with the iPhone 5S’s software and the rest of its hardware.

Touch ID would be killer on a Mac, but it’s not enough to change the reality that in 2014, the possibility of an ARM-powered Mac shipping anytime soon seems low.