What I learned from spending a week with the first big Apple Watch update
By Jared Newman
This article originally appeared on Fast Company and is reprinted with permission.
As the first Apple Watch update big enough to merit its own official web page, WatchOS 2 is supposed to be a big deal.
Yet in day-to-day use, many of WatchOS 2’s improvements can be easy to miss. You might have no desire to use the Apple Watch as a beside clock, and may never frequent the retailers whose rewards cards now work with Apple Pay. Siri’s new voice controls are useful in only a handful of situations, and an expanded contact list doesn’t matter much if you’re not initiating many calls from the Watch in the first place. Public transit information is nice, but only if you’re in one of the select cities where that data is available. As a way to tell time and view notifications, the Apple Watch is largely the same as it ever was.
But that doesn’t mean WatchOS 2 is unimportant. It’s just that the biggest changes are happening behind the scenes, as app makers rework their software to take advantage of new capabilities. WatchOS 2 is a significant update, but one whose effects won’t truly be felt for some time.
I’ve spent about a week with WatchOS 2, and so far my experience hasn’t changed drastically from before the big software update. Most of my Watch usage involves managing emails, checking sports scores, controlling music playback, and fielding the occasional phone call or text message. WatchOS 2 does little to improve those experiences.
But in dabbling with the first WatchOS 2 apps, it seems the update is more about establishing the product to be far more useful in the future.
In Search Of Native Apps
The most noteworthy change in WatchOS 2 is support for native apps, which can run on the Apple Watch without being connected to a nearby iPhone over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
Already, this has opened the door to some offline utility apps, such as PCalc, a basic calculator, and Pomodoro Pro, a timer for managing productivity. But going native should also benefit apps that still rely on an iPhone for Internet connectivity; in theory, they should be faster and more reliable, since they’re not banking so heavily on the iPhone for processing power and core app logic.
The native WatchOS 2 apps that I have tried do seem slightly more reliable than their non-native counterparts. The weather app Dark Sky, for instance, loads just a little faster, and doesn’t revert to the loading screen as you move between various sections of the app.
So far, however, most Apple Watch apps are no different than they were in WatchOS 1. Several developers have told me that switching to a native app isn’t especially easy, because it requires rewriting much of their existing code to run on the Watch instead of the iPhone. And certain features, such as iCloud and GameCenter, are a lot trickier to implement now. In other words, it’ll be a while until native apps are the norm.
Making Watch Apps More Useful
Apple Watch apps aren’t just getting a speed boost in WatchOS 2. They’re also getting more powerful as Apple provides access to more of the Watch’s hardware capabilities.
A twist of the Digital Crown, for instance, can now control software knobs and menu boxes within third-party apps such as PCalc and The Weather Channel. Access to the accelerometer and heart rate monitor open the door to third-party fitness and sleep tracker apps. Haptic feedback allows for surprising new apps such as Tacet, a metronome that counts the beat by tapping on your wrist.
In time, these types of capabilities will help the Apple Watch become more than just a notification machine. By using the Digital Crown for selecting items, Apple can pack more information into the screen. And with wearable sensors and haptic feedback, they can accomplish things that just aren’t possible on your phone.
Complicated Complications
Even when you’re not actively using third-party apps, WatchOS 2 extends their usefulness by letting them appear as Complications on the main watch screen. DataMan Next, for instance, can show how much wireless data you’ve consumed, and WaterMinder can show how much more hydrated you ought to be. These apps can also use WatchOS 2’s Time Travel feature to show past and future information with a twist of the Digital Crown. An obvious example would be a weather app that lets you scroll through the next several hours of forecast data.
For now, if you want more Complications, you’ll need to seek out the handful of specific apps that offer them. (And sadly, none yet exists for sports scores or fantasy football.) But over time, it’s likely that app makers will treat Complications and Time Travel as a high-priority feature. After all, it’s an opportunity for their apps to be the first thing you see when you glance at the screen.
The current situation reminds me somewhat of Android home screen widgets in their early days, with too few Complications overall and too many of dubious value. But as app makers catch on, I suspect the inclusion of clever Complications will become a lot more commonplace.
Seeding The Future
Whereas WatchOS 1 was largely about the apps and services that Apple built in on its own, WatchOS 2 extends those capabilities to third-party apps. The difference is barely noticeable now, but over time there should be a cumulative impact as apps become faster and can do a lot more. (And one can imagine these effects will be more pronounced whenever the next version of the Apple Watch hardware arrives.)
That may explain why Apple calls this update “an even more personal experience.” The tagline no longer refers to just the watch faces and wrist bands you choose, but to a new wave of apps that you’ll come to rely on.
[Photo: courtesy of Apple]
More from Fast Company:
Create ‘Gran Turismo 6’ race tracks on your tablet
For ages, Polyphony Digital has been promising a Gran Turismo 6 track editor that lets you build the race course of your dreams. Well, it’s finally here… if not quite in the form you might have expected. Download the Track Path Editor app for Android and iOS and you can design circuits for the PlayStation 3 sim on your tablet. It’s not so detailed that you’ll recreate every nuance of your local raceway, but you can trace paths with your finger, choose themes and add scenery. Think of it as a way to extend the life of GT6 beyond the occasional new concept car — you don’t have to settle for driving on Autumn Ring or Brands Hatch for the hundredth time.
Source: Gran Turismo, Google Play, App Store
Apple ordered to pay $4.2 million for botched iPad program in LA
The LA Unified School District (LAUSD) will receive a settlement worth $4.2 million from Apple for the ill-fated program that aimed to put an iPad in the hands of 640,000 students in the city. Cupertino was supposed to earn $30 million from the $1.3 billion project, but it was apparently riddled with issues from the beginning. It didn’t take long for the initiative to crumble, and LAUSD — accused of mismanagement, miscalculation and corruption among other things — is now under FBI investigation for the bidding process that spawned the contract.
Lenovo, the other tech company involved in the project aside from Apple, agreed to let the district have the $2.2 million worth of laptops it recently ordered for free. LAUSD will also get $6.4 million (it’s still a tentative amount, though) from education software maker Pearson, which was contracted to conjure up math and English curriculum to use with the project. The district says the software company only ever provided a partial curriculum. While the FBI investigation still isn’t done, LAUSD plans to use most of the money from the settlement to buy computers for a completely different initiative.
[Image credit: Diane Collins and Jordan Hollender]
Via: 9to5mac
Source: Los Angeles Times
Tim Cook: Apple won’t merge iOS and OS X
Now that Apple is blurring the lines between its mobile tablets and PCs with the iPad Pro, it’s tempting to imagine iOS and OS X merging into a single operating system (Windows 10-style) that works on virtually every device the company makes. You’ll want to put any such ideas on hold, though. In a chat with Box’s Aaron Levie, Apple chief Tim Cook dismissed the prospects of unifying iOS and OS X. It “subtracts from both,” he said, arguing that you “don’t get the best experience from either.” This isn’t a completely new idea from Apple (it once explained in detail why OS X doesn’t have touch), but it’s clear that Cook doesn’t feel any pressure to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps on this front.
Not that Cook and crew are giving Microsoft and its ideas the cold shoulder — just the opposite, in fact. The exec said he doesn’t believe in “holding grudges” against Apple’s frequent rival, and that the two tech giants can “partner on more things” than they compete in. Witness the slew of iOS-friendly Office updates that were unveiled in tandem with the iPad Pro and iOS 9, for example. The enterprise crowd, Cook adds, would rather see Apple and Microsoft collaborating than fighting.
On that note, the CEO contended that Apple isn’t nearly as work-phobic as it used to be. The company is big on enterprise deals (it made $25 billion in enterprise revenue in the space of a year), and that there’s no real distinction these days between personal and office-focused devices. You don’t buy enterprise smartphones any more than you buy enterprise cars, he said. We’re sure that BlackBerry won’t be happy with that last statement, but it’s hard to dispute — with occasional exceptions, software is the only thing distinguishing an off-the-shelf smartphone from a locked-down corporate handset.
[Image credit: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
iPad Mini 4 review: A long wait makes for a potent upgrade
Fans of Apple’s smaller iPad Mini caught a tough break last fall when the company unveiled its new tablets for the year. Although Tim Cook & co. lavished plenty of attention on the faster, slimmed-down iPad Air 2, the upgraded iPad Mini 3 was regarded as a mere afterthought. The list of changes was so short, in fact, that some of us wondered why Apple would introduce a performance gap between the Air and Mini lines. Still more people wondered when they’d get a Mini with enough power to match its larger sibling. Turns out, the answer was “a year later.” I’ve been testing the new iPad Mini 4 for over a week now and can say with confidence this is the Mini we should’ve gotten last year.Slideshow-323041
Hardware
Apple’s design team did most of the heavy lifting with the iPad Air 2 and now we’re finally seeing that sleek aesthetic trickle down to the Mini. The 4’s fit and finish is still first-rate and, more importantly, the whole package is about a tenth of a pound lighter than last year’s model. That might not sound like a dramatic difference, but when you’re building a device with a bigger-than-phone-sized screen, every ounce and gram matter. The iPad Air 2 felt almost unnaturally light for its size, so you can imagine how light the even smaller Mini 4 feels — holding it aloft and watching YouTube videos for hours was none too painful.
The Minis were never exactly tanks, of course, but this year’s thinner and lighter model (0.65 pound and 6.1mm, the same thickness as the Air 2) makes prolonged, one-handed use a pleasure. The Air-ification of the Mini line also means that handy rotation-lock switch — part of the iPad’s hardware formula for years — has been excised. Keeping your screen from spinning around now requires you to swipe up the Control Center and tap an icon down there. This is one of those little changes that most people won’t notice until they start feeling around for that familiar nubbin. Despite not using it that frequently, I still miss having it there.
It’s easy to imagine Apple just took a shrink ray to an iPad Air 2 and called it a day, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye. You see, rather than carry over the modified A8X from the Air 2, Apple kitted out the new Mini with the same A8 processor that’s currently powering the iPhone 6, albeit except it’s paired with 2GB of RAM instead of one. I’ve never had much reason to complain about the iPhone 6’s performance, and the combination of that chipset and the extra RAM means the Mini 4 is, unsurprisingly, a snappy performer (more on that later). My review unit was a 128GB model, although Apple also offers 16GB and 64GB options with prices starting at $399 for a WiFi-only configuration. Toss in an updated 8-megapixel rear camera, not to mention faster 802.11ac WiFi and 20 LTE bands, and we’ve got a much-improved device on our hands.
Display and sound
The iPad Air 2 might give you more screen real estate, but the Mini 4 wins on pixel density, hands down. Like the Mini 3 before it, the newest generation squeezes 326 pixels into each linear inch of the device’s 7.9-inch screen, making for crisp text and eye-popping visuals. Even better, Apple finally got rid of that tiny gap between the Mini’s display panel and the slate of arsenic-free glass covering it; it’s all been combined into a single, laminated panel.
What sounds like an exercise in LCD screen minutiae makes for some dramatic changes: It means less glare, better viewing angles and a touch more crispness. When we tested the Air 2 and the Mini 3, the difference in color clarity and saturation was pretty pronounced, but that’s thankfully now a non-issue. Oh, and a brief aside: Older Minis also made a bit of a hollow thunk sound when you tapped them a certain way, an issue that’s been addressed on the new model.
If you’re hell-bent on using the Mini as a media machine, you’ve probably got a decent pair of headphones to go with it. Thankfully, you needn’t fret if you accidentally leave them at home: The speakers housed on the Mini’s bottom edge are impressively loud for their size. You won’t be able to fill a room with the mid-heavy sound they churn out, but I discovered I could leave a video playing in the kitchen and still hear it while folding laundry downstairs.
Software
iOS 9 is such an important step forward that we just published a few thousand words all about it. Assuming you don’t have the time to sift through our full review, here’s a quick rundown on what iOS 9 means for the new Mini. In short, Apple’s latest software update is focused more on stability and thoughtfulness, using Siri’s new proactive smarts to surface information and apps when you might want them. Throw in plenty of neat design changes — like a revamped app switcher and a fantastic “Back” button that lets you follow the breadcrumb trail of apps you were just using — and we’ve got a more smartly put-together update than we initially gave Apple credit for.Slideshow-322375
iPads got plenty of attention in this update, and fans of mobile multitasking should be especially pleased. Consider Slide Over, which lets you swipe open a drawer full of first-party apps that can be opened in a smaller, separate window that takes up about a quarter of the screen. By jumping into any of those apps, you’re effectively putting the other, primary application you were just using on pause until you’re done texting or checking Apple News. You can go a step further and drag the line that divides those apps; that resizes both of them until they each take up 50 percent of the screen. Why hello, Split View. Honestly, as neat as this trick is, it feels sort of silly on a screen this small. Running two apps side by side makes sense on a larger display — say, on a full-sized Air 2 or an enormous iPad Pro. Shoehorning two apps onto an 8-inch screen can feel a little claustrophobic after a while.
Then there’s picture-in-picture mode, which, yes, is exactly what it sounds like. Any time you play a video in Apple’s stock media player, you can tap an icon to shrink it down and stick it in a corner so you won’t miss a moment of JK Simmons being an epic jerk in Whiplash. Give that small window a quick pinch-zoom and it’ll roughly double in size; the default view on the Mini 4 is pretty tiny, so you’ll probably spend most of your time in this mode.
Moving on, the Notes app also now supports richer text formatting (heck yeah, subheadings) and packs a reasonably thorough sketching tool for adding drawings and diagrams to your text. The smaller screens on iPhones make random doodling tricky, but that’s not a problem with the Mini’s nearly 8-inch screen. All told, iOS 9 is a must-have download, and the Mini 4 gives it plenty of space — and power — to shine.
Camera
I’ll be the first to admit I sometimes glare at people shooting tab-photos in public, but the appeal is pretty obvious. For one, it might be the only camera folks have on them, and we all know the adage there. A bigger screen also makes it easier to frame shots, and really, who among us couldn’t stand to be better at that? What I’m saying is this seemingly silly habit isn’t going anywhere, and the iPad Mini 4’s rear-facing 8-megapixel camera does a fine job of capturing the world around you. Slideshow-323032
Tablet photos are hardly ever outstanding, but the Mini 4, like the Air 2 before it, is capable of capturing crisp colors and reasonable detail when the light is right. White balance is generally more accurate now too, which is especially apparent since the Mini didn’t get left in the display quality dust this time. Things obviously get muddier in dimmer conditions, but really, if you’re using a tablet to take photos in the middle of the night, you might want to rethink your strategy. Meanwhile, the front-facing camera is stuck at 1.2 megapixels, but it now has an f/2.2 aperture lens to help suck in the light bouncing off of your face. Still, I haven’t noticed much of a difference between this camera and the one in last year’s Mini.
Other changes include the ability to shoot in burst mode thanks to the A8 chipset thrumming away inside, and improved support for HDR photos and video. The iPad Mini 4 isn’t going to be anyone’s first choice for mobile photography, but it’s a solid, if unremarkable, performer.
Performance and battery life
I sort of alluded to this earlier, but let’s be clear: The Mini 4 is not just a shrunken-down Air 2. The difference in the chipsets powering these things is apparent in our benchmark tests below, but the Mini 4 is still no slouch compared to its more premium cousin. It’s buttery smooth as you leap in and out of apps and swipe through web pages. The only time I noticed the Mini’s A8 chipset struggling was while running two apps in Split View, and even then, it was only when I was trying to fiddle with both simultaneously. While I’m comparing the Mini 4 to other iPads, it’s noticeably quicker to react than last year’s Mini. In fact, Apple says the A8’s CPU is 30 percent faster than the Mini 3’s A7, and that graphical performance is up 60 percent from last year. That helps explain why Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5: Blackout ran like a dream, but I’ll let the numbers do the rest of the talking.
| iPad Mini 4 | iPad Air 2 | iPad Mini 3 | NVIDIA Shield Tablet | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 3.0 | 3,236 | 4,510 | 2,470 | 3,423 |
| Basemark X | 17,212 | 29,518 | 14,839 | TBD |
| 3DMark IS Unlimited | 16,291 | 21,659 | 14,595 | 30,970 |
| SunSpider 1.0 (ms) | 349 | 303 | 439 | 463 |
| SunSpider: Lower scores are better. | ||||
So, pretty much exactly what I expected: The Mini 4 strikes an appropriate balance between the Mini 3 and the Air 2 (which has the edge thanks to an extra CPU core). Usually it performs just a hair better than last year’s iPhones too. Of course, horsepower means nothing without battery power, and the new Mini has that in spades. The usual Apple refrain is that the Mini is rated for about 10 hours of continued use, but that might have been understating things a bit. In our usual video rundown test (video looping with the screen brightness set to 50 percent), the Mini 4 lasted 13 hours and 4 minutes before needing an emergency trip to the power outlet. That’s just short of the 13 hours and 45 minutes on last year’s model, which isn’t bad at all considering the new Mini 4 actually has a smaller, 5,124mAh battery.
The Mini fared similarly well in the battery test called “living with me.” After pulling it off of the charger at around 7 AM, schlepping to the office and using it for emails/reading articles/the occasional game, I’d usually wind up with 10 percent remaining when I returned home at 9 PM.
| Tablet | Battery life |
|---|---|
| iPad Mini 4 | 13:04 |
| iPad Air 2 | 11:15 |
| iPad Mini 3 | 13:45 |
| iPad Air | 13:45 (LTE) |
| Apple iPad Mini | 12:43 (WiFi) |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab S (10-inch) | 12:30 |
| Microsoft Surface 3 | 9:11 |
| Galaxy Tab S2 | 7:30 |
The competition
If you’re in the market for a sleek tablet, consider Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2 (starting at $400 for the 8-inch model). While it lacks the kooky style of its immediate predecessor, the 10-inch screen is one to behold — it is Samsung after all — and it’s only 5.6mm thick. The downgraded battery might sting, though: It only managed 7.5 hours in our tests, down from 12.5 hours for the previous-gen model. Itching for something more portable? ASUS just launched its 8-inch ZenPad S, a $200 Android slate with a waistline similar to the Mini 4’s and a 2,048 x 1,536 display, to boot. Then there’s the iPad Air 2 itself, which is still the most powerful tablet in Apple’s roster. It’s incredibly sleek and can be held one-handed for longer than you might expect, but its size means it’s just not going to fit into some lifestyles. The thing is, it’s almost worth trying to see if the size can work for you; prices for the Air 2 start at $499, and sales or buying refurbished can bring that base price down even lower.
Wrap-up
Some might gripe about the Mini 4’s year-old internals, but after my week of testing, I feel confident saying that it doesn’t matter much. The tablet’s entire package, from the still-snappy A8 chipset to the beautiful and almost-pocketable screen, to the incredibly sleek chassis, makes it worthy of your consideration. If you’re on the lookout for a super-portable tablet with strong fundamentals and great app support, you probably won’t find a contender better than this one. That said, if you can fit a bigger tablet into your life, you could easily upgrade into an iPad Air 2 for not much more money and get even more processing power.
ILM’s tools could let you direct your own ‘Star Wars’ with an iPad
Whether you’re familiar with the studio’s name or not, you’ve definitely been touched (and likely gobsmacked) by the computer-generated imagery in one of the blockbuster films to get the Industrial Light and Magic treatment. From Jurassic Park (and its sequels) to the upcoming Disney-backed Star Wars films, the Lucasfilm-run powerhouse is one of the more visible and transformative visual effects forces in entertainment. Now, with a suite of virtual production tools, it’s poised to change the way we experience not just film, but storytelling with an iPad and a virtual reality headset.
The software powering this potential breakthrough in interactive entertainment is known as VScout, a pre-production tool that allows filmmakers to virtually scout locations. At Oculus’ developer conference in Los Angeles, Rob Bredow, VP of New Media at ILM and head of its recently created ILMxLAB, demoed the new software with a short scene set in the Star Wars universe. Using the available set of tools, one of Lucasfilm’s software engineers, Darby Johnston, was able to tweak the camera’s focus, focal length, crane height, and lens used. Simply tapping on an object in the scene had the camera pan in for a close-up. It’s impressive stuff considering it all gets rendered in realtime in the cloud and then streamed to an iPad.
“You can run this anywhere you run Netflix. It’s basically the same bandwidth requirement,” said Bredow.
While VScout’s pre-production merits are likely a boon to creatives in the entertainment industry, its most compelling aspect is how it could empower consumers and change the way we create interactive experiences. Using a Star Wars short as an example, Bredow demonstrated how viewers could use the software to go from watching a letterboxed version to adjusting camera angles — going from behind a stormtrooper’s head to being inside of it — or even deserting the main storyline altogether and following secondary characters’ narratives. To that latter point, Bredow replayed the “linear” scene, but instead of watching the stormtrooper, he tagged along with C3PO and R2D2, following them into a hut where they spoke with a Princess Leia hologram. Keep in mind, the main story is still playing out while this all occurs.
“What if you were shooting movies like this?” Bredow asked the rapt crowd of developers.
Of course, this being a VR-focused event, Bredow even showed off a Rift demo that lets viewers fly the speeder bike around the desert and through AT-ATs.
Clearly, it’s early days for VScout and Bredow admitted as much, saying that the studio’s still experimenting to find the proper way to construct an experience with so many available narratives. In fact, it’s not even a given that ILMxLAB will even make this software available to consumers. Though given the impressive demo, it’s not far-fetched either.
Apple fixes an iOS 9 bug that kept you from upgrading
The launch of iOS 9 was supposed to be a joyous occasion if you own an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, but it didn’t always work out that way. A bug left some stuck on the “slide to upgrade” screen, preventing them from using their gear unless they rolled back to iOS 8 or started fresh. If you’re one of those glitch victims, you’ll be glad to hear that relief is in sight: Apple has released an iOS 9.0.1 update that (you guessed it) makes sure you get past that upgrade screen. It also tackles a few other hiccups that could sour your initial experience, including one that prevented some alarms and timers from playing. As such, you’ll probably want to check for the update right away. And if it’s too late to avoid the worst, Apple’s support site (linked above) has a guide to getting your device back to normal.
Via: Computerworld
Source: Apple
iOS 9 review: making the basics work even better
iOS 9 is deceptive. When Apple first publicly trotted out the update at WWDC a few months back, it seemed happy to hang its hat on just a few new features: Apple News, better Maps and an improved Notes app. After using the betas for months and putting in still more time with the final, ready-for-everyone build, though, it’s clear that what Apple built is far more nuanced than it might have let on. (And there I was, thinking I’d have an easy review to write. Silly me.) Instead, what we’ve got here is in some ways a continuation of a philosophy that seemed to start in earnest in the Apple Watch. iOS 9 is less about new, whizbang features and more about getting the stuff we do everyday done just a little quicker, a little more efficiently. And you know what? That’s more valuable than you might think.Slideshow-322376
Getting started
Download. Install. Boot. Setting up iOS 9 follows the same streamlined approach you’re probably already used to (unless you’re one of those people who habitually stays a version or two behind just because). The differences here are minor: Apple really wants you to set up a six-digit passcode instead of the standard, not-terribly secure four-digit alternative, although you can still choose the latter if you’re not too concerned about security. (Side note: You probably should be.) Of course, this is all moot if you can’t actually complete the update thanks to a bug that could strike post-install. Some users are reporting that they can’t use the “Slide to Upgrade” gesture after the iDevice restarts, prompting Apple to issue emergency suggestions while it works on a fix.
Anyway, before you even get to your home screen, you might notice all the text looks a little different. After years of Helvetica Neue in our faces, Apple swapped in its San Francisco typeface (first used on the Watch) and it very subtly changes the feel of iOS. It’s sort of like walking into your living room and seeing that your maroon walls are suddenly just a hair lighter than they used to be. I’ll leave it to the font buffs to debate the relative merits of Helvetica versus San Francisco, because the rest of us won’t find much to get worked up about. (I’ve come to really like it.)Slideshow-322375
San Francisco aside, your home screens have hardly changed, so anyone hoping for a radical, iOS 7-level redesign will have to wait a few more years. That’s not to say Apple left its now-standard aesthetic completely unchanged: Alerts and action boxes have slightly rounder corners (I call them “jelly beans”). The Notification Center displays your missed missives and calls in reverse chronological order, making it easier for you to triage from the top down. Oh, and there’s a battery widget that now lives in the Today screen, letting you know how much juice remains in your device (and Apple Watch, if you have one). This is all pretty minor stuff that does little to change the core of the iOS aesthetic, but it does reflect an understanding that people want information to be easier to find and digest.
Turns out the biggest visual change is also the one you’re going to use most often. Double-tapping the home button brings up a revamped app switcher that’s much prettier than the original. Rather than the usual, flat app screenshots aligned side by side, we now have a layered, three-quarter view that stacks apps on top of each other for snazzier perusing. It’s certainly a huge aesthetic improvement; peer closely enough and you can make out four apps running at a time, and just about every card has an up-to-date preview of what you were doing before you suddenly jumped somewhere else. I was no fan of the ugly, blank cards that populated iOS 8’s app switcher, and Apple clearly wasn’t either as they’ve been fixed (even if it sometimes takes a second for them to update). In fairness, the whole thing feels a little like the app-switching implementation in recent versions of Android. Whatever: It works well.
Biggest is one thing, but the best design tweak in all of iOS 9 is the one that’s easiest to miss. If you follow a link in one app into a completely separate one, the carrier/WiFi signal readout in the top-left corner of the screen disappears entirely, replaced by a handy “Back to [insert app here]” button that whisks you back one step along a trail of behavioral breadcrumbs. It’s one of those little, “oh duh” things that belonged in iOS from the start, and indeed, I predict you’ll be using it all the time.
And then there’s the keyboard. I can’t count the number of times I’ve accidentally SHOUTED at friends via text because there wasn’t any visual feedback worth a damn when I tapped the Shift button one time too many. Not so anymore. The letters on the keyboard visually switch between caps and lowercase depending on what you do with the Shift key, which itself changes color when you tap it. It’s about time: My friends and colleagues might finally believe I’m not a jerk. I won’t be the first bearer of bad news, but it’s worth repeating: There are no new emoji in iOS 9. You’ll have to wait for 9.1 to drop later this year before you can deploy your tacos and middle fingers mid-conversation.
More mindful of your space
When Apple launched iOS 8, plenty of people had a serious decision to make: Delete apps and content to make room for that huge install file, or hold off on updating indefinitely. Thankfully, that’s way less of an issue this year. If you’ve already downloaded iOS 9, you might’ve noticed the size of the update is much smaller than it used to be — it takes up 1.3GB of space, down from the hefty 4.6GB or so that iOS 8 required. Apple insisted on keeping 16GB iPhones around for at least another year rather than sticking 32GB into the entry-level model, and leaner updates will help keep people from having to make that agonizing choice again. To that end, Apple is also pushing what it calls “App Slicing,” a way for developers to tag the parts of their apps meant for devices other than yours — install one of those apps and you’ll only get the stuff meant for you.
A smarter Siri
Apple’s virtual concierge gets a little more capable with every update, and this time around it has a new look to go with its new tricks. The new Siri manifests in the form of a friendly, multicolored waveform (lifted from the Apple Watch) that pulses and surges in response to your voice. More importantly, Siri is starting to act more like an honest-to-goodness assistant thanks to some new contextual smarts. Go ahead, ask it to remind you of “this” while reading an article in Safari — Siri can figure out what you’re looking at and create the appropriate event for whenever you ask. I’ve mostly been using this feature to build an impromptu reading list and sure enough, it works like a treat. Siri can now also handle more specific tasks, like showing you photos from a specific time or location. Asking Siri to show off all my photos taken in 2014, or around here, or from Vietnam is a neat — and helpful — party trick. Not to mention, it sure beats sifting through the wilds of my Camera Roll.
But what about all the Proactive stuff Apple was talking up? You’ll see what it meant when you dig into the new search interface by swiping down or right on your home screen. While you’re going about your business, Siri quietly keeps tabs on what you’re doing to get a sense of who you like to talk to, what apps you like to use and when you like to use them. Once it’s done chewing on those behaviors, you’ll start getting Siri Suggestions for apps and contacts when it thinks they’re appropriate. Ideally, those suggestions would turn the search screen into a de facto, eight-icon quick-launch area (there’s that efficiency angle again).
The end result? Mixed. Siri’s very good at giving my girlfriend and sister Most Favored Contact status while the people I’ve spoken to most recently take up the other two slots. The app suggestions can be hit-or-miss, though — I don’t need Automatic when I’m sitting on the couch — but they’re better in the app switcher. Sometimes you’ll get a single suggestion (in the bottom-left corner) when you try to multitask, which Siri very often nails. NJTransit when I’m pulling into a train station parking garage? Spotify when I’m walking to the office? Yes, please.
Siri also finally learned to listen for your voice; when your iPhone is connected to a power source, you can get its attention with a quick “Hey Siri.” You’ll have to train it to listen for your voice specifically using a quick setup procedure that involves saying the launch phrase a few times. Now that I’ve done that, I’m pleased with its attentiveness even in mildly loud environs. I’d love for Siri to be able to listen for my commands all the time like the Moto X’s equivalents can, and it can do just that… as long as a hardware upgrade is in your future. Apple says the improved M9 co-processor wedged into the new phones’ A9 chipset makes efficient, always-on listening possible on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but anyone using a current-gen 6 or something older will have to stay tethered to a power outlet. Keep a Mophie or some such handy if you really need to bark commands at Siri on the go.
Improved search
While we’re at it, the line between Siri and Spotlight has started to blur, so let’s shift our attention to search. Just like in iOS 8, Spotlight reaches deep into the Apple-owned parts of your iDevice. Consider the word “karaoke,” which I think about abnormally often. Typing it into the search bar brings up apps I don’t want, sent and received messages containing the word, a Maps suggestion for a karaoke bar in Philly, a contact with whom I’ve often used the word “karaoke,” Bing search results for “karaoke” and so on. Here’s the kicker, though: Developers can now let Spotlight peer into their apps and websites thanks to a trio of new APIs, so sources beyond Apple’s first-party apps will eventually appear in your search results. That’s… pretty exhaustive, but also a huge improvement.
In days past, you could ask Siri about Amazon’s stock price or what the weather’s going to be like in Shenzhen and get a neat little visual readout of that info. Now you can feed those same queries — along with things like basic math problems — right into Spotlight and you’ll get a quick answer too. Talking to Siri’s a little faster, but it’s still a nice feature to have. And since we’re talking about talking, you can finally tap a microphone icon to speak them aloud, though you can’t ask Siri to universally search your device for you. Guess we’ll have something to look forward to in iOS 10.
Now dragging down from the home screen still reveals the Spotlight search bar (plus suggested apps), and it also lives in the dedicated search space to the left of your home screen. Siri’s app and contact suggestions live there too, where they’re joined by Maps buttons for local points of interest. Some of them are pretty pointless — here’s looking at you, Shopping — but I’ve had to frantically use the Gas locator more times than I care to admit. Below all that is where you’ll find articles culled straight from Apple’s new News app. Well, most of the time, anyway. Sometimes they just don’t appear and I can’t make out the rationale here; it would’ve made sense if they didn’t appear after just leaving Apple News, but that doesn’t seem to be it either. Go figure.
Apple News
If any one part of iOS 9 still feels like a work in progress, it’s Apple’s newfangled News app. This update heralds the demise of Newsstand as we knew it, not that most people would notice; it was always one of those apps that seemed to wind up forgotten in some untouched folder. What we have instead is effectively a slick-looking RSS reader with some nifty bolt-on features and a bit of potential that isn’t lived up to yet. The first few moments in the app will be spent picking out your preferred news sources and subjects, and then you’re plopped into a list- (iPhone) or image-heavy grid (iPad) of stories to dig into. Pretty soon you’ll notice a discrepancy in how some articles are handled — most are just formatted text on a white background with the outlet’s logo up top, but the few publishers that have already jumped on Apple’s News format bandwagon are more visually sumptuous and smartly laid out. While you have the option of poking around different “news” channels and searching for new publications to follow, I’d wager most of your time will be in the For You section… for better or worse.
Let’s take a step back for a second. Apple’s been working to reconfigure its existing services into things that better cater to us, the users; a bunch of design changes in iOS 9 make the whole thing more intuitive, and the rise of the customized “For You” section in Apple Music is mirrored here in the News app. Unlike in Apple Music — which has done a pretty great job of figuring out things I want to listen to based on my likes — News hardly ever has a clue what I want to read. I’ve been dutifully “hearting” articles to give the app a sense of my tastes (which are pretty eclectic, in fairness), but the “For You” section continues to play home to things I just don’t care about. Maybe it needs way more time to suss out my preferences. Maybe Apple needs to take things a step further with a “Hate” button to help fight the noise with negative feedback.
I don’t mean to make Apple News sound like junk, because it’s not. It’s a fluid, perfectly usable RSS news tool and the promise of fancily formatted stories has the news nerd in me quivering in anticipation. Still, I’m curious how everyone else takes to it; news gets disseminated through so many other channels that a separate one-stop shop seems a bit redundant.
Notes gets noteworthy, Maps figure out the subway
Sometimes Notes feels like one of iOS’ unsung workhorses, so it’s nice to see it finally getting some extra attention. Sure, you can still peck out your random thoughts (or in my case, ongoing karaoke list) and iOS 9 comes with formatting tools to add headers and full-blown checklists right into your notes. The added richness here isn’t just textual, either. Adding photos or links to websites is dead-simple and bring some much-needed depth to what once was a bare-bones experience. And the really fun bit? A tap on a new squiggly icon brings up a proper doodling interface with three pen choices and eight colors. When the situation calls for more precision, there’s an on-screen ruler to invoke that really helps nail those straight lines. Think of it as a software version of what Adobe did with its curious Slide ruler.
Meanwhile, Apple Maps is closing the gap between itself and Google Maps with the addition of mass transit directions. I spent most of my time sussing out the quickest routes across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the feature works just as well as you’d expect (although it means HopStop is now about to shut down). The only times I got lost were when my own sense of direction got screwy and led me astray. The caveat: As of this writing, it only works in Baltimore, Beijing, Berlin, Chicago, Guangzhou, London, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, the SF Bay Area, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Toronto and the District of Columbia. Tap the search bar and you’ll get a batch of eight location categories — food, shopping, drinks, travel, services, fun, health and transport — similar to the ones in Spotlight. One more tap on any of those icons reveals a list of Yelp listings nearby; think of it as a quick, at-a-glance way to sift through all the stuff around you.
Safari
Safari doesn’t have a huge changelog, but the few tweaks are definitely noteworthy. You know those web views that apps like Twitter fire up whenever you click on a link? They’re now powered by Safari, so there’s an added layer of continuity, meaning your saved passwords and the like will carry over into those app experiences. There’s also a new formatting menu for Safari’s reader more that gives you seven additional font choices as well as new background colors if white tends to sear your eyes.
All told, though, Safari’s most notable change lies under the hood. You can now banish ads from your web experience completely thanks to a cottage industry of content blockers that now live in the App Store, which may or may not completely change how publishers and content providers like us approach the mobile web depending on how big a deal they become. We can save the ethical discussion for another time; content blockers like Purity do a fine job stripping the web of additional cruft, which more than a few people will love.
Multitasking
In years past, iOS has tended to cater to the needs of the iPhone — hardly a surprise considering the huge gulf between the numbers of phones and iPads floating around out there. This time, though, iOS 9 is arguably more impressive on Apple’s tablets, though your mileage will vary depending on the model you have.
Anyway, Apple’s push for efficiency is back in full-force on these big screens. A swipe over from the right side of the screen opens a drawer of apps you can run in tiny applet form when you need to do something quick without leaving the app you’re already in. This feature is called Slide Over, and it’s frankly how I spent most of my time while multitasking — it’s nice to be able to sift through an iMessage thread or refer to an email while I’m poking around and Safari and the experience is bound to get better once developers start cooking up apps to take advantage of this. This quick way to split focus between two apps will be good enough for most, so it’s no wonder it’s supported by the most iPads; Slide Over works on both generations of the iPad Air and the last three iPad minis.
If you need even more multitasking power, and you’ve got an iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 4, say hello to Split View. As the name implies, you can drag the dividing line one of those “applets” from Slide Over until it takes up a full 50 percent of your iPad’s screen (see the handy GIF above). At this point you’re running two apps side by side. You can interact with both halves simultaneously, too, as long as you don’t require use of the keyboard. It’s not always a perfect system, though. You might notice hints of jerkiness if you’re fiddling with both apps at once (at least I did, on the iPad mini 4). Also, this might just be me, but I wish I could run multiple instances of the same app; I really just want to have two Safari windows open at once so I can read while I read. Don’t get me wrong: Split View is a lovely little feature and it’s going to shine on the new iPad Pro, but it won’t make sense all the time.
Picture-in-picture is exactly what it sounds like, and surprise: It’s more helpful than it seems at first. When you’re watching something using the stock Videos app, you can tap a new button in the bottom-right corner to shrink it to about a quarter of its original size. It’s not going anywhere unless you want it to, meaning it hovers in the same sport on top of apps and the homescreen until you flick it around to other corners. Need to give J.K. Simmons more room to breathe in Whiplash? Pinching to zoom out on that small window bring it up to about half of the screen’s width (and you can shrink his bloviating Fletcher character again with a double tap). I love this feature already, but here’s the thing: I have all of two movies in my Videos app so getting players like Netflix and YouTube on board with picture-on-picture would be a huge win for people with compatible iPads.
The keyboard got some major upgrades too, if not the ones you might expect. Beyond the visual feedback that comes with the improved Shift key, Apple threw in some context-sensitive shortcut buttons on top of the keyboard that (among other things) let you paste content with a single touch or format text when in appropriate apps. Of course, that’s not to say iPads clearly got the better deal here. iPhones running iOS 9 get a low-power mode (as on newer Android builds) that keep disables background tasks and throttles down performance to keep the gadget going. It is, for lack of a better word, indispensable, and battery sizes aside, there’s no reason why the iPads shouldn’t have gotten this feature too. And the keyboard’s pièce de résistance is a feature that’s actually coming to the iPhone 6s, too: plopping two fingers onto the keyboard causes the letters to fall away and turn into a trackpad for smoother cursor action. Where… where has this been all my life?
The little things
Beyond everything I’ve already discussed, Apple’s made plenty of teensy tweaks that don’t fall neatly into any one category, so I’m just going to stick them all here. The Podcasts app has gotten an overhaul with an Unplayed tab. Unlike other tech pontificators out there, I never had an issue with Apple’s earlier implementations, but since we’re in something of a podcasting renaissance, it’s nice to see the company try to keep up with awesome third-party apps. I’m still not giving up Pocket Casts, though. You can now searching for specific items inside the Settings app, making all the web’s tutorials that much easier to follow.
While you’re in the settings, you can change that vibrate toggle on your iPhone to lock screen rotation instead (à la the iPad) and dig into the battery section for a full breakdown showing how badly some apps eat into your power reserves. You’ll also get a better sense of who’s behind random calls thanks to a location display in the Phone app; it’ll match the area code to a known region in the US. If you don’t feel like shelling out $99 for an Apple Developer account, no worries: You can sideload applications without one. You’re also given the option to install a separate iCloud Drive app so you can manage your selfies more easily. Speaking of selfies, Camera.app now saves photos taken with the front-facing camera in a separate “Selfies” folder (the same goes for screenshots, finally).
Wrap-up
iOS 9 is a must-have update. That perhaps didn’t need to be said considering it’s the fastest adopted iOS update ever, but the level of thoughtfulness and refinement here more than make up for the lack of groundbreaking features. The tentpole features Apple we did get mostly work well, though it’s not hard to see iOS 9 as Apple’s attempt to keep with Android. That’s why the smaller, lower-level changes to iOS are so much more important this year: Apple has had its core features in place for ages now and iOS 9 works to connect them in subtler, more intuitive ways. Think of the new software as a layer of polish you may not have even realized iOS needed. More importantly, that polish strengthens iOS’s foundation in preparation for the bigger, broader changes to come in future software updates.
A peek inside the new iPad Mini 4 reveals how it got so thin
The super-sized iPad Pro may have been the star of last week’s festivities, but what about the iPad Mini 4? It brings the first major update to the line in a couple of years, and of course, the folks at iFixit wasted no time cracking one open. The spec sheet showed it’s both thinner and lighter than the version it’s replacing, and now we know what had to change to make that happen. First, the battery is a little smaller, at 5124mAh compared to the iPad Mini 3’s 6471mAh. It’s still rated for the same 10 hour runtime by Apple, but worth considering if you’re looking to upgrade. It also has a fused, fully laminated display that helps a lot with weight, but could it make it more expensive to replace if it breaks. Whether you’re considering its DIY potential or just curious about exposed wiring, check out the full teardown to see what’s hiding within.
Source: iFixit
Apple is taking its e-book price-fixing fight to the Supreme Court
Apple’s long-running court battle over manipulating the pricing of e-books is getting even more dramatic. Next stop, the Supreme Court, Fortune reports. Back in June, Apple failed to get a Manhattan appeals court to overturn a 2014 ruling that would have it pay $450 million dollar settlement over the scandal. So Apple basically has no choice but to go to a higher authority if it wants to fight the case. A quick recap: The company was found guilty of fixing e-book pricing with publishers for the launch of iBooks on the original iPad, a move meant to raise prices from the low standard set by Amazon. Apple has argued that it didn’t do anything wrong, and indeed it maintains in a filing today that “dynamic, disruptive entry into new or stagnant markets — the lifeblood of American economic growth — often requires the very type of” behavior it exhibited. Apple obviously can afford to pay the settlement, but at this point the legal battle seems to be more about principles than anything else.
[Photo credit: John Baran/Alamy]
Via:
Fortune
Tags: apple, e-books, iBooks, mobilepostcross
AIVAnet 