Posts in Linked

Connected, Episode 169: Really Regular Nightstand→

Stephen is struggling with a lot of things and makes a task management confession, but Federico broke his iPhone X, so it all comes out in the wash. Oh, and Myke is gone, so don’t tell him he was right about the HomePod being delayed.

On this week’s Connected, Stephen and I talk about the iMac Pro, task managers and smart speakers (again), and my broken iPhone X. You can listen here.

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What Face ID Means for Accessibility→

Steven Aquino on the accessibility implications of Face ID on the iPhone X:

The way Apple has built Face ID, hardware- and software-wise, into iOS quite literally makes using iPhone a “hands-free” experience in many regards. And that’s without discrete accessibility features like Switch Control or AssistiveTouch. That makes a significant difference to users, myself included, whose physical limitations make even the most mundane tasks (e.g., unlocking one’s device) tricky. As with so many accessibility-related topics, the little things that are taken for granted are always the thin

The combination of Face ID with Raise to Wake (or, arguably, the simplicity of Tap to Wake) truly sounds like a remarkable improvement accessibility-wise, perhaps in a way that we didn’t foresee when we started speculating on Apple abandoning Touch ID. Hands-free unlocking is one of my favorite aspects of the iPhone X experience so far.

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Following Spotify Playlist Curators Around New York’s Live Music Scene→

In an otherwise boring conversation about some press release or another, a Spotify PR person mentioned to me that an artist who had a big hit on the platform’s Fresh Finds playlist was discovered when one of the curators just happened to see them play a show in Bushwick. I was as surprised as anyone really can be by an email from corporate PR.

Fresh Finds is one of Spotify’s prized products, a weekly playlist crafted from a combination of two different data inputs: it identifies new, possibly interesting music with natural language processing algorithms that crawl hundreds of music blogs, then puts those songs up against the listening patterns of users their data designates “trendsetters.” What’s going to a show in Bushwick have to do with it? I had visions of a bunch of suits using their business cards to get into cool shows for no reason other than to feel like Vinyl-era record execs for a night. It seemed extremely redundant, and more than a little like posturing. Why bother?

“It’s basically their job,” I was told. Okay but, excuse me, how is that a playlist curator’s job? To find out, I asked if I could tag along with on a few of them on their nights out. I did not expect the answer to be yes, mostly because I thought it should be obvious that my intention was to point out how weird the whole thing was.

But the answer was yes. So, for three weeks, I went with Spotify playlist curators to live performances in Chinatown, Bushwick, and an infamous club on the Lower East Side. I got dozens of half-answers to the question: Why are you here?

Fascinating story by Kaitlyn Tiffany for The Verge on how Spotify is sending curators to live music shows – a process that, according to the company, informs the platform’s tastemakers on what later ends up in popular playlists. As she argues, it’s easy to imagine how Spotify may be planning a lot more behind the scenes.

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“A Path That Leads to Failure”→

Jony Ive, talking about the removal of the Home button on the iPhone X in an interview with TIME:

How does Apple decide when it’s time to move on? It’s not a decision to get rid of an existing technology as much as it’s a willingness to accept that what’s familiar isn’t always what’s best. “I actually think the path of holding onto features that have been effective, the path of holding onto those whatever the cost, is a path that leads to failure,” says Ive. “And in the short term, it’s the path the feels less risky and it’s the path that feels more secure.”

As someone else put it 7 years ago – “sometimes you just have to pick the things that look like they’re going to be the right horses to ride going forward”.

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Testing Faster Wireless Charging on iOS 11.2 Beta→

Matt Birchler ran some tests with faster wireless charging on iOS 11.2 (currently in beta) and, unfortunately, the results aren’t impressive:

Over the 2 hour test, the iPhone 8 Plus went from zero to 47%. It charged at an incredibly consistent 4% per 10 minutes. Previously I got up to 40% with this same charger after 2 hours, which is a 17% improvement in wireless charging speed. While this is indeed an increase, it’s not the sort of increase that’s going to get you from “wireless charging is too slow” to “I love wireless charging!”. If you have 2 hours to change your phone and there is a 7% difference in the change level, I don’t think that’s a huge deal. Especially when you compare 30 minutes on the charger, I saw literally no change in performance, as it took 30 minutes for the phone to reach 11% charge.

As I noted yesterday, the Qi spec supports up to 15W, but it’s unclear if Apple will go beyond 7.5W for wireless charging on the iPhone 8 and X lines. “Faster” wireless charging doesn’t compare to actual USB-C fast charging at all – earlier today, I tested a 30W USB-C battery pack for an iPhone X story I’m working on, and the device charged by 83% in just 60 minutes. Now that is remarkable.

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Can Clips Be a Modern Day Photo Booth?→

Karan Varindani considers the potential of Apple’s Clips to be a spiritual successor to Photo Booth:

With the iPad 2, back in early 2011, Apple brought Photo Booth to the iPad. I distinctly remember thinking that this was a no-brainer at the time. Growing up in Ghana, there weren’t that many Macs in my high school, but everybody that had one used Photo Booth. It was very regular to walk into the sixth form (senior year) common room and see groups of friends, myself included, behind a MacBook playing with the filters. Talking to several of my American friends, it sounds like it was the same deal here. I always thought that it was only a matter of time before Apple brought Photo Booth to the iPhone, but six years later it still just ships with Macs and iPads (and I don’t think that it’s been updated in that time).

Playing with the Selfie Scenes in Clips last week, I had the same feeling that I did playing with Photo Booth on my Mac many years ago. It was a little surreal, as someone with incredible front-camera shyness, to find myself having so much fun with it. The whole experience had me thinking: In a few years, once the Face ID technology has spread to the rest of the iOS line (and maybe even the Mac), could Clips be the successor to Photo Booth? Between Selfie Scenes, stickers, Live Titles, and fast sharing to social media, it seems the perfect fit.

I think the best modern equivalent of that Photo Booth social experience is Snapchat’s lenses, which I’ve observed can consistently deliver laughter and interest among a group of friends or family members. While Clips’ Selfie Scenes offer a similarly neat technical effect, if Apple is serious about being successful with the app, a couple big changes need to take place: the square orientation limit has to go, and Clips needs better hooks into apps like Instagram and Snapchat than the share sheet provides.

Photo Booth’s prime was a very different era than where we are today, and without the aid of a true social network it will be hard for Apple to replicate its success. So far, Animoji seem much closer to meeting that goal than Clips.

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AppStories, Episode 31 – What Makes an App Sticky?→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we look at apps that have been designed for the iPhone X and consider what makes certain apps ‘sticky.’

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Connected, Episode 168: My Bedroom Has Become a Museum→

Control Center is broken, Myke is broken and Spotify is broken.

On this week’s episode of Connected, we continue our discussion on the iPhone X and talk about music streaming services and smart speakers. You can listen here.

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