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Apple Leather and Water→

Greg Koenig has been running some (unscientific) tests on Apple’s Leather Loop band:

So far, this chunk of strap has been through 4 different soak cycles. Three of those cycles were a 10 minute soak, followed by air drying at room temp. The latest cycle was a full 8 hour overnight soak. Drying takes about 3 hours.

The result? The leather shows zero visible signs of damage, zero texture change. As far as these (again, unscientific) tests are showing, the leather on Apple’s Loop band is essentially waterproof.

(Make sure to read his disclaimer.)

Anecdotally, my Leather Loop band has been through showers, sea water, rain, and sweat. I took basic care of it, and it’s exactly like the day I bought it. One of my favorite Watch bands.

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Photo Extensions on El Capitan→

Jason Snell has tried a few photo editing extensions on OS X El Capitan:

Like the built-in editing tools, you can actually stack multiple extensions while editing a photo, so you can combine third-party editing extensions with Apple’s own tools to get exactly the image that you want to see. However, each extension edits a “burned-in” version of your photo, so you can’t edit a photo with three extensions and then go back and turn off the first of the extensions. Instead, you’d need to revert back to the original photo (which is always retained by Photos) and start again from the beginning. You can also use the editing tools built in to Photos on images that have already been edited by an Extension, so you can really mix and match. You just don’t get the always-undoable, always-editable flexibility you get when you stick entirely to the native editing tools in Photos.

A good roundup, with some extensions I’ll have to try out.

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Virtual: 70% Sad→

This time Myke is sad about THPS5, Federico is sad about the Vita, but they are both very happy with Shooty Skies.

On this week’s Virtual, we explore more instances of videogames making us sad, but we make up for it with some fun iOS games. You can listen here.

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Connected: Built for Experimentation→

This week, the guys talk about their new iPhones, 3D Touch and El Capitan.

On this week’s Connected, we also talked about how we’re using the Apple Watch and our favorite watchOS 2 apps so far. You can listen here.

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Apple’s Updated Privacy Website→

Apple updated its Privacy website earlier this week with new details on iOS 9 and El Capitan. Matthew Panzarino writes:

If you click your way through it, you’re going to see a product that looks a lot like the pages that are attempting to sell you iPhones. There is a section that explains Apple’s philosophy; one that tells users in practical terms how to take advantage of Apple’s privacy-and security-related features; an entire section on government information requests; and, finally, its actual privacy policy.

Some of the highlights for me, as I didn’t know these details before:

To make it even easier to get to just the right spot in your favorite app, we’ve built support for deep linking into iOS. A user can tap a link and it will open in the corresponding app if the app has been installed and supports deep linking. We do not associate this with your Apple ID, and Apple does not know which links you tap.

On HomeKit:

Apple does not know what devices you’re controlling, or how and when you’re using them. Siri only associates your HomeKit devices with your anonymous Siri identifier, not you personally. Apps supported by HomeKit are restricted by our developer guidelines to using data solely for home configuration or automation services. Data related to your home is stored encrypted in the keychain of your device. It’s also encrypted in transit between your Apple device and those you’re controlling. And when you control your accessories from a remote location, that data is also encrypted when it’s sent. So HomeKit doesn’t know which devices you’re controlling or how you’re using them.

On Siri’s suggestions:

Certain features do require real-time input from Apple servers. For example, event addresses and a user’s location are sent to Apple so that we can provide accurate Time to Leave predictions that take into consideration traffic and local transit schedules. Information like a user’s location may be sent to Apple to provide localized suggestions as well as relevant news and search results. When we do send information to a server, we protect your privacy by using anonymized rotating identifiers so that searches and locations can’t be traced to you personally. And you can disable Location Services, our new proactive features, or the proactive features’ use of your location at any time.

One thing’s for sure – Apple is going all-in on protecting privacy and user data as much as possible.

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The Cost of Mobile Ads→

Fascinating research by The New York Times on Content Blockers and performance gains in iOS 9:

Ad blockers, which Apple first allowed on the iPhone in September, promise to conserve data and make websites load faster. But how much of your mobile data comes from advertising? We measured the mix of advertising and editorial on the mobile home pages of the top 50 news websites – including ours – and found that more than half of all data came from ads and other content filtered by ad blockers. Not all of the news websites were equal.

Don’t miss the charts here. Also, from the related article:

As for me, the test results spurred me to keep Purify enabled on my iPhone. While I’m browsing, the app lets me easily denote a website whose ads I want to allow to be shown, an action known as “whitelisting.”

That means the websites I enjoy visiting that have slimmer ads — like TheGuardian.com, and, ahem, NYTimes.com — will be whitelisted. But sites saddled with ads that belong in digital fat camp will remain blocked for the sake of my data plan.

It’s fascinating to see how many are coming to the same conclusions.

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What It Means to Be Great→

I didn’t read this widely shared article by Horace Dediu two days ago:

Greatness is transcendental. It’s hard to pin down. It inspires debate. It divides as much as it unites. It creates emotions as much as thoughts. It builds legends. It engages and persists. It lives in memory and penetrates culture. It implants itself in our consciousness persistently, to linger and dwell in our minds while we are bombarded with stimuli.

We use words such as “iconic” or “epic” to capture this permanent “mental tattoo” that we get from greatness. As important as this notion is, we struggle to define it. We don’t even have a proper word for it. Perhaps it is what art tries to be, or what drives us to achieve beyond surviving. As vague a notion as it may be, it is one of the most important notions I can think of. Greatness is the cause, perhaps, of our ascent.

A great piece, with a clever conclusion.

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Skype for iPad Updated for iOS 9→

The Skype app for iPad has been updated today with support for iOS 9. Version 6.3 now supports Slide Over and Split View to have Skype chats next to other apps, quick text replies from notifications, and Spotlight search for usernames. Another update to Skype for iPad was released a while back bringing a redesigned UI for managing conversations, and I feel like the entire app has gotten considerably better over the past several months.

While I won’t be able to stop using my Mac to record podcasts in the near future, I want to believe that my dream of having a full podcasting setup on iOS isn’t so absurd anymore. Skype in Split View alongside Safari is a first step, but the road ahead is long (on my requirements list: Split View for Google Docs; the ability to plug a Rode microphone into my iPad; a way to record local audio during a Skype call).

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