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Porsche to Include Apple Music App in Its Electric Taycan Electric Sports Car

Yesterday, Porsche announced that it’s partnering with Apple to integrate Apple Music directly with the in-car entertainment system of the Taycan, which is debuting in September.

The streaming service will be available in Porsche’s fully-electric Taycan first and later, in other models. According to TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec who spoke to Porsche’s North American CEO Claus Zellmer:

The integration means more than an Apple Music app icon popping up on the Taycan’s digital touchscreen. The company wanted the experience to be seamless, meaning no wonky sign-ins, phone pairing or separate accounts. Instead, Porsche is linking an owner’s Apple ID with their Porsche Taycan ID. Apple Music content in the Taycan will be identical to what’s on the user’s iPhone app.

System-level integration with Apple Music will allow Taycan owners to enjoy the service regardless of whether they have an iPhone with them because the Taycan comes with in-car Internet service. The car company announced that it will offer a six-month free trial of Apple Music with the Taycan and incorporate CarPlay support into its in-car entertainment system too.

Direct integration of Apple Music with Porsche’s in-car system, plus six months of free service sounds an awful lot like what satellite radio company SiriusXM offers with many new cars. The move has the advantage of ensuring that Apple’s service will always be available onscreen where it can compete directly with other services. Of course, the downside is that because Apple doesn’t control the hardware its app runs on, it will undoubtedly be subject to the whims of Porsche if it wants to update it, which is part of why CarPlay exists in the first place. Fortunately, regardless of how Porsche handles updates, CarPlay will be available to Taycan owners too. It will be interesting to see whether Apple Music and perhaps other Apple apps make their way into additional manufacturers’ automobiles in the future or if this is a one-off deal.


AppStories, Episode 125 – Apple Maps in iOS 13 with Ryan Christoffel

On this week’s episode of AppStories, John is joined by MacStories colleague Ryan Christoffel to talk about the big changes coming to Apple Maps this fall with iOS 13.

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AppStories Episode 125 - Apple Maps in iOS 13 with Ryan Christoffel

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AppStories, Episode 124 – CarPlay in iOS 13 and Vignette with Casey Liss

On this week’s episode of AppStories, John is joined by Casey Liss to dig into the big changes coming to CarPlay in iOS 13 and the story behind Vignette, Casey’s app for assigning profile pictures to contacts.

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AppStories Episode 124 - CarPlay in iOS 13 and Vignette with Casey Liss

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Dialog Season 1 Finale, Writers and Writing: Wrap-Up

Today on Dialog, we conclude season one with a discussion of what we learned from each of our guests. Despite vastly different backgrounds, there were several themes that ran throughout our interviews with John Gruber, Frank Turner, John August, Carrie Patel, and Pierce Brown. To wrap up season one we revisit getting started as a writer, the impact and use of social media, influences and idea generation, getting past writer’s block, and the roles of hard work, luck, and privilege in succeeding.

Thank you for listening to season one of Dialog. We haven’t decided when season two will begin, but we’ll be back with an all-new set of guests and a different topic in the near future. In the meantime, if you missed any of previous interviews, go back and check them out. A big benefit of a show like Dialog is that the topics are evergreen and just as relevant today as they were when they were first published.

We also want to thank each of our guests for taking the time to chat with us about writing. Without the generosity of John Gruber, Frank Turner, John August, Carrie Patel, and Pierce Brown, this season wouldn’t have been possible. Thanks too to this season’s sponsors who believed in the show and supported it before we had even recorded the first episode.

You can find the final episode of season one here or listen through the Dialog web player below.

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Apple ASMR: A Shot on iPhone Series Shot and Recorded on iPhones

Apple’s Shot on iPhone series has highlighted photos and video taken with iPhones for several years now. Today, the company published a new series of four videos titled ‘Apple AMSR’ that were shot on the iPhone XS and XS Max. The videos, which the company suggests watching with headphones for the full auditory experience, are longer than ones produced in the past ranging from about 6 to over 10 minutes long. Each video features a different sound: rain at a campground, the crunching sound of someone walking on a hiking trail, the scraping of wood in a woodworking shop, and whispering in the Neskowin Ghost Forest in Oregon.

These videos are some of the strangest that Apple has published on YouTube, but they certainly do a good job of showcasing the iPhone’s ability to shoot video and record sound. There may be more coming too based on the fact they’re collected as a playlist on Apple’s YouTube channel that is labeled ‘Season 1.’ You can check all of them out below:


PDF Expert Moves to Annual Subscription Business Model

Readdle launched PDF Expert 7 today with a few new features and an all-new business plan. The app was previously paid-up-front with an In-App Purchase for advanced features. With the launch of version 7 though, Readdle has moved the features that were previously part of PDF Expert’s In-App Purchase and some of what were part of the base paid-up-front app to a PDF Expert Pro subscription that costs $49.99/year with a 7-day free trial. Despite the change, however, existing PDF Expert 6 customers will retain the features they purchased under the old model.

The free version of PDF Expert allows users to access and manage PDFs from cloud services, read and annotate PDFs, and fill out PDF forms. In addition to the other PDF Expert 6 features that are now part of PDF Expert 7’s Pro subscription, Readdle has added three features: conversion of Word, Excel, and image files to the PDF format, PDF compression to reduce file sizes, and customizable app toolbars. For a complete breakdown of free and subscription-only features, be sure to check out Readdle’s blog post about the update, which also lists which features existing customers will retain.

The move by Readdle to a free app plus a subscription is an interesting one that we’ve seen before with other apps, including in the PDF app market. It’s a model that makes a lot of sense for a category where users’ needs vary widely from extremely simple to complex. Whether the price point and feature bundle Readdle has chosen is attractive to enough users to sustain the app’s subscription will be up to the market to decide, but I expect this is a trend we will continue to see with feature-rich apps like this.

PDF Expert 7 is available as a free download from the App Store with an optional $49.99/year subscription for advanced features, which users can try free for 7 days.


Apple Card Available Today in Phased Rollout, Full Launch Coming Later in August

Today Apple is officially launching its latest service, Apple Card, but only to a subset of users ahead of a broader rollout later this month. The new credit card is limited to US users running at least iOS 12.4, and today it will only be available to certain people who signed up on Apple’s website to be notified about Apple Card. If you’re part of that chosen group, applying for Apple Card can be done right inside the Wallet app, where the card will be added for immediate use upon credit approval; a physical credit card is also mailed out if you choose to receive one, built from titanium. For those who don’t get invited for early access, the full Apple Card launch will arrive before the end of August.

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Apple Suspends Program In Which Contractors Listened to Recorded Siri Snippets

Last week, The Guardian reported on Apple’s Siri grading program in which contractors listen to snippets of audio to evaluate the effectiveness of Siri’s response to its trigger phrase. That article quoted extensively from an anonymous contractor who said they and other contractors regularly heard private user information as part of the program.

In response, Apple has announced that it is suspending the Siri grading program worldwide. While suspended, Apple says it will re-evaluate the program and issue a software update that will let users choose whether to allow their audio to be used as part of the program.

In a statement to Matthew Panzarino, the editor-in-chief of TechCrunch, Apple said:

“We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.”

In an earlier response to The Guardian, Apple had said that less than 1% of daily Siri requests are sent to humans as part of the grading program. However, that’s not very comforting to users who are left wondering whether snippets of their daily life are part of the audio shared with contractors. Consequently, I’m glad to see that Apple is re-examining its Siri quality-control efforts and has promised to give users a choice of whether they participate.


Apple Q3 2019 Results - $53.8 Billion Revenue

Apple has just published its financial results for Q3 2019. The company posted revenue of $53.8 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:

“This was our biggest June quarter ever — driven by all-time record revenue from Services, accelerating growth from Wearables, strong performance from iPad and Mac and significant improvement in iPhone trends,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “These results are promising across all our geographic segments, and we’re confident about what’s ahead. The balance of calendar 2019 will be an exciting period, with major launches on all of our platforms, new services and several new products.”

Estimates and Expectations for Q3 2019 and the Year-Ago Quarter (Q3 2018)

Apple’s revenue guidance for Q3 2019 fell between $52.5 billion and $54.5 billion, with gross margin estimated to be between 37% and 38%.

Going into today’s earnings call, Yahoo Finance said that analysts, who were not expecting extraordinary financial results from Apple, would be focused on News+ and other revenue generated by services,

But according to Bloomberg’s MODL consensus, iPhone sales are expected to fall 10.3% in Q3, pushed lower by the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.

The same consensus, however, also points to an increase in sales of iPads, Macs, wearables like the AirPods and Apple Watch, and services by as much as 14.4%. Don’t forget, Apple recently revamped its iPad and Mac lineups, and released a new version of the seemingly ubiquitous AirPods.

In the year-ago quarter (Q3 2018), Apple earned $53.3 billion in revenue. During that quarter Apple sold 41.3 million iPhones, 11.6 million iPads, and 3.7 million Macs. As announced on Apple’s Q4 2018 earnings call, however, the company no longer reports unit sales for any of its products.

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