Apple Announces iOS 11 to Launch on September 19th

As had been widely expected, Apple confirmed the official release date of iOS 11 at a media event held today at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. iOS 11 will be released on September 19th.

Announced at WWDC in June, iOS 11 includes new and updated built-in apps and system features with a major focus on the iPad. With iOS 11, Apple has rethought multitasking on the iPad – revamping the dock, changing how Split View works, and introducing system-level features like drag and drop of files, text, photos, apps, and more. The changes include a new stock app called Files, which bears some resemblance to the macOS Finder but built for touch. Apple has also implemented more Apple Pencil-friendly features like system-wide document markup and inline note taking in Notes. The iPhone and iPad’s cameras play a big part in iOS 11 too, supporting document scanning in Notes and brand new augmented reality APIs for third-party developers.

Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of iOS 11 yet, but it will presumably be released to developers later today. Typically the last developer release before a public launch, the GM seed will allow developers to finalize their iOS 11 apps and submit them to the App Store for approval before iOS 11 is released publicly.

You can also follow all of our Apple event coverage through our September 12 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 12 RSS feed.

4K HDR Video Is Coming to the 5th Generation Apple TV

Long anticipated, 4K HDR streaming video is coming to the Apple TV. As announced at the Apple press event today, the first ever held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park, 4K streaming will be available on the new 5th generation Apple TV, which has been dubbed the ‘Apple TV 4K.’ The new Apple TV also supports HDR televisions with HDR10 and Dolby Vision. The Apple TV’s new capabilities are powered by an A10X Fusion chip, the same chip that powers the iPad Pro.

Based on the iOS 11 gold master leak last weekend, the Apple TV 4K’s content will be displayed at 2160p resolution, which is twice the standard 1080p HD resolution. 4K content on iTunes will be priced the same as existing HD content, and any HD content you already own will be upgraded for free to 4K resolution. 4K content will also be available from third-party streaming services including Netflix and, later this year, Amazon Prime Video.

Apple also announced that later this year, it will debut live sports and news inside its TV app. When browsing available sports, the Apple TV will display the time remaining in a game and the score to help you decide what to watch. However, the score display can be turned off if you’d prefer not to know. The TV app is also expanding to include Australia and Canada this month and France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the UK later this year.

The update to Apple’s television-connected box brings it in line with other hardware manufacturers who have offered 4K video support for a while. With more 4K content available than ever before from providers like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video (which will be debuting its own Apple TV app soon), the time was ripe for an Apple TV revision. According to Eddy Cue’s presentation during the keynote, the new Apple TV will be available for ordering on September 15th and will ship on September 22nd. Presumably, 4K video will start to show up in iTunes and on the Apple TV around the same time.

The new Apple TV 4K starts at $179 for the 32GB model, and the 64GB model will run $199. Apple will also continue to sell the 32GB 4th generation Apple TV for $149.

You can also follow all of our Apple event coverage through our September 12 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 12 RSS feed.

Apple Announces watchOS 4 Will Launch on September 19th

Apple confirmed the official release date of watchOS 4 at a media event held today at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. watchOS 4 will be released on Tuesday, September 19th.

Announced at WWDC in June, watchOS 4 features new watch faces including a Siri watch face that displays personalized information based on the time of day, Toy Story and Kaleidoscope faces, motivational notifications to inspire you to close your Activity rings, a new Workout app interface, automatic syncing with curated Music playlists, a dedicated Apple News app, and more.

Apple hasn’t announced a Golden Master seed of watchOS 4 yet, but it will presumably be released to developers later today. Usually the last developer release before a public launch, the GM seed will allow developers to finalize their watchOS 4 apps and submit them to the App Store for approval before watchOS 4 is released publicly.

You can also follow all of our Apple event coverage through our September 12 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 12 RSS feed.

Apple Defends Siri Explaining How Its Voice Assistant Works→

On the heels of a feature story in Wired last week, Apple executives and engineers opened up about how Siri works in interviews with Fast Company. As the publication explained it, a narrative has emerged that Apple’s AI work is behind other companies’ efforts because of its dedication to user privacy.

In an interview with Fast Company, Apple’s Greg Joswiak disagrees:

“I think it is a false narrative. It’s true that we like to keep the data as optimized as possible, that’s certainly something that I think a lot of users have come to expect, and they know that we’re treating their privacy maybe different than some others are.”

Joswiak argues that Siri can be every bit as helpful as other assistants without accumulating a lot of personal user data in the cloud, as companies like Facebook and Google are accustomed to doing. “We’re able to deliver a very personalized experience … without treating you as a product that keeps your information and sells it to the highest bidder. That’s just not the way we operate.”

The article provides concrete examples of how Siri works and the advances that have been made since it was introduced with a level of detail that has not been shared before.

The effectiveness of Siri and Apple’s machine learning research is an area where Apple’s culture of secrecy has hurt it. Apple seems to have recognized this and has made a concerted effort to turn perceptions around with interviews like the ones in Wired and Fast Company. Apple employees have also begun to engage in more public discussion of the company’s machine learning and AI initiatives through outlets like its recently-introduced journal and presentations made by Apple employees. Apple even enlisted The Rock to help it get the word out about Siri’s capabilities. Competition for virtual personal assistant supremacy has heated up, and Apple has signaled it has no intention of being left out or backing down.

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Tim Cook Discusses Apple’s Convictions of Societal Responsibility in New Interview→

Source: Fortune

Source: Fortune

Fortune today published an interview Adam Lashinsky held with Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this year. Their conversation centers on Apple’s attempts at societal contribution, covering topics like health, education, the environment, and more.

In the area of health, Cook acknowledged that while many of the company’s health initiatives are not directly profitable in any way, he does understand that from a financial standpoint health care is a key area for Apple to invest in. And they are investing. He says:

There’s much more in the health area. There’s a lot of stuff that I can’t tell you about that we’re working on, some of which it’s clear there’s a commercial business there. And some of it it’s clear there’s not. And some of it it‘s not clear. I do think it’s a big area for Apple’s future.

One other interesting piece from the interview surrounds Apple’s lack of interest in setting up a company foundation, breaking from the pattern of many other large corporations. Cook explained his reasoning:

When a company sets up a foundation, there is a risk, in my judgment, of the foundation becoming this other thing that is not connected to the company. It has a separate board of directors. They make reasonably independent decisions sometimes. It becomes a separate thing. I don’t want that for Apple. I want everybody involved…If we had a foundation, my fear was it becomes something that 10 or 12 or 20 or 50 people do. And all of a sudden for the 120,000, it’s just this separate thing out there. People work here to change the world. So I think that should be integral to what the company does. Not peripheral in a foundation.

It’s possible we’ll see announcements related to Apple’s work in the areas of health and the environment at its September 12 keynote event, with the former tied to Apple Watch announcements and the latter to the creation of Apple Park, where the event will be held.

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Manage Your iPhone Your Way With iMazing [Sponsor]

iMazing is a macOS app that provides unparalleled access to everything on your iOS devices. iMazing works over both WiFi and USB, so it’s ready whenever you are. With it, you can do things like pull your favorite photos or songs off your iPhone or send content the other direction to your favorite media player on your iPhone. It’s a great way to preserve memories too. For example, you can export years of Messages conversations with loved ones with just a couple of clicks.

iMazing is also a sophisticated iOS backup app. You can create advanced backups to any destination you want, including external drives or a NAS, and unlike iTunes, iMazing keeps a history of your backups so you can roll back to any prior backup. You can even automate the process with the recently-released iMazing Mini, a menu bar app for macOS that’s bundled with iMazing and is available for free as a standalone product too.

Backups support encryption and are browsable so you can access the contents of your backups even if your iOS device is lost or stolen. There are also great tools for power users like iOS installation tools, a device console, access to iOS log files, editable backups, and data export to the CSV file format. You have more data on your iOS devices than you might realize and iMazing is the perfect way to access and manage it.

iMazing has an amazing deal just for MacStories readers that you won’t want to pass up. For a limited time, you can get 30% off iMazing 2 at checkout by using this special link.

Our thanks to iMazing for sponsoring MacStories this week.

App Store Sales for 32-bit Apps Less Than 1% of Total Revenue→

Oliver Yeh of Sensor Tower shares a revealing statistic regarding the current state of App Store revenue for 32-bit apps, which will no longer be available for purchase or download in iOS 11:

The potential revenue Apple stands to lose from eliminating 32-bit app support in iOS 11, expected to launch next week, will amount to less than 1 percent of its portion of quarterly App Store revenue, according to Sensor Tower research. Based on an analysis of our Store Intelligence data, we have estimated that these older apps, which will cease to function in the upcoming release, accounted for approximately $37.5 million in worldwide gross revenue last quarter, of which Apple’s cut—about $11.3 million—made up a mere 0.41 percent of its total revenue from in-app purchases and paid apps on iPhone and iPad.

While it should come as no surprise that 32-bit apps make up a small portion of App Store sales, this new data reveals just how inconsequential that portion has now become.

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Remaster, Episode 43: Surprising Games→

News of Shahid’s first VR game, thoughts on upcoming and recent Switch releases, and an interview with Mike Bithell to discuss Subsurface Circular.

On this week’s Remaster, we cover some upcoming Switch games, then Shahid interviews Mike Bithell on his latest release. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code INSERTCOIN at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • Crimson Mesa: Announcing Shokem Nimai, The Ancient Game of the River.
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Whink Review: Taking Beautiful Notes

I take extraordinarily ugly notes, a combination of terrible handwriting and the inability to organize my notes properly. Even as I’ve moved primarily to digital notes, I still struggle putting attractive and useful documents together.

Whink is almost everything we’ve come to expect from a modern note-taking app – Apple Pencil support, multimedia integration, document exporting, and more – assembled in one of the most aesthetically pleasing packages I’ve seen in its genre. By adding minor design flourishes around content, Whink transforms your notes into beautiful resources.

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