Opinions - page 4

Face value: 7 thoughts about biometrics and the iPhone 8

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Apple will undoubtedly play it smart when it comes to bringing facial recognition to the iPhone 8.
Apple will undoubtedly play it smart when it comes to bringing facial recognition to the iPhone 8.
Photo: Jeshoots/Pixabay CC

By Joey Pritikin

Over the last five years, biometrics has evolved from the stuff of crime scene investigation and science fiction movies to a broad set of technologies that make our lives easier, more personal, and more secure. Starting with the Touch ID sensor in the iPhone 5s, Apple led the way in the acceptance and adoption of biometrics.

The latest indications are that Apple is embracing a face-recognition approach that goes beyond a standard 2D, visible-light sensor. When used in a situation where there are only a handful of approved users, like a consumer mobile device, the promise is great.

Why Ulysses subscription pricing is good for the App Store [Opinion]

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Ulysses subscriptions hero
Not all apps should use subscriptions, but for some, it’s the best choice.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Ulysses, one of the best writing apps on the Mac and iOS, just switched to subscription pricing. It’ll now cost you $5 per month, or $40 per year. This is fantastic news for Ulysses users. It means the app will generate enough income to support itself. And it minimizes the risk of the developers abandoning the app when the flow of new users dries to a trickle.

Yet despite this good news, the internet lost it mind after yesterday’s announcement of the pricing change. Currently the Ulysses blog is only serving a single post, the one detailing the change, because the traffic has been enough to collapse the servers. What happened?

The next Apple Watch could empty my pockets — in a good way

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Hopefully I won't have to carry this stuff around with me thanks to Apple Watch Series 3
Hopefully I won't need to carry this stuff around after Apple Watch Series 3 arrives.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

The latest rumors about the next-generation Apple Watch indicate it might come with LTE cellular data in a slick new design. But Apple Watch already offers data connectivity via iPhone, and Cupertino’s marketing tends to focus on benefits, not features. So how will Apple craft a new product story around built-in cellular?

My guess is it will all be about replacing the need for a very old technology: pockets. Apple Watch Series 3 will move all the contents of our pockets into the cloud.

Hey, Apple! Thunderbolt isn’t the answer to everything

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The 2017 iMac family.
Want to run VR on a new iMac? Get ready to spend big money on an external GPU with a Thunderbolt connection.
Photo: Apple

The new Macs that Apple unveiled Monday bring welcome upgrades to Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors. However, if you want to use the latest Apple computers for virtual reality, you’ll need to add an external graphics card in a pricey Thunderbolt 3 enclosure.

It’s yet another problem “solved” by Thunderbolt connectivity, but the do-it-all USB-C connector Apple is forcing down our throats isn’t the answer to everything.

Will Trump be good for Apple? [Friday Night Fights]

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How will Apple fare in the Trump era?
How will Apple fare in the Trump era?
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac. Original photo: Michael Vadon/Flickr CC

In case you hadn’t noticed, the United States has a new leader — and President Donald Trump has a bone to pick with Apple. Several, actually.

Will Trump’s “America first” stance and pro-business policies help Apple or give Tim Cook a series of premium headaches? Cult of Mac editors Leander Kahney and Lewis Wallace come out swinging in this week’s edition of “Friday Night Fights.”

How the MacBook Pro’s Magic Toolbar can cast a spell on the world

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MacBook Pro
The Magic Toolbar will change depending on the app being used.
Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple faces a serious challenge when it rolls out the rumored OLED “Magic Toolbar” on new MacBook Pros tomorrow: It must convince the world that the new adaptive touchpad is more than a gimmick.

Offering customizable function keys that work in different ways depending on which apps are running, the Magic Toolbar could make the new MacBook Pro one of Apple’s most exciting laptops in years.

But to be more than a gimmick, the Magic Toolbar needs to improve the way we interact with our Macs, not simply add another confusing control element to the laptops. The Magic Toolbar needs to make it easier to perform tasks that we now do using keyboard shortcuts or on-screen toolbars. If it can’t do that, the Magic Toolbar will go down in the history books as a failure.

Luckily, there’s one simple step Apple can take to ensure that the Magic Toolbar becomes a success.

Forget the Galaxy Note 7 and buy an iPhone 7 Plus

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Galaxy Note 7
R.I.P., Galaxy Note 7.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Still thinking about making the Galaxy Note 7 your next smartphone? Forget about it.

I gave Samsung’s latest flagship a glowing review last month. But amid reports that supposedly “safe” replacement devices are overheating and exploding, there’s no good reason to buy a Galaxy Note 7 anymore.

Do yourself a favor and get the iPhone 7 Plus instead.

The future is AI, and Google just showed Apple how it’s done

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Under CEO Sundar Pichai, Google is betting big on AI.
Under CEO Sundar Pichai, Google is betting big on AI.
Photo: Google

After decades of showing us the best ways to interact with computers, Apple is lagging on the UI of the future — voice controls powered by smart, conversational AI.

Google, on the other hand, is placing artificial intelligence, in the form of Google Assistant, at the center of its new Pixel smartphones and Google Home smart speaker.

Cupertino’s mastery of the user interface is legendary: Macs, iPods and iPhones made the GUI, the mouse, the scroll wheel and multitouch mainstream. But Apple needs to get into the AI conversation if it’s serious about securing a place in our gabby future.

Is Siri still steps behind Google’s virtual assistants? [Friday Night Fights]

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v2
Which virtual assistant gets your vote?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple has taken big strides to make Siri even greater in recent years, like bringing it to Apple TV and macOS, and opening it up to third-party developers. In that time, Apple’s virtual assistant has also gotten more accurate and more reliable.

Friday Night Fights bug But some might say third-party alternatives — particularly those from Google — are still a step ahead, with greater features and more flexibility. So, is Apple doing enough to make Siri just as stellar as Google Now and the new Google Assistant?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we go head-to-head over virtual assistants.

Why Apple is the new NASA

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Apple Watch swimming app
Apple analyzed the performance of 700 swimmers to develop new Workout app routines.
Photo: Apple

Thirty minutes into Apple’s special event last week, one tidbit of information blew my mind.

Onstage, Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams was talking about the Workout app on the new “swim-proof” Apple Watch Series 2 and the effort the company put into advancing the software that makes the fitness device tick. The amount of research deployed, all in the pursuit of updating a segment of an app many Apple Watch wearers will never use, offers a peek into the enormous resources that Apple R&D commands.

It paints Apple, with its enduring emphasis on developing new materials, manufacturing processes and sophisticated software, as a scientific force to be reckoned with — a new NASA for the 21st century.

Apple’s secret strategy: Underpromise and overdeliver

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iPhone 7 colors
Why the critics are wrong who think Apple's lost its touch.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s always been the company that promised us the world. Steve Jobs’ genius was his ability to convince us that every single thing Apple did shifted the Earth on its axis.

Recently, that feeling of magical futurism has faded. Apple events have been preceded by a feeling of “been there, done that.”

Forget the “wireless future” that Apple talked up at yesterday’s iPhone 7 event as it tried to convince us that we really want AirPods and a dongle rather than a headphone jack. If Apple has a strategy in 2016, it’s underpromise and overdeliver.

And it’s working great!

Why Tim Cook’s open letter about taxes struggles to paint Apple as the underdog

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1984
Who is Big Brother and who's the rebel freedom fighter?
Photo: Apple

With his open letter defending Apple’s Irish tax strategy, Tim Cook positions his company as a sledgehammer-tossing freedom fighter at battle with Big Brother-style EU bureaucracy.

But unlike Cook’s previous missives on LGBT rights and the importance of privacy, this open letter seems unlikely to be met with near-unanimous support. While railing against the EU’s massive assessment of €13 billion euros in back taxes owed by Apple, Cook ignores the facts of the matter — and seems tone-deaf about painting the world’s biggest company as an underdog.

4 lessons Apple Car should learn from Tesla

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Tesla
If Apple really is making a car, it should take some cues from Tesla.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

With all the recent rumors that Apple will build an electric car within the next few years, obviously Cupertino is going to be compared to the big electric car company of the moment, Tesla Motors.

Tesla sold more than 50,000 model S sedans in 2015, so I’m taking a look at four Apple Car lessons that Tim Cook and Jony Ive should learn from Tesla.

Check out the video below.

How watchOS 3 could fix Apple Watch and end ‘wrist rage’

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Does your Apple Watch give you wrist-rage?
Does your Apple Watch give you wrist rage? If so, watchOS 3 might help.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

My biggest gripe with my Apple Watch is not the sluggish hardware, the lack of GPS nor the dependance on my iPhone. These are all problems to be sure. But it is the bad user interface design that often drives me so mad that my force-taps turn into force-thumps of frustration.

With an update to the Apple Watch operating system expected at the Worldwide Developers Conference next month, here’s my top 10 list of interface improvements I’d like to see in the upcoming watchOS 3. These essential changes would spare my wrist from future incidents of wrist rage.

The new MacBooks are out, and I don’t care [Opinions]

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New MacBook line Spring 2016
That’s 23% off the usual price!
Photo: Apple

We’d heard rumblings and observed omens and portents about the imminent release of new 12-inch MacBooks, and now they are here. And that’s pretty cool, I guess.

Longer battery life is always a plus, as are faster Skylake processors and speedier memory. The new Rose Gold option is pretty, too.

But despite the fact that I’m still rocking a 2011 MacBook Pro, I’m not reaching for my wallet to grab one of the new Retina MacBook models. I can’t even explain why that is — I simply don’t care.

Apple in a word is …

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What does Apple mean to you?
What does Apple mean to you?
Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Over the past 40 years, Apple has been many things to many people. Innovative or imitative, premium or overpriced, saintly or evil — everybody’s got their own take on what Cupertino and its revolutionary products mean.

While Apple was founded on April Fools’ Day in 1976, the company and the profound impact that its shiny devices have made on our lives is truly not a joke. Here’s what Cult of Mac staffers said when asked to describe what the company means to them in a single word.

Why the tiny iPhone SE will be a gigantic hit for Apple

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iPhone SE pricing
Say goodbye to "peak iPhone" and hello to the iPhone SE.
Photo: Apple

Bigger isn’t always better. With the iPhone SE, Apple has designed a tiny smartphone that’s destined to become a gigantic hit.

The device, unveiled during Apple’s “Let us loop you in” event Monday, looks like a totally amazeballs iPhone — and it comes with an Android-low price. Here’s why this little dynamo will take the world by storm.

What Apple product launches say about Tim Cook’s leadership

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Tim Cook Apple March 21 event
Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple is innovating in a new way.
Photo: Apple

A cynic would call it greenwashing, but the most surprising thing about Tim Cook’s “Loop you in” event was what it said about how he’s running Apple.

When Steve Jobs was around, Apple’s product events were about the products, and little else. Yeah, Jobs would often start with corporate issues, but he usually boasted about how the company was absolutely crushing it.

By contrast, the first 25 minutes of Monday’s event — almost half of the hour-long presentation — focused on things only tangentially related to Apple products. Cook and his lieutenants discussed government snooping, privacy, recycling, the environment, renewable energy, creating platforms for sustaining customers’ health — and even protecting Chinese yaks.

Jobs used to touch on issues like these, but under Cook, they’ve taken center stage. Cook has turned Apple’s product events into showcases for corporate responsibility.

Why the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is Apple’s most important iPad since the original

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The 9.7-inch iPad Pro is the best tablet Apple's ever made.
The 9.7-inch iPad Pro is the best tablet Apple's ever made.

Small was the new big at Apple’s “Let us loop you in” keynote today. And while some felt the 64-minute unveiling was the most snooze-worthy event ever, Apple used it to unleash the most important iPad its made since the original tablet launched in 2010.

The new 9.7-inch iPad Pro is much more than just a smaller variant of the 12.9-inch super slate Apple came out with last year. It’s a machine built to target Apple’s next big customer pool: the 600 million people still using 5-year-old PCs.

“That’s just sad,” Apple VP Phil Schiller said onstage, describing the unfortunate souls toiling with aging Windows machines. And the new, right-sized iPad Pro is exactly what those people need.

7 reasons Steve Jobs failed to meet its early Oscars buzz

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Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie is coming to Netflix
Steve Jobs wasn't the movie many fans hoped for.
Photo: François Duhamel/©2015 Universal Studios

It’s the Oscars this weekend, and if you’re an Apple fan, one question that lingers in the mind is what exactly happened to all the early awards buzz for Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic.

Initially hailed as one of 2015’s crowning cinematic achievements, the movie bombed at the box office and even registered on some “worst movies of the year” lists. Although it has picked up Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Supporting Actress (Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet), the movie failed to get put forward for Best Picture, while Sorkin was also a notable absence in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

Having now seen Steve Jobs three times (twice at the theater and once on Blu-ray), here are my thoughts on why the flick was ultimately a disappointment.

Will Fitbit’s ‘magic number’ really step up your fitness game?

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Where will Fitbit’s 10,000 steps a day lead you?
Where will Fitbit’s 10,000 steps a day lead you?
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Fitbit reported its best-ever holiday sales this week, but investors are fretting because the wearable maker’s guidance for the current quarter is lower than expected. Some analysts are questioning whether Fitbit can hold its own against competition from Cupertino.

Apple Watch has proved to be a fantastic fitness tracker for many Cult of Mac readers. So I was curious to find out how Fitbit’s trackers compare. They may be cheaper than Apple Watch, but are they as effective at promoting healthy habits?

Apps vs. apparel: Can Strava compete with big sportswear brands?

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The last of the indie fitness apps: can Strava hold their own against the big brands?
The last of the indie fitness apps: Can Strava hold its own against the big brands?
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Sports apparel makers clearly believe that fitness apps are an important part of their futures. Under Armour and Adidas have invested heavily in fitness apps, and Runkeeper’s recent acquisition by ASICS is just the latest in a long series of app acquisitions by apparel makers.

These companies have big brands and deep pockets. Can an indie developer realistically compete with all that? Gareth Nettleton, VP of marketing for indie fitness app Strava, tells me that like any serious athlete, his hard-charging company thrives on competition.

How Apple’s wireless EarPods could change the way we hear everything

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Could Apple’s wireless EarPods use hearing aid technology to offer holographic sound, augmented-reality Siri and superhuman hearing?
Could Apple’s wireless EarPods use hearing aid technology to offer holographic sound, augmented-reality Siri and superhuman hearing?
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Recent reports suggest Apple might ship wireless, noise-canceling EarPods with the iPhone 7. From a hardware perspective, these headphones would be very similar to hearing aids.

With the right feature set, these devices could change the way we hear digital audio and pave the way for transformative new audio experiences for everyone.

Fitness apps are ruining the Apple Watch. Apple should scrap them.

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My resolution for 2016: Less staring at spinning dots, more running.
My resolution for 2016: Less staring at spinning dots, more running.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Apple has got its fitness strategy all wrong. It sees Apple Watch as a computing platform rather than a device, and so it promotes third-party apps instead of making better built-in ones of its own.

That may be a fine strategy for Macs and iPhones, but it just does not work for watches and fitness trackers. Relying on third-party fitness apps means spending far too long staring at the spinning dots of death (the Watch equivalent of a spinning beachball), when we should be working out.

Instead of offering a range of underwhelming third-party workout apps, what Apple Watch really needs is one great built-in app that integrates with popular fitness platforms like Runtastic and MapMyRun.