Posts in Linked

iPad mini 4 Gets Improved Display→

The scientists at DisplayMate have tested the latest iPad mini’s display and found it to be some of Apple’s best work yet:

First of all, the colors and color accuracy of the iPad mini 4 now match all of the recent full size iPads and also the recent iPhones (5 and 6 including S and Plus). So across the entire mobile iOS product line you’ll now see color matched photos and screen images. The mini 4 is an excellent super size upgrade to the iPhone 6(S) and Plus and now truly qualifies as a small version of the iPad Air 2.

But in terms of real-world viewing conditions, the record low 2.0% screen Reflectance actually makes a bigger visual difference for the image colors and image contrast that you actually see because ambient light washes out and degrades the displayed images and reduces screen readability - so its record low Reflectance actually makes a bigger difference!

A big update from the iPad mini 3.

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How to Wear Your Apple Watch 24/7→

David Smith has released a new app called Sleep++, which uses the Apple Watch to track your sleep. To wear a Watch at night, though, Smith had to figure out a way to charge it quickly during the day.

He ran some tests, and the results are interesting:

I have been tracking my sleep every night for a couple of months now so I’ve learned a few strategies to make this work pretty well.

The TL/DR is to charge your Apple Watch in the morning while you get ready for your day (take a shower, get dressed, etc) and then again in the evening while you get ready for bed (brush teeth, put on pajamas, etc). Then put your Apple Watch in Airplane Mode while you sleep.

I can’t wait to try Sleep++ with this method (which also happens to be used by other cool people).

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Apple Refunding All Purchases of Peace→

Apple has informed Marco Arment that all purchases of Peace will be refunded to customers after he pulled the app from the App Store:

Apple notified me this afternoon that they’ll be proactively refunding all purchases of Peace. It will probably take a few days to process.

As far as I know, this effectively never happens. When I decided to pull the app, I asked some Apple friends if this was even possible, and we all thought the same thing: iTunes billing works the way it works, period, and no special cases can be made.

This is the first time I’ve heard of Apple proactively refunding an app removed from sale. I wonder what will happen to purchase history in iTunes: will Peace be available for redownload from a user’s account, or will it effectively disappear forever?

(In the meantime, I’m keeping Peace on my devices. It’s still a great app.)

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iOS 9 Installed on 50% of iOS Devices→

Apple published a press release this morning confirming that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will be available in retail stores at 8 AM on Friday, September 25. In the press release, the company also announced that iOS 9 has been installed on 50% of active iOS devices:

Apple also announced the fastest iOS adoption ever, with more than 50 percent of devices already using iOS 9.

And:

“Customer response to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus has been incredibly positive, we can’t wait to get our most advanced iPhones ever into customers’ hands starting this Friday,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iOS 9 is also off to an amazing start, on pace to be downloaded by more users than any other software release in Apple’s history.”

The numbers are based on App Store stats as measured on September 19 – three days after the launch of iOS 9. While the adoption rate will slow down in the next few weeks, this is an impressive result regardless and it shows that Apple’s focus on making updates smaller in size and easier to install is paying off.

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On Multiple App Views for iPad Multitasking→

Clayton Miller thinks that iOS should offer a way to view multiple documents from the same app side by side in iPad multitasking:

It’s not too hard to imagine a solution that can leverage the app-centric paradigm of iOS into something supporting multiple documents from the same app. Apps and documents both share the metaphor of the window on the desktop, so why not let them share the iOS pane model?

In an application that supports it, the slide-over menu gains a new option at the bottom for the current app. Tapping that instantiates another view of the app, defaulting to the document management or “open” view. The underlying iOS process model would likely need an overhaul for this to become a reality, but it’s a necessity.

I like the concept he came up with, using the lower section of the Slide Over app picker to open a second pane for another document. But I’d go a step further and argue that users should have the ability to pin any view from the same app next to the current view, not just documents.

As I argued in my review:

One of the key aspects of Slide Over and Split View is that they cannot show two sections of the same app at once. Only individual apps can be displayed concurrently on screen: you can’t split Safari in multiple views and display both views on screen at the same time. If you were hoping to manage multiple Safari tabs or Pages documents in Split View, you’re out of luck.

Splitting apps into multiple atomic units for standalone views and documents seems like an obvious next step going forward.

If Apple brings the ability to split the current app in multiple instances for Slide Over and Split View, I hope they’ll do it for any view available in the app. Documents are ideal candidates for this, but all apps would benefit from such addition.

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Jason Snell on How Apple Got 3D Touch Just Right→

From Jason Snell’s story for Macworld on trying 3D Touch at Apple’s September 9 event:

Every time I intended to use 3D Touch to “push” an icon on the iPhone home screen, the feature activated and a contextual menu popped into view, accompanied by a tiny vibration to indicate that I had succeeded with my gesture. The extension of that gesture–sliding my finger or thumb down to the right menu item and then letting go–felt natural after a single try.

When I used the iPhone without attempting to enable 3D Touch, it didn’t enable. When I tried, it worked. In Messages, I was able to push on a message preview and receive a “peek” at the full message, with accompanying vibration. When I wanted to commit to opening that message, I pushed a little harder and was greeted with another vibration as the full message “popped” in.

More than haptic feedback and shortcuts, it sounds like 3D Touch will fundamentally alter the navigation experience of iOS. Several iOS 9 features (new app switcher, back button, Universal Links) make more sense in the context of 3D Touch, too.

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How Apple Built 3D Touch→

I missed this story by Josh Tyrangiel for Bloomberg Business on how Apple’s design team approached the idea of bringing pressure sensitivity to the iPhone’s screen. I liked this bit with Craig Federighi:

But in lieu of the usual polite deflection, Federighi picked up an iPhone 6S and explained one of 3D Touch’s simpler challenges: “It starts with the idea that, on a device this thin, you want to detect force. I mean, you think you want to detect force, but really what you’re trying to do is sense intent. You’re trying to read minds. And yet you have a user who might be using his thumb, his finger, might be emotional at the moment, might be walking, might be laying on the couch. These things don’t affect intent, but they do affect what a sensor [inside the phone] sees. So there are a huge number of technical hurdles. We have to do sensor fusion with accelerometers to cancel out gravity—but when you turn [the device] a different way, we have to subtract out gravity. … Your thumb can read differently to the touch sensor than your finger would. That difference is important to understanding how to interpret the force. And so we’re fusing both what the force sensor is giving us with what the touch sensor is giving us about the nature of your interaction. So down at even just the lowest level of hardware and algorithms—I mean, this is just one basic thing. And if you don’t get it right, none of it works.”

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Marco Arment Pulls Peace From the App Store→

After a successful launch on the App Store earlier this week, Marco Arment has decided to pull Peace, his Content Blocker for iOS 9, from the App Store:

As I write this, Peace has been the number one paid app in the U.S. App Store for about 36 hours. It’s a massive achievement that should be the highlight of my professional career. If Overcast even broke the top 100, I’d be over the moon.

Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have. Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.

For more details on his motivations and how to ask for a refund, check out Marco’s post.

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Tim Cook on PCs and iPads→

BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski was able to spend 20 minutes with Tim Cook in his recent visit to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store. The entire article has a few interesting gems, and I’m going to quote Cook’s comment on PCs and the iPad Pro:

Two last questions as we turn the corner onto Fifth Avenue: The first — how close are we to a time when people are going to stop buying home computers and laptops and use only tablets? Will they give up their Macs for the iPad Pro? “I think that some people will never buy a computer,” Cook says. “Because I think now we’re at the point where the iPad does what some people want to do with their PCs.” Cook is quick to point out, however, that this doesn’t foreshadow the end of the Mac. “I think there are other people — like myself — that will continue to buy a Mac and that it will continue to be a part of the digital solution for us,” he adds. “I see the Mac being a key part of Apple for the long term and I see growth in the Mac for the long term.”

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