Newsstand - page 241

Welcome to Cult of Mac Magazine: a weekly newsmagazine devoted to the world of Apple. Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the best of what the Cult of Mac blog does on the Web, in an iPad-friendly format.

But there’s a twist.

Cult of Mac Magazine is the first news magazine devoted to the world of Apple technology. It’s like a Sunday newspaper magazine, but focused on Macs, iPhones and iPads and the people behind the news.

We’ll be doing a lot of original, long-form journalism. The world of technology is changing at a breathtaking pace. We’re in the middle of one of the biggest technology shifts ever; from desktop to mobile. Apple, of course, is at the very heart of it.

To help you with this change, we’ll have special editions devoted to different topics, from iOS gaming to cooking with an iPad. These special editions will be a mix of reported features, product reviews, app roundups and killer how-tos.

We’ll have new weekly features, like our “Ask a Genius” column, in which a genuine Apple Genius answers your thorniest technical questions.

We think a weekly iPad magazine is a great way to package and organize the stuff we are publishing every day on the website.

With news about Apple breaking 24 hours a day, it’s easy to miss stories on the web and hard to find something once it’s cycled down the site’s front page.

There are several forces at work that make it a great time to be publishing a blog-like magazine. The iPad is a reading machine. We’re already seeing tens of millions of page views in apps like Flipboard and Zite that syndicate our content. The web is good for breaking news or brief product reviews. The iPad is better for deep dives that explore a subject in depth.

We’ll be publishing four issues a month for a $1.99 monthly subscription. We think it’s going to be great. We’d love for you to check it out.

Many thanks, Leander.

Even if you don’t work in tech, you had better hope your town has more companies like Apple move in. If an innovation hub takes root where you live, you’ll be wealthier, healthier and less likely to divorce than areas that remain barren to it.

And if you are in a startup – wherever you live now, get yourself to one of these brain hubs before it’s too late.

That’s the crux of “The New Geography of Jobs,”  a fascinating book by Berkeley economics prof Enrico Moretti who leads readers on a whirlwind tour of how tech innovation is reshaping opportunity in the US, clustering around places like San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Austin, Seattle, Boston, Washington, DC and Durham, North Carolina.

There’s a big debate, of course, about the yuppification of cities like San Francisco, which have seen a huge influx of monied engineers from companies like Apple, Facebook and Google, who are feeding a huge boom in tech. Locals are complaining about skyrocketing house prices, $4 toast and the artisanal food trucks that charge $12 for a tofu Thai burrito. Outrage Missionites react with birthday pinatas shaped like Google buses and posters from the Yuppie-eradication project.

However, there is another side to it. If an Apple worker moves next door, that person will create on average five jobs, Moretti’s research shows.  Those jobs are a mix of skilled (nurses, lawyers, teachers) and unskilled ones (hairdressers, waiters, carpenters.) Innovation will never create the majority of US jobs, but it has an outsized effect on the economy of American communities, he writes. It’s not your resume but your zip code that determines how much money you make – so be glad instead of complaining about that Cupertino traffic, folks.

“Gentrification is a good problem to have”

Here in San Francisco a quick look around confirms that, at least on an anecdotal level. The Cult of Mac co-working space is abuzz with fancy-schmancy tattoo artists, hipster nail designers and boutique financial planners.

Moretti’s ideas – considerably nuanced and convincingly bolstered by research in the 250-page work – go counter to much of what’s being written about the squeeze of resources in the booming Bay Area. Gentrification is also a good problem to have, he says, acknowledging that it brings serious social consequences. The solution: not to discourage growth in innovation (in the vain hope manufacturing comes back to big cities) but manage the “growth in smart ways to minimize the negative consequences for the weakest residents and maximize the economic benefits for all.”

Given his local base, you’d expect a lot of interesting examples. In between a visit to a color scientist at Pixar and an artisan chocolate factory, he talks to a San Francisco bookbinder who employs eight people, uses the same equipment from decades past and whose fortunes go up and down with the high-tech companies of the NASDAQ. Noteworthy clients include the Jobs family, who had Steve’s condolence book made there.

Cities change and grow or they die out. And whether they thrive or wither in America now depends on innovation.

This picture of tech making things a little better for most of us is in stark contrast with the San Francisco that has been painted by the tech press as a gentrified, bloated old floozy who puts out for soulless tech workers who trample what dignity she has left by kickstarting pop-up food trucks and lofts that proliferate like mushrooms.

This strikes me as strange, coming from people whose livelihood often depends on breathless excitement over things like cell phone covers. Then again, I’m the fourth generation of my family to live here. I like to imagine that my great gran would find it funny that the Del Monte plant where she gave up elbow grease putting peaches into cans has morphed into a gaudy tourist shopping center. (I am also fairly sure she’d arch an eyebrow at my earnest writings about iPad stands, but still.)

Cities change and grow or they die out, basically. And whether they thrive or wither in America now depends on innovation. Whether you’re part of the innovation or provide services for those who are in it, you’re still better off. Moretti’s research shows that more college grads raise the salaries for everyone in an area – regardless of the higher cost of living. Same with lower divorce rates and better general health.

So get over that Tesla parked in your new neighbor’s driveway and get on with your life.

Fans across the globe have already embraced the idea that Apple will most likely release a smartwatch, but the biggest question everyone has is, what will it look like?

Artists and designers have been trying to imagine the design of the iWatch for a few years now and while no one has really blown us away with a perfect concept, we have seen some timely ideas that Apple will probably implement. To get a better idea of how the iWatch will look, function and feel, take a look at these six concepts.

Esben Oxholm iWatch

When design engineer Esben Oxholm created his iWatch concept he decided to make it as simple as possible. It features a black metal and rubber wristband. The display is shiny while the body is matte. And it has the rumored curved display. Apple’s iWatch probably won’t be as circular, but the minimalist look that Oxholm achieves will also be Apple’s aim as everything about the watch will defer to the screen.

Oxholm’s concept is probably the closest to what the iWatch will actually look like, though we imagine that Apple’s watch will be more oval in shape rather than a perfect circle. This concept almost looks like a bulked-up Nike Fuelband, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Tim Cook sits on Nike’s board, after all.

MacUser iWatch

Created by Dutch 3D modeler Martin Hajek, this MacUser iWatch concept tries to embrace traditional elements of watches while updating the technology of the watchface. In truth, Martin’s concept looks like a miniaturized iPhone strapped to some leather, but it gets a time out because of the UI.

The iWatch will have a touchscreen display, however, no one is going to want to interact with the display for extended periods of time. Our fingers are too tiny to hit the small X’s on this iWatch’s screen. The iWatch will be used to display information, but it won’t be used to interact with that info. Your iPhone will do all of the heavy lifting, while the iWatch acts as a secondary display to alert you of the most important information throughout the day.

ADR Studios iWatch

ADR Studios has made a couple of iWatch concepts, but this is their best one yet. The size of this concept iWatch is pretty small so it won’t feel like you’re wearing a computer on your wrist. Apple’s design team is obsessed with having the thinnest, lightest and smallest devices on the planet, so even though Apple will try to cram as many features into the iWatch as possible, it will also want to make a very small device. The actual face of the iWatch will probably be somewhere around this size unless Apple works out a curved display for it.

The UI for ADR Studios’ concept is one of the most on point we’ve seen so far. Notice that there is a small icon indicating that the iWatch is tethered to an iPhone. The ‘Slide to Unlock’ feature probably won’t be as big as it’s portrayed here, where it eats up half the screen. The iWatch display will take advantage of all available screen real estate even when it’s locked, so expect there to be bigger font for the time and a more elegant solution for unlocking.

Nikolai Lamm iWatch

One thing that a lot of iWatch concept artists haven’t taken into account is the user interface. Most assume that the UI will be a watered-down version of  iOS, but Nikolai Lamm offers a different take. Rather than interacting with your iWatch the same way you do an iPhone, it might actually be closer to the controls of the iPod classic.

Lamm’s spiral interface is based off an Apple UI patent for iTunes and would appeal to people who want the look of a classic watch that interacts with an iPhone. The circular finger movements required to interact with Lamm’s iWatch would compliment the design of the hardware and you would only need to touch your device when you want to adjust notification settings for certain apps, while everything else is controlled from your iPhone.

The display of the real Apple iWatch probably won’t be circular like this, but you should expect some new UI from Apple as the iWatch will be a completely new device with new functions not yet in iOS.

Just Design Things iWatch

With the sixth-generation iPod Nano, Apple embraced the idea of the iWatch and offered multiple clock faces and wrist bands to convert your iPod Nano into a watch. Expect the real iWatch to come with similar features.

The concept from Just Design Things for the iWatch has swappable wristbands and clock faces so that users can customize their look. Even if the iWatch doesn’t offer changeable Swatch-like wristbands, Apple will at least offer it in multiple colors. The display of this concept looks too heavy and bulky to be worn comfortably as a wristwatch though, so we think it’s more likely that the display will be built right into the band to make it more comfortable for everyday use.

ItswithaKay iWatch

For this iWatch concept, artist itswithaKay modeled the watch after Nike’s Amp watch and added some iOS elements. It sounds too simple to be plausible, but we already know that Jony Ive and his design team requested a number of sport watches from Nike to study.

The iWatch has to have a durable design. Unlike the iPhone or iPad, the iWatch must take a licking and keep on ticking, so a thick rubberized band will help resist some of the wear and tear. Also take note of the tapered band on this concept. It allows enough width for a display while also being comfortable for the wearer. The display will probably be a bit bigger than in this concept, the UI will be different along with the clasp in the back too, but the physical outline of the iWatch will be pretty similar to what you see here.

Apple was found guilty in July of conspiring with publishers to fix the price of eBooks. As punishment, Apple must delete existing contracts with publishers and negotiate new ones, one at a time to avoid new conspiracy. The government is also pushing for Apple to let Amazon and others sell their books from Apple’s iPhones and iPads.

The whole story is framed like this: Apple and publishers are the bad guys, conspiring against victim Amazon to screw readers out of reasonably priced eBooks. So government, the hero, steps in and sets it right. Everyone lives happily every after.

It sounds like a bad fairy tale. Unfortunately, the true story that nobody is telling is actually something of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Here’s the true and tragic story of how Apple ended up helping Amazon become the Mother of All Monopolies. 

Amazon is beating Apple in the eBooks racket by using Apple’s own pricing strategy for music.

But Apple can still clobber Amazon by out-Appling not the iTunes pricing strategy, but the Apple marketing strategy: Create a vastly better user experience for both content creators and content consumers! Oh, and focus on audio.

Here’s how.

Everybody’s obsessing over iOS 7’s user interface — the bright colors, flat design and intuitive response physics.

But the “user interface” of any operating platform isn’t just the visuals. There’s a lot more to it than that.

Apple, in particular, tends to focus heavily on the overall user experience, which involves all the user interfaces and how they work together.

It’s clear, even in the early betas, that Apple is doing a lot of work on the invisible user interface, and some of these changes are at least as powerful and interesting as the ones you can see.

New Voice Features

Apple is replacing the old Siri voice with two new ones. Specifically, Siri’s new iOS 7 voice crosses a line from “robotic” to “human.” Siri also speaks faster and with a more natural cadence, which Apple calls a high-definition voice.

The old iOS 6 Siri spoke in a halting, sometimes overlapping speech pattern that clearly sounded like robotic machine talk.

The new Siri could easily be mistaken for a real person who has recorded the entire response in one sitting. It’s a great feature, one of those subtle but very hard to do upgrades that change the psychology of using Siri to a more positive one.

The iOS 7 version of Siri will also let you choose between a male and female voice. Originally, Siri’s gender was determined by the language.

In addition, the new Siri will learn to pronounce names correctly with a new command. Just say: “That’s not how you pronounced Melvin” (or whatever the name in question is), and Siri will offer you alternative pronunciation options, from which you can select, and the change is permanent.

Another invisible interface improvement takes place with the new AutoCorrect. It now looks at an entire sentence to figure out which words to correct. As a result, AutoCorrect is much better, more accurate and more capable. (This is a user interface element, in my opinion, because it is intelligence that helps the user make decisions about which word to choose and intervenes between the user and the app in the goal of assisting the user.)

New Haptic Features?

Apple announced at WWDC a new game controller API that will enable third-party companies to make gaming hardware for iPhones and iPads. That could enable peripheral makers to build sophisticated haptics into the controller (like an Xbox controller) that buzz and shake and rattle and explode.

The game controller API isn’t a user interface, but it is an open door for other companies to create interfaces. In fact, that’s its entire purpose. In addition to joysticks and game pads, I’m sure we’ll see creative and unexpected haptic feedback add-ons coming out after the release of iOS 7.

It also could enable a haptic case for everyday use. For example, you could imagine a special case for the iPad for visual artists where the “high definition” haptics hardware makes just running your stylus across the screen feel like chalk, pencil, acrylic paint brush, watercolor paint brush and so on.

New Motion Detection Features

A new option called Head Control allows you to select user-defined actions based on a turn of your head to the left or right. The front-facing camera detects the motion.

As with many of the coolest features of iOS 7, this one is in the Accessibility section under Switch Control.

The fact is that most people won’t use this option. However, it’s a totally new interface category for the iOS platform — an extremely rudimentary foray into the same categorical space as Xbox Kinect.

This is how Apple does things. They dip their toe in the water with a very rudimentary version of something that is nevertheless very solid. Then, over time, they add capabilities to the general approach.

I think it’s kind of a big deal that Apple is building in-the-air gestures into the iOS user interface. The next step after that may be hand-waving to go forward or back in a song or movie, a fist gesture to pause or stop and other in-the-air gestures.

Apple’s Invisible Interface Strategy is Clear

Invisible user interface elements are chronically undervalued and underappreciated by pundits, commentators, bloggers and journalists. But for that total user experience Apple is always trying to improve upon, they’re the central component.

Changes in the invisible iOS user interfaces not only tell us a lot about what iOS 7 will be like to use, but also about where Apple is going with invisible user interfaces.

I’m really looking forward to not seeing where all this ends up.

Over the last few weeks you’ve probably heard all about iOS 7. How different it looks. How beautiful the new UI is. How it’s the biggest change to the iPhone since Steve Jobs unveiled the original back in 2007.

All of that is true, but iOS 7 is much more than just a shiny new UI and some flat icons. Along with the new UI, there are tons of new software feature that will make using your iPhone easier and faster than ever before. Here are the 10 iOS 7 features that will make you never want to go back to iOS 6.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is just a week away and although it’s highly unlikely we’ll see any new iOS devices, we will get our first glimpse at iOS 7.

iOS 7 could be one of the biggest iOS updates to date, with many rumors claiming it will be completely overhauled with a new look and new features as Jony Ive makes his mark as the head of software design. A report that was published earlier this month claims that Apple has had to pull engineers away from OS X 10.9 to help complete it.

Personally, I couldn’t be more excited about iOS 7. I made the switch to Android just before Christmas because I found Jelly Bean on the Nexus 4 to be better than iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 at a lot of things, which I wrote about back in February.

Having used Android for four months, I’ve compiled a list of things iOS 7 should learn from its biggest rival. If Apple adds these things to its own platform — or variations of them that provide the same experience — then I think iOS 7 could be fantastic.

Check out the list below and see if you agree.