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MacStories Unwind: Federico’s iPad Pro Review, M1 iMacs, Spatial Audio and Lossless Streaming, Halide, and Pok Pok Playroom

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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This week, Federico and John recap the week’s Apple announcements and news including the new M1 iPad Pro that Federico reviewed, the new M1 iMac, Spatial Audio and Lossless coming to Apple Music, new watch bands and accessibility features, plus reviews of Halide for iPad, Pok Pok Playroom, and more.

MacStories

Club MacStories

  • MacStories Weekly
    • Wallpaper Collection
    • A Mac window management tip
    • Federico on using a DAC to listen to lossless music

AppStories

Unwind

Apple Introduces Affiliate Program for Podcasts Subscriptions

Apple’s Podcasts Subscriptions service is coming soon, and today, the company debuted an affiliate program to help spread the word about the shows that participate in it. As we previously reported, the subscription program will allow podcasters to offer paid versions of their shows. Podcasters can offer paid-only shows or enhanced versions of free shows that add a combination of bonus features, like extended, ad-free, and early-release episodes.

Today’s announcement adds Podcasts Subscriptions to Apple’s existing affiliate programs for iTunes Store content as well as Apple Music, TV+, New+, and Books subscriptions and content. If you apply to the program and are accepted, you’ll be given a token that identifies your affiliate account when you publish a link to a paid podcast. When someone subscribes to a show using your link, you’ll earn a 50% commission on the first month’s subscription fee for any subscriptions signed up within a 30-day window. For example, the new program would mean a $5 payout for a user who signed up for a $10/month subscription. The affiliate program is available to podcaster’s offering shows for subscriptions, adding another way for them to earn money from their shows.

With the exception of apps, which were removed from Apple’s affiliate program in 2018, Apple now offers an affiliate program for all of the subscriptions and content it sells. The success of the App Store ultimately made that affiliate program unnecessary for Apple to continue. However, as a new service, it makes a lot of sense to introduce an affiliate program for Podcasts Subscriptions to help raise its profile among consumers.

Apple Releases New App Tracking Transparency Video

Apple has released a new video in its ongoing ‘Privacy. That’s iPhone’ campaign titled ‘Tracked.’ The latest spot starts with the lead character purchasing a coffee and then being followed around all day by a growing crowd of people that intrude on his privacy. Back home at the end of the day, the protagonist is prompted by his iPhone to ‘Ask App Not to Track’ or ‘Allow’ tracking, and as soon as ‘Ask App Not to Track’ is chosen, the mob of people crowding his apartment pop like balloons, disappearing in puffs of smoke.

Privacy isn’t an easy thing to depict visually, and no doubt, someone will take issue with aspects of the way the video portrays app trackers, but I enjoyed it. The video is entertaining, but it’s also useful to anyone who doesn’t realize how intrusive cross-app and website tracking can be.

This isn’t the first video released in the series. Late last month, Apple released ‘App Tracking Transparency’, which explains how the iOS 14.5 feature works. Earlier this year, the company also released ‘A Day In the Life of Your Data,’ a case study with real-world examples of what app trackers can do.

Apple Announces SignTime and Many Other Accessibility Features Coming to Its Products

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Tomorrow, Apple will launch SignTime, a service that will pair Apple Store and Apple Support customers with on-demand sign language interpreters. The company has several other accessibility features coming too, which will be released later this year.

SignTime will allow customers to communicate with AppleCare and Retail Customer Care inside their browsers using American Sign Language, British Sign Language, and French Sign Language. The service will also be available in-person at retail stores without making arrangements ahead of time. For now, the service is limited to the US, UK, and France, but Apple says it will roll out to more countries over time.

Later this year, Apple will add AssistiveTouch to the Apple Watch. The feature uses hand clenches, pinch gestures, and hand shaking to navigate and select controls in Watch apps. Assistive Touch for the Apple Watch takes advantage of the device’s gyroscope and accelerometer along with the heart rate sensor and machine learning.

Also, coming later this year, the iPad will gain support for third-party eye-tracking devices to assist users in navigating the iPad’s UI. VoiceOver is also being enhanced with new details about people, text, table data, and other objects. The feature will offer far more descriptive information for blind and low vision users than ever before. Users will also be able to add their own image descriptions to their photos using Markup.

For deaf and hard of hearing users, Apple is adding bi-directional hearing aid support. The company is also including support for audiograms, which can be used with Headphone Accommodations to tune playback to a user’s hearing. Background sounds like balanced, bright, or dark noise, and ocean, rain, and stream sounds are being added too.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Also coming later this year are Sound Actions for Switch Control that uses mouth sounds in place of switches and buttons, customizable display and text size settings for colorblind users, and new Memoji customizations to allow users to add oxygen tubes, cochlear implants, and a soft helmet for headwear. Many of Apple’s apps and services will also be marking Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which is tomorrow, with features, curated collections of content, and sessions.

It’s fantastic to see such a long list of accessibility features being added to Apple’s devices tomorrow and later in the year, which presumably means this fall when the company’s OSes are expected to be updated. It’s also unusual for upcoming OS features to be revealed before WWDC, but with Global Accessibility Awareness Day coming tomorrow, it’s an excellent opportunity to spotlight these important additions to Apple’s OSes and perhaps to free up time at WWDC for other announcements.

AppStories, Episode 218 – Our iOS 15 Wishes→

This week on AppStories, we continue our WWDC wish list series with a deep dive into the iOS 15 features we’d like to see announced at Apple’s annual developer conference.

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M1 iMac Review Roundup

The new M1 iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple TV 4K will begin arriving on customers’ doorsteps and be available in Apple Stores this Friday. However, today, embargoes have lifted for just the iMac.

Here’s what reviewers are saying about Apple’s colorful new desktop Mac:

Jason Snell writing for Six Colors thinks Apple made the right choice by going with subdued colors on the front of the iMac:

But when you sit down to work at the iMac, you get a different impression. The bright color is there, visible on the stand. Above that is a more muted version of the accent color on the “chin” beneath the display. The bezels around the display itself are a neutral gray. It’s effectively a gradient, with your peripheral vision noticing the bright color, but that accent fading away until you’re left with whatever is on the display itself. It works really well, though I imagine that if you’re someone who prefers using Dark Mode in brightly lit rooms, it will be a pretty dramatic contrast. (I’m a Light Mode person myself, and I found the overall effect quite harmonious. But then, my office wall is orange.)

Jason and Myke Hurley recorded a special episode of their podcast Upgrade, which is out today too.

Read more

AirPods and HomePods Will Not Support Apple Music’s New Lossless Audio

When Apple announced that Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio are coming to Apple Music, it wasn’t entirely clear from the press release whether Lossless Audio would work with AirPods or HomePods. Since then, Apple has confirmed to T3 that AirPods Pro and AirPods Max do not support Lossless Audio. In a statement to Chris Welch of The Verge, Apple definitively said:

“Lossless audio is not supported on AirPods, any model,” an Apple spokesperson said by email.

AirPods support Spatial Audio, but if you want to listen to Lossless Audio, you’ll need wired headphones, an Apple TV, or a Mac connected to good speakers.

If you were thinking you might be able to get around the wireless limitations of Lossless Audio with a Lightning cable connected to your AirPods Max, you’re out of luck there too, according to Billboard’s Micah Singleton who raised the question with Apple. The Verge’s story confirms what Singleton was told too.

In addition, MacRumors reports it has confirmed from an unnamed source that the original HomePod and HomePod mini do not work with Lossless Audio either.

Apple Releases Two Pride Watch Bands and a New Pride Watch Face

Apple has released two Pride Edition Apple Watch bands to coincide with International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, which is today. The company also announced a new Pride watch face that coordinates with the colors of the new Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop band and will be released as part of a future watchOS update.

Apple explains in its press release that:

The Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop artfully weaves together the original rainbow colors with those drawn from various Pride flags to represent the breadth of diversity among LGBTQ+ experiences and the history of a movement that has spanned generations. Black and brown symbolize Black and Latinx communities, in addition to those who have passed away from or are living with HIV/AIDS, while light blue, pink, and white represent transgender and nonbinary individuals.

The Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop is available now on apple.com for $99.

The company also released the Pride Edition Nike Sport Loop with the six colors of the original rainbow and reflective materials to enhance visibility when outdoors at night, which is $49 and available now.

This year’s Pride bands also incorporate an App Clip in the packaging to make it easier for customers to add the coordinated Pride watch face.

Apple Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Playback for Apple Music Subscribers Coming in June

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple announced that beginning in June, it will offer Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos to its Apple Music collection. The company also announced that it is bringing Lossless Audio to the entire Music catalog. Both features are being added to Apple Music at no additional cost to subscribers.

According to Apple’s press release:

“Apple Music is making its biggest advancement ever in sound quality,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats. “Listening to a song in Dolby Atmos is like magic. The music comes from all around you and sounds incredible. Now we are bringing this truly innovative and immersive experience to our listeners with music from their favorite artists like J Balvin, Gustavo Dudamel, Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Kacey Musgraves, The Weeknd, and so many more. Subscribers will also be able to listen to their music in the highest audio quality with Lossless Audio. Apple Music as we know it is about to change forever.”

Spatial Audio will be the default playback option for AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, including AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro. The feature will be available with other headphones, too, by going to Settings → Music → Audio and setting Dolby Atmos to ‘Always On.’ The playback feature is also supported by the latest models of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple TVs. At launch, Apple says there will be thousands of tracks available with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support and that new ones will be added continuously. Music that supports the feature will be badged in the Music app so subscribers can find it more easily.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

In addition to Spatial Audio, Apple is offering lossless audio versions of the entire Apple Music catalog beginning in June, which Apple confirmed to The Verge, is an Apple Music exclusive. In other words, you won’t be able to purchase lossless versions of music from the iTunes Store. The 75 million songs in the catalog will use the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) format and start with CD-quality 16-bit audio at 44.1 kHz and go up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. Apple will also offer Hi-Resolution Lossless up to 24 bit at 192 kHz, for which subscribers will need an external USB DAC. Lossless playback is also opt-in due to the large file sizes involved. After iOS, iPadOS 14.6, macOS 11.4, and tvOS 14.6 are released, you’ll go to Settings → Music → Audio Quality to pick between Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless. From the details released today, it is not clear whether AirPods and Beats wireless headphones will support Apple’s lossless formats.

As someone who owns good quality headphones, I’m glad to see Apple adding lossless options to Apple Music. Spatial Audio is intriguing too. It remains to be seen how widely adopted it will be, but I’ve enjoyed it with video via the TV app, so I’m eager to try it with Apple Music too.