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Another conversation to add to your pandemic listening.
Jason Snell returns to the show. Life during the COVID-19 pandemic, WWDC going online-only, Apple’s in-person on-campus workplace culture, speculation on upcoming Apple product releases, and more.
A fun conversation, as always.
March 17, 2020 12:53 PM PT
We live in strange times. I’d wager that a lot of you are now working from home, either for the first time or for a lot longer than you’re used to. I used to work in an office more or less every day, but for the past five years I’ve been working in my garage every day. As a result, I’ve learned a lot about the tools, techniques, and behaviors that can help you work more efficiently on your Mac or iPad from home. I hope what I’ve learned can help you be more productive and healthier at home.
Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge:
With Screen Pass, Movies Anywhere users will be able to share up to three films per month, giving temporary access to the recipient. Users will have seven days to accept the offer, which will give them access to the film for 14 days. Once started, recipients will have 72 hours to finish the film. The three-share limit resets on the first of every month, letting you share more films. (Unused passes won’t roll over.)
Obviously, it comes with its fair share of restrictions: not all movies in the catalog will be available for sharing (though apparently there will be around 6000 at launch), and of course, major studios like MGM, Lionsgate, and Paramount still haven’t joined the Movies Anywhere club.
But, all of that said, Movies Anywhere is one of the best digital services going, and I’m heartened that they’re at least rolling out some form of sharing. That’s long been the biggest challenge with digital media, essentially boiling down into two camps: the first, unprotected media that can be shared in a totally unlimited fashion (which rights holders aren’t usually jazzed about), and the second, protected media that can’t be shared at all (which annoys consumers).
There’s a closed beta of this feature launching this afternoon; a wider beta will hit in May, and the feature should launch later this year.
This week we discuss how the global pandemic has affected Apple, from retail to TV shows to Apple Park workers, and potentially even product launches. Your hosts, experts at working at home, offer some advice to new homebound workers. And to lend a little normalcy to the proceedings, we leave a little time for speculation about some future Apple product releases.
With measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, a lot of people find themselves trying to work at home for the first time. Some of us have been doing the home-working thing for years now, and have learned a whole lot that might be able to help people new to the experience.
When it was clear that this trend was going to intensify in the near future, my friend Glenn Fleishman started writing a book of advice for new work-from-home people. He asked all of us for our advice. And he put it all together in a book, Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily.
It’s free. If you find yourself an an unusual working environment due to closures at your usual workspace, you really should check it out.
March 14, 2020 6:34 PM PT
So often when we’re talking about tech companies and their products, we become so focused on the shiniest new gadget and the spec sheet that accompanies it that we don’t pay enough attention to the bigger picture. Tech giants aren’t just capable of playing a long game, it’s required — because it can take years for technology to be conceived of and years more for the production lines to be built to manufacture it.
Every smartphone is the sum of dozens of these different technologies, not just the hardware itself but the software that makes it function. Whether it’s a new camera design or a folding screen or a microprocessor or a charging port, it takes time. As Yoda taught us, always in motion the future is — and if you’re a tech CEO or product strategist, you’re making decisions now that will affect your products a year, two years, even five years down the road. There’s a reason those people get paid the big bucks, and it’s not (just) the cost of living in Santa Clara County, California.
As so often happens, this week we got a glimpse at what Apple’s been working on for its next round of software updates, thanks to a series of iOS 14 leaks and Apple Watch 6 disclosures. And if you look at the substance of those leaks closely, you can see the forest for the trees. Apple’s priorities are visible. Just look.
Tim Cook, writing at Apple.com last night, announced that Apple would close all of its retail stores outside of Greater China. (Just as it reopens all the retail stores in Greater China.)
We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27. We are committed to providing exceptional service to our customers. Our online stores are open at www.apple.com, or you can download the Apple Store app on the App Store. For service and support, customers can visit support.apple.com. I want to thank our extraordinary Retail teams for their dedication to enriching our customers’ lives. We are all so grateful to you.
Additionally, Apple is continuing to pay all hourly workers as normal, allowing all of its employees to work remotely if they can, and expanding leave policies.
Moreover, the company has donated $15 million to coronavirus response so far, and will match employee donations two-to-one.
All of these are smart, important moves, and we expect no less from one of the most valuable companies on the planet. Frankly, Apple can afford to shut down its stores for two weeks—and, more to the point, these are not essential stores that need to be open during these times, especially since products are still available online. Presumably those with pressing tech issues that require Genius Bar support will be affected, but hopefully that impact is minor for the moment.
And, of course, this comes on the heels of Apple’s decision to move WWDC 2020 online. Strange days, indeed.
March 13, 2020 1:38 PM PT
My friend and former Macworld colleague Rob Griffiths keeps a record of macOS releases, which is exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from the guy who created Mac OS X Hints. Prodded by Stephen Hackett, who is apparently now the official Six Colors Chart Muse, I’ve decided to use Rob’s data to take a look at how often Apple updates macOS.
In terms of total updates released during the lifespan of a major version, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and macOS 10.13 High Sierra share the crown with 12. However, High Sierra was only the “current” version of macOS for 385 days, while Tiger reigned for nearly three years. That means that Tiger actually was the version of macOS with the longest time between updates, at an average of one update for every 88 days of release.
Of course, the vagaries of software release schedules and the appearance of urgent bug-fix releases can skew the numbers. But it is interesting to see that after several years at a pace of a system update every two months, the past three releases of macOS have seen updates on an average of one per month.
Not that the updates come out smoothly, on a monthly cadence. Since Apple shifted to a fall release schedule in 2013 with Mavericks, October has seen by far the most releases, with ten. But over two decades of development, the updates tend to be fairly evenly spread out—with a peak in September and October.
We know that macOS 10.15.4 is currently in beta testing, so Catalina seems to have at least one release left in it—though if Apple keeps up its current pace, we’ll see a half-dozen Catalina updates between now and the release of macOS 10.16. As for iOS releases? That’s another chart for another day.
It’s not a surprise, but it is official—there’s no WWDC 2020, at least not as a physical event:
“We are delivering WWDC 2020 this June in an innovative way to millions of developers around the world, bringing the entire developer community together with a new experience,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world. We will be sharing all of the details in the weeks ahead.”
Lots of questions and no answers yet, but get ready for a new kind of WWDC experience.
March 13, 2020 5:00 AM PT
We spend more time than ever communicating via our devices and, given the current state of world affairs, that’s only likely to increase. And while some of that happens via email, social media, or—heaven forbid!—even the phone, the bulk of that communication probably happens in messaging apps.
So it only makes sense that Apple may be considering updates to its Messages app in iOS 14, especially given that the last statistic we heard about iMessage volume was that 200,000 were sent every second—and that was four years ago. (Not much has changed since then, right?)
A report this past week, which originated at MacRumors, mentioned several new and updated Messages features that could appear in iOS 14, many of which seem to borrow ideas from other communication apps. And as welcome as some of those enhancements would be, they leave the door open for plenty of other aspects of Messages that could still be improved.
The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern takes on how best to clean your phone in a time of coronavirus. The article itself is behind a paywall, but it’s worth watching the video (embedded below) in which Stern attempts to strip the oleophobic coating off a brand new iPhone 8 with a variety of substances you’re not supposed to use on your phone. The results may surprise you.
Digital investigator Nixintel has a fascinating post detailing heuristics for determining if a Twitter account is likely fake. What particularly jumped out at me are the signs that a profile picture is artificially generated by a site like This Person Does Not Exist:
A common feature of TPDNE images is that the eyes and mouth of the person are always in exactly the same place in the picture. The eyes are always the same distance apart and centred in the same place. The mouth is always about one quarter of the way up from the bottom of the image and is also always centred. This occurs regardless of the angle of their head and can sometimes make for quite unusual looking faces.
Fake Twitter accounts are widespread these days, and while the post points you towards automated systems like Botometer that can do the analysis for you, it’s also worthwhile familiarizing yourself with the red flags. Because knowing is half the battle.
(Hat tip to Merlin Mann.)
The entire world is in the midst of massive disruption due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. I enjoyed Emojipedia’s analysis of which emojis are being used to discuss the outbreak. The results will probably not surprise you:
Of the increases we see 😷 Face with Medical Mask (+ 100 places in popularity between the samples) 🦠 Microbe (+133), as well as eye-catching “warning” emojis such as 🔴 Red Circle (+64), 🚨 Police Car Light (+102), and ⚠️ Warning (+122). Additionally, the presence of 🇮🇹 Flag: Italy coincides with news of a regional quarantine in northern Italy.
As always, Emojipedia brings a light touch into a serious topic. I especially appreciated the details of how the Microbe emoji is depicted across various emoji sets. Only the Apple emoji looks like a weird fish.
Writer (and tech nerd) John August challenged Stephen Follows to dig through the data and see if the classic entertainment-industry guideline that one page of screenplay equals one minute of runtime in a film was actually true. Follows analyzed 761 feature films and scripts and the answer is… sort of?
August’s response to the research is interesting:
Unfortunately, too many folks in the film and television industry have internalized one-page-per-minute as an axiomatic Truth. So any script that is longer than 120 pages is automatically perceived as being too long. Indeed, some studios’ contracts specify that the writer may not deliver a script longer than 120 pages. Screenwriters waste time making tiny edits with the goal of moving page breaks to bring their scripts under this artificial limit. It’s pointless busy work…. Is there an opportunity for computer-generated running time estimates? Probably.
Thank you Stephen for accepting this challenge and myth-busting this rule of thumb.
Thanks to John for suggesting it and Stephen for doing it. (And thanks to Antony Johnston for calling it to my attention.)
March 11, 2020 2:31 PM PT
How long have I been doing workouts with the Apple Watch? A long time. And yet until today when I was walking my dog, I had never really considered that some of the information that appears on the face of my watch when I’m walking or hiking is completely irrelevant to me. I’m not interested in a calorie count or my average speed. In fact, all I’m really interested in is the elapsed time, distance, and my heart rate.
“Surely there must be a setting for this,” you might be saying to yourself, and of course there is. I’m compelled to document it here mostly because I suspect a lot of people never bother to consider customizing their workout screens. You should do it! It’s much better when you can have it the way you want it!
In the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, tap Workout, then Workout View, and then the name of the workout type you’d like to customize. Tap the Edit button and you’ll be able to choose from numerous statistics related to that workout type. In my case, I gave some consideration to Current Elevation or Elevation Gain, but decided in the end that I’d rather have the three main elements (and the current time) display in large type, instead.
This week, on the irreverent tech podcast that isn’t yet canceled, we talk the effects of the coronavirus on Apple, potential iOS 14 feature leaks galore, Apple’s foldable display patent, and the return of the great NetNewsWire. Plus Lex tries his hand at sloganeering, to Dan and John’s dismay.
This week, on the tech podcast that only springs half an hour ahead, Dan and Mikah are joined by special guests Rosemary Orchard and Lex Friedman to discuss the rumored iOS 14 features we’re most anticipating, what we’d like to see on the next Apple Watch, our digital (and analogue) journaling habits, and how we handle calendaring, notes, and to-dos. Plus, a musical themed bonus question and, as an extra bonus, even more singing.
March 11, 2020 8:22 AM PT
The report that real, Mac-style cursor support is coming to the iPad is sure to make a lot of people upset. Some will argue that the purity of the iPad will be ruined by the introduction of Mac-style arrow cursors. Others will suggest that Apple already makes a proper operating system for keyboards and mice, and it’s called macOS, and iPadOS can’t hope to measure up.
Hi, it’s me, your pal Jason. I use an iMac Pro at my desk and travel with an iPad Pro, so I’m a fan of the Mac and the iPad as productivity devices. And I’m here to tell you that everything is going to be okay. If this report is true, Apple will be adding an additional color to the iPad’s palette—but it’ll still be great at what it’s great at and it still won’t really be a Mac. So settle down.
March 11, 2020 8:19 AM PT
Change! It’s the worst, isn’t it? Case in point: When Apple adjusted the behavior of Safari tabs on the Mac to always open after the current tab, I—a die-hard always-put-new-tabs-at-the-end lifer—was bereft. For a while, I subsisted on the OpenAtEnd Safari extension, but when the more recent macOS updates killed off the legacy Safari plugin infrastructure, I lost my only recourse.
Until the eagle-eyed TJ Luoma noticed that Safari’s hidden Debug menu contained an option to control the tab-opening behavior, including options to open new tabs at the end:
@gruber @jsnell @dmoren ISTR that I've heard talk about frustrations with where Safari on the Mac opens new tabs in relation to existing tabs. I just noticed this setting in Safari’s “Debug" menu, and wondered if it might fix the issue? Maybe it's new? Thought it worth mentioning pic.twitter.com/vFvWs3TE2d
— TJ Luoma (@tjluoma) March 11, 2020
Sounded like exactly what I was looking for! Off on a quest I went. First step: figure out how to enable the Debug menu. Note that this is different from the Develop menu, which can be enabled with a simple checkbox in the Advanced pane of Safari’s Preferences. The Debug menu is intended for internal testing usage, so enabling it requires a trip to the Terminal and use of the defaults command.
Moreover, the new security strictures put in place in macOS Mojave and Catalina mean that the old Terminal commands don’t always work. After a little poking around, I discovered that in order to use some of them, you first must make sure that Terminal has Full Disk Access in the System Preferences > Security & Privacy pane. (Note, of course, that you are deliberately weakening some aspects of macOS’s protections by doing that, since the Terminal app now has access to every file on your disk—though that was more or less the case in previous versions of macOS.)
Once you’ve done that, you can issue the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
You’ll then need to restart Safari, and voila! The Debug menu has appeared. To enable the tab-opening behavior, go all the way to the bottom of the menu and choose Tab Ordering > Position of New Tabs > After Last Tab. And, in order to make sure that tabs opened via links follow the same behavior, make sure to check off Tab Ordering > Apply Position to Spawned Tabs and, for good measure, Apply Position to All Blank Tabs (or whatever combination thereof you prefer).
It’s unclear how long these options will last—in theory they could be removed in any future build, or, at the very least, require you to go through this dance again. But for the moment, sweet sweet opening tabs at the end is back, friends.
[Dan Moren is a tech writer, novelist, and podcaster. You can email him at dan@sixcolors.com or find him on Twitter at @dmoren.]
I mentioned Dr. Drang’s scripts to improve calendar files downloaded from the Southwest Airlines website this week on Upgrade. I use these in combination with Hazel to create calendar events with more informative labels and check-in alerts.
In a fun bit of follow-up, Drang has posted his iOS user automation to accomplish the same thing, namely a more readable and useful version of Southwest’s default ICS file download:
Turns out there’s an easier solution: add the default calendar entries that Southwest provides and then fiddle with them using Shortcuts. Strictly speaking, Shortcuts doesn’t allow you to edit a calendar entry in place, but you can extract information from an existing entry, change it around to create a new entry to your liking, and then delete the original.
The iOS approach to user automation is quite different than on the Mac, but in the end we get what we want, which is a calendar event that will remind you to check in 24 hours in advance.