New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource 6 from Rogue Amoeba
Some fascinating findings in iFixit’s teardown of the new MacBook Pro with Force Touch:
Made of wire coils surrounding a ferromagnetic core, the electromagnet in the Force Touch Trackpad is used to create the vibrational feedback you feel.
And:
We’re guessing that the four separate coils here are used to vary the feedback given to the user. Turning different sets of the four coils on and off varies the strength and direction of the vibration, and how it feels to your finger.
In the spring of 2014 — months before HBO would announce its plans to sell the pay-TV channel as a standalone subscription service — HBO CEO Richard Plepler had already reached out, via an intermediary, to Apple media boss Eddy Cue: Would Apple want to sell HBO’s service on the Web?
Of course Apple would. So the basic agreement for HBO Now came together quickly, according to people familiar with the deal.
Peter Kafka at Re/code has more detail about the deal that made Apple the exclusive launch partner of HBO Now, the new service that will allow anyone in the US to get HBO’s full library of back catalog and currently airing shows without a cable subscription. Significantly, the deal gives Apple a three month exclusivity window. That’s long enough to mean that anyone wanting to watch the new seasons of Game of Thrones, VEEP or Silicon Valley (they all start April 12) will either need to have a cable subscription with HBO, or use HBO Now on the Apple TV, iPhone or iPad.
Watching the China store opening I was struck by the question of how a company instills so much devotion and emotion in customers over a new retail store opening. I think the answer is in delight.
Doesn’t HBO coming to Apple TV feel like the tiny hole in the dike that could pull the whole thing down?
I felt like the whole Apple TV bit was sort of a tease. Apple TV still needs an overhaul.
The avalanche of opinion pieces on Apple’s announcements from today is only just starting, but this one from David Sparks is an early favorite for me, with most of my thoughts aligning with his. Plus, if you’re getting a bit tired from all the Apple news today, you’ll be relieved to know that all his thoughts are written in a concise dot-point format (with the above points being his first three observations).
I’ll just add a few points myself:
Apple has now posted the video of its ‘Spring Forward’ keynote held earlier today in San Francisco. The video can be streamed here, and a higher quality version should be made available in a few hours through iTunes (on the Apple Keynotes podcast). To avoid streaming errors, Safari is recommended for the best viewing experience.
For more coverage, check out our ‘Spring Forward’ keynote news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.
Brendan Klinkenberg, writing for BuzzFeed on Apple’s new ad campaign for iPhone 6 photography:
Last December, when the Bay Area had one of its rare rainy days, Cielo de la Paz took her kids out to play. She’s an avid photographer, “willing to wake up at five in the morning and hike 10 miles to get that shot of the sunrise,” and when she saw the reflection of her red umbrella on the wet concrete, she knew she had a good one.
“It took a few shots,” she said, “this was the last one I took, I was finally happy with how the wind arranged the leaves for me.”
She edited the shot with Filterstorm Neue, uploaded the picture to Flickr (she was taking part in the photo365 challenge), where Apple found it.
Very nice of Apple to use these real photos in billboards around the world, too.
La campagna “scattata con iPhone 6” https://t.co/dW2soTJK3d anche davanti agli uffici italiani di Apple, a Milano pic.twitter.com/UIx0SXMTOB
— setteB.IT (@setteBIT) March 4, 2015
“Shot on iPhone 6” billboard in LA. Pretty cool. pic.twitter.com/oBcG9rbdns
— Beau Colburn (@beaucolburn) March 2, 2015
Hello Tokyo Apple billboard pic.twitter.com/R4t8yyAT76
— Cory Staudacher (@withhearts) March 2, 2015
Apple Billboard has been spotted in Brooklyn, Columbus and at the IMAX Theatre in London! pic.twitter.com/HnrGFpiKQi
— Julian Bialowas (@julianbialowas) March 3, 2015
Dave Tach, writing for Polygon on the story of Crossy Road:
Crossy Road is the rare story of success at the intersection of art, commerce, design and marketing. It’s about lessons learned in hard times and a games maker who thought he might never go back to GDC after one terrible year. It’s about a pair of developers who, in fact, did set out to create a video gaming phenomenon — and succeeded.
An inspiring tale of success, especially because the developers purposefully tried a different free-to-play model and didn’t simply experiment without consideration. A good lesson.
Cool idea by the newly launched WatchAware: interactive demos for Apple Watch apps ahead of the device’s release.
At WatchAware, we’re excited to bring you our take on industry news about Apple Watch and the impact of wearable technology in general. But we’re even more excited about our new, just-launched Apps section. There, we’re giving third-party developers their own little corner of the site, where readers can come to check out their wares, see how their apps will look and run, and even interact with them. It’s really cool, and we’re really proud of it.
The Apps webpage they launched features a collection of apps previously shown in September but also new ones provided by indie developers. I’m particularly intrigued by Feed Wrangler, Todoist (obviously), and Run 5k. Besides the device itself, I’m excited to see how third-party apps will adapt to the Watch – Run 5k (video here) will display heart rate, distance, and pace directly on your wrist, which wouldn’t be possible with an iPhone app.
The cat is out of the bag… we’re working on an Apple Watch app for @LaunchCenterPro: http://t.co/AePlhE33Z5 pic.twitter.com/ooi5d1jG1N
— David Barnard (@drbarnard) March 1, 2015
Launch Center Pro, my favorite utility to launch actions and apps on iOS, is coming to Apple Watch. As shown by Contrast’s David Barnard, Launch Center Pro for the Watch will feature a list of actions with a simplified interface in line with Apple’s guidelines for the new device.
I’m excited about the potential of bringing discrete automation to the wrist. And I’m curious to see how Contrast will slim down the experience to make sense on the Watch. The actions in the screenshot seem to be primarily web-based (likely powered by IFTTT) and they can work well with one-tap interactions and dictation, but I’m wondering if the more complex workflows of Launch Center Pro for iOS could have Watch counterparts as well.
The last hundred years or so have brought us a very, very long way. From the invention of the telephone and the automobile to telephones you can use to… order an automobile, technology has empowered and enabled not just gadgets and toys, but massive changes in the way we design, create, and produce objects of every size and shape.
And there are roughly seven billion people on this planet right now. So… who is all this stuff for?
The latest video in Dave Wiskus’ excellent Better Elevation series reflects on designing experiences for more diverse audiences. This is an important message for any type of designer, and one that I should follow more often for the accessibility of MacStories.
