Opinion pieces & commentary

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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Alongside the iPad Pro last November, Apple introduced a new connectivity option for users with the Smart Connector. Originally, Apple only touted the connection as being good for easily pairing things like keyboards to the iPad. We’ve since learned a little more about the capabilities of the three-pin connection, but overarching details are still vague.

Last month, I had the chance to try out the LOGI Base dock with Smart Connector support. Prior to using it, I was totally unaware that the Smart Connector was capable of charging the iPad Pro, albeit it at a slightly slower pace. Using the LOGI Base, however, intrigued me. What are the actual capabilities of Smart Connector?

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If you own a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and desire extra screen real estate, then a 4K monitor can be a good investment, especially as the price of such monitors continue to dwindle.

Why should you consider a 4K display instead of a cheaper monitor with lesser resolution? It all boils down to clarity.
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Earlier today, yet another report emerged claiming that Apple would launch an iPhone ‘Pro’ or iPhone 7 ‘Pro’ this fall. This report claimed that the device would be identical to the iPhone 6s Plus in terms of size, but would feature dual cameras on the back and Smart Connector support.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard reports of Apple perhaps adding an additional model to its iPhone lineup, either. A separate report from last month claimed that the company was planning an iPhone 7 Pro with dual camera capabilities.

While all of this is obviously yet to be confirmed and could very well change before Apple announces new iPhones this September, it brings up some interesting possibilities for the iPhone’s 2016 lineup. Will Apple replace the ‘Plus’ model with the ‘Pro’ model? Will it join the lineup as an additional, more expensive option? Let’s discuss…

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Apple sent out an email blast this week marketing the Apple Watch as a Mother’s Day gift recommendation:

Help her do it all and look great, too. Whether she’s working or playing, Apple Watch is
the perfect Mother’s Day gift to help her stay connected and active throughout the day.

The email was fine as far as marketing messages go. It featured the message above plus a nice photograph of a woman wearing an Apple Watch Sport with a band color-matched to her jacket. “Celebrate her with a gift she’ll love” and “Finally, something that can keep up with her” cleverly nudged you into making Apple Watch the fashionable fitness tracker gift for the May 8th holiday.

But it also reminded me of a recent experience I had in an Apple Store and a realization about Apple Watch right now. Agree or disagree, I believe the window on buying the first-gen Apple Watch has closed, and in almost every situation potential customers should wait for Apple Watch 2.

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Yesterday, we showed you how to upgrade late model MacBooks with a 480GB or 1TB SSD. In some cases these upgrades might yield eight times the original capacity of the machine’s internal storage.

While it’s certainly nice to have the option of upgrading, such enhancements do come with downsides. First, there’s the price: it’s $600 to upgrade to a 1TB drive. Second, the upgrade breaks Boot Camp support.

But $600 is relatively cheap when you compare what it costs to score a MacBook with a 1TB SSD. MacBooks feature faster PCIe storage, but it’s still a high price to pay for something so vital — and so cheap by today’s standards.

Apple’s MacBook line has an issue with internal flash storage prices. It’s a problem that continues to worsen, especially as Apple has made it increasingly difficult for users to upgrade.
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I touched on my thoughts on a cellular Apple Watch 2 briefly when detailing WSJ’s report, but I want to expand a bit further and think out loud about the possibility. In short, I think an untethered Apple Watch with built-in cellular connectivity is inevitable, but in the short term there are other problems I suspect will be solved first. That’s not to say that Apple couldn’t introduce cellular and fix other issues, but having an embedded data connection is low on my list of requests this year.

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After reading Zac’s opinion piece on how the iPhone SE could actually tempt him not to upgrade to the iPhone 7, I realized that I hadn’t even begun to think what Apple could do to get me to want to upgrade to an iPhone 7. Overall I’ve been happy with the iPhone since its iPhone 5 iteration. It was the device I felt Apple really hit its stride with the hardware. I only upgraded to an iPhone 6 because I wanted a better camera and needed more storage space, but the larger form factor was a serious drawback for me. So what could possibly make me even want to upgrade from my current iPhone 6 to another phone later this year?

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From iPhone 4 and beyond, I’ve never skipped out on buying a flagship iPhone. The white AT&T iPhone 4 in May 2011 was my first model, then iPhone 4s in November a month after its launch. Starting with iPhone 5, I’ve bought every flagship iPhone on day one (even camping out in line overnight at least twice). I pre-ordered the off-cycle release iPhone SE last month and switched from the top-of-the-line iPhone 6s Plus. I fully reserve the right to change my mind between now and September, but my experience with the iPhone SE so far and the current crop of iPhone 7 rumors has me thinking I just might hop off the upgrade train for the first time. Here’s why:

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I talked earlier this week about how I’d rationalize Apple’s MacBook lineup, so now it’s time to look at the desktop lineup.

I argued on Tuesday that the MacBook range was more complicated than it needs to be, and could be simplified by having a ‘good’ and ‘better’ version of each model, with custom-builds available for those who want ‘best.’ I also suggested that Apple be a little more generous with its specs as part of that simplification process.

Things are a little less clear-cut with desktop Macs, but I still think some cleaning-up of the options would be beneficial …

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