Opinion pieces & commentary

A Bloomberg piece this morning suggests that Apple will announce its plans for an ARM Mac at WWDC, even though the first model won’t be available until next year.

That makes perfect sense. This is a big shift, and developers need time to understand the implications and make plans to support the new platform. The big question right now is how much Apple will reveal, and how useful the information will be for consumers waiting to upgrade their Mac…

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There has long been debate about the future of the Lightning port in the iPhone. Will Apple stick to this, replace it with USB-C, or move straight to a fully wireless iPhone — one without any ports at all?

There’s fresh discussion today prompted by a claim that Apple will do none of these things, and instead use a Smart Connector on the iPhone 13…

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My colleague Filipe Espósito has discovered evidence that Apple plans to revitalize the Messages Mac app by creating a Catalyst version. This would mean that it would finally gain parity with the iOS app in terms of access to thing like stickers, GIFs, message effects and so on.

Although some might consider this a rather trivial thing, I think it’s actually a little more important than it might seem …

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The latest Apple/FBI war of words in the Pensacola case has once again highlighted the huge challenge Apple has in communicating the reality of the debate, in a world in which most people have no understanding of the core issue.

To a non-technical person, the debate appears to be a moral one. The FBI says that it needs access to data from terrorists and criminals, and Apple wants to prevent this. FBI, good; Apple, bad.

To anyone who understands the technology, the debate is very different …

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I’m a huge privacy advocate who’s written a lot about the topic because it’s a massively important issue.

It’s important for two reasons: First, because the kind of technology we have available to us today poses privacy risks never before imagined. China, for example, has demonstrated the ability of its massive network of facial-recognition cameras to track one individual among millions as they travel from one side of a city to the other.

Second, because once you allow something to happen, it is very, very hard to roll it back. Crises are particularly dangerous in this respect, because it’s easier to justify extreme measures at extreme times – like the coronavirus – but once a government goes down a particular road, it’s vanishingly rare that they abandon the approach once the crisis has passed…

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Apple has made great progress over the years in protecting its customers against two big risks: theft of their Apple devices, and exposure of their personal data.

Activation Lock was introduced in 2013 and made it impossible for a thief to restore an iPhone or iPad to factory settings without the Apple ID credentials of its owner, or proof of purchase. Apple’s T2 chip did the same job for Macs as of 2018.

But while that’s great for protecting data, and making Apple devices far less appealing targets to thieves, there is a big downside …

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The idea that ‘Apple is doomed’ has been a constant refrain from some quarters throughout the decades, and has been given something of a boost during the coronavirus crisis.

First, there was the opening quarter of the year – Apple’s fiscal Q2. There was a dramatic difference between Apple’s original guidance and the actual numbers …

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Apple famously says no a thousand times for every time it says yes, and if there’s one thing the company has been saying “no” to more often than anything else, it’s a touchscreen Mac.

But some are suggesting that the new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro — which setup Apple describes as “a computer” — amounts to the company tacitly endorsing the idea of a touchscreen laptop…

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Apple’s HomePod has faced two consistent criticisms right from the start.

First, people said, it’s the dumbest of the smart speakers — that both Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers can do more.

Second, it was said to be way too expensive. If you want a smart speaker, the thinking went, you could get an Amazon Echo Dot for $50, and sometimes as little as half that during promotions. Why pay Apple $349 then (and $299 now)?

Hearing both criticisms repeated recently, I couldn’t let it pass…

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Apple yesterday announced what it calls the new iPhone SE. The latest budget iPhone is many things. It’s a great upgrade for owners of the iPhone 6. It’s a lot of phone for an affordable price. It’s an efficient way for Apple to offer a ‘new’ phone with minimal retooling. It’s a smart business move in an uncertain economy.

What it is not, however, is an iPhone SE …

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If there’s one thing that’s become abundantly clear since Apple and Google’s API partnership, it’s that the coronavirus contact tracing privacy protections need to be spelled out in terms that non-technical people (even POTUS) can understand.

The two companies have gone to pains to explain that privacy was top priority in the design of the application programming interface, but mainstream media reports and conversations with non-techy friends have made it obvious that many don’t understand why apps that use this can be trusted …

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I should start by making it absolutely clear that I am of course not suggesting in this piece that the coronavirus outbreak was a good thing. It was a terrible thing. Many have died, many more have suffered extremely unpleasant illnesses, many have lost loved ones. If I could wave a magic wand and erase it from history, I’d do that in a heartbeat.

Nor am I suggesting that there is any equivalence between the terrible harm done and the possible good that may emerge. Nothing can come anywhere close to the pain of losing a loved one; any positive effects pale in comparison.

But with that made clear, we may see some silver linings …

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Various people have suggested in the past that Apple should allow FaceTime for Android and Windows, in an attempt to make it the default standard for consumer video calls. That idea gained new impetus when Apple launched the Group FaceTime function for calls between up to 32 people.

But the coronavirus outbreak has taken consumer group videoconferencing to a whole new level. Back in February, most non-techies had never done it in their lives. Fast-forward to now, and Zoom conferences are a completely normal thing for everyone …

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In February, as the coronavirus pandemic spread further and faster it became clear that Apple was likely going to have to cancel its traditional WWDC plans. That did happen with Apple offering a positive spin last week for an all-new “online experience” that more developers than ever could participate in.

However, just a week later with the pandemic growing, Google has fully called off its I/O developer conference that was also pivoting to an online model and scheduled for May as the state of California has moved to a shelter in place order. So the next question is inevitable, is it feasible for Apple to pull off a web-based WWDC even though it’s not until June?

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There had been much speculation about whether or not we’d see a March event. As it turns out, the coronavirus would have put paid to that anyway, but the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro Magic Keyboard announced today would absolutely have justified one.

Life used to be very simple when friends asked me for recommendations on which laptop to buy…

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The ongoing discussion about the increasing convergence of iPads and Macs got a boost this week when we exclusively revealed dramatically improved mouse support in iOS 14/iPadOS 14.

According to code seen by 9to5Mac, Apple is set to roll out rich system-wide support for mouse cursors with iOS 14. Apple added rudimentary compatibility with external mice in iOS 13 Accessibility settings, but iOS 14 (iPadOS 14) will make it mainstream […]

The changes coming to the software will bring most of the cursor features you recognize from a Mac desktop experience to iOS…

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Apple’s reliance (some would say over-reliance) on China has been a hotly-debated topic for some time. The company’s efforts to boost Apple production outside China have never been of greater interest than now, however, when the coronavirus outbreak is having a substantial impact inside the country.

India has been one of the countries making a concerted effort to win more of Apple’s manufacturing business, but a couple of reports have highlighted some of the challenges to making this a workable option …

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It’s time for Apple to give us a larger iMac.

The company first launched a 27-inch iMac in 2009. Following on from earlier 17-, 20-, 21.5- and 24-inch models, it seemed huge at the time!

But it’s not 2009 anymore. We now live in a world where 34-inch monitors are commonplace, 40-inch ones are not unusual – and there are even 49-inch models around, from Dell, LG , and Samsung. Alongside these, the iMac display, impressive as it is in terms of resolution, looks cramped …

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A report yesterday indicated that Apple is planning to release a Smart Keyboard with trackpad for the iPad.

Apple is planning to release an iPad keyboard accessory later this year that will include a built-in trackpad, the latest step in its effort to position the tablet device as an alternative to laptop computers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company will likely release the accessory alongside the next version of the iPad Pro expected later this year, the person added.

Our poll suggests huge interest in the idea …

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A Bloomberg report says Apple is considering allowing iPhone and iPad users to choose third-party default iOS apps for things like email and web-browsing.

Currently, you can use third-party apps, of course, but as we explained earlier, you can’t set them as the defaults.

It is not possible for the user to tell iOS that it prefers the third-party browser over Safari; any tapped links will open in Safari every single time. Similarly, there are many competing email apps in the App Store but shortcuts to composing a new email will only ever show the system Mail compose sheet …

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