After my recent post about how Apple Maps butchers the Great American Pyramid, several readers sent in images of other pyramids Apple has rendered properly. One in particular is quite painful to see — Luxor Las Vegas.
Here is the hotel in satellite view, and then in Apple’s 3D rendered view:
It seems that Apple does have the technology to make smooth pyramids!
In a kitchen drawer, between a key that fitted no door and a knot of charging cables, lay an iPhone 6s. It had once been the newest phone in the house, and it had taken more pictures of the cat than anyone would ever look at. Then one Christmas a bigger phone arrived, the old one went into the drawer “for now,” and for now lasted nine years. “We are retired, you and I,” said the key. “I am resting,” said the iPhone.
Starting at noon Eastern, I’ll be live-streaming from the St. Jude campus with five of my favorite people in the world, raising money for one of the most incredible places in the world.
I expect we will hit our campaign goal while on the air, which is going to be magical. Tune in!
Mark Gurman, writing about Apple’s upcoming move into more smart home devices, which we may see as early as this month:
At the center of the strategy is a smart-home hub code-named J490, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple also plans to announce the first update to the HomePod mini since that device’s 2020 debut and its first new TV set-top box since 2022.
…
The hub’s defining feature will be its ability to serve multiple members of a household. It is designed to recognize who is speaking to it or approaching it, and then display personalized content and provide answers based on that person’s data and accounts.
This morning, I saw Basic Apple Guy’s recent post about Apple Stores popping up in Apple Maps, and I was reminded that we have some fancy Apple Maps features here in Memphis, too.
I present to you downtown Memphis, looking east from the Mississippi River:
Yes, we have a Bass Pro inside a pyramid. No, it doesn’t look like Apple’s rendering of it:
Ramesses now stands at the University of Memphis, but that’s a story for another time.
This week on the podcast:
Federico has an M5 Ultra Mac Studio review unit and shares what local AI looks like on macOS today — and in the future. Myke has advice for buying iPhones in countries other than your own, and Stephen is old.
We will be off next week for the Podcastathon, but will be back on October 8.
I have launched and withdrawn more than 50 apps from the App Store over the years, but never have I had a withdrawal sustain the consistent attention that Geneva Moon (and its astronomically accurate complications) has. I pulled it 6 years ago and yet I still get people asking about it on a regular basis.
It broke in watchOS 27. Over the weekend I got it working again. Here it is. I hope this makes a small but highly dedicated group of people happy. Also, I made it free.
We are flying through September, and our St. Jude campaign is rocking and rolling. As of this writing, we are knocking on the door of $450,000 raised this month!
St. Jude cares for some of the world’s sickest children regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs, or ability to pay. Its patients receive the customized care they need to treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases, no matter what barriers they face.
Doug Brown has dug up something previously lost to time. In working with an early Performa, he discovered a true gem on its hard drive:
This Performa 410 was a store demo unit! This is the kiosk software that would have been running on a demo Mac inside a store like Sears or Circuit City. The machine was never wiped back to factory state before being sold, and the original owner kept the demo software the entire time they had the machine. Such a cool find!
Life is full of trade-offs. I often think about this in terms of vehicles. If you have a big family, a minivan is probably the right call, even if it means sacrificing performance. A luxury sedan may be nice to sit in, but it will cost you big bucks. You can drive a pickup truck, but you will probably pay for it at the pump.
In the world of technology, trade-offs change nature over time. The first iPhone was amazing, but it was expensive and only ran on AT&T. The original MacBook Air was an incredible piece of engineering, but it ran hot and slow.
This week on the podcast:
Apple’s 27 OSes are out, but a new beta is already overshadowing them. The guys talk about both, celebrate a huge milestone in Relay’s St. Jude campaign, and dream of future Apple Stores.
Dr. Drang, bouncing off my recent post on Apple’s dimensional drawings:
When I zoomed in on Stephen’s page, I was initially confused, but then I realized what seemed odd to me. You see, I’ve spent an awful lot of the past 40 years looking at engineering drawings, and I can’t think of any that looked like this. That’s because the drawings I’m used to are for making the depicted product, but the drawings Apple’s offering up here aren’t for that. These are for others—not Apple and not its suppliers—to use for making cases and other accessories. I figured it was worth a quick post on what makes a drawing like the one above so different from what I’m used to.