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Clockwise 552: Spoiler: It’s Always DNS

How we’d like to see Apple implement GenAI, our home network troubleshooting process, the iPad model we currently use and what features would prompt an upgrade, and our views on the centralization of account logins, like those from Apple and Google.

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The Rebound 493: Mark Gurman Honeypot

Dan’s back to discuss our iPad event predictions, the very latest on Lex’s games and Moltz’s one weird trick for evading the iCloud logout problem.

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By Dan Moren for Macworld

May 1, 2024 6:35 AM PT

A new iPad Pro is coming to take the tablet crown (and your money)

The iPad, remember that? It’s been a minute since Apple unveiled new models of its tablets—about 807,690 minutes, to be precise—but all indications point to brand new models being rolled out as part of an Apple keynote next week, on May 7.

A lot has happened in the intervening time: Apple has released a brand new version of iPadOS, the Apple Vision Pro was announced and shipped, and the M2 processors have given way to the M3—with the promise of more soon. Throughout all of that, the iPad Pro and tenth-generation iPad have remained static and unchanging—and the iPad Air and iPad mini lines date back even further, to March 2022 and September 2021 respectively.

So what do we expect from some brand new iPads? Can Apple move the needle significantly, or is the iPad hardware still so far out ahead of its software that we’ll end up with a lot more horsepower but without too much to use it on.

Continue reading on Macworld ↦

By Dan Moren

April 30, 2024 1:49 PM PT

The Back Page: Meet the new new iPad

Dan writes the Back Page. Art by Shafer Brown.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. 2024 has already started off as a huge year for Apple, including the launch of Apple Vision Pro, our new M3 MacBook Airs, and the most lawsuits and regulatory frameworks ever. Today, we’d like to share some very exciting news about one of our most important products, iPad.

We released the sixth-generation iPad Pro and tenth-generation iPad in October of 2022 and the response was amazing. Users love the iPad Pro’s huge Liquid Retina XDR display, the portrait camera orientation that they can easily cover with a thumb, and some even remember the Apple Pencil’s hover feature. The tenth-generation iPad has delighted those customers who long for us to give any concession to color and demand to plug in their Apple Pencil. And the iPad Air remains a product in our lineup.

Today, we’re announcing the biggest update to iPad ever, and we think you’ll agree that it’s worth the wait. Meet the brand new iPad Pro.

The new iPad Pro lineup features our Hyper Liquid Retina XDR Plus Premium UltraFineWoven® display, the best display in an iPad ever. It’s based on OLED technology to provide the most vivid colors and the blackest blacks, thanks to our patented BlackHole® technology that ensures absolutely no light or living matter escapes. Just don’t stare into that abyss or you never know what you might find staring back at you. Ha ha. No seriously, don’t stare at it.

Users love the iPad Pro’s industry-leading performance—it’s infinity percent faster than the leading Android tablets that don’t exist. But we’re taking that even further, yes, to infinity…and beyond. Because the new iPad Pro lineup is based around our next-next-generation M5 processor.

The M5 processor is the most powerful chip ever in an iPad. Ever. To be fair, we could have put in an M3 and that would have been the case. We could even have put in an M4. But I said to the design team: screw it, we’re going to the M5. And they obligingly put a higher number on it.

Processor power is so important for the things we all do with our iPads, whether it’s rewatching all three seasons of Ted Lasso on a transatlantic flight, or browsing the web to find out why there isn’t a season four of Ted Lasso, or using industry-leading tools like Final Cut Pro for iPad to create videos to harangue Jason Sudeikis about why he won’t make more Ted Lasso.

But we know our customers want to do even more than that, which is why our new iPad Pro is our most AI-focused device ever. We’ve optimized the Neural Engine for generative AI tasks, whether it’s writing your Ted Lasso fan fiction, or even automatically producing entirely new episodes of Ted Lasso on the fly, based on your prompts.

Simply put, the new iPad Pro is the best iPad we’ve ever made. And it’s also available at the best price of any iPad ever, where by “best” we mean “highest.” In fact, the new iPad Pro costs so much that we can’t even tell you the price: you have to go to an Apple Store and have them write it down on a slip of paper that they slide across the table to you. And that’s before AppleCare.

Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope those of you can who afford the new iPad Pro enjoy it. And the iPad Air remains a product in our lineup.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

Upgrade 510: Jason Is Cool GOTO 10

We’re trying to puzzle through some strange rumors about next week’s iPad launch event. Also, the EU brings the iPad into the DMA party, Apple locks the Apple IDs of many people (including Myke!), and we shout out the OG Knowledge Navigator.

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By Jason Snell

April 29, 2024 11:28 AM PT

Emulate all the things, Apple

Note: This story has not been updated since 2024.

Lode Runner running in Virtual II on the Mac, where all emulation is allowed.

And just like that, Apple embraced retro game emulators in the App Store. Feeling pressure from regulators and from regulator-enabled alternative app marketplaces like AltStore, Apple decided to drop a decade-plus ban on game emulators on iOS and made them available worldwide.

Despite the fact that I’ve been told repeatedly that nobody cares about game emulators, somehow Riley Testut’s Delta is now topping the App Store charts. Sure, some of that is probably a natural tendency by some of us veteran App Store users to download forbidden fruit before Apple has a re-think and decides to ban it again. But there’s also a genuine interest in reconnecting with older games, something that’s been there all along on other platforms—but has always been blocked from iOS by Apple’s arbitrary policies.

I don’t think we’ll ever get a specific reason why Apple banned emulators on the App Store, but my guess is that it’s one of numerous rules Apple made in the early days based on the fear that platform security could be breached by any app that allowed outside code to be downloaded and run. It took quite a while for Apple to allow apps that interpreted languages like Python to be functional on the App Store, for example.

As is so often the case with Apple’s App Store policies, however, the general fear of legitimate security holes gets commingled with a broader desire to control a platform and choose who competes on it. See, for example, its insistence that Microsoft’s game-streaming service submit each individual game for Apple approval—a patently unworkable request that Microsoft turned down. (This is another rule that the newly regulation-fearing Apple policy crew has revoked recently, though it may be too little, too late, for Microsoft.)

So where do we go from here? While Apple’s acceptance of emulators in the App Store is groundbreaking, and should delight many fans of retro gaming consoles, it’s an extremely limited change. Nobody really knows how Apple defines any of the words in that phrase. How old is retro? Is an old computer on which you can play games a console?

I grew up playing games on early computers, including the Apple IIe. Does the ability to open a spreadsheet in AppleWorks disqualify an Apple II emulator that would otherwise let me play Lode Runner and Choplifter? And if so, why?

Another limitation of Apple’s policy is that for some emulators to work properly, they need to prepare software for execution using what’s called a just-in-time compiler. This is how, for example, you’d be able to play a PowerPC-processor-based game on an Apple silicon processor. But while Apple now allows game emulators, it doesn’t allow JIT technologies, ostensibly for security reasons.

This effectively bans a whole generation of game emulators. Apple should allow retro emulators of all kinds in the app store, and allow game emulators to use JITs to boost performance. Otherwise, its limited expansion of the rules feels mostly for show and not indicative of a real change in approach to App Store rules.

But I want more—and this is a case where Apple’s own intellectual property comes into play. I mentioned the Apple II earlier, but I also played a lot of games on the classic Macintosh. I realize there are potential legal and licensing issues here, but wouldn’t it be great if Apple officially blessed emulators that emulated old Apple devices, like both the Apple II series and classic Macs?

Even better: What if Apple officially released all the ROMs and system images required to run classic Mac OS on iOS? Right now, all old emulators of Apple hardware operate on a sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge approach where you’re supposed to dump your legitimate Apple ROM images to a file, when in fact most people just download them from the wilds of the Internet. I realize how old stuff may be encumbered legally in a lot of ways, but maybe one of the world’s most valuable companies could task a small group to clear their old intellectual property for those who might delight in playing old games again?

My next suggestion goes to the heart of the incompatibilities that happen as platforms evolved. As Apple has progressed iOS, numerous games and other apps have broken and are no longer usable on modern iPhone and iPad hardware. Those files still exist in the App Store, accessible by old devices, but not modern ones.

Today’s iOS hardware is impressively powerful. So… what if Apple put some effort into virtualizing old versions of iOS itself? It would unlock all sorts of classic apps still available in the App Store, and allow developers of those apps a pathway to keep them alive without expensive and impractical updates.

Finally, here’s my wildest (yet, I assure you, entirely practical) suggestion for Apple: Just embrace virtualization in all forms. Apple’s chips are built with powerful virtualization features in them anyway. Maybe it’s time to let iPhone and iPad users run Windows, Linux, and yes, even modern macOS in virtual machines. The iPhone and especially the iPad have the power to do it.

What are we waiting for? Let’s emulate all the things. The more Apple can do to make this a reality, the better.

by Dan Moren

April 29, 2024 6:57 AM PT

The iPad joins the iPhone in DMA land

Jess Weatherbed at The Verge:

Following an almost eight-month investigation into whether Apple’s iPadOS holds enough market power to warrant stricter regulation, the European Commission has now designated the iPad operating system as a Gatekeeper service under its flagship Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules.

“The Commission concluded that iPadOS constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and that Apple enjoys an entrenched and durable position with respect to iPadOS,” reads a statement published by the Commission on Monday. “Apple now has six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations as applied to iPadOS.”

Apple only split iPadOS off from iOS in 2019 and the two continue to largely share their underlying, despite their differences. While I’m sure that Apple’s not thrilled about having to implement all the DMA requirements for yet another OS, I’d assume that it will basically follow the template for the iPhone. In some ways this is good, because it will provide some degree of parity between iOS and iPadOS for users in the EU, instead of having apps that will run on users’ smartphones but not their tablets.

By John Moltz

April 26, 2024 11:38 AM PT

This Week in Apple: Imitation is the highest form of fatuity

John Moltz and his conspiracy board. Art by Shafer Brown.

Sound the klaxons, because Apple’s sales are down! Sales of Finewoven cases may soon go to zero altogether, but at least we’ll have a lot of Pencil options.

Apple’s doing bad!

How can this be?! Just a little while ago they were on top of the world!

“iPhone Sales in China Dropped Significantly in Q1 2024”

OK. OK. So, that’s China. But, surely, Apple’s doing well in the U.S.?

“iPhone activation market share hits new low as Android dominates”:

The latest data shows a notable drop over the last year bringing Apple’s US smartphone market share of new activations back in time six years.

Well, maybe people are buying new iPhones and just not activating them. That’s probably it.

Anyway, Apple has new products out that are surely—

“Apple Vision Pro Customer Interest Dying Down at Some Retail Stores”

Oh, come on!

“Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments As Demand Falls ‘Sharply Beyond Expectations’”

Low Vision Pro demand makes no sense because last year I didn’t know anyone who had a Vision Pro and this year I know several. So, go back and check your maths.

While Apple sales may have dropped off, they’ve dropped off from pretty big highs. Also, there’s still one thing Apple will always be first at: being ripped off by its competitors.

“Huawei’s next smartwatch looks like a blatant Apple Watch ripoff”

The day Apple’s competitors stop dutifully copying the company’s designs, then maybe we should start worrying.

Finalwoven

Is it curtains for Finewoven?! (Note: do not make curtains out of Finewoven. It’s not good.)

Last weekend, a rumor claimed “Apple Reportedly Stops Production of FineWoven Accessories”.

Apple introduced Finewoven to much fanfare, proudly stating that it was removing leather from its product offerings. After trying out Finewoven, however, many customers began asking if Apple couldn’t at least kill a few cows, maybe just the ones who were jerks? The cows who drive slowly in the fast lane, take more items than they should into the express checkout, etc.

The rumors of Finewoven’s death, however, were followed up just days later with a claim that Apple did have one more “season” of Finewoven to deliver. It remains to be seen whether this will be a 26-episode U.S. network TV season or a 6-episode British TV season.

More like mini-nOLED, amirite?

This week Apple announced an iPad event for May 7th, with Tim Cook slyly asking people to “Pencil us in”.

Tim, buddy, you know I would love to want to do that, but 7 a.m. Pacific on a Tuesday doesn’t work for me. See, first the dog has to go out, then I have to get some coffee, and I gotta do my Duolingo. Can’t break my streak. You know that. Oh, and Tuesday is trash or recycling. It usually takes me a half an hour just to figure out which. Because I have to wait for the Hendersons to put theirs out first. I’ve asked Todd to get theirs out earlier so I’ll know, but he just stares at me incredulously.

I know you get up at 4 a.m., but what happened to having Apple events at a civilized hour… like 10 a.m.?

And all this to not get mini-OLED? Despite the rumors to date, display analyst Ross Young now says the iPad Air won’t feature a mini-OLED screen after all. Hope you didn’t snap all your other iPads in half already and throw them in the ocean. Partly because that’s an ecological nightmare.

Based on Cook’s coy reference to pencils, we can certainly expect Apple will deliver a new Pencil, thereby allowing us to spend weeks discussing Apple’s weird Pencil lineup again, like we did late last year. You’ve got your Apple Pencil (1st generation), your Apple Pencil (2nd generation) and your Apple Pencil (USB-C). I’ve got my fingers crossed for “Apple Pencil Pro”, if only because that opens the door to one day getting an “Apple Pencil Ultra”. That’s the world I want to live in.

[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]

iPad anticipation and AI intensification

Live from D.C. and Memphis, we discuss the announced iPad event and how Apple’s AI push might result in selling more hardware.

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By Jason Snell for Macworld

April 25, 2024 8:00 AM PT

Why Apple’s AI push may sell a lot of new hardware

I have an admission: Though I frequently review new Apple products, I don’t always buy them. Like many of you, I can’t afford to update every bit of Apple hardware every time the company does a revision—so I have to carefully measure when the old stuff has now become too old and needs to be replaced with the shiny and new.

Of course, Apple would love us to buy new stuff all the time. But the company has to earn its sales the hard way. I might buy a new iPhone because of an upgraded camera or a new MacBook Air because of a new design and a faster processor. I might bypass a new Apple Watch because the new features just don’t matter to me.

As the heat from the iPhone’s huge acceleration of growth begins to cool down and iPad and Mac sales drop from their pandemic-driven heights, Apple is looking for reasons to sell new hardware. And now, it may have found a big one in a somewhat unexpected place: AI.

Continue reading on Macworld ↦

Clockwise 551: Clippy Vibes

Meta adds AI to its glasses, our thoughts on chronological vs. algorithmic timelines, how we find software tools, and the U.S.’s TikTok ban.

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The Rebound 492: onlyjames.fans

A bicycle for the mind, an iPad for your face.

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by Jason Snell

April 24, 2024 10:08 AM PT

Logitech somehow takes mouse software to a new low

Stephen Hackett has quite a story about what Logitech is doing to its Mac mouse software:

I cannot tell how little I want THE SOFTWARE FOR MY MOUSE to include features tied to ChatGPT … let alone a mouse with a built-in button to start a prompt.

I’ve never liked most vendor-supplied input device software for the Mac and try not to use it, but this is beyond the beyond.

by Jason Snell

April 22, 2024 3:44 PM PT

The undersea cables that keep the Internet afloat

What an amazing story by Josh Dzieza at The Verge about the people who repair undersea fiberoptic cables to keep data flowing around the world:

The world is in the midst of a cable boom, with multiple new transoceanic lines announced every year. But there is growing concern that the industry responsible for maintaining these cables is running perilously lean. There are 77 cable ships in the world, according to data supplied by SubTel Forum, but most are focused on the more profitable work of laying new systems. Only 22 are designated for repair, and it’s an aging and eclectic fleet. Often, maintenance is their second act. Some, like Alcatel’s Ile de Molene, are converted tugs. Others, like Global Marine’s Wave Sentinel, were once ferries. Global Marine recently told Data Centre Dynamics that it’s trying to extend the life of its ships to 40 years, citing a lack of money. One out of 4 repair ships have already passed that milestone. The design life for bulk carriers and oil tankers, by contrast, is 20 years. 

Infrastructure isn’t exciting, but it’s vitally important.

by Jason Snell

April 22, 2024 3:08 PM PT

Author and Mac Admin Charles Edge has died

I just got word this morning that Charles Edge, who helped jumpstart the Apple in the Enterprise Report Card and who actively participated in this year’s edition that I posted just last week, has passed away.

His MacAdmins co-host Tom Bridge has a remembrance, as does Adam Engst of TidBITS:

The history of computing was especially near and dear to Charles’s heart. He had been working on a book about it for seven years, a project that had ballooned into four volumes and more than 2000 pages. His last Facebook post from a week ago was about how he had just signed the contracts. I hope the publisher he was working with remains interested in the manuscript since I’m sure Charles would want the editor to finish so it can see the light of day. I certainly want a copy to remember Charles by.

I fervently hope that book makes it into the world. My condolences to everyone who knew and loved Charles.

Upgrade 509: Save the Fines

The world’s foremost e-reader podcast returns, but we also take time to talk about the appeal of retro game emulators, iPad and iPhone rumors, and the possible end of Apple’s leather replacement material.

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By Shelly Brisbin

April 19, 2024 2:09 PM PT

Review: Zoom H6essential talks the talk and walks the walk

Note: This story has not been updated since 2024.

Photo by Zoom

I’ve used Zoom audio recorders for many years, including the Podtrac P4 I wrote about here a couple of years ago. I carry a Zoom H4n Pro in my backpack for radio field work. And a Zoom H6 has been my go-to in-person podcasting rig, since you can connect up to six mics, and make multitrack recordings with ease. But the display on my H6 crapped out, and the rubberized case began to suffer from what the Internet tells me is called “rubber reversion.” That means the case got all sticky. In the meantime, Zoom has released a set of new handheld recorders; the Essential series, with a couple of features I’ve been craving. So right before a big reporting trip, I replaced my H6 with the H6essential.

Continue reading “Review: Zoom H6essential talks the talk and walks the walk”…

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