The first day they posted it and it has almost half a million views. While I have to admit it’s contrived as a tear-jerker advertisement (for a product that I already bought), but that doesn’t make it any less laudable as a brilliant short film.
Category: Apple
My old AirPods no longer keep a charge making listening for more than a few minutes (especially from the left “pod”) quite a challenge. As expensive as AirPods are for them to just wear out after a couple of years makes me hesitant to buy another pair, however, going wireless and the convenience of charging in the case still makes them a very compelling purchase.
Apple, of course, just released the newest iteration of the AirPods (Pro!) and while I don’t have any professional use for wireless headphones, I’m intrigued by their noise cancelling ability and again, that small charging case is awesome. I had been considering other options for my next pair of earphones because noise cancelling is a game changer for the annoying engine noise on long flights.
From Daring Fireball:
Noise cancellation worked really well for me. I own a pair of Bose over-the-ear noise canceling wireless headphones, but almost exclusively wear them only on airplanes and trains. Wearing noise-canceling earbuds on the subway and walking through the city is going to take some getting used to. It’s so good you really do lose sense of your surrounding aural environment.
I was a dummy and didn’t take my Bose headphones on my trip today, so I can’t say how they compare side-by-side on the train, but there’s no question how AirPods Pro compare to regular AirPods. The difference is like night and day. Amtrak trains are pretty noisy—especially at what we in the U.S. so adorably consider “high speeds”—but with AirPods Pro the clackety-clack rumble was effectively blocked out.
I’m 90% certain I’ll pick up a pair from the Apple Store at El Paseo Village when I’m in California next week.
Update: I got some new AirPod Pros of my own and although at times I feel they are uncomfortable after using them for a long time — (which earbuds aren’t?) — I love the noise cancellation and would recommend them to anyone looking for a new set of headphones.
I’ve been dabbling in the Swift programming language lately and after joining the /r/SwiftUI subreddit I discovered a fantastic free online course by Paul Hudson for learning the SwiftUI framework. The basic idea is, spend about an hour a day for 100 days learning about Swift and SwiftUI and then post about it. Slow and steady wins the race.
I’ve been reluctant to write about it because I wanted to try the course out before locking myself into the commitment device of publicly posting about my plan for the next 100 days, however, I just finished Day 6, I love it, and I plan on doing it every day for the next 94 days.
Details of my learning so far after the jump (posted here mostly for learning and review purposes):
Categories
Everything Coming to AppleTV+
The premiere date (November 1st, 2019) for Apple’s new TV and movie subscription service, AppleTV+ is just around the corner. Here is a list (some rumoured some confirmed) of the shows that will (might) eventually make it to AppleTV+.
The Morning Show (2019) – Trailer
See (2019) – Trailer
Dickinson (2019) – Trailer
For All Mankind (2019) – Trailer
Snoopy in Space (2019) – Trailer
The Elephant Queen (2019) – Trailer
Helpsters (2019) – Trailer
ghostwriter (2019) – Trailer
Truth be Told – Trailer
Servant (2019)
and more… (full list after the jump).
From Apple’s marketing:
New Apple Originals every month.
Always ad-free and on demand.
For up to six family members.
Download and watch offline.
4K HDR and Dolby Atmos.
The new Apple shows, for the most part, look pretty intriguing. And for only $5USD the subscription fee seems pretty reasonable.
Categories
Apple Special Event 2019
Today Apple broadcasted their annual special (iPhone) event. While the naysayers came out again this year complaining that in the age of leaks today’s iPhone 11 event would be a disappointment, however, the folks in Cupertino did not let me down. CEO Tim Cook skipped over his usual update to get started right away… Here are the highlights.
Apple Arcade
100 “groundbreaking” (I’m not too sure about that) new games for iPhone, Mac, iPad and Apple TV with new games added each month. It will be interesting to see what it’s like in the free trial period.
Apple Arcade available September 19. Your unlimited access costs $4.99USD /month.
Apple TV+
$4.99USD per month — Free for a year with the purchase of a new iMac, Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Launching November 1.
iPad
Apple has updated the iPad. These new standard edition tablets have:
- 10.2” Retina Display
- A10 Fusion Chip
- Smart Connector (previously only available on Pro models)
- 8MP Camera
- Touch ID
Seventh generation iPad orders start today at $329USD and will be available September 30.
Apple Watch
I’ve been crazy about Apple Watch when I purchased a first generation Apple Watch back in May of 2015. I’m now on my third Apple Watch (last year I got myself a 4th gen.) and I LOVE IT!.
Along with the 5th generation of the watch, Apple is helping roll out three new health studies:
- Apple Hearing Study
- Apple Women’s Health Study
- Apple Heart & Movement Study
Enroll with the Apple Research App (available in the US App store later this year).
Series 5 new features highlights:
- New always on display! while still maintaining 18 hour battery life.
- A built in compass
- International emergency calling (for cellular capable models)
- New colours including two models made out of titanium, as well, ceramic is back.
I doubt I will be upgrading if only because my 4th Gen is still serving me so well.
This year’s Apple Watch remain the same in size as last year’s model. The price starts at $399USD and will be available September 20th. They’re keeping the Series 3 in the lineup for $199USD.
iPhone
As predicted, three new iPhones will hit the shelf on September 20th. They are: iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max.
The Pro model comes with three cameras, the standard f1.8 26mm wide lens, a 52mm telephoto f2.0, and a new 13mm f2.4 ultra wide. It also comes with the 12mp camera on the front facing camera allowing new photo abilities such as access to slow motion selfies… they call them slofies.
Apple’s previous flagship chip, the A12, was already the fasted chip in a smartphone. The new A13 Bionic chip extends Apple’s lead with the still fastest CPU and GPU ever in a smartphone, capable of 1 trillion operations per second.
Phil Schiller came out to present the iPhone 11 Pro. Its stainless steel design will come in two sizes — the standard 5.8″ and the iPhone 11 Pro Max at 6.5″. All sizes will come with a fast charge 18W adapter.
The phone comes with a triple camera system, each recording 12mp of data.
The three focal depths and apertures are as follows:
- Wide 26mm f1.8
- Telephoto 52mm f2.0
- Ultra wide 13mm f2.4 (with 120° field of view)
These new iPhone models for the first time make use of the U1 chip. It makes possible a new user interface for AirDrop that uses your direction to orientate your friends’ avatars on the interface in relation to you.
There was also a sneak peek at “Deep Fusion” — Phill described the new technology as, “Computational photography mad science”. Part of that science will allow for “night mode” something that other phones have had for awhile but nevertheless, an interesting improvement on previous models.
The third party app, FiLMiC, looks pretty neat. It allows for simultaneous recording of multiple cameras giving one lots of shot options to edit together later. It even allows for recording both front and rear camera at the same time which will be neat for rollercoaster rides and documentary style interviews. The FiLMic app will be available later this year in the app store.
There is a new Quicktake mode (not to be confused with this Apple QuickTake camera). Allowing users to easily and almost instantly switch from still (or livephoto) mode to video mode.
And last but not least, the iPhone 11 Pro will have improved FaceID with a greater angle of view and is even faster.
The three models are priced starting at
- iPhone 11 $699 USD
- iPhone 11 Pro $999USD
- iPhone 11 Pro Max $1099 USD
Orders begin this Friday at 6:00am MST and shipping starts September 20th. Speaking for myself, anyway, I think it’s just about time to get a new phone.
Categories
Apple’s Q3 Financials
“This was our biggest June quarter ever — driven by all-time record revenue from Services, accelerating growth from Wearables, strong performance from iPad and Mac and significant improvement in iPhone trends” — Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO
It turns out1, Apple is not doomed after all.
I bought Apple stock in 2014 and it has been a very good decision. I only wish I would have bought Apple stock in 2004 instead of that iPod Photo. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the iPod Photo but the same $450USD invested in owning part of the company itself would be worth about $20,500USD today (about $26,800 CAN). Talk about an expensive music player2.
To get a picture of how this quarter’s results compare to Apple’s past performance, check out Jason Snell’s Q3 Results Charts.
1. Once again.
2. That based purely on stock price and doesn’t include the dividends.
Categories
Apple Special Event
With only about 10 minutes before it started, I casually mentioned to Andrea that I would like to watch to some technology event happening today. She reminded me that she was having friends over but if I helped her clean up a bit (after) that that would be fine. After changing the baby I raced downstairs to download the Apple Event app on my Apple TV… got all my passwords in, began the downloaded, and loaded it up… with 10 seconds to spare. I watched as the second hand on my watch hit 8:00am and the event started EXACTLY on time. Kind of neat when you know that all of the world’s apple Watches are in sync and that starting exactly on time is in a way an ad for the watches too.
I love technology and I particularly love Apple Events.
Here are my highlights of today’s event:
MacBook Air
The new MacBook Air has been completely redesigned. Finally receiving that retina screen bringing (if I’m not mistaken) all Apple devices up to retina resolution. This was the upgrade that seemed like a no brainer for the past few years.
As well as improving the resolution and nearly removing edge bezels, Apple has also added Touch ID. This particularly point is interesting because they’ve added the same secure enclave as the MacBook pros have but choose not to include a touch bar.
The other big change is that the new MacBook Air’s are made from a new kind of metal alloy that uses 100% recycled aluminum and still has the look of the high grade aluminum that Apple customers love.
Mac Mini
Long speculated that Apple would be sunsetting this product, the Mac Mini gets a much needed update. The new Mac Mini has 4 cores (upgradeable to 6) and will preform up to 5x faster than before. A first glance, an incredible performance boost but maybe not, considering how long the Mac mini has been ignored. It’s been upgraded with Apple’s new T2 security chip and built in HEVC video encoding will make apple’s new high efficiency formats perform 30x faster than on previous mac minis.
Today at Apple
Angela Ahrendts, senior vice president of retail, donned the stage to talk a little bit about the Today at Apple session happening at Apple Stores all over the world. It felt a bit like a filler segment but I was interested to hear the numbers: 18,000 sessions a week with 60 newly designed sessions.
iPad Pro
In the last year Apple sold more iPads than all of the notebooks of the competitors combined. I think it’s worth taking a moment to just think about what that means? All competitors combined?! Despite iPhones dwarfing all of Apple’s other products, iPad is still a huge part of Apple’s bottom line. This morning, as rumoured, Apple continued to build on that bottom line as they announced an all-new iPad Pro.
The first thing you’ll notice with the new iPad is that there is no home button. It’s still sports a LCD (Apple refers to it as a Liquid Retina Display) but that display now fills a full 11″ for the smaller iPad Pro and the larger fills the same 12.9″ but they’ve reduced the size to about the size of an 8.5″ by 11″ rectangle. Other key points include:
- 5.9 mm thick (25% less volume)
- FaceID
- A12x Bionic Chip 8-core CPU
- up 35% faster for single core
- up to 90% faster overall
- faster than 92% of all portable PCs
- 7 core GPU
- 1TB storage capacity
- USB-C!
- charging out on USB-C
- Second Generation Apple Pencil connects magnetically, automatically pairs, and starts charging!< (Dare I say, finally?)/li>
The keynote then transitioned into talking about apps traditionally thought too memory and processor intensive for the iPad that are now available:
- autocad
- DJ pro
- NBA 2K
- Adobe Photoshop
They ran through the prices and then special musical guest Lana Del Rey sang a couple of her new songs and that was it. I still had time to help Andrea get ready for the day.
Categories
Stolen iPhone 6
My sister had her van window smashed and her purse stolen the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving 2017. The most valuable thing she lost was her iPhone 6 Serial Number FDNQQ047G5MK. I also have the IMEI number for verification purposes. Please contact me if you know where this iPhone is.
Categories
Apple Watch
I’ve had a strange affinity for all things Apple lately. Most recently, against my better fiscal judgement I decided to pre-order the famous Apple Watch. It wasn’t an easy decision, I went back and forth with myself for months after it was first announced last September. I even hesitated for a couple of days after the pre-orders started on April 10th but even when I finally convinced myself it was ok to click the buy button I was left with a feeling of uncertainty.
After much anticipation with a dash of frustration (I opted for pick-up which meant navigating the perplexity that is the light-industrial area), it finally arrived at its new home on my wrist yesterday.
My first thoughts about the new gadget are probably similar to what others have said. It’s lovely — heavier than I imagined but then again I’ve never had a real watch before, (anything more than $50 has always been out of my price range). It’s shiny and black and fun to swipe and explore. Honestly, it doesn’t do a lot relative to the amazing iPhone 6 with which it’s paired, it’s just a lot of fun to take phone calls on my wrist, to see messages as they arrive, and to know the time again (all without resorting to the savagery of pulling my phone). I love it.
As others have talked about, Siri seems smarter than ever — though after the last update there seemed an improvement on her phone version too.
Probably most important, though not the most fun, I know for a fact I have missed at least one less phone call than I would have without it. Considering my living depends on catching such phone calls, perhaps the Apple Watch will pay for itself.
In case you’re wondering, I’m no longer uncertain if the watch is right for me. I would buy it again in a second.
Categories
iPhone 6
This week the world was introduced to iPhone 6. Last week I had my credit card number compromised which meant I wouldn’t have to stay up all night to order a phone that won’t even ship to me until October. I did, however, get a new card in the mail yesterday and the phone which I have been anxiously holding off through three generations of iPhones (four if you count the 5c) will finally be on it’s way in just another week. The photos I’m going to take are going to be amazing… I can’t wait.
Some might argue that spending so much money on a new Apple device would actually be much better spent on buying Apple stock. The $500USD that was spent on my first ipod (the iPod Photo 40gb) would have been a better investment in Apple stock considering that same $500 would now be worth $12470. While I really loved my iPod, it wasn’t worth $12.5K.
So this time around, I decided to have my cake and eat it too. I invested in the spring and so far I’ve made enough to pay for my iPhone just out of earnings. The tough part is deciding to pull my money out now or to let it ride for the long haul. This little chart, What if I had bought Apple stock instead? would suggest I should let it ride.
Update: it has arrived!