Month: October 2015

Bunkmarks ⇥ macrumors.com

Mitchel Broussard, MacRumors:

The takeaway from Morrison and Evans’ videos today seems to be that while intense cases like synthetic Geekbench tests designed to push devices to their limits revealed as high as a 22% difference in battery life between devices using the two chips, real-world impacts may be much smaller depending on the mix of activities. In these specific usage patterns shown above, battery life differences between the two processors ranged from 6% to 11%.

You know how much I hate to tell you that I told you so, but I did point out that the real-world implications of the dual-sourced A9 SoCs are vastly less noticeable than benchmarking tools imply. Apple claims 10 hours of cellular web browsing; 6% of that is about half an hour. 6-11% is not insignificant, but I suspect it isn’t the kind of thing you’d really notice. I do wonder whether Apple’s tests were conducted on TSMC or Samsung hardware; perhaps they tested both and averaged the results.

Update: Matthew Panzarino over at TechCrunch received a statement from Apple:

Certain manufactured lab tests which run the processors with a continuous heavy workload until the battery depletes are not representative of real-world usage, since they spend an unrealistic amount of time at the highest CPU performance state. It’s a misleading way to measure real-world battery life. Our testing and customer data show the actual battery life of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, even taking into account variable component differences, vary within just 2-3% of each other.

[…]

The 2-3% difference Apple is saying it sees between the battery life of the two processors is well within its manufacturing tolerances for any device, even two iPhones with the same exact processor. In other words, your iPhone and someone else’s iPhone with the same guts likely vary as much as 3%, regardless of who made them.

Reading between the lines here, Apple isn’t even saying that the processors make the 2-3% difference; they’re saying that the battery life of all shipping iPhones 6S lay within a 2-3% range of each other in real-world circumstances. That’s an incredible achievement, and demonstrates that these processors perform almost identically.

Panzarino again:

The big takeaway here shouldn’t be that there are a couple of percentage points of difference between the two bits of silicon, but that Apple has kept up with demand for the first time in forever — and that it is setting the stage for what could allow it more control over its chip design with less conflict.

I think Apple’s vastly better supply of iPhones is throwing off some of the crappier analysts who, when they didn’t see out-of-stock indications within hours of preorder availability, were a little disappointed. In reality, Apple was just able to do a better job of mitigating supply chain constraints.

A Year of Apple Pay ⇥ macstories.net

Graham Spencer, resident international data specialist for MacStories:

The interchange fee has become a sticking point in negotiations between Apple and international banks because outside the US the interchange fee is much lower. In the European Union, interchange fees have been capped at 0.2% of the transaction value for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards; at those levels, Apple’s 0.15% cut is clearly untenable. This is no doubt why in the UK, the banks ultimately reached an agreement where Apple would get “a few pence per £100 transaction“.

There are reports from Australia, China and Canada, all claiming similar battles between local banks and Apple.

Given the wide presence of contactless payment terminals in Canada — many of which have sprung up over the past two or three years — I was surprised that it didn’t launch here, nor has there been much indication of progress. Overbearing commission would make sense as something that would slow its availability. But the degree to which this is true remains a mystery; Apple’s contracts with banks are, of course, secret. If the figures reported in the Financial Times and other reputable sources are true and have not significantly changed in the past year, I question whether Apple’s hardball stance is likely to prevail, or if it will hamper Apple Pay’s rollout. It worked for cell carriers, but that’s because the iPhone was a completely new and different product; Apple Pay is more convenient, but is more like an abstraction of a credit card. Banks probably don’t see themselves going anywhere or getting left behind. Commerce, after all, is vastly older than almost any other industry.

I’ve Stopped Using Piwik ⇥ pxlnv.com

Speaking of overanalysis, a few months ago, I installed the Piwik analytics package on Pixel Envy. I’ve been using Mint for a long time and, while I really like it, I’ve found that a lack of updates means that it’s not great with recent versions of Mac OS X or iOS. Piwik seemed like a good alternative. It’s lightweight, it respects Do Not Track, and it’s locally-hosted.

For the most part, my test was a success. Piwik was exactly what I thought it would be. However, I quickly came to realize that I didn’t really need all that data. I like seeing how many people visited my site and from what platform, but I don’t need much more than that.

So it’s back to all Mint, all the time for this site. I had fun with that little experiment, and it was nice to see that some of you click the links I post — even when buried several paragraphs down — but I don’t need to know that. I hope Shaun Inman updates Mint one of these days; I would buy 3.0 in a heartbeat. Even without that, it suits me fine.

Charts in Tweetbot 4 ⇥ leancrew.com

There’s a lot that I love about Tweetbot 4, but the new Activity view is not yet one of them. I like it in theory, but I find it confusing. I’ve been a little quiet on Twitter today, so my activity on the Stats tab is currently “16”.

Sixteen whats?

Sixteen activities? Sixteen interactions? Apparently, there was a message that appeared the first time I launched Tweetbot that — as with pretty much any popup — I dismissed immediately. It seems to be the total number of replies, quotes, retweets, favourites, and followers gained in the past day, but it reads kind of funny: “Today’s Activity: 16”. Maybe I’m not cut out for hyper-analyzing my social media stats.

At the top of the Stats view is a chart of the past week’s activity, so you can compare how popular you are today relative to the prior six days. Below the chart are stats of how many favourites, retweets, and new followers occurred today — none of these are interactive, however, so you can’t see who your new followers are from this view.

But the Stats tab is far nicer than Twitter’s pedantic analytics view, as Dr. Drang explains:

The idea is to give you a quick sense of what’s been going on for the past week. Again, if you want to pore over the details, go to Twitter’s analytics site to see how many of your followers are self-employed weight conscious Verizon users.

Despite this, the view I’m most interested in is not the Stats tab, but the Activity tab, which shows a real-time view of favourites, retweets, and replies. The latter is especially nice because it functions kind of like a conversation view or inbox; tapping on one of the cells will take you to the tweet. But tapping on a favourite or retweet will take you to the user profile of the person who performed that action, rather than the tweet to which it applies. That makes for an inconsistent and rather strange experience, for me at least.

Apple’s Dual-Sourced A9 SoC ⇥ engadget.com

Another update on a story that broke last week, this time on the confirmation that Apple has been dual-sourcing their A9 processors from Samsung and TSMC. I didn’t write about it because it didn’t seem like that big of a deal: Apple has surely run their tests and found that they perform virtually identically, so it shouldn’t matter what’s in your phone.

But there’s a general assumption that Samsung parts generally perform better than components manufactured by other companies; this probably stems from the crappy LG panels Apple shipped with the first batch of Retina MacBook Pros. Indeed, in the case of the A9, the Samsung-made part uses a 14nm process, while the TSMC part uses a 16nm process. In theory, this should mean that the Samsung edges the TSMC technically and potentially sees greater efficiency.

But a new set of numbers published on Engadget suggests that the vast majority of iPhone 6S models use the TSMC chip, while a slight majority of 6S Plusses use the Samsung chip. Why would Apple put what is supposed to be a more power-hungry chip in the smaller phone? Because the other numbers published with the article suggest that the less-advanced, bigger TSMC processors are actually more power-efficient than the Samsung processors.

In all likelihood, the chips probably perform the same, broadly speaking. I doubt that the claimed two-hour advantage of the TSMC is replicable in real-world circumstances, and I’d be surprised if there were a noticeable difference between the two. It’s unlikely that they perform identically, but they’re probably very, very close.

Update: On the other hand, John Poole has posted a Geekbench chart with two obvious spikes from iPhone 6S users who have taken their battery test. This could be low-power mode, or it could be a hundred other factors. Or it could be a difference in processor foundry. Someone should test this.

Apps Removed From Sale Are Un-Unavailable From Both App Stores ⇥ toucharcade.com

Bear with me, because this gets confusing. Last week, it was discovered that old apps no longer for sale in either App Store were being removed from users’ purchase history, meaning that they could not be re-downloaded. Yours truly:

This might all simply be a misconfiguration or a mistake, but I’ve long been worried something like this may happen. This is software that was previously purchased; while it’s no longer available for general sale, it should still be offered to those who purchased it to download again. I certainly hope this isn’t a deliberate change.

Tapbots figured out a clever workaround by making one of their old apps, Tweetbot 3, available for sale in a single country; they chose Burkina Faso. But, though I suspected this was a change made in error, Mark Brown of Pocket Gamer asked Apple and they said that it was intentional:

Now, a spokesperson for Apple has explained to PG that “if [developers] remove their apps from the store, they cannot be redownloaded until the app has been resubmitted to the App Store”.

So, bad news, right? Eli Hodapp of Touch Arcade referenced Brown’s comment in a story he wrote about the saga, and then Apple came calling:

We fired off a cursory email to Apple, but felt confident publishing this as both historically Pocket Gamer writes stories based on good sources and in nearly a decade of working with Apple, everyone gets the same response. Apple’s PR is a well oiled machine with two settings: No response (or a “No comment”) or the response. I just got off the phone with Apple’s US PR who have assured me there has been no policy change. We will update as we get more information, hopefully today.

What a saga. It sounds like this must have been a misconfiguration, but it seems odd that it has been going on for so long (well over a week now) and that it affects both stores. I also question Brown’s source — not that he lied, but that they were not fully informed, or they didn’t understand the context. As Hodapp says, Apple PR is the best in the business; if this is their blunder, it’s one of very few.

A Look at What Hermès Means to Watch Lovers ⇥ hodinkee.com

Benjamin Clymer, Hodinkee:

The [Hermès] strap you see above is arguably the greatest watch strap in the world. It has long been a secret of fine watch collectors anywhere – the quality of the stitching, and the softness of the leather, is simply unrivaled. […]

Hermès straps are not easily available. In fact, most stores around the world will not sell them to you individually, preferring them to go to existing Hermès watch owners. The dimensions are irregular too, with 17 mm tapered ends, meaning most buckles will not fit on them. That doesn’t prevent the devoted from chasing these hand-made straps all over the world.

The Hermès version of the Apple Watch became available yesterday in select retailers around the world, and it looks really desirable. If you’re disappointed with the leather bands that Apple provides,1 the ones available with the Hermès edition come from a long line of superlative leather goods, and are available in a much wider range of styles and colours.

If I were in the market for a stainless steel Apple Watch with a leather band, I think the Hermès line would be the first I’d look at — specifically, the “Single Tour” in brown. They’re not available at my local Hermès boutique; I wonder if they’d order one in from Toronto.

But I also wonder about the long-term interplay of high technology and traditional luxury. In the short term, Apple gains fashion and luxury credibility, while an old French brand remains contemporary. Over the long term, though, it’s hard to escape the temptation of seeing a first-generation technology product strapped to a very, very nice piece of leather. And, no matter how much I love mine, it is still a first-generation product. I’m optimistic that the purchasing experience in the coming generations will, in some way, take into account the precedent of a longer lifespan set by traditional timepieces.

  1. As the owner and everyday wearer of the original all-black classic buckle, I’m surprised anyone could be disappointed with it. The leather is of an extremely high quality, and it has softened over time without losing a sense of durability. I noticed a fair amount of negativity towards this strap in particular after the Watch was launched, and I’m not sure why: it’s a high-quality, fully-dyed traditional leather watch band.

    Of all the first-party straps available for the Watch, it’s the least showy and draws the fewest questions and inquiries from others, but I see that as a positive. I’m awfully tempted to pick up the brown leather version, but I’m also waiting for a nice NATO-style strap to be released now that lugs are available to third parties. ↥︎

“Makes You Wonder” ⇥ motortrend.com

Jonny Lieberman of Motor Trend, on the new Porsche 911’s entertainment system, which only supports CarPlay and omits Android Auto:

As part of the agreement an automaker would have to enter with Google, certain pieces of data must be collected and mailed back to Mountain View, California. Stuff like vehicle speed, throttle position, coolant and oil temp, engine revs — basically Google wants a complete OBD2 dump whenever someone activates Android Auto.

This is the typical “collect everything” mantra that Google seems to have. By contrast, CarPlay only requires knowledge of when the car is moving, presumably for safety features. Could Android Auto one day use all of this information to diagnose system problems? Perhaps. Do I trust Google to collect, store, and use this much information in a way that isn’t creepy? No. Do you?

How about we instead treat data like nuclear waste?

Update: Google provided a statement to TechCrunch:

Steering this story straight – we take privacy very seriously and do not collect the data the Motor Trend article claims such as throttle position, oil temp and coolant temp. Users opt in to share information with Android Auto that improves their experience, so the system can be hands-free when in Drive, and provide more accurate navigation through the car’s GPS.

[…]

TechCrunch learned that when Google initially approached automakers concerning Android Auto, it requested a deeper data set than what is currently required. Porsche could have made the decision at that time to stop working with Google and instead focus on CarPlay. It’s unclear when this early conversation happened. Google publicly announced Android Auto at Google I/O in June of 2014.

Nobody’s providing any dates here. If Google’s policy did, in fact, change, how recently? And are automakers that signed with Google prior to the change grandfathered into providing elevated amounts of data?

Ars Technica’s Android 6 Review ⇥ arstechnica.com

As iOS becomes better at connecting different apps, Android becomes more aware of user privacy. As iOS expands to different hardware in various guises, Android becomes more polished and user-friendly. The platforms continue to converge while also innovating, and everyone wins. (How wild is it that Android and iOS both gained embedded browsers by way of Chrome Custom Tabs and Safari View Controller within the same year of updates?) But, as Ron Amadeo of Ars points out, most users won’t see this update:

If we were to ask for any new feature from a new Android version, it would be some kind of scalable update solution. Right now a custom update still needs to be built for every single individual device model, and that’s really not a workable solution when you have over 24,000 models out there. The Stagefright vulnerability seemed to be a wakeup call for the Android ecosystem, but it came too late to affect anything in Marshmallow. Google instituted monthly updates for Nexus devices, and OEMs are pledging to bring the monthly update program to flagship devices. The majority of Android devices, though—the low end devices—are being ignored. Monthly updates for Google, Samsung, and LG flagships only works out to a very small percentage of the Android install base.

The Motorola E from earlier this year will not be seeing an update — just 219 days after its release. Manufacturers are treating these phones like commodities, and regularly leave over a billion devices without critical security patches.

American Apparel Files for Bankruptcy Protection ⇥ latimes.com

I sincerely hope that American Apparel pulls out of this stronger than ever before. It’s disappointing that its fortunes did not improve in the wake of tragedies at contract factories used by “fast fashion” brands. Much of my wardrobe comes from the company — I have a ridiculous number of plain white t-shirts made by AA, and I’m wearing socks and a t-shirt from them right now — and I want to keep supporting them for years to come.

An Analysis of OS X Releases ⇥ robservatory.com

Rob Griffiths calls this analysis “useless”, but I think there are some interesting takeaways. First, the amount of time between OS X releases began short, became fairly long with Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard, and are now shorter again.

Second, as with most software, OS X has become increasingly obese. Griffiths didn’t include the fresh install sizes of Snow Leopard and prior releases, likely because it varies significantly depending on configuration, but it appears to have ballooned since Mountain Lion. (Strangely, Lion and Mountain Lion are apparently the same size, despite the latter including Retina-quality assets.)

iFixIt Violates Apple NDA, Gets Punished, Complains ⇥ macobserver.com

iFixIt got one of the forthcoming Apple TV’s through the lottery intended to provide early units to third-party developers under a strict NDA. Instead, they tore it apart and wrote about it publicly. Apple responded by cancelling their developer account, which nullified the app they had available on the App Store.

Jeff Gamet of the Mac Observer:

For iFixit, this isn’t going to be that big of a deal. The content they offered through their app is available on the company’s website, and it can still buy products it guts on release day just as it has always done.

For the rest of the developer community, however, the consequences are a lot bigger. Apple rarely gives developers pre-release access to hardware like this, and thanks to iFixit that likely won’t happen again. Next time, Apple will most likely limit access to a few hand picked developers who come to the company’s headquarters for some controlled hands-on time ahead of the product launch.

I hope that Apple can see past one bad egg. This should be entirely uncontroversial: iFixIt abused their developer account to acquire a prerelease product, knowingly violated the terms of receiving it, and was somehow surprised when Apple terminated the developer account associated with it.

Amazon to Ban Sale of Apple TV and Google Chromecast ⇥ bloomberg.com

Spencer Soper, Bloomberg:

The Seattle-based Web retailer sent an e-mail to its marketplace sellers that it will stop selling Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast. No new listings for the products will be allowed and posting of existing inventory will be removed Oct. 29, Amazon said. Amazon’s streaming service, called Prime Video, doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware.

Amazon can make their streaming service available on the Apple TV and Chromecast. That’s their prerogative. But, you know, it’s business, and the consumer gets caught in the crossfire.

Tweetbot 4 ⇥ macstories.net

The best Twitter client for iOS — yeah, this includes the iPad — just got better, and Federico Viticci has been testing it:

Tweetbot 4 is a must-have for Twitter power users who work from an iPad. The utility of column view is clear: once you see what Tapbots has done with the iPad’s screen, comparing it to Twitter’s prodigy of wastefulness is not even funny. Column view has redefined my idea of what a Twitter client should be capable of doing on the iPad, and I’m curious to see how it’ll evolve. […]

Tweebot 4 is a nicer, faster Tweetbot in every way. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that what you’ll see in the app is a legacy Twitter, lacking the modern features and integrations of the official product. To get the full Twitter experience, you’ll need to keep the official app installed.

In this sense, Tweetbot 4 embraces its limitations and builds upon them, offering the kind of detail and features that Twitter – for different reasons – is ignoring or overcomplicating. Safari View Controller is a good example of what Tapbots has done that Twitter doesn’t want to do; the Stats screen, with its limited access to the Twitter API, provides a simple way to check on favorites, retweets, and new followers with a pretty chart – precisely what Twitter isn’t interested in doing for their app.

In the halcyon days of computer software, this is the kind of thing that would require a paid update; indeed, the new version of Tweetbot is $5. Unfortunately, the App Store still, inexplicably, does not offer a way for developers to charge for updates. That means that Tapbots had to make a new app package and, due to tight sandboxing, the new version of Tweetbot doesn’t inherit your old preferences. That’s a bit of a bummer, but it isn’t really Tapbots’ fault. The App Store should offer developers the option to charge for updates. It encourages investment in the platform and investment in the lives of indie developers.

If you think the lack of paid updates is stupid, you can buy Tweetbot 4 using my affiliate link, which will take a slice out of Apple’s 30% commission and send it to me. Or you can buy it from this non-affiliate link, if that’s more your jam. Either way, you’re going to want Tweetbot 4. For my money, it’s the best Twitter experience on iOS, and the desktop counterpart is the best Twitter experience on the Mac.