Opinion pieces & commentary

Yesterday, well-respected venture capitalist Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends Report. Inside the over 200 slide PowerPoint were some interesting numbers relating to the continuing battle between iOS and Android. As we reported last night, Meeker’s report showed iOS continue to decline in marketshare, while Android continues to gain. In many ways, the current split between Android and iOS in terms of market share and unit shipments is very similar to the split between Mac and PC shipments and marketshare. And it’s been a long time coming for Apple.

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Earlier today Apple announced the start of their annual Back to School promotion for 2016. This year eligible purchases of a Mac, iPad, or iPhone will come bundled with a pair of wireless Beats headphones. This is reminiscent of last year’s Back to School promotion, save for the fact that during this year’s promotion for the wireless headphone is the default and doesn’t require an extra $100 expense. The small, but obvious connectivity choice signals a new direction in which Apple wants its customer to think.

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For all of its shortcomings, the Apple Watch has redeemed itself for me with its fitness and health tracking features. I wear it primarily because it’s a watch but I like (the idea of) having Siri always there plus access to important alerts instantly. The sports watch part can be ignored if you’re not interested, but being one device means its still there if you decide to explore activity tracking later.

That’s been my experience. I generally ignored activity tracking for the first year, but decided at the end of March to use the start of April as a reason to pay attention. The Activity app uses week- and month-long streaks to mark achievements, so the start of a new month (like today) can be motivating.

My real goal was to lose weight using Apple Watch as a motivator. Two months in, I’ve been very happy with the results so far and have to give Apple Watch plenty of credit for pushing me forward. My routine also involves iPhone apps, smarter food choices, and some basic equipment, but closing the Activity rings is the most compelling part.

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When Siri originally launched on the iPhone a little over four years ago, we postulated that it would be a world-changing event. A personal assistant in our pockets that could handle real-world requests felt like the future. When it launched onto the Apple Watch, it was described as potentially being the quickest and most fun way to interact with the wearable. Then when it came to  the Apple TV, it became the fastest way to disseminate the content you want to watch across multiple apps.

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Apple’s conservative approach to the iOS status bar on iPhone and iPad is easily one of the clear design victories over Android’s unruly approach. Android, by design, will show separate icons for each Twitter mention, Instagram comment, Facebook alert, and any other alert, which I personally find to be overwhelming and just plain ugly. iOS doesn’t allow app icons to clutter the status bar. Instead, it uses temporary banners, lock screen messages, app icon badges, and the Notification Center curtain to show you what you’ve missed. But I have noticed a few examples lately where the iOS status bar has gotten sloppy and needs some real attention before iOS 10.

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iPhone concept image by Yasser Farahi

That Nikkei report claiming that Apple is moving to a three-year cycle on major iPhone refreshes would be huge news if true.

Apple currently has a very well-established ‘tick-tock’ cycle where we see a new form-factor every two years, and new features within the same casing on alternate years. That’s a very efficient approach: Apple generates new demand each year without having the pressure to design a whole new model each time.

Some will upgrade every single year; others will be more influenced by design, and buy in ‘tick’ years; others will be more concerned about features, and will buy in ‘tock’ years. The result is that every year, you have a bunch of customers eager to buy.

A switch to a three-year cycle would seem a dangerous one – so could it really be true, or is something else going on … ?

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Jason Snell has written an interesting piece at Macworld, berating Google for using its Material Design user-interface in iOS apps. In other words, Google ignores all the iOS conventions and instead makes its iPhone and iPad apps look exactly like Android ones. This can be seen in everything from the ‘white card on gray background’ overall design all the way down to small details like using vertical rather than horizontal dots as a menu icon.

He argues that Google is acting like Microsoft did back in the early 90s, suddenly making its Mac apps look and behave like Windows ones. It is, he suggests, arrogant …

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Last year, I wrote a Feature Request asking that Apple give third-party apps access to Siri, and generally work at beefing-up both the intelligence and the capabilities of its intelligent assistant. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an opinion piece pointing to the fact that Viv is exactly what Siri should have been by now.

This week, a report suggests that I may finally be getting my wish. Apple is said to be not only planning to offer a Siri SDK to all developers, but also building an Amazon Echo/Google Home type box that will embed Siri more deeply in the home through integration with HomeKit. We will, says the report, find out more at WWDC.

If true, the implications could be profound – perhaps even meaning that we’ve hit ‘peak app’ …

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Earlier this week it was reported that an upcoming MacBook Pro refresh would bring a thinner design, Touch ID support, and an OLED touch bar above the keyboard. One of the longstanding requests by MacBook users, however, has been an option for cellular connectivity and now it looks like we might be one step closer to that coming to fruition. As noted by PatentlyApple, Apple has recently been granted a patent for a MacBook with cellular connectivity.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard whispers that Apple is working on MacBook with cellular connectivity. In 2011, a MacBook Pro with 3G connectivity and a SIM card slot from 2007 was put up for auction on eBay with the seller claiming it was an unreleased prototype model, but is it still possible that Apple is considering finally adding the feature?

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The 2016 MacBook Pro is likely to take design cues from the 12-inch MacBook

Apple has kept us waiting a long time for a new MacBook Pro. It’s been more than a year since the last update, and that was a minor one. It added Force Touch to the trackpad, provided faster flash storage, an extra hour of battery-life and faster graphics. All fine as a refresh, but nothing to get too excited about.

The latest report suggests that we’re now going to have to wait until Q4 this year before a new model is released. Unsurprisingly, that report points to a next-generation MacBook Pro with a thinner and lighter design, with cues taken from the 12-inch MacBook. More power-efficient processors should allow a thinner casing without sacrificing battery-life.

But it also suggests a couple of new features: Touch ID, and a touch-sensitive replacement for the function keys on the top row of the keyboard. At first glance, Touch ID might sound welcome but no big deal, and the touchscreen a bit gimmicky, but – executed properly – I think they could make a huge difference to the usability of the machine …

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Yesterday, I bought a 12″ MacBook, and after playing with it for 10 minutes, I immediately knew that I made the right decision. 24 hours later, I’m convinced that this is the best laptop for me, and a much better portable workhorse than something like a 12.9″ iPad Pro. Here are 10 reasons why you should consider going with a MacBook if you’re in the market for something powerful, yet portable.
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A wristband that zaps you with a 255-volt electric shock if you over-spend is the latest idea from Intelligent Environments, a company that first announced the Pavlock wearable 18 months ago as a way to dissuade owners from visiting time-wasting websites.

The band would be triggered, explains the BBC, if your bank balance drops too quickly.

If the funds in the account go below an agreed limit, the band kicks in. It can also work with smart meter Nest to turn down the heating and save energy bills if funds are low.

Unsurprisingly, no bank has yet signed up for the service. But while the idea may be silly, it seems to me that the underlying concept here is exactly where the Internet of Things should be headed …

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Apple has always been seen as a hardware company – from the original Apple Computer through to the Apple Watch. Ask anyone to describe what the company does and they’ll all talk about those sleek, stylish, easy-to-use gadgets.

Some people will even jump straight to calling Apple the iPhone-maker, other products seen as also-rans. Which, in financial terms, is not unreasonable: the iPhone accounts for 65% of the company’s revenues. So it’s no surprise that the market is unsure how to respond at a time when the company’s main product is experiencing declining sales. That uncertainty is being exacerbated by suggestions that the iPhone 7 may be rather similar to the iPhone 6 and 6s.

I’ve talked before about my view of Apple’s long-term prospects, but that piece focused on hardware, touching only briefly on an area Apple has been increasingly talking-up: services …

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The iPhone can shoot 4K video, and now even the iPad can shoot 4K video. Yet, there are times when you need the flexibility and power provided by a standalone camera.

Standalone cameras have inherent advantages over smartphone cameras, despite the major strides made by iPhone photography over the last few years. Even with amazing third-party apps like FiLMiC Pro, which lets you adjust things like ISO and shutter speed, you’re still stuck with a constant aperture and fixed lens.

While smartphones have replaced point and shoot cameras for a vast amount of people, standalone cameras, especially ones with interchangeable lenses like the recently-released 24MP Sony a6300, still have their place.

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We heard last month that Apple has a team of around 100 people working on revamping the search functionality in the iOS App Store. If true, it’s long overdue because App Store search is a truly terrible experience. You know it, I know it, developers know it, everyone in the world knows it – except, it had always appeared, the Apple execs in charge of it.

If Apple is actually going to fix App Store search so that it works, that’s excellent news. But one part of the report sounded distinctly less encouraging.

One of the methods that Apple is considering is paid search. Essentially, developers and companies could pay to have their app shown more prominently in search results.

That gives the impression that Apple is more focused on generating additional revenue than delivering a great user experience …

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While Apple has denied a report that it was planning to stop selling music downloads in either two years or 3-4 years, the denial to Re/code was somewhat vague.

Apple rep Tom Neumayr wouldn’t expand on [the ‘not true’] comment, except to make it clear that he was responding to both timelines proposed in today’s story from Digital Music News.

And really, nobody should be surprised if the broader report is true: that Apple has discussed how and when it might exit the music download business …

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As long-time readers will know, I’ve long been a fan of Siri. As I’ve often noted, it’s my primary means of interacting with my iPhone (part of the reason I don’t need a larger screen). I dictate most of my messages, and if it’s possible to ask Siri to do something for me rather than doing it myself, I do.

But Siri does have one major failing: it has no access to third-party apps. There are countless apps where I’d love to be able to get Siri to do the heavy lifting, as I wrote last year in a Feature Request:

What I can’t yet do is ask the time of my next train home, despite having an app on my phone that can answer that question. I can’t ask it to show me today’s Timehop, nor can I ask it to post that to Facebook. I can’t ask it to post something to a Hipchat or Slack chatroom. I can’t ask it to call an Uber car. I can’t ask it to translate ‘Where is the nearest pharmacy’ into Mandarin. I could name many other examples, but you get the idea.

If Apple offered an API to allow third-party developers to take advantage of Siri, I’m confident that many would do so. And I’m certainly not alone in wanting that – in our poll, 95% of you agreed with me.

But it turns out that Siri’s original developers wanted to take things a step further …

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Since HomeKit was introduced with iOS 8, one major missing piece from Apple’s home automation effort has been a built-in app that provides a user interface to the underlying framework. Interacting with Siri is the only Apple-supplied HomeKit UI; users rely on third-party apps instead for all visual HomeKit management.

The downside to this approach is that there isn’t officially one HomeKit app to rule them all, and companies that make great smart home sensors and accessories don’t necessarily make great software. Compare that to Apple’s HealthKit framework which connects various App Store apps to a single dashboard in the built-in Health app. The approach isn’t perfect, but a similar effort for HomeKit would be welcomed.

The good news is Apple’s been developing a built-in HomeKit app for a while now, and a rumor surfaced over the weekend that such an app could finally be ready for iOS 10. As a close HomeKit follower, I’m very curious to see what iOS 10 may have in store for Apple’s home automation effort, but my first thought is that there are a few gems among the current crop of HomeKit apps that Apple may not compete with well even from its position as the platform owner…

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For the last few months I’ve been using my Apple EarPods for nearly every application that requires in-ear audio. I use my EarPods for monitoring while recording voiceovers, for podcasting, and for everyday music listening.

Absurd as it is, the last pair of headphones I’d owned, a pair of Sony MDR-7506’s, ended up developing a short in the cable. I simply never got around to replacing them in a timely manner.

Audio-Technica’s ATH-M50, and the updated ATH-M50x, have received rave reviews from tech sites, bloggers and YouTubers alike. The love that these headphones receive on a regular basis convinced me that the next pair of headphones that I tried needed to be these. Do they live up to the hype?
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Earlier this week, we reported on an upcoming design refresh coming to Apple Music with iOS 10. Mark reported that the update would focus on “a redesigned user-interface, a few new functions, and reorganization as well as simplification of existing features.” The new interface is said to ditch the colorful translucent look of the current app in favor of a more simplistic look with a focus on album art and black & white design.

While I certainly won’t reject an interface refresh for Apple Music, I think there are a variety of things that need to change too (or even first). Read on as I breakdown what needs to be changed…

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Tim Cook’s interview on CNBC last night highlighted the huge gulf between his optimistic view of Apple’s future prospects, and the pessimistic one being expressed in both Wall Street commentary and the share price.

The share price speaks for itself. As Business Insider notes, the stock has dropped 11% since Apple announced its first-quarter earnings, and 27% over the past year. Even billionaire investor Carl Icahn – who once couldn’t stop talking about how under-valued AAPL was – sold 7M shares back in February and has now dumped the stock altogether. Not the greatest expression of confidence in the company’s future.

Analysts have been queuing up to pronounce that Apple is doomed, the iPhone is on a slide, it’s all over. Tim Cook, meanwhile, claims that Wall Street is guilty of ‘hugely over-reacting’ to a short-term glitch …

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