A Few Thoughts on the September 12 Apple Event

Like so many other nerds, I spent several hours today on the couch watching the Apple event. Several observations came to mind:

  • The new campus looks amazing. I’m going to call in every favor I have from friends at Apple to try and get a tour. I know there’s a lot of consternation about how the workspaces are set up at the place does look beautiful.
  • It was really touching how emotional Tim was when talking about Steve. It seems clear to me Steve’s legacy will continue so long as the people that worked with him remain at Apple.
  • It took too long to get Angela Ahrendts on stage but I’mglad they finally did.
  • That Apple Watch heart initiative is going to save lives. Mark my words.
  •  The cellular Apple Watch is interesting. However, they were very coy in talking about what the cellular connection is going to cost you. After the event, we’re finding out it’s generally $10 per month with each carrier. I don’t see myself as an early adopter with the cellular watch. I don’t go anywhere except the ocean and the pool without my phone and when I’m in the water, I have no desire to receive calls.
  •  That being said, if you have an original Apple Watch you may want to consider upgrading. I have the Series 2 and the brighter screen is really nice. Plus, two years of processor upgrades means the entire watch (and Siri) will work significantly better on this Series 3 watch than the original.
  •  About that new AppleTV … If you’ve got a 4K TV and it’s kind of big, you should check it out. Otherwise, move along.
  • Going into the event, I was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to sell the iPhone 8. I was wrong. The iPhone 8 has several nice enhancements over the iPhone 7 and will be a significant upgrade for folks who don’t want to go with the iPhone X. True Tone display, better cameras, the A11 (Bionic!) and 4K video at 60FPS are all significant improvements.
  • Phil Schiller on the iPhone X screen, “First OLED great enough to be in iPhone.” Never change Phil. Never change.
  • I really prefer the announced two-tiered iPhone storage program. 64G and 256G are just right. The previous three-tier system added too much complication that was further aggravated by the fact that for years the lowest tier at 16G was way too small. I feel like the storage being offered now is more of a square deal for consumers.
  • The difference between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X is that screen, face recognition, a better camera system (image stabilization on both lenses is a big deal), and $300. I’m in.
  • I would not want to be the person to deliver the message to Apple management that the iPhone X can’t ship until November. Ugh.
  • On the topic of the iPhone X ship date, I think the November ship date is only beginning of your quest to obtain an iPhone X. With no inside knowledge whatsoever, expect supply constraints and back orders. The MPU Facebook group did an informal poll and the desire among nerds for the iPhone X is eclipsing the iPhone 8.
  • I think wireless charging is not going to be much of a deal in the end.
  • Did you see the way Craig Federighi dealt with that iPhone snafu? They had a problem demo model, he picked up the backup and continued like a boss. His speaking skills have come so far.
  • There was no mention of ProMotion technology for either new iPhone. That surprised me.
  • The Mac didn’t get mentioned once today. Nada.

The September 12 Apple Event

We’re just hours away from Apple’s big iPhone (and other things) announcement. This event has had a lot of leaks leading up to it but I suspect Apple will still have a few surprises in store of us. Moreover, one of the most important things Apple does at these events is tell their story for their products and services. With a new category of iPhone and some of their other announcements, the way Apple frames the product gives you a ton of information as to how they see things fitting together and which direction they are heading.

As for me, I did not get a golden ticket so I will not be in the Cupertino bunker watching the event live but instead sitting on my couch with a cold drink and my iPad. You can watch the event live on the Apple website and follow me on Twitter. I’ll be tweeting throughout the event.

Also, make sure to spend some quality time with your iPhone in the next few hours because by the time the event is over, you are going to hate it.

Mac Power Users 395: Feedback Show



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In this feedback episode, we cover listener questions, must-have iOS utilities, tagging, automation, and more feedback. Finally, we discuss the Apple iPhone event scheduled for September 12.

Sponsors include:

  • Gazelle: Sell your iPhone for cash at Gazelle!
  • The Omni Group: Celebrating 25 years of making outstanding productivity apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. 
  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. 
  • Fracture: Bring your photos to life.

Agenda Minder for Better Meetings (Sponsor)


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This week MacSparky is sponsored by Agenda Minder, the application that makes it easy to capture information so that you can run killer meetings. Agenda Minder is a personal productivity tool that is designed to help people prepare for meetings and develop productive agendas. 

Agenda Minder is now up to version 1.51, including search features, filters, and tags. They’ve added a calendar import feature to make it easier than ever to get your meetings into Agenda Minder.

You can now get Agenda Minder in the Mac App Store or directly from the developer. You can even give the free trial a spin. For a short time, you’ll get a 20% discount with the code MacSparky. Thanks, Agenda Minder, for sponsoring MacSparky.



Leaky Apple

On top of the HomePod firmware release a few months ago, which appeared to be accidental, someone in Cupertino leaked the gold masters of iOS 11 a few days ago, which appears to be intentional. The gold master is usually the final version of a new operating system for developers to use in preparing their apps before the update releases. It always gets released after Apple’s keynote and includes additional bits that were previously kept secret.

Looking at the gold master reveals a lot of information that Apple would have preferred to surprise us with at the keynote. I won’t spoil anything here but if you’d like to learn more, I’ll just point you at MacRumors, which, as always, is pulling every morsel it can out of this leak.

The interesting, and perhaps sad, part of this is that in years past, leaks about Apple products always came from the supply chain in China. Once production ramped up to make millions of phones before launch, it was only natural that a few random parts and photos would make it to the Internet. Cupertino, however, always seemed like it was locked up and rarely did we get software leaks from the Apple headquarters. However, this year that changed. Nearly all the significant leaks came from the mother ship. This must be driving a lot of people at Apple nuts.

Quality Developers

I have always felt that perhaps the biggest advantage to using Apple hardware is the rich market of quality independently developed software. There are so many apps on the Mac that simply don’t exist for Windows. These independent developers are dedicated to making quality software and without them, I’d be much less likely to use Apple’s hardware. Today is the 25th anniversary of the Omni Group but Omni’s not alone. Michael Tsai points out that a lot of our favorite apps have been around awhile. My favorite post on this subject was Jason Snell’s, Built to last.

 

Siri Today and in the Future

Yesterday Wired magazine published an article about the most recent improvements to Siri. Several prominent Apple executives participated including Alex Acero, the Siri lead, and Greg Joswiak.

The focus of the article was the improvement to Siri’s voice with IOS 11. Having used the beta now for several months, I can tell you that Siri is most certainly more expressive than in prior versions. The technology behind it, as explained in the article, is quite fascinating. Rather than using recorded words, they are using phonemes, which are the individual sound components of words assembled by Siri on-the-fly to be as expressive as possible.

One issue I would take with the article is that it almost feels as if they are implying Apple is only working on making Siri more expressive and not generally smarter. I’m pretty sure Apple can walk and chew gum, and from my own experience with Siri, it has continually improved since first released.

An example of this is calendar appointments. Up until about a year ago, scheduling calendar appointments was a syntax-heavy task with Siri. That’s not true anymore. Now there are several ways that you can naturally ask Siri to schedule an appointment, and she usually gets it right. The “usually” in that sentence is the problem. “Usually” needs to become “Always” or “Almost Always”. For Siri, the make-or-break moment is the first time a user tries to do something new. If you try to set a calendar appointment and Siri crashes and burns, you probably won’t try it again. To get more users to buy in, Apple needs to continue to improve that first experience, so users are encouraged to dig deeper.

The Wired article also addresses the different philosophies of Apple versus Amazon with the development of intelligent assistants. Amazon, with the Echo, is opening things for third-party developers making the device work with more services but also requiring users to learn the specific syntax needed to use those newly acquired skills. Apple, on the other hand, wants things to become more natural language-based where users don’t have to use a specific syntax to get work done.

For non-nerd users, natural language seems the only approach. I can’t imagine convincing my wife to memorize the appropriate speaking syntax for every service she wants to use through Siri or Alexa.

I think in the short term, the Amazon approach is easier and gets the ball forward faster. In the long-term, I think the Apple approach could be right if properly executed. If Siri does incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence the way Apple wants it to, it could ultimately end up leapfrogging the syntax driven approach of its competitors. 

Disaster Preparedness for Your Technology

In light of Irma’s imminent arrival in Florida today, I thought it’d be worth linking a few articles addressing technology-related disaster preparation. First, Ars Technica has an article about the utility of having a UPS attached to your networking gear. I just did that a few months ago and it’s already paid off when I was doing some electrical work on the house that required turning off the power and I was still able to WiFi instructional YouTube video. I can see it being even more useful in a hurricane. Katie Floyd made a good point on this week’s upcoming Mac Power Users that if you are expecting a lot of lightning, you can unplug the UPS from the wall and use it as a massive iPhone/iPad charger.

Speaking of Katie Floyd, she’s a lifetime Florida resident and disaster preparedness runs cold through her veins. She put up a smart post with several of the technology related steps she takes whenever Florida goes on storm watch.

If things are really going off the rails for you, think about your data first. A few years ago we had some wild fires literally across the street from my home. It all happened very fast and we had almost no time to prepare before being evacuated. With 20 minutes to get out, we grabbed all the pictures off the walls and all the hard drives with all the family data. Give some thought to how you’d deal with that sort of fire drill. If you wouldn’t be able to get your most valuable data quickly, time to buy some additional hard drives or come up with some other plan. 

Finally, if you’re reading this from Florida, please take care and be safe.