Posts in Linked

iPhone X, Face ID, and Hidden Notification Content→

An interesting tidbit from Steven Levy’s first impressions of the iPhone X: by default, the content of notifications on the Lock screen is hidden, and it’s only displayed once you look at the iPhone and thus authenticate yourself.

Alternatively, a good way to see when you’ve been recognized is to notice the generic messages on the lock screen saying “you have a notification” from Facebook, Gmail, or wherever. When you and your iPhone X make that turn-on connection, those flesh out with the actual content of the message. (This feature—withholding potentially private alerts until the phone was unlocked—had previously been available as an option but now is the default.)

What I find intriguing is the fact that – if I’m reading this right – the feature has been turned on by default for the iPhone X, as if to underline the role of Face ID. This option, in fact, isn’t new: on any existing device running iOS 11, you can go to Settings ⇾ Notifications ⇾ Show Previews and enable When Unlocked to achieve the same effect. On the Lock screen, the content of notifications (titles, preview messages, and media attachments) won’t be shown until you place your finger on the Touch ID sensor.

It seems like Apple sees Face ID as not only technically superior to Touch ID (more secure, powered by machine learning), but also as a better user experience for dealing with notifications – otherwise, why would they make it the default setting? I’m curious to play with this and see if I revert to the old option or not.

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Motherboard Reviews Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp→

Most of the world has to wait until late November for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp to arrive on iOS, but if you live in Australia or New Zealand, you can play the game now. Jed Whitaker has an early review at Motherboard where he provides additional details about the game’s free-to-play mechanic and stacks it up against Animal Crossing: New Leaf, a 3DS game on which Pocket Camp is based.

According to Whitaker:

One major change to the Animal Crossing formula here is that almost all items must be crafted instead of simply purchased, and the time it takes to craft something passes in real time. The game starts out by having every item only take one minute to craft, but three hours in, wait times get much longer, and you can pay real world money to purchase the premium currency, Leaf Tickets. These can be used to craft items instantly and to basically speed up every facet of the game.

Wait times in Pocket Camp are three hours. By comparison, New Leaf wait times are three days, which Whitaker points out should make Pocket Camp more tolerable to fans of the franchise. Still, if you simply must have an item right away and can’t wait a few hours, you can buy Leaf Tickets as an In-App Purchase.

Fans of the Animal Crossing series may also need to lower their expectations a little. At launch, there are only 40 animals to befriend in Pocket Camp, a small number compared to the over 300 available in New Leaf. Still, even if it’s not as deep as other incarnations of the series, Pocket Camp looks as though it strikes a good balance that should make the free-to-play aspects of it tolerable.

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Apple Opens iPhone X App Submissions to Developers→

Apple has notified third-party iOS developers via its News and Updates website that they can download Xcode 9.0.1 and submit iPhone X apps for review in advance of the new iPhone’s release on November 3, 2017.

Download Xcode 9.0.1, test your apps in the iPhone X simulator, and capture screenshots. Then submit your updated apps and metadata in iTunes Connect today.

Earlier in the day, Apple told Reuters that customer demand for the iPhone X has been ‘off the charts’ since pre-orders began at 12:01 AM Pacific on October 27th.

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Apple Pay’s Expansion and Apple Pay Cash→

At the Money 20/20 conference earlier this week, Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s VP of Apple Pay, revealed some new stats about the service and announced an expansion to four new major markets. Ingrid Lunden has the full story at TechCrunch, but this part about Apple Pay Cash (the peer-to-peer payment feature announced at WWDC that hasn’t launched yet) stood out to me:

When Apple Pay Cash is turned on, for example, it will operate like Venmo, allowing users to transfer money quickly to each other via iMessage, Siri and other channels — a service that “thousands” of Apple employees are now already using in a closed beta before the service is turned on more widely later this year in an iOS 11 update.

But in addition to that, users will also be able to take that money and spend it directly at retailers and others that accept Apple Pay.

So you’ll not only be able to send money to other people over iMessage, but Apple Pay Cash will effectively be its own card that can be used at any physical store or website that supports Apple Pay (like our own Club). I’m intrigued.

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The iPad Pro as Main Computer for Programming→

Jannis Hermanns:

In the summer of 2017, I wanted to know what it would be like to use an iPad Pro as my main computer. I found out that it can actually work, thanks to an iOS app called Blink, an SSH replacement called Mosh, iOS 11 and running stuff on a server.

As is tradition, I will first explain myself and tell you about the why.

This is a technical, fascinating look at turning the iPad Pro into the primary computer for a web backend engineer. It’s always interesting to read how other people with different needs are taking advantage of iOS and the iPad’s app ecosystem.

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App Camp for Girls Hosts Fireside Chats with Developers and Others in the Apple Community→

App Camp for Girls is currently conducting a series of interviews on its website – dubbed Fireside Chats – with different members of the Apple community. Interviewees range from iOS and Mac developers working at companies like The Omni Group, Smile, and Starbucks, to solo indie developers, and other active members of the community. I especially enjoyed hearing from developers about how they got their start in the world of software creation, and lessons learned in the process of building their first apps. There are interviews with people from all sorts of working backgrounds though, making these chats accessible to anyone interested in the Apple and technology communities.

These interviews are timed in conjunction with App Camp’s current fundraiser on Indiegogo, where they’re seeking to raise $75,000 to start camps in three new cities by 2020. Currently the campaign has raised $23,000 of that $75,000 goal, with about two weeks remaining. If you’d like to support the cause, go here to donate.

For more information about App Camp and its work to promote gender equity in technology, you can read our coverage from earlier this year when the organization announced its expansion to Chicago, or listen to Federico and John’s interview with App Camp’s co-founders, Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten, on episode 3 of AppStories.

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Apple Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts Profiled→

BuzzFeed News profiles Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts in an in-depth feature today. Ahrendts, who took over Apple’s online and physical retail operations in 2014 and manages over half of Apple’s workforce, is portrayed in each of her roles within the company starting with the launch of iPhone 8 pre-orders online:

At midnight, the war room’s server activity chart ticks abruptly from green to red under a flood of incoming iPhone orders. On the wall, blinking red lights begin flashing across a digital world map with a concentrated flurry of activity in China and South Asia.

As author Nicole Nguyen explains, Ahrendts’ first order of business when she took over retail operations was to update Apple’s online experience. Those efforts included better integration between Apple’s online and physical stores, which reports say are now second only to Amazon in sales revenue.

However, the majority of Nguyen’s story is focused on Apple’s physical stores, which have been the focus of Ahrendts’ attention most recently. BuzzFeed News was on hand for the opening of Apple’s new Michigan Avenue store in Chicago last week. That store, like ones coming to Paris and Milan, represents Apple’s strategy to target cities worldwide:

…the core of the strategy is doubling down on metropolitan areas. Ahrendts’s team conducted an extensive study of cities, looking at factors such as tourism, technology usage, and demographics, an approach taken from her roots in high-end fashion. “One of the things I took from luxury is you look at the top cities in the world; you don’t just look at the countries. We did a lot of analysis, really studying the top 100 cities in the world, and not just now, but by 2020 and by 2025. Because you really need to target your investment,” she said.

In addition, Ahrendts is overseeing the renovation of 400 existing stores and expanding the benefits of employees who work at them.

The feature ends with Ahrendts overseeing the distribution of iPhone 8s and other pre-ordered items from a UPS facility in Kentucky. Like many things with Apple, the scale of the operations that Ahrendts manages is almost too vast to comprehend, but Nguyen does an excellent job of capturing both the scope of those operations and the personality that Ahrendts brings to her role.

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