Candid interview with Tim Cook by David Muir on the iPhone encryption case and the FBI’s requests. Easily Tim Cook’s most important interview to date, and I believe he did a good job at presenting Apple’s argument.
Don’t read the transcripts – go ahead and watch the whole video. Even Apple is featuring it on the front page of the Apple TV App Store.
Apple:
Over the past few months, developers around the world learned how to design and develop apps and games for Apple TV directly from Apple experts. Now you can share in the experience by watching all the session videos from the Apple TV Tech Talks.
Good starting point for developers who are considering tvOS apps, and useful for
those who have already launched TV apps, too. You can watch the videos here.
We all love our Apple TVs, but nobody loves searching for apps and games on it. The Apple TV is a box with a tremendous amount of power, but it often feels like that power is locked behind a confusing and inaccessible app store.
This catalog aims to change that. AfterPad provides a web frontend for searching and browsing the Apple TV store, as well as curating the best of the best into an Editor’s Choice section geared towards power users.
Terrific work by Kevin MacLeod at AfterPad. Until Apple comes up with a solution to link to tvOS apps and browse its App Store on the web, the Apple TV App Catalog will be useful to look up app details, prices, and screenshots.
(And I’m pretty sure he coded all of this on an iPad Pro, which is even better.)
Following reactions from around the web this week on iOS 9.3 betas losing Pencil navigation features, Apple has now confirmed to The Verge that full Pencil support will return in the next iOS 9.3 beta:
Thankfully, Apple has no plans to cripple its Pencil accessory for the iPad Pro. After the most recent iOS 9.3 beta removed the ability to navigate around iOS with the $99 add-on — marketed as a drawing tool more than a stylus — Apple has confirmed with The Verge that all of those features will soon make a comeback. “We believe a finger will always be the primary way users navigate on an iPad, but we understand that some customers like to use Apple Pencil for this as well and we’ve been working on ways to better implement this while maintaining compatibility during this latest beta cycle,” a spokesperson said. “We will add this functionality back in the next beta of iOS 9.3.”
This has to be my favorite #MykeWasRight so far. I’m glad Apple listened on this one.
Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore on an Apple Pencil regression in the iOS 9.3 beta:
Unfortunately, whether by bug or intentional design, the Pencil’s navigational prowess appears to have vanished in the iOS 9.3 public betas. With 9.3, you can no longer scroll or manipulate text; the only places the Pencil works are on canvas or when pressing digital buttons.
Normally, I don’t write about beta bugs and features, because it’s a beta: There are always bugs, and features change. But this functionality is important enough that I wanted to talk about it before Apple submits its final 9.3 release. It could be a bug, yes: But several betas in, we’ve seen fixes for Smart Connector keyboards and new features, and the Pencil remains crippled. Which makes me think, more and more, that this is a conscious decision on the part of Apple’s engineering team. (I did reach out to the company about the issue, and will update if and when I receive a response.)
Like Serenity, I refrained from bringing it up due to the beta nature of iOS 9.3, but, as I mentioned earlier today in my iPad story, this is starting to feel like a conscious decision on Apple’s part.
I think it would be a mistake to remove general Pencil navigation features from iOS 9 at this point. While Apple may have not envisioned the Pencil to be used for tasks beyond drawing and sketching, owners of an iPad Pro have gotten used to the functionality four months into owning the device. Using a Pencil to scroll lists and interact with menus has serious benefits for people with RSI problems, and, I have to say, it’s just convenient if you don’t want to switch back and forth between touch and Pencil all the time.
I hope that Apple will listen and restore the full Pencil functionality as seen in iOS 9.2 when the final version of iOS 9.3 ships.
Earlier today, Apple issued a patched version of iOS 9.2.1 that restores iPhones disabled by Error 53, which gained notoriety a couple of weeks ago after a report by The Guardian.
Today, Apple is issuing an updated version of iOS 9.2.1 for users that update their iPhones via iTunes only. This update will restore phones ‘bricked’ or disabled by Error 53 and will prevent future iPhones that have had their home button (or the cable) replaced by third party repair centers from being disabled. Note that this is a patched version of iOS 9.2.1, previously issued, not a brand new version of iOS.
As I hoped, Apple has fixed iOS’ behavior so that iPhones will no longer be bricked by Error 53. From the company’s statement to TechCrunch:
We apologize for any inconvenience, this was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers. Customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement of their device based on this issue should contact AppleCare about a reimbursement.
Good profile by Brad Stone, Adam Satariano, and Gwen Ackerman, with some interesting details about the iPad Pro’s original schedule and Srouji’s background.
A little over a year ago, Apple had a problem: The iPad Pro was behind schedule. Elements of the hardware, software, and accompanying stylus weren’t going to be ready for a release in the spring. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and his top lieutenants had to delay the unveiling until the fall. That gave most of Apple’s engineers more time. It gave a little-known executive named Johny Srouji much less.
Srouji is the senior vice president for hardware technologies at Apple. He runs the division that makes processor chips, the silicon brains inside the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. The original plan was to introduce the iPad Pro with Apple’s tablet chip, the A8X, the same processor that powered the iPad Air 2, introduced in 2014. But delaying until fall meant that the Pro would make its debut alongside the iPhone 6s, which was going to use a newer, faster phone chip called the A9.
This week, Federico and Myke discuss the Amazon Echo, Tim Cook’s letter to the FBI and Apple executives on The Talk Show.
A solid episode of Connected this week, with an interesting discussion on software quality and Apple’s focus. You can listen here.
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I’m a big fan of 2Do, and today’s 3.8.1 update packs some neat additions that heavy users of the app should check out.
Besides new settings for due dates and default collection lists, 2Do now comes with new search presets for dates, which will allow you to create smart lists for tasks due today, tomorrow, this week, and more. You can also look for tasks that have been completed within a specific date range – useful to build filters to see how much you’ve been productive in, say, the past week.
There are enhancements for automation with URL schemes, too: you can now perform quick searches without creating a smart list every time (imagine the possibilities with Workflow and Drafts here), and – this is something a lot of users were asking for – the URL scheme has a new parameter to pick an existing project/checklist to add a new task to.
2Do keeps getting more powerful on each release. You can get version 3.8.1 here.
