Month: October 2013

Since I first tried iOS 7’s Today view in Notification Centre, I’ve had a nagging suspicion that it could be even more useful. Seems Apple thought the same thing.

In Singapore two weeks ago, Sebastian Vettel had a huge tractional advantage over any of the other teams’ cars. While they’ve been ahead for much of the season, comments from various Formula 1 figures have suggested that Red Bull may be using (illegal) traction control:

Whilst all the other drivers speeded up on the same stretch, Vettel was able to speed up before them. The thing that surprised me the most was the RB1 engine’s output sound. Besides speeding up 50 m before any other driver, the Renault engine of the German’s car grinded like no other French engines on track, neither like Mark’s. That sound was similar to the sound made by the engine when the traction control system got into action in the past seasons.

Traction control is forbidden. To ensure that it remains off the cars, all teams use the same engine control unit, and its code is checked prior to the start of the season. It is therefore unlikely that any sort of illegal traction control is at play here.

However, it’s also unlikely that Red Bull is able to get such a tractional advantage over the other teams purely by aerodynamics. Sam Collins of Racecar Engineering has a theory on how they’re doing it:

It is theoretically easy to modulate the output torque and charging input torque to an electric motor/generator using capacitors, batteries, inductors and a feedback signal. Torque changes are instant and control is easy and legal.

Got that?

Red Bull might be modulating the output from their KERS system. Ingenious.

Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug of Anandtech:

With the exception of Apple and Motorola, literally every single OEM we’ve worked with ships (or has shipped) at least one device that runs this silly CPU optimization. It’s possible that older Motorola devices might’ve done the same thing, but none of the newer devices we have on hand exhibited the behavior. It’s a systemic problem that seems to have surfaced over the last two years, and one that extends far beyond Samsung.

I don’t understand why this is so widespread. I don’t even understand why any manufacturer is doing this. Who buys a phone based on its benchmarks?

Kevin Poulsen, Wired:

In an interesting work-around, Levison complied the next day by turning over the private SSL keys as an 11 page printout in 4-point type. The government, not unreasonably, called the printout “illegible.”

“To make use of these keys, the FBI would have to manually input all 2,560 characters, and one incorrect keystroke in this laborious process would render the FBI collection system incapable of collecting decrypted data,” prosecutors wrote.

Reasonably, unreasonable demands are met with unreasonable compliance.

Dave Tach for Polygon:

About a week before the official announcement last month, Campo Santo took the trip up to Portland to make the partnership official. Sitting around Panic’s conference room table, they signed the contract that defined their working relationship. Sasser’s young son was there, eating his noodles after school, and while nobody was looking and the grownups hashed out the terms, he signed his name to the contract, too.

If Panic is providing interface critiques and general support (in addition to financing), and Campo Santo is doing the game, I think this is going to be one sweet partnership. I can’t wait to see the results of this.

Nik Fletcher:

Much as Apple is offering free versions of iWork with a new iOS device, it’s time to stop tying backups to a storage quota and simply say: “We’ve got this. Your iOS device – no matter how much you’ve got on it – will be backed up”.

I absolutely agree. Shawn Blanc adds:

Apple sells 64GB iPhones and 128GB iPads. If you own one or both of these, and fill them up with photos and documents, you literally cannot buy enough storage to back up even one of them in full — iCloud’s largest tier of storage maxes out at 50GB.

I have a 64 GB iPhone. As of right now, 57.2 GB of that space has been used, meaning that even if I trusted iCloud to retain recent backups of my photos, messages, and anything else I have stored on my iPhone — and I’m not certain I do trust iCloud that much — I wouldn’t be able to use that feature.

I currently back up both my iPhone and iPad through iTunes to my computer. It feels somewhat antiquated, but it works pretty damn well, and it hasn’t failed me yet. Of course, if I felt really strongly about the value of my iPhone’s contents, I’d ensure I have a great backup solution for those backups.

The first reviews of Samsung’s new Galaxy Gear hit the web on Tuesday. They described an unattractive product that has limited functionality with a high pricetag. This isn’t unique to Samsung’s product; it’s pretty much par for the course for all of the smartwatches out there. No company has produced a compelling watch-like product.

Given that state of the industry, it’s no surprise that smartwatches aren’t taking off as a product category. That the market is young is not, I don’t think, the reason for the lukewarm reception to the current crop of smartwatches. Rather, I think that these products simply haven’t answered any pressing needs or desires. I see two main questions which these have not yet answered.

What’s the Purpose of the Smartwatch?

What makes a watch “smart”? A Breitling equipped with a chronograph and a pressure release valve for diving doesn’t count as “smart”, and neither does a GPS-equipped fitness watch, as far as I can work out. The definition seems nebulous; both of these watches seem pretty smart to me, albeit in differing ways.

The definition from Wikipedia isn’t bad, though it’s still quite broad:

A smartwatch or smart watch, is a computerized wristwatch with functionality that is enhanced beyond timekeeping, and is often comparable to a personal digital assistant (PDA) device. While early models can perform basic tasks, such as calculations, translations, and game-playing, modern smartwatches are effectively wearable computers.

Yet, despite strapping a computer onto your wrist, all of the smartwatches currently on the market seem to be designed as an appendage to a smartphone. They aren’t simply an accessory; rather, they require the smartphone for most of their basic tasks: while you can see a notification on the watch, for example, you must use your phone to interact with it. You can take photos with the Galaxy Gear, but you’d probably prefer to use the higher-quality camera in a smartphone. And, while it is possible to take a phone call on a few of these watches, you’d really be best to use your smartphone for that.

These “smart” watches also struggle to be the “watch” part of “smartwatch”. Because of the power required to keep a display powered on, many of today’s crop of smartwatches require some form of interaction to wake the display. We have regressed to the days of the Pulsar P2.

In other words, the smartwatch is little more than an expensive notification screen. It seems to lack purpose beyond novelty, which doesn’t make for a compelling product.

Do I Feel Like an Idiot While Wearing This Smartwatch?

Or, conversely, “do I feel sophisticated while wearing this smartwatch?”

Watches have always been a combination of a functional object and a fashion accessory. While their function is not irrelevant in 2013, we now have clocks everywhere. Therefore, the importance of the design of the watch has become elevated to a new high. At no point in history has the function of a watch been so superfluous.

You wouldn’t know it if you looked at the current breed of smartwatches, though. Every single one of them looks bulky, cheap, and unrefined. The WIMM One looks like an ankle monitor, while the Pebble is plasticky. The Galaxy Gear may be metallic, but it’s very industrial and brash.

We’ve been here before. Early digital watches — like the Pulsar P2 — caught on more for their novelty than for their good looks. Yes, James Bond wore a few, but that was only during the corny Roger Moore era. A digital watch is chosen purely for functional reasons; they’ve never reached the same level of class or elegance as a decent analog watch.

Smartwatches won’t necessarily have to appeal to horologists, but they can’t be defined by ironic geek chic. Most normal people with even a modicum of fashion sense aren’t going to be interested in that. They need a watch which tells the time, looks great, and does whatever a smartwatch ostensibly can do.

The Plausible Case for Apple

Crazy speculation ahead.

With the launch of the iPhone 5S, Apple also introduced developers to a new “motion coprocessor”, dubbed the M7. It rides alongside the A7 SoC in the 5S controlling things like the compass, accelerometer, and gyroscope. Since it doesn’t have to be preoccupied by doing things like running the operating system, it uses much less power, so it can accept data from these sensors constantly.

When Phil Schiller described the M7 onstage, he was oddly speculative about its potential uses. Usually when Apple brings something new to the table, they have a very precise example of how the innovation will improve your experience with the product. But Schiller simply said this, in regards to the M7:

With new software and applications, you’re going to get a whole new level of health and fitness solutions never before possible on a mobile phone.

We’re updating our CoreMotion API inside iOS 7 to read this data and provide it to applications. And it can characterize and analyze the data to tell applications whether you’re stationary, walking, running, driving, and provide that for you to take applications to make your life more fit and healthy. [sic]

He then showed an example of a Nike app updated to take advantage of the M7, plus the iPhone’s GPS capabilities. It’s nice that the compass and gyro are sending their data to a reduced-power chip — and all of this sounds nearly perfect for a smartwatch — but the GPS chipset still requires crazy power. I don’t have a 5S, but if I use Strava while cycling for a few hours, it’s going to be very close to running out of power.

Luckily, Sony introduced a super low-power GPS receiver earlier this year, which can…

… measure highly accurate positional information by combining information received from multiple sensors built into the smartphone, such as accelerometers, magnetic sensors and gyro sensors.

That sounds familiar. The M7 is an NXP part (specifically, an LPC1800-series), but a future version of the new M-series coprocessors might find Sony’s offering intriguing. It wasn’t used for the M7 because it became available this past summer; accounting for the amount of time required to integrate it into a product, Sony’s receiver likely won’t be showing up in any products until early next year.

Why write all of this? Well, if Apple is indeed working on a smartwatch, I believe it will be a fitness-oriented product which doesn’t require a smartphone, but which can work in conjunction with one. While I see loads of people running with iPhones, I see more running with iPods — the lighter weight and smaller size is appealing to a lot of people. I believe that an iPod Shuffle-sized product which includes either the M7 or Sony’s new GPS receiver would be appealing to a lot of athletes.

I also think that Apple is one of the only — if not the only — technology companies that can produce a smartwatch which is well-designed. There is no other technology company that competes with Apple for both material choices and build quality. For a watch, these qualities are very important.

There’s one last bit of speculation that I feel comfortable mentioning: if Apple is set to release a smartwatch, when would they do it? I think January is a solid bet.

Apple has previously introduced two (possibly three) category-defining products in a January event: the iPhone, in 2007; the iPad, in 2010; and I would also count the MacBook Air, in 2008.1 This is a solid track-record of products which helped reposition entire product categories in Apple’s vision.

The second reason why January makes sense is to capitalize on all those making New Year’s resolutions, of which the perennial most-common is to get fitter.

This is a lot of speculation, granted. I don’t even necessarily think Apple is interested in the smartwatch category. But these are a few dots which I felt could be connected at some point in the future.


  1. While the MacBook Air was an expensive luxury at its launch, it served as the blueprint for the ultrathin and ultralight notebook category. It was also the first production run of the processes which were later used to build the unibody MacBook Pros. ↥︎

Nate Boateng:

I hit ⌘-A in the photo view, and clicked on “Export” (which is horrible in iPhoto — more on that later). I was greeted with an “Unable to create…” dialog, which basically means that iPhoto can’t find the original files; only the thumbnails.

This is a frightening, compelling read. I’ve been in a similar situation, and it’s heartbreaking. For Boateng, it’s his precious family photos. For me, it’s my music collection. Whatever your most precious data may consist of, it’s important to have a smart backup strategy.

Rene Ritchie, iMore:

Pretty much on schedule, a major publication has claimed an unannounced Apple product to be ‘constrained’ and ‘delayed’. This time it’s the rumored Retina iPad mini, which Apple has been working on for some time, and which may or may not be released this October.

It’s amazing how an unannounced, unconfirmed, possibly nonexistent product can be delayed, isn’t it?

Instead of speculative bullshit, you may enjoy facts and research from Rich Mogull:

Apple may have some dedicated resources embedded in the A7 for handling Touch ID and passcodes, which would be consistent with their statements and diagrams. Secure operations probably still run on the main A7 processor, in restricted Secure mode so regular user processes (apps) cannot access the Secure Enclave. That is how TrustZone handles secure and non-secure functions sharing the same hardware.

Jonny Evans of Computerworld, reporting on a new claim from Anonymous (the group of people that likes to protest capitalism and commercialism while dressed in masks from “V for Vendetta”):

In brief, the claims the group make concerning Touch ID seem to focus on Authentec director, Robert E. Grady, who appears to have been a prominent figure within the George Bush administration and (Anonymous claim) was connected with The Carlyle Group, which Anonymous also claim is a majority shareholder in Booz Allen Hamilton, the NSA contractor with which whistleblower Edward Snowden worked.

This claim is pretty easy to debunk:

  1. Robert E. Grady was, indeed, a figure within the George W. Bush administration (and the administration of Bush Sr., too): he was appointed to be a member of a committee for the maintenance of the International Space Station, and another committee for trade policy; he was also co-chair of Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns.

    But lots of prominent businesspeople take on occasional roles in politics. There’s nothing suspicious about this in of itself, especially since Grady did not become director of Authentec until 2010 (and quit six months after he started).

  2. The Carlyle Group used to be an investor in Authentec, and is currently a shareholder in Booz Allen Hamilton. It’s also one of the largest investment firms in the world, so the fact that they have fingers in many pies is both obvious and not suspicious.

More than anything, this is a ham-fisted attempt at guilt by association. You can do this with anything, really. Witness:

  • The Anonymous news site anonnews.org and their favourite note-dumping service pastebin.com both have private whois data localized to Panama.
  • John McCain was born in Panama.
  • John McCain supported US intervention in Syria.
  • Therefore, Anonymous colluded with John McCain to try to attack Syria.

It’s easy. Anyone can do it. And it isn’t proof of anything aside from some delusional, paranoid notions. While we’re living in an era where the NSA is tapping major internet providers and doing generally creepy things, these claims are substantiated with hard evidence. Guilt by association is driven by nothing more than paranoia — the same paranoia which drives all conspiracy theories. It’s bunk, and nothing more.

Speaking of Samsung, the reviews for their Galaxy Gear smart watch are in, and they’re not encouraging. Christina Bonnington, for Wired:

… Galaxy Gear just isn’t something most folks need. It’s not even something I wanted to keep on my wrist all day. While the feature set is more advanced than any other smartwatch, the technology and its uses are clearly in their infancy.

Brad Molen, in a slightly more positive Engadget review:

The Gear isn’t bad for a first-generation Samsung product, and it’ll get better as the ecosystem grows. Of course, that’s if the watch catches on and developers decide it’s worth their time to produce a special app for it.

Vlad Savov of the Verge:

A smartwatch the Galaxy Gear is not. Frankly, I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to be. Samsung describes it as a companion device, and the Gear is indeed chronically dependent on an umbilical link to another Samsung device, but it never left me feeling like it was a helpful companion.

Not good.

I don’t want you to think I’m being intentionally belligerent, or am being especially hard on Samsung. I don’t think any smart watch is compelling, and I think these reviews sum up why. They’re currently dependent on the smartphone you already have with you at any time. Spending two- or three-hundred dollars on an unattractive gadget which basically notifies you to pull out your phone seems excessive and unnecessary.

This entire product category seems half-baked and ill-considered.

Shawn Blanc has been on a roll, and his new guide to coffee is essential. My setup turns out to be comprised of parts of Blanc’s list:

  • Beans: absolutely the most important part of making great coffee. I’m currently using Phil & Sebastian’s Guzman brothers from Colombia, and Finca Hartmann from Panama.
  • Kettle: I don’t have one of the cool gooseneck kettles that you see in most coffee bars. I make do with an Alessi Michael Graves stovetop kettle.
  • Grinder: I have a conical burr grinder from West Germany, made in the 1960s. I need to buy an electric grinder.
  • AeroPress: I use the inverted method, and brew for about a minute-thirty.

Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica:

Above is a picture of Geekbench and of Stealthbench, which is identical to Geekbench in every way except for a different package name. With Geekbench, System Monitor shows the CPU is locked into 2.3 GHz mode and all cores are active, but in Stealthbench, the CPU is allowed to idle, shut off cores, and switch power modes, the same way it does in any other app. We have successfully disabled the special benchmark mode.

Busted.

This special high-power mode is not like Turbo Boost on Intel Core CPUs: Intel’s mode kicks in for any app which requires extra performance, while Samsung’s only kicks in for benchmarking tools. Benchmark scores are not definitive (and aren’t always relevant, really) but Samsung seems intent on juicing their results.