Opinion pieces & commentary

We learned a little more today about Apple’s plans for Marzipan, its UIKit that will make it easy for developers to port iOS apps to the Mac.

Today’s report suggests that the project will be rolling out a little more slowly than expected, with an SDK for third-party apps launching at this year’s WWDC – but only for iPad apps …

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The venerable iPad mini 4 still has its fans, despite its now somewhat odd position in the iPad line-up: more expensive than the 9.7-inch iPad, yet smaller and significantly less capable.

Smaller can be a benefit as well as a drawback, of course. Some prefer the portability of the mini, and many parents like them as devices for younger kids, as they are easier to handle and thus less likely to get damaged by a fall.

But the ‘less capable’ part is because the iPad mini hasn’t been updated since 2015 …

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I’ve been calling on Apple to bring back the 17-inch MacBook Pro for many years now. Sometimes there’s just no substitute for physical screen size when it comes to things like photo and video editing, and even in more mundane use, you can get a significant productivity boost from having multiple windows visible at the same time.

I’ve suggested before that 14- and 16-inch machines might be the sweet-spot, and noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo yesterday suggested that the larger of the two may well be on the way …

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With iPhone revenue flat despite higher average selling prices, Apple is increasingly looking to Services to provide future revenue growth. It’s therefore not surprising that the company would be doing everything it can to maximize those revenues.

But if a WSJ report is correct, that Apple is seeking a 50% revenue cut for an upcoming subscription news service, the company could be shooting itself in the foot …

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There are many things to love about Apple Stores.

The designs are great. Either funky and modern, with loads of glass and natural light, or a respectful yet contemporary conversion of a classical building.

You can freely play with the products, without any sales pressure. If you have questions, there will generally be someone who knows the answer …

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The revelation that a major FaceTime bug can effectively turn your Apple devices into a hot mic, allowing a caller to hear or even see you before you pick up, would be a massive embarrassment no matter which company was involved. It’s an absolutely crazy security fail.

But when that company is Apple – which has been ceaselessly pushing privacy of late – it becomes so cringeworthy we’re going to have to invent a whole new scale just to measure it …

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Apple’s HomeKit seemed to be the star of the show at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, with a wide range of home-based gadgets — TVs, ceiling fans, outdoor sensors, light panels, a screen-based hub, 4K security cameras, thermostats and more — making headlines.

The HomeKit ecosystem is growing, and it looks like prices may even begin inching downward as well — but that’s not enough, and not fast enough either. As Bradley Chambers wrote in an opinion piece, Apple is leaving a lot of potential on the table by relying solely on third parties to create home-based gadgets.

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One of the biggest shake-ups we’ve seen in the iOS user-interface was the replacement of skeuomorphism – making things look like real-life objects – with the complete opposite in iOS 7. Where once we had realistic looking 3D representations, we instead got a ‘flat’ UI which goes out of its way to remain 2D.

While some feel that skeuomorphism looks old-fashioned these days, the approach still has its fans even now – and Apple has shown signs of beginning to adopt a new take on the look using something called anisotropism …

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Apple made two surprise announcements recently: one before the holidays, the other afterwards. Both point to the full extent of the company’s plans to transform itself into a very different company.

The first announcement was that Apple Music would, for the first time, be fully supported on third-party speakers. Although available as an app on Android phones, the only speaker on which Apple’s streaming music service was natively available was its own HomePod …

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Yesterday saw renders of what Digit claims to be a first look at the 2019 iPhone, and 9to5Mac readers weren’t impressed by the look.

That’s incredibly ugly.

No offence to the person that created that, but ewww.

No. Just no.

This is a horrendous design!

But while I agree about the aesthetics, I would like to see Apple add cameras to the iPhone …

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I argued almost exactly two years ago that we were approaching the point at which Apple might have to think the unthinkable on iPhone pricing.

Apple cannot afford to have anything resembling a sense of entitlement when it comes to customers at the premium end of the market. Leaving aside those geeks who have their own technical or philosophical reasons for favoring Android, it’s largely been the case to date that anyone who can afford to buy an iPhone does so almost automatically. That fact is testament to Apple’s extraordinary marketing prowess.

But players like Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo and OnePlus are learning fast […] So while Apple’s current dominance of the premium end of the market gives it a massive head-start, it can’t count on forever remaining the automatic choice. It will need to learn to compete on a slightly more level playing field as its competitors continue to up their game.

Yesterday’s news suggests that crunch time may now have arrived …

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In what is now an annual tradition, I’m offering my end-of-year report card on Apple’s 2018 hardware performance. What the company did well, what it did less well, and what it failed to do altogether.

We’ve already rounded-up everything Apple announced during the course of the year, so let’s look now at what I consider to be the highlights and lowlights …

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It’s almost accepted as a truism now that Apple products are getting more expensive – and indeed, there’s plenty of data to support that contention.

Go back to 2014, for example, and the average selling price (ASP) of an iPhone was $634. Fast-forward to 2018, and it’s $898.

Headline prices of Macs and iPads might suggest the same is true there, but that’s not necessarily the case …

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Regular readers will know that I was a huge fan of the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The moment it was discontinued, I rushed out to buy the very last model so that I could keep it for as long as possible.

Way back in 2014, I argued that it was time to bring it back. That didn’t happen, of course, and two years later I’d come to terms with the fact that the era of user-upgradable MacBook Pro models was at an end.

But that wasn’t there only reason I loved the 17-inch model: there was also that gorgeous screen size. And LG’s latest laptop shows just how lovely a modern take on a 17-inch MacBook Pro could be …

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Google is getting pretty heavily into voice-driven AI with its Pixel phones. It first announced Google Duplex – a controversial feature which allows the phone to automatically make calls for things like restaurant bookings. But it also launched a new call-screening feature.

Originally exclusive to the Pixel 3 in October, it was last month extended to the Pixel 2/XL, and it got a very welcome upgrade just a few days ago.

Here’s how call-screening works …

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The Marriott International hotel group is the latest company to announce a large-scale hack of a customer database.

We have taken measures to investigate and address a data security incident involving the Starwood guest reservation database. The investigation has determined that there was unauthorized access to the database, which contained guest information relating to reservations at Starwood properties on or before September 10, 2018.

The company says that although credit card data was encrypted, it believes it possible that the hackers got the encryption keys too …

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I know, I’ll stop going on about how much I love the new 12.9-inch iPad soon, but before I do, let’s talk about this ‘media consumption device’ myth …

Reading the comments on my iPad Pro Diary entry yesterday, I realized more than one person had expressed the same view. It’s one I’ve also seen elsewhere: that Apple’s most expensive iPad may be able to justify the price if you use it for work, but the purchase can’t be justified as a media consumption device …

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I remember when the Today at Apple initiative was first announced, I mentally shrugged. It was, I thought, just a rebranding of the workshops that had existed for many years. I thought it was an excellent idea to draw attention to them – I’ve long been a big fan – but Apple seemed to be presenting an old idea as if it were a brand new one.

But subsequent news and a recent visit to the revamped flagship London store in Covent Garden has persuaded me that the initiative is actually a much bigger deal. Apple has transformed what used to be a fairly well-kept secret into something which is now key to its brand image …

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AAPL stock hasn’t been faring too well of late. Aside from general nervousness around tech stocks at present – something which has expanded out into the stock market as a whole – there were two specific factors making investors less optimistic about Apple.

One was that Apple offered holiday quarter guidance toward the low-end of analyst expectations. But the other was that Apple revealed that it would no longer report unit sales for iPhone, iPad and Mac …

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Macworld’s Michael Simon wrote an interesting piece entitled ‘Why the new Mac mini makes me concerned about the upcoming Mac Pro.’

I agree with much of what he says – but actually reach the opposite conclusion …

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When Apple launched the iPhone X, it did more than just change the design language of the iPhone: it also offered a whole new pricing level. Not just for iPhones, but for any smartphone. It was a move that has significantly boosted the average selling price (ASP) of the iPhone range as a whole.

This is a trick Apple is now repeating with the 2018 MacBook Air …

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